It felt strangely familiar, to have tens of billions of Sutahites inside him, completely contained in his hearthoard. It took Danny a moment, but he realized: Ever since he had given all his gates to Wad, and then returned all the imprisoned gates to themselves, Danny had felt empty. And now he was full again.

Well, half full.

I had more gates in me than Set has Sutahites, thought Danny. How is that even possible?

Or his Sutahites are somehow smaller than my gates were, so they take up less space.

These were fleeting thoughts, and Danny had no time to pursue the answers because Hermia’s face now wore a look of complete panic. “What have you done?” she asked.

“Played a little Hungry Hungry Hippos with you,” said Danny. “I win.”

“You won nothing!” shouted Hermia. “Nothing!” And then, very quietly: “Nothing.”

It seemed to Danny that the last “nothing” referred to what Set had left. Instead of possessing the body of a gatemage and using it to carry half his Sutahites to Westil, he had no Sutahites. They were gone.

They were his kingdom. His body, his self. He could reach out with them, influence people, and he did. They were his wings, his eyes, his ears, his voice whispering into the ears of everybody all at once, and now he’s blind, deaf, mute, wing-broken. He has Hermia. And nothing else.

Hermia’s hands lashed out, but whatever Set meant to do—jab his eyes out? slash his cheeks? throttle him?—Danny would never know, because he was suddenly thirty feet away. He hadn’t done it—Pat had.

“Really, Danny,” she said, “letting her slash you was just too nice.”

Hermia knew where they were, of course, and a moment later she had gated in front of them. “I think I’ll go to Westil,” she said.

“Go,” said Pat. “You’ll be the only passenger.”

Danny waited until Hermia disappeared. “Please stay here and get the others home,” he said to Pat. Then he leapt directly to Loki. The Gate Thief needed to be warned what was happening.

He also needed to help Danny figure out what to do.

Chapter 18

18

Wad was with Queen Bexoi when Danny came to tell him the news.

“So you didn’t have him under control after all,” said Wad.

“I never claimed that I did,” said Danny mildly. “I invited him to stay, and he stayed. She invited him to go, and he went.”

“I already thought she was dangerous,” said Wad.

“My question is, how dangerous is Set?” asked Danny. “No matter how evil somebody is, how much damage can they do without a lot of followers doing what they command?”

“He’ll have no trouble gathering followers,” said Wad, thinking about Queen Bexoi, who had managed to find minions to do her work. Including Wad himself, when he was besotted with love and admiration for her, when he had put his gatemaking abilities at her disposal.