“Don’t forget Pandora and her little casket of all the ills of the world,” said Veevee helpfully.

“I always thought that was a metaphor.”

“Oh, it most definitely is. And not a nice one, either. Look, my dearest ignorant lovely sensitive well-meaning child, what you have to decide is which action has the best chance of success.”

“I can’t know that either,” said Pat.

“No, I said it wrong,” said Veevee. “You decide which action has a chance for the best success.”

Pat covered her face. “I’m tired. What in the world is the difference?”

“If you think of an action whose best outcome is that Danny’s still a slave to Set, but he got you pregnant or something, what have you actually accomplished, except horribly complicating your own life and giving Danny no real happiness because it will feel to him like a failure. You see? Even if you succeed exactly, the outcome won’t have changed anything that matters to Danny—only to you.”

“Since I wasn’t thinking of going to him to get pregnant, that really doesn’t—”

Veevee laughed. “You liar. As soon as you found out that the coach’s daughter was carrying Danny’s baby, you’ve been insanely jealous.”

Pat couldn’t argue with that.

“I’m telling you that you could probably succeed in that. Unless Set decided not to impregnate you, but instead makes Danny torture you to death.”

Pat shuddered. “But anything I do might end that way.”

“I know,” said Veevee. “And Set may make Danny search for you until he finds you, so that even if you do nothing that could still happen. As I said, all the awful outcomes are on the table. So you have to do something that at least offers a possibility of a really good outcome.”

“The only good outcome is Danny alive and Set out of his body and gone from the world.”

“It’s not a good outcome if he’s gone to Westil and comes back with an army of a hundred thousand mages under his control, my dear,” said Veevee.

“Danny alive and free, and Set not in a position to harm anybody ever again.”

“Now you really are too ambitious, my pet,” said Veevee.

“Best outcome,” said Pat. “You can’t deny that that’s the best outcome.”

“Yes, it’s victory in the whole war against the Belmages.”

“And Danny alive and free.”

“I wasn’t forgetting that. But darling, you’re a novice windmage—though pretty skilled, judging from the highly localized cyclone you whipped up when I first got here. I don’t think there’s any plan you can come up with where your actions can lead to the defeat of Set. Still, it’s lovely to dream.”