Set used Danny’s body to spring up and open the door.

It was Pat. She looked him steadily in the eye. “Danny,” she said. “I can’t just leave you alone in there.”

“He’s not alone,” said Danny’s voice.

Pat’s eyes turned cold. “I’m not talking to you.”

“Good thing,” said Set. “Because I’m not talking to you, either.”

Danny’s right hand flashed out and gripped Pat’s shoulder. She winced and cringed at the pain and pressure. Then Danny’s left hand leapt forward and slashed across her throat. Only then did Danny realize that he—that Set—was holding his knife. Blood geysered from Pat’s throat and splashed into Danny’s eyes.

For a moment, startled at being blinded, Set’s attention was distracted. Danny could have made one of the captive gates right then and passed it over her. He could have healed her and then given the gate back to itself.

But that wasn’t what Pat had come for. The plan she proposed was for Danny to follow her to Duat. Or Hades. Or Hell. And for that to work, he had to let her die, even though healing her was within his power.

Instead, Danny watched for her ka and then he realized—I don’t have to find her ka, I need to find her outself, her ba, because I know what those feel like. They feel like gates. Pat is a windmage now, not a gatemage—but she has a ba and as she is dying, it’s going to flow back to her and I can see it, I can find it, there it is. Her ba, returning, guiding me to the ka.

It was like when Danny swallowed the Gate Thief’s gates, only instead of breaking the connection between Pat’s ba and ka, he left the connection open, and when the ba found the ka and reunited with it, Danny held them both within his grasp. Whatever it was in him that did the grasping.

He waited for Set to recognize what he was doing and stop him, but either Set didn’t sense it or Set couldn’t stop it. Or perhaps Set wanted it to happen.

Danny hadn’t taken Pat’s ba and ka, but he had a grip on it, he knew where it was. He felt it withdrawing from her body, like a million-armed squid pulling its arms out of sucking mud.

And the moment that the last link between Pat’s ka and her body was severed, Danny passed one of the captive gates over her body. Almost every cell in her body was still alive, even if the ka was missing. Her body healed.

Danny gave the gate back to itself and it disappeared.

“What are you doing?” demanded Set, using Danny’s lips. “You’re too late, you know that doesn’t work.”