“Oh, grow up, Patty. Everybody in the Families is notoriously fickle, but gatemages most of all. Most of the really good Eros stories are the escapades of Gatefathers. And even though Jupiter gets the credit for Leda and Ganymede and all the other kidnapped lovers, it was always a gatelord who did the carrying off. Danny may not know it yet, but he’ll lose interest. Maybe not as quickly as most of them, but ‘faithful gatemage’ is an oxymoron.”

“So I’m Danny’s momentary conquest. You’ve hurt my feelings. Boo hoo. That’s your whole story?”

“I knew that they probably couldn’t kill all of you, but they could hurt most of you, scare you all, and maybe kill a couple. Even if I warned Danny, it wouldn’t matter. He couldn’t be everywhere at once, but the Family could. And of course, anything we knew, other Families could figure out, what with all the spying we all do all the time. Ratmages have their role to play; there are mice in the walls and floors. As an example of ruthlessness, the Hittites found Danny and me and blasted him with a shotgun without asking questions. He lived, of course, because he could gate himself away before he died. But if it had been me they blasted, I couldn’t have used my amulet quickly enough. Ditto with you and your chums. So yes, I took the threat seriously. I knew Danny would rather revise his hopeless plan than lose any of you. So I moved the Wild Gate. But I pretended it was harder than it actually was, so Danny would have plenty of time to realize it was gone from the Silvermans’ barn so he could set up an alternative. Maine, wasn’t it? But I didn’t tell anyone where his Great Gate was. I was playing as nicely as I could, giving him every chance to keep the Families in balance.”

“Brava,” said Pat. “You’re such a princess.”

“My Family realized that I wasn’t really playing for their team. And once they discovered that my amulet wasn’t working anymore, then the same people who once plugged a bunch of tracking devices into my body decided that keeping me on a heavily guarded island was almost as good an idea as killing me.”

“Yes, I imagine that Danny will believe all of this and agree that you made the right choice,” said Pat.

“But you don’t think I did right, keeping you alive?”

“I’m not the judge,” said Pat. “I’m just a novice Orphan windmage of as-yet-unmeasured powers.”

“Oh, that indoor wind thing was pretty impressive,” said Hermia. “You’ll hold up pretty well in the coming war.”

“I’m not in that war.”

“Oh, don’t kid yourself, kid,” said Hermia. “The Orphans will be brushed aside before the real mage-to-mage fighting begins.”

“Fine,” said Pat. “Then I’ll be dead.”