He could feel the form of the gate, but he had no idea of what sorcery the Courts had used to open it.

“This is the place. Right here. This. Is this not the place?”

The taller smacked the shorter on the back of the head. “This is the place. Dragon Prince?”

“Give me a minute.” Charlie could open it. Charlie had disappeared out of his room without even a potted plant. But Charlie was a G . . . “I’m an idiot.”

The shorter giggled. Seemed that had translated just fine.

“Get ready, I’m a little short on supplies so you’ll only have until the smoke dissipates.” Jack changed, breathed out a cloud of smoke, and formed it into the charm Allie used to open things—pickle bottles, CD cases, and the bag inside cereal boxes for the most part, but the theory was sound. Gales used the charm to open things. He was a Gale. He had a thing he needed to open. “World’s most complicated smoke ring,” he muttered, tugging the outer swoop into a fuller curve. When it was right—mostly right—he tossed it into the imprint of the gate. The air filled with the scent of burnt butter, and the gate opened. “Go!”

To his surprise, they went. Way too trusting. “And stop listening to the Courts,” he yelled after them, “they’re dicks!”

Then the giants were gone, and the smoke was gone, and only an ice slick remained on the pavement. From the blue/white gleam under the streetlights, Jack had a feeling it was permanent.

But, hey, it was Alberta. Who’d notice?

Kiren blinked up at the sky half expecting to see the asteroid dominating the stars, blazing so brightly familiar constellations had ceded their positions to the harbinger of death.

“Harbinger of death?” Apparently, when exhausted, the writers at FOX News provided her mental voice. She rummaged a half-eaten power bar out of the bottom of her tote, picked a bit of tissue off the damp end, and wondered what day it was while she chewed. Thursday? Friday? If it was actually still Wednesday, then the video conference with Houston and Washington must’ve created a small black hole. That was the only possible explanation for the time dilation. Too bad a few of the politicians hadn’t been sucked into it.

The problem with NASA was that too many of the people who worked there were capable of putting two and two together and getting pi divided by the number of liters in a gallon minus three.

Although it sounded illogical, it turned out that the more people who put the pieces together and came to the correct conclusion, the more people there were who subsequently needed to be told.