“I made no claim of generosity,” said Wad. “I make none now. But I want your sons alive, and I will trust strangers on Mittlegard more than anyone known to you in Iceway or anywhere on Westil.”

“Then I’ll stay here myself, watch over them, and wait for you,” said Anonoei.

Wad rehearsed the facts to her yet again. How their magical arrival in this high mountain village could not have gone unnoticed. The story would spread, had already spread, would soon float down the Graybourn until it came to the capital city, Kamesham, and then to the castle, Nassassa. There would be no lack of wits in either place, and soon they would put together the woman and two boys who appeared in the high mountains at just the time when a woman and two boys vanished from caves in the cliff face below the castle while soldiers of Prayard attempted to kill them.

“I’m not leaving you here to die,” said Wad. “I’ll need to move these people who took you in as well, or they’ll surely be tortured to find out information that they do not have.”

“By ‘here’ I didn’t mean I would stay in this very village. I meant here on Westil, here where we don’t have to pass through any gates.”

“Stop wasting my time with fears as ridiculous as this. If you were really afraid, you’d try to use your manmagic on me, to get me to comply with your will. But you don’t, so clearly you don’t mean it.”

“Would my manmagic work on you?”

“Until I realized what was happening and gated away, of course it would. I appreciate your showing me the respect of not trying. Likewise, if I wanted to I could gate you and your boys against your will to the mouth of the Great Gate and push you through, and you couldn’t do a thing about it. Instead, I’m talking to you, because I’ve treated you as pawns and captives long enough.”

“I’ve heard what happens to gates,” said Anonoei.

“What have you heard? How could you hear anything? There hasn’t been a gate on Westil, except of my making, for more than fourteen centuries.”

“There have been gates,” said Anonoei. “Everyone knows the stories. A gatemage learns to go from here to there, and then suddenly the Gate Thief comes and takes them all away. What if that happens while we’re—”

“Haven’t you understood anything, woman?” demanded Wad. “I’m the Gate Thief. Me. That’s why I could keep you locked up behind my gates for more than a year, and no one took the gates from me.”

“If you’re the Gate Thief—and yes, I understood you, but why should I pay attention to such ridiculous brag?—then you must have been alive for more than a thousand years. You, a mere boy—”