“Of course,” said Enopp. “It’s good to be out of the cave. Eluik is even happier than I am. He’s eager to go with you.”

Again Wad looked from the younger boy to the silent elder one. If Eluik objected to his little brother’s speaking for him, he gave no sign.

Enopp took his older brother’s hand, and Anonoei held him on the other side. Wad passed a gatemouth over them, and they were standing in the stone circle where the Wild Gate now shone plainly, obvious for anyone to see and use. It was good that the place was scarcely inhabited, that people shunned it. Stone circles were shrines no longer. Since the Great Gates were taken, they were regarded as dark places of ill fortune. They were avoided. All to the good. But that could not last forever. Someone would figure it out.

“Don’t let go of hands,” said Wad. And then, after a breath, he stepped through.

The Great Gate swallowed up the four of them, and they were standing in a barn, with cows around. A woman was attaching a machine to the udders of a cow.

“Is someone expecting you?” she asked politely, in a heavily accented version of the ancient language of West Ylly Way. Wad understood her, because he had already spoken to Danny North and Ced. There was no hope that her words would mean a thing to Anonoei.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” Enopp answered her, imitating her accent.

Another sign the boy might grow into a gatemage, to have a knack for languages.

“I’ve come to speak with Danny North,” said Wad.

“He isn’t here,” said the woman, turning her back.

Angry at this stranger for such treatment, Wad gated to the other side of her. But before he could speak to her, a cow kicked him hard in the leg. He cried out and fell, then passed a gate over himself.

“The only way to punish a gatemage,” said the woman, “is to take him by surprise.”

“Punish me for what!”

“I know who you are, Gate Thief,” said the woman. “I told him never to bring you to Mittlegard, yet here you are. Do you think because you have these darling children with you, I won’t hurt you? Especially the damaged one—why did you bring him here, except to protect you from me?”

“I didn’t know you were here,” said Wad, “and I don’t know who you are.”

“She’s my wife,” said a man’s voice. And in that moment, Wad was falling into a crevice in the Earth. Not a wide one, but it was enough to swallow him.

Wad gated to the loft of the barn. “I’ll never die by falling,” said Wad.

“Didn’t my wife inform you that our stepson is away?”

“He’ll be here,” said Wad.

“How can you be sure of that?” asked the woman.