Anonoei watched him process the fact that she had known of the poison.

“And you have been spying on me?” he asked.

She repeated his conversation of the day before with one of his agents, whom he met in a garden, pretending she was a woman he desired. He did not understand that no one believed any more that he had the slightest interest in women.

He listened, nodding. “So either you have been spying through a gate, or my dear and trusted friend has betrayed me.”

“She has not betrayed you,” said Anonoei. “But by all means have her killed. Destroy another of your own weapons. Make yourself weaker. I’ll wait till Bexoi has trapped you and made you her puppet, and then you’ll be ready to listen to me. But alas you’ll also be completely useless to me by then. So you’ll betray me, in order to curry favor with Bexoi, hoping she’ll drop you a crumb of power. Only she’ll laugh at you. ‘Anonoei is dead,’ she’ll tell you.”

“You?” asked Frostinch. “Anonoei? Prayard’s mistress?”

“Not as dead as everyone assumes,” said Anonoei.

“And your sons?”

“Alive and out of your reach,” said Anonoei. “Just as I am out of your reach.”

She knew before she said it that he already had his hand on the dagger he kept in the back of his trousers. Now he whipped it out to slash it across her body. But she stepped back into the gate Wad had prepared for her, reappeared directly behind him, and shoved him forward. Already overbalanced by his own lunge, he toppled over. It gave her time to pick up his chamberpot and pour it out onto his body, spoiling his clothes.

“You are nothing, Frostinch, compared to mages with real power. I have passed through a Great Gate.”

“Impossible,” he said. “The Gate Thief allows no—”

“Don’t you know how to think?” she demanded. “It does not occur to you that my friend is the Gate Thief?”

He laughed nervously, getting up, reaching for something to brush the foulness from his clothing. Then he pulled off his tunic and unfastened his trousers, standing naked and completely uninterested as he regarded her. “My body is washable,” he said, “and I can get my clothing cleaned. These efforts to humiliate me are pointless.”

“So was your attempt to slash me with your dagger,” said Anonoei. “I came to offer you our help against your aunt. But you remain too stupid to realize how much you need our help.”

“Has Bexoi passed through a Great Gate as well?”

“If she ever does,” said Anonoei, “she will rule all of Westil. Without passage through a Great Gate, she is the most powerful mage of our time. Even with my passage through a Great Gate, I doubt that I alone am any match for her.”

“If she’s no Sparrowfriend, what then is her magery?” asked Frostinch.