“Fool to care about the title,” said Anonoei. “Power is the only fact. Titles are decorations. Names are lies. Do you finally understand that until you see things as they truly are, you can accomplish nothing?”

“How are things, really, then!” he said defiantly.

“You’re naked and cold at the window,” said Anonoei. “I could push you out.”

“And then you’d have no use of me.”

“Exactly,” said Anonoei. “And Bexoi has not killed you yet because until she has a child that she can show your father, and use to win his heart, you are more useful alive. Only when he is already the doting uncle, impressed with Prayard’s loyalty to him, and his devotion to your father’s younger sister, only then will your tragic death lead to him naming his nephew as his heir.”

“So I have time.”

“A little,” said Anonoei, “if you know how to use it.”

“And what do you and your friend the Gate Thief—if that’s who he really is—intend for me to do with this time you say I have?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” said Anonoei. “Kill your father now and become the Jarl yourself.”

Then she stepped through the gate and returned to Wad.

The Gate Thief shook his head. “He used to be clever,” said Wad. “You made him stupid.”

“I made him believe that he was stupid,” said Anonoei, “and then told him how to be clever. I hardly need to be a manmage to do that—learned people do it all the time.”

“But I saw your manmagery all the same,” said Wad. “He practically worships you.”

“Most men do, if I want them to,” said Anonoei.

“Will he kill his father?” asked Wad.

“He’ll try,” said Anonoei. “And because he really is clever, he’ll probably succeed even without our help.”

“But you intend to help him.”

“Kill the man who defeated and humiliated Iceway? Yes, I think I will, unless you stop providing me with gates.”

“Remember how few of them I have,” said Wad.

“So passage through the Great Gate didn’t increase their number?”

“It increased how long they last, how strong they are, my ability to manipulate them, my sense of other gates and where they lead. But no, passage through a Great Gate does not add any new gates to my store.”

“Nor, apparently, does it make people any smarter.”

“It didn’t improve your intelligence or mine,” said Wad, “but we were already as clever as we needed to be.”

“As is Frostinch,” said Anonoei.

“Yet it didn’t occur to him that he should find out what your magery is.”

“I didn’t let him think of it,” said Anonoei. “That’s elementary. Whenever he became curious about me, I distracted him. Again, I barely needed magery to control him.”

“When he is Jarl of Gray, he won’t be any smarter.”