A couple of times, breaking the memory flow, he despaired. Loki had placed all the things the hermit told him into a context of Loki’s own experience with gates, with mages of every kind, in a world where magery was far more common, where a gatemage was educated in his Family’s history and knowledge and skills. How could Danny, in his ignorance, possibly make sense of any of this?

He let it flow.

He let it flow.

And then a hand touched his shoulder.

That had not happened before in the memory! Who was it who interrupted Loki?

Danny waited for the memory of Loki turning, to see what he saw, to know what he knew.

Then the hand touched him again, more sharply this time, shaking him, and Danny realized: This is not in the memory. This did not happen to Loki. This is happening to me.

“Please,” he whispered. His voice was a feeble croak. “Please wait.”

The hand shook him again. Very hard. It almost knocked him over.

Danny felt like weeping, did weep one great sob, and then the intruder’s work was done: The trance was broken, the memory fled.

His own memories rushed back. He was in Egypt, a nation for which he had no passport or visa. He was caught.

He almost gated away. But then it finally dawned on him that the person was talking. The sunlight was dazzling. He could hardly see. And he must have been deaf, for now the voice swelled and faded. It was English. He knew the voice. He squinted. He shaded his eyes.

The face came down to be directly in front of his. She was angry. Hermia. Hermia had followed him here.

Stupid stupid stupid! Didn’t she know he was doing something important, something vital? How did she dare to interrupt him?

“Drink this!” she was saying.

He looked down and saw that she was holding a bottle of water. Evian. He didn’t like Evian.

She had the cap off. She jammed the mouth of it against his lips. It hurt. His lips were dry and chapped. Split. He looked at the top of the water bottle. There was blood on it.

“Dehydrated.” That was one of the words she said.

He opened his mouth and tipped his head back and let her pour water into his mouth. He had to work at swallowing. It was as if he had forgotten how to do it.

No, he was simply waiting for Loki’s kinetic memory to kick in. He was waiting for Loki to remember drinking. But Loki hadn’t drunk anything.

That’s because Loki’s whole conversation had only lasted an hour. But Danny’s attempt to remember it had lasted much longer, starting over again and again.

He succeeded in swallowing. The water came down his throat so painfully that he realized: I have gone a long time without drinking.