“But my drowther friends, they’re the ones who actually took action,” said Danny. “They’re the ones who saved me.”

“What are you doing in high school, Danny?” asked Hermia. “What is your obsession with drowthers? It’s time to let the Families through the Great Gate, and restore the proper order to the world.”

Danny looked at her, filled with dark despair. “That’s not how you used to talk.”

“Maybe I finally realized that the world was no more screwed up when the gods were running the show, using the power they got from passage back and forth with Westil, than it is now, when scientists and engineers put the instruments of slaughter into the hands of drowthers.”

“Let me think,” said Danny.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” said Hermia.

“Yes you do,” said Veevee.

“I don’t want to be rude,” said Hermia, “but sometimes truth is rude. You’ve been playing at high school. You’ve gotten all sentimental about drowthers. But look at your friends, Danny. They’re appalling human beings. And now they worship you, yes? You rule over them, only what a pathetic little band of worshipers you chose for yourself, don’t you think? Was that really the best you could do?”

Danny could hardly bear it. A part of him was furious that she would judge his friends like that. And a part of him saw her perspective and wondered if she was right, if he wasn’t just like all the other mages, exploiting the worship of drowthers. If that was true, then they weren’t friends at all. Just … tools. He was just using them.

The way he had used Hal and Wheeler to help him dig a cave. As if he had a right to command them to take hours out of their life to go to Egypt to dig sand. Just because Danny was a Gatefather.

I’ve reinvented all the worst features of the snobbery of the Families, and I did it in the name of trying to be a regular high school kid. On the first day, I’m putting people through gates and taking charge of their lives as if I had a right. I’m as bad as any of them.

Hermia was looking at him with a weird combination of concern and smug superiority.

She is not my friend, Danny realized.

But Hal and Wheeler, Xena and Laurette and Sin and Pat—they’re my friends. Even if I’m a lousy friend to them, they’re good friends to me.

Screw the Families. Screw the Great Gates. Whether Loki was right or wrong about the Dragon or Belmage or Satan or whatever, he was definitely right to close all the gates and keep them closed for a thousand years.

“You know what, Hermia?” said Danny. “I like my friends. They don’t try to get me to treat other people badly just because they’re not as powerful.”