“That’s the war that matters. This thing among you gods—it will be terrible and I’m afraid of how you’ll make the drowthers suffer with all your arrogance. But I have to find Set and figure out a way to keep both worlds safe from him, and even Loki doesn’t know how to do that.”

“Zog said that we have to call you Loki now,” said Father.

“No, Zog has to call me Loki. I’m Danny North to everyone else. ‘Loki’ still means the Gate Thief, though he uses another name on Westil.”

“I thought the Gate Thief was the enemy of all gatemages.”

“We all thought that, but it isn’t true. The Gate Thief has kept Westil safe for centuries, and by closing all the gates he has sharply limited the power of Set here in Mittlegard. But now there are Great Gates again, and the danger is terrible, and all of your magery is useless against him. Now get to work, please, Odin, and send Stone to me. I wish you well with your war.”

Father went away.

Stone joined him and together they spent the entire day going to every Orphan that Stone knew, or knew about. A dozen or so refused to go with them. Two score of them agreed to go to Westil and back, but insisted that they would then go home and fend for themselves. The rest, though, agreed to try, at least, to work with the Norths, to train with them, to cooperate if it really came to war with the Greeks.

None of the other Families even considered allying with the Norths. But they all kept the truce while they were at Stone’s cabin; then Danny gated them all back to their homelands to prepare for war. They knew that war would come. And by the time he had met them all, Danny had lost all hope that it might be avoided. They would all bide their time while they mastered their greatly increased powers. But the espionage would start at once, and the collisions would follow, sooner rather than later. They would escalate into combat. People would die.

When Danny and Stone returned to the cabin, it was late afternoon. The day had warmed up a little. Danny saw that Father was making an effort—he and Mother were talking with several of the Orphans, and others were paired up with Norths, practicing magery in some rather spectacular ways. The waters of one lake were churning. Large stones were falling from a nearby cliff, then stopping and sliding back up to resume their place. There were whirlwinds underfoot. But everyone was being careful and polite. Zog and Gyish were nowhere to be seen.

Danny found Thor. “How many of your informants are Mithermages?” asked Danny.

“All the ones who are mages, you’ve already brought here. The others are drowthers.”

“Is there any chance of the Family surviving this war?” asked Danny.