“Taller than I am,” said Wad, “but we may never know what kind of lover he’d be, since he seems grimly determined never to give or get pleasure of that kind.”

“You’re spying on him?”

“Yes,” said Wad. “I could hardly believe he didn’t realize that by giving him my gates—which he already had—I was given a window into his mind. Well, his perceptions, anyway.”

“Taking advantage of an untrained child. Shame on you.”

“He even knows that he can use my gates to access my memories. Yet it seems not to have occurred to him that I can use those gates to access his present actions.”

“Maybe he has nothing to hide,” said Anonoei.

“Nobody has nothing to hide,” said Wad. Then he thought better of it. “No, I think you’re right. This Danny North really is exactly what he seems.”

“Unlike Wad the kitchen boy,” said Anonoei.

“Equally unlike Anonoei, King Prayard’s drowther mistress,” said Wad.

“Manmages have to hide what we can do,” said Anonoei. “Fortunately, our magery makes it fairly easy to do. That’s one of the main reasons for the drastic penalty. If you manage to recognize manmagery, you rarely get a second chance to strike.”

“Quite the contrary,” said Wad. “I think the death penalty for manmages was created as an all-purpose excuse for murder. ‘I had strange compulsions whenever I was near him, so I knew he was a manmage, so I killed him.’”

“I have strange compulsions when I’m near you,” said Anonoei.

“Those are normal compulsions,” said Wad. “Everybody has them.”

“But few would feel them toward you.”

“But you know what I am,” said Wad. “Godlike powers are such an aphrodisiac.”

“You’re not half the mage you used to be.”

“Still mage enough to port you around from place to place,” said Wad. “What I’m wondering is, how much of my eagerness to serve you in this way comes from my natural generosity and how much from the arcane influence of your magery.”

Anonoei paused in mid-stroke. “Now, now. We’ve had this conversation before, and we agreed that it’s circular. No matter what you desire or think, you can always say, ‘I wonder why she’s making me feel this desire.’ Or ‘this revulsion,’ or ‘this compulsion,’ or whatever comes to mind.”

“It’s in the nature of circular arguments that you can never quite escape them. You didn’t have to charm me into helping you seek vengeance on Bexoi. I have reasons enough of my own.”

“And don’t forget your powerful guilt over imprisoning me and my sons,” said Anonoei.

“I know that didn’t come from you,” said Wad. “I felt it long before you knew who your captor was.”

“Even if I had known, my abilities at that time depended on being present with the person I was influencing.”

“And now that you’ve been through a Great Gate?”