And just like that, they were not under his control. He was still aware of them. They were still where they were supposed to be. But they weren’t his. They didn’t belong to Danny North.

Nicki was dressed now. Danny could feel it when the Dragon gave the command to make a gate to take her back to her home. He could sense that the Dragon knew how to do it, knew where both the mouth and the tail of the gate should be.

But no gate came rising out of the hearthoard at his command. No gate formed.

Danny felt a kind of blindness come over him. No, it was rage. Fear? It wasn’t an emotion of the body, it was a transformation of some kind within the Dragon itself, and then Danny’s own body responded to it. Blood flowed hard and hot, his face flushed.

“What’s wrong?” asked Nicki, sounding frightened.

Danny’s body rose from the bed and stood on the floor, pants dropping around the ankles, but definitely not aroused, not as it had been. No, it was filled with rage and terror and it screamed.

Nicki screamed back and then ran from the room, ran out of the house. Danny heard the screen door slam behind her.

“What have you done?” demanded the Dragon in Danny’s own voice, with Danny’s mouth and throat and lungs, his tongue and teeth.

I’ve done nothing, Danny said silently. I gave a gift to a friend.

“The gates are still there, I can feel them,” said the Dragon. It used Danny’s body to dance around the room, jump up and down, as if somehow this would jar something loose. “You’re a Gatefather, I took a Gatefather, why can’t I touch your gates!”

He ran to the kitchen, and Danny understood that his body was in search of a knife. It was the animal mind that sought for one—for the first time Danny could feel the distinction between animal intention and his own will, his own ka. The animal’s desire did not reach inside him and kindle any answering wish. The body wasn’t his to control now. But he was still inside it, still absolutely tied to it, feeling all its sensations.

The knife was in the hand.

It stabbed down, into Danny’s thigh. Again. Again.

The pain was excruciating. The Dragon felt it too; he groaned in agony.

“Make it better,” said his own voice. “Make a gate.”

But there was no gate that belonged to him.

Another stab. “You’ll bleed to death unless you heal this. Do you understand that?”

I do understand it, thought Danny. I understand that I’ll die. But what happens if I die with you inside me?