Obviously the statement was false, or it wouldn’t have needed saying.

But the pain in his thigh was a high price to pay for that small satisfaction. And Danny could feel the blood pumping out. This last time, Set had used Danny’s own hand to drive the knife deep enough to find the femoral artery.

I really am going to die.

They’ll rule it a suicide. Died by his own hand. Literally true, and yet utterly false.

In that moment he remembered that there were other gates. The captive gates. Not Loki’s and not Danny’s own.

Danny reached to make a gate and this time the Dragon let him, for now he felt for the first time the existence of the captive gates. Using Danny’s mouth, Set cried out with triumph as Danny formed a captive into a living gate, passed it over himself so it could heal him, and then … gave the gate to itself.

Just like that, the gate was gone.

But not before Danny himself was healed. No pain. No injury. No bleeding.

The other captive gates sensed what had happened, and the clamor began afresh, now with a new goal, a different goal. Give me to myself and set me free! cried every captive in his hearthoard.

“You bastard,” muttered the Dragon with Danny’s mouth.

It swung Danny’s body around and smashed his head into the corner of the kitchen counter with such force that Danny instantly lost consciousness.

He woke up hours later on the kitchen floor. Alone in the dark. His head throbbed.

He reached for another captive gate.

“No,” whispered his mouth.

What was he doing while I was unconscious? Was he unconscious, too? No, he isn’t as deeply tied into my body as I am. He was conscious and had nothing he could do but lie there feeling the agony. Or was it eased while I was asleep?

You won’t drive me out of my own head with pain, thought Danny. So if you refuse to let me use a gate to heal the body whose agony we both feel, then so be it. I can bear it. Or I can die. Whatever you choose. What you will not do is make a gate that lasts.

Finally Set relented and made a gate. Danny let him draw on one of the captives and then, the moment the gate had passed over Danny and he felt no more pain in his head, Danny gave the gate to itself and it was gone.

“What are you doing!” his own voice demanded. “I don’t know what you’re doing. How can the gate be gone?”

But my head feels so much better.

“Until you learn who is master in this house, I will make your life pure hell,” said Danny’s mouth.