“And you’ve been a gatemage the whole time.”

“It made me a better errand runner,” said Wad.

“Why hasn’t the Gate Thief eaten your gates?” asked Keel.

“Do you really want even more of the kind of information that will make me need to kill you?” asked Wad.

“If you didn’t kill Queen Bexoi when you had her in your power, you won’t kill me,” said Keel.

“You don’t know what I’ll do,” said Wad.

“I know that if you’re Queen Bexoi’s friend after all, I’ll kill you if I ever get the chance.”

“I’m not her friend,” said Wad.

“She told Anonoei that the gatemage was once her lover. Was that you?”

“I put a baby in that belly once,” said Wad. “The boy that she named ‘Oath’ was mine.”

Keel’s body shook again, but now with laughter. “Poor Prayard. Cuckolded by a kitchen boy.”

“By a spy that he often resorted to himself.”

“So he knows you,” said Keel.

“And trusted me, once upon a time. The question now is, what should I do with you?”

“I’m now the open enemy of the Queen, known to her. If she lives, my life is as good as gone. I don’t know why she isn’t killing us both right now, but even if she chooses to bide her time, I’m a dead man. I doubt there’s anywhere that I can flee where she won’t follow, or send an assassin after me. So I will do whatever I can to kill her. Does that make us allies or enemies?”

“Not until her baby is born,” said Wad.

Keel nodded. “Yes, you told her that. You spared her for the baby’s sake.”

“And so will you.”

Keel nodded. “Unless she comes after me. I will defend myself.”

“Whatever is keeping her silent,” said Wad, “does not make her deaf. I think she hears us and she understands, even if she can’t give us a sign of it. Maybe pride alone holds her tongue. But I tell her now, in front of you, that if she harms you in any way, or Anonoei’s children, I’ll overcome my scruples about not killing her unborn child.”

“Thank you,” said Keel. “I can’t understand why I don’t feel any pain. I hung there for hours.”

“Passing through a gate restores your body to perfect health, maintaining the age and shape that you’ve achieved.”

“I didn’t know that,” said Keel. “So gatemages are all healers. Yes, I think I had some vague knowledge of that. Old stories.”

“Keel, I need your help.”

“I doubt you want a ship, you who can travel anywhere in the blink of an eye.”

“I have the body of the Queen, apparently in some kind of trance. But she’s in your private office. Surely this is not where she should be discovered.”