His feet were still on the floor of the barn. He turned around and around until the rope was so twisted that it lifted him off the floor. Only the tips of his toes touched.

“Want us to wind you tighter?” asked Hermia.

“I’m pretty tightly wound already,” said Danny.

“Very funny,” said Veevee.

“I’m still not sure whether I should go through it,” said Stone.

“Do it,” said Veevee, “and keep me company.”

“It will give you the power to make plants grow and cover everything,” said Marion.

“That’s kudzu,” said Stone. “It doesn’t need any help from me.”

Veevee took hold of his hand. “‘Come and go with me to that land where I’m bound,’” she sang.

“Is that a real song?” asked Stone.

“A very old one,” said Veevee. She sang again: “‘I’m gonna walk the streets of glory on that great day in the mornin’.’”

“I need to concentrate,” said Danny. “And I need the two of you to be watching, so you know when to go through the gate.”

Veevee smiled. “‘They’ll be singin’ in that land, voices ringin’ in that land. There’ll be freedom in that land where I’m bound.’”

“Nobody’s ever heard of an obedient gatemage,” said Stone.

“Serves you right, Danny,” said Leslie.

Danny silently raised his feet, leaned back, closed his eyes. He began to spin. Twenty gates at once this time.

Only this time he wasn’t alone—there were all the other mages’ gates inside him, and many of them, most of them, were clamoring, demanding that he use them to make the gate.

One by one he drew them in, until now he was spinning a score of other mages’ gates along with his own. He couldn’t tell if they were making the Great Gate stronger, by adding more threads to the connection, or weaker, by adding new textures that didn’t fit well with his own. Danny knew nothing about what he was doing. Yet it seemed fair to him to include the outselves of these long-dead mages, which had been stolen from them because of their attempts to make Great Gates.

You lost your magery by doing this. Did I capture you to keep you imprisoned, or to set you free and let your power live again in the world?

Free free free, answered the gates inside him.

Me me me, demanded so many gates that he had not yet used.

Enough, thought Danny. Twenty of mine and twenty of you.