He was spinning rapidly now. Not as fast as he had been spinning in the gym, but it was enough. This time he could feel the power in it, this time he understood that what mattered was not the speed of the spinning, but the intertwining of the gates. It truly felt like a rope—four great strands, each consisting of ten gates. Because he had made a Great Gate before, and learned so much in the making of it, he could understand it better this time.

Two of the strands were made entirely of Danny’s gates, and the other two were made of the other mages’ gates. He wove all of his into the return gate, whose tail would be here in the barn to bring them home, and all of theirs into the gate of sending, whose mouth would be here. They spun themselves together like forty slender tornadoes, all of them spinning on their own, weaving their own patterns.

And then he cast them upward and outward, with all the strength of his inself, and felt rather than heard the song of rejoicing as the strangers’ gates leapt out into space, into time, carrying his own gates with them.

They connected in another world. The Great Gate was made.

“Now,” said Veevee.

“Untie me,” said Danny, still spinning.

Strong hands stopped his spin; other hands loosened the noose and pulled it over his arms. He still hadn’t opened his eyes. He didn’t need them. It was with another sense that he saw the Great Gate. It was very different this time, as if the earlier gate had been woven of one color of thread, while this one was of many bright colors that combined and recombined. Gate of many colors, thought Danny. What does it mean to have a gate of many colors?

He felt Veevee and Hermia take him by the hands. The mouth of the gate was wide. Danny stepped into it. Joined to him, they did not need to step; they were with him as the gate gathered him in and there they were, in bright sunlight on the other world.

Danny opened his eyes. The light was dazzling after the relative darkness of the barn. But he could see that they were surrounded by tall stones, rough-hewn, set on end into the grassy ground at the brow of a gently sloping hill.

“Stonehenge,” said Danny.

“A gatecatcher,” said Stone.

“Fool,” said another voice. A stranger’s voice. A man.

Danny turned to where the voice had come from. But it wasn’t the voice that told him who the man was. It was the inself. It was the few gates the man had inside him.

“Gate Thief,” said Danny. “Why are you here?”

“Fool,” said the Gate Thief. “To use those angry Wild Gates.”

“They wanted—”

“Centuries in prison have made them uncontrollable. Insane.” The Gate Thief spoke Westilian with a strange accent, but Danny understood him perfectly.