Her list of destinations was longer than Veevee’s, but she had to stay a jump ahead of her Family. Danny attached two dozen gates to the coin. At first he tried to arrange them in some orderly way, but Hermia just laughed. “Danny, I can see them all, I can tell them apart, I know where they go, and I can keep them all locked except the one I want to use. Go ahead and pile them on in a jumble.”

He gave her Paris, New York, Dubai, Singapore, Katmandu, Accra, Brisbane, São Paulo, a dozen other cities—not to mention the Greek Family’s office building in Athens, the North Family compound in Virginia, and the Library of Congress. “It’s practically the whole atlas,” said Veevee admiringly.

“I’ll add as many gates as you want,” said Danny.

“No, I’m not jealous, and I know you’ll open a gate to anywhere I want. What I’m worried about, Danny, is that there’s no gate that takes me to you.”

Hermia nodded. “We have all these gate mouths with us. But we need a gate whose tail always leads to wherever you are.”

“I can’t have you popping out of my pocket,” said Danny.

“I know,” said Veevee. “Have us come out of an old-fashioned oil lamp. We can be your genies.”

“Amusing as that sounds,” said Danny, “I don’t want you popping up when I’m on the john.”

“What if you need our help?” asked Hermia.

“I’ll always know where these gates are. If I need to, I can move the tail of one of your portable gates to a place near me.”

“Unless you’re unconscious,” said Veevee.

“I’ll think about this,” said Danny.

“You can lock it,” said Hermia. “And then unlock it if you need us. We aren’t going to intrude on your privacy.”

“We unlock it ourselves only if we think something is really wrong,” said Veevee.

“We peek through ahead of time,” said Hermia.

Danny hated the whole idea. It was one thing to give them the power to go anywhere by using their amulets. But to give someone constant access to him—that wasn’t going to happen. Even if they promised not to use it.

“I don’t think he sees a difference between peeking through a gate and coming through it,” said Veevee. “He doesn’t want to be spied on.”

“You have to trust us,” said Hermia.

“I said I’d think about it,” said Danny.

“Meaning the answer is no,” said Veevee.

“It’s really unfair,” said Hermia. “You can make a gate anytime you want, no matter what we’re doing. We can’t hide from you, but you don’t think we can be trusted not to spy on you or intrude when you’re kissing some girl.”

“We won’t take pictures,” said Veevee. “Or at least we won’t post them online.”