“You don’t,” said the Gate Thief. “You sing with them, so the voice becomes your own, their movements a part of your own breath. What you feel, when you feel all the winds of the world, is your own outself, spread as thin as air, and because you’re the only windmage who has passed through a Great Gate in this age of the world, you meet no other there to challenge you. The winds are yours. If you love them, Ced, the winds are you.”

“How does a gatemage know so much about how windmagery works?”

“Because all the magics of the world are one,” said Wad. “And because I loved a windmage once.”

“Your wife? I had a wife.” Ced thought of poor broken Lana, and how grief and relief warred within him when she left.

“My mother,” said Wad.

He had a mother. He was once a child. He’s a human being, like me. And also a monster—like me.

“What are you going to do with me?” asked Ced.

“I want you to learn how to use your power to protect this world,” said the Gate Thief.

“Protect it from what?”

“From the monsters. From the gods.”

“Gods?”

“You called them the Families, there on Earth. They’ll be here soon, and they’ll be every bit as strong as you, and every bit as unprepared to control it. But unlike you, they’ll have no consciences. They won’t care what their magery costs the common people of this place.”

“My caring doesn’t bring them back to life,” said Ced.

“But if you learn to master your power, you’ll be far stronger than they are—at least for the first while—and perhaps you can protect the people. Prevent a little of the horror that would otherwise come. Would you like to do that?”

“I can’t even prevent my own damage.”

“You prevent it every day, every hour that you aren’t raising a wind. You prevent it when you go among them, not to threaten them with storms if they don’t obey you, but to help undo the damage that you’ve done. Why do you think they love you? Because you don’t think that you’re a god. Or maybe because you think that godlings should be kind.”

“They love me?”