“Well, my little dummkopf kaninchen,” Zia said. “The gate is made from old trees that had grown here, right by the weak spot that sucked up the atmosphere. It was crafted by an extremely mighty sage. Back when people knew what’s what. Before they started splitting knowledge up. When the hole opens, the gate will hold it and keep it open,” Zia said, distracted, speaking faster.

She pointed up at the moon and circled her finger in a spiraling motion. “You know everything’s all spinning around all the time? Yes? Planets and moons and such? Always in motion, always in different arrangements? Well, when everything lines up just so, just for a moment, that forms the lock. The gate is the door. All you need then is the key, and to know how to turn it.”

“The key?”

“That’s the artful bit. The key’s your fizzly energy. Your life force. That’s what death demands before you can pass through. So you have to give it up, to trick it.”

“Give it your . . . life?” Alex said.

“You know what I mean, rabbit.” She rubbed irritably at her forehead. “You send it out. You’ve done it yourself with the Soaring Spirit. But what’s needed here’s much more subtle, much more powerful. Much more dangerous. The gate takes your fizzly energy and uses it to keep the hole open. But you need to know how to give it all away, to the very last drop, then be able snatch it back as you pass through. Like breathing out and breathing in at the same time. Timing. Takes the very greatest skill and learning. Get it wrong and you—”

She fell suddenly silent, staring down at the tall man with a desolate look. Moonlight glinted from her dark eyes as they briefly brimmed with tears.

“But Father can do it. He’s studied more than anyone ever.” She sounded as if she was trying to convince herself. “Anyway. Time’s here. Come back away from the gate. Begin, Hans.”

Alex stumbled to stand on the other side of Zia from where he’d started. At the gate, Beckman began a soft, whispering chant.

“But why’s he doing it?” Alex said, trying to keep Zia talking. His mind was racing. He was playing actions out in his head, gathering courage to move. “If he’s so weak and it’s so dangerous?”

“How stupid are you, stupid?” Zia muttered. “To fix him, idiot. Go through death without dying, it takes the bad stuff away. Like a filter. You come out all fixed and clean. Better than before. And once you’ve gone through and come out, death can’t catch your fizzly energy again. Ever. That’s what the gate-maker discovered. To gain eternal life you must give your life away. Father calls it a conundrum of faith. It’s highly poetical.”