Families will do to us if Danny lets any of them through a Great Gate before us. No, that’s not a reason to kill him—how will we even get near him now? He’s warned, he’s ready, he’ll just gate away from us. You know the stories. The winged feet of Mercury, seven-league boots—gatemages can be gone before your attack comes close to them. Or they can suddenly appear behind you and kill you before you turn around.
Gatemages are slippery! Once they come into their power, you can’t kill them. Even if you sneak up on them somehow, passing through a gate heals any wound. We’re no threat to a gatemage. We need him—alive and on our side. So we have to talk to Danny. Appeal to his family loyalty.
And if you can’t stop trying to kill him, then we’ll have no choice but to put you in Hammernip Hill. For the good of the family.
You understand, yes, you do—you’d do it yourself. There’s a gatemage in the world, one who created a Great Gate and wasn’t destroyed by the Gate Thief. And that gatemage is our own Danny. He knows us, he grew up among us. He has roots in our garden. We need to play that up. We need to bring him back to us. Not irritate him with foolish attempts to murder him. Get it? Are you going to leave him alone? Keep him safe? Make friends with him?
Yes, you say so now, but can we trust you? Stay away from him. Let Odin and Gerd do the negotiating. Or Thor. Or Mook and Lummy. People he likes and trusts. Don’t let him see you. We want him to forget all the nasty things you did to him growing up.
* * *
THE NORTHS WEREN’T the only Family that spotted those YouTube videos—they were just the closest. The Illyrians, for instance, were already aware that there was a gatemage in the North Family. That’s why they were spying on the Norths constantly.
And when their own gatefinder, Hermia, went missing, their suspicions were confirmed. For a while, they thought the Norths’ gatemage had killed her—gated her to the bottom of the ocean, for instance, or out into space. But then one of their clants had spotted her, still very much alive, and she was using the gates.
Now the YouTube videos confirmed that the Norths’ gatemage was powerful—a Gatefather, able to raise a Great Gate all by himself, or perhaps drawing partly on Hermia’s abilities—and it was time to get Hermia back under Family control. Chances were good that the Norths’ gatemage could be turned, recruited into the Argyros Family. Hermia was their tool to accomplish that. To get Illyrian mages to Westil and back again.
Once mages were restored to their full power, who could stand against them?
Left to themselves for fourteen centuries, the drekka had made a mess of things, and they were only getting worse. It was time for Earth to be ruled by gods again.
2
THE MORNING AFTER
It was early morning, and Coach Lieder was still at home, Danny had run here from the tiny cottage where he lived alone. He could have created a gate, but that would have made a mockery of his decision the night before, after confronting his family, not to make any more gates at the high school. Technically, Coach Lieder’s house wasn’t the school, but since his promise had been made only to himself, who would he be fooling?
Besides, he had hardly slept last night. He needed the run in the brisk—no, cold—morning air. It was better than coffee, when your goal was to become alert rather than jittery.
He knocked lightly on the door, avoiding the doorbell in case someone in the house was still asleep. He also waited patiently before giving another couple of raps. Then the door opened.
Coach Bleeder—sorry, Coach Lieder—stood there in all his half-dressed glory. Apparently he slept in boxers and an old tee-shirt—no one would change into such an outfit first thing in the morning. And he looked bleary-eyed, tense, worried. This surprised Danny, since at school Bleeder usually showed only two emotions: contempt and anger. Now Lieder seemed vulnerable somehow, as if something had hurt him or might hurt him; as if he were grieved, or expected to grieve.
“You,” said Coach Lieder. And now the contempt reappeared.
Danny expected Lieder to say something about the rope ladder incident yesterday in the gym. But he just stood there.