But last night they’d had plenty of time to get to Parry McCluer High School.
“You spent the night here?” asked Hermia.
“In the Holiday Inn Express,” said Mother. “It has a nice European feel to it.”
“Meaning that the rooms are tiny and have no space to put your luggage?”
“We didn’t make ourselves known during the festivities. But we saw some of the Norths challenge you, and watched as a couple of mere Orphans brought old Zog’s eagle down and then cracked open the earth and swallowed up their truck.”
“They gave it back afterward,” said Hermia. “Or did you fall asleep before the end?”
“From these actions, we cleverly deduced, in our Aristotelian way, that somebody had passed through a Great Gate. I think it wasn’t you who made the gate, because if you were able to make gates, you would have disappeared the moment I sat down.”
“No, I can’t make gates. You know I can’t.”
“I know you have always said you can’t. But now I believe you. Maybe.”
“I’m not telling you who-”
“It’s Danny North who’s the gatemage,” said Mother.
“Don’t you dare lay a hand on him.”
“No habanero powder in his eyes or up his nose?” asked Mother. “Why must you always spoil my fun?”
“He’s not just a gatemage, he’s a Gatefather,” said Hermia. “In all the history of the world there’s never been a gatemage like him.”
“The world has a lot of history. And there are two worlds, for that matter.”
“He beat the Gate Thief,” said Hermia.
“Isn’t that nice.”
“What do you want, Mother?”
“My darling daughter to tell me she loves me, even if it’s a lie, and to pretend she’s glad to see me.”
“I’m not reporting to you anymore.”
“You don’t have to report, as I just explained,” said Mother.
“Danny and I and the other gatemage-”
“So you are a gatemage, and not just a Finder.”
“I’m a Lockfriend,” said Hermia.
“And the other gatemage? Victoria Von Roth?”
“A Keyfriend.”
“How lovely. It’s like you’re twins, born thirty years apart.”
“The next time Danny makes a Great Gate, we’re going to make sure all the Families and the Orphans have equal access to it.”
“Even the drowthers?”
“We aren’t going to let a Great Gate give one Family an advantage.”
“But you already have, silly girl,” said Mother. “That cow Leslie now has the power to snatch other people’s heartbeasts away from them, and Marion can crack open the earth without causing so much as a three point oh on the Richter scale. They could take down every Family right now.”
“And yet they haven’t done it,” said Hermia. “Doesn’t that tell you something?”
“Doesn’t the fact that we didn’t kill you tell you something, too?”
“It tells me that your hope of getting through a Great Gate is greater than your desire to keep anybody else from getting through it.”
“It should have told you that we mean to play nice,” said Mother. “We’re going to let you and your boyfriend Danny and his aging mistress Veevee set out the rules, and we’ll play along.”
“Till you see a way to get an advantage,” said Hermia.
“Wasn’t it nice of me to come and inform you? Some of us wanted to kill you and then deal with Danny North separately. We would pretend we didn’t know where you were. They’re very angry with you for betraying us.”
“I didn’t tell him anything,” said Hermia.
“You didn’t tell us anything,” said Mother. “But … water over the dam, isn’t that what they say?”
“You got your physics degree at Stanford, Mother. Don’t pretend to be uncertain of your English.”
“We’re going to station an observer at the high school,” said Mother. “And we’re going to expect you to stay there, too.”
“I’m too old for high school,” said Hermia.
“But you’re such a little slip of a thing, they won’t doubt that this is your senior year.”
“I don’t have to be at the high school. I can gate in and out whenever I want to talk to Danny.”
“As long as he keeps gates available to you,” said Mother. “No, we want you there where we can watch you both.”
“And where you can threaten to do violence to me in order to get him to do what you want.”
“Would that work?” asked Mother.
“I don’t think so,” said Hermia, “but with Danny you never know. He’s not in love with me. I don’t think he particularly likes me. But he’s a compassionate kid. You could probably just point a gun at a puppy, take a picture, and then send it to him along with the threat, ‘Do what we say or we’ll shoot this dog.’”
“Well, we aren’t going to threaten to shoot you or a puppy. We think-some of us think-that now that you know that we’ve known where you are all along, and didn’t interfere with you, you’ll return to us with renewed trust and loyalty.”
“Are you among those who think so?” asked Hermia.
“I’m only one vote among many,” said Mother. “But it’s pleasantly needy of you to ask for my reassurance.”
“You know that whoever you send, Danny can just gate away.”
“Oh, I hope he doesn’t do that,” said Mother. “We’d have to shoot the dog.”
* * *
CEDRIC BIRD STOOD in a circle of tall standing stones on the brow of a grassy hill. Sheep grazed on the gentle slope below him, but Ced saw no sign of a shepherd.
He had meant to do what the others did. Step into the Great Gate, and then, the moment he was in Westil, take the next step and go back to Earth with his power greatly enhanced.
Only in the moment they arrived-in daylight on Westil instead of night the way it was in Buena Vista-he felt a touch of breeze on his cheek. And as a windmage he couldn’t go, not without first feeling the movement of the air, getting a sense of the way the sunlight warmed the air and the grass moved in the breeze.
It was only a moment, a second or two. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the others step forward and disappear. And then he stepped forward-and felt the grass brush against the cuffs of his pants. The Great Gate was already gone, and just like that, Ced realized that he had decided to stay on Westil.
He felt a momentary thrill of fear. All the bedtime stories his mother had told him about the faraway world their ancestors came from. The place where the gods of legend lived. It was a terrifying place where huge storms could be conjured by the anger of a sandmage, where Stonefathers could fashion copies of themselves in stone, where a lake could be swallowed up in stone, or an island be overswept by a Tidefather’s wave.
Yet he could also feel the wind.
He had always felt the wind, even in his sleep, it would wake him by whistling through the eaves and trembling the windows, and he would get up and open the door and go out into the wind. Mother would hear him and rush out after him and gather him up and say, The wind is a terrible thing, Cedric, it carries birds far from shore and sweeps nests out of the trees. But Cedric would say, It never hurts me, Mother. I love the wind.
Yet he had never really felt the wind until now, today, as he stood in this gentle wind on a grassy hill in Westil. He felt it shape itself around the standing stones and sensed all the eddies within the circle. He was aware of the play of the breeze in the wool of the nearest sheep, and the sweep of it through the grass exhilarated him.
It’s not the breeze of Westil that’s different, Ced realized. It’s me. I’ve been through the Great Gate, and now I have all the awareness of the wind that I ever wanted. Now I’m the mage I always was in my dreams.
He couldn’t resist the temptation now; it wasn’t enough to feel the wind. He had to shape it. He had been studying with Norm Galliatti, an Orphan Galebreath in Medford, Oregon, and he had raised his abilities from making tiny whirlwinds and raising a slight breeze on a still day to the point where he could direct a breeze, narrow it like a dart, blow out a candle from a hundred yards, change the flight of a ball in midair.