Magda remembered all too well, then, how the dream walker had been there, lurking in her mind, and then had tried to kill her.

“I guess I have. I hadn’t thought of it in that way, but I guess I have. I’m not even gifted, but they for some reason don’t want me looking for the truth.”

“The journey to reveal the truth sometimes takes us to places we never expected to go,” Isidore said. “But it is vital that the right person walks that path because we are fighting against those who can enter our minds and steal our souls. Perhaps they see, somehow, that you are the right person, and so they fear you. Because they fear you, they will come after you.”

Magda couldn’t argue. From the day up on the outer Keep wall, when she decided that she wanted to live, she knew that she was seeking something essential.

Chapter 33

“So where did your journey to discover the truth take you after you returned and found Sophia dead?” Magda asked.

Isidore gently ran a hand along the silky back of the cat curled up between them. “After I buried Sophia, I stayed at her house for a time, making several more journeys to the spirit world. In doing so I came to realize that my battle was not there in the world of spirits, but here, in the world of the living. I knew that I had to find help where our fight is centered.”

“You came to see the council,” Magda guessed.

Isidore confirmed it with a nod. “I came to report what I had learned. I requested to speak before a session closed to the general public. I felt that my information, if spread among people who didn’t understand such things, might cause a panic. I wanted to speak only to other gifted, only to those who had some understanding of the work of a spiritist.

“I finally found myself in the council chambers, standing in line in a closed session waiting my turn to speak. I had thought that such a closed session would be more private than it actually turned out to be. Even a closed session had a sizable crowd of important people. All of them, it seemed, were there with news, reports, or concerns about the war.

“A number of army officers started out with confidential reports on battles along with the details of intelligence that had been gathered. I could hear only bits and pieces, but I grasped the general nature of their reports. A number of wizards then brought forth information on what was being discovered about new weapons of magic we are up against. I could only hear bits of that as well, but what I could hear was frightening enough. Other gifted had proposals that needed approval, mostly for weapons of our own.