“When he frowned, I went on and told him that of course I could blind myself, but I could not give myself the sight I needed, so it would be pointless to do so. Even more curious, he leaned toward me a bit and asked what I meant.

“I told him that being blind to this world was only half of it—the easy half. I said that what I really needed was a wizard with enough of an imagination and ability to be able to create a new kind of vision.

“I told him that I needed to be invested with a singular ability, the ability to see what no one else could.”

Magda arched an eyebrow. “I would imagine that by then, with him being a maker, you had his full attention.”

“I did indeed,” Isidore confirmed. “He began to realize that I was not asking him to blind me so much as I was asking him to take my vision so that he could replace it with a new kind of sight, a better kind of sight. The kind of sight that no one had ever conceived of before.

“I told him that in my mind, my vision had already been taken by the enemy. They had blinded me to spirits so that I could not fight against them.

“This was about getting the vision I needed so that I could fight back.

“I told Merritt that I needed him to create in me the ability to be able to hunt spirits in this world.”

Chapter 36

Magda watched Isidore silently rubbing a thumb on the side of her knee for a moment, gathering her thoughts before she went on. Magda could not imagine what it must have been like for this woman, all alone, haunted by her calling of working with the spirit world and by the spirits that were missing from it. Despite how thin and frail she looked, this was a woman of enormous determination.

“I remember the last day I had normal sight,” Isidore finally said.

Seeing the woman’s courage flag as her jaw trembled for just a moment, Magda placed a reassuring hand on Isidore’s back, but said nothing.

Isidore spoke softly as she picked up the story. “After giving him the details he would need, all the things I knew as a spiritist that he would likely be unaware of, I’d let Merritt work on the problem. I had told him that it was in his hands and asked him to come to me when he was ready.

“He worked for weeks. Not once did I go to see him. I let him create what he would in his own way.

“Merritt hated the thought of taking my eyes, he truly did, but he understood that I wasn’t really asking to be blind. I was actually asking for something far greater than the sight we are all born with.

“I was asking for wizard-created sight.”