A small, tightly rolled scroll sticking out of a shelf had a variety of small clay figures collected all around the end of it. As far as she could tell, they were all floating around the end of the scroll with nothing holding them up. It was an inexplicable and disorienting sight.

There were also profoundly beautiful statues standing in random places around the room, not as if they had been placed to be admired, but simply, it appeared, put wherever there had been an empty spot at the time. There was a soldier about to unsheathe a sword carved from a gray stone, there were several smaller statues of men in robes carved from pale butternut wood, and, carved from pure white marble, there were several statues of the most graceful women Magda had ever seen.

Draped over the table beyond the overturned chair was a large square of red velvet. The tabletop was the only place in the entire room that wasn’t cluttered. A single gleaming sword sat in the middle on a raised portion of the red velvet.

Magda noticed an ornate gold and silver scabbard attached to a baldric lying on the floor. The scabbard was so striking that it could only belong with the sword.

Merritt righted the chair, then hung the baldric and its scabbard over the back before he hurriedly removed books from the wicker couch. “Sorry for the mess. I don’t ordinarily live in such clutter. It’s just that this place isn’t as roomy as my place at the Keep. Please, Lady Searus, won’t you have a seat?” He looked around. “Tea. I should make tea.”

“No, none for me, thank you,” she said as she made her way to the wicker couch.

He looked relieved. Magda wondered why he no longer lived at the Keep, but didn’t ask; she had more important matters to get to first. She waited until he turned around to her again.

“I need to talk with you, Wizard Merritt.”

“So talk.” He gestured to the couch. “What about Isidore?”

Magda wasn’t ready to sit. “What about the oath?”

He put both hands in his back pocket as his posture relaxed a little. He grinned boyishly. “You mean the devotion to the Lord Rahl? Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. That oath?”

“Yes. You’re familiar with its purpose, then?”

He was smiling as if it was a private joke. Magda didn’t think it was funny. She could feel her own face heating to red.

“Actually, you see, Alric is an acquaintance of mine.”

“You know, then, that he’s a good man, and that he means the devotion to protect us from dream walkers?”