“If I’d made Isidore give the devotion first, he would not have heard how important I thought she was to uncovering the answers Baraccus wanted me to find. He would not have realized that he needed to kill her before she could help me.”

Against her will, the vivid memory of that awful slaughter returned to fill her mind’s eye.

“That’s why you asked me to give the oath before you would talk to me,” he said, half to himself.

Magda nodded as she watched tears dripping onto the floor at her feet. “If I had thought it through, first, and had her give the devotion from the beginning, she would still be alive. She would have freed her mind from the dream walker before he overheard what I needed, and how much she mattered in my search for the truth.”

“But a dream walker didn’t kill her,” Merritt said.

Magda swiped the tears from her cheeks. She knew how much Merritt meant to Isidore. She knew how reluctant he had been to help the woman. Magda knew, too, that even though Merritt had taken Isidore’s sight and altered her with magic, he had come to consider her a friend.

Magda sucked back a sob. She couldn’t bring herself to look up at him.

“No, the dream walker didn’t kill her. He must have gone to his contact in the Keep, and they sent that monster to slaughter her before she could have the chance to help me.

“It’s my fault. If I hadn’t gone to her she would still be alive. Or if I’d had the presence of mind to realize how deeply the Keep has been penetrated by dream walkers and traitors, and had her take the protection of the bond right at first, she would be alive.

“It’s my fault she was murdered.”

Chapter 46

Merritt crossed the room and sat beside her. “I see now why you think you’re to blame, but it wasn’t your fault, Lady Searus. You didn’t know that a dream walker was listening to the things you told Isidore.”

Still, Magda couldn’t look him in the eye. “No, but I should have realized that it was a strong likelihood. I should have thought it through. Had I taken the precaution of having her swear loyalty to Lord Rahl first—”

“It wouldn’t have changed anything.”

Magda finally looked up at him through her watery vision. “How can you know that?”

“The dream walkers know that you’re looking for answers, right?”

Magda swallowed past the lump in her throat. “That’s right.”