“You aren’t to blame,” he agreed. “You could just as easily say that it’s my fault she’s dead. After all, I’m the one who gave her abilities that made her a threat to the enemy. Had I refused, she very likely would still be alive, doing nothing more dangerous than helping to advise those in mourning about the souls of their dead relatives.

“But in the end, we can’t live our lives by ‘what if’ and ‘if only.’ We can only do the best we can to the best of our ability based on what we know. That’s why the truth is so important.

“Sometimes, as in Isidore’s case, it’s our skills that bring the attention of evil. Evil abhors those with ability. Emperor Sulachan wants to destroy just about everyone with the gift in order to make everyone helpless before him. He has already made significant strides in purging the Old World of magic. He can’t afford to let it flourish here.

“In the process, he is willing to lay waste to the gift itself, strip it from mankind, all to be able to consolidate power for himself and rule through brute force. The gift—our abilities—stand in his way and mark us as targets.”

“That’s true,” Magda said. “Baraccus told me once that Sulachan would rather annihilate us than allow us to live in peace, because that would mean the risk that his people would want the same freedom to live their lives that we have.”

Merritt nodded his agreement. “People like Isidore, like you, are not going to stand aside and do nothing as he slaughters people. Isidore was fighting for us all. She was well aware that she might lose her life in this struggle. In fact, I told her as much. That didn’t stop her.

“She was a warrior in our cause. So are you, or you wouldn’t be seeking the truth at the risk to your own life. If you were any less, you would give up your search and move away to somewhere safe. Yet you stay in the Keep, right in the midst of the danger.”

“There is no safe place, or at least there soon won’t be,” Magda said. “Safety is only an illusion when evil is on the hunt. I can’t stand by and watch. I have to act.”

“We all can be only who we are, no more, no less,” Merritt said.

“That’s a beautiful sentiment.” Magda smoothed a wrinkle in the skirt of her dress lying across her knee. “Is that why you gave in to her wishes when you could have said no?”

He stared off across the room for a long moment. “It was the path she chose. People have to live their own destiny.”

That sounded very much like what Baraccus had said in his note to Magda about her following her own destiny.