“After a great deal of research and work, I finally have every aspect of my theory worked out and in place,” Merritt was saying. “I’m convinced that I know how to create this unique power for the key if only I could get my hands on the rift calculations and breach formulas. If I could, I could then make a key that would function as it should.

“This magic I would create with the help of the formulas, would at the same time function for something else of great importance that I came up with along the way.”

That caught her attention.

He lifted an arm in a gesture of frustration, then sighed as it dropped back to rest on his leg. “But without all the parts, the magic can’t be formatted and thus initiated.”

“Are there no substitutes that would work well enough?”

“No. It needs the correct parts, and all the parts, simple as that.”

Magda steered him back to the thing that had caught her attention. “So is this unique magic also what would allow you to create in a person the ability to pull truth from lies? Is that the other thing of great importance you wanted to create?”

He looked surprised. “Yes, as a matter of fact it is.”

“So then the key these people want that you know how to make and the person you described to the council that you wanted to alter to be able to pull truth from lies, are linked with common elements and share some base form of this magic?”

“That’s right—at inception, anyway. They differ as they develop, and in the end of course, but they do need to have certain base elements from the rift calculations in common.”

“You mean they both need yeast to make the dough rise?”

Merritt frowned suspiciously. “For someone ungifted, you seem to have a knack for grasping the inherent logic in the nature of magic. And for someone who described herself as a nobody, you also seem to know a great deal about some of the most secret projects in the Keep.”

Magda tilted her head, peering at him from under her brow. “You may think that they’re secret, but Isidore knew about the person you want to alter with this magic. If she knew, then the dream walkers know. If the dream walkers know, that means Emperor Sulachan knows. If they know about the person, then they very well may know about the key you’re trying to make. If they know about the key, they know what it is meant to unlock.”

Merritt let out a troubled sigh. “I suppose that’s all possible, but it can’t do them any good. It would be impossible for them to reconstruct my work, and without those occulted calculations that are locked away in the Temple of the Winds, the magic that I was working on can’t be completed.