“I can grasp why it wouldn’t work without all the parts you say it needs, but why is even trying to make the key so risky?”

With a grim expression, Merritt lifted his fist so that she could see the signet ring he wore.

On its raised center was a Grace.

The design of the Grace was deeply engraved into the ring so that it could be used to make an impression in sealing wax. Magda remembered seeing that particular design of the Grace left in the sealing wax of documents Baraccus had received.

“Even as an ungifted person, you must be aware of the power involved in the Grace when it is used by the gifted.”

She was. The Grace represented the world of life, the world of the dead, and the way magic and Creation linked them.

The outer circle of the design represented the beginning of the infinite world of the dead. Inside that outer circle was a square, its points just touching the outer circle. Inside the square was another circle, just touching the insides of the square. The area between those two circles with the square represented the world of life. The inside circle was life’s beginning while the outer circle its end where souls crossed through the veil into the eternity of the underworld.

An eight-pointed star inside the smaller circle was the Light of Creation. Lines from that star’s points radiated out across the inner circle, the square, and across the outer circle that also symbolized the veil to the world of the dead. The lines radiating outward from the Light represented the spark of the gift that journeyed with everyone from birth, through life, and on into death.

Magda imagined that those rays, those conduits of the gift, were what enabled Isidore, the living, gifted spiritist, to be able to connect with the spirit world beyond the veil.

The gifted drew the Grace when conjuring powerful spells in order to invoke specific forces. It added elements that nothing else could, but at the same time it was a dangerous tool and had to be treated with great respect.

A Grace was properly drawn from the outside toward the center—circle, square, circle, star—and then the rays back out across those elements. Everything inward and then back out. Drawing it improperly or in an improper sequence, when it counted, could cause magic to fail or even go terribly wrong.

Drawn in blood, a Grace could invoke alchemy of consequence.

It was said that a person with enough knowledge and power could alter the Grace and thus alter elements of it.

Though a Grace was a commonly used tool of the gifted, Baraccus had often said that, despite its seeming simplicity, it was rarely mastered.

Not many people would dare to wear a Grace. That alone said something important about his abilities.