“Isidore told me that the dead must heed them.”

Merritt glanced her way but didn’t say anything, so she did. “I can testify to the truth of what she said.” Magda joggled the cloth. “This is what stopped that monster, that dead man, from getting at me. He wouldn’t go past it. Isidore said that the dead must heed the things she drew. That’s another reason that I believe that this man who killed her and was trying to kill me was actually dead. He heeded this warning.”

Merritt glanced her way. “That might be true, but it’s not necessarily the case.” He took the cloth, draping it over an arm as he paced across the room, pulling folds aside one at a time as he considered the symbols lying across his arm.

“This is very disturbing, though,” he muttered. “These are keeper spells, meant to ward the dead.”

“Keeper spells? Merritt, why was Isidore worried about dead people? Why did she have these keeper spells drawn on hangings in the hallways around her that stopped the dead?”

He looked back at her a moment. “Perhaps because she had reason to fear them, or perhaps it was only a precaution. She was dealing with the world of the dead after all. That was her profession. Besides that, she was searching for spirits that are trapped in this world. Those spirits belong to the corpses that General Kuno took from Grandengart.”

“But those are spirits of the dead. Not the dead themselves.”

“What are you getting at?”

“What if what I’ve heard is true, and some of those wizards down there really are able to bring the dead back to life, or not really life, but, well, you know what I mean. What if they are creating monsters out of dead people? Mindless slaves to do their bidding?”

Merritt arched an eyebrow as he handed her back the silky cloth. “I have learned not to dismiss things that sound preposterous, but do you really believe that?”

She took the cloth from him and folded it back up. “I don’t know what I believe.” She lifted the bundle. “But I sleep under this.”

She thought he might laugh at her. He didn’t.

“Good girl,” he murmured as he turned away in thought.

“Merritt, there are too many things happening that make no sense. I fear that something terrible is going to happen before I can figure it out, and no one but me seems to care.”

“I care,” he said quietly.

She was momentarily caught off guard. She hadn’t expected him to say that. It was what she had hoped for, more than she had hoped for, in fact. It was why she had come to see him in the first place. But she hadn’t expected it.

“Thank you,” she whispered.