Her heart hammering, Magda took a deep breath, crouched down even more, and started rocking back and forth, swinging farther out each time, standing, crouching, standing, crouching, back and forth, farther out over the edge of the wall, farther out toward the drop that would take her pain away, building up speed for the final, big push.

In a swelling moment of doubt, she heard a voice within whisper for her not to think, but to simply do it.

As she swung herself out past the wall on the last rocking arc before the great leap, she realized in a single, crystal-clear instant the true enormity of what she was doing.

She was ending her life, ending it forever, ending it for all time. Everything that she was would be no more.

The voice became more insistent, telling her not to think, telling her to end her misery once and for all.

She was struck by how odd that seemed. How could she not think? Thinking was critical to any important decision.

In that icy flash of comprehension, in spite of the whispers, she realized just how terrible a mistake she was making.

It was as if, since learning of her husband’s death, she had been carried along in a raging river of emotions, urged onward by an inner voice pressing her toward the only thing that seemed like it could make the agony stop. She realized only now that she hadn’t thought it through, she had simply allowed herself to be swept along toward the spot where she now stood.

She was making no loving sacrifice. She was not trading her life for something she believed in, offering it for something of value as she knew Baraccus had. She was instead throwing it away for nothing. She was giving in to weakness, nothing more.

She was thoughtlessly rejecting all she believed in, all she had fought for. How many times had she gone before the council to speak for the lives of those who couldn’t speak for themselves? How many times had she argued for the importance of their lives, for the value of all life?

Was hers not just as important? Was her own life to be so carelessly, so foolishly, thrown away? Was she not going to fight for the right to her own life as she had fought for others?

She remembered telling Tilly that every life was precious. This was her only life and, despite her crushing agony, her life was precious to her. In her grief, she had allowed herself to be blind to that.

As if coming out of a fog, she realized, too, that there were things going on that didn’t make sense. There had to be more to everything that had happened than she was seeing. Why had Baraccus killed himself? What had been his purpose? Who was he protecting? For what had he traded his life?