As Merritt dropped heavily into the chair at the bench, Magda looked down at the small open book he was holding. The lines and writing looked like nothing but a bunch of angles and numbers to her, the same kinds of measurements Baraccus took all the time from his own observations. It was like a foreign language to her, but it was a language that Merritt, like Baraccus, understood well.

It came to her, then.

Merritt was still staring at the open book.

“I understand, now,” she said in little more than a whisper.

With a finger, Magda lifted his chin until his gaze met hers. “I understand.”

“What do you mean? Understand what?”

“Baraccus knew that you needed these. He must have brought them back with him from the Temple of the Winds.” She felt the goose bumps on her arms crawl the rest of the way up to the nape of her neck. “Remember what I told you before? That when he went there he found out that the boxes of Orden were gone and he could tell no one but me? He knew they’d been taken. Do you see? He must have brought these back so that the key could be completed.”

Merritt could only stare at her.

Magda swallowed past the lump in her throat. “He brought them back for you, Merritt. He knew what you were making, and he knew that you needed these. He wanted you to be able to complete the key, hoping you could use it to protect the boxes of Orden. He said that my destiny was to find truth. That led me to you, so that I could bring you to what Baraccus wanted you to have to complete the key.”

He put a hand to his forehead. “You’re making my head spin, Magda. Do you grasp the enormity of what you’re saying? It’s all so hard to believe.”

“The truth is there in your hand, in that book.”

“It certainly is. These formulas are staggeringly valuable. Some believe that their existence was only gossip and rumor. Some believe they never existed and were only a myth. But some of us knew from our work that they had to exist. And here they are, sitting on the First Wizard’s workbench.”

“They’ve been here ever since he returned from the underworld with them. He hid them in plain sight.”

Merritt’s eyes filled with tears as he stared up at her. His voice broke with emotion. “Do you know how many good men have died trying to re-create these formulas? Died making wild guesses in the dark?”

“And now you have what you need to finish the Sword of Truth?”

Merritt reached out and touched the blade. He lifted the little book. “With these I do. I believe that I now have everything I need to complete it.”