“I suppose, and I’m grateful, I really am. You healed me, and I’m better. I know I need more rest to be back to myself, but right now it doesn’t matter how exhausted I am. We may never get another chance. We have to get to that sorceress.”

Merritt nodded as he visibly cooled off. “I understand and I share your sense of urgency. After all, I’m the one who told you about the sorceress defector in the first place, remember?”

“I remember.”

“So, how do you propose we get in to see her without General Grundwall? They don’t simply let people in to see prisoners.”

A group of soldiers hurried past, eyeing the woman in the midst of their domain. She flashed them a brief, polite smile of greeting. Most of the men returned the smile. Once they were past, Magda pulled the hood of her cloak up over her head and started out once more. She peeked around the edge of the hood at Merritt.

“You heard the general. I’m respected. It’s news to me, but maybe not to the men down in the dungeon. They certainly won’t be expecting a woman—the wife of their dead First Wizard—to show up in their midst in the middle of the night.”

Merritt looked to be getting agitated again. “And what good is that going to do you?”

“Surprise is sometimes the best advantage a warrior can have.”

He eyed her suspiciously. “Where did you hear that?”

“Baraccus told me.”

“He’s right, but this is different from what is typically meant by that saying.”

“That’s why this surprise will work to our advantage.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

Magda took his arm, leaning closer to him as they started down the stone steps of a broad stairway. Their footsteps echoed through the stairwell, so she kept her voice low.

“Merritt, we have to try. Time is working against us. If they haven’t executed her before, or even today while I was sleeping the day away, they will surely behead her soon, maybe even tomorrow. We can’t delay. If they’ve tried her and condemned her to death, they’re not going to keep her alive down in the dungeon for long—a few days at most. Every day we don’t get to her adds to the odds that we never will. Maybe she doesn’t know anything and can’t help us, but what if she does know something about what’s going on here at the Keep, or Emperor Sulachan’s battle plans?