“By the way she was tried without the public knowing about it, someone must have a reason to want to get rid of her. After all, why wouldn’t Lothain want to try her publicly so he could add another executed traitor to his list of heralded accomplishments? Could he be doing a favor? Or protecting someone? Maybe even protecting himself? Why was the trial conducted out of the public eye?”

“I was wondering those same things.” Merritt looked both up and down the stairwell to make sure no one was near. “What we really have to ask ourselves is why they’ve let her live this long.”

“What do you mean?”

“If they charged her with being a spy and sentenced her to death, maybe it’s because someone has a reason to want her dead. Maybe it’s to shut her up. So if that’s true, and they want to shut her up, then why didn’t they just put her to death immediately after finding her guilty?” Merritt leaned closer and arched and eyebrow. “If they want her dead, then why have they kept her alive for this long?”

It dawned on her what Merritt was implying. “You mean you think they’re torturing her? You think they haven’t killed her yet because they’re torturing information out of her?”

“Wouldn’t any spy in the Keep want to know if she has any companions defecting with her, and if she does how much they know about the people Emperor Sulachan might have secretly slipped in here? Nor will killing her solve their problem if she’s already spoken with people here at the Keep and given them names of traitors working on behalf of the emperor. They would need to know that before they killed her, don’t you suppose?”

Magda glanced over at him. “For a traitor, worried about being discovered, finding out how much she knows would be reason enough to torture her.”

Merritt waved a hand. “But this is all speculation. For all we know, maybe she really is a spy, or even an assassin, posing as a defector, intent on using her gift to kill our leaders. Maybe they wanted to keep the trial out of the public eye in order to find any accomplices. Maybe they did a good thing by uncovering her plans. For all we know, they may very well have beheaded her right in the beginning—right after convicting her. We don’t know that she’s even alive.”

“All the more reason to get down to the dungeons as soon as we can. We may never get another chance to find out the truth. Maybe she is an assassin, but maybe she really is a defector who wants to help us. And if they’re torturing her, she may soon enough be as good as dead as far as helping us is concerned.”