Merritt grasped her meaning. “The living enemy. The shields work by detecting life. They can’t detect something that isn’t alive, something dead.”

“With the war going on and the attacks in the Keep, as a safeguard the council ordered new shields placed all over. I’ve had to make detours to get around shielded areas.” Magda lifted a finger. “Yet, it hasn’t halted the murders, has it? Or helped soldiers trap the killer. The shields wouldn’t stop a dead man. The shields wouldn’t even be able to detect one, would they?”

“No, they wouldn’t. Something dead wouldn’t even set off any of the alarms, much less the shields. After all, why would an alarm need to be set off to warn of the dead?”

“What do shields do to intruders?” Magda asked.

“Some of the shields are set to kill any unauthorized person who tries to pass.” He arched an eyebrow. “But you have to be alive to be killed.”

“What is it that Isidore was searching for, looking into? What were the wizards that she was helping trying to do?”

Merritt showed her his ring with the Grace on it. “They are trying to interfere with this. They are altering the natural order of things, the flow of life and magic and death. I haven’t heard a lot of specifics about what they were doing, but I assumed they were looking into what Isidore was so worried about—the dead the enemy took and their missing spirits.”

“From rumors I’ve heard,” Magda said, “wizards down in the lower reaches have been working to try to bring the dead back to life. Or an imitation of life, anyway.

“I wonder if it could be that some of those experiments have gone terribly wrong. I wonder if that is the source of the murders.”

Merritt stared at her for a long, uncomfortable moment before he gestured with the light sphere. “We’d better get down to the dungeon.”

Chapter 71

The chiseled stone of the narrow passageway cut through the granular granite bedrock of the mountain beneath the Keep was not only darker but much harder than the extensive vein of fine, tan sandstone of the catacombs up above them. This was not a place that had been so easily carved out, as were the subterranean galleries for the dead higher up. This place had required a great deal of muscle, sweat, and effort to construct.

All to confine evil. At least, that had been the original intent.

The smell of stale sweat and acrid rat droppings permeated the dark, dank tunnel just above the entrance to the dungeon. Magda wrapped her cloak tighter against the chill air and wrinkled her nose at the stink. When they reached the iron stairs at the end of the single shaft she started down without hesitation. Gritty rust and crumbled bits of remaining paint from the iron railing stained her hands.