This was news to Magda. He hadn’t told her the part about its magic not being able to harm innocent people. Merritt was full of wonders.

“Why are you two helping me?” Naja’s voice was clearly laced with pain, and justifiably, some suspicion.

“We’re actually hoping that you can help us,” Merritt said. “I heard that you wanted to join our cause. When we found out where you were, we knew we had to get you out.”

“I thought that the people here did not want my help. I thought I was wrong about the New World and the wizards who live and work here. Instead of my help, they chained me up in this awful place. They said that I was a spy and I was to eventually be put to death.”

“We believe that there are traitors, here, in the Keep,” Magda told her. “I think they had you put down here to keep you from helping our people.”

“I thought that I had made the worst mistake of my life in coming here,” Naja said, shaking her head. “I’m glad to learn that what I believed really is true, that there are good people here, as I had heard. But maybe it is not that there are traitors here.”

Magda frowned. “What are you talking about? Why would the men who captured you put you down here, if they weren’t collaborators with those in the Old World?”

She looked from Magda, to Merritt, and back to Magda. “Maybe dream walkers possess them and made them do it.”

Merritt stiffened. “Do you think that could be what is really going on?”

“It’s possible. Dream walkers can make people do terrible things.”

Magda let out a sigh. “We don’t know what is really going on. That’s why we came down here looking for you. We hope you can help us learn the truth.”

“If this place is shielded,” Naja said, “then maybe in here we are safe from the dream walkers hearing us.”

“That’s possible,” Merritt said. “The dungeon is heavily protected with some of the most powerful suppression shields ever created.”

“Your sword has a newly created form of magic,” Magda said. “It works down here in spite of the shields. The dream walkers were likely also created after these shields, so the shields may not be able to protect us from them.”

She cast a meaningful look at Naja.

Naja caught her meaning. “If one of them found me and was in my mind, watching us, I wouldn’t know it.”

Magda looked up at Merritt. “We can’t trust that the bond will work through the shields. We only know for sure that it works when not shielded. We dare not take a chance. Before we talk, we’d better first get her out of here and then get her protected from the dream walkers.”