Merritt wiped a hand back across his face in exasperation. “Naja, this is all pretty hard to take in. I need to have an idea of what, exactly, it is that we’re up against—the larger picture. Not just about some traitors assassinating people here, but how it all fits together in Sulachan’s larger purpose. It’s important for me to be able to grasp the totality of it.”

Naja took a deep breath as she nodded. “I understand. It must be difficult to hear this all for the first time.”

“It certainly is,” Merritt said.

“Well, you see, Emperor Sulachan is old and sickly,” Naja said. “He fears that he will not live to see the Old World unite all people into his vision of a just world. He calls that vision the People’s Alliance. He wants all people ruled under that alliance.

“Emperor Sulachan sees this as a just cause that transcends his life, as a larger cause for the good of all existence—the world of life and the world of the dead as one interconnected entity, one whole, just as the Grace is one whole, interconnected concept. To that end, he believes that all people must have common rule for that greater good of all, both the living and the dead.”

Merritt looked incredulous. “The living and the dead?”

“That’s right,” the sorceress said.

“Setting aside for the moment the issue of thinking he can rule the spirit world,” Merritt said, “how does he think it’s going to be possible for him to accomplish this merely with the world of life if he’s dying? He won’t be around to carry out his plans.”

“He seeks to continue to exist and function without life in the conventional sense, so you can’t separate the issue of ruling the spirit world. They’re interconnected. You said that you wanted the larger picture. The larger picture is that he seeks an alternate form of existence, you might say, so you have to understand it in those terms.

“What he seeks is a way to remain connected after his death to a functioning form in this world, in the world of life, so that he can rule it all. He believes that if he rules the spirit world, he can not only rule through his spirit in that world, but rule this world as well through his spirit’s connection to his reanimated body. In that way he unites it all.”

“It’s madness.” Magda shook her head as she let out a deep sigh. “We stand at the twilight of everything we hold dear, not only our liberty, but our very existence.”

Merritt looked stymied by a thousand questions he wanted to ask all at once, so Magda asked a question instead. “How do the dead fit into this plan of his?”