“The problem is,” Naja said, “I believe that even if he doesn’t succeed at his plan for the perfect world, he very well may succeed at destroying the world of life in the attempt. He is a technically intelligent, resourceful, and determined man and he is tampering with the very nature of what the Grace represents. Even if what he believes he can accomplish is utterly impossible and he doesn’t succeed with his ultimate plan, he will kill untold numbers trying. Even if he doesn’t succeed, even if he is insane and he fails to do what he thinks he can do, I fear that he may very well accidentally destroy the world of life in the process.

“Either way, the result is the same. Everyone is dead in the end.”

“Are you certain about all this,” Merritt asked in a careful tone. “Were you close enough to him to know this to all be true? To really believe all this half people talk?”

Naja Moon lifted an eyebrow over a cold blue eye. This was the dangerous sorceress Magda had recognized from the first moment she had seen her.

“I know how the half people were created because I helped create them. I am a spiritist. I speak with the dead. I also manipulated the spirits of the dead in the underworld to create for Emperor Sulachan an army of the dead. I helped show him how it could be done.”

Even though she had defected, Magda suddenly wanted to strangle the woman. “Why would you do such a thing? How could you do such a thing? How could you help put all the innocent lives everywhere in such mortal peril?”

Naja leveled a grim look at Magda. “What was being done to me down in your dungeon is a fate I would have prayed for, had I not done as Sulachan commanded. You could not begin to understand what life is like in the Old World, and especially in the halls of power there.

“Though he may be old and sickly, Emperor Sulachan is still a wizard of great power. Defying his wishes earns a person unimaginable torture. He keeps those he tortures alive for a very long time to serve as a reminder to others of the fate that awaits them should they, too, disobey his wishes. You would be surprised what you would do when living every day of your life in such terror.”

“If he is so powerful, then how did you manage to escape?” Merritt asked.