Merritt turned to Magda, putting a big hand under her arm. “I need to get you up to your room. You need rest to recover.”

“Recover from what?” Quinn asked. “I meant to ask what happened?”

“We’ll tell you tomorrow when we talk again,” Merritt said as he started Magda toward the door. He obviously was getting concerned by her fading strength.

On the way to the door, Naja stopped them. She squeezed Magda’s arm. “Thank you both. I’m going to return your confidence in me, I swear. I’m going to help you.”

Magda smiled and touched Naja’s cheek. “Thank you, Naja.”

Out in the immense, round tower outside the room with the sliph’s well, only a few torches burned higher up on iron landings at intervals in the stairs curving up around the stone walls. The openings at the top revealed a night sky clouded over to hide the stars and the moon. Magda looked up at Merritt in the near darkness.

“What is it that you need to do? You told Quinn that you needed to work on something.”

“I need to work on a way to stop the dead and the half people. We don’t have any time to waste. When I get you to your room I need to have another look at the cloth hanging that you took out of Isidore’s maze. I need to see the specific alterations she did to the keeper spells.”

“Because it stopped the dead?”

Merritt nodded. “Because it stopped the dead. I need to do some experiments and try some things.”

Chapter 79

Shadow meowed and came running when Magda opened the door. The black cat rubbed against her leg, and then against Merritt. Magda leaned down and briefly scratched the cat’s back.

“Have you been a good girl, little one?”

The cat answered, as if she had understood the question, with a long mew.

“I guess that neither one of us has had dinner.”

“You need to eat,” Merritt said as he waved an arm, lighting the lamps in the apartment, “but it can wait until tomorrow. Right now you need to sleep more than you need food.”

Magda put a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you, Merritt. As terrifying as everything seems right now, it’s comforting to have you on my side in all of this.”

Merritt smiled. “Thanks to you, we now have the key. That’s a monumental achievement that is going to be a great asset, and I couldn’t have done it without you. It’s all the better for having your strength.”

Magda let out a sigh. “It certainly did seem to have taken my strength. I can’t believe how weak I feel.”