Once the soldiers and their prisoner had gone past the alley, Magda cautiously emerged from her hiding place and checked in all directions for any sign of other soldiers. When she saw nothing and everything was dead quiet, she rushed off up the alley. She trotted to cover ground as quickly as possible. She didn’t think she had it in her to run anymore. At least the brief sprinkle had stopped, but she worried that the clouds still threatened rain.

When she reached a cross street with a two-story brick building that she remembered, she squinted in the darkness across the road. She saw a sign hanging over a door. It was the right size, but she couldn’t tell if it had a blue pig painted on it. Around the corner, though, she could see the narrow street following rolling, uneven ground. It was the right place. She turned up the street toward Merritt’s house.

When she at last saw a forked plum tree in the front of the little porch, she let out a sigh, thankful to have found the place so quickly in the dark. Light came from the window to the side of the house, so she knew that Merritt was still up working.

She knocked just loud enough that she thought he would hear her but the neighbors wouldn’t. She hoped that dogs didn’t start barking and rouse people.

When Merritt didn’t answer the door, she knocked a little harder. When she knocked harder, the door swung in a little. It wasn’t latched.

“Merritt?” she called out in a quiet voice. “Merritt?”

She thought that maybe he was out back, so she slipped inside. She pushed the door closed behind her as she looked around. She didn’t see him. A few lanterns were lit in the room, but Merritt wasn’t there.

She went to the back, looking out, but it was pitch black. She went to a dark doorway and opened the metal cover on her lantern, throwing light into the dark bedroom. The bed was empty. She couldn’t imagine where he could be.

On the way back through the house, weaving her way through the assortment of objects lying about all over the floor, she froze in midstride. In front of the table with the red velvet cloth, the chair was lying on its side.

The Sword of Truth, in its sheath, still hanging from the back of the chair, lay on the floor.

Magda righted the chair. She stood staring at the sword.

Merritt wouldn’t leave the sword. He had never left it before, and he certainly wouldn’t leave it since completing its transition into the key to the boxes of Orden.