It was not yet noon when we passed through Lucian's mirror and entered the cold, unlit hall of the quiet manor.

Pillars of black marble stretched inexorably into the dark above, balancing the vaulted ceiling painted with visions of a cloudy evening sky. Two staircases curled from the foyer to the upper balcony, long runners of lavender damask pinned to each step with careful precision. Vases of preserved irises were set at even intervals about the room, their petals a mixture of violet and pink, the colors soft for such a male dominated space. 

The symbol I'd seen many times upon Cage's palm encumbered the floor, and it was surrounded by several unadorned circles—large, basic constructs carved and paved into shallow grooves. Lucian touched a switch located at the mirror's side and the silver lamps attached to the walls glowed with clean, white light.

I immediately noticed there was no door marking an exit. Only the mirror.

"How does one enter this place if they are not a mage capable of spelling the looking glass?" I asked the black mage as he licked a spot of blood from his pricked finger and urged us into the room proper. A few mages had appeared at various doorways or at the above balcony to survey our group. They were well-groomed young men with plain, unscarred faces, all dressed in the syndicate coats with black lining. They were the kind of boys one would never expect to be capable of criminal activity, but appearances were often deceiving.

"They don't," Lucian replied, his answer short though not curt. He gestured for two of his underlings to come forward, and they divested themselves of their tasks in silent acquiescence. "The exterior shell of the building appears as a boarded up, condemned warehouse. Any hooligans who've attempted to enter in the past have paid severely."

The two younger mages approached, one a freckled teen and the other a bespectacled, sloe-eyed man in his late twenties. They greeted Lucian and spared the rest of us a few curious glances before their leader issued his commands. "Assist Master Cage in setting up a Standard Twelve construct with forty-three deviations. Factor it to a scale of...."

Cage piped up. "One-ten, I would say." 

"One-ten, then."

The younger black mages set to work, having understood the technical jargon that'd come spewing out of Lucian's mouth. Cage stood at Lucian's side with his hands in his pockets, rocking on his heels, and leaned toward the other mage. "It's forty-four non-dimentionary deviations, Lucky Luke, with two bi-planetary systems consisting of three deviations each."

Exhaling, Lucian repeated the information to his lackeys, and they adjusted themselves accordingly. One disappeared into a side room to gather supplies as the other quickly began to scribble runes along the outer rim of the circle paved into the foyer's floor.

The two Mistresses, Saule, her mutt, and one of Stavros's witches had followed us through the transposing mirror. They stood off to the side and watched with uncertain curiosity as the mages worked. Saule looked ill, but she hadn't balked yet. She was here and willing to help.

As the mages continued their preparations, I paced the length of the foyer, my footsteps consistently avoiding the unformed construct's depression as I came to the far wall. The room was nearly forty feet in width and possibly twice that in length. The construct consumed most of that space. I pondered what spells the Black Iris Syndicate used to require such a large tool.

I passed through an open door and came upon what I assumed was a meeting room. Initially, I thought it a dining room, but the leather chairs pushed to the long mahogany table were wheeled, and there were far too many shelves and concealed cabinets. A sideboard beneath a charmed window held decanters of various spirits and a crystal carafe containing a shining, smudged-blue liquid.

Mana, I decided after holding a hand to the carafe's side and sensing the keen prickling of unleashed energy riling within. It was obvious mortals didn't tread here, as there was evidence of the mages' differences everywhere I looked. My attention roved over the wall of framed photos in desperate need of dusting. Most consisted of ordered groups all posed for the photographer, and the pictures stepped back in time in intervals of two or three years as my gaze progressed closer to their start.

I understood the photos to be representations of biennial gatherings of the Black Iris members. In the most recent photo, a tidy Lucian stood at the fore of a large group of other similarly dressed men, their numbers amounting to a hundred or so by my approximations. The syndicate was expansive for being a covert organization I'd never heard of before.

As I considered the photos, I spotted a familiar face thirty years back in the chronological progression. Cage stood where Lucian stood in present day, and the man looked the same as he did today, though objectively cleaner and better groomed. The silver ribbon never made an appearance. I followed the pictures, brow lowered, and Cage's presence in the gatherings didn't abate—even when I reached the very first photo, a dusty black and white image dated "1937."

How is that possible?

Mages didn't live that long. They were hardy creatures immune to most mortal illnesses, but they were subject to the same ravages of time, only living as long as humans, if a touch longer. I knew witches had more longevity than mages and quite a bit more than humans—but all Terrestrian species were mortal. Something about this place severed the soul's tie to the renewing ebb and flow of essence, which was why men like Anzel Vyus who lived to be a century or so short of a thousand outside of Terrestria only survived for half that amount within this realm.

I considered the possibility of the man in the older photos being Cage's father or grandfather, but neither of those inane justifications were plausible, as the resemblance was too uncanny.

Then how has he survived? Mages do not live as long as he has and appear so young. 

Then again, what did it matter? The chances that my emanate death would be permanent were too great for me to care. 

A sound at the room's entrance disturbed my thoughts. "We're almost ready for you, boy."

I glared at Cage standing at the room's threshold with his hands braced on the solid wood of the frame. There was black chalk on his fingers and yet another fresh slice adorning his unshaved cheek. The mage saw where my attention had strayed and stiffened, though he offered no explanation to his presence in the dated photographs.

"Care to explain?" I said with a casual tilt of my head toward the wall. It was refreshing to see the unsettled gleam in the man's eyes, and I almost released a cold, ill-humored laugh when Cage scowled.

"No."

I returned with the black mage to the main foyer. Two additional mages had been summoned at Lucian's whim and now waited at equidistant intervals around the construct's circumference. A myriad of complicated runes had been sketched inside the construct by the mages, and where the various sections each created by a different man met, Cage had inserted an overlaying loop that bound each script into his own creation and brought it under his control. Lucian remained at the head of the construct that contained Cage's script.

Saule knelt in the spell's middle by the great, colorless iris imprinted upon the floor. She was mixing a concoction together with the ingredient's retrieved by the syndicate's mages, and both of the Coven Mistresses remained at her sides, each whispering into an opposing ear. The bone witch's hands shook as she worked, the unbound quirks of her hair sticking to her sweaty temples. 

"Give me that ampoule you like to pretend you're not carrying," Cage ordered with a snap of his fingers. My eyes narrowed, and his brow rose in challenge.

"Why?"

"I'm going to...enchant it. It will lead you through the void to the Realm, to your Seat, and draw Sara from the void. Give me the damn thing, Darius—or one might start to think you're growing sentimental."

"No, not sentimental, though I am growing increasingly aggravated by your tone, mage." I threaded my fingers through the worn collar of my borrowed shirt, pulling on the silver chain underneath until the warm mana ampoule spilled into my waiting hand. With marginal hesitation, I took it off my neck and gave it to Cage, my jaw clenching as his fingers curled about the glass.

"God forbid." Cage's empty hand enacted a series of memorized twists and sharp, angular motions over the ampoule, and though I tensed myself for the noxious rise of his power, nothing happened. The man abruptly tossed the ampoule to me and I snared the tiny vial before it could fall and break upon the floor. "There. Done."

Confused, I held the ampoule between my thumb and forefinger, studying the inner spiral of coalesced energy, but I sensed no difference. No spark. Odd.

At Cage's direction, I came to the room's center and crouched before the three witches. A palm-sized cauldron was bubbling on a portable camp fire, filling the air with the foul scents of burnt minerals, rotten meat, and gasoline. Saule had her arms held stiffly before herself, palms lowered to the cauldron's boiling innards, and though I could see how red her skin had become in the direct path of the rising heat, she hadn't withdrawn. Air hissed through the bone witch's teeth as she fired off a low stream of words in the Esoterica.

I watched her for a time as I settled myself cross-legged on the floor, and the ambient noise of the mages and the nattering Mistresses wove through the interrupting strains of utter silence. My back yet ached from the Blue-Iron warden's blow, but the stiffness of my shoulders belonged entirely to my unspoken anxiety. Even an amoral, uncaring creature such as myself feels anxious when waiting for the fulmination of his willing demise.

I was about to die.

Something in the atmosphere changed at Saule's behest. The static mumbling of her spoken curse ended with a harsh upward inflection, the unsettled magic charging the air with a sense of expectancy as a line of blood leaked from the woman's nose. Like a caring mother, Mistress Voronin retrieved a crumpled tissue from her pocket and used it to wipe the blood away, though Saule took no notice of her action. The bone witch dipped two fingers into the vat, wincing when she was burned, and extended her coated fingertips to my brow.

The answering sting in my own flesh wasn't pleasant.

"There," Saule said, voice wavering. She slumped into Voronin, who again held the spoiled tissue to the smaller woman's nose. "It's done."

I sensed Cage's presence at my back, the tails of his coat brushing my arm, then felt his long, unworked fingers slide across the nape of my neck, squeezing tight. He bent at the waist and lowered his face to mine, the uncharacteristic severity of his expression hard and unkind.

"Don't linger in the dark," he hissed—and my lips parted as I registered the strain of Gehen curling about his tongue. The black mage was speaking the language of the Pit. "They will try to keep you there. They will try to steal you away."

The orange cast of his eyes was eerily familiar, and it dominated my attention.

"How?" I whispered. "And what do you mean? Who do you speak of?" 

I never saw the blade coming. Cage moved with unparalleled speed, and the silver dagger sank hilt deep into my chest with nary an ounce of resistance. I grunted, and my hands rose of their own volition to pry the weapon free, fingers curling as the full extent of the pain ignited in my bones. Cage's grip remained on the haft as he guided me to the floor, and I felt the cold kiss of the stones press against my inflamed flesh. 

The ampoule was still against my chest. It sat like a warm ember just below the blade of the cold, unflinching dagger. 

For the second time in memory, the numb hands of oblivion played through my body, took hold of my guttering soul, and slowly slipped it into the waiting waters of certain death. My final breath escaped, and I knew no more.