Ruben followed Umbra Prima through the lower decks with his face arranged into polite interest.
The corridors had been enlarged beyond anything sensible for a vessel. Metal walls ran in clean lines under charmed lights. Doors sat flush with the bulkheads and looked thick enough to survive a siege. Every turn revealed another Bastion Guard or another masked figure. None of them blocked the path.
After a minute, Umbra Prima stopped before a set of double doors. He knocked once and entered when a voice from within gave leave.
Ruben followed.
The chamber beyond the doors was a study. Large, yes. Wealthy, certainly. A broad desk sat near the far wall beneath shelves of books and cabinets of instruments. A second seating area stood closer to the windows with low chairs arranged for conversation rather than intimidation.
He noticed the man behind the desk only after he stood.
The newspapers had not done him justice.
Corvus Black was larger in person than the public prints suggested. Taller than any Bastion Guard Ruben had seen and broader through the shoulders in a way that made the study itself look built one scale too small. Giant blood crossed Ruben's mind and was dismissed at once. He enjoyed breathing and was not going to suggest the heir of one of the oldest households to be a half creature. Not even in his own mind.
If only he knew Corvus was not even a wizard, let alone a pureblooded one or human.
Umbra Prima went to one knee and lifted his fist to his chest.
"My lord."
"Rise, my friend." Corvus moved out from behind the desk and crossed toward the less formal seating area. "You may leave the reports."
Umbra Prima obeyed, placed a stack of parchment on the side table, and withdrew without another word.
Corvus gestured to one of the chairs.
Ruben sat.
"You have a rather unique trait, Mr Goldstein." Corvus took the large chair opposite him. "I instructed my Spire to collect people with unique traits."
Ruben inclined his head. "That is one way to describe what happened."
A house elf appeared with tea before either man had to acknowledge the silence. Cups were poured, and the elf vanished.
Ruben took the cup; refusing hospitality was a good way of insulting between purebloods. He was not going to insult this man or the masked ones. He has already started to call them and their organisation the masked ones.
"No," Corvus said, as if continuing a thought Ruben had not voiced aloud. "The organisation is the Black Spire, the operators are called Shadows, hence the name Umbra Prima."
Ruben closed his eyes and raised his occlumency shields further immediately.
He had not spoken.
When he looked up again, Corvus was watching him with the calm of a man who knew exactly how irritating that little trick was.
"There is no need to be alarmed," Corvus went on. "I wanted to meet you because I have a proposal for you."
Ruben set the cup down carefully. "Before the proposal, I would very much like to know how you got behind my Occlumency without me noticing." He wondered how he should address Corvus Black.
The question of address crossed his mind half a second later, and Corvus answered that too.
"You may call me Corvus." One hand settled against the arm of the chair. "And Occlumency is a little exaggerated. There are other ways to read a person. The Mind Arts are only one aspect of it."
Ruben swallowed the rest of his objections and adjusted course quickly.
"Likewise, Corvus."
That earned the smallest nod.
"What I need from you is straightforward." Corvus lifted his cup and took a slow sip. "You will represent magicals in the mundane world. More precisely, you will become our face in the place the mundanes call the United Nations. Your gift and character are well-suited to it."
Ruben's mind moved at once through position, access, and intelligence, with diplomatic immunity in one hand and a knife under the table in the other. The scale alone was enough to make his pulse jump.
"Oh, and before I forget."
A sphere of turquoise light crossed the space between them and struck Ruben in the chest.
There was no chant, a whisper, a wand movement or even a visible effort.
The force did not hurt. Ruben inhaled sharply and sat very still while the magic moved through him.
-
Corvus watched him with professional interest.
Ruben Goldstein was a tall and lean man with a handsome face and shoulder-length black hair. He was born with a talent rare enough to matter. Natural Legilimency was uncommon. Especially when coupled with discipline, professional intelligence work, and a functioning moral code was rarer still. His Shadows had invited him for precisely that reason.
Veritas Essentia unfolded around Ruben and pulled outward. His soul pattern enlarged into a clear circular field marked by moving lines, flares, and clustered traits that only Corvus was presently equipped to read cleanly.
He found the one he wanted quickly.
Corvus memorised the configuration and let the spell drop.
Ruben exhaled slowly. "I dislike not knowing what that spell was."
"You will live." Corvus leaned back and glanced toward the desk. Several parchments rose at once, crossed the room, and came to rest on the low table between them. A quill followed, black shaft, silver nib, and a point already bright with enchanted readiness.
Ruben looked at the first page and was almost offended by how quickly the scene had become contractual.
Then again, he had expected contracts from the moment he was told he had been invited by a secret organisation with masks and private transport.
He read.
Appointment as magical ambassador to the United Nations. Authority bounded by direct service to Mater Magica Aeterna. Mandatory confidentiality and intelligence gathering obligations. The interesting part was the operational coordination with Black Spire.
No sale, transfer, or concealment of information collected under office.
Ruben read every line twice. He was not foolish enough to sign a magical contract blindly, and not arrogant enough to assume he could outplay the drafter.
When he finished, he let out a quiet breath.
"So the position is not one I may decline."
Corvus did not insult him with a lie. "No."
That honesty, limited though it was, made the room easier to bear.
Ruben picked up the blood quill. "In that case, let us preserve the illusion that I was consulted."
He signed.
--
Corvus returned to the laboratories beneath the Nest before the hour had turned.
Time arrays were doing their work. Children who would otherwise still have been in early infancy had already moved forward under accelerated flow into more revealing stages. That was the point. An elder blood trial meant little if one had to wait months or years for the trait to announce itself properly.
He passed through the outer ward, let the secondary seal recognise him, and entered the main chamber.
The air smelled of clean stone, alchemical sterilisation, milk, and the faint metallic edge that always clung to work involving blood and runes.
The Thanatos child slept inside its contained array with the decayin and siphoning aura tucked close to the skin like a second blanket. The aura was linked to the infant's hunger and curiosity.
The Hades child flickered once, vanished for half a second, and returned with a fist full of shadow that dispersed a moment later.
Corvus went to the third line first; the Hekate blood children were awake.
All three had been found in different places last night, despite reinforced wards and doubled anchors. One particularly irritated Unspeakable, who had been convinced his latest ward work would hold anything short of Corvus. The children had ignored his opinion completely.
Now they sat in separate cradles, looking far too calm for their age. One stared at the ceiling with wide eyes. Another had fallen asleep with one hand through the blanket.
Corvus reached for Replication; this time, the traits were visible.
The children had digested enough of the blood, and enough time had passed in the arrays that the inherited structures became defined.
-
Now it was possible.
Now Abydos could be repeated properly.
He moved to the main table, cleared a space with telekinesis, and pulled fresh parchment toward himself. The old ritual from Abydos was too crude for what he truly wanted. He did not require temple servants.
What he needed were prototypes, blood banks to prepare him for the inevitable clash between him and the Elders.
He was configuring the ritual to create demigods. In the practical sense. Modified beings carrying defined elder traits, built to grow under his structure, and useful enough to bleed for him when needed.
He was not cruel enough to experiment on infants.
He began planning the new ritual at once. The first stage was blood choice. The second, stabilisation under forced growth. The third was making sure the pattern would be permanent.
Blood alone created drift, potential, and mutation. To create something repeatable, he would need the trait to be permanently embedded. Not the whole soul pattern of an Architect, the only available one was Thanatos.
He stopped writing and looked up.
Thanatos, there it was again. The creature would make the cleanest model.
An elder underling, specialised, stable, and already isolated from his peers. If Corvus could examine the full arrangement of Thanatos's traits and pattern, not merely blood or one trait at a time, but the soul and imposed function, then the rest of the work would accelerate.
Would Thanatos allow it? Unlikely. Would he understand the question if dressed properly? Perhaps.
Would Corvus allow that problem to remain unsolved if cooperation failed?
No. No, he would not.
He set the quill to parchment and returned to drawing the revised array.