Dearest Sire, My Lady Omega

Bellatrix walks quickly up the stairs from the Library foyer to Omega’s office, each step soundless and urgent. The massive door stands closed before her but she does not hesitate to breach its lock. Placing one hand above it, she takes a breath…and with a pop and click, the workings turn and the door opens. Straight past Omega’s desk she goes, to the mahogany secretary standing flush against the rear wall. She opens the lower desk, studying the arrangement of drawers, doors and slots within it. Her fingers glide over the locked prospect door, she taps…another click and the little door opens revealing two of valanced pigeonholes above a drawer. She slides the drawer open and lifts out a letter that is worn with reading and folded in half.

Dearest Sire, My Lady Omega,

Even now, I will not express sentiments that I do not feel. Not when writing to you of such grave matters. I was born into the Institute, and served it as a Ward, and in all my long years and travels, nowhere else has ever come this close to being home for me. There is much I still do not understand about my Nature, even after all my work with Pontifex. But I do know that I cannot serve you unless I am whole. Just as a weapon must not have free will, neither can it function when deprived of its essential mechanism. Lorne holds that now, and I must have it back. Without my vision, I am raveling, the paths of all my pasts and presents bleeding one into the other. I am in each instant now Nareth, Erzebet, Jack, Labyrinth, La Bête de Gevaudan, and a hundred other identities assumed or stolen in my former travels. Only by the greatest force of will can I focus to write this. For the second time, I go down to the Pit. I believe I shall not return, that I go to my final death, or something far worse. But I am helpless to do otherwise. I will be whole, or there is no reason for me to be. Perhaps there were other routes open to me in this pursuit, but it is my failing that has brought me here, so it must be my quest. If I fall, please be kind to Bellatrix, as she has served me well, and take care of young Abigel. I know you will remember me, so long as you exist, and, for that reason alone, I wish now I could feel simple regret, that my creators had so endowed me. I have left my armband on the table upstairs. I must close this now. I am expected.

Nareth