Chapter 681

Evenson’s carefully planned opening move was proceeding much as expected.

The war itself was still some distance away. Agatha needed time to purge her opposition, while Evenson’s own preparations were even more time-consuming.

The Heart of Magic soldiers were the real bottleneck.

His current plan was to modify twenty people every week. At that rate, converting all five hundred would take nearly six months. Afterward, they would still need extensive training and conditioning. From start to finish, the entire process would take roughly eight months.

There was no shortcut.

For now, all Evenson could do was keep things moving, one step at a time.

Once the day’s business was settled, Clea took a sip from her brilliantly colored cocktail. Her eyes shifted toward Evenson.

"You’ve shown me everything you’ve built here," she said. "So I should return the favor. Come with me to Kamar-Taj later. I’ll show you around the Three Sanctums."

"The Three Sanctums?"

Evenson swirled his drink thoughtfully.

"Pass. Sounds like a lot of trouble, and I’m not particularly interested in the place."

He meant it.

Kamar-Taj’s magic operated on principles completely different from his own, and from Evenson’s perspective, its methods were painfully limited. He genuinely had little interest in it.

Unfortunately, there were some truths better left inside one’s head.

Clea’s expression immediately darkened.

"You’re going."

"Fine. Fine. I’ll go."

Evenson realized his mistake and hurried to recover.

"Come to think of it, we’ve known each other for quite a while, and I’ve never formally visited Kamar-Taj. I’ll leave the introductions to you."

"That’s better."

Clea nodded, satisfied.

Her insistence had little to do with showing off or seeking some sort of balance between them. The problem was that the Ancient One had recently decided to make her Kamar-Taj’s shadow Sorcerer Supreme.

The title sounded impressive.

The job terrified her.

What exactly was a shadow Sorcerer Supreme supposed to do?

Clea had absolutely no idea.

She could confidently talk about becoming the roots buried deep beneath the earth, supporting everything from the shadows. That part was easy.

But there was a rather important distinction between being the power behind the scenes and becoming the person everyone blamed whenever something went wrong.

Being the one who did the dirty work already meant carrying plenty of responsibility. If she handled things badly, however, every ugly problem would eventually land on her doorstep.

And she had no idea how to build the kind of support network she would need.

Then there was Evenson.

The man was frighteningly good at manipulating people.

Clea had watched him scheme his way through one problem after another. He was clearly an extremely devious...

No.

An extremely clever person.

That was why she had decided to bring him to Kamar-Taj.

At the very least, she could introduce him to the people there and let him get a feel for the place. More importantly, perhaps he could help her identify the people she could rely on.

With Evenson finally agreeing, Clea quietly breathed a sigh of relief.

The Eredar Twins, meanwhile, had no objections.

They had no idea what was actually going through Clea’s head. As far as they were concerned, the little wildcat simply wanted to show off her own territory.

Showing off?

The twins were unimpressed.

I’d call it embarrassing herself.

That New York Sanctum of theirs had certainly been talked up enough. Yet the twins had barely exerted themselves before taking control of its ley line, leaving those normally arrogant sorcerers too frightened to even use their own cold-weather magic.

What exactly was there to brag about?

While the twins were silently looking down on Kamar-Taj, Salorass’s phone suddenly rang.

She pulled it out with an irritated sigh.

It was Moira.

"What is it?"

She listened for a moment.

"Okay. Got it."

Salorass ended the call and casually put her phone away, apparently unconcerned.

Evenson, however, immediately noticed.

"What happened?"

He knew Moira was currently in charge of the Black Chapter. Ordinary matters would never require her to contact the twins personally. If she’d gone out of her way to make a call, it was probably something important.

"Wilson Fisk is here," Salorass said lightly.

"Oh. The fat guy from Hell’s Kitchen."

Evenson remembered him.

Wilson Fisk, the man who effectively ruled Hell’s Kitchen’s criminal underworld, was currently using their company to launder his money.

"What does he want? Is he unhappy with our cut? Did he come to negotiate?"

A sinister smile tugged at Evenson’s lips.

The last time the Hand had sent people to the company’s top floor, they’d tried to intimidate the twins by leaving their fingerprints everywhere, hoping to demonstrate their strength and force the company to launder their money.

Instead, every one of them had ended up in Moira’s hands.

Fresh recruits.

Later, Madame Gao, one of the Five Fingers, had personally come to settle the matter. She seemed to have some ability of her own and had immediately recognized just how terrifying the Eredar Twins were.

The deal had eventually gone through.

But considering the percentage they were paying, it was more accurate to call the arrangement a life-preservation fee.

"He wouldn’t dare," Salorass said dismissively.

As far as she was concerned, Wilson Fisk was hardly worth mentioning.

"He brought a woman who’s dying. He wants us to save her."

Wilson Fisk was, by any reasonable measure, the undisputed king of organized crime in Hell’s Kitchen.

His influence extended far beyond the streets, too. He had deep connections throughout the local justice system. At least two-thirds of the police were on his payroll, while a substantial number of prosecutors and judges were willing to work for him.

In Hell’s Kitchen, a word from Fisk could carry more weight than one from the mayor.

Yet Fisk hadn’t been born into wealth.

He wasn’t the heir to some criminal dynasty.

His origins were remarkably humble.

His life was practically a textbook example of the old saying: thirty years east of the river, thirty years west. Never look down on a poor young man.

Fisk had grown up in an ordinary family in Hell’s Kitchen. As a child, he had been withdrawn, almost painfully so, and his father had been an abusive drunk with a vicious temper.

Everything Fisk possessed now had been built with his own hands.

That kind of self-made crime lord tended to share one particular trait.

They trusted almost no one.

Fisk was especially suspicious because of what he’d endured during his childhood.

Despite commanding an enormous criminal empire, there was only one person he genuinely trusted.

His right-hand man, Wesley.

But there was another side to Fisk that almost nobody ever saw.

For a man who rarely trusted anyone, falling in love had hit him like a tidal wave.

Some time ago, Fisk had attended a small art exhibition. One particular painting caught his attention.

Then he met the woman who had painted it.

Vanessa.

He fell for her almost immediately.

For perhaps the first time in his life, Wilson Fisk had found someone he truly loved.

Then everything went wrong.

At a charity dinner, Vanessa was poisoned.

She had been rushed to the hospital in time to save her life, but she remained unconscious.

The doctors had warned that even if she woke, the poisoning would likely leave severe lasting complications.

Fisk had been left helpless, his heart sinking as he watched the woman he loved lie motionless in a hospital bed.

Then one of the doctors had given him the only answer they had.

"With modern medicine, this is the best result we can hope for. If you want her completely cured, though..."

The doctor hesitated.

"It isn’t impossible."

Fisk looked up.

"There is only one place in the world that might be able to do it."