The silence of the alleyway was not broken by a word, but by two sharp, rhythmic cracks that echoed off the stone walls like the snapping of dry wood.
Gunshots.
Out of the freezing darkness of the shadows stepped the man with the amber eyes.
That was the man he had done the divination for.
Lucien.
Now he wore a mask—a bone-white visage, cracked and eerily human, its surface engraved with faint runes that seemed to pulse with an inner, sickly light. Threads of silver were woven through the bone like veins of moonlight, and a thin, spectral mist seeped from the edges, curling across the man's chest.
His amber eyes burned with an unnatural intensity through the hollow sockets.
As he stepped into the dim light of the street lamps, he casually brushed a layer of grey ash from his sleeve—ash that had no business being there, as if he had just stepped through a furnace.
With a masterfully fluid motion, Lucien spun his twin pistols, the metal glinting in the dark, and slotted them into their holsters with a synchronized click.
The display of martial skill was so absolute it made Faust's earlier card tricks feel like the clumsy fumblings of a child.
'I should have brought the revolver,' Faust cursed inwardly, his mind racing back to the baggage he'd left in the circus wagon.
The heavy iron he'd carried through the wilds of North America was meters away, leaving him armed only with bells and Tarot Cards.
He made a mental note: he would never again walk unarmed.
"Is it finished?" Lybid asked, her emerald eyes fixed on the darkness Lucien had emerged from.
Lucien nodded, his voice distorted by the mask, sounding like gravel being ground in a silver bowl.
"For now." He turned his glowing gaze toward Mephisto. "Do not worry, Fool. We have questions. Answer them, and you may return to your circus. Until then, you must come with us."
Not daring to argue with a man who carried the scent of death and the weight of a firearm, Mephisto followed.
The jingle of his bells felt like a mockery in the heavy silence.
They navigated the labyrinthine streets of Amsterdam until the towering, gothic silhouette of the Oude Kerk loomed over them.
As they entered the massive stone sanctuary, Faust felt the familiar, cold shivers of dread.
The high, vaulted ceilings and the smell of frankincense felt like a weight on his chest.
He had never liked churches; to him, they were places where the stones remembered things better left forgotten.
To his surprise, a Bishop in heavy, ornate robes was waiting in the nave.
As Lucien approached, the Bishop did not offer a blessing—he bowed.
It was a deep, subservient gesture that made Faust's skin crawl.
Even back in Germany, the high clergy had never shown such deference to his foster father, a Duke of the realm.
'Who is this man?' Faust wondered. 'Royalty?'
'Or something even higher in the shadow of the Inquisition?'
Lucien leaned in close to the Bishop.
Faust, his hearing amplified by his own strange biology, caught the low, whispered French:
"Ce monde n'est ni juste ni clair,
mais nous marchons sans lumière."
The Bishop nodded solemnly, his face pale. Without a word, he led the trio toward a massive, ancient tapestry depicting the Archangel Michael casting down the Great Serpent.
The Bishop pulled back the heavy fabric, revealing a narrow, stone doorway and a spiral staircase that coiled deep into the earth.
Lybid gave Mephisto a firm nudge.
"After you, Magician."
Mephisto looked desperately at the Bishop, hoping for a shred of human mercy, but the old man only offered a thin, enigmatic smile and traced the sign of the cross in the air toward him.
They descended for what felt like miles.
The air turned damp and smelled of ancient dust and salt.
Finally, the stairs opened into a vast, subterranean cavern.
It was a space of staggering proportions, dimly lit by flickering torches, yet it felt hollow.
The architecture suggested a place meant to hold hundreds, but only a handful of figures moved through the gloom.
"Fewer and fewer come to the well," Lybid remarked, her voice echoing in the cavernous silence. "We may have to close this branch entirely if the light continues to fade."
"Focus, Lybid," Lucien rasped.
They stepped deeper into the cave, and Faust's eyes widened.
"Don't get distracted and follow us."
Ahead of them, emerging from the rock, was a subterranean bazaar—a black market of forbidden things that mirrored the illicit trade hubs he had seen in the New World.
Here, in the belly of Amsterdam, the laws of the surface did not exist.