"So, how long will it take you to find them?" Cyclops asked me.

"I haven't the faintest idea," I admitted as I sat down at their dinner table. Rogue and Gambit had left on their promised dinner date. Wolverine was out doing God knows what. Henry McCoy, the Beast, was sitting next to me. "I've never tried to find anyone before."

"Don't you have a crystal ball or something? Can't you just magic up their location?"

I nodded over to Emma. "She's a mind reader. Why doesn't she just read their minds?"

Emma took a sip of wine out of a very expensive looking glass. "It's not easy to locate a specific mind that I've never encountered before—especially a non-mutant mind."

"Again with the 'not a mutant' thing. You guys are going to give me a complex or something."

"You must forgive our esteemed leader, Kyle," Henry McCoy interjected. "It is has been a while since we had prolonged conversations with 'you people.'" He made quotation marks when he said "you people" and I decided right then that, hairy blue gorilla guy or not, he was my kinda guy.

"Hank—" Cyclops began. "You're making me sound like a bigot—"

"Yeah, yeah. I know. You're not a bigot. Some of your best friends aren't mutants." I took a drink of my lemonade. "Look, Cyclops—"

"Call me Scott when we're not in uniform, Kyle."

It was a peace offering from a man who wasn't exactly Mr. Personality, so I decided to accept it as such. "All right, Scott. Listen, I understand you guys have been around for a long time. You may even have met other sorcerers—"

"A former member of the New Mutants was a sorceress herself," Cyclops offered. "Illyana Rasputin, codename Magik. Perhaps you heard of her?"

"Because I should know all sorcerers just like you know every mutant?" I fixed him with an amused expression.

He squirmed uncomfortably.

Oh yeah. This was going to be fun.

"All right, Scott. I'll be serious—for once. Yes, I'm a sorcerer, but I'm not the Sorcerer Supreme. You may have met Doctor Strange or people who are in his weight class—who can do things like teleport across the dimensions heal fatal injuries, turn back time—that's not me. I haven't spent 50 years accumulating magical artifacts or spells. I don't have a crystal ball or a scrying lens, and I wouldn't know how to use them if I did have them." I took another sip of lemonade. "That doesn't mean I CAN'T help you—that I CAN'T find them. But it's going to take some work."

"How long?"

"I don't know. I'll get started on that tonight. After dinner." I took another sip of lemonade. "Can I have something stronger?"

"Of course, Wine?" Emma rose from the table.

"I'd rather have some Jack Daniels if you have it."

"You don't strike me as the whisky type, Kyle," Henry McCoy noted.

"I'm not. But needing something and wanting it are two different things."

I knew what I had to do, and I wasn't looking forward to it. I sure as hell wasn't going to do it sober.

Emma Frost said nothing, but I could feel her scratching at my mind again like a curious cat wanting to be let inside.

I gave her a look. "If I want visitors I'll put out a welcome mat."

"Of course, Kyle." She offered me that enigmatic smile.

Scott Summers looked at me. He looked at Emma Frost.

The Beast looked at me.

I shrugged. "I'll take that Jack Daniels now please."

I got a pleasant buzz on before I said good night to the X-Men. It wasn't enough to totally take away my anxiety over what I had in front of me, but at least it wasn't enough to make me throw up.

The Lady wasn't going to be pleased with me.

I set up protective wards around the room they had given me. The room would be effectively soundproofed. No one would be able to get in until I broke the wards or they expired. (Okay, another sorcerer of greater skill would be able to break them but you don't expect me to mention every possibility do you?)

And I took off all my clothes.

(No sense getting blood on them.)

And I sat down on a plastic sheet that I had gotten from sickbay.

I closed my eyes.

(Don't think about the blood. Don't think about it.)

"Lady."

The Lady was not one to engage in casual chats. Sometimes she would appear to me of her own volition, but she usually did not come unless there was reason or I asked—and asking was never a pleasant thing.

There was always a price to be paid for her help, and the price was always the same—blood.

"Lady, your disciple calls to you."

I could feel her presence grow stronger in my mind—an angry, dark presence—like a storm that's about to break.

"Kyle. My Kyle." Her accent wasn't American, but I could never really place it. "I am sorely disappointed in you."

"I grieve to have failed you, my Lady."

"You do not have the Uru. You have let yourself become involved in the affairs of these mutants. They have nothing to do with us. They have nothing to do with my plans."

"Our plans, my Lady." I tried to sound respectful, but I wasn't about to let her mistake me for her lackey. Disciple, yes. Student—without a doubt.

But lackey?

Never.

She was nothing more than a dark haired shadow in my mind—a pair of luminous green eyes was the only feature that she allowed me to see. Even so, I could see she was bowing her head. "Our plans."

"I believe that in helping the mutants our plans will be furthered. They will give me the funds I need to procure the Uru."

"You should have killed the Dark Elf."

"I don't do that."

"And now you find yourself needing my aid again." She laughed. "And we both know the price you will pay."

"Yes."

"What is it that you seek of me, my Kyle?"

"I need an Amulet of Seeing, and the knowledge to use it."

"A bold request."

"But necessary."

"This is no easy thing you ask of me, my Kyle. I have such an amulet but it will take considerable energy to send it to you. The knowledge to use it will require even more effort. The price you will pay is quite dear. More than you have paid at one time before. Are you QUITE certain that this is what you wish?"

"If I didn't know better, my Lady, I would almost say that you were concerned."

"I have invested considerable time in your education, Kyle. I would not relish having to start over again." Her voice hardened. "But do not confuse that with affection. I value you only so long as you are useful to me."

"I will remember, my Lady."

"Very well. You shall have your amulet and when you awaken you will have the skill to use it—if you awaken." Her eyes grew very large and her form began to lose its human shape, becoming something that I did not want to look at too closely. "Please try not to die, Kyle. I still have need of you."

Her eyes were very large—but not nearly as large as her teeth.

"Be strong, Kyle. Remember our plans."

I had done that often, over the years. When I had paid the price for the Lady's help, the thought of what I wanted—why I was paying that price—was the only thing that helped me live with the pain.

But not this time.

I did not think of power. I did not think of the plan. I did not think of how I would pay back those who had harmed me.

Not this time.

This time I thought of Rogue.

And that almost—almost—made what was to come bearable.

And then the Lady was upon me and I knew nothing but pain.