The Same Type

Steve Rogers gritted his teeth as he watched Avengers agents being escorted past the cells one by one. Their numbers were far fewer than the combined carrying capacity of Shield One and Falcon One, not even half, and most of them were wounded, having received only rudimentary treatment so far. The pilot of Shield One had gone mad and flown the plane into the sea, killing at least half the agents. After the remaining survivors boarded Falcon One, they were raked by machine-gun fire from the Sisterhood's heavy weapons team. Though he had protected some people with his shield, several agents were still destroyed alongside the Falcon One Quinjet by exploding large-caliber rounds. Falcon had also suffered minor injuries and was among those being escorted.

Cassilius had not lied. Some agents could indeed have survived, but had died on the tarmac because of his stubbornness. Captain Rogers could see the Arcanists reflected in the agents' hatred, and that emotion seemed to be spreading. Even Stark had grown somewhat angry—he kept making strange noises, whistling, waving at the escort party, cursing and shouting, denouncing how barbaric and cruel this was in an attempt to draw their attention.

But to the Arcanists escorting them, neither the agents' hatred nor Stark's anger meant anything. They were not naive apprentices, but true Arcanists who had killed monsters. During the previous period, these agents had been kept under strict guard—their mouths sealed, their limbs immobilized with metal, even their fingers unable to move. This was done to prevent any corrupted among them from using their own lives to cast spells, draw foul runes, and summon horrifying entities into the real universe. This was experience Kamar-Taj had accumulated through more than a thousand years of repeated failure, learning, and reflection; it was knowledge bought with blood.