mr. holmes, apologies for summoning you like this. i'm sure it's quite a mystery as to where you are, and who i am.
yes, well, it's standard procedure, i suppose.
sherlock holmes, ambassador standish from america and lord coward, the home secretary.
be as skeptical as you like -- but our secret systems have steered the world towards the greater good for centuries. the danger is that they can also be exploited for more nefarious purposes.
very few people are privy to that information, and we want to keep it that way.
he was conceived during one of our rituals. his mother wasn't my wife, but she shared our beliefs. she was a powerful practitioner. though not enough to survive giving birth to him.
we were young. it was before we fully understood the powers we were dealing with.
death followed him wherever he went, from his birth to arms he made and sold. what family he had tended to.  not survive. no one could prove anything of course, but we all knew --
the boy was a curse. i didn't have the courage either to take him in or to --
we've done our best to stop him ourselves, but it's not enough.
-- he's going to raise a force that will alter the very course of our world. we need you to find him and stop him before he does.
what is it?
no thank you, perigrine, i'm going to bed. you won't let those figs go to waste, will you?