Katabasis

The first chapter opens with a quotation from Plato’s Phaedo, which proposes that true philosophers pursue death and so should not be discontent when their time comes.

Ever since the untimely death of magick student Alice Law’s dissertation advisor, Professor Jacob Grimes of Cambridge University, she has been researching how to venture into Hell and back to retrieve him from Lord Yama. She draws her chalk inscription, but is interrupted by her rival, Peter Murdoch. He is naturally gifted at magick, well-versed in the machinations of the academic institution, and can tell from the inscription where she is going. He alters her inscription so it can transport both of them. 

Alice thinks back to the past few months, how all the research she needed for the journey would disappear when she needed it, and realizes Peter has been researching the same thing. Realizing she has imperfect knowledge, she agrees to go together. Peter asks if she is prepared to pay the price for their descent: Half their remaining lifespans. They both are willing to pay.

Alice blames herself for Grimes’s death. He delegated double-checking his pentagrams to his graduate students.