That motive seemed oddly specific, didn't it? It's almost as though the Sage is trying to goad one of us in particular to act rather than providing a more generically "appealing" incentive.

[But she's sighing, too.]

I floated this idea to Madam Lutece on Sunday, but the longer I think about it, the less implausible it seems that from the start they were primarily interested in collecting twenty one souls.