it goes deeper. that statement is about getting involved with someone you should’ve known better not to (but it’s not meant as a cautionary tale, jack talks about agnes as if she was an inevitability), and it’s obviously meant to be a straight parallel with jon’s own, current obsession with finding out what’s going on at the institute, i.e. with the beholding. but the secret he is obsessed with figuring out is, well, it’s elias! elias killed gertrude. the tunnels are hiding elias’s history as jonah magnus. the entire institute exists to serve elias’s goals. elias has an apocalypse planned out with jon as its lynchpin. of course, jon doesn’t realise any of this yet, but burning desire is about his need to know—about elias.
MAG 67 - “Burning Desire” & Jon in MAG 47 - “Lost in the Crowd”
