I don’t know whether there will ever be love between Daniel and Lucia. Even now that the pressure of relentless childbirth is off her, nobody seems to know how her body will adjust in the future. And she is damaged. She has never heard what became of her first child, who must have been in one of those immense crèches on that fateful day. I think that is a wound that will never heal. But at least in Daniel, and his family, she has found good friends.

Sometimes, though, I wonder about Lucia’s true destiny.

In all the reports about the Crypt, what was most notable for me was what was missing. The little carved matres, for instance, which Regina had brought from Roman Britain—the symbolic core of her family, and then of the Order. They were never mentioned, never found.

Peter told me that among some species of social insects the colonies breed by sending out a queen and a few workers, to start a colony all over again. I think I will try to keep watch on Lucia and her young family.

As for my sister, I haven’t seen Rosa since I lost sight of her in the crush, deep in the Crypt. I don’t think she could have gone back to the Order, though. In the end she knew too much—more than she was supposed to know—and yet she needed to know it. It must be necessary from time to time for the Order to throw up somebody like Rosa with an overview, somebody capable of perceiving greater scales, more complex threats. Peter’s understanding was itself a threat to the Order—and she had to develop an equivalent understanding to beat him. But a drone isn’t supposed to know she’s in a hive. Ignorance is strength. In the end she saved the Order by sacrificing herself, as a good drone should, and knew what she was doing every step of the way.

Thus I found my sister, and lost her again.

There are other loose ends I can’t resist tugging on.

I’ve been reading about eusocial organisms. I’ve learned that one characteristic of hives, just as much as the sterility of the workers and the rest, is suicide—the willingness of a drone to sacrifice itself for the greater good, and so for the long-term interests of its genetic heritage. You see it when a termite mound is broken open, or a predator tries to get into a mole rat colony. It’s seen as proof by the biologists that the key organism is the global community, the hive, not the individual, for the individual acts completely selflessly. It was certainly true of the Order. When the Crypt was attacked, such as during the Sack of Rome, some of the members gave their lives to save the rest.