The Power ran through me, and the chill of it scorched my fingers. Arina put up a shield—she didn’t understand what I was doing.

Some things are hard to understand for someone who has been a Dark One for too long.

The Twilight shuddered as the white stone walls rose up through it. Space seemed to expand: the table at which the children were sitting was carried off into the distance, the ceiling dissolved, and its place was taken by a gleaming white dome; the floor was covered over with marble slabs.

I didn’t have quite enough Power after all. But I had an unlimited source right beside me: I reached out to my daughter and scooped some up—and the space around me assumed its final form.

A round hall about ten meters in diameter, with a domed ceiling.

No windows and no doors.

Nothing.

Gleaming white stone, in which Arina and I were imprisoned.

Forever.

The Sarcophagus of Time—the Inquisition’s most terrible spell of all. A spell that worked on the victim and the executioner.

“You’ve lost your mind,” Arina whispered, and sat down on the floor.

“Probably,” I said, sitting down beside her.

There was air in there and it would probably always stay fresh.

There was even Twilight—but there was no way out of the Sarcophagus onto any of its levels.

If Edgar had been right, prisoners in the Sarcophagus didn’t feel either hunger or thirst.

They were allowed to carry on going out of their minds for all eternity, without any physical suffering.

“It’s impossible to break open,” said Arina. “Do you understand? There’s no way. Not even your daughter can do it.”

I shrugged.

A patch of white stone ten meters across. A capsule adrift in eternity.

I wondered if the expansion of the Universe would be followed by contraction and a new Big Bang. If it was, then we had some kind of chance.

I started laughing, imagining billions of years of incarceration. Arina reached out and gave me a resounding slap on the cheek.

I stopped laughing.

“Do you really believe him?” Arina asked. “The Twilight?”

“I don’t know. The only thing I do believe is that people make their own destiny. People, and not the Twilight. And not you and me.”

Arina said nothing for a moment, then spread her arms helplessly.

“Well . . . we’ll never know the answer now, anyway. Never.”

I reached into my pocket, took out the pack of cigarettes, and glanced into it. Two left.

There was no point in economizing in the face of eternity.

“Want one?” I asked.

Arina nodded feebly. She wasn’t even frightened—after all, she had been heading for death anyway. She was thoughtful. As if what I’d done had astounded her.

I stuck both cigarettes in my mouth, lit them, and handed one to Arina. She looked at me in surprise.