Stephen says that the cycle must be halted, the wheel stopped. And he insists that every medium corresponds to their time. A peasant during the Industrial Revolution, a black woman from the British colonies before decolonization, a poor teenager in the war whose butchery went unnoticed amid the general butchery of the time. That’s what we are, he says, and it’s possible that the Darkness feeds off that pain and exploitation. I don’t want that to be true, I told him once, and he replied that I would have the chance to try to make changes if I became leader. But I know he doesn’t think it’s possible.

After killing and mutilating everyone, Encarnación jumped out of the highest window of the house. She died instantly.

Stephen’s father, Pedro Margarall, found her body. He had left the house for a trivial reason: it was cold and they needed supplies: alcohol to start the fire; lightbulbs, because they burned out regularly; plus candles for the blackouts, some of which were related to the electricity system that failed in the war, others to the forces unleashed by the Ceremonials. He found the medium dead on the gravel, the dogs gone mad, and the Order murdered. Pedro Margarall was twenty years old, a student of philosophy and religion, and the son of a marquis: he didn’t know how to resolve absolutely anything. So, he packed his suitcase, took some pictures so he would be believed, and crossed the border before he could be arrested. He reached London with the notes taken by the scribes, because he was a meticulous Initiate even before the disaster. Florence and her mother asked him to stay with them.

Pedro and Florence rebuilt the Order during and after the war. She called a meeting attended by fewer than ten Initiates and announced that she was the new leader. Many spurned her, but others recognized her bravery. A purge had been necessary, she told them. My father was not obeying the Darkness but rather his own ambition, and he dragged us into unnecessary perversions. Florence did everything; Pedro’s help was consistent but minimal. She even personally took over the businesses in England, Argentina, South Africa, and Australia. Stephen says that his father, who is a scholar and a soft, delicate person, totally different from Florence, fell in love with her willpower. And she chose him not just because he was the only living witness of the massacre, but because he was, and still is, the person with the best intellectual training in the Order. Pedro Margarall is alive. I should call him by his title: the Marquis of Margarall. He is locked away at his house in Cadaqués, and refuses to see anyone except Stephen and Florence. He made a mistake with Eddie for which he cannot forgive himself. That willpower he fell in love with ended up destroying him.