The medium rose. He walked straight, focused, his eyes very open and damp. Tali got closer. She could smell his sweat—his body was drenched under the tunic; he smelled of sea and salt and something acidic. Then she withdrew. She didn’t want him to mark her. The medium raised his head and seemed to sniff the night. The fine halo around him twisted and wound and followed him vaguely, as if his body were steaming. The Initiates brought him those among them who had been wounded by the Darkness. The medium—Tali couldn’t call him Juan now, she didn’t recognize him—moved his black hands over the wounds and burned them. The Initiates screamed in pain as he cauterized their wounds, but only for an instant, because the loss of a member, they believed, marked them as chosen favorites. After they were healed, they cried with joy. Hands and arms lost to the Darkness were new extremities now, torn and bitten stumps. The Darkness grew smaller and smaller and more Initiates threw themselves at the medium’s feet—like hungry dogs, thought Tali—offering him their naked bodies. There were many of them this time: many who were begging for a bread crumb, jostling, some of them scratching each other. Finally, the medium acceded. In general, he marked very few people. This time he chose a thin girl with a flat chest and narrow hips who was far from the front row of howling Initiates, a girl who stood and pleaded please, moving her lips, a girl who was not a wolf or a submissive dog: a girl who was like a snake, with her small eyes and flat nose. The medium approached her, circled her with his slow steps, and used three of his golden nails to scratch her back with one swipe. The blood streamed down her bare legs, drew a dark belt around her: the Initiates watched open-mouthed. Later, they would say the wounds were so deep they could see her spine and ribs. The girl stumbled but the medium steadied her, and with his other hand, which was gradually returning to normal—his nails were no longer yellow claws, now they were only deformed and black, rheumatic—he caressed her wounded back. And it stopped bleeding. And the wounds transformed into dark scars, as if the hand were laden with time. Then he dropped the girl to the ground and walked away, slowly, toward the house. The black halo was gone. The last thing the Initiates saw was that, when he turned along the path of candles, he still had black hands. It was forbidden for them to follow him. Only Stephen and a select group were authorized to go with him. Tali was among the chosen few, because the medium had demanded it and he was granted certain whims.

The Initiates didn’t know what happened afterward, the toll the Ceremonial took on the medium’s body. They had to remain beside the altar and follow Florence in the closing rites, when the mutilated ones were anointed in the circles, the blood was collected, the texts read, the dead removed. Dawn, still far away, marked the end of the Ceremonial.