Opening
Back in Cambridge, Mariana Andros tries to regain control—only to find her sanctuary violated and the circle around her closing in. A killer’s confession darkens the backdrop, and a staged “therapy” session turns into open combat as Edward Fosca pulls off a devastating reveal: Mariana’s niece, Zoe, sits among the Maidens. The result is a shift from quiet suspicion to psychological warfare, with Mariana isolated and reeling.
What Happens
Chapter 61
Mariana returns to her college and, passing Morris the head porter, feels sick remembering his thinly veiled threats. She refuses to acknowledge him, deciding to keep his menace secret until she has proof—she’ll give him “enough rope to hang himself.” A sudden urge to call Fred alarms her; feelings for him feel like a betrayal of Sebastian.
At her staircase, the door to her rooms hangs ajar. Inside, everything is gutted—clothes shredded, drawers overturned, belongings strewn across the floor. She calls Morris and the police. The officers suggest an “inside job”—some petty, spiteful student—since nothing seems stolen. Morris smirks, asking whom she has upset.
When they mention fingerprints, Mariana sees it: a cross carved deep into her mahogany desk. Her mind leaps to Henry Booth, the religiously fixated patient from her therapy group. Convinced she knows who did this, she waves off further investigation. Alone in the wreckage, she touches the gouged cross and, for the first time, truly fears Henry.
Chapter 62
In an italicized diary entry, the killer narrates a childhood wound that never heals. The day after their twelfth birthday, their mother—black eye visible, courtesy of an abusive father—announces she is leaving. Relief curdles to horror: she is not taking the child with her. The narrator feels abandoned, sacrificed.
A switch flips. Mother changes from victim to betrayer—someone who watched and did nothing, who asks the child to keep her departure secret as if that could help. Rage ignites. That night, the narrator dreams of decapitating their mother with a carving knife, hiding the head in a knitting bag. Waking, they pad to the kitchen and examine the largest knife for blood as the mother walks in—alive. The disappointment they feel at the unreality of the dream exposes the depth of their hatred and the erosion of love. The confession roots the killer’s psyche in Childhood Trauma and Its Consequences.
Chapter 63
Over breakfast, Mariana tells Zoe and Clarissa that Ruth, her former supervisor, advised convening a group therapy session with the Maidens. Zoe doesn’t want to go but agrees Mariana can try—though the girls won’t come without backing from their professor.
Right then, Edward Fosca appears and takes his seat at high table. Mariana approaches and asks him to persuade the Maidens to attend a session that afternoon. He smiles, amused by her directness, and agrees—on one condition: he must be present. Mariana objects; his presence would stifle the students. Fosca reframes it: he must “protect” them—from her. The last words he throws over his shoulder, low and chilling—“From you, Mariana. From you”—turn the session into a duel.
Chapter 64
At five o’clock, Mariana sets nine chairs in a circle in the Old Combination Room. The five remaining Maidens file in—faces closed, defiant, clearly attending only under orders. The wall of hostility makes Mariana feel like a schoolyard outcast. Serena, daughter of Morris, looks particularly mortified and avoids her eyes.
Mariana opens by acknowledging the three empty chairs—meant to hold space for those lost. Carla, the sharp-tongued leader, scoffs; naming the chairs for the dead (including Tara Hampton and Veronica) is “stupid.” The girls show disdain, not grief, calling their dead friends careless. The coldness feels unnatural. Thinking of Henry’s dysfunctional London group, Mariana realizes the Maidens aren’t uniting against an outside threat because the threat sits among them. The door opens. Fosca steps in, smiling: “May I join you?”
Chapter 65
Fosca sits, and the circle tightens. Mariana seizes his favorite terrain and turns it on him: Greek Mythology and Tragedy. She invokes Iphigenia, the daughter sacrificed by Agamemnon. Carla and the others parrot the orthodox reading: Iphigenia earns tragic stature in a noble death. Mariana dismantles it. Iphigenia is a girl mistaking abuse for love, handed to “a madman, an infanticidal psychopath.” If she woke up, Mariana says, she would seize the axe and “become the goddess.”
She means the Maidens. She also means Fosca—casting him as Agamemnon, the dangerous father. Fosca remains smooth, belittling her method and pointing out a flaw: if those empty chairs are for the dead, one chair is still missing. He directs Serena to fetch it. She places another chair in the circle. With a smile, Fosca reveals the final member—and detonates Mariana’s world. The last chair is for Zoe. The circle closes, and the room turns cruel. The twist lands as a calculated act of Deception and Betrayal.
Character Development
Mariana pushes from suspicion to confrontation, wielding myth and therapeutic technique as her weapons—only to have her trust shattered from within. Fear of Henry, grief for Sebastian, and a flicker of longing for Fred expose a rawer, more vulnerable core.
- Mariana: Strategic and brave—she provokes Fosca on his own turf and reframes Iphigenia to empower the girls—but she is outmaneuvered and isolated by Zoe’s secret. Her resolve (“give him enough rope”) coexists with shaken confidence and private fear.
- Edward Fosca: Polished, coercive, and sadistic. He cloaks control in concern (“protecting” his students), uses the room as a stage, and derives pleasure from humiliating Mariana. His charisma carries a cult-leader chill.
- The Killer: The diary entry crystallizes maternal rage and abandonment into a psyche that equates intimacy with betrayal and violence. The dream of murder reads like a rehearsal for future acts.
- Zoe: The reveal recasts her overnight—from grieving niece and ally to a participant in the cultic circle. Every earlier confidence now feels staged; her loyalty to Mariana is suddenly suspect.
Themes & Symbols
The book’s central argument unfolds as a fight over stories. Mariana and Fosca battle to control the meaning of myth: she treats it as a tool for recognition and resistance, while he wields it to sanctify submission. The girls’ parroting of his reading shows how intellectual glamour can anesthetize empathy and normalize harm.
Deception and broken trust run through every layer. The killer’s childhood betrayal primes a lifetime of rage; Mariana’s circle of care collapses with Zoe’s exposure; the therapy session masquerades as healing but becomes a spectacle. Appearance versus reality saturates Cambridge: respectable rooms hide cultish loyalties; “protection” masks predation; grief gives way to contempt.
- The Empty Chairs: Intended as a therapeutic memorial, they are repurposed by Fosca into a taunt. When he adds a chair for Zoe, the symbol flips—from mourning to exclusion, isolating Mariana rather than uniting the group.
- The Carved Cross: A menacing mark that redirects suspicion to Henry, functioning as a physical red herring and a psychological trap that keeps Mariana looking away from the real threat.
Key Quotes
“From you, Mariana. From you.”
- Fosca reframes the session’s danger, casting Mariana as the threat to his students. The repetition personalizes the menace and signals that the coming “therapy” is actually a duel for control.
“May I join you?”
- Spoken at the doorway, the line sounds polite but operates as a power move. Fosca inserts himself into a space designed for safety, turning the circle into a stage he commands.
“...seize the axe and become the goddess.”
- Mariana’s revision of Iphigenia reframes passive sacrifice as active resistance. It’s both a direct appeal to the Maidens to reject Fosca and a provocation that threatens his authority.
“Enough rope to hang himself.”
- Mariana’s private strategy with Morris captures her investigative method: patience, documentation, and restraint. It contrasts sharply with Fosca’s theatrical aggression.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters flip the novel from inquiry to confrontation. The killer’s confession provides motive—abandonment calcified into violence—while the group session crystallizes the battle for the Maidens’ minds. Fosca’s reveal that Zoe belongs inside the circle obliterates Mariana’s last refuge, forcing a full re-evaluation of alliances and accelerating the story toward its climax. The result is a tightened noose: Mariana stands alone, while myth, memory, and manipulation converge against her.