The Society drops Damien and Emilia into a war against a system, not just an enemy, built on control, repetition, and old institutional rot. Damien opens with “I should be dead.” Why was that the right place to start Book Three, and what does that shift cost him?

From the very beginning, the moment we’re introduced to Damien in Book 1, The Orphan Maker, he’s already living on a literal deadline. His days were numbered from the start. So the fact that he’s still alive by Book 3 is nothing short of a miracle… or borrowed time. Grace, if you will.

And I think, deep down, all of us know we’re living on borrowed time too, even if we aren’t as painfully aware of it as Damien is.

That’s why “I should be dead” felt like the right place to begin Book 3. Beneath the supernatural conflict and the war against these massive systems of control, the story is really asking a very human question: what do we do with the time we’ve been given, especially once we become fully aware that it can run out?

For Damien, that awareness doesn’t soften him. It pushes him deeper into what he believes is his purpose. He doubles down on his obsessions, his convictions, and the consequences of the choices he’s been making since Book 1. He keeps moving forward even when the cost keeps rising.

And the cost is steep.

Readers who know my work already know that my stories don’t really operate with plot armor, and Book 3 explores that even further. The characters are forced to confront the weight of their decisions in very real ways.

Damien and Emilia’s dynamic is described as two dangerous people slowly learning where the other’s limits are. How do you write an alliance that has genuine tension without tipping into either forced antagonism or easy trust?

For me, the key is making sure both characters have valid reasons not to trust each other. Damien and Emilia aren’t being antagonistic just for drama. They’re both dangerous people with very different histories, loyalties, and survival instincts. They’ve both seen betrayal, violence, and manipulation up close, so caution feels natural to them.

At the same time, I didn’t want them constantly fighting just for the sake of tension. Real alliances, especially between capable people, usually form through necessity first. Then, they slowly begin to understand each other’s limits, principles, and patterns. They learn what the other person is willing to do, and more importantly, what they’re unwilling to do.

I think that’s where the tension becomes interesting. It’s not just “Will they betray each other?” It becomes, “How much of themselves are they willing to reveal?” Because both Damien and Emilia are constantly weighing risk against vulnerability.

And in a world as brutal and unforgiving as theirs, trust isn’t built through speeches. I actually make that point pretty clear throughout the book. It’s built through actions. Through surviving together. Through moments where one of them has every reason to exploit the other, but hesitates… or chooses not to, at least for that moment. Their relationship is constantly walking the line between trust, necessity, and self-interest. And I think that uncertainty is what keeps the dynamic alive and the story so thrilling.

Characters constantly weigh who gets sacrificed and who gets protected. Did you see the story primarily as a moral conflict as much as a supernatural one?

Yes, absolutely. I’ve always approached this story, and really all the stories I write, as moral conflicts first. To me, that’s the engine of great fiction. I genuinely love supernatural, fantasy, and horror elements, but those elements work best when they’re carrying deeper human questions underneath them. So blending moral conflict with supernatural storytelling felt very natural from the beginning.

What made The Society especially interesting for me to write was that these moral conflicts are happening through characters who technically aren’t human anymore, yet are still trying to hold on to some sense of humanity. I intentionally wrote Damien and Emilia that way. They’re both dangerous. They’ve both committed terrible acts. They’re both capable of brutality. But underneath all of that, I wanted there to still be this lingering question inside them of whether they’ve completely lost themselves or not.

That’s also why I wrote their dynamic around observation and restraint rather than easy trust. Subconsciously, they’re constantly measuring the humanity left in the other person. Not softness necessarily, because the world they live in punishes softness very quickly, but things like restraint, compassion, guilt, principles, and the ability to still care about something beyond themselves. Those qualities become signals. They become part of how Damien and Emilia decide whether the other person can still be trusted at all.

That’s why the sacrifices in the story matter so much to me. I didn’t want the tension to revolve only around survival. I wanted it to revolve around identity. What parts of yourself are you willing to sacrifice in order to survive? And once you cross certain lines, can you still meaningfully call yourself human? That moral tension is deeply embedded into how I wrote both Damien and Emilia from the very beginning.

What does “done” mean for Damien — and does he believe it’s possible by the end of this book?

That’s a difficult question to answer without stepping too far into spoiler territory. But for Damien, the idea of being “done” is deeply tied to redemption, especially redemption in light of all the damage that he himself has caused throughout the series.

I wrote Damien as someone who keeps convincing himself that there’s one more thing he needs to accomplish, one more sacrifice he needs to make, one more line he needs to cross that will finally give meaning to everything he’s done and everything he’s become. So in many ways, “done” becomes connected to purpose. To whether someone who has committed terrible acts can still leave behind something meaningful.

At the same time, I always try to write each book with a real sense of conclusion while still allowing the larger story to continue moving forward. Life rarely gives us perfectly clean endings, and I wanted the series to reflect that. The characters themselves genuinely believe they can accomplish their goals or finally put certain “ghosts” to rest. Whether they actually succeed is another matter entirely.

And that’s actually part of why I’m especially excited for the fourth and final book of this saga. A lot of the questions that have been quietly building since Book 1 will come full circle there. Questions about humanity, purpose, meaning, identity, and whether redemption is truly possible for people who’ve gone too far. I’ve always viewed the series as building toward those deeper questions beneath the supernatural conflict. So getting to finally close that journey is something I’m really looking forward to writing.

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