Switzerland, represented chiefly by Zurich, is both a threshold into the Cognomina and the place where Evan Michaels is eventually arrested. His first journey there takes him from a strained farewell to Henry into an underground initiation and a vote accepting him as a brother; on a later return, the tattoo marking that acceptance helps Interpol identify and detain him.

Departure and first arrival

Before leaving, Evan tells Henry that he is going to Switzerland with Poppy and does not know how long he will be away. Henry’s offer of a concert outing cannot repair the distance between them: Evan recognizes that the friendship has already been shaped by secrets kept too long, and answers that he is going with her. Switzerland thus first appears as the destination of a departure that costs Evan part of his old life before he knows what the new one will require.

Evan arrives at 3:00 p.m. beneath low grey clouds and drizzle. He passes through customs without difficulty, with Poppy close behind. Outside the terminal, they find a man in a black jacket and hat beside a grey stretch Mercedes-Benz, holding a white sign marked with the Embe. The sign makes the journey legible as an organized welcome, though Evan does not yet know what awaits him. When Poppy tells him that the process begins the following night, the drive into Zurich becomes a passage toward a change he wants but cannot yet describe.

Zurich as a threshold

The route carries Evan from the highway into the city’s old quarter. German-printed street signs, the slow-moving Limmat River, church spires, narrow cobbled lanes, and an old stone bridge give way to a twisting one-way street and the white-brick Hotel St. Germain. The increasingly old streets and the confined final approach place the hotel apart from the ordinary onward movement of the city. Evan’s anticipation rises as the car stops at its large black door; he has chosen to enter this unfamiliar world, but has little idea of its terms.

At the hotel, Poppy leads him through a dark doorway and down between seventy-five and one hundred stone steps, lit by torches fixed to the walls. Evan feels along the old masonry as he descends, while the brass tip of his cane clicks and echoes below. At the bottom, a cavern opens around a table, two chairs, a judge-like wooden console, and tiered seats behind a heavy black curtain. The stone, torchlight, and formal arrangement make the descent more than a change of room: Zurich’s hidden interior supplies the setting for an examination that will determine whether Evan belongs among the people who have brought him there.

Ascension and acceptance

The Cognomina’s Ascension is a test members undergo in each successive incarnation before rejoining the society. A candidate must convince people who knew an earlier life that he is the same person in a new body, using names, dates, places, and other facts that can be checked. Poppy explains that the older method was more dangerous: a candidate faced a spear and, if reborn, had to identify the person who had killed him. In the present-day procedure, a panel judges the evidence instead. The trial gives the Zurich setting its central function: this is where remembered identity is put before witnesses and assessed.

The judgment turns on a close vote. The old man presiding announces that four votes to one establish Evan as what he claims to be and admit him to the Cognomina as a brother. Evan releases a long-held breath; Samas embraces him, and groans and cheers rise from the gallery as wagers are settled. Mr. Diltz is the first to congratulate him. The vote converts the cave’s formal test into a public welcome, but it does not complete the ritual. Poppy presents a fingerless leather gauntlet bearing the inked outline of the Embe, and Evan slips his hand into it. When he asks her name, she gives Nez-Lah and explains that everyone there calls her Poppy. Acceptance, bodily marking, and the disclosure of a private name meet in the same celebratory space.

Return and arrest

On a later journey, Switzerland is once again Evan’s destination, now for practical rather than initiatory reasons: he says he needs to get his finances in order in Zurich. He is nearly out of money, with only fifty dollars left, and asks whether Poppy can spare enough for him to reach Switzerland. After the flight, he steps into a Zurich terminal he recognizes but experiences as changed, with brighter colors, cleaner floors, and more promising faces. The altered impression accompanies a changed status: he has returned with the Cognomina’s mark and with a new sense of the future.

At customs, Evan identifies his business as banking and presents his cane. A customs agent notices the new tattoo and draws the attention of a detective. An Interpol officer approaches with a file; when an agent cuffs Evan, he recoils, and the officer tackles him as the file’s contents spill across the floor. The photographs show Evan in a series of images: hiding on his stomach, getting to his feet, and running toward the gallery’s back door. In each, the fresh tattoo is visible. The mark that accompanied his recognition as a Cognomina brother in Zurich now makes him recognizable to the authorities. Switzerland therefore frames two sharply opposed encounters with identity: first, a panel accepts the life Evan says he remembers; later, photographic evidence and the same bodily sign help Interpol capture him.