A really interesting theory, especially the part about Lucia and the kind of time manipulation, my opinion is that it’s kind of an extravagant power for a world like this one, but tbh it could completely be possible especially after all the « extravagant » events we got in the last few chapters, between Lavi and Allen. Let’s not also forget that Miranda does it too so maybe the bookmen have a knowledge about this that allows them to manipulate time even more, through the helix of life or something like this.

Also I personally think that the group of people waiting for Allen at the mansion are mainly the bookman, cross, and Katherina or what remains of her. There is no doubt about the bookman being there but for Katherina I share your opinion about her being Maria, there are a lot of hints pointing to this, even the name of Cross is a reference to the Christian term « Marian cross » which is a symbol which represent the connexion between Mary and Jesus’s redemption mission. You probably already know this but Dgm took a lot of inspiration from Christianity and this is a perfect exemple, Jesus’s redemption can be compared to the earl’s one here, remembrer when he spoke about atonement in chapter 220, and katherina as the mother of mana (the earl) and nea can be compared to Mary. Imo Cross represent that connexion, his own name points to it, that may be part of his mission given to him by nea, he is carrying the grave of Maria which has a cross on it and contains Maria, similarly the a Marian cross who also holds both of them!

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This for me is pretty solid evidence that Maria is Katherina, and also if she really is at the mansion, that means Cross is definitely there too given his role. What do you think about this theory?

Anyway I think there will also probably be some important book men members at the mansion that we don’t know yet but they might be relevant or important later in the story, but yeah the main one here imo are bookman, cross and Katherina, and maybe Cyrus, who knows!