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"Yes, and then here we discovered you in Venice. I have told you all!"

I drew back once more. He was exhausted with me and so frightened of me that his mentality was almost to the point where it might break.

"I have told you all," he said again gravely.

"I know you have," I said. "I see that you are capable of secrecy but quite incapable of a lie. "

He said nothing.

I took the gold coin from my pocket, the one which he had given me. I read the word:

Talamasca

I turned it over.

There imprinted on it was the picture of a high and well-fortified castle, and beneath it the name: Lorwich, East Anglia.

I looked up.

"Raymond Gallant," I said. "I thank you. "

He nodded.

"Marius," he said suddenly, as though screwing up his courage, "can you not send out some message to her over the miles?"

I shook my head.

"I made her a blood drinker, and her mind has been closed to me from the beginning. So it is with the beautiful child you sawdancing this very night. Maker and offspring cannot read each other's thoughts. "

He mulled this over as though we were speaking of human things, just that calmly, and then he said:

"But surely you can send the message with your powerful mind to others who may see her and tell her that you search for her, and where you are. "

A strange moment passed between us.

How could I confess to him that I could not beg her to come to me? How could I confess to myself that I had to come upon her and take her in my arms and force her to look at me, that some old anger separated me from her? I could not confess these things to myself.

I looked at him. He stood watching me, growing ever more calm, but certainly enrapt.

"Leave Venice, please," I said, "as I have asked you to do. " I untied my purse and I put a good many gold florins on his desk, just as I had done twice with Botticelli. "Take this from me," I said, "for all your trouble. Leave here, and write to me when you can. "

Again he nodded, his pale eyes very clear and determined, his young face rather willfully calm.

"It will be an ordinary letter," I said, "come to Venice by ordinary means, but it will contain the most marvelous information, for I

may find in it intelligence of a creature whom I have not embraced in over a thousand years. "

This shocked him, though why I did not understand. Surely he knew the age of the stones in Antioch. But I saw the shock penetrate him and course through his limbs.

"What have I done?" I said aloud, though I wasn't speaking to him. "I shall leave Venice soon, on account of you and on account of many things. Because I do not change and therefore cannot play the mortal for very long. I will leave soon on account of the young woman you saw dancing tonight with my young apprentice, for I have vowed that she shall not be transformed. But oh, I have played my role most splendidly here. Write it in your histories. Describe my house as you saw it, full of paintings and lamps, full of music and laughter, full of gaiety and warmth. "

His expression changed. He grew sad, agitated, without moving so much as a muscle and the tears came up in his eyes. How wise he seemed for his years. How strangely compassionate.

"What is it, Raymond Gallant?" I asked. "How can you weep for me? Explain it to me. "

"Marius," he said. "I was taught in the Talamasca that you would be beautiful and you would speak with the tongue of an angel and a demon. "

"Where is the demon, Raymond Gallant?"