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I heard her small desperate cries against me, but I told her in a low whisper to be still and trust in me, and then bringing her back, I set her down on the stone stairs above the quais.

"We were with the clouds, my little princess," I said to her. "We were with the winds, and the purest things of the skies. " She was shivering from the cold. I brought her down with me into the golden room.

The wind had made a wild tangle of her hair. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips blood red.

"But what did you do?" she asked. "Did you spread wings like a bird to carry me? "

"I had no need of them," I said, as I lighted the candles one by one until we had many and the room seemed warm.

I reached up beneath my mask. And then I took it off and turned to look at her.

She was shocked, but only for a moment, and then she came to me, peering into my eyes, and she kissed my lips.

"Marius, I see you again," she said. "You are there. "

I smiled. I went past her and lifted the mirror.

I couldn't see myself in this monstrosity. But my lips did cover my teeth at last, and my nose had taken some shape, and my eyes once again had lids. My hair was thick and white and full as it had been before and it hung to my shoulders. It made my face all the more black. I put aside the looking glass.

"Where will we go when we leave here?" she asked me. How steady she seemed, how unafraid.

"To a magical place, a place you would not believe if I told you of it," I answered. "Princess of the skies. "

"Can I do this?" she asked. "Go up into the heavens?"

"No, darling one," I said, "not for centuries. It takes time and blood to make such strength. Some night however it will come to you, and you'll feel the strangeness, the loneliness of it. "

"Let me put my arms around you," she said.

I shook my head.

"Talk to me, tell me stories," she said. "Tell me of Mael. "

We made a place to sit against the wall, and we were warm together.

I began to talk, slowly I think, pouring out old tales.

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sp; I told her of the Druid grove again, and how I had been the god there and fled those who would have entrapped me, and I saw her eyes grow wide. I told her of Avicus and Zenobia, of our hunting in the city of Constantinople. I told her of how I cut Zenobia's beautiful black hair.

And telling these tales, I felt calmer and less sad and broken and able to do what I must do.

Never in all my time with Amadeo had I told such stories. Never with Pandora had it been so simple. But with this creature it seemed only natural to talk and to find consolation in it.

And I remembered that when first I had set eyes upon Bianca I had dreamt of this very thing, that she would be with me in the Blood and that we should speak together so easily.

"But let me tell you prettier stories," I said, and I talked of when I had lived in old Rome, and I had painted on the walls, and my guests had laughed and drunk their wine, and rolled about on the grass of my garden.

I made her laugh and then it seemed my pain was gone for a moment, gone in the sound of her voice.

"There was one I loved very much," I said.

"Tell me of him," she said.

"No, it was a woman," I replied. I amazed myself to speak of such a thing. Yet I went on speaking. "I knew her when we were mortals together. I was a young man and she was a child. In those times, as now, marriages were made when women were but children but her father refused me. I never forgot her.

"And then later, after the Blood was in me, we came together she and I. . . . "