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"Not really," said Kapetria, still looking out and up over the pointed roofs opposite. "I thought so at first. I thought it was obvious. But I was wrong. It's the Prince who rules. It's the Prince who's decided to trust us."

"Is that why you gave him the blood?" Derek asked. "Are you sure you should have done that?"

"Yes, I'm sure," Kapetria said. "Don't worry, Derek."

"If you say so," he responded. He felt better already. He felt that nothing bad could ever happen to him again if Kapetria was here. He thought of all the times that Roland had drunk his blood. And to think there was this blood drinker doctor, Fareed, and what he might have given to study the blood.

Kapetria was still looking out into the night.

"Marius will gather the Council together," said Kapetria, "and he will do all the work of making a credo for them and rules, and means of punishing offenders and he will see that it's done with dignity and honor. But Marius is angry, angry at the other old ones. He's angry that for centuries they never came forward to help him with the keeping of the Queen when Amel was inside her. They watched from afar but they never helped. It's all in their pages. You can read it later for yourself."

"Why didn't they help him?" asked Derek. He spoke as softly as she spoke.

"That's a question only they can answer," said Kapetria. She let go of the sheer curtain, and sat down again, holding the backs of her arms. "Whatever the case, Marius will do the work that has to be done. But it's the Prince who holds it all together. And the Prince loves Marius and that's enough for Marius to do what has to be done."

"Gravitas," said Derek. He stood there looking down at her. "Marius has gravitas."

Kapetria smiled. "Yes, that's the old Roman word for what he possesses, isn't it?"

Derek nodded. He thought in a vague way of all the books he'd read in Spanish and English before that horrid monster, Roland, had captured him like a little bird between two cupped hands. He thought of all he'd learned when it just did not seem to matter, as he'd roamed all alone searching and dreaming of beings he thought he might never find again. Well, that was over now, and all that he'd read would come alive for him now, wouldn't it, in new and wondrous ways. He wanted to read the vampire pages as Kapetria always called them. He wanted to read poetry and history and all the books on the legend of Atlantis that she had described to him, the books she'd read and studied in Matilde's library in the town of Bolinas, California, where Kapetria and Welf had come to shore like lovers carved in stone. He wanted to go to all those places Kapetria had described to him where she had gone trying to find remnants of "the lost kingdom of Atlantis." And he wanted with all his heart to hear the voice of Amel. If only the Prince had let Derek hear that voice. If only there had been no pain.

He realized that Kapetria was smiling at him in the most affectionate way. The warmth, the sense of safety, the sense of being able to be happy again, swept over Derek. Kapetria stood and kissed him.

"Beautiful boy," she said.

She moved back to the window again and, lifting the curtain, looked out at the street once more. For a moment he thought she was going to weep. And he'd never seen Kapetria shed a tear. She turned to him with that loving expression that melted his heart.

"But why didn't you tell the Prince what Amel said?" He said the words as softly as he could. No human being could have heard. But the vampires, who knew what they heard?

"Amel will tell him," she said.

Why does she look so sad? She was still looking off again now in the direction of the Chateau.

"Come," she said suddenly. "We need to pack up now."

24

Fareed

HE SAT BEHIND his computer, in his apartment in the Chateau, and he listened to all that Marius had to say and that Lestat said. Seth was as usual perfectly quiet. He wanted to get to work on this new vial of blood. The blood he'd drawn from Lestat had been contaminated with vampiric blood. This was pure Replimoid blood, fresh and still warm.

"You have no idea what the message said?" asked Fareed.

"None," said Lestat. "But it was brief, whatever it was. And he pressed me to give it to her right after Roland died. He knew that Roland had died. He didn't tell me. He just gave me the message and I went into the library and wrote it down. I made a copy of it, of course."

He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Fareed, and then he turned his back and started pacing, making a slow circle in the middle of the carpet, with his hands clasped behind his back, looking remarkably, Fareed thought, like an eighteenth-century man. Maybe it was the hair tied back like a young Thomas Jefferson or a picture of Mozart. And the frock coat with the flared skirt.

Fareed went over the words. He went over them again and again and again. He tried to relate them to the phone messages which he had also gone over again and again and again. Seth was standing behind him looking down at the paper.

"I can't crack it," said Fareed.

"Neither can I," said Seth, "but it is interesting to see it transliterated that way. The pictographs were hopeless."

"So what do you think?" asked Fareed.

Lestat sighed and continued with his pacing. "I don't know. They're leaving and it's their prerogative to leave, and what will happen will happen. That's what my mind tells me. Now does my heart agree with my mind?"

He stopped and he had that blank look on his face which always meant that Amel was talking, but if this was true, that message too was a mystery. Because Lestat said nothing but began pacing again.