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"I think he's furious," said Marius when he and Fareed and Seth talked alone about it. "He wants freedom. He wants a biological body of his own. But he loves Lestat. He has no real concept of what it will be like to be on his own in a body again. But it's a love-hate war they have going on. And Lestat knows that the final maneuvers won't be his."

"Of course Amel is furious," Fareed murmured. Should Fareed bother to point out to the others that, since the Great Disconnection, Amel's etheric body was now larger and stronger than ever? All those hundreds of disconnected tentacles had snapped back into the complex etheric entity that was Amel. Had they added to Amel's measurable bulk? Something six thousand years ago had driven that spirit to want more vampires created; was it the sheer size of the spirit's etheric body, being as it was infinitely more complex than the etheric body of a simple human being?

"Everyone is suffering," said Rose. "No one can bear this waiting. There has to be something that we can do!"

But there was nothing anybody could do.

And it seemed to Fareed that those who suffered in the extreme were Gabrielle and Marius--and, of course, Louis, who never left the Prince's side. Gabrielle was in the ballroom every night, often saying nothing, doing nothing--simply listening to the music and watching her son. Gabrielle wore her hair free and down and beautifully brushed back from her face. She wore women's gowns of a simple and timeless cut, and double ropes of pearls around her neck.

Louis had been gravely hurt that Lestat had gone off to meet Rhoshamandes alone. So Lestat had promised never to do such a thing again.

As for Thorne and Cyril, they swore they would die fighting Kapetria and the Replimoids before they'd give him up. But Lestat gave them the same order nightly: When the moment comes, stand down.

"I do not want anyone burned," said Lestat as he reiterated his wishes. "I do not want anyone thrown through a wall. I won't have bloodshed, no matter what kind of blood it is. I won't have any creature dying because of this except me."

As for the ever-changing crowds that filled the Chateau, all knew about this to some extent, but no consensus as to what to do about it had ever formed. Each individual was glad to be untethered from the vital Core. And many a blood drinker, young or old, swore they would die to protect the Prince, but most sensed that they'd never be called on to prove it.

So when the music surged, and the dancers danced, and the audiences crowded the theater to watched vampire plays, or listen to vampire poetry, or see the films of all ages available through the video streaming of the mortal world, they seemed one and all to forget about the threat, and maybe some in their hearts wondered who the new monarch would be when the Prince disappeared.

Would it be Marius? Some said that it should have been Marius all along.

Fareed could not be aloof or indifferent or pragmatic about these matters. He loved the Prince too much, and had from the beginning. And Marius was in too much pain for anyone to make the slightest remark along these lines to him.

Marius was working on the constitution, and on the rules. Marius was making the code. Marius was devising a way to enforce the rules against those who broke the peace by seeking to move into another's territory, or through the wanton killing of innocent mortals, or innocent blood drinkers. Marius had just about as much authority and responsibility as he had ever wanted. And sometimes, Fareed thought, Marius didn't want any more at all.

Marius was weary. Marius was anguished. Marius was alone.

After all, he'd lost his longtime companion, Daniel Molloy, to Armand again, and these two remained at Court only because of the threat to the Prince, and hoped some night to be free to go to Trinity Gate in New York. Meanwhile Pandora, Marius's ancient love, was firmly linked to Arjun again, her legendary fledgling and lover from ages past. Bianca had come back to Court after a long time in Sevraine's compound in Cappadocia. Bianca loved Marius. Fareed could see it. Bianca entered Marius's private study every night and watched him from a distance, her eyes fixed on him as if he were an engrossing spectacle as he sat at his desk writing. She was always dressed in a simple modern gown or a man's suit, her hair adorned in artful ways and sweetly perfumed. But Marius did not seem to notice or care.

"She's undeniably beautiful," Fareed had said to Marius once about Bianca.

"Aren't we all?" had been his grim answer. "We were picked for our beauty."

But such was not the case for Bianca. She'd been given the Dark Gift by Marius because he had needed her at a time of great weakness and suffering. Maybe Marius had to deny the memory of that weakness. Maybe that is why he seemed oblivious to her presence.

If Marius sought a new dedicated companion in someone else, nobody knew.

"I am determined that this Court will hold together, no matter what happens," said Marius whenever the subject surfaced. "I am determined that this shall endure!"

The Prince expressed the same absolute concern. "Keep it together, all of it. I've arranged all the legal papers to guide it down through the centuries. I've done everything I can. Marius will be the protector of this property. Marius will be the protector of the Court. Marius will be the law for the tribe if or when I am gone."

The Court was vibrant. The Court was intermittently glorious. The Court was filled with surprises, as new ones continued to appear, though less and less often, and some were quite ancient with astonishing stories to tell.

Fareed came back from Paris every morning well before sunrise, because he wanted to spend the last two hours at the Court. He needed to walk through the ballroom before the musicians had quit for the night; he needed to listen to the music for a while, even if it was only Sybelle playing the harpsichord or Antoine the violin, or Notker's singers forming a large or small choir.

He needed to see Marius working away in his apartments, amid all the books and papers. He needed to see the smiling face of the Prince himself sitting in a softly lighted corner somewhere in fast conversation with Louis or Viktor. He needed to believe that Amel's prediction was true: Kapetria would find a way to free him without doing Lestat harm.

Tonight, as the hours pushed towards dawn--and Lestat had no need to go early to his vault to protect anyone from anything--Fareed stood watching Lestat and Louis playing chess with a marvelous medieval set of exquisitely detailed figures. They were in the largest of the salons off the ballroom, sitting at one of the many round tables scattered all through the castle. Lestat appeared calm, even cheerful, smiling and nodding when he saw Fareed nearby.

A wretched anxiety came over Fareed. If he dies, I can't bear it, Fareed thought. It will destroy me if he dies.

But rather than reveal this irrational desperation, Fareed turned away and silently retired to his crypt.

As he lay down to sleep on his broad Egyptian bed--a duplicate of his bed in Paris--he reflected on the one line of speculation that had recently given him hope.

Lestat was the third host for Amel; Lestat had developed a full vampiric etheric brain and body before ever taking Amel into his body. So what if Amel hadn't mutated Lestat to the same extent that Amel had mutated Akasha, the first host? What if Amel was only possessing Lestat, riding as a parasite inside him? An extrication might be possible in this instance that would never have been possible with Akasha.

And then there was the spirit's own huge desire for release. The spirit would cooperate when Kapetria's scalpel met the fragile biological brain tissue, and just maybe, maybe it would work.