“VERY WELL,” I said. “We’re all here, or at least most of us are here. Let’s go over it again. What do we know?”

We were gathered in the Council Chamber of the northern tower, a reconstructed part of the Château that had not existed in my day. It was a vast room at the very top, with a solitary coil of iron stairs leading to the battlements, and richly decorated, plastered, and painted, as was every single room of my ancestral home. Marius had only recently painted the murals depicting the battle of Troy on the surrounding walls and on the ceiling, a spirited depiction of the tragic journey of Phaeton, vainly struggling with his father’s steeds as they drew him across the sky. The murals had the eerie perfection of a vampire painter, which made them look both magnificent and contrived at the same time, as if someone had blasted the walls with photographic images and then a team had painted them in.

I liked this room, and I liked that it was remote from the public rooms below. There were many young ones in the house and older ones not all that well known to us.

Now, there was no fixed membership in the Council. Attendance varied. But seated about the round table here were those I knew best and trusted best and mostly truly loved. Gregory, Marius, Sevraine who had only just arrived with my mother, Gabrielle, and Pandora, Armand, and Louis, and Gremt along with Magnus and another incarnate ghost, Raymond Gallant. This Raymond—a very impressive figure with dark gray hair and a narrow somewhat angular face—had once been a confidant and helper of Marius, and I had glimpsed this being a number of times with Marius in Paris, but we had not spoken, and he had not been with Gremt and Magnus when I’d visited them last night. Cyril and Thorne clung to the walls, of their own will, not choosing to sit amongst us as equals. Seth and Fareed were in Geneva and would report in as soon as they could.

Benji, who had crossed with Armand, had absented himself to be broadcasting from a chamber below, warning the Undead worldwide against Garekyn Zweck Brovotkin, who could destroy vampires who had been over five hundred years in the Blood.

Armand spoke first. He appeared drawn and hungry, and his voice did not have its usual silken strength.

“Well, Eleni will recover,” he said. “She’s in Fareed’s laboratories in Paris now, in the hands of several of the medical apprentices.” He addressed Sevraine and Gabrielle as he spoke, his eyes moving on to Pandora. “They say she will be whole again soon.”