“You didn’t see it,” said Armand sharply. His tone was low but hostile. “You didn’t drink its blood. You didn’t see that city falling into the ocean, those towers melting.”

A chill passed over me.

“I’ve seen the city,” I said turning to him. “I’ve seen it in my dreams.”

Silence all around.

“I’ve seen it too,” said Sevraine.

I waited, looking from one to the other of them around the table.

“Well, this is clearly like the old telepathic images of the red-haired twins that were fired round the world when the Queen rose,” said Marius. “Some have seen this, some haven’t. That’s the way it was then.”

“Seems so,” said Teskhamen. “But I too have seen it. I didn’t think it important. I saw it perhaps twice.” When no one spoke up he went on. “A great beautiful capital, replete with glassy towers sparkling in the sun; it was like a great forest of glass towers, yet they were all translucent or reflective and then quite suddenly it is night and then comes the fire; it’s as if the city exploded from within.”

“I too have seen it,” said Louis in a small voice. He looked at me. “But I saw it only once, the night before I met you in New Orleans. I was still in New York. I thought I picked it up from others at Trinity Gate. A dreadful horror accompanied it, the cries of countless people perishing.”

“Yes,” I said. “You can hear people crying out to Heaven for help.”

“And a wailing sound,” said Armand. “As if of horrific grief.”

Quite suddenly, I felt the telltale warmth at the base of my skull. I said nothing about it. I wasn’t about to raise my hand and volunteer that Amel was back and breathing down my neck. It seemed too clumsy to do that, too mundane. I simply let it be known telepathically and the information was absorbed around the table within seconds.

Teskhamen whispered to Gremt that the spirit had returned, and I looked up to see Gremt staring intently at me.

“He doesn’t know what the images of the falling city mean,” I said defensively, as though I were defending Amel’s honor. “I’ve asked him. He knows nothing of it. He sees the same images when I see them. He feels them. But he knows nothing.”

Then without moving my lips I spoke to Amel. I knew when I did this that the others could hear me, except for Louis whom I’d made.

“You have to tell me if you understand all this,” I said.

In a strong clear masculine tone, audible telepathically to the others, Amel answered: “I do not know.” Then he went on.

“Fareed and Seth found nothing in Geneva. The woman’s laboratories were empty, and her apartment vacated. The non-human female has fled.”