I hurried up the staircase to the Council Chamber, ignoring Louis’s protests that he should hang back. “Nonsense,” I whispered. “I need you at my side.”

I brought Louis into the Council Chamber with me, but I could see that it was indeed a gathering of the elders and Louis was surely the youngest in the room. Cyril and Thorne took their usual places against the wall.

I sat down at the head of the table and gestured for Louis to take the empty chair to my right.

Opposite, on my left, sat my mother, Gabrielle, and her beloved Sevraine, both in casual modern male attire, handsome dark wool suits with linen shirts open at the collar, Sevraine’s long hair the usual veil over her shoulders and my mother’s hair in her usual single long braid.

Marius was at the far end of the oval table, directly opposite me, which was his usual place, and maybe the only fixed place at the table other than mine. And this was the Roman Marius, responsible for the present Pax Romana of the blood drinkers, Marius who more often than not resolved all issues of authority on which I refused to take a stand. He wore his long-sleeved red velvet tunic as he almost always did at the Château, and he had not bothered to trim his hair as he so often did. It hung long and free, curling just above his shoulders. And he had a writing pad before him and a golden fountain pen.

“You should have destroyed that Rhoshamandes,” he said immediately, to which Gregory and Seth both nodded. Gregory sat to his right, and Seth was to the right of Gregory.

“What is this, the Marius Party, assembled against me?” I demanded. “I’ve told you more than once. I’ll never give an order for the destruction of Rhoshamandes.”

Marius sighed. “There has to be an authority here,” he said, in a reasonable tone, “and that has never been more obvious than now.”

I studied the faces at the table.

Teskhamen sat to Marius’s left and he nodded to this last remark, and so did Gremt, who was at Teskhamen’s left hand. The Marius Party indeed, I thought. No ghosts were present, which meant that these two alone represented the Talamasca. And it also meant that they had in some way finally and officially come over to us, with Marius’s approval, otherwise they wouldn’t be here at this time of crisis.

David, my beloved David Talbot, was to the left of Gremt, and he sat with his head bowed and his arms folded over his chest. He looked spent, if nothing else, his khaki jacket and blue cotton shirt badly rumpled, as though he’d only just wandered into the Château.