The Prince loved Alain Abelard. There was talk in the Château ballroom nightly as to when the Prince would bring him over. And what about some of the others, would Lestat ever make blood drinkers of the more promising craftsmen who excelled at painting and gilding and upholstering and woodwork and restoring the fine paintings which were always turning up in crates for newly developed bedchambers or stairway walls? Would the Court grow in the Blood the way the Court of Notker the Wise had grown over the centuries with new musicians chosen from the human herd?

The human community of the Prince was certainly growing, the project ever expanding. Take the de Lenfent manor house, for instance. How the Prince wanted it perfect, though the house itself had been burnt to the ground in the Great Fear when the last Count de Lioncourt of the ancien régime had just managed to escape to Louisiana with his life and a small band of devoted servants.

Now this manor house was to become the residence of Alain himself, the Prince had already explained to him. But it must be done according to the Prince’s private research and dreams, and the little cul-de-sac leading to its front gates was already paved with the appropriate stones.

One had to marvel at what had been achieved here through imagination, ambition, and faith.

And Rhoshamandes did marvel at it. He marveled at all of it.

And in his heart of hearts he did not really want to destroy it, or harm it in any way.

Yet he had come for just that purpose. And they, the blood drinkers of the Château, certainly knew he was here. They had to know. As he eavesdropped on their thoughts and fears, he caught indistinct but certain indications that Marius knew he was here, and Seth knew he was here, and that his old loved ones Nebamun, now known as Gregory, and Sevraine knew he was here, though they could not hear Rhoshamandes any more than the young ones who flashed him the intelligence unconsciously and irrepressibly as they paused at the great open windows of the ballroom to look out over the snowy fields.

Where is he? What does he want?

Ah, that was the question. What did he want?