He was gazing at the great writhing mass of dancers under the dim chandeliers. And without a hint of irony the orchestra and the chanting voices went into the full-throated straight-up “Emperor Waltz” by Strauss—producing wild laughter everywhere from the colorful crowd who began to mock it with their exaggerated steps and turns—newcomers in rags prancing as proudly as those in sequins and diaphanous silver and gold. I saw Rose dancing with Viktor, Rose throwing back her head and letting her hair fly loose, and all around her fledglings with their petal-pink faces like her face, and then my son, straight backed and graceful as a European prince leading Rose in the Viennese flourishes. Viktor took this so seriously. Viktor wanted it all to succeed. Viktor believed in the power of pomp and circumstance.

Even Gremt laughed softly and his head moved faintly with the festive, happy music. But then here came the kettledrums and the French horns and dark strings to give the waltz the tension so prized by the company.

Why was this so important, why did so much depend upon it, immortals gathered here in wild community, in this fortress against the human world?

“But I don’t understand,” I said. I put my lips to Gremt’s ear. “What has our fate to do with yours? You can go on no matter what happens to us. Why would I give you hope?”

He turned sharply and looked at me as if he had to see me to understand what I had said.

Then he asked, “But who would want to go on without you?”

I stared at him, astonished.

“And what of Amel?” I asked. “What of Kapetria’s whole story? You said nothing in the end. Was it what you had always wanted to know?”

“What?” he asked. “That Amel wasn’t born evil, that he’d been a champion of the good when he was alive? It wasn’t what I expected. But does it matter now? It mattered yesterday and last year, and the year before that, and the century before this one, and the century before that. But I don’t know that it matters now. I’m here and I’m alive, and that woman can help me though I don’t know how and why.”

I nodded. I thought of what Kapetria might do for the ghost of Magnus. And surely Magnus was here somewhere, invisible, watching.