After all, he’d lost his longtime companion, Daniel Molloy, to Armand again, and these two remained at Court only because of the threat to the Prince, and hoped some night to be free to go to Trinity Gate in New York. Meanwhile Pandora, Marius’s ancient love, was firmly linked to Arjun again, her legendary fledgling and lover from ages past. Bianca had come back to Court after a long time in Sevraine’s compound in Cappadocia. Bianca loved Marius. Fareed could see it. Bianca entered Marius’s private study every night and watched him from a distance, her eyes fixed on him as if he were an engrossing spectacle as he sat at his desk writing. She was always dressed in a simple modern gown or a man’s suit, her hair adorned in artful ways and sweetly perfumed. But Marius did not seem to notice or care.

“She’s undeniably beautiful,” Fareed had said to Marius once about Bianca.

“Aren’t we all?” had been his grim answer. “We were picked for our beauty.”

But such was not the case for Bianca. She’d been given the Dark Gift by Marius because he had needed her at a time of great weakness and suffering. Maybe Marius had to deny the memory of that weakness. Maybe that is why he seemed oblivious to her presence.

If Marius sought a new dedicated companion in someone else, nobody knew.

“I am determined that this Court will hold together, no matter what happens,” said Marius whenever the subject surfaced. “I am determined that this shall endure!”

The Prince expressed the same absolute concern. “Keep it together, all of it. I’ve arranged all the legal papers to guide it down through the centuries. I’ve done everything I can. Marius will be the protector of this property. Marius will be the protector of the Court. Marius will be the law for the tribe if or when I am gone.”

The Court was vibrant. The Court was intermittently glorious. The Court was filled with surprises, as new ones continued to appear, though less and less often, and some were quite ancient with astonishing stories to tell.

Fareed came back from Paris every morning well before sunrise, because he wanted to spend the last two hours at the Court. He needed to walk through the ballroom before the musicians had quit for the night; he needed to listen to the music for a while, even if it was only Sybelle playing the harpsichord or Antoine the violin, or Notker’s singers forming a large or small choir.

He needed to see Marius working away in his apartments, amid all the books and papers. He needed to see the smiling face of the Prince himself sitting in a softly lighted corner somewhere in fast conversation with Louis or Viktor. He needed to believe that Amel’s prediction was true: Kapetria would find a way to free him without doing Lestat harm.