In fact, I was in Paris. I was just leaving Armand’s home in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. We’d encountered an ugly problem there, a young and foolish fledgling named Amber who’d victimized one of Armand’s oldest and most loyal mortal servants. Armand insisted that I, myself, extinguish the brief immortal life of the fledgling, and we knew where the fledgling was. I was going to do it, and now we were standing in the courtyard with the wooden gates to the street still closed, pondering just how we would do this—bring the fledgling back here or simply carry out the death sentence offstage. Armand wanted her brought back as an example. I loathed the idea of the grisly spectacle.

And now this.

Armand’s face crumpled, and I saw pain in him such as I hadn’t seen in years. “So this is it,” he said in his old Russian.

“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not.”

I addressed Kapetria. “Maybe you need to do some more work on the whole problem,” I said. “Amel’s perfectly safe where he is.”

“I don’t think I can do better.”

“Not good enough.”

“What do you want us to do?” she asked as if I were in control of that aspect of things. “Please come. Don’t make this a battle.”

“You can’t win a battle. And I can’t make myself participate in my own ruin without a fight.”

She was still there, but she wasn’t answering.

“I might come,” I said. “I have an hour to think about it, don’t I? Then again, I might not.”

“Come now, please.” She clicked off.

“Forget that unfortunate girl for a moment,” I said to Armand. “You can deal with her tomorrow on your own. I have to think about this, think if I’m going to make a stand.”

I glanced up at the roofs of the four-story house that formed a rectangle around the courtyard. Cyril sat up there on the edge of the roof like a gargoyle looking down at me. Thorne stood beside him, hands in the pockets of his leather pants.

“What are you going to do!” Armand whispered. Only now was I seeing how hard this had been for him. He was actually trembling. He had become the boy he’d been when Marius brought him over. “Lestat, don’t let them do it!” he said. “Take her prisoner, and blast the rest into infinity!”

“Is that what you would do?” I asked.