Soundlessly I dropped down to the balustraded walk closest to the top of the cathedral’s north tower. She was standing about fifty feet from the central door. Other Replimoids were all through the streets to the far left of the square as I looked down on it, cleaving to the buildings. And I could see them on the bridge over the river. From above I’d seen them along the flanks of the cathedral.

I wondered what they thought they could do. I put my hands on the balustrade and looked out over Paris for as far as I could see. Long years ago, Armand and I had met at Notre Dame, and he had come alone into the cathedral to confront me, and confront his own fears that the power of God would strike him dead should he do this—because he was a Child of Satan and the cathedral was a place of light.

Of course Kapetria must have known this, must have read it in the “pages,” but I suspected she had more practical reasons for wanting to meet here, that her Frankensteinian laboratory was somewhere quite nearby.

I scanned the world for Armand, for Thorne, for Cyril. No trace of them. But Gregory Duff Collingsworth was also in the square, many yards away from Kapetria, lost in the shadows, his eyes fixed on me.

I shot downwards, grabbing Kapetria by the waist and then rising hundreds of feet over Paris, as I cradled her in my arms to protect her from the wind. Below, the Replimoids descended on the square from all directions.

Slowly, I set Kapetria down on the roof of the north tower, which was flat enough and big enough for her not to be in danger of falling.

She was terrified. The first time I’d ever seen her show any fear whatsoever, and she clung to me and drew in her breath and trembled, and then fell at my feet. Of course I picked her up. I hadn’t meant for her to fall. She came back to consciousness immediately, but the fear had her again, and she buried her head in my chest.

“Is this the woman who roamed the high towers of Atalantaya?” I asked.

“There were railings,” she said. “High safe railings.”

But what she really meant to say was that no one had ever picked up her and carried her into the air like this before. And I remembered when Magnus, my maker, had taken me prisoner and set me down on a rooftop in Paris, and I’d felt the same terror she was feeling now. Primate, mammalian fear.

Holding her firmly, I moved towards the edge so she could see her followers gathered in the square below, but she struggled against me. She didn’t want to look over the edge. She didn’t want to be close to it.