“Yes,” he said. “It is splendid, but I am not human, am I? Seems I don’t age, and can’t die. The old story.”

“Would it have been more splendid if you had become wholly human, grown old, and died?” I pushed.

No answer. Faint annoyance.

“And so for us you make good company, Gremt,” I said. “You understand us.”

Silence again and I hated it. Something unspoken in the air. And I thought suddenly of leaving, going ahead up into the sky and over the sea to find Louis. But it was far too soon to leave, just because I was uncomfortable.

“You have quite a sense of gravitas about being the Prince now, don’t you?” asked Magnus. His smile was almost innocent, almost pleasant.

“Shouldn’t I?” I asked. “Aren’t you glad your fledgling and heir grew up to be the Prince of the Undead? Aren’t you proud of me?”

“Yes, I am,” he said sincerely. “I’ve always been proud of you, except when you retreat, and give in to your suffering. I haven’t been so proud when you do that. But you always come back. Doesn’t matter how dreadful the defeat, you come back.”

“And does this mean you’ve been near me, watching me, all these years?”

“No, because I wasn’t the ghost you see now all these years. I was another kind of ghost until Gremt rescued me and brought me here and showed me what I could be. After that, yes, I did spy on you. But that wasn’t so very long ago.”

“Will you tell me more about all this?”

“Some night, surely,” he said. “All of it. At times, I write. I write pages and pages of my thoughts. I write poems. I write songs even. I write reflections. The autobiography of a vampire and a vampire ghost who was once an alchemist who sought to cure all the diseases of the world and make broken bones fuse perfectly, an alchemist who sought to comfort little children in pain—.” He broke off, and his eyes left me for the flames. “I had written books for you, my heir. Then the night before I brought you to my tower, I burned them.”

“Good God, why?” I asked. “I would have cherished every word!”

“I know,” he said. “I know that now. I didn’t know it then. We have much to say to one another, and you can have at me, you know.” He glanced at me again and back to the blazing logs. “You can rail at me for snatching you out of mortal life, rail at me for abandoning you with hard cold jewels and coin when you might have gotten all that for yourself on your own….” Again, he stopped, drifted, and the whole image flickered, but now the flickering couldn’t conceivably diminish his seeming power.