I didn’t know what to say.

We stood there, staring at one another, the snow swirling lightly and soundlessly around us, and then he took my hand. His fingers felt warm and human, and I felt the faint beat of his heart in them. What heart? The heart he’d made for himself to become one of us?

“Come to Fareed and Seth,” I said. “They are physicians for us all. Come to me. Yes, Amel hears all but, hearing all, can’t always hear any one. Come.”

“Are they physicians for us all?” he asked.

“They have to be. If we aren’t all one—ghosts, spirits, blood drinkers—then what are we? We’re lost, and we can’t be lost. We won’t stand for it anymore to be lost.”

He smiled. “Oh yes,” he said. He seemed as impervious to the bracing air as I was. Yet his cheeks were slightly reddened and his eyes shining. “I’ve heard those words before on the lips of ghosts within this house.”

“Well, then, go to them and come to me,” I said. I was feeling the tears rise in my eyes. In fact, I felt such strong emotions I didn’t quite know what to do or say. I felt desperation. “Listen to me, you must. The Court’s too busy with being a court. But what is the point of the Court if not to unite all of us? Fareed and Seth are working in their new laboratories in Paris. And Armand’s house in Saint-Germain-des-Prés is the Paris home of the Court. You know all this.”

“Oh, yes, I know it,” he said but he wasn’t comforted or encouraged. What was holding him back? What was he not saying?

I couldn’t bear this. I couldn’t bear the thought of Thorne and Cyril only yards away waiting for me, overhearing all, and thinking what I would never know, and being there, always being there. I didn’t know what I wanted, or what to do with the misery I felt, only that some raw feeling had been discovered in me that had been buried all this while in superficial concerns and random pleasures.

Inside the house, the boy was singing again, and the harpsichord notes seemed to be chasing at heated speed his sweet rushing syllables. How safe and strong the vast place seemed for a moment, against the random chaos of the drifting snow.

“Beware, Lestat,” said Gremt. He pressed my hand tightly. “Beware Amel. Beware Memnoch. Beware Rhoshamandes.”

“I understand, Gremt,” I said, assuring him.