“Listen, I’m closer to you than any other being in creation,” he said. “But I can’t see you, can I, when I’m inside of you. I only see what you see. And something happens when you are with Louis, something happens when you reach out to touch him. I wish I could see you as he sees you. He has green eyes. I like green eyes. My Mekare had green eyes.”

This troubled me, and I wasn’t sure quite why. What if he suddenly wanted to hurt Louis? What if he became jealous of Louis—of my affection for Louis?

“Nonsense, go to him,” he said. Calm voice. Manly voice. “Am I jealous of your son, Viktor? Am I jealous of your beloved daughter, Rose? You need Louis and you know it, and he’s ready now to surrender. He’s held back on principle long enough. I sense—.” He broke off. I heard a sound like a hiss.

“You sense what?”

“I don’t know. I want you to go to him. You waste your time and my time! I want to go up! I want to be in the clouds.”

I didn’t move.

“Amel,” I said. “The things Gremt said about you, were they true?”

Silence. Confusion in him. Agitation.

Again came that flash: a city of glistening buildings falling into the sea. Was it a real city, or was it some dream of a city?

A spasm in my throat, and in my temples. I looked up into the blinding swirl of snow. And then I closed my eyes. I saw the burning city etched on the darkness.

A beat. A moment. The soundlessness of snow is remarkably beautiful. I had a hand filled with snow. And my fingers suddenly curled around the snow though I hadn’t told them to.

“Stop that,” I said.

No answer from him. There was a faint pain in my fingers as I relaxed them against his will. This really alarmed me. What if he could take over my entire body like this, make me stand, make me sit, make me go up—?

“Gentlemen,” I said beckoning to Cyril and Thorne. “I’m going up and over the sea. The sun’s just setting on the city of New Orleans.”

Thorne nodded. Cyril said nothing.

“I want to be in the only city I love more than I love Paris,” I said as if I were speaking to people who cared.

“Where you go, we go,” said Cyril with a shrug. “Long as I feed sometime or other in the next fortnight, what’s it to me if you want to go to China?”

“Don’t say that,” Thorne muttered, rolling his eyes. “We’re ready when you are, Prince.”