I slipped on my large violet-tinted sunglasses, so essential to helping me pass for human in crowded streets, and guided Louis to the door.

We made a swift exit like two normal human beings, and we were halfway down the block, and turning towards Chartres Street, before he noticed Cyril and Thorne behind us, too close, and too conspicuous, and asked if they were going to follow us wherever we went.

“Can’t get rid of them,” I said. “Price of having the Core in me. Price of being the Prince.”

“And you truly are the Prince now, aren’t you?” he asked. “You’re really trying to make a go of it. You don’t want it to fall apart.”

“It will not fall apart,” I said. “Not this time, not while I have breath in my body. It’s more than another coven, more than a gathering of three or four in a new city. It’s more than anything that ever happened to any of us ever in the past.” I sighed. I gave up. “When you see the Court, you’ll understand.”

“I felt certain you’d already be sick of it,” he said. “The Brat Prince becoming the Prince? I would never have predicted it.”

“Me neither,” I said. “But you know my motto, what it’s always been. I refuse to be bad at what I do, and that includes being bad. I won’t be bad at being bad. I won’t do this badly now either. Wait and see.”

“I already see,” he said.

“I can make the bodyguards take to the roofs, if you want.”

“They don’t matter,” he said. “You’re the one who matters.”

We headed down Chartres towards Jackson Square. There was a fancy restaurant café on a nearby corner, and he seemed drawn to it, though why I wasn’t sure. It was too thrilling just being near him, walking with him as if we’d been walking like this for a hundred years. The night was balmy and almost warm, the way winter nights can be in New Orleans, between colder weather, and the crowds were mostly well-dressed tourists on the prowl, innocent, exuberant the way people become when they are in New Orleans and looking for a good time.