Again Gremt didn’t answer.

“And if it is not one of those two,” Pandora went on. “Well, then, who is it?” She asked it as if she were a lawyer and Gremt were a hostile witness in a courtroom.

“It’s far from clear,” Gremt said finally. “But I think I know who it is. What I don’t know is what it wants and what it means to do in the long run.”

“And what is all this to you, precisely?” Pandora demanded.

Arjun was frightened by her tone, and he blinked as if she were a light blinding him with her coldness.

“What does it matter to you, in particular,” she pressed, “what happens to us, creatures like us?”

Gremt pondered. Sooner or later he must reveal all. Sooner or later he must put forth all he knew. But was this the time for it, and how many times must he confess everything? He’d learned what he needed to learn here from Arjun, and he had comforted Arjun as had been his intention. And he had laid eyes on Pandora to whom he owed an immense debt, but he was not sure he could answer her questions fully.

“You are dear to me,” he said to her now in a small but steady voice. “And it gives me a certain pleasure, at last, after all these years, these centuries, to tell you that you are, and that you have always been, a shining star on my path, when you had no way of knowing it.”

She was intrigued and mollified, but not satisfied. She waited. Her pale face, though she’d rubbed it with ashes and oil to make it less luminous tonight, looked virginal and biblical on account of her robes and the delicacy of her features. But behind that beautiful face she was calculating: How could she defend herself against a being like Gremt? Could she use her immense strength to harm him?

“No, you cannot,” he said, giving her the answer. “It’s time for me to leave you both.” He rose to his feet. “I urge you to go to New York, to join with Armand and Louis there.…”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because you must come together to meet the challenge of the Voice, just as you did long ago to meet the challenge of Akasha! You cannot allow this thing to continue. You must get to the root of the mystery, and that is best done if you come together. If you go there, Marius will follow your lead surely. And so will others, others whose names you do not know and have never known, and surely Lestat will come. And it is to Lestat that people look for leadership.”

“Oh why, oh why to that insufferable brat,” murmured Arjun. “What has he ever done but make trouble?”