“What Louis is saying,” he said to Rose, “is that once we do pass that barrier we’ll know things that we’ll never be able to change or forget. Sure, we are obsessed now. We want it. How can we not want it? From our point of view, it’s not discussable. But he’s trying to warn us: once we cross we’ll be obsessed by something totally different and that obsessive awareness—that we’re not alive anymore, not human—that’s never going to be undone. That’s never going to go away. You follow me? What we’re obsessed with now, that may go away.”

“I understand,” said Rose. “Believe me, I do.”

Louis shook his head. He drew up his shoulders and then slowly relaxed again laying his right hand idly on the table. He was looking at the table but he was looking at his thoughts.

“When Lestat comes, it will be his decision, of course.”

“I’m not so sure why that should be,” said Viktor. “I’m not sure at all why I can’t make the decision with the agreement of Fareed or Seth. Fareed brought me into this world, really. Not Lestat.”

“But nobody’s going to make the decision except Uncle Lestan,” said Rose. “That’s clear enough. No one is willing to make it. And frankly, well, this evening we’ve had a chance to speak our hearts about this, and I’m grateful. We’ve had a chance to say out loud what we want.”

Viktor looked at Louis. “You say wait. You say ‘take your time.’ But what if we die while we’re waiting? What then? What would you think? Would you regret our having waited? I don’t know the point anymore of waiting.”

“You die to become this,” said Louis. “You can’t grasp it. You die. You can’t become what we are unless you die. I suppose finally I’m saying this. You think you are making what the world calls an informed decision, but you’re not. You can’t. You can’t know what this is like, to be both alive and dead.”

Viktor didn’t answer. He didn’t even seem overly concerned. He was so excited that they were here, so excited that they’d come this far. He was full of anticipation.

Rose looked away and then back at the pensive face of Louis, at his dark green eyes, and the set of his mouth. A handsome man of twenty-four maybe when he’d been brought over, and what a scathing portrait he’d given the world of Uncle Lestan, his maker, Lestat. But that didn’t matter now, did it? No, not at all.