Viktor had been so very much more prepared for it, a human child brought up amongst blood drinkers, easily clasping hands and nodding and answering questions, though he had stayed right at Rose’s side. He’d picked the long white silk dress for her out of her closet, and worn a black velvet jacket with a boiled shirt for the occasion, beaming down at her again and again as if he were proud to have her hand on his arm.

She’d felt certain the blood drinkers were all concealing their curiosity and amazement at seeing them, which was so funny because she was so very shocked at seeing all of them.

Marius had embraced her, the only one to do it, and whispered poetry to her: “ ‘Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! / It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night / Like a rich jewel …’ ”

He’d kissed Viktor also. “Such a gift you are for your father,” he had said. And Viktor had smiled.

She had known Viktor was on the edge of tears that Lestat had not come yet. But Lestat was on his way. That was now certain. He’d gone south on an errand to the Amazon that could not wait. But he was coming, most definitely coming. Seth assured them of this himself. He claimed to have heard it from an unimpeachable source, Lestat’s own mother.

And Rose had been on the edge of breaking down at that news. But all this had made the suspense not only endurable but engulfing. Surely, Seth wouldn’t have revealed the full depth of their world to her if Uncle Lestan—if Lestat was not to give both of them the Dark Gift.

“The Dark Gift.” She liked to whisper those words.

There had come a moment last night when it seemed the entire company was on the dance floor, and some of the blood drinkers were singing softly with the musicians and the entire ballroom was wrapped in a cloud of golden light.

She had been dancing with Viktor, and he had bent and kissed her lips.

“I love you, Rose,” he had said. And she’d dug deep down into her soul at that moment and asked herself could they turn away from this, actually turn away from it, and go to some other place, some safe place where their natural love for each other would be enough to dim the memories of this? She and Viktor had known surely the most tantalizing intimacy, the sweetest affection, the purest lovemaking she had ever imagined. It had erased for her all the ugliness and horror of what had happened with Gardner, all the shame and the crushing disappointment. By day when blood drinkers slept and their mysteries were gone along with them, she’d held Viktor against her heart and he’d held her, and that had been its own miracle, its own sacrament, its own gift.

She shuddered.