“My point is simply that this Amel is a spirit of immense knowledge and secrets and he happens to be our spirit!” I waited. “Don’t you see? We cannot keep talking about him as if he were a cheap villain who’s broken into our existence simply to inconvenience us and frighten us and bully us and demand things from us. He’s the fount of our very life.” I leaned forward and rested my hands on the table. “So he kills,” I said. “We kill. So he slaughters mercilessly. Who here of my age or older has not done the same? This entity, this being, is at the root of what we are. Whether he has any plan or not, beyond taking possession of Rhoshamandes, he has a destiny! We all do! That’s what this crisis has taught me. That’s what Benji’s incessant urgings have taught me! We are a tribe with a destiny and it’s a destiny worth fighting for. And Amel feels what we feel, that he is a being condemned to suffer for reasons he cannot know, a being who wants to love and wants to learn, who wants to see and feel, and he, like us, has a destiny worth fighting for.”

Utter silence.

There was almost no movement, except that they were all glancing to one another. Then in a low voice Seth spoke.

“I think,” he said, “that Prince Lestat has made an excellent point.”

Marius nodded.

“So what you’re saying,” said Benji, “is that the Voice is a member of the tribe.”

I laughed. “Well, yes!”

“And he’s evil and we are evil,” whispered Armand.

“That’s not so!” said Benji. “We are not evil. You will never understand that. Never.”

A change came over Seth. It was sudden. He rose to his feet and so did Sevraine and also Gregory.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Rhoshamandes. He’s coming,” said Seth. “He’s drawing near.”

“He’s overhead, directly,” said Gregory.

Marius rose to his feet with them.

I stood there with my arms folded, listening. I glanced over my shoulder at Rose, who lay in uneasy sleep under her blanket. I looked at Louis who was watching me intently.

But anyone could hear it now, hear its footsteps, and plainly they all did except for Rose, who slept.

He, this being with his mind closed shut like a vault, was walking with intentionally audible steps down an iron staircase somewhere, likely from a portal on the roof, and into the hallway beyond the entrance to the ballroom.