Armand stood up, his eyes as innocent and submissive as they always appeared.

“They’ll be coming into the back garden,” he said. “Let me show you the way.”

“I think you should destroy this one,” said Benji with a serious frown as he looked at Rhoshamandes. “He cares nothing about any of us. He cares only for his Benedict and himself.”

Rhoshamandes showed no sign that this surprised him or even that he’d heard.

“Lestat,” said Benji. “You are our prince now. Destroy him.”

“He was tricked,” said Allesandra again softly.

“They killed the great Maharet,” said Notker under his breath. He gave a little shrug, one eyebrow raised eloquently. “They killed her. They took counsel from no one. They should have come to you, to the others here, to us.”

“Except the Voice bewitched them,” said Allesandra, “and the Voice lies and the Voice is treacherous.”

I could hear the Voice snickering and murmuring and then he cried out, startling me, positively screaming in my head, exploding all rational thought, but I quickly regained my poise. “Destroy him,” said the Voice. “He bungled everything.”

I almost laughed out loud, but pressed my lips together in a bitter smile.

But Rhoshamandes knew what the Voice had just said to me. Rhoshamandes had picked it up from my mind.

He looked at me, but nothing changed in his calm face, and then slowly he looked away.

“I gave my word,” I said to Benji. “When Viktor comes, we’ll give him back these fragments. I can’t break my word.”

I went round the table and towards Rose.

She lay pale and shuddering against the satin pillows. I collected her in my arms and carried her out of the ballroom behind Armand.

Chapter 25

Lestat

The Garden of Love

IT WAS a vast space, walled in brick, and lined with young oak trees rising some three stories with bright green leaves. There were banks of flowers, and pathways winding through patches of flowers, and all of this artfully lighted with electric bulbs concealed at the roots of the trees and the shrubbery, and little Japanese stone lanterns here and there on patches of grass with flickering flames.

The dull soothing roar of Manhattan seemed to enfold it as surely as the dim hulking outline of tall buildings behind it and on either side. Three townhouse gardens had been joined, obviously, to make this little paradise, this lovingly tended place that seemed as verdant and vital as an old New Orleans courtyard, safe from the throbbing world around it, and existing only for those who knew its secret or had the keys to its formidable gates.

Rose and I sat on the bench together. She was dazed, silent. I said nothing. What was there to say? She was a nymph beside me in her white silk dress, and I could feel her heart beating rapidly, hear the anguished thoughts struggling to achieve some coherence in her feverish mind.