“When I burned the towels in the shower and under the door, I drew Benedict out immediately,” said Viktor. “It was the simplest trick. He was in a panic. He’s not what anybody would call clever. I’ve understood since early childhood that immortals aren’t necessarily brilliant or cunning, or profoundly talented. They develop over centuries. Well, he’s gullible. He’s no nonpareil like Fareed or my mother. And that also makes him dangerous, very dangerous. He lives for Rhosh’s commands. The whole time he was locking me up in that bathroom, he kept assuring me I’d be comfortable, well treated, Rhosh assured it. Rhosh wasn’t cruel. Rhosh would free me soon enough. Rhosh and Rhosh and Rhosh.”

He shook his head, and shrugged.

“Putting out the burning towels was easy. The house wasn’t in the slightest danger. In fact I’m the one that sprayed the fires out with the handheld shower nozzle. He just stood there wringing his hands. He started apologizing to me, begging me to bear with all this, saying Rhoshamandes was only using me for leverage, that everything was going to work out and I’d be with you before dawn.”

“Well, he was right about that much,” I said with a short laugh. “What about Mekare? What happened exactly when she came up the steps?”

“I thought Benedict would die on the spot,” said Viktor. “If immortals could seize up and die of heart failure, well, he would have been dead. The door was open and she came down a kind of landing towards us and she was looking directly at him, moving towards him with a kind of sluggish gait. I mean it was horrible actually, the way she was moving. But then she saw me, and her eyes tightened on me. She went right past him into the bathroom. He had to jump aside for her. And she came towards me. Again, I’ve never been frightened of blood drinkers, never, and she was just a little older than Seth. The sheer whiteness of her skin, that was the most startling aspect of her. Of course I knew all about her, I knew who she was.”

He was wondering at it again, shaking his head. I try to anatomize his expression. It wasn’t humility that he displayed, but rather a purity of heart that took things as they came without an obsession with self. I’d never been half as virtuous as he was when I’d been a young man.