Fareed was smiling, obviously pleased, and Seth was satisfied for the moment but not without grave suspicions of what might lie ahead.

“We will never again, any of us here, be isolated from one another, in exile, and unreachable.” I stopped, taking the time to meet the eyes of each and every one present. “We must all promise. We must maintain our lines of communication, and we must seek to see how we may benefit from one another as a united people. For that is what we are now, not so much the Children of Darkness, but the People of the Savage Garden, because we have come of age as such.”

I stopped. People of the Savage Garden. I didn’t know if it was the right or ultimate term for us. I had to think on that, the matter of an ultimate term—consult, listen to the inevitable poetry that would rise to create a term from all the tribe. For now I had done the best that I could do. There was so much more to be done. But I was tired, raggedly tired.

I motioned that I needed a moment to collect my thoughts. And I was startled to hear a soft applause break out in the room that soon included everyone, it seemed, and then died away quietly.

So much more to say.

I thought again of Magnus, that ghost, Magnus who’d come to me in the golden caves of Sevraine’s little city in Cappadocia. I thought of Gremt, the grand spirit who had been there too.

“And we must take up one more matter now,” I said. “It’s the matter of the Talamasca. It’s the matter of what they’ve made known to me and Sevraine about their members.”

“And to me as well,” said Pandora. “I’ve met Gremt as I know you have, the spirit who in fact brought the Talamasca into being.”

“And I too have been contacted by them,” said Marius. “And a meeting with them soon might be to the benefit of us all.”

Again, I listened for Amel, but there was only silence, and the warm subtle embrace under my skin that let me know he was there. I was looking down. I waited.

“Learning, Prince Lestat,” he said in the lowest whisper. “Learning as I have never dreamed it was possible to learn.”

I looked up. “Yes, and we will indeed meet with them, meet with those who’ve revealed themselves to us, and we will determine among other things how to treat the old ongoing mortal Order of the Talamasca whom these spectral founding fathers have apparently cut loose to pursue its own destiny.”

Seth was marveling, obviously wanting to know so much more on this.