“Rose and Viktor,” I said. “This day will be your last on Earth when the sun is visible to you and when the sun is your friend.” I felt a sudden throb in my heart. I swallowed, trying to keep my voice steady. “Spend this day however you wish, but be wise and stay safe and come home to us at sunset … to reaffirm your decision.”

I saw my son beaming at me, and beside him Rose looking on in quiet wonder. I smiled. I put my fingers gently to my lips and let the silent kiss go.

I left the room quickly. There would be time to embrace them, and to weep, yes, to weep as I held their warm, tender mortal bodies in my arms, only some thirteen hours from now when the night threw its inevitable mantle once again across the great Savage Garden that was our world.

As I lay down to sleep in the French library, I spoke softly to Amel.

“You’re quiet,” I said, “strangely quiet but I know you are there.”

“Yes, I’m here,” he said. “And it’s as you told them. Do you doubt your own explanation?” There was a pause but I knew he was going to say something more. “Years ago,” he said, “when you were a mortal boy in your village in France you had a friend, a friend you loved.”

“Nicolas,” I said.

“And you and he would talk.”

“Yes.”

“By the hour, by the day, by the night, by the week and the month …”

“Yes, always in those days when we were boys together, we would talk.”

“Do you remember what you called it, your long flowing exchange?”

“Our conversation,” I said. I marveled that he knew. Did he know because I knew? Could he search through my memory when I wasn’t remembering? I was drowsy and my eyes were closing. “Our conversation,” I said again. “And it went on and on.…”

“Well, we are having ‘our conversation,’ aren’t we?” he asked. “And our conversation will go on forever. There is no need for haste.”

A great warmth came over me as if I’d been wrapped in a blanket of love.

“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes.”

Chapter 29

Lestat

Pomp and Circumstance

AT SUNSET, the word went out that I would come before all in the park, at a deserted location well hidden from the mortal world. And as I set out to go, dressed in a new red-velvet coat and black pants and nice spiffy midcalf boots generously provided by Armand along with some old-fashioned lace at my throat, I discovered that Seth and Gregory were coming with me, that under no circumstances would they allow the Prince to walk amongst his people unguarded. Thorne and Flavius also accompanied us without a word.

I accepted it.