“Yes,” said Jesse. David had complied with her request and she was tapping away on the shiny little device, fingers fluttering over it with such speed they were a bit of a blur.

I came back, flopped heavily on the sofa, and threw down my iPhone as if it were a gauntlet on the coffee table. “Take that!”

“Now, please, share with me all the information you’re willing to share,” she said.

I told her again what I’d told Maharet years ago. Contact my attorneys in Paris. As for my e-mails, well, I changed them all the time as I forgot how to use them and tried to learn all over again with some new and superior service. And I always forgot or lost the old devices or the old computers and then had to begin again.

“All the info’s in the phone,” I said. I unlocked it for her and gave it to her.

I watched as she brought the devices up to date. I watched as she shared my information with David, and David’s information with me, and I was ashamed to admit that I was glad I had these ephemeral numbers. I’d shoot a record of all this to my attorney and he’d keep it through thick and thin, even when I’d forgotten how to access it online myself.

“Now, please,” Jesse said finally. “Spread the word. Express my concerns to Marius, to Armand, to Louis, to Benji, to everyone.”

“It will drive Benji out of his gourd to have ‘secret intelligence’ about the twins perhaps immolating themselves,” David said. “That I will not do. But I will indeed try to find Marius.”

“Surely there are old ones in Paris,” I said, “old enough to have spied on us here tonight.” I wasn’t speaking of the riffraff.

Yet I had the feeling Jesse didn’t care. Let the riffraff hear it, for all Jesse cared. Let the old ones hear it. Jesse was frayed from conflict and anxiety. And even confiding in us had not eased her pain.

“Were you ever happy in the Blood?” I asked suddenly.

She was startled. “What do you mean?”

“In the beginning, during those first years. Were you happy?”

“Yes,” she said. “And, I know that I will be happy again. Life is a gift. Immortality is a precious gift. It shouldn’t be called the Dark Gift. That’s not fair.”

“I want to see Maharet in person,” said David. “I want to go with you home.”

Jesse shook her head. “She won’t allow it, David. She knew what I meant to say when I found you. She allowed this. But she will not receive anyone now at home.”

“Do you still trust in her?” asked David.

“In Maharet?” Jesse asked. “Always. Yes, in Maharet.”

That was significant. She didn’t trust the other two.

She was backing away from us towards the double doors to the hallway.