“A wholly new reign,” said Magnus gently. There was the same loving smile on his lips.

“A wholly new era will suffice,” I said. “I’m not sure I want it to be called a reign.”

He smiled at this as though he found it not only impressive but somehow endearing. I didn’t know whether I was feeling love or hatred for him. Well, it certainly couldn’t be hatred. I was too completely happy to be alive.

I had the sense again that they were studying me in ways I couldn’t fathom, searching my face and form for signs of what was within. Yet Amel was silent. Amel was not helping me with them. Amel was there, yes, but utterly quiet.

Teskhamen caught my hand. His was far colder than mine. It had the hard icy texture of the Children of the Millennia. But his face was very warm and he said, “Forgive us for troubling you on this night, and so soon. But we were eager to see you with our own eyes. And we will go now, yes. I give you my apologies for our conduct. I think we are more impetuous and perhaps more excited than you can know.”

“I understand,” I said. “Thank you, my friends.” But I couldn’t repress my suspicions as they took their leave now, moving in a small loose body past me out of the drawing room into the hall and through the front door.

Armand went with them, his arm around the dark-haired ghost, the ghost who had been weeping, and the door was closed.

I realized that I was alone with Louis in the empty hallway. The others had gone.

“You know who they are?” I whispered.

“I know what they told me,” he said, walking along with me. “And I know what they told you. And the others obviously know who they are and they’re not afraid of them. Yet all wait for you to take command, you to come, you to greet them and invite them to your home in France. You are the leader, Lestat, no doubt about it. All know it. And these ghosts and spirits or whoever they are—they know it too.”

I stopped. I put my arm around him. I held him close to me.

“I’m Lestat,” I said in a low voice. “Your Lestat. I’m the same Lestat you’ve always known, and no matter how I’m changed, I’m still that same being.”

“I know,” he said warmly.

I kissed him. I pressed my lips to his and I held this kiss for a long silent moment. And then I gave in to a silent wave of feeling, and I took him in my arms. I held him tight against me. I felt his unmistakable silken skin, his soft shining black hair. I heard the blood throbbing in him, and time dissolved, and it seemed I was in some old and secret place, some warm tropical grotto we’d once shared, ours alone in some way, with the scent of sweet olive blossoms and the whisper of moist breeze. “I love you,” I whispered.

In a low intimate voice, he answered: “My heart is yours.”

I wanted to weep.

But there was no time.

At that moment, Gregory and Seth reappeared with Sevraine, and Sevraine told me that they had seen to the ballroom and all was in readiness. Marius and Pandora were prepared. The candles had been lighted.

“I’m sorry about our unexpected guests,” said Sevraine. “It seems a true prince is much in demand. But you go now to those waiting for you.”

Viktor and Rose were in the French library.

They had chosen a kind of muted finery for the ceremony. Rose wore a long-sleeved dress of soft clinging black silk that left her throat bare, and hung beautifully to her feet. And Viktor wore a simple thawb, of black wool. The severity of these garments made their shining complexions all the more vivid, their lips all the more naturally pink, and their eager eyes all the more heartbreakingly innocent as well as vibrant.

I wanted to be with them, but I felt immediately that I was going to weep, that I couldn’t prevent it, and I almost fled. But this really was not a choice available to me. I had to do what was right for them.

I took them in my arms and asked if they were still resolved to come to us.

Of course they were.

“I know there’s no turning back for either of you,” I said. “And I know you both believe that you’re prepared for the road you’re taking. I know this. But you must know how much I grieve right now for what you might have been in the course of time, and what now you will never be.”

“But why, Father?” asked Viktor. “Yes, we’re young, we know this. We don’t challenge it. But we’re already dying as are all young things. Why can’t you be completely happy for us?”

“Dying?” I asked. “Well, yes, that’s true. I don’t say it’s not true. But can I be blamed for wondering what you might have been in ten more years of mortal life, or twenty or thirty? Is that dying, for a young man to grow into a man in his prime, for a beautiful young bud of a woman to become the full blossom?”

“We want to be forever as we are now,” said Rose. Her voice was so sweet, so tender. She didn’t want this to be painful for me. She was comforting me. “Surely, you of all people understand,” she pressed.

How could I? What was the point of reminding them that I’d never chosen the Blood. I’d never had such a chance. And what was the point of sentimentalizing the fact that had I lived out my life as a mortal man, even my bones would be gone now, perished in the earth, if I’d died in my bed at the age of ninety?

I was about to speak to them when I heard Amel inside me. He spoke in the softest whisper.

“Keep to your vow,” he said. “They are not dying. They are coming to you as a prince and princess to be part of your court. We are not Death. No. We have never been, have we? We are immortal.”

His voice was so resonant, so subtle in tone, that it shocked me, but this was in fact the same tone he’d used since he’d come into me. And yet it was the Voice that I’d been hearing for decades.

“Give them courage,” he whispered. “But I leave you these moments. They are yours more truly than they are mine.”

Inwardly I thanked him.

I looked at them, Viktor to my left, at eye level with me, and Rose gazing up, her face a perfect oval framed by her shining black hair.

“I know,” I said. “I do know. We can’t ask you to wait. We shouldn’t. We can’t live either with the simple fact that some gruesome accident might take you away from us at any random moment. Once the Blood’s been offered, there is no waiting, no preparing, not really.”

Rose kissed me on the cheek. Viktor stood patiently beside me, merely smiling.

“All right, my babies,” I said. “This is a grand moment.”