blood danced back away from the surface of my face, I felt cooler and strangely enervated 
that I felt any sensations at all.
  
  It was a shock being here and I wanted it to be over.
  
  "Master, I don't know who I am in this new life," I said gratefully. "Reborn? 
Confused?" I hesitated, but there was no use stopping it. "Don't ask me to stay here just 
now. Maybe some time when Lestat is himself again, maybe when enough time has passed-. I 
don't know for certain, only that I can't accept your kind invitation now."
  
  He gave me a brief accepting nod. With his hand he made a little acquiescent gesture. 
His old gray cloak had slipped off one shoulder. He seemed not to care about it. His thin 
black wool clothes were neglected, lapels and pockets trimmed in a careless gray dust. 
That was not right for him.
  
  He had a big shock of white silk at his throat that made his pale face seem more 
colored and human than it otherwise would. But the silk was torn as if by brambles. In 
sum, he haunted the world in these clothes, rather than was dressed in them. They were 
for a stumbler, not my old Master.
  
  I think he knew I was at a loss. I was looking up at the gloom above me. I wanted to 
reach the attic of this place, the half-concealed clothing of the dead child. I wondered 
at this story of the dead child. I had the impertinence to let my mind drift, though he 
was waiting.
  
  He brought me back with his gentle words:
  
  "Sybelle and Benji will be with me when you want them," he said. "You can find us. We 
aren't far. You'll hear the Appassionato when you want to hear it." He smiled.
  
  "You've given her a piano," I said. I spoke of golden Sybelle. I had shut out the world 
from my preternatural hearing, and I didn't want just yet to unstop my ears even for the 
lovely sound of her playing, which I already missed overly much.
  
  As soon as we'd entered the convent, Sybelle had seen a piano and asked in a whisper at 
my ear if she could play it. It was not in the chapel where Lestat lay, but off in 
another long empty room. I had told her it wasn't quite proper, that it might disturb 
Lestat as he lay there, and we couldn't know what he thought, or what he felt, or if he 
was anguished and trapped in his own dreams.
  
  "Perhaps when you come, you'll stay for a while," Marius said. "You'll like the sound 
of her playing my piano, and maybe then we'll talk together, and you can rest with us, 
and we can share the house for as long as you like."
  
  I didn't answer.
  
  "It's palatial in a New World sort of way," he said with a little mockery in his smile. 
"It's not far at all. I have the most spacious gardens and old oaks, oaks far older than 
those even out there on the Avenue, and all the windows are doors. You know how I like it 
that way. It's the Roman style. The house is open to the spring rain, and the spring rain 
here is like a dream."
  
  "Yes, I know," I whispered. "I think it's falling now, isn't it?" I smiled.
  
  "Well, I'm rather spattered with it, yes," he said almost gaily. "You come when you 
want to. If not tonight, then tomorrow...»
  
  "Oh, I'll be there tonight," I said. I didn't want to offend him, not in the slightest, 
but Benji and Sybelle had seen enough of white-faced monsters with velvet voices. It was 
time to be off.
  
  I looked at him rather boldly, enjoying it for a moment, overcoming a shyness that had 
been our curse in this modern world. In Venice of old, he had gloried in his clothes as 
men did then, always so sharp and splendidly embellished, the glass of fashion, to use 
the old graceful phrase. When he crossed the Piazza San Marco in the soft purple of 
evening, all turned to watch him pass. Red had been his badge of pride, red velvet-a 
flowing cape, and magnificently embroidered doublet, and beneath it a tunic of gold silk 
tissue, so very popular in those times.
  
  He'd had the hair of a young Lorenzo de' Medici, right from the painted wall.
  
  "Master, I love you, but now I must be alone," I said. "You don't need me now, do you, 
Sir? How can you? You never really did." Instantly I regretted it. The words, not the 
tone, were impudent. And our minds being so divided by intimate blood, I was afraid he'd 
misunderstand.
  
  "Cherub, I want you," he said forgivingly. "But I can wait. Seems not long ago I spoke 
these same words when we were together, and so I say them again."
  
  I couldn't bring myself to tell him it was my season for mortal company, how I longed 
just to be talking away the night with little Benji, who was such a sage, or listening to 
my beloved Sybelle play her sonata over and over again. It seemed beside the point to 
explain any further. And the sadness came over me again, heavily and undeniably, of 
having come to this forlorn and empty convent where Lestat lay, unable or unwilling to 
move or speak, none of us knew.
  
  "Nothing will come of my company just now, Master," I said. "But you will grant me some 
key to finding you, surely, so that when this time passes..." I let my words die.
  
  "I fear for you!" he whispered suddenly, with great warmth.
  
  "Any more than ever before, Sir?" I asked.
  
  He thought for a moment. Then he said, "Yes. You love two mortal children. They are 
your moon and stars. Come stay with me if only for a little while. Tell me what you think 
of our Lestat and what's happened. Tell me perhaps, if I promise to remain very quiet and 
not to press you, tell me your opinion of all you've so recently seen."
  
  "You touch on it delicately, Sir, I admire you. You mean why did I believe Lestat when 
he said he had been to Heaven and Hell, you mean what did I see when I looked at the