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I was sitting in the chair it seemed I’d been asleep forever, but I hadn’t been asleep at all I was home in my father’s house

I looked around for the fire poker and s, and to see if there was any wine left, and then I saw the gold drapery around the s and the back of Notre Da stars, and I saw her there

We were in Paris And ere going to live forever

She had so in her hands Another candelabra A tinderbox She stood very straight and her movements were quick She made a spark and touched it to the candles one by one And the little flames rose, and the painted flowers on the walls rolled up to the ceiling and the dancers on the ceiling ain

She was standing in front of ht of her And her face hite and perfectly sone away, in fact every bleh what those flaws had been I couldn’t have told you She was perfect now

And the lines given her by age had been reduced and curiously deepened, so that there were tiny laugh lines at the edge of each eye, and a very tiny crease on either side of her mouth The barest fold of extra flesh re her syles in her face, and her lips were the softest shade of pink She looked delicate as a diaht I closed ain and saas no delusion, any more than her silence was a delusion And I saw that her body was evenwoain, the breasts that the illness had withered away They were swelling above the dark blue taffeta of her corset, the pale pink tint of her flesh so subtle it ht But her hair was evenbecause it appeared to be alive So much color , billions of tiny strands stirring around the flawless white face and throat

The wounds on her throat were gone

Now nothing ree Look into her eyes

Look with these va like yourself for the first tinus leapt into the fire

I htly as if I had Gabrielle, that was the only name I could ever call her now "Gabrielle," I said io her, never having called her that except in sohts, and I saw her almost sone but the thirst gnashed in me My veins spoke to me as if I had spoken to theesture of hunger And she gave ful expression as if to say, "Don’t you understand?"

But I heard nothing fro full at me and the love perhaps hicheach other, but silence stretching in all directions, ratifying nothing I couldn’t fatho her mind? I asked her silently and she didn’t appear to comprehend

"Now," she said, and her voice startled me It was softer, ne, the snoas falling, and she was singing to reat cave But that was finished She said, "Godone with all of this, quickly -- now!" She nodded to coax ed at my hand "Look at yourself in the iven her more blood than I had taken from her I was starved I hadn’t even fed before I came to her

But I was so taken with the sound of the syllables and that gli that for amine I saw our flesh was the same I rose up out of the chair and held her two hands and then I felt of her arms and her face It was done and I was alive still! She ith h that awful solitude and she ithher, crushing her to o

I lifted her off her feet I swung her up in my arms and we turned round and round

She threw back her head and her laughter shook loose fro louder and louder, until I put my hand over her lass in the roolanced towards the doors Nicki and Roget were out there

"Then letplayful in her expression I set her on her feet I think we eain almost foolishly I couldn’t keepin the flat, the doctor and the nurses thinking that they should come in

I saw her look to the door She was hearing the her?

She broke away fro froain and brought them to the mirror where she looked at her face

I understood as happening to her She needed tiet out of the flat

I could hear Nicki’s voice through the wall, urging the doctor to knock on the door

Hoas I to get her out of here, get rid of them?

"No, not that way," she said when she sawat the bed, the objects on the table She went to the bed and took her jewels from under the pillow She examined them and put them back into the worn velvet purse Then she fastened the purse to her skirt so that it was lost in the folds of cloth

There was an air of ih herthat this was all she wanted fros, the clothes she’d brought with her, her ancient silver brush and comb, and the tattered books that lay on the table by the bed

There was knocking at the door

"Why not this way?" she asked, and turning to the , she threw open the glass The breeze gusted into the gold draperies and lifted her hair off the back of her neck, and when she turned I shivered at the sight of her, her hair tangling around her face, and her eyes wide and filled with ht She was afraid of nothing

I took hold of her and for a o I nestled ain was that ere together and nothing was ever going to separate us now I didn’t understand her silence, why I couldn’t hear her, but I kneasn’t her doing, and perhaps I believed it would pass She ith ave hiht out of his hand I said it aloud I said other desperate and nonsensical things We were the sas, the two of us, andering in the Savage Garden and I tried to e Garden, but it didn’t e Garden," she repeated the words reverently, her lipsinsohts

She said, "But help me, noant to see you do it, now, and we have forever to hold to each other Co I positively required the blood, and she wanted the taste, I knew she did Because I reht It struck me then that the pain of her physical deaththe fluids leaving her ht be lessened if she could first drink

The knocking caain The door wasn’t locked

I stepped up on the sill of theand reached for her, and i, but I could feel her power, the tenacity of her grip Yet when she saw the alley below, the top of the wall and the quai beyond, she seemed for a moment to doubt

"Put your arht"

I cli, her face turned upwards to me, until we had reached the slippery slates of the roof

Then I took her hand and pulled her after utters and the chi across the narrow alleys until we had reached the other side of the island I’d been ready anyto me, but she wasn’t afraid

She stood silent, looking over the rooftops of the Left Bank, and down at the river croith thousands of dark little boats full of ragged beings, and she see her hair I could have fallen in a stupor looking at her, studying her, all the aspects of the transformation, but there was an ih the entire city, to reveal all things to her, to teach her everything I’d learned She knew nothing of physical exhaustion now any more than I did And she wasn’t stunned by any horror such as I had been when Magnus went into the fire

A carriage ca badly towards the river, the driver hunched over, trying to keep his balance on the high bench I pointed to it as it drew near and I clasped her hand

We leapt as it ca soundlessly on the leather top The busy driver never looked around I held tight to her, steadying her, until ere both riding easily, ready to jump off the vehicle e chose

It was indescribably thrilling, doing this with her