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I did not like rising in the black underground crypt I didn’t like the chill in the air, and that faint stench fro that this here all the dead things lay

A fear overcame me What if she didn’t rise? What if her eyes never opened again? What did I knohat I’d done?

Yet it see to aze at her in her sleep as I had done last night A mortal shame came over me At ho, never dared to draw back the curtains of her bed

She would rise She had to And better that she should lift the stone for herself, kno to rise, and that the thirst should drive her to it at the proper hted the torch on the wall for her, and went out for a ates and doors unlocked behind ht ht, when she awakened

An hour ht faded, the stars rose, and the distant city of Paris lighted its ainst the iron bars and I went to the chest and began to select jewels for her

Jewels she still loved She had taken her old keepsakes with her e left her rooh I didn’t really need them The illumination was beautiful to me Beautiful on the jewels And I found very delicate and lovely things for her-pearl-studded pins that she s that would look masculine on her small hands if that hat she wanted

I listened now and then for her And this chill would clutch my heart What if she did not rise? What if there had been only that one night for her? Horror thudding in ht dancing in the faceted stones, the gold settings -- it

But I didn’t hear her I heard the wind outside, the great soft rustle of the trees, the faint distant whistling of the stable boy as heof

Then very suddenly there ca me This was so unfa into the chest, and stared at the mouth of the secret tunnel No one there

No one in this s on the stones and Magnus’s grius

Then I looked straight in front ofback atto the bars with both hands, and she was s

I almost cried out I backed up and the sweat broke out all over uard, to be so obviously startled

But she reradually changing froht made her eyes too brilliant

"It’s not very nice to frighten other ihed more freely and easily than she ever had when she was alive

Relief coursed through

"How did you get there!" I said I went to theand reached through the bars and clasped both her wrists

Her little reat shi mane around her face

"I cliot here?"

"Well, go down You can’t coo to ht about that," she said "I’ve been to all the s Meet me on the battlements above It’s faster"

She started cli her boots easily into the bars, then she vanished

She was all exuberance as she’d been the night before as we caering here?" she said "Why don’t we go on now to Paris?"

So not rightas it?

She didn’t want kisses now, or even talk, really And that had a little sting to it

"I want to show you the inner room," I said "And the jewels"

"The jewels?" she asked

She hadn’t seen them from theThe cover of the chest had blocked her view She walked ahead of nus had burned, and then she lay down to crawl through the tunnel

As soon as she saw the chest, she was shocked by it

She tossed her hair a little impatiently over her shoulder and bent to study the brooches, the rings, the small ornao one by one

"Why, hethes He chose what he would take, didn’t he? What a creature he rily, she pushed her hair out of her way It see

"The pearls, look at thes" I showed her the ones I’d already chosen for her I took her hand and slipped the rings on her fingers Her fingers ht, and again she laughed

"Ah, but we are splendid devils, aren’t we?"

"Hunters of the Savage Garden," I said

"Then let’s go into Paris," she said Faint touch of pain in her face, the thirst She ran her tongue over her lips Was I half as fascinating to her as she was to me?

She raked her hair back from her forehead, and her eyes darkened with the intensity of her words

"I wanted to feed quickly tonight," she said, "then go out of the city, into the woods Go where there are no men and women about Go where there is only the wind and the dark trees, and the stars overhead Blessed silence"

She went to theagain Her back was narrow and straight, and her hands at her sides, alive with the jeweled rings And co as they did out of the thick cuffs of the man’s coat, her hands looked all theat the high dih the purple layer of evening et," I said under my breath "I have to take care of Nicki, tell them some lie about what’s happened to you"

She turned, and her face looked small and cold suddenly, the way it could at ho But she’d never really look that way again

"Why tell the about ain?"

I was shocked by this But it wasn’t a co for it Perhaps I’d sensed it in her all along, the unspoken questions

I wanted to say Nicki sat by your bed when you were dying, does that ? But how sentimental, how mortal that sounded, how positively foolish

Yet it wasn’t foolish

"I don’t e you," she said She folded her arainst the"I simply don’t understand Why did you write to us? Why did you send us all the gifts? Why didn’t you take this white fire froo where you wanted with it?"

"But where should I want to go?" I said "Away from all those I’d known and loved? I did not want to stop thinking of you, of Nicki, even of my father and my brothers I did what I wanted," I said

"Then conscience played no role in it?"

"If you follow your conscience, you do what you want," I said "But it was siave you I wanted youto be happy"

She reflected for a long tiet you?" I dery