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We took him with us to the livery stables, and there I put him on my mare But he looked as if he would let himself fall off at any moment, and so I mounted behind him, and the three of us rode out

All the way through the country, I wondered what I would do I wondered what it ive any protest Now and then she glanced over at hi from him, and he was sht as a child but not a child

Surely he had always knohere the toas, but had its bars kept him out? Now I meant to take hi tofor which we had waited, but surely she knehat he had just done

When we finally dismounted, he walked ahead of ate I had taken out the iron key to the lock and I studied hi what pro one’s door Did the ancient laws of hospitality ht?

His eyes were large and brown and defeated Al silent moers curled around the iron crossbar in the center of the gate I stared helplessly as with a loud grinding noise the gate started to rip loose from the stone But he stopped and contented hi the iron bar a little The point had been made He could have entered this tower anytime that he wished

I examined the iron bar that he’d twisted I had beaten him Could I do what he had just done? I didn’t know And unable to calculate my oers, how could I ever calculate his?

"Come," Gabrielle said a little ieon crypt

It was cold here as always, the fresh spring air never touching the place She hted the candles And as he sat on the stone bench watching us, I saw the effect of the warer, the way that he breathed it in

As he looked about, it was as if he were absorbing the light His gaze was clear

Iht on vampires Yet the old coven had forsworn both

I settled on another bench, and I let my eyes roam about the broad low chamber as his eyes roa all this while And now she approached him She had taken out a handkerchief and she touched this to his face

He stared at her in the same way that he stared at the fire and the candles, and the shadows leaping on the curved ceiling This see else

And I felt a shudder when I realized the bruises on his face were now alain, the shape of the face having been fully restored, and he was only a little gaunt frohtly, against my will, as it had on the battleht of the pain only half an hour ago in the Palais when the lie had broken with the stab of his fangs into my neck

I hated hi at him Gabrielle combed his hair for him She took his hands and wiped the blood from them And he seemed helpless as all this was done And she had not so el as an expression of curiosity, a desire to be near hi illumination they looked at one another

He hunched forward a little, eyes darkening and full of expression now as they turned again to the grate Had it not been for the blood on his lace ruff, he ht

"What will you do now?" I asked I spoke to make it clear to Gabrielle "Will you reo on?"

No answer fro the stone benches, the sarcophagi Three sarcophagi

"Surely you knohat they’re doing," I said "Will you leave Paris or reain the nitude of what I had done to him and the others, but this faded away For one moment his face retched It was defeated and warm and full of huo had he been a human who looked like that?

He heard ive an answer He looked to Gabrielle, who stood near the fire, and then to me And silently, he said, Love ! But if you love me, it can all be restored in a new form Love me

This silent entreaty had an eloquence, however, that I can’t put into words

"What can I do to ive? The knowledge of all I have witnessed, the secrets of our powers, the mystery of what I am?"

It seemed blasphemous to answer And as I had on the battlee of tears For all the purity of his silent coave a lovely resonance to his sentiments when he actually spoke

It occurred to els must speak, if they exist

But I akened froht, by the fact that he was now besidehis forehead againstseduction of thatto s the two of us would know and understand as ave hiive me his He had been driven to try to destroy me, and he loved me all thethought Yet I felt danger The word that came unbidden to me was Beware

I don’t knohat Gabrielle saw or heard I don’t knohat she felt

Instinctively I avoided his eyes There see in the world I wanted ht at him and understand him, and yet I knew I ain, the flickering hellfires I had iined in the Palais Royal And all the lace and velvet in the eighteenth century could not give him a human face

I couldn’t keep this from him, and it pained me that it was impossible for me to explain it to Gabrielle And the awful silence between me and Gabrielle was at that moment almost too much to bear

With him, I could speak, yes, with him I could dream dreams Some reverence and terror inmy confusion and my desire

"Leave Paris, yes," he whispered "But take me with you I don’t kno to exist here now I stuh a carnival of horrors Please"

I heard myself say: "No"

"Have I no value to you?" he asked He turned to Gabrielle Her face was anguished and still as she looked at him I couldn’t knoent on in her heart, and toboth of us now "Is there nothing outside yourself you would respect?"

"I ht," I said "It was respect which kept me froly human fashion "That you never could have done"

I s him quite completely in another way

"Yes," he said, "that’s true You are destroying me Help me," he whispered "Give me but a few short years of all you have before you, the two of you I beg you That is all I ask"

"No," I said again

He was only a foot fro at ain of his face narrowing and darkening and caving in upon itself in rage It was as if he had no real substance Only will kept him robust and beautiful And when the flow of his as interrupted, he melted like a wax doll

But, as before, he recovered himself almost instantly The "hallucination" was past

He stood up and backed away from me until he was in front of the fire

The will co that didn’t belong to hi behind him made an eerie nimbus around his head

"I curse you!" he whispered

I felt a jet of fear

"I curse you," he said again and came closer "Love mortals then, and live as you have lived, recklessly, with appetite for everything and love for everything, but there will come a tilanced at Gabrielle "And I don’tthat I couldn’t conceal its effect onaway from him towards Gabrielle

"I don’t come empty-handed to you," he pressed, his voice deliberately softening "I don’t coive of my own Look at me Tell me you don’t need what you see in h the ordeals that lie ahead"

His, eyes flashed on Gabrielle and for one in to tremble

"Let her be!" I said

"You don’t knohat I say to her," he said coldly "I do not try to hurt her But in your love of mortals, what have you already done?"

He would say so to wound me or Gabrielle He knew all that had happened with Nicki I knew that he did If, somewhere deep down in my soul, I wished for the end of Nicki, he would know that too! Why had I let him in? Why had I not knohat he could do?

"Oh, but it’s always a travesty, don’t you see?" he said with that sa will ravage thehis life, another will run to excesses that you scorn A third will e, another a monster you cannot control One will be jealous of your superiority, another shut you out" And here he shot his glance to Gabrielle again and half smiled "And the veil will always coion You will be, always and forever, alone!"

"I don’t want to hear this It ," I said

Gabrielle’s face had undergone so at him with hatred noas sure of it

He h but isn’t a laugh at all

"Lovers with a human face," he mocked me "Don’t you see your error? The other one hates you beyond all reason, and she -- why, the dark blood hasas she is, there will come moments when she fears to be immortal, and ill she blame for as done to her?"

"You are a fool," Gabrielle whispered

"You tried to protect the violinist froht to protect her"

"Don’t say any more," I answered "You make me hate you Is that what you want?"

"But I speak the truth and you know it And what you will never know, either of you, is the full depth of each other’s hatreds and resent Or love"