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“When the boy had finished, he knelt with his arms around Armand’s neck as if he actually savored the icy flesh And I could reht Lestat first caleamed You knohat I am to you now

“Finally, it was finished He was to sleep, and Arainst hi, and Are, beautiful eyes tranquil and seely innocent When I felt them pull rate, but there were only ashes

“ ‘You told in, as this?’ I asked, looking up at hi back, yet wasn’t offended, only regarding ht wonder But I eak, too weak for his wonder, and again I looked away from him

“ ‘Did you kill this vampire who made you? Is that why you are here without hio thinks that you did’

“ ‘And if this is true, or if we can’t convince you otherwise, you would try to destroy us?’ I asked

“ ‘I would not try to do anything to you,’ he said, calmly ‘But as I told you, I am not the leader here in the sense that you asked’

“ ‘Yet they believe you to be the leader, don’t they? And Santiago, you shoved him away from me twice’

“ ‘I’er than you are,’ he said His voice was simple, devoid of pride These were facts

“ ‘We want no quarrel with you’

“ ‘It’s begun,’ he said ‘But not with me With those above’

“ ‘But what reason has he to suspect us?’

“He see on his closed fist After a while which seeive you reasons,’ he said ‘That you are too silent That the vampires of the world are a sst the certain that they respect the other vahtily There are fifteen vauarded And weak vampires are feared; I should say this also That you are flawed is obvious to them: you feel too much, you think too reat value to you And then there is this row, never be self-sufficient I would not make a vampire of that boy there now if his life, which is so precious to , his lih, hiswith you this child What manner of vampirewith you these flaws and this mystery and yet you are coo looks for an excuse But there is another reason closer to the truth than all those things which I’ve just said to you And that is sio in the Latin Quarter you… unfortunately… called him a buffoon’

“ ‘Aaaaah’ I sat back

“ ‘It would perhaps have been better all around if you had said nothing’ And he smiled to see that I understood with him the irony of this

“I sat reflecting upon what he’d said, and eighed as heavily upon e ad man had said to her, ‘Die,’ and beyond that ust with the vampires in the ballroom above