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Marius stood still listening, thinking He could feel the last bit of healing in his body; it rather aain whole Even as mortals learn year by year that they are older and weaker, so iined they would be It maddened him at the moment

Scarcely an hour had passed since he was helped from the icy pit by Santino and Pandora, and noas as if he had never been there, crushed and helpless, for ten days and nights, visited again and again by the night could ever be as it had been

The twins The red-haired wo Santino had told him this Mael knew it too But as she? And why did he not want to know the answers? Why was this the blackest hour he had ever known? His body was fully healed, no doubt about it; but as going to heal his soul?

Are wooden house at the base of the ain after all this time? Santino had told him about Armand also, and that the others-Louis and Gabrielle- had also been spared

Mael was studying hi for you," he said "Your Amadeo " It was respectful, not cynical or impatient

And out of the great bank of me neglectedto the palazzo in Venice in the contented years of the fifteenth century, when Marius and Ar the mortal boy at ith the other apprentices on a mural which Marius had only lately left to their less co tempera, the smell of the candles, and that fa-which pers, of the dark and putrid waters of the canals "And so you would make that one?" Mael had asked with simple directness "When it's time," Marius had said dismissively, "when it's time " Less than a year later, he hadone, I can live without you no more "

Marius stared at the distant house My world trembles and I thinkofhim, my Amadeo, my Armand The emotions he felt were suddenly as bittersweet as music, the blended orchestral ic strains of Brahms or Shostakovich which he had come to love

But this was no ti this reunion No tilad of it, and to say all the things to Armand that he so wanted to say

Bitterness was so shallow compared to his present state of mind Should have destroyed them, the Mother and the Father Should have destroyed us all

"Thank the gods," Mael said, "that you did not "

"And why?" Marius demanded "Tell me why?"

Pandora shuddered He felt her arry? He turned sharply to her; he wanted to strike her, push her away But what he saw stopped hi at him; and her expression was so distant, so soul weary that he felt his own exhaustion all theof Pandora had always been crucial to his own survival He did not need to be near her-better that he was not near her-but he had to know that she was soain What he sa in her-had seen earlier-filled hi If he felt bitterness, then Pandora felt despair

"Co " It was said with courtly politeness

"I know," Marius answered

"Ah, what a trio we are!" Pandora whispered suddenly She was spent, fragile, hungering for sleep and drearip on Marius's waist