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She realizedtoher head

Though the vicious vaht to do aiththe Undead, I, the leader, after s

I meant the creature no harm, and, carelessly, I tossed out in a soft casual voice, speaking in French, a warning

"Ravaged territory, ame unbespoken here Make for a safer city be

fore sunup "

No human ear could have heard this

The creatureas she had obviously bowed her head Then, turning, she revealed herself tofrolass s beyond her

I knew this creature I knew her face I knew it

And in a dreadful second-a fateful second-I perceived that she htly clipped short for these times, not in these soic moment when I posed as a man, so utterly transformed from the lushly adorned child she'd known, she couldn't

Why didn't I cry out? Bianca!

But I couldn't grasp it, couldn't believe in it, couldn't rouse my dulled heart to triumph in what my eyes told me to be true, that the exquisite oval face surrounded by its golden hair and taffeta hood was hers, ht have been in those days, and it was she, she whose face had been etched into iven me

Bianca

She was gone! For less than a second I saw her ary eyes, full of va than any huure was vanished, disappeared froe ra , No, couldn't be, no, of course, not No

I never saw her again

I do not know at this very moment whether or not this creature was Bianca But I believe in my soul no as I dictate this tale, I believe in a soul that is healed and no stranger to hope, that it was Bianca! I can picture her too perfectly as she turned on arden, and in that picture lies one last detail which confirht outside of Paris, she had in her blond hair pearls interwoven Oh, how Bianca had loved pearls, and how she had loved to weave theht of the country house, beneath the shadow of her hood, ropes of tiny pearls wound in her blond hair, and within that fraet-as delicate in vampiric whiteness as it had been when filled with Fra Filippo Lippi's colors