Up this high in the air above the craggy Auvergne landscape, tucked nearly into the snow-filled clouds, the wind cut through her thin trousers and whistled past her ears. It chilled even her marble flesh. Closer to the ground, she would have been warmer; she could have sheltered in the lee of one of the little copses that dotted the ground beneath her, could even have touched the village pavement and entered the freshly-restored inn. Whenever the wind whicked upwards from that direction, it brought her the scents of sawdust and varnish, plaster and human sweat. Petronia had no intention of coming any closer to the village, however, and certainly not to the Château.

From here, the lights behind the hundreds of glass-paned windows looked like the flickering candle flames in the shop window displays that were everywhere in the cities of Europe, in this season. They were just as insubstantial, and as unrelated to her life. A strong gust of this wind, the wind that fought against her immovable body, could put them all out at once.

It did not. Behind the glass, if Lestat's most recent book was to be believed, hundreds of vampires danced nightly. A vapid whirl of self-sustaining gaiety rolled ever on. The parade of children of the blood was reflected above their heads, so he had written, in an inhumanly detailed mural across the ceiling, character after character from the Prince's conception of their history. Lestat himself was there, Marius, Akasha, and Arion.

Yes, it was true. She didn't have to rely on those published works; she could see the paintings in the eyes of the youngsters who turned beneath them, broadcasting thoughts they were too immature to hide from her. She could confirm what she already knew: Petronia was not depicted, just as she had not been invited to join the throng below.

Petronia would have had no intention of coming any closer, even had she been invited.

She should return to Greece, she knew. She should allow the wind to push her away from this frozen patch of land, back to the south, where the dawn would be closer and she could sink into a bath drawn by her servants, breathe in the scent of the flowers that persisted even through the winter. She should go home, where she was the ruler and no one would expect her to bow and scrape for favour—for an invitation, as though she was some creature who could be summoned at a whim.

And when she had left this place, she should never come back here again. Petronia closed her eyes as she began to rise up through the clouds, squeezing them shut against the needles of ice that assaulted her. She would not, she must not come back, she told herself. There would be not one more visit to hang suspended in the freezing Auvergne air, outside that joyful circle, wondering just what, behind those panes of glass, had been worth it for so many of her kind to submit to Lestat's sovereignty.