so young and so miserable that I couldn't help putting my arm around him and telling him that he must not worry about it anymore.
"You have a radiance in you, Lestat," he said. "And it draws everyone to you. It's there even when you're angry, or discouraged."
"Poetry," I said. "We're both tired."
"No, it's true," he said. "You have a light in you that's almost blinding. But in me there's only darkness. Sometimes I think it's like the darkness that infected you that night in the inn when you began to cry and to tremble. You were so helpless, so unprepared for it. I try to keep the darkness from you because I need your light. I need it desperately, but you don't need the darkness."
"You're the mad one," I said. "If you could see yourself, hear your own voice, your music -- which of course you play for yourself -- you wouldn't see darkness, Nicki. You'd see an illumination that is all your own. Somber, yes, but light and beauty come together in you in a thousand different patterns."
The next night the performance went especially well. The audience was a lively one, inspiring all of us to extra tricks. I did some new dance steps that for some reason never proved interesting in private rehearsal but worked miraculously on the stage. And Nicki was extraordinary with the violin, playing one of his own compositions.
But towards the end of the evening I glimpsed the mysterious face again. It jarred me worse than it ever had, and I almost lost the rhythm of my song. In fact it seemed my head for a moment was swimming.
When Nicki and I were alone I had to talk about it, about the peculiar sensation that I had fallen asleep on the stage and had been dreaming.
We sat by the hearth together with our wine on the top of a little barrel, and in the firelight Nicki looked as weary and dejected as he had the night before.
I didn't want to trouble him, but I couldn't forget about the face.
"Well, what does he look like?" Nicolas asked. He was warming his hands. And over his shoulder, I saw through the window a city of snow-covered rooftops that made me feel more cold. I didn't like this conversation.
"That's the worst part of it," I said. "All I see is a face. He must be wearing something black, a cloak and even a hood. But it looks like a mask to me, the face, very white and strangely clear. I mean the lines in his face are so deep they seemed to be etched with black greasepaint. I see it for a moment. It veritably glows. Then when I look again, there's no one there. Yet this is an exaggeration. It's more subtle than that, the way he looks and yet . . ."
The description seemed to disturb Nicki as much as it disturbed me. He didn't say anything. But his face softened somewhat as if he were forgetting his sadness.
"Well, I don't want to get your hopes up," he said. He was very kind and sincere now. "But maybe it is a mask you're seeing. And maybe it's someone from the Comedie-Francaise come to see you perform."
I shook my head. "I wish it was, but no one would wear a mask like that. And I'll tell you something else, too."
He waited, but I could see I was passing on to him some of my own apprehension. He reached over and took the wine bottle by the neck and poured a little in my glass.
"Whoever he is," I said, "he knows about the wolves."
"He what?"
"He knows about the wolves." I was very unsure of myself. It was like recounting a dream I had all but forgotten. "He knows I killed the wolves back home. He knows the cloak I wear is lined with their fur."
"What are you talking about? You mean you've spoken to him?"
"No, that's just it," I said. This was so confusing to me, so vague. I felt that swimming sensation again. "That's what I'm trying to tell you. I've never spoken to him, never been near him. But he knows."
"Ah, Lestat," he said. He sat back on the bench. He was smiling at me in the most endearing way. "Next you'll be seeing ghosts. You have the strongest imagination of anyone I've ever known."
"There are no ghosts," I answered softly. I scowled at our little fire. I laid a few more lumps of coal on