Gosselin? The ghost spoke to you? And called you by the name of a character in a book?"
Sebastien smiled. His forelock fell into his eyes, but he didn't pull his hand from her grip to smooth it back. "Not just a character in a book."
Jack roused himself enough to grin. "Oh, yes, Dumas père is well-known for historical accuracy. The D'Artagnans still operate a chain of pubs and hotels, I understand."
"Actually," Sebastien said, "the story predates Dumas by more than
a little. In the seventeenth century, it was easy enough to pass among
men in a city such as Paris, where the salons were full of glittering clothing and the faces hidden under layers of powder and rouge. Amédée Gosselin
was real, I assure you. It caused a scandal, when it came out that most of
the court had known what he was, and none had been willing to unmask him. It's said there was a portrait painted, even, though I do not know if it has survived."
Mrs. Smith had helped herself to the brandy when she prepared Jack's toddy. She dipped her nose over the glass and said, "And now you're going to spin us some tale of the real existence of Dracula, I suppose?"
"The Draculas existed," Sebastien said, chafing his hands together delicately. "Exist, I should say. They are not of the blood. And I can vouch for the absolute nonexistence of Lord Varney and his nonsensical tricks with moonlight."
"Camilla?" Mrs. Smith asked, bright as a robin after a worm.
"Millarca von Karnstein, quite real. Although not by any means an
actual German Countess. Very few of the blood have any trace of mortal
nobility, though many of us—"
"Adopt the titles, Don Sebastien?"
"Surely one ancient bloodline's as good as the next?"
Garrett fiddled her ring, the silver ring he'd given her, and interjected, "You're actually Amédée Gosselin."
"No less so than I am actually Don Sebastien de Ulloa," he said,
gently. "Or Mr. John Nast. One uses up a good many names in but a single century, and the centuries. . .add up."
"Ah," Jack said. "You never told me—"
"Never gave you a list of my abandoned guises? No, I never did. Why should I?"
"You never told me you were famous."
"Infamous."
"Still."
"I made a series of rather bad mistakes," Sebastien said. He looked very directly at Jack, until Jack glanced down, and then he gave the same courtesy or perhaps begged the same indulgence of Garrett. "And now Don Sebastien de Ulloa is infamous as well, and so lost to me. And in a hundred years—or less, my dears, mi cariño, mis corazones—there will be some scandalous novel about him as well. We learn to let go of our former selves, if we are to live in the world forever. Or we burn."
Garrett, dimly aware that Sebastien had stopped speaking, that Jack was staring at the floor between his feet, nodded. She let go the wampyr's wrist and rubbed her hands together, to chafe some warmth into her chilled fingers. "And when ghosts come looking for your former self?"
"All debts are paid when the ship sails," Sebastien said, but he did not sound as if he believed.
Jack sank down in his chair and snorted, tossing back his head. He spoke as if to the shadowed ceiling. "I thought there were no werewolves."
"There are no werewolves," Sebastien answered. "Anymore."
* * *
During the following silence, Garrett was drawn to the window again. She had long since given up any hope of sleeping. The snow was still falling, though, and the nigh-unheard-of spectacle of the streets of Paris clogged with six inches of accumulation drew citizens onto the pavement to marvel. The earlier emptiness had given way to a flood of people. Among them walked children, boys and girls, awakened by their parents to wander through a city filled with rosy reflected light, a sweet amorphous glow.
It was beautiful, and eerie. It was like another city all together—Prague, or Vienna. Not Paris at all.
Except for the radiance that filled every crevice.
"We won't see the sunrise," Mrs. Smith remarked.
"Good," Sebastien said. He sounded weary, but he had insisted he did not require sustenance. He turned to Jack, and nudged him. "I know you're not eager to tell us about your night. But I'll ring for coffee, and you can start."
Jack jerked alert, and cleared his throat. "Of course," he said, as Sebastien rose to find the bell-pull by the door. "I've been to the police. There was a dead man under a streetlight, you see."
Sebastien had raised Jack Priest, and for all his fey