I am alone, I was thinking. I am alone. It seemed just, perfectly, and so to have a pleasing, inevitable form. And I pictured myself then forever alone, as if on gaining that vampire strength the night of my death I had left Lestat and never looked back from him and anyone else. As if the night had said to me, ‘You are the night and the night alone understands you and enfolds you in its arms.’ One with the shadows. Without nightmare. An inexplicable peace.