Hey! Thanks for reaching out to me, I like to think I know something about this series… but I have big areas of inexpertise, in which I call forth those who who would be able to answer better, and you’ve hit one such case.

…which is bizarre, to have this kind of gray area, that I had ALWAYS considered completely resolved, that Marius was Pandora’s maker, and didn’t question it in the least, and then here YOU are, questioning it! I’m more amused that anything else, but still!

Imma take a little stab at it, anyway, and post publicly so as to open this up to anyone to reblog/comment to correct me, offer their own ideas on it.

So! Since there are newer fans these days: Spoilers ahead for Pandora.

Why is Marius and not Akasha called Pandora’s maker?

TL;DR: After rereading the scene, I think Marius is in fact Pandora’s maker, and Akasha’s infusion was post-turning (minutes later) as evidenced by Pandora’s “renewed vigor” and the fact that she’s already perceiving more before she drinks from Akasha.

Longer answer: From what I gather, yes, Akbar drained Pandora. Which in itself does not need to be done by the maker during the Dark Gift procedure. It typically IS done by the maker, but Louis, for example, was already pretty drained by the time he was going to be turned (mortals had bled him more than once to try to cure his madness, um, wasteful!). IIRC, Jesse had suffered a lot of blood loss from her injuries. So the removal of blood is not as crucial as the blood being given. Although, a vampire’s strength may partly lie in how the procedure is done. It’s not an exact science (this post goes into more about that).

HOWEVER, it made it necessary to save her life. Marius has Akbar bring her to the shrine, at which point Akbar sets her down to go beg at Akasha’s feet, as well he should. At this point! Pandora describes drinking blood, and Marius is with her, so it’s his. Then she goes into a lot of description about passing through a veil, changed perception of things, etc. So I think that there is where she was turned officially. 

And then:

“The crown, she would have her crown,” I said. With astonishing vigor I walked forward towards her.

^Pandora seems pretty well revived from being on the verge of death.

Now, within the same few minutes, she does drink from Akasha, but I think this infusion is already too late to be the definitive blood to turn her. It is a powerful infusion, though. As Akasha is drawing her near, the narration says:

I felt myself, a human, held together by the intricate threads of blood which Marius had given me. I felt the design of its support. It had no weight, my body. 

^So I can see where one might be confused bc Pandora is calling herself human here, but she’s also held together by Marius’ blood, and combined with the other points above, I see her as a fresh fledgling already here.

Is it possible that they both are [Pandora’s makers]? 

Sure, it’s possible! It’s fiction, so you can headcanon it however you want, you can justify it in any number of ways 🙂 

@roselioncourt​ would be a very good resource for you in terms of a multi-Maker Dark Gift exchange, bc Rose got this treatment in Prince Lestat. She would have a better answer for you about the mind-sharing situation in that case. 

The act of the Dark Gift, IMO, is the vampire maker sharing their vampiric parasite with the mortal they seek to turn. Since that parasite is the same one, just spread out among all the vampires, there’s no reason why 2 or more makers couldn’t give it over in whatever quantity and produce a single fledgling together.

In Pandora’s case, I feel like the change was already taking root by the time she got the infusion from Akasha, but if you read it as being more nebulous, then sure! Marius and Akasha can both be considered Pandora’s makers!

If someone is turned by drinking from multiple vampires, would they not be able to share thoughts with any of them? 

Yes, I think that’s right.

We’ve seen in canon that typically, a maker chooses their fledgling as someone they want as a companion into eternity. But sometimes fledglings are chosen just to fill up a coven, though, so the maker is not expected to have that intimate of a relationship with just another congregant in the group.

The point to having a mental block with someone who may be your companion into eternity, to my mind, is that if you could also share that aspect of the other person, you might get bored of them pretty fast, or it could be the cause of arguments, or any number of bad outcomes. Putting up this barrier creates some mystery about the other person, and makes it so you have to keep pursuing them, over the course of hundreds of years.

If there’s a multi-maker situation, I would think you’d get the barrier between them and the fledgling only, which would piss off that fledgling immensely. Can you imagine:

Vampires A, B, and C turn Vampire Y. So (assuming none of them are makers of each other) A, B, and C can all share thoughts with each other and Y is constantly left out and bitter about it. Bc they may all be sitting around some nights, and A and B will start laughing randomly and C will chastise them lightly, “Can you guys not? Y can’t hear you.” Poor Y!

I can’t remember which VC it was that AR tried to do some triangulated mind-reading, but it was complicated. Two vampires who were locked from each other could access each other through a conduit vampire who was not locked from them. Might have been Blood Canticle.