Nicolas is a fledgling," she said. "He can teach them much about the world outside, but he cannot really lead them. The woman, Eleni, is amazingly clever, but she will make way for you."
"What is it to me, their games?" he whispered.
"It is a way to exist," she said. "And that is all that matters to you now."
"The Theater of the Vampires! I should rather the fire."
"Think of it," she said. "There's a perfection in it you can't deny. We are illusions of what is mortal, and the stage is an illusion of what is real."
"It's an abomination," he said. "What did Artemis call it? Petty?"
"That was to Nicolas because Nicolas would build fantastical philosophies upon it," she said. "You must live now without fantastical philosophies, the way you did when you were Marius's apprentice. Live to l
