However far Claudia had ventured from home, and however inhospitable the new place she found, she did always know where to find Louis and for a moment stood watching Lestat, hands still on his arms, unblinking and waiting for a better explanation. The shift of her focus was barely perceptible, first inward as she opened her mind to let him in, then over Lestat's shoulder as she heard only a terrible loneliness. Not just a great nothingness where Louis' voice should have answered her calling, but where there should have been, there always had been, life all around her for Claudia to warm her veins.

Slowly, she finally stepped back, not from Lestat's toothless threat but from this grand isolation, searching with her every sense for something. She smelled it first, sniffing at the air and keeping her gaze locked forward so Lestat couldn't know which way she was going to suddenly dart when she went sprinting across the stones toward the musk.

It was an earthy, oily scent of lanolin and straw over the warmth of the blood. Like a stable.