[There's something about the easy way he puts his hand in hers that would make her freeze in just about any other context, but oddly enough, there's refuge in the ridiculous ears perched atop Lestat's head and in the red fabric draped around hers. Uncomfortable things, uncertain things, are so much easier to cope with when she can subtly slide into being someone else, and that's really what makes the second floor worst of all — the fact that it won't let her be anyone else but herself, scared little Ghost haunting the hallways of memory from when everything was taken from her.

There's an easier story to tell now. She knows how it goes; it starts like this: once upon a time there was a little girl in a red cloak who met a wolf in the dark, and like any sensible little girl she realized that the safest place to be is in the care of the thing everyone else is afraid of.

He'd laugh, probably, if he knew. Maybe he'd paint a vision of it for her and play it for her mind's eye. But that's the sort of thing that comes up in the denouement, not when the heroes are still in the thick of danger.]

Well. If it's to make you f-feel better —

[She almost wants to curse herself, her stupid voice for shaking when it ought to be still and steady.]

— then you know how I live to serve. Consider it soothed.

[His hand is so cold, but pleasantly so despite its ice. It's something to focus on, a tangible thing she can track to and remind herself that she won't slip away anywhere with their arms connected like a tether.]

...Did...something about that necklace, it upset you, didn't it? It's this place toying with you, too?