"He maintains he was not attacked here," Teja says. "Should I speak freely of his shame to one that may not be his enemy, but is not his friend quite, without need? Javert maintains he left of his own free will; he even insisted on paying for that confounded door the blood-drinker broke when taking him away from the infirmary that night."

Teja sighs, and hides his face for a moment in exasperation with all these strange and stubborn people.

"Given our last conversation, I mentioned what I knew about him before he came to this place. The vampire does not enter into the reason he threw himself upon the mercy of the river Seine; he only seems to have made things somewhat worse by the time Javert returned from his world. No longer an inspector, and no longer of the law, he seems to have been before."

Another pause.

"I know not what you have heard of vampires; your world has them not, nor knows any thing about them. But there are aspects of this that are deeply private, and that should not be bandied about. But ask me any thing you wish to know about those creatures, and you shall have any answer that does not break the trust of Javert, not the trust of Vlad Draculea concerning the amends I had him make for the act of breaking the door, locking in the healer that would stop him. For nothing else could I make him pay, in this place!"