No laughter, this time, but the scrape of the next exhale has something a little wry to it. Like, message received.

"Okay," Lestat says.

This is where he should swear it, he knows. And he will, he thinks. Not just because Antoinette is dead, as though she were irreplaceable to him, but something more broadly final in her crumpled body just near him. He swallows, a brief break in eye contact as he considers the thing he wants to say.

Well. There is nothing for it. He says, "I don't like to be squandered."