The queen has arrived on AMC‘s The Vampire Lestat.

The Vampire Lestat Season 3 Episode 5 “New York” shows us via Lestat’s flashbacks just how our titular hero got the “blood of Akasha” in the first place in a thrilling sequence that left star Sam Reid feeling “sick” the first time he read it.

**Spoilers for The Vampire Lestat Season 3 Episode 5 “New York,” now streaming on AMC+**

In The Vampire Lestat Season 3 Episode 5 “New York,” we discover how Marius de Romanus (Christopher Heyerdahl) recruited Lestat to watch over the seemingly frozen Akasha (Sheila Atim) and Enkil, aka the very first vampires to ever live. The powerful beings are currently in statue form, but they can be stirred. When Marius is gone, Lestat does just this. He accidentally wakes Akasha up from her state of slumber with the tiniest drop of his blood, prompting her first to call him to her before she bites him.

When Marius returns, Lestat is literally floating in the air, bouncing off the ceiling, and Akasha is rambling a sweet stream of poetic madness.

“That monologue that she has, written by Hannah [Moscovitch], is just, like, astonishing,” Sam Reid told DECIDER. “It was just kind of like time stood still. I felt sick after I read It. Yeah. It’s amazing the first time.”

Reid added that he and Sheila Atim have known each other “for a very long” time: “I mean, she is so incredible… It was lovely to get to work with her and for everyone else to see how astonishing she is.”

Also somewhat astonishing? The “fun” Reid had on the wires.

“I mean, it’s a shame you don’t really fully see it, but I do like a ten foot free-fall drop in that scene,” Reid said. “So that is me actually free-falling on the wire, which I did multiple times.”

Reid revealed that he got a little battered and bruised filming that sequence and joked that he thinks the production saved those scenes for the end on purpose. “I think they purposely put it at the end because all the injuries I sustained from that shot ,I took on to my holiday, rather than any work that I had afterwards,” Reid quipped.

“But yeah, super fun. The wires are so much fun,” he said.

So what’s the big deal about Akasha in The Vampire Lestat? Here’s everything you need to know about Anne Rice’s “Queen of the Damned”:

Who is Akasha in The Vampire Lestat?

Akasha is the first vampire ever created in Anne Rice’s lore. She was born over 6,000 years ago in what is present-day Iraq and married Enkil, king of Kemet (which would later become Egypt). Akasha and Enkil were shockingly against their culture’s love of cannibalism and outlawed the practice, becoming unpopular in the process. When Akasha becomes obsessed with mysticism, she pesters two twins with knowledge of the occult to answer her questions about the supernatural. Akasha and the twins soon become bitter enemies, setting off a sort of war of awful attrition that culminates with the twins calling upon the powerful spirit Amel to essentially haunt Akasha.

Because Amel was essentially cursing Kemet, the pro-cannibalism nobles launched a campaign against Akasha and Enkil, stabbing both repeatedly. As Akasha died, Amel combined his spirit with hers, enterting her body and transforming her in the first vampire. She gave her dying husband the dark gift in turn, and they created vampires.

Eventually, Akasha and Enkil became targets of vampires who coveted their power. They were transformed into “Those Who Must Be Kept,” in stone form. Which is where and how Lestat finds them at the turn of the 20th century.

In Anne Rice’s books, Akasha will once again be awakened in the modern day… By Lestat’s music. We’ll have to wait to see if that’s what happens in AMC’s The Vampire Lestat…

New episodes of The Vampire Lestat come out on AMC on Sundays.