Contents 17 страница

you want, I’ll promise.”

“Elena? Do you…do you keep your promises or not?” Suddenly,

he sounded very sleepy, but the right kind of sleepy, not worn out, but

someone who has been refreshed and is being lulled into a perfect

slumber.

“I keep them close to me,” Elena whispered. But I keep you closer,

she thought. If someone came to hurt him, they would find out what a

bodiless opponent could do. For instance, what if she just reached inside

their bodies and managed to make contact for an instant? Long enough

to squeeze a heart between her pretty white fingers? That would be

something.

“I love you, Elena. I’m so glad…we kissed…”

“It’s not the last time! You’ll see! I swear it!” She dropped new

healing tears down on him.

Stefan just smiled gently. And then he was asleep.

In the morning Elena woke up in her grand bedroom in Lady

Ulma’s house, alone. But she had another memory, like a pressed rose,

to put away in its own special place inside her.

And somewhere, deep in her heart, she knew that these memories

might be all she had of Stefan someday. She could imagine that these

sweet-scented, fragile mementoes would be something to hold on to and

cherish—if Stefan never came home.

“O h, I just want to take a little peek,” Bonnie moaned, looking at the

forbidden sketchbook, the one in which Lady Ulma had drawn their high

couture outfits for the first party, the one that would be held tonight.

Beside it, just within reach, were some sample squares from bolts of

fabric in shimmering satin, rippling silk, transparent muslin, and soft,

rich velvet.

“You’ll get to try it on for the last fitting in an hour—this time with

your eyes open!” Elena laughed. “But we can’t forget that tonight isn’t

playtime. We’ll have to dance some dances, of course—”

“Of course!” Bonnie repeated ecstatically.

“But our purpose there is to find the key. The first half of the

double fox key. I just wish there was a star ball that showed the inside of

tonight’s house.”

“Well, we all know pretty much about it; we can talk about it and

try to imagine it,” Meredith said.

Elena, who had been fiddling with the star ball from the other

house, now put the slightly cloudy orb down and said, “All right. Let’s

brainstorm.”

“May I storm, too?” a low, modulated voice asked from the

doorway. The girls all turned, rising at the same time to greet a smiling

Lady Ulma.

Before taking a chair, she gave Elena a particularly heartfelt hug

and kiss on the cheek and Elena couldn’t help herself from comparing

the woman as they had seen her at Dr. Meggar’s to the elegant lady she

was now. Then, she had been hardly more than skin over bones, with the

eyes of a timid wild creature under great strain, wearing a common

housecoat, with men’s bedroom slippers. Now, she reminded Elena of a

Roman matron, with her face tranquil and beginning to fill out under a

crown of glossy dark braids held back by jeweled combs. Her body was

filling out, too, especially her belly, although she retained her natural

grace as she took a seat on a velvet couch. She was wearing a

saffron-colored gown of raw silk, with an underskirt of fringed and

shimmering apricot.

“We’re so excited about the fitting tonight,” Elena said, with a nod

toward the sketchbook.

“I am as excited as a child, myself,” Lady Ulma admitted. “I only

wish I could do for you a tenth of what you have done for me.”

“You have already,” Elena said. “And if we can find the fox

keys—it will only be because you helped us so much. And that—I can’t

tell you how much that means to me,” she finished almost in a whisper.

“But you never thought I could help you when you defied the law

for a ravaged slave. You simply wanted to save me—and you have

suffered much for it,” Ulma responded quietly.

Elena shifted uncomfortably. The cut running down her face had

left only a thin white scar along the cheekbone. Once—when she had

first returned to Earth from the afterlife—she would have been able to

wave the scar away with a simple wash of Power. But now, although she

could channel her Power through her body, and use it to enhance her

senses, she couldn’t make it obey her will in any other way.

And once, she thought, imagining the Elena who had stood in

Robert E. Lee High School’s parking lot and drooled over a Porsche, she

would have considered the marring of her face the greatest calamity of

her life. But with all the accolades she had received, with Damon calling

it her “white wound of honor,” and her certainty that it would mean as

little to Stefan as a scar on his cheekbone would mean to her, she had

found she just couldn’t take it very seriously.

I am not the same person I once was, she thought. And I’m glad.

“Never mind,” she said, ignoring the pain down her leg that still

throbbed at times. “Let’s talk about the Silver Nightingale and her gala.”

“Right,” Meredith said. “What do we know about her? How did

the clue go again, Elena?”

“Misao said, ‘If I said that one of the halves was inside the silver

nightingale’s instrument, would that even give you an idea?’—or

something like that,” Elena repeated obediently. They all knew the

words by heart but it was part of the ritual, every time they discussed it.

“And the ‘Silver Nightingale’ is the nickname for Lady Fazina

Darley and everyone in the Dark Dimension knows it!” cried Bonnie,

clapping her small hands in sheer delight.

“Indeed, that has long been her sobriquet, given to her when she

first came here and began to sing and play on her harps strung with

silver,” Lady Ulma put in gravely.

“And harp strings need to be tuned, and they’re tuned with keys,”

Bonnie continued excitedly.

“Yes.” Meredith, in contrast, spoke slowly and thoughtfully. “But

it’s not a harp-tuning key we’re looking for. They look like this.” She

put down on a table beside her an object made of smooth pale maple that

looked like a very short T or, if held on its side, like a gracefully waving

tree with one short horizontal branch. “I got that from one of the

minstrels Damon hired.”

Bonnie eyed the tuning key loftily. “It might be a harp-tuning key

we’re looking for,” she insisted. “It might be used for both things,

somehow.”

“I don’t see how,” Meredith said doggedly. “Unless somehow they

change shape when the two halves come together.”

“Oh, my, yes,” Lady Ulma said, as if Meredith had just made an

obvious proposition. “If they are magical halves of a single key they will

almost certainly change when the two halves come together.”

“You see?” Bonnie said.

“But if they can be any sort of shape, then how the hell will we

even know when we’ve found them?” Elena asked impatiently. All she

cared about was finding what it took to save Stefan.

Lady Ulma fell silent, and Elena felt badly. She hated to use harsh

language or even appear distressed in front of the woman who had lived

a life of such subjection and horror since her early teens. Elena wanted

Lady Ulma to feel safe, to be happy.

“Anyway,” she said quickly, “we know one thing. It’s in the Silver

Nightingale’s instrument. So whatever is inside Lady Fazina’s harp, that

has to be it.”

“Oh, but—” Lady Ulma began, and then she stopped herself

almost before the words were out.

“What is it?” Elena asked gently.

“Oh, nothing at all,” Lady Ulma said hastily. “I mean, would you

like to see your dresses now? This last fitting is really just to make sure

every stitch is perfect.”

“Oh, we’d love to!” Bonnie cried, at the same time making a dive

for the sketchbook, while Meredith rung a bell pull that brought a

servant hurrying in and hurrying away again to the sewing room.

“I only wish Master Damon and Lord Sage had agreed to let me

create something for them to wear,” Lady Ulma said mournfully to

Elena. “Oh, Sage is not going. And I’m sure Damon wouldn’t have

minded—as long as you designed him a black leather jacket, a black

shirt, black jeans, and black boots all exactly like the ones he wears

every day. He’d have been happy to wear it then.”

Lady Ulma laughed. “I see. Well, there will be enough fantastical

styles worn tonight that he may change his mind for the future. Now

let’s draw the curtains on the windows all around. This gala is to be

indoors, with gaslight only, so colors will show true.”

“I wondered why it said ‘indoors’ on the invitations,” Bonnie said.

“I thought maybe it was because of rain.”

“It’s because of the sun,” Lady Ulma said soberly. “That hateful

crimson light, changing every blue to purple, every yellow to brown.

You see, no one would wear aqua or green to an outdoor soiree—no, not

even you, with that strawberry hair that cries out for it.”

“I get it. I can see how having that sun hanging there every day

would really get you down after a while.”

“I wonder if you can,” murmured Lady Ulma, and then she added

hastily, “While we wait shall I show you what I have created for your

tall friend who doubts me?”

“Oh, please, yes!” Bonnie held out the sketchbook.

Lady Ulma thumbed through it until she came to a page that

seemed to please her. She took up pens and coloring pencils like a child

eager to play with beloved toys again. “Here it is,” she said, using the

colored pencils to add a line here and a curve there, but holding the book

so that the three girls could see the design.

“Oh, my God!” cried Bonnie in genuine astonishment, and even

Elena felt her eyes widening.

The girl in the sketch was definitely Meredith, with her hair half up

and half down, but wearing a dress—such a dress! Black as ebony,

strapless, it clung to the long slim figure perfectly sketched in the

picture, emphasizing the curves, enhancing them on top by what Elena

learned was called a “sweetheart” neckline: one that made Meredith’s

front look like a Valentine’s Day heart. It kept close to the body all the

way to the knees where it suddenly flared out again, dramatically wide.

“A ‘mermaid’ dress,” Lady Ulma explained, satisfied with her sketch at

last. “And here it is,” she added as several sewing women entered,

reverently holding the miraculous gown between them. Now the girls

could see that the material was of plush black velvet dotted with tiny

rectangular metallic golden flecks. It looked like midnight back home,

Elena thought, with a thousand falling stars in the sky.

“And with it, you will wear these very large black onyx and gold

earrings, these black onyx and gold combs to hold your hair up, and

some lovely matching bracelets and rings Lucen has made just for this

outfit,” Lady Ulma continued. Elena realized that sometime in the last

minutes Lucen must have entered the room. She smiled at him, and then

her eyes dropped to the three-tiered tray he held. On the top tray, against

an ivory background, were two black onyx and diamond bracelets, as

well as a ring with a diamond in it that almost made her swoon.

Meredith was looking around the room as if she had stumbled into

a private discussion and didn’t know how to get out. Then she looked

from the dress to the jewels to Lady Ulma again. Meredith was not one

to lose her composure easily. But after a moment she simply went to

Lady Ulma and hugged her fiercely, then went to Lucen and very gently

put her hand on his forearm. It was clear that she couldn’t speak.

Bonnie was studying the sketch with the eyes of a connoisseur

now. “Those matching bracelets were made just for this dress, weren’t

they?” she said with a conspiratorial air.

To Elena’s surprise Lady Ulma seemed uncomfortable. Then she

spoke slowly. “The truth is…well, that Miss Meredith is…a slave. All

slaves are required to wear some sort of symbolic bracelets when they

travel outside their households.” She turned her eyes down to the

polished wooden floorboards. Her cheeks were flushed.

“Lady Ulma—oh, please, you can’t think it matters to us?”

Lady Ulma’s eyes flashed as she looked up. “Not matter?”

“Well,” Elena said hautily, “it doesn’t really matter…er, yet,

because there’s nothing to do about it, not now.” Of course, the servants

weren’t in on the secrets of the Damon-Elena-Meredith-Bonnie

relationship. Even Lady Ulma didn’t see why Damon didn’t free the

three girls just in case “something should happen, may the Celestial

Guardians forbid it.” But the girls had formed a solid phalanx against it;

it would be like jinxing their whole enterprise.

“Well, anyway,” Bonnie was blathering, “I think the bracelets are

beautiful. I mean she could hardly find anything more perfect for the

dress, could she?”—striking at the professional sensibilities of the

designer.

Lucen smiled modestly and Lady Ulma gave him a loving glance.

Meredith’s face was still glowing. “Lady Ulma, I don’t know how

to thank you. I will wear this gown—and for tonight I will be someone I

have never been before. Of course, you’ve drawn my hair up, or partly

up. I don’t usually wear it that way,” Meredith finished weakly.

“You will tonight—up and high over that lovely wide brow of

yours. This dress is to show off the charming curves of your bare

shoulders and arms. It’s a crime to cover them, day or night. And the

hairstyle is to lay bare your exotic face instead of hiding it!” Lady Ulma

said firmly.

Good, Elena thought. They’ve gotten her off the subject of

symbolic slavery.

“You’ll wear a touch of makeup as well—pale gold on your lids,

and kohl to enhance and lengthen your lashes. A touch of golden

lipstick, but no rouge; I don’t believe in that for young girls. Your olive

skin will complete the picture of a sultry maiden perfectly.”

Meredith looked helplessly at Elena. “I don’t usually wear makeup

either,” she said, but they both knew that she was beaten. Lady Ulma’s

vision would come to life.

“Don’t call it a mermaid dress; she’ll be a siren,” Bonnie said

enthusiastically. “But we’d better put a spell on it to keep all the vampire

sailors away.”

To Elena’s surprise, Lady Ulma nodded solemnly. “My seamstress

friend has sent a priestess today to bless all the garments and to keep you

from being victimized by vampires, of course. If that meets with your

approval?” She looked at Elena, who nodded.

“As long as they don’t keep Damon out of the way,” she added

jokingly, and felt time freeze as Meredith and Bonnie immediately

turned their eyes on her, hoping to catch something in Elena’s

expression that would give her away.

But Elena kept her expression neutral, as Lady Ulma continued,

“Naturally, the restrictions would not apply to your—to Master Damon.”

“Naturally,” Elena said soberly.

“And now for the smallest beauty to go to the gala,” Lady Ulma

was saying to Bonnie, who bit her lip, blushing. “I have something very

special for you. I don’t know how long I’ve been yearning to work with

this material. I’ve trudged by it in a shop window year after year, just

aching to buy it and create with it. You see?” And the next set of sewing

women came forward, holding a smaller, lighter frock between them,

while Lady Ulma held up a sketch. Elena was already staring in

amazement. The material was glorious—incredible—but especially

clever was how it had been put together. The fabric was vivid peacock

green-blue, with the most amazing hand stitching to represent a pattern

of peacock eyes flaring up from the waist.

Bonnie’s brown eyes had widened again. “This is for me?” she

breathed, almost afraid to touch the material.

“Yes, and we’re going to slick that hair of yours back until you

look as sophisticated as your friend. Go ahead and try it on. I think

you’ll like the way this dress has come out.” Lucen had retired and

Meredith was already being carefully encased in the mermaid dress.

Bonnie happily began to strip.

Lady Ulma turned out to have been right. Bonnie loved the way

she looked that evening. Right now she was being given the finishing

touches, such as a delicate spray of citrus and rosewater; a fragrance

made just for her. She stood before a giant silvered-glass mirror, just

minutes before they were due to start off for the gala given by Fazina,

the Silver Nightingale herself.

Bonnie turned a little, looking at the strapless, full-skirted dress in

awe. Its bodice was made—or seemed to be made—entirely of the eyes

of peacock feathers, arranged in a spray that was gathered together at her

waist, showing off how tiny it was. There was another spray of larger

feathers that pointed downward from the waist, front and back. The back

actually had a small train of peacock feathers against emerald silk. In

front, below the larger, downward pointing spray, a design worked in

silver and gold, of stylized undulating plumes, all upside down, made its

way to the bottom of the gown, which was edged with thin gold brocade.

As if this were not enough, Lady Ulma had had a fan made with

real peacock eyes set in an emerald jade handle, with a tassel of softly

clinking jade, citrine, and emerald charms at the bottom.

Around Bonnie’s throat was a matching necklace of jade, inlaid

with emerald, sapphire, and lapis lazuli. And around each of her wrists

were several emerald jade bracelets that clicked together whenever she

moved, the symbol of her slavery.

But Bonnie’s eyes could hardly linger on them, and she couldn’t

summon up a proper hatred of the bracelets. She was thinking of how a

special hairdresser had come to “slick back” Bonnie’s

strawberry-colored curls until, darkened into true red, they were

plastered flat against her skull and held in place with jade and emerald

clips. Her heart-shaped face had never looked so mature, so

sophisticated. To emerald eyelids and kohl-darkened eyes, Lady Ulma

had added a vivid red lipstick and had for once broken her rule and

cleverly, wielding the brush herself, had added touches here and there of

blusher so that Bonnie’s translucent skin looked as if she were

constantly coloring at some compliment. Delicately carved jade earrings

with golden bells inside completed the ensemble, and Bonnie felt as if

she were some Princess of the Ancient Orient.

“It’s really some kind of miracle. Usually, I look like a pixie trying

to dress up as a cheerleader or a flower girl,” she confided, kissing Lady

Ulma again and again, delighted to find that the lipstick stayed on her

lips instead of transferring to her benefactress’s cheeks. “But tonight I

look like a young woman. ”

She would have kept on babbling, helpless to stop herself even

though Lady Ulma already was trying to discreetly dab tears away from

her eyes, except that at that moment Elena came in and she gasped.

Elena’s dress had already been finished by the afternoon and so all

Bonnie had seen of it was the sketch. But somehow that had failed to

convey just what this dress would do for Elena.

Bonnie had secretly wondered if Lady Ulma were leaving too

much to Elena’s own natural beauty, and was hoping that Elena would

be as excited about her own dress as everyone seemed to be about

Bonnie’s and Meredith’s.

Now Bonnie understood.

“It is a called a goddess dress,” Lady Ulma explained to the

stunned silence in the room, as Elena walked in, and Bonnie dizzily

thought that if goddesses had ever lived up on Mount Olympus, they

would certainly have wanted to dress this way.

The trick of the dress lay in its very simplicity. It was made of

milk-white silk, with a delicately pleated waist (Lady Ulma called the

irregular tight pleating “ruching”) which held two simple bodice panels

that formed a V-neckline, showing off Elena’s peach-blossom skin

between them and behind them. These panels in turn were held at the

shoulders by two carved clasps—gold inlaid with mother-of-pearl and

diamonds. From the waist, the skirt fell straight in graceful, silken folds

all the way to Elena’s delicate sandals—again designed in gold,

mother-of-pearl and diamonds. In the back, the two panels that clasped

at the shoulder became straps and crossed over to once again meet at the

pleated waist.

Such a simple dress, but so magnificent on the right girl.

At Elena’s throat, an exquisitely designed golden and

mother-of-pearl necklace in the stylized shape of a butterfly was inset

with so many diamonds that it seemed to blaze with multicolored fire

each time she moved and they caught the light. She wore this over the

lapis and diamond pendant Stefan had given her, since she had flatly

refused to take the pendant off. It didn’t matter. The butterfly covered

the pendant completely.

On each wrist Elena wore a wide bracelet of gold and

mother-of-pearl inset with diamonds, creations that they had found in the

secret jewel room, obviously made to go with the necklace.

And that was all. Elena’s hair had been brushed and brushed and

brushed until it formed a silky golden tumble of waves that hung below

her shoulders in back, and she was wearing a touch of rose-colored

lipstick. But her face, with its thick black eyelashes and lighter arched

brows—and just now its look of excitement that parted her rose-colored

lips and brought brilliant color to her cheeks—had been left entirely

alone. Earrings that were just cascades of diamonds peeped through her

gold tresses.

She’s going to drive them crazy tonight, Bonnie thought, eyeing

the daring dress with envy, but not with jealousy, instead rather reveling

in the thought of the sensation Elena would make. She’s wearing the

simplest gown of any of us, but she still completely puts Meredith and

me in the shade.

Yet Bonnie had never seen Meredith look better—or more exotic.

She’d also never known what a stunning figure Meredith had, despite

her friend’s wide assortment of designer clothes.

Meredith shrugged when Bonnie told her this. She had a fan, too,

black lacquer, that folded. Now she opened it and folded it shut again,

tapping her chin thoughtfully.

“We’re in the hands of a genius,” she said simply. “But we can’t

forget what we’re really here for.”

“W e have to keep our minds on saving Stefan,” Elena was saying in

the room Damon had taken over for his own, the old library in Lady

Ulma’s mansion.

“Where else would my mind be?” Damon said, never taking his

eyes off her neck with its ornaments of mother-of-pearl and diamonds.

Somehow the milk-white dress served to emphasize the slim soft column

of Elena’s throat, and Elena knew it.

She sighed.

“If we thought you really meant it, then we could all just relax.”

“You mean be as relaxed as you are?”

Elena gave herself an inner shake. Damon might seem to be

completely absorbed with one thing and one thing only, but his sense of

self-preservation made sure that he was constantly on guard, and seeing

not just what he wanted to see but everything that was around him.

And it was true that Elena was almost unbearably excited. Let the

others think it was about her marvelous dress—and it was a marvelous

dress, and Elena was profoundly grateful to Lady Ulma and her helpers

for getting it done in time. What Elena was really excited about, though,

was the chance—no, the certainty, she told herself firmly—that tonight

she was going to find half of the key that would allow them to free

Stefan. The thought of his face, of seeing him in the flesh was…

Was terrifying. Thinking about what Bonnie had said when she

was asleep, Elena reached out for comfort and understanding, and

somehow found that instead of holding Damon’s hand, she was in

Damon’s arms.

The real question is: what will Stefan say about that night at the

motel with Damon?

What would Stefan say? What was there to say?

“I’m frightened,” she heard, and a minute too late, recognized her

own voice.

“Well, don’t think about it,” Damon said. “It’ll only make things

worse.”

But I’ve lied, Elena thought. You don’t even remember it, or you’d

be lying, too.

“Whatever happened, I promise I’ll still be around for you,”

Damon said softly. “You’ve got my word on that, anyway.”

Elena could feel his breath against her hair. “And on keeping your

mind on the key?”

Yes, yes, but I haven’t fed properly today. Elena started, then

clasped Damon closer. For just an instant she’d felt, not merely a

ravaging hunger, but a sharp pain that puzzled her. But now, before she

could quite locate it in space, it was gone, and her connection to Damon

had been abruptly cut off.

Damon.

“What?”

Don’t shut me out.

“I’m not. I’ve just said all there is to say, that’s all. You know I’ll

be looking for the key.”

Thank you. Elena tried again. But you can’t just starve—

Who said I was starving? Now Damon’s telepathic connection was

back, but something was missing. He was deliberately holding

something back, and concentrating on assaulting her senses with

something else—hunger. Elena could feel it rampaging in him, as if he

were a tiger or wolf that had gone for days—for weeks—without making

a kill.

The room did a slow spin around her.

“It’s…all right,” she whispered, amazed that Damon was able to

stand and hold her at all, with his insides tearing at him that way.

“Whatever…you need…take…”

And then she felt the most gentle probing at her throat of

razor-sharp teeth.

She gave herself up to it, surrendering to the sensations.

In preparation for the Silver Nightingale’s gala, where they would

be searching for the first half of the double fox key to release Stefan,

Meredith had been reading some of the hard copy she’d stuffed into her

bag, from the huge amount of information she had downloaded from the

Internet. She had done her best to describe everything that she’d learned

to Elena and the others. But how could she be sure that she hadn’t

missed some vital clue, some vastly important thread of information that

would make all the difference tonight between success and failure?

Between finding a way to save Stefan and coming home defeated, while

he languished in prison.

No, she thought, standing by a silvered mirror, almost afraid to

look at the exotic beauty she had become. No, we can’t even think of the

word failure. For the sake of Stefan’s life, we have to succeed. And we

have to do it without getting caught.

E lena felt confident and just a little light-headed as they set out for the

Silver Nightingale’s gala. However, when the four of them arrived on

litters—Damon with Elena, Meredith with Bonnie (Lady Ulma being

forbidden by her doctor to go to any festivities while she was

pregnant)—at the Honorable Lady Fazina’s palatial home, she was

struck with something like terror.

The house was truly a palace, in the best of story-telling tradition,

she thought. Minarets and towers soared above them, probably painted

in blue and lavish gilt, but turned lavender by the sunlight, and looking

almost lighter than air. To complement the sunlight, torches had been lit

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