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right, love. Oh, lovely love, it will be all right.” He wiped her eyes with a hand that
was rock steady, and all the time he was looking only at her, and—she knew—
thinking only of her.
She knew that because she also knew the moment when it changed.
Red hair was in her line of sight, blurred through new tears. Red hair and narrow
green eyes, too close to her. That was when Elena felt Stefan remember that there
was anything other than Elena in the world.
His face changed. He didn’t snarl or stick out his chin. The change was an entire
alteration, but it centered around his eyes, which became deadly hard while
everything else became sharp and fierce.
“If you touch her again, you vicious bitch, I will rip out your throat,” Stefan said,
and each word was like a chip of ice-cold iron dropped onto the floor.
Elena’s tears stopped with the shock of it. Stefan didn’t talk that way to women.
Even Damon didn’t—hadn’t. But the words were still echoing in the sudden silence
of the cathedral-like room. People were backing away.
Idola was backing away too, but her lip was curled. “Do you think that because
we are Guardians that we cannot harm you—?” she was beginning, when Stefan’s
voice cut through hers cleanly.
“I think that because you are ‘Guardians’ you can kill sanctimoniously and get
away with it,” Stefan said, and his lip made a far more compelling—and frightening
—line of scorn than Idola’s had. “You would have killed Elena if Sage hadn’t
stopped you. Damn you,” he added softly, but with such utter conviction that Idola
took another step backward. “Yes, you’d better rally all your little friends around,” he
added. “I might just decide to kill you anyway. I killed my own brother, as I’m sure
you realize.”
“But surely—that was only after taking a mortal blow yourself.” Susurre was
between the two of them, trying to intercede.
Stefan shrugged. He looked at her with the same contempt as he had the other
ruler. “I still had the use of my arm,” he said deliberately. “I could have decided to
drop my sword, or to merely wound him. Instead I chose to put a blade straight
through his heart.” He showed his teeth in a distinctly unfriendly smile. “And now I
don’t even need a weapon.”
“Stefan,” Elena managed at last to whisper.
“I know. She’s weaker than I am and you don’t want to see me kill her. That’s why
she’s still alive, love. It’s the only reason.” As Elena lifted half-frightened eyes to
him, Stefan added in a voice only she could hear, Of course, there are some
things about me you don’t know, Elena. Things I’d hoped you’d never have to
see. Knowing you—loving you—made me almost forget about them.
Stefan’s voice in her head woke something inside Elena. She lifted her head and
looked at the blurry mass of Guardians around them. She saw strawberry-blond
curls suspended in midair. Bonnie. Bonnie fighting. Doing it weakly, but only
because a pair of the fair Guardians and another pair of dark ones were holding
her in the air, one to each limb. As Elena stared at her she seemed to regain
energy and fought harder. And Elena could hear…something. It was faint and far
away, but it almost sounded like…her name. Like her name spoken by whispering
branches or the whirring of passing bicycle wheels. lay…nah…eee…lay…
Elena reached inwardly for the sound. She tried desperately to grasp whatever
came after, but nothing happened. She tried a trick she would have found easy
yesterday—channeling Power to the center of her telepathy. It didn’t work. She
tried her telepathy.
Bonnie! Can you hear me?
There wasn’t even the slightest change in the smaller girl’s expression.
Elena had lost her link to Bonnie.
She watched as Bonnie realized the same thing, watched the fight go out of the
small body. Bonnie’s face, upturned in blank despair, was indescribably sad, and
somehow indescribably pure and beautiful, all at once.
That will never happen to us, Stefan’s voice in her mind told her fiercely. Never!
I give you my —
No! Elena thought back, superstitiously terrified of a jinx. If Stefan swore,
something might happen—she might have to become a vampire or a spirit—to
ensure that he didn’t break his word.
He stopped, and Elena knew that he had heard her. And somehow this
knowledge, that Stefan had heard a single word from her, stilled her. She knew he
wasn’t spying. He’d heard because she’d sent the thought to him. She wasn’t alone.
She might be ordinary again; they might have taken her wings and most of the
Power of her blood, but she wasn’t alone. She leaned toward him, her forehead
against Stefan’s chin.
“No one is alone.” She’d told Damon that. Damon Salvatore, a being who no
longer existed. But who still called forth from her one more word, one final cry. His
name.
Damon!
He’d died four dimensions away. But she could feel Stefan backing her,
amplifying her transmission, sending it like one last beacon through the multitude of
worlds that separated them from his cold and lifeless body.
Damon!
There wasn’t the slightest glimmer of an answer. Of course not. Elena was
making a fool of herself.
Suddenly something stronger than grief, stronger than self-pity, even stronger
than guilt, took hold of her. Damon wouldn’t have wanted her to be carried out of
this hall—even by Stefan. Especially by Stefan. He would have wanted her to show
no sign of weakness to these women who’d shorn her and humiliated her.
Yes. That was Stefan. Her love, but not her lover, willing to love her chastely from
now until the end of her days….
The end…of her days?
Elena was suddenly glad that she couldn’t project to strangers telepathically and
that Stefan had set shields around them when he’d taken her into his arms. She
turned to Ryannen, who was watching…warily, but still with business in her eyes.
“I’d like to go now, if you don’t mind,” she said, picking up her backpack and
slinging it over her shoulder with a gesture as arrogant as she could make it. There
was a bolt of agony as the weight of the strap hit the place from which most of her
wings had sprung, but she kept her face contemptuous and indifferent.
Bonnie, back on the ground since she wasn’t fighting any longer, followed Elena’s
lead. Stefan had left his backpack in the Gatehouse, but he gently cupped a hand
around Elena’s elbow, not guiding her, but showing that he was there for her.
Sage’s wings folded back into themselves and were gone.
“You understand that for the return of these treasures which are ours by right—
but which we were barred from retrieving—you will be granted your requests with
the exception of the imposs—”
“I understand,” Elena said flatly, just as Stefan said, much more brusquely, “She
understands. Just do it, will you?”
“It is already being organized.” Ryannen’s eyes, dark blue splashed with gold,
met Elena’s with a look not entirely unsympathetic.
“The best thing,” Sussure added hastily, “would be for us to put you to sleep and
send you to your—your old, new dwellings. By the time you awaken, all will have
been accomplished.”
Elena forced her face not to change. “Send me to Maple Street?” she asked,
looking at Ryannen. “Aunt Judith’s house?”
“In your sleep, yes.”
“I don’t want to be asleep.” Elena moved even closer to Stefan. “Don’t let them
put me to sleep!”
“No one’s going to do anything to you that you don’t want,” Stefan said, and his
voice was like the edge of a razor. Sage rumbled his support, and Bonnie stared at
the fair woman hard.
Ryannen bowed her head.
Elena woke up.
It was dark, and she’d been asleep. She couldn’t remember exactly how she’d
fallen asleep, but she knew she wasn’t on the palanquin, and she knew she wasn’t
in a sleeping bag.
Stefan? Bonnie? Damon? she thought automatically, but there was something
odd about her telepathy. It felt almost as if it were confined to her own head.
Was she in Stefan’s room? It must be pitch-black outside, since she couldn’t
even see the outline of the trapdoor that led to the widow’s walk.
“Stefan?” she whispered, while various bits of information pooled in her mind.
There was a smell, at once familiar and unfamiliar. She was lying on a comfortable
double bed, not one of Lady Ulma’s silken-and-velvet extravaganzas, but not any
lumpy featherbed from the boardinghouse, either. Was she in a hotel?
As these various thoughts came together in her brain, there was a soft quick
rapping. Knuckles on glass.
Elena’s body took over. She tossed off the bedspread and ran to the window,
mysteriously avoiding obstacles without thinking about them at all. Her hands
wrenched aside curtains that she somehow knew were there and her skyrocketing
heart brought a name to her lips.
“Da—!”
And then the world stopped and did its slowest somersault of all. The sight of a
face, fierce and concerned and loving and yet strangely frustrated, just on the other
side of the second-story window, brought Elena’s memories back.
All of them.
Fell’s Church was saved.
And Damon was dead.
Her head bent slowly until her forehead touched the cool pane of glass.
“E lena?” Stefan said quietly. “Could you ask me to come in? You have to invite me
in if you want to—to talk—”
Invite him in? He was already in—inside her heart. She had told the Guardians
that everyone would have to accept Stefan as her boyfriend of almost a year.
It didn’t matter. In a low voice she said, “Come in, Stefan.”
“The window’s locked from your side, Elena.”
Numbly, Elena unlocked the window. The next moment she was encompassed by
warm, strong arms in a desperate, fervent embrace. But the moment after that, the
arms dropped, leaving her frozen and lonely.
“Stefan? What’s wrong?” Her eyes had adapted and by the starlight through the
window she could see him hesitating before her.
“I can’t—It isn’t—It’s not me you want,” he said in a rush that sounded as if it
came through a constricted throat. “But I wanted you to know that—that Meredith
and Matt are holding Bonnie. Comforting her, I mean. They’re all okay and so is
Mrs. Flowers. And I thought that you—”
“They put me to sleep! They said they wouldn’t put me to sleep!”
“You fell asleep, lo—Elena. While we were waiting for them to send us home. We
all watched over you: Bonnie, Sage, and I.” He was still speaking in that formal,
unusual tone. “But I thought—well, that you might want to talk tonight, too. Before I
—I left.” He put a finger up to stop his lip from shaking.
“You swore you wouldn’t leave me!” Elena cried. “You promised, not for any
reason, not for any length of time, no matter how noble the cause!”
“But—Elena—that was before I understood…”
“You still don’t understand! Do you know—”
His hand flew to cover her mouth and he put his lips to her ear. “Lo—Elena.
We’re in your house. Your aunt—”
Elena felt her eyes widen, although of course subconsciously she had known this
all along. The air of familiarity. This bed—it was her bed, and the spread was her
beloved gold and white bedspread. The obstacles she’d known how to avoid in the
dark—the tapping at her window…she was home.
Like a climber who has negotiated an impossible-seeming section of rock, and
almost fallen, Elena felt a tremendous rush of adrenaline. And it was this—or,
perhaps, simply the power of the love that flooded through her—that achieved what
she had been so clumsily trying to reach. She felt her soul expand and come out of
her body. And meet Stefan’s.
She was appalled by the hastily swept-away desolation in his spirit, and humbled
by the surge of love that flooded every part of him at the touch of her mind.
Oh, Stefan. Just—say that—that you can forgive me, that’s all. If you forgive
me I can live. Maybe you can even be happy with me again—if you just give it a
little time.
I’m already happy with you. But we have all the time in the world, Stefan
reassured her. But she caught the shadow of a dark thought whisked quickly out of
the way. He had all the time in the world. She, however…
Elena had to choke back a laugh but then clutched at Stefan suddenly. My
backpack—did they take it? Where is it?
Right beside your nightstand. I can reach it. Do you want it? He reached in the
darkness and pulled up something heavy and rough and none too pleasantsmelling.
Elena thrust one frantic hand inside it while still holding on to Stefan with
the other.
Yes! Oh, Stefan, it’s here!
He was beginning to suspect—but he only knew when she drew out the bottle
labeled Evian Water and held it to her cheek. It was icy cold, although the night was
mild and humid. And as it effervesced violently, it glowed in a way that no ordinary
water did.
I didn’t mean to do it, she told Stefan, suddenly worried that he might not like to
associate with a thief. At least—not at first. Sage said to get the water from the
Fountain of Eternal Youth and Life into bottles. I dug up a big bottle and this little
one, and somehow I stashed the smaller one in my backpack—I’d’ve put the big
one in, too, but it didn’t fit. And I didn’t even think about the little one again until
after they took away my Wings and my telepathy.
And a good thing, Stefan thought. If they had caught you—oh, my lovely love!
His arms squeezed the breath from Elena’s lungs. So that’s why you were
suddenly so eager to leave!
“They took almost everything else supernatural about me,” Elena whispered,
placing her lips close to Stefan’s ear. “I have to live with that, and if they’d given me
a chance I’d have agreed—for the sake of Fell’s Church—if I’d been logical—” She
broke off as she suddenly realized that she had been literally out of her mind. She’d
been worse than a thief. She’d tried to use a lethal attack on a group of—mostly—
innocent people. And the worst thing was that a part of her knew that Damon would
have understood her madness, while she wasn’t sure Stefan ever could.
“But you don’t have to change me into—you know,” she began whispering
frenetically again. “A sip or two of this and I can be with you forever. Forever and—
for—forever—Stefan—” She stopped, trying to get her breath and her mental
balance.
His hand closed over hers on the cap. “Elena.”
“I’m not crying. It’s because I’m happy. Forever and ever, Stefan. We can be
together, just…just us two…forever.”
“Elena, love.” His hand kept hers from twisting open the bottle.
“It—isn’t what you want?”
With his other arm, Stefan pulled her tightly to him. Her head fell forward onto his
shoulder and he rested his chin on her hair. “It’s what I want more than anything.
I’m…dazed, I guess. I have been ever since—” He stopped and tried again. “If we
have all the time in the world, we have tomorrow,” he said in a voice muffled by hair.
“And tomorrow is time enough for you to start to think it through. There’s enough in
that bottle for maybe four or five people. You’re the one who’s going to have to
decide who drinks it, love. But not tonight. Tonight is for…”
With a sudden rush of joy Elena understood. “You’re talking about—Damon.”
Amazing how difficult it was to simply say his name. It almost seemed a violation,
and yet…
When he could talk—like this—for a moment to me, he told me what he
wanted, she sent. Stefan stirred a little in the darkness, but said nothing. Stefan, he
only asked for one thing before he…went. It was not to be forgotten. That’s all.
And we’re the ones who remember the most. Us and Bonnie.
Aloud she added, “I will never forget him. And I will never let anyone else who
knew him forget him—for as long as I live.”
She knew she’d spoken too loudly, but Stefan didn’t try to quiet her. He gave one
quick shudder and then held her tightly again, his face buried in her hair.
I remember, he sent to her, when Katherine asked him to join her—when we
three were in Honoria Fell’s crypt. I remember what he said to her. Do you?
Elena felt their souls intertwine as they both saw the scene through the other’s
eyes. Of course, I remember too.
Stefan sighed, half-laughing. I remember trying to take care of him later in
Florence. He wouldn’t behave, wouldn’t even Influence the girls he fed on.
Another sigh. I think he wanted to get caught at that point. He couldn’t even look
me in the face and talk about you.
I made Bonnie send for you. I made sure she got both of you out here, Elena
told him. Her tears had begun to flow again, but slowly—gently. Her eyes were shut
and she felt a faint smile come to her lips.
Do you know—Stefan’s mental voice was startled, astonished—I remember
something else! From when I was very young, maybe three or four years old. My
father had a terrible temper, especially right after my mother died. And back
then, when I was little, and my father was furious and drunk, Damon would
deliberately get in between us. He’d say something obnoxious and—well, my
father would end up beating him instead of me. I don’t know how I could have
forgotten about that.
I do, Elena thought, remembering how frightened she had been of Damon when
he’d first turned human—even though he’d put himself in between her and the
vampires who wanted to Discipline her in the Dark Dimension. He had a gift for
knowing exactly what to say—how to look—what to do—to get under anyone’s
skin.
She could feel Stefan chuckle faintly, wryly. A gift, was it?
Well, I certainly couldn’t do it, and I can manage most people, Elena replied
softly. Not him, though. Never him.
Stefan added, But he was almost always kinder to weak people than to strong
ones. He always did have that soft spot for Bonnie… He broke off, as if frightened
he’d ventured too near something sacred.
But Elena had her bearings now. She was glad, so glad, that in the end Damon
had died to save Bonnie. Elena herself needed no more proof of his feelings about
her. She would always love Damon, and she would never allow anything to diminish
that love.
And, somehow, it seemed fitting that she and Stefan should sit in her old
bedroom and speak of what they remembered of Damon in hushed tones. She
planned on taking the same thing up with the others tomorrow.
When she finally fell asleep in Stefan’s arms, it was hours after midnight.
O n the smallest moon of the Nether World fine ash was falling. It fell on two
already ash-covered bodies. It fell on ash-choked water. It blocked the sunlight so
that an endless midnight covered the moon’s ash-coated surface.
And something else fell. In the smallest imaginable droplets, an opalescent fluid
fell, colors swirling as if to try and make up for the ugliness of the ashes. They were
tiny drops, but there were trillions upon trillions of them, falling endlessly,
concentrated over the spot where they had once been part of the largest container
of raw Power in three dimensions.
There was a body on the ground on this spot—not quite a corpse. The body had
no heartbeat; it did not breathe, and there was no brain activity. But somewhere in it
there was a slow pulsing, that quickened very slightly as the tiny drops of Power fell
upon it.
The pulsing was made up of nothing but a memory. The memory of a girl with
dark blue eyes and golden hair and a small face with wide brown eyes. And the
taste: the taste of two maidens’ tears. Elena. Bonnie.
Putting the two of them together they formed what was not exactly a thought, not
exactly a picture. But to someone who only understood words, it might be
translated:
They are wiating for me. If I can figure out who I am.
And that sparked a fierce determination.
After what seemed like centuries but was only a few hours, something moved in
the ash. A fist clenched.
And something stirred in the brain, a self-revelation. A name.
Damon.
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