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
on either side of the path of the litters up the hill and some chemical had
been added—or some magic used—to make their lights shine in varying
colors so that they changed from golden, to red, to purple, to blue, to
green, to silver, and these colors shone true. They took Elena’s breath
away, as the only things that were not tinged with red in the whole world
that she could see. Damon had brought a bottle of Black Magic with him
and was almost too high-spirited—no pun intended, Elena thought.
As their litter stopped at the top of the hill, Damon and Elena were
helped out and down a hallway that cut out much of the sunlight. Above
them hung delicate, lighted paper lanterns—some larger than the litter
they’d been in a moment ago—brightly lighted and fancifully shaped
which gave a festive, playful air to a palace otherwise so magnificent
that it was a little intimidating.
They passed by lighted fountains, some of which had
surprises—like the line of magical frogs that constantly leaped from lily
pad to lily pad: plop, plop, plop, like the sound of rain on a rooftop, or a
huge gilded serpent that coiled among trees and over the heads of
visitors, winding from there to the ground and then back up to the trees
again.
Then again, it was the ground that would turn transparent with all
manner of magical schools of fish, sharks, eels, and dolphins cavorting,
while in the dim blue depths far below loomed the figure of a gigantic
whale. Elena and Bonnie hurried quickly over this portion of the path.
It was clear that the owner of this estate could afford any kind of
extravaganza her heart desired, and that above all things what she
enjoyed the chiefest was music, for in each area, splendidly—sometimes
bizarrely—dressed orchestra were playing, or there might be only one
famous soloist, singing from a high gilded cage perhaps twenty-five feet
above the ground.
Music…music and lights everywhere…
Elena herself, although thrilled by the sights, sounds, and glorious
scents coming from huge banks of flowers as well as from the guests,
both male and female, felt a slight fear like a small rock in her stomach.
She had thought her dress and diamonds so elaborate when she had left
Lady Ulma’s estate. But now that she was here at Lady Fazina’s…well,
there were too many rooms, too many people, as fancifully and finely
clad as herself and her sister “personal assistants.” She was afraid
that—well, that that woman over there, dripping jewels from her delicate
three-tier diamond and emerald tiara to her delicate diamond-circled
toes, made her own unadorned hair look dowdy or laughable, at such a
grand affair.
Do you know how old she is? Elena almost jumped to hear
Damon’s voice in her head.
Who? Elena replied, trying at least to keep her envy—her
worry—out of her telepathic voice. And am I projecting that loudly? she
added in alarm.
Not all that loudly, but it never hurts to tune it down. And you
know perfectly well “who”: that giraffe you were eyeing, Damon
replied. For your information, she’s about two hundred years older than
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