The Return: Shadow Souls

him, pretending to be resting on her elbows and his chest, and smiling at him as she tried to straighten out her hair.

Relieved, Stefan smiled back at her. It was as if he could bear anything, as long as she was unhurt.

“Now, Damon would have been practical,” she teased him. “He would have kept me crying, because in the end, his health would be the most important thing. And he’d have prayed for…” She paused and finally began laughing, which made Stefan smile. “I have no idea,” Elena said finally. “I don’t think Damon prays.”

“Probably not,” Stefan said. “When we were young — and human — the town priest walked with a cane that he seemed to enjoy using on young delinquent boys more than as a source of support.”

Elena thought of the delicate child chained to the huge and heavy boulder of secrets. Was religion one of the things locked away, put behind doors closed one after another in secret there, like a chambered nautilus until almost everything he cared about was inside?

She didn’t ask that of Stefan. Instead, she said, lowering her “voice” to the tiniest telepathic whisper, the barest disturbance of neurons in Stefan’s receptive brain: What other practical things can you think of that Damon might have thought of? Things relating to a jailbreak?

“Well…for a jailbreak? The first thing I can think of is for you to know your way around the city. I was brought here blindfolded but since they don’t have the power to take the curse off vampires and make them human, I still had all my senses. I’d say it’s a city about the size of New York and Los Angeles combined.”

“Big city,” Elena noted, taking notes in her head.

“But fortunately the only bits that would interest us are in the southwestern section. The city’s supposed to be ruled by the Guardians — but they’re from the Other Side and the demons and vampires here long ago realized that people were more afraid of them than the Guardians. It’s set up now with about twelve to fifteen feudal castles or estates, and each of those estates has control of a considerable amount of land outside the city. They grow their own unique products and sell them in deals made here. For instance, it’s the vampires who cultivate Clarion Loess Black Magic.”

“I see,” said Elena, who had no idea what he was talking about, except the Black Magic wine. “But all we really need to know is how to get to the Shi no Shi — your prison.”

“That’s true. Well, the easiest way would be to find the kitsune sector. The Shi no Shi is a cluster of buildings, with the largest one — the one without a top, although it’s curved, and you may not be able to tell from the ground—”

“The one that looks like a coliseum?” Elena interrupted eagerly. “I get a sort of bird’s-eye view of the city whenever I come here.”

“Well, the thing that looks like a coliseum is a coliseum.” Stefan smiled.

He really smiled; he’s feeling well enough to smile, now, Elena rejoiced, but silently.

“So to get you in and out, we just head from below the coliseum to the gate back to our world,” Elena said. “But to get you free there are — some things we need to collect — and those are probably going to be in different parts of the city.” She tried to remember if she had ever described the twin fox key to Stefan or not. It was probably better not to do it if she hadn’t already done it.

“Then I’d hire a native guide,” Stefan said immediately. “I don’t really know anything about the city, except what the guards tell me — and I’m not sure if I would trust them. But the little people — the ordinary ones — will probably know the things you want to know.”

“That’s a good idea,” Elena said. She drew invisible designs with a transparent finger on his chest. “I think Damon really plans to do everything he can to help us.”

“I honor him for coming,” Stefan said, as if he were thinking things out. “He’s keeping his promise, isn’t he?”

Elena nodded. Deep, deep in her consciousness floated the thoughts: His word to me that he would take care of you. His word to you that he would take care of me. Damon always keeps his word.

“Stefan,” she said, again in the innermost recesses of his mind, where she could share information — she hoped — in secret, “you should have seen him, really. When I did Wings of Redemption and every bad thing that had hardened him or made him cruel came undone. And when I did Wings of Purification and all the stone covering his soul came away in chunks…. I don’t think you could imagine how he was. He was so perfect — and so new. And later when he cried…”

Elena could feel inside Stefan three layers of emotion succeed one another almost instantaneously. Disbelief that Damon could cry, despite all that Elena had been telling him. Then, belief and astonishment as he absorbed her pictures and her memories. And finally, the need to console her as she stared at a Damon forever trapped in penitence. A Damon that would never exist again.

“He saved you,” whispered Elena, “but he wouldn’t save himself. He wouldn’t even bargain with Shinichi and Misao. He just let them take all his memories of that time.”

“Maybe it hurt too much.”

“Yes,” said Elena, deliberately lowering her barriers so that Stefan could feel the hurt that the new and perfect creature she’d created had felt upon learning that he had committed acts of cruelty and treachery that — well, that would make the strongest soul flinch. “Stefan? I think he must feel very lonely.”

“Yes, angel. I think you’re right.”

This time Elena thought a good deal longer before venturing, “Stefan? I’m not sure he understands what it’s like to be loved.” And while he thought out his response, she was on tenterhooks.

Then he said very softly, very slowly again, “Yes, angel. I think you’re right.”

Oh, she did love him. He always understood. And he was always most brave and gallant and trusting just when she needed him to be.

“Stefan? Can I stay again tonight?”

“Is it nighttime, lovely love? You can stay — unless They come to take me somewhere.” All at once Stefan was very solemn, holding her gaze. “But if They come — you’ll promise me to leave then, won’t you?”

Elena looked straight into his green eyes and said, “If that’s what 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.

25

“Oh, 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.