the thurg’s enormous neck. They both had such stiff necks, Elena thought. Neither of them wanted to be the first to bend.
Meanwhile those inside the palanquin began to play little games, like picking the long dried grasses from the side of the road and trying to weave them into dolls, fly whisks, hats, whips. Stefan proved to be the one who made the tightest weave, and he made fly whisks and broad fans for each of them.
They also played various card games, using stiff little place cards (had Lady Ulma thought they might give a dinner party on the way?) as playing cards, after carefully marking them with the four suits. And of course, the vampires hunted.
Sometimes this took quite a long time, since game was scarce. The Black Magic Lady Ulma had stocked helped them stretch the time between hunts.
When Damon visited the palanquin, it was as if he were crashing a private party and thumbing his nose at the hosts.
Finally Elena couldn’t stand it any longer, and had Stefan float her up the side of the thurg (looking down or climbing up were definitely not options) while flying magic still worked. She sat down on the saddle beside Damon and gathered her courage.
“Damon, I know you have a right to be angry with me. But don’t take it out on the others. Especially Bonnie.”
“Another lecture?” Damon asked, giving her a look that would freeze a flame.
“No, just a — a request.” She couldn’t bring herself to say “a plea.”
When he didn’t answer and the silence became unbearable, she said, “Damon, for us — we’re not going on a quest for treasure out of greed or adventure or any normal reason. We’re going because we need to save our town.”
“From Midnight,” a voice just behind her said. “From the Last Midnight.”
Elena whirled to stare. She expected to see Stefan holding Bonnie clasped to him hard. But it was only Bonnie at her head level, hanging on to the thurg ladder.
Elena forgot she was afraid of heights. She stood up on the swaying thurg, ready to climb down on the sun side if there wasn’t enough room for Bonnie to sit down fast in the driver’s saddle.
But Bonnie had the slimmest hips in town and there was just room for all three of them.
“The Last Midnight is coming,” Bonnie repeated. Elena knew that monotonous voice, knew the chalk-white cheeks, the blank eyes. Bonnie was in trance — and moving. It must be urgent.
“Damon,” Elena whispered. “If I speak to her, she’ll break trance. Can you ask her telepathically what she means?”
A moment later she heard Damon’s projection. What is the Last Midnight?
What’s going to happen then?
“That’s when it starts. And it’s over in less than an hour. So…no more midnights.”
I beg your pardon? No more midnights?
“Not in Fell’s Church. No one left to see them.”
And when is this going to happen?
“Tonight. The children are finally ready.”
The children?
Bonnie simply nodded, her eyes far away.
Something’s going to happen to all the children?
Bonnie’s eyelids drooped to half mast. She didn’t seem to hear the question.
Elena needed to hold on to something. And suddenly she was. Damon had reached across Bonnie’s lap and taken her hand.
Bonnie, are the children going to do something at midnight? he asked.
Bonnie’s eyes filled and she bowed her head.
“We’ve got to go back. We have to go to Fell’s Church,” Elena said, and scarcely knowing what she was doing, unclasped Damon’s hand and climbed down the ladder. The bloated red sun looked different — smaller. She tugged at the curtain and almost bumped heads with Stefan as he rolled it up to let her in.
“Stefan, Bonnie’s in trance and she said—”
“I know. I was eavesdropping. I couldn’t even catch her on the way up. She jumped onto the ladder and climbed like a squirrel. What do you think she means?”
“You remember in the out-of-body experience she and I had? A little spying on Alaric? That’s what’s going to happen in Fell’s Church. All the children, all at once, just at midnight — that’s why we have to get back—”
“Easy. Easy, love. Remember what Lady Ulma said? Nearly a year here came out to be only days in our world.”
Elena hesitated. It was true; she couldn’t deny it. Still, she felt so cold…
Physically cold, she realized suddenly, as a blast of frigid air swirled around her, cutting through her leather like a machete.
“We need our inner furs,” Elena gasped. “We must be getting near the fracture.”
They yanked down the palanquin covers and secured them and then hastily rummaged through the neat cabinet that was set on the rump of the thurg.
The furs were so sleek that Elena could fit two under her leather easily.
They were disturbed by Damon coming inside with Bonnie in his arms.
“She stopped talking,” he said, and added, “Whenever you’re warm enough, I suggest that you come out.”
Elena laid Bonnie down on one of the two benches inside the palanquin and piled blanket after blanket over her, tucking them in around her. Then Elena made herself climb back up.
For a moment she felt blinded. Not by the surly red sun — they had left that behind some mountains, which it turned a pink sapphire color — but by a world of white.
Seemingly endless, flat, featureless whiteness stretched out before her until a bank of fog obscured whatever was behind it.
“According to legend, we should be headed toward the Silver Lake of Death,” Damon’s voice said from behind Elena. And, oddly, throughout all this chill, his voice was warm — almost friendly. “Also known as Lake Mirror. But I can’t change into a crow to scout ahead. Something’s hindering me. And that fog in front of us is impenetrable to psychic probing.”
Elena instinctively glanced around her. Stefan was still inside the palanquin, obviously still tending to Bonnie.
“You’re looking for the lake? What’s it like? I mean, I can guess why it might be called Silver and Lake Mirror,” she said. “But what’s the Death bit?”
“Water dragons. At least that’s what people say — but who has been there to bring back the story?” Damon looked at her.
He took care of Bonnie while she was in trance, Elena thought. And he’s talking to me at last.
“Water…dragons?” she asked him and she made her voice friendly, too. As if they’d just met. They were starting over.
“I’ve always suspected kronosaurus, myself,” Damon said. He was right behind her now; she could feel him blocking the icy wind — no, more than that. He was generating an envelope of heat for her to stand in. Elena’s shivering stopped. She felt for the first time that she could unwrap her arms from clutching herself.
Then she felt a pair of strong arms folding around her, and the heat abruptly got quite intense. Damon was standing behind her, holding her, and all at once she was very warm indeed.
“Damon,” she began, not very steadily, “we can’t just—”
“There’s a rock outcropping over there. No one could see us,” the vampire behind her offered — to Elena’s absolute shock. A week of not speaking at all — and now this.
“Damon, the guy in the palanquin just below us is my—”
“Prince? Don’t you need a knight, then?” Damon breathed this directly into her ear. Elena stood like a statue. But what he said next rocked her entire universe.
“You like the story of Camelot, don’t you? Only here you’re the queen, princess.
