Instinctively, she held out her hand to Stefan. Maybe she could help him.
“We just won’t do anything for a little while,” she said. “You don’t have to be sad.”
But she herself still felt very wrong. She hadn’t felt this wrong since she’d seen Stefan in prison and had thought that he would die at any moment.
No…it was worse…because with Stefan there had been hope and Elena had the feeling that now hope was gone. Everything was gone. She was hollow: a girl who looked solid, but whose insides were missing.
“I’m dying,” she whispered. “I know it…Are you all going to say good-bye now?”
And with that Sage — Sage! — choked up and began to sob. Stefan, still looking so oddly mussed, with those traces of soot on his face and arms and his hair and clothes soaking wet, said, “Elena, you’re not going to die. Not unless you choose to.”
She had never seen Stefan look like this before. Not even in prison. His flame, his inner fire that he showed to almost no one but Elena, had gone out.
“Sage saved us,” he said, slowly carefully, as if it cost him great effort to speak.
“The ash that was falling — you and Bonnie would have died if you’d had to breathe any more of it. But Sage put a door back to the Gatehouse right in front of us. I could barely see it; my eyes were so full of ashfall, and it’s only getting worse on that moon.”
“Ashfall,” Elena whispered. There was something at the bottom of her mind, but once again her memory failed her. It was almost as if she’d been Influenced to not remember. But that was ridiculous.
“Why were ashes falling?” she asked, realizing that her voice was husky, hoarse — as if she’d cheered too long at a football game.
“You used Wings of Destruction,” Stefan said steadily, looking at her with his swollen eyes. “You saved our lives. But you killed the Tree — and the star ball disintegrated.”
Wings of Destruction. She must have lost her temper. And she’d killed a world.
She was a murderer.
And now the star ball was lost. Fell’s Church. Oh, God. What would Damon say to her? Elena had done everything — everything wrong. Bonnie was sobbing now, her face turned away.
“I’m sorry,” Elena said, knowing how inadequate this was. For the first time she looked around miserably. “Damon?” she whispered. “He won’t speak to me?
Because of what I did?”
Sage and Stefan looked at each other.
Ice went down Elena’s spine.
She started to get up, but her legs weren’t the legs she remembered. They wanted to unlock at the knees. She was staring down at herself, at her own wet and smudged clothes — and then something like mud came down her forehead. Mud or congealing blood.
Bonnie made a sound. She was still sobbing, but she was speaking, too, in a new husky voice that made her sound much older. “Elena — we didn’t get the ashes out of the top of your hair. Sage had to give you an emergency transfusion.”
“I’ll get the ashes out,” Elena said flatly. She let her knees bend. She fell onto them, jarring her body. Then, twisting, she leaned down to the little brook and let her head fall forward. Through the icy shock she could dimly hear exclamations from the people above water, and Stefan’s sharp, Elena, are you all right? in her head.
No, she thought back. But I’m not drowning, either. I’m washing out my hair.
Maybe Damon will at least see me if I’m presentable. Maybe he’ll come with us and fight for Fell’s Church.
Let me help you up, Stefan sent quietly.
Elena had come to the end of her air. She pulled her heavy head out of the water and flipped it, soaking but clean, so that it fell down her back. She stared at Stefan.
“Why?” she said — and then, with a sudden panic—“Has he left already? Was he angry…with me?”
“Stefan.” It was Sage, speaking tiredly. Stefan, who was staring out of his green eyes like a hunted animal, made some faint sound.
“The Influence, it is not working,” Sage said. “She will remember on her own.”
Stefan didn’t move or speak for long moments. Elena’s heart swelled. Suddenly she was as afraid as he clearly was. She went to him and took both his hands, which were shaking.
Darling, don’t cry, she sent. There must still be time to save Fell’s Church.
There must. It can’t end this way. And besides, Shinichi is gone! We can get to the children; we can break the conditioning…” She stopped. It was as if the word
“conditioning” echoed in her ears. Stefan’s green eyes were filling her vision. Her mind was getting…it was getting fuzzy. Everything was becoming unreal again. In a minute she wouldn’t be able to…
She wrenched her eyes away, breathing hard.
“You were Influencing me,” she said. She could hear the anger in her own voice.
“Yes,” Stefan whispered. “I’ve been Influencing you for half an hour.”
How dare you? Elena thought, just for him.
“I’m stopping it…now,” Stefan said quietly.
“As am I,” Sage added, sounding exhausted.
And the universe did a slow spin and Elena remembered what it was that they were all keeping from her.
With a wild sob, she rose, scattering droplets, coming to her feet like an avenging goddess. She looked at Sage. She looked at Stefan.
And Stefan proved how brave he was, how much he loved her. He told her what she already knew. “Damon is gone, Elena. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry if…if I kept you from being with him as much as you wanted to. I’m sorry if I came between you. I didn’t understand — how much you loved each other. I do now.” And then he dropped his face into his hands.
Elena wanted to go to him. To scold him, to hold him. To tell Stefan that she loved him just as much, drop for drop, grain for grain. But her body had gone numb, and the darkness was threatening again…all she could do was hold out her arms as she crumpled onto the grass. And then somehow Bonnie and Stefan were both there, the three of them all sobbing: Elena with the intensity of new discovery; Stefan with a lost sound that Elena had never heard before; and Bonnie with a dry, wrenching exhaustion that seemed to want to shatter her small body.
Time lost all meaning. Elena wanted to grieve for every moment of Damon’s painful death, and for every moment of his life, too. So much had been lost. She couldn’t get her head around it, and she didn’t want to do anything but cry until the kind darkness took her mind again.
That was when Sage broke.
He grabbed Elena and pulled her up, and shook her by the shoulders. It snapped her head back and forth.
“Your town is in ruins!” he shouted, as if this was her fault. “Midnight may or may not bring disaster. Oh, yes, I saw it all in your mind when I went in to Influence you.
Little Fell’s Church is already devastated. And you won’t even fight for it!”
Something blazed through Elena. It melted the numbness, the iciness. “Yes, I’ll fight for it!” she screamed. “I’ll fight for it with every breath in my body, until I stop the people who did it, or until they kill me!”
“And how, puis-je savoir, will you get back in time? By the time you walk back the way you came, it will all be over!”
Stefan was beside her, bracing her, shoulder to shoulder. “Then we’ll force you to send us some other way — so that we can get back in time!”
Elena stared. No. No. Stefan couldn’t have said that. Stefan didn’t force his way — and she wouldn’t have him changing himself. She whirled back on Sage.
“There’s no need to fight! I have a Master Key in my backpack, and magic works here inside the Gatehouse!” she cried.
But Stefan and Sage were staring each other down, each fierce and intent. Elena wanted to go to Stefan but the world was doing another of its slow somersaults.
