great dais, draped with a fantastically woven golden cloth. The treasures were spread out in front of them, as attendants dressed in flowing blue and gold took the objects one by one up to the current ruling triumvirate in back.
The rulers comprised one each of the groups of Guardians — fair, dark, redheaded. Their seats on the dais ensured that they were far from — and high above — their petitioners. But with Power sent to her eyes, Elena could see perfectly well that they each sat on an exquisitely jeweled golden throne. They were speaking softly together, admiring the Royal Radhika flower — blue delphiniums at the moment. Then the dark one smiled and sent one of her attendants running for a pot with soil for the plant to survive in.
Elena stared sightlessly at the other treasures. A gallon of water from the Fountain of Eternal Youth and Life. Six bottles of unbroken Black Magic wine, and the shards of at least that many around them. A blazing rainbow to rival the stainedglass windows in fist-sized gems, some raw, some already faceted and polished, but most of them not only faceted, but also hand-carved with mysterious gold or silver inscriptions. Two long, black, velvet-lined boxes with yellowing cylinders of papyrus or paper inside them, one with a pure black rose lying next to it, and the other with a simple spray of light springtime-green leaves. Elena knew what the yellowed documents with their cracked waxen seals were. The deeds to the field of black roses and the kitsune paradise.
When you saw all the treasures together like this, it almost seemed too much, Elena thought. Any one object from any one of the Seven — no, now Six — kitsune Treasures was enough to trade worlds for. One sprig of the Royal Radhika, which was even now being returned, (pink larkspur changing to a white orchid) properly potted again, was immeasurably precious. So was a single velvety black rose, with its power to hold the most powerful of magics. One jewel from the hoard in the mining cavern, maybe a double-fist-sized diamond that put the Star of Africa and the Golden Jubilee to shame. One day in the kitsune paradise, where a day could seem like a perfect lifetime. One sip of that effervescent water that could make a human live as long as the oldest Old One…
Of course there should also have been the largest star ball in existence, full of eldritch Power, but Elena was hoping that the Guardians would overlook that.
Hoping? She wondered and shook her head at nothing, causing Bonnie to squeeze her hand tightly. Not hoping. She didn’t dare hope. Not a breath yet.
Another attendant, red-haired, flashing them a cold green-eyed look, picked up the plastic gallon bottle that said Sector 3 Water on the label. Sage rumbled as she left, “Qu’est-ce qui lui prend? I mean, what is her problem? I like the water in the vampire sector. I don’t like the pump water in the Nether World.”
Elena had already figured out the color code for the Guardians. The blond ones were all business, impatient only with delays. The dark ones were the kindestmaybe there was less work for them to do in the Nether World. The green-eyed redheads were just plain bitchy. Unfortunately, the young woman on the central throne up there on the dais was a redhead.
“Bonnie?” she whispered.
Bonnie had to gulp and sniff before she could get out, “Yes?”
“Have I ever told you how much I like your eyes?”
Bonnie gave her a long brown-eyed gaze before beginning to shake with laughter. At least it started out like laughter, and then Bonnie burrowed her head into Elena’s shoulder and simply shook.
Stefan squeezed Elena’s hand. “She’s been trying so hard — for you. She — she loved him too, you see. I didn’t even know that. I guess…I guess I’ve just been blind on all sides.”
He ran his free hand through his already-tousled hair. He looked very young, like a little boy who had been suddenly punished for doing something he hadn’t been told was wrong. Elena remembered him in the backyard of the boardinghouse, dancing with her feet on his feet, and then in his attic room, kissing her hands, her knuckles bruised with hammering, the pulsing inside of her wrists. She wanted to tell him that everything was going to be all right, that the laughter would come back to his eyes, but she couldn’t stand the chance of lying to him.
Suddenly Elena felt like a very, very old woman, who could hear and see only dimly, whose every movement caused her terrible pain, and who was cold inside.
Her every joint and every bone was filled with ice.
At last, when all the treasures, including a sparkling, diamond-set, golden Master Key, had been taken up for the young women on the thrones to handle, heft, examine, and discuss, a warm-eyed dark-skinned woman came to Elena’s group.
“You may approach Their High Judgments now. And,” she added in a voice as soft as the stroke of a dragonfly’s wing, “they are very, very impressed. That doesn’t often happen. Speak meekly and keep your heads low and I think you shall have your hearts’ desires.”
Something inside Elena gave a bound that would have sent her leaping to clutch at the retreating attendant’s robe, but fortunately Stefan had her in an embrace of iron. Bonnie’s head came off Elena’s shoulder, and Elena had to restrain her, in turn.
They walked, the very portrait of meekness, to where four scarlet cushions blazed against the golden weave of the floor cloth. Once, Elena would have refused to abase herself. Now, she was thankful for a soft resting place for her knees.
This close, she could see that the rulers each wore a circlet of some metal, from which a single stone hung on to her forehead.
“We have considered your petition,” the dark one said, her white-gold circlet with its diamond pendant dazzling Elena with pinpricks of lilac and red and royal blue.
“Oh, yes,” she added, laughing. “We know what you want. Even a Guardian on the street would have to be very bad at her job not to know. You want your town… renewed. The burned buildings rebuilt. The victims of the malach pestilence recreated, their souls swathed again in flesh, and their memories—”
“But, first,” interrupted the fair one, waving a hand, “don’t we have business at hand? This girl — Elena Gilbert — may not be eligible to be a spokesman for her group. If she becomes a Guardian, she doesn’t belong with the petitioners.”
The redhead tossed her head like an impatient filly, causing the rose gold of her circlet to flash, and its ruby to shimmer. “Oh, go on then, Ryannen. If your recruitment levels are so low—” The businesslike fair one ignored this, but bent forward, some of her hair held back from her face by her circlet of yellow gold with its sapphire pendant. “What about it, Elena? I know our first encounter was — unfortunate. You must believe that I am sorry for that. But you were well on your way to becoming a full Guardian when we had orders from Above to weave you into a new body so that you could take up your life as a human again.”
“You did that? Of course you did.” Elena’s voice was soft and low and flattering.
“You can do anything. But — our first encounter? I don’t remember—”
“You were too young, and you saw just a flash of our air car as it passed your parents’ vehicle. It was meant to be a minor accident with one apparent casualtyyou. But instead…”
Bonnie’s hands flew to her mouth. She was clearly getting something Elena wasn’t. Her parents’ “vehicle”…? The last time she’d driven with her father and mother — and little Margaret — had been the day of the crash. The day she’d distracted her father, who’d been driving…
“Look, Daddy! Look at the pretty—” And then had come the impact.
Elena forgot about being meek and keeping her head low. In fact, she raised her head, and met gold- splattered blue eyes very much like hers. Her own gaze, she knew, was piercing and hard.
“You…killed my parents?” she whispered.
“No, no!” the dark one cried. “It was an operation gone sour. We only had to intersect with the Earth dimension for a few minutes. But, quite unexpectedly, your talent flared. You saw our air car. Instead of a crash with only one apparent casualty: you, your father turned to look and…” Slowly her voice trailed off as Elena’s turned unbelieving eyes on her.
Bonnie was staring sightlessly into the distance, almost as if she were in trance.
“Shinichi,” she breathed. “That weird riddle of his — or whatever it was. That one of us had murdered, and that it was nothing to do with being a vampire or a mercy killing…”
“I’d always assumed it was me,” Stefan said quietly. “My mother never really recovered after my birth. She died.”
“But that doesn’t make you a murderer!” Elena cried. “Not like me. Not like me!”
