Chapter 45

Dear Diary,

Forever.

The prospect should feel scary, I suppose: my time on Earth has been so relatively short. A lot has happened to me, more than most people get to experience in a lifetime, but I still have so much to learn and do.

But I'm sure of Stefan, and I'm sure about forever. All I can feel is overwhelming, riotous joy.

It's not even just Stefan and me, and the prospect of eternity to learn all the little things we don't know about each other, even yet: What was the color of Stefan's mother's eyes? What will his lips taste like, on a bright spring morning two hundred years from now? Where would he go, if he could go anywhere? And we can go everywhere. We'll have time.

That's so much of my happiness, but it's not all of it.

I finally know who I am. It's ironic in a lot of ways that I should be a Guardian, when I loathed and feared them with such passion. But an Earthly Guardian is different; Andres has taught me that: I can be compassionate and loving and human, and I can use my Guardian Powers to protect my home, to protect the people I care about, to keep evil from destroying the innocent.

There's my bond with Damon, too. Finally I know how I can care for Damon and love Stefan at the same time. There's a connection between Damon and me that'll last forever, that will keep him from being consumed by the darkness that has always threatened him. No matter where he is, I'll hold a piece of him and he'll have a piece of me.

Through everything, Stefan will be by my side.

And with us will be all my beloved friends, each of them so powerful and good, each in their own way. I love them all so much.

I'm trembling, but it's with anticipation. I'm not afraid anymore. I can't wait to see what the future holds, for all of us.

Chapter 44

Concentrating, Stefan carefully knotted his tie. He looked, he knew, sleek and elegant in his best suit, a good match for lovely, golden Elena.

He'd made reservations at the nicest restaurant in town for a welcome-back dinner from her visit to Fell's Church to see Aunt Judith and Margaret. Klaus was dead; Damon was saved. Just for once, there was time for Elena to be a college girl, have fun without doom hanging over her.

So: French food. Roses on the table. A night of forgetting their pasts and instead enjoying the present together, like any couple in love. He ran down the two flights of stairs between their rooms, feeling light with happiness.

Elena's door was ajar. He tapped on it lightly, then pushed it inward, expecting to see Meredith and Bonnie bustling around Elena, helping her get ready for their big night.

Instead, the room was lit with candles, hundreds of tiny flames reflecting from the windows and mirrors to create a dazzling, glimmering play of light. Meredith and Bonnie were nowhere in sight and even their stuff seemed to have disappeared. The air was full of sweet scents, and Stefan saw scattered flowers among the candles: orchids and gardenias, orange blossoms and asters. In the language of flowers, all symbols of love in its many forms.

In the middle of the room stood Elena, dressed in a simple white sundress with lace detailing, waiting for him. He didn't think he had ever seen her look more beautiful. Her creamy skin, touched with just the faintest wash of pink, her jewel-blue eyes, her golden hair, all caught the light of the candle flames, shining as if she were an angel. But most beautiful of all were not her features but the look of pure, open love on her face. When her gaze met Stefan's, hers was full of fierce joy.

"Stefan," she said quietly. "I finally know what our future will look like."

Stepping forward into the room, Stefan came straight to her. However Elena saw their future, he would be there beside her, without question. He had learned long ago that his happiness, his life, was intimately tied to this one human girl, this one girl in all the world. He would go anywhere she wanted him to.

Elena took his hand and clasped it. "I love you, Stefan," she said. "That's the most important thing. I need to make sure you know it, because I haven't always treated you as well as I should have."

Stefan's voice caught in his throat, but he smiled at her. "I love you, too," he managed to say. "Always, always, always."

"The first time I saw you - remember that? Back outside the main office in high school - you just brushed past me without even looking. Right then, I decided that I was going to have you, that you were going to fall in love with me. No boy was going to treat me like that." Elena smiled a wry, self-deprecating smile. "But then you saved me from Tyler, and you were so sad and noble and good. I wanted to protect you, the way you'd protected me. And when we kissed, the whole world fell away."

Stefan made a soft sound, remembering, and his hand turned in Elena's grasp, twining their fingers together.

"You've saved me so many times and in so many ways, Stefan," Elena went on, "and I've saved you. We've plotted and planned together, we've fought and defeated all our enemies. There isn't anyone who loves me the way you do, and I could never love anyone else as much as I love you. I know what I want now. I want to be with you forever."

She let go of Stefan's hand and reached for something on the desk beside her that he hadn't noticed before. It was a silver goblet, intricately worked with threads of gold and set with jewels, a precious and beautiful item. The goblet was full of what looked like pure, clear water. Except the water was glowing with a shining light. He glanced up at Elena in sudden comprehension, and she nodded.

"The water from the Fountain of Eternal Youth and Life," she said solemnly. "I've always known that the day would come when I would drink it. I don't want to live, or die, without you. There's enough left for the others, if they want it someday. They might not. I don't know if I'd want forever, if it wasn't forever with you. I can't - " Her voice broke. "I can't imagine ever leaving you behind. But I had to wait until I was ready, until I was the person I wanted to be for the rest of forever. And now I know who I am." Elena raised the goblet to Stefan. "If . . . if you'll have me, Stefan, if you'll have me forever, I want to spend it with you."

Stefan's heart was overflowing, and he felt a hot tear run down his cheek. He had spent so long in the darkness alone, so long as a monster. And then this creature of life and light had found him, and he hadn't been alone anymore.

"Yes," he said joyfully, "Elena, all I want out of forever is you."

Elena raised the goblet and drank deeply, and then turned a happy, laughing face up to meet Stefan's kiss. Her joy resonated through him as their lips connected, and he sent his own back to her. Forever, they both felt, forever.

Stefan clung to her, almost overwhelmed. After more than five hundred years lost and wandering, he realized, he finally felt he was home for good.

Chapter 43

Above Elena's and Damon's heads, the stars glittered in great long swathes across the dark night. The air was clear and chilly with the smells of autumn, and the sky seemed so deep that Elena felt like she could just fall into it, swim farther and farther among the stars forever.

"So," Damon said dryly. "You managed to avoid killing me. I suppose I should be grateful?"

The bond between them hummed with wry humor, and more than a touch of nervousness. It was strange being able to read Damon's emotions like this, seeing more than he allowed to show on his face. "Gratitude would be nice," she said cautiously, "but it's not necessary. Just try to keep returning the favor, okay?"

She felt him startle a little beside her, a shock zinging along their bond, and then he said, breezily, "Oh, I'd almost forgotten. You're trusting me not to hurt you, then?"

Elena stopped walking and put her hand on Damon's arm, pulling him to a stop beside her. "Yes," she said, gazing steadily into his eyes, letting him see the love she carried for him. "I am. You've been a lot of things, Damon Salvatore, but you've always been a gentleman."

Damon's eyes widened, and then he gave her the lovely, sweet smile she had seen for the first time in Stefan's room. "Well," he said, "it would break all the rules of chivalry to disappoint a lady."

Elena tipped her head back and gazed at the stars for a few minutes, enjoying the cool evening breeze that brushed her hair back from her face. With Klaus and his descendants gone, with Damon calm and peaceful at her side, it was good to be able to enjoy the night.

"Does your great trust in me mean you're planning to take both Salvatore brothers for one more spin?" Damon asked, still looking up at the stars. His tone was definitely joking now, a bit rough, but Elena could hear an undercurrent of longing in it, and feel his wistfulness in the connection between them. In some ways, it would be so easy: she'd spent a long time suspended between the brothers, loving Stefan, wanting Damon. It was almost comfortable at this point to love them both. But she had grown up at least a little now, she thought, and maybe it was time to shut those doors forever, to choose her true path.

"You'll always have a part of me, Damon." She pressed her hand to her chest, where she could feel the slight tug and ebb of the bond between them. "But I want my forever to be with Stefan."

"I know," Damon said. He turned to face her and ghosted his hand lightly across her hair, down over her shoulders. "I think maybe it's time for me to move on. There's a big world out there, and there are still a few places I haven't seen. Maybe there's somewhere else I belong."

Unexpectedly, Elena found herself crying, big, fat, babyish tears running hot over her cheeks and dripping off her chin. "You don't have to go," she choked. "I don't want you to leave."

"Hey," Damon said, startled, and moved closer, running his hand gently across her back. "I won't be gone forever. I think this slightly alarming thing between us" - he touched his chest lightly - "means I'll never be too far away."

"Oh, Damon," Elena choked.

Damon looked down at her seriously for a long moment. "It's the right thing, you know," he said. "Not that I've ever been particularly interested in doing the right thing. I've got a sinking feeling I'm about to learn."

He leaned down and brushed a light kiss across her mouth. His lips were soft and cold, and to Elena, they tasted like memories. Pulling back, he stood with her for a moment longer under the stars, his perfect pale skin shining in their light, his eyes gleaming, his velvety hair as dark as the night around them.

"Good-bye, Elena," he said. "Don't forget me."

Chapter 42

Meredith ran across campus, her feet pounding in a steady rhythm, her breath coming in harsh, painful gasps. Her legs were aching. She'd been running for a long time, looping across the campus paths again and again. Stinging sweat trickled into her eyes, making them blink and water.

The harder she ran, the longer she could keep herself from thinking about anything except the slap of her running shoes against the ground or the sound of her own breath.

The day was starting to edge into evening as she took the curve past the history building again and started up the hill toward the dining hall. When she crested the hill, Alaric was waiting at the top.

"Hi," Meredith said, coming to a stop as she drew even with him. "Are you waiting for me?" She pulled up one foot to stretch out her quadriceps; she didn't want to cramp up.

"I wanted to make sure that you were okay," Alaric said.

"I'm fine," Meredith said dully. She let her foot drop and instead laced her hands behind her and folded forward, so that her head was almost touching her knees. She could feel her spine lengthening, and she had also begun to feel the ache from running for so long.

"Meredith?" Alaric knelt down beside her so that he could look up into her face. Meredith concentrated on the golden freckles scattered across his nose and the tops of his cheekbones, because she didn't want to meet his worried brown eyes. Their color was like honey against his tanned skin.

"Meredith?" Alaric said again. "Could you unpretzel yourself and talk to me for a minute? Please?"

Meredith unfolded, but didn't meet Alaric's eyes. Instead, she twisted from side to side, pulling her shoulders forward in turn. "I have to stretch or my muscles will get sore," she muttered.

Alaric stood and watched her, waiting calmly.

After a while, Meredith began to feel childish for not meeting Alaric's gaze, and she straightened and looked him squarely in the eye. He was still just standing there patiently, his face soft with sympathy.

"I know," she said. "I know everything you're going to say."

"Do you?" Alaric asked. He reached out and tucked back a long piece of hair that had come out of her ponytail, his hand lingering against her cheek. "Because I don't have the faintest idea what to say. I can't imagine what it must feel like to meet your brother for the first time and then have to kill him."

"Yeah," Meredith sighed, and wiped the sweat off her face. "I don't know what to feel, either. It's almost like Cristian was never real to me. He was just a story, something the Guardians could change in an instant."

She drew a line with the toe of her sneaker in the dust at the side of the path. "Ultimately," she said, "I never knew him at all. He talked about . . . oh, going to the beach and stuff, and the way our dad is. I could imagine that world, the world where we were a team." She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. "But everything was a lie, for him and for me."

Alaric wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled Meredith closer to him. "It's not fair," he said seriously. "Klaus destroyed a lot of people's lives. In the end, you were a big part of bringing him down and stopping that destruction, and you should be proud of that. And that other life, the one where he grew up happy, with a sister, it wasn't a lie. There was a world where Cristian loved you, and you loved him. That's still true. You and your friends made that happen."

Burying her face against Alaric's neck, Meredith said in a muffled voice, "My parents will never get over this, losing him again."

"Maybe it's better that they knew Cristian for this long, that they got to see him grow up instead of losing him when he was three, the way things were in the world you remember," Alaric suggested gently.

"Maybe." Meredith rolled her head on Alaric's shoulder until she was leaning against his shoulder and gazing out across the campus. "Do you know what Cristian said to me, at the end? I was about to stake him, and he said in this low, sort of secretive voice, 'Dad would be so proud of you.' And you know what? He was right. Maybe part of Cristian wanted me to kill him, for me to be strong."

Alaric tightened his arms around her. "You are strong, Meredith. You're the bravest person I've ever known."

"You're brave, too," Meredith said, sinking into his embrace. She thought of Alaric chanting spells, trying to raise Power to protect them all during the battle, going up against a vampire army with nothing but a stake and a spell book. "I love you so much," she said. "I want you with me, always."

Alaric's lips brushed across the back of her neck. "Me too," he murmured. "It's an honor to fight beside you, Meredith Sulez. And don't you ever forget it."

Chapter 41

"Are you sure this will do what we need?" Elena asked Bonnie. They'd chosen Stefan's spacious, uncluttered single to summon the Principal Guardian. When Elena had called Bonnie, she'd come right up, her hand held tightly in Zander's. She looked so happy, but when she handed Damon the potion she'd made for him, her small face creased with anxiety.

"I think so," she said. "The valerian will slow his heart rate even more than usual, and the aconite ought to make his breathing really shallow. It will probably feel pretty weird," she told Damon, "but I don't think it'll hurt you."

Damon looked down at the thick green mixture in the cup. "Of course it won't," he said reassuringly. "You can't poison a vampire."

"I put honey in to make it taste better," Bonnie said.

"Thank you, redbird," Damon said, and kissed her lightly on the cheek. "Whether this plan works or not, I'm grateful." Bonnie grinned, a little flustered, and he added, "You and your wolf had better go. We wouldn't want the Guardians to think you were involved." Zander and Damon nodded to each other and Zander took Bonnie's hand again.

When they left, it was just the three of them: Elena, Damon, and Andres. Stefan had wanted to come, to stand by his brother's side in what might be Damon's last moments, but Damon hadn't let him. An angry Guardian is dangerous, he'd said. And, at best, Mylea would be very angry.

Damon drank Bonnie's potion in one long swallow and grimaced. "The honey doesn't help that much," he commented. Elena hugged him and he gently rubbed her back. "Whatever happens, it's not your fault," he said. Then he shuddered and leaned back against the wall, pressing one hand against his chest. "Ugh," he said faintly. "I don't feel . . ." His eyes rolled back in his head and he slid down the wall, landing in a crumpled heap on the floor.

"Damon!" she cried, and then caught herself. This was supposed to happen. He looked vulnerable like that, she thought, and smaller, and she dragged her eyes away from him. This would be easier if she didn't look at Damon.

"Are you ready to call the Guardian?" Elena asked Andres, and he nodded, holding tightly to her hand. His mouth was tense, and there was none of the usual warmth and humor in his eyes.

Elena concentrated on the link between herself and Andres, energy flowing back and forth between them, moving as steadily and rhythmically as the tide. As that energy found a balance and began to grow, she forced open the doors of Power inside herself.

OH. As soon as her Power was unleashed, everything in her swung to attention, snapping toward Damon. She wanted to . . . she didn't want to hurt him, exactly; it wasn't anger the Power was nursing inside her, but something cold and clean that wanted to destroy him. Not vengeance, not passion, but a cool, urgent instruction: This needs to be eliminated.

This must be what it was to have an unfulfilled task. It would be so easy to give in to that cold urgency, to do what she was expected to do. What she wanted to do.

No. She couldn't do it. Or, at least, she wouldn't.

With a physical effort, she turned her attention back to Andres. With the doors inside her mind wide open, she could see his expansive aura, shimmering green around him, filling half the room. Using immense concentration, she tried to move her own aura, blending her gold into Andres's green. Slowly, the colors slid together and mixed, filling the room. Power sang through Elena's veins, and everything she could see was touched with light. She met Andres's eyes, and his face was filled with wonder. They were stronger like this, more than twice as strong, and she felt the summoning go out with the Power of a shout.

"Guardians," Elena said, holding on to Andres's hand. "Mylea. I call on you. My task is complete."

Nothing happened.

For a long moment, they stood like that, hand-in-hand, eyes on each other, auras expanded to fill the room with Power, and felt nothing change.

Finally, something shifted infinitesimally, just a small adjustment in the universe. There was no physical change, but Elena knew that someone was listening at last, as if they'd flicked the call-waiting button on a phone.

"Mylea," she said. "I have killed Damon Salvatore. Now that my task is complete, come and release me from my compulsion."

There was still no answer. And then Andres slowly stiffened. His eyes rolled back and his aura faded, changing from green to a clear wash of white. His fingers trembled in Elena's.

"Andres!" she called, alarmed.

His eyes, unseeing, fixed on hers. The eerie white aura around him throbbed.

"I am coming, Elena." Mylea's voice came through Andres's mouth, sounding crisply businesslike. Elena could imagine her ticking Elena's name off a clipboard before stepping onto some kind of interdimensional escalator.

Released, Andres gasped and staggered. Making a face as if there was a strange taste in his mouth, he said, "That was . . . weird."

Elena couldn't stop herself from looking at Damon. His bones stood out distinctly, as if his pale skin had grown a size tighter, and his straight black hair was tousled. She could snap his neck with her mind, she thought, and she bit the inside of her cheek hard, looking away again, shaking.

Mylea stepped through nothingness and into the room. Her eyes went immediately to Damon. "He's not dead yet," she said coolly.

"No." Elena took a deep breath. "And I won't let Damon die," she said. "You have to revoke the task."

The Principal Guardian sighed briefly, but her face was, Elena thought, slightly sympathetic, and when she spoke, her voice was calm. "I was concerned that a task so tied to your own life would be difficult for you as your first duty," she said. "I apologize, and I understand why you have called me here to complete the job. You will not be punished for your foolish attachment to the vampire. But Damon Salvatore must die." She reached for Damon, and Andres and Elena moved to shield the vampire's unconscious body.

"Why?" Elena burst out. It was so unfair. "There are worse vampires than Damon," she said indignantly. "Until recently, he hadn't killed anyone for" - she wasn't sure, she realized, and this wasn't her strongest argument, anyway - "a long time," she finished lamely. "Why send me after Damon when truly evil vampires like Klaus and his descendants were around?" She could hear what she was almost saying: He's only a vicious killer some of the time. Let him go.

"It is not your job to question the decisions of the Celestial Court," Mylea told her sternly. "Time and again, Damon Salvatore has proven himself unable to control his emotions. He has no concept of right and wrong. We feel that he may grow to be as great a danger to humanity as any of the Old Ones."

"May," Elena said. "You mean you think he could just as easily go the other way. There's as great a chance that he will never kill again."

"It's not a chance we're prepared to take," Mylea said flatly. "Damon Salvatore is a murderer and so has forfeited his right to any consideration on our parts. Now step aside."

It was time to gamble. Elena took a deep breath.

"You need me," she said, and the Guardian frowned at her. "I am the daughter of a Principal Guardian. I killed Klaus, and I can destroy the most dangerous Old Ones, the ones you haven't found another way of getting rid of. I won't help you if you kill Damon."

She glanced at Andres, just the tiniest flick of her eyelashes, and he nodded. They had agreed that the most difficult part of their plan was making the Guardian believe that Elena wouldn't fight the Old Ones, would let innocent people suffer if she didn't get her way. Apparently Andres, at least, thought she sounded convincing enough for Mylea to believe her.

Mylea tilted her head to one side and stared at Elena, as if she was examining an interesting new specimen under some kind of special Guardian microscope. "The vampire is so important to you that you would risk punishment, risk being taken from your home and assigned to the Celestial Court?"

Elena nodded, her jaw clenched.

"The vampire should be conscious for this," Mylea said. Before Andres and Elena had a chance to block her again, she knelt beside Damon and pressed two fingers to his forehead. He blinked and stirred, and Mylea rose and left him without a glance, turning her gaze back to Elena.

"Would you risk your life for Damon Salvatore?" Mylea asked her.

"Yes," Elena said immediately. There didn't seem to be anything else to add.

"And what about you, vampire?" Mylea asked, looking over Elena's shoulder to address Damon. "Do you care so much for Elena that you would change your life for her?"

Damon pulled himself up to sit with his back against the wall. "Yes," he said steadily.

Mylea gave a slightly unpleasant smile. "I suppose we will see," she said, and reached for them both. She pressed their hands together, and Elena clasped her hand with Damon's and gave him a small smile. He squeezed her fingers reassuringly.

"There," Mylea said after a moment. "It is done."

That pull toward Damon, that cold feeling that he was a problem that needed to be eliminated, was completely gone. It was as if that connection had just suddenly snapped. But it had been replaced. She still felt connected. There was a great sense of Damon permeating through her, as if the air she breathed was made of him. His eyes widened, and she realized she could feel his heart beating in time with her own. Amazement was coming from Damon, running through the connection between them, and the lightest touch of fear. Concentrating, she tried to see Damon's aura.

A braided rope of light seemed to lead from her chest to Damon's, her aura's gold and the peacock-blue-and-black of Damon's aura twisted together.

"Now you are connected," Mylea said matter-of-factly. "If Damon kills, Elena will die. If Damon feeds on a human without their knowing, aware permission - no use of Power or illusion, but true agreement - Elena will suffer. In the event that Elena dies, the bond - the curse - will pass to a member of her family. If the bond is somehow broken, Damon will return to our attention and be eliminated immediately."

Damon's eyes widened. Through the bond between them, Elena felt a throb of dismay. "I'll starve," he said.

Mylea smiled. "You won't starve," she said. "Perhaps your brother will teach you his more humane methods of feeding. Or perhaps you will find willing humans, if you can honestly gain their trust."

The bond was vibrating now with a curious mixture of disgust and relief, but Damon's face was as closed off as Elena had ever seen it. She rubbed reflexively at her chest, pushing the intense emotions away.

"The bond will lose some of its intensity over time," Mylea said, almost sympathetically. "You feel each other's emotions strongly because it is so new." She looked between them. "It will connect you forever, and it may be deadly to one or both of you in the end."

"I understand," Elena told her and then, ignoring Mylea, she turned to Damon. "I trust you," she told him. "You'll do whatever you have to do to save me. As I've done for you."

Damon stared at her for a long moment, his dark eyes unfathomable, and Elena felt the connection between them flood with a sorrowful affection. "I will, princess," he promised.

His lips curved into a smile Elena had never seen on Damon's face before: neither his quick bitter smirk nor his brief and brilliant smile, but something warmer and gentler. And then the connection between them filled with love.

Chapter 40

  Ice cubes clinked lightly in his glass as Damon raised it in a toast to Katherine. "Here's to you, darling," he said. "The last survivor of Klaus's army. Lucky that you missed the battle, isn't it?"

With a sly smile, Katherine fluttered her eyelashes expressively, taking a sip of her own drink, and patted the sofa cushion next to her, inviting Damon to sit.

"Thank you for warning me," she said. "I may have been indebted to Klaus for bringing me back, but I didn't think I owed him another death. I never had any intention of fighting you and your precious princess again. I may be older and stronger than you, but there's always been too much luck on your side."

"Not my precious princess," Damon said with a grimace. "Stefan's. She was never really mine."

"Oh, well," Katherine said lightly, "I think it's always been a little more complicated than that, hasn't it?"

Damon narrowed his eyes. "You knew about Elena being a Guardian, didn't you?" he demanded. "And you never told Klaus. Why?"

A small, slightly smug smile crossed Katherine's face. "You should have learned by now that you can never ask a girl to give up all her secrets. And I'm full of secrets. Always." Damon frowned. He had never been able to get Katherine to tell him anything she didn't want to.

A knock on the door interrupted them, and Damon rose and opened the door to find Elena herself outside. Her face was pale and strained, and her jewel-blue eyes seemed huge as they stared at each other. Damon cocked an eyebrow and threw her his most brilliant smile, refusing to acknowledge the tremor of nervousness that ran through him.

She cared for him - he knew that. He'd tried to throw that fact back in her face, to deny it, and it hadn't worked. But there was also something in her that was driving her toward killing him, her Guardian's task pushing for fulfillment. Ever since he had saved her in the elevator, he had been able to feel that Elena was holding herself back. And he still loved her, would probably always love her. Part of him wanted to bow his head before her, take the punishment she was duty-bound to give him.

And whatever happened to him, he would probably deserve it.

Elena looked past him at Katherine and paled even further, although he wouldn't have thought that was possible. Damon turned and found that Katherine was standing absolutely still just a few feet away, looking back at Elena with a faint, secretive smile.

"So now you know," Katherine said to Elena. "And you're smart enough to use it."

"Did you know? Back when we first met?" Elena asked her abruptly, as if the words had been jerked out of her against her will.

Katherine shook her head. "You learn a lot when you're dead sometimes," she said, the faint smile spreading.

"Know what?" Damon said, looking back and forth between them.

Katherine came closer, trailing her fingers lightly across Damon's arm. "Like I said," she told him, "a girl has to have her secrets." She winked at Elena. "I'm going to leave town for a little while. I think it's better if I keep out of your way from now on."

Elena nodded. "You're probably right. Good-bye, Katherine," she said. "And thank you."

A flash of humor crossed Katherine's face. "Right back at you," she said, and for a moment, the resemblance between them struck Damon more strongly than it ever had before.

Then Elena, all business now, turned to Damon. "It's time for us to face the Guardians. Are you ready?" she asked him.

Damon downed the rest of his drink quickly, then slammed the glass down on his polished steel coffee table, and inwardly cursed his vampiric tolerance for alcohol. It might have been easier, he thought, to face what was coming if he had been a little bit drunk. "Ready as I'll ever be," he drawled.

Bonnie sniffed at the rich and varied scents as she turned over her store of herbs.

"Where does this one go?" Matt asked her, holding up a bag of purple petals.

"That's aconite. It's used for protection," Bonnie replied. "Put it over there with the dogwood and agrimony."

"Got it," Matt said, placing the aconite in a neat pile amidst the other herbs, as if it was the most normal task.

For their lives, it was pretty much as close to normal as it got. She was low on a bunch of herbs, unsurprisingly, after all the spells for protection and strength she had been performing in the past few weeks. She would have to drive down to Fell's Church soon and ask Mrs. Flowers to help her restock her supplies, now that things were quiet.

She wriggled with pleasure at the thought of a nice, normal visit home. It was so good to feel safe; it had been such a long time since she had.

Meredith and Elena were both out, and Bonnie had taken advantage of the room and the time without them to spread out piles of dried and fresh herbs all across the floor. Her best friends were both total neat freaks and would doubtless complain about the fragrant dust and crumbled bits of leaves this would leave behind. It was just amazing to worry about something as ordinary as what Meredith would say when she stepped in the remains of a pile of celandine (which was useful for happiness and aided in escaping entrapments).

Almost amazing. There was a steady ache inside her these days, a reminder of what she had lost, one that couldn't be cured by any herb. But she wasn't the only one who was in pain.

"I think you're really brave, Matt," Bonnie said. Matt looked up at her, startled by the abrupt shift in the conversation.

"When life hands you lemons . . ." Matt drifted off, not even able to complete the halfhearted joke. She knew he was devastated by losing Chloe, but he never let it change him. Bonnie admired that.

Before she could tell him as much, there was a knock at the door, and she tensed. An unexpected tap at the door usually meant disaster.

Nevertheless, she got up and opened the door, managing at the last minute to stop herself from kicking a little pile of chinaberry seeds (for luck and change) into Elena's slippers.

Slouched against her door frame, his hands tucked into his jeans pockets, was Zander. He smiled at her tentatively. "Can I come in?" he asked.

He smelled so good, she thought. He looked gorgeous, too, and Bonnie just wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold on. She had missed him so much lately.

But she'd lost the right to grab on to Zander whenever she felt like it; she'd been the one to walk away. So instead of leaping into his arms, Bonnie just stepped back to let him in, feeling some kind of powdery leaves crumble under her bare heel.

"Oh, hey, Matt," Zander said as he stepped into the room, and then pulled up short, his eyes widening as he took in the little heaps of herbs on every available surface.

"Hey, Zander," Matt said. "I was just heading out, actually. Football practice."

Matt gave Bonnie a pointed look that said, Don't screw up a second chance. Bonnie smiled at her friend as he slipped out the door.

"Jeez," Zander said, impressed as he explored more of the room. Bonnie followed him. "Meredith is going to murder you. Do you want help cleaning this up?"

"Um." Bonnie looked around. Now that she saw the room through Zander's eyes, it looked much worse than she'd realized. "Wow. Maybe, yeah. But I know that's not why you're here. What's up?"

Zander took Bonnie's hand and together they carefully navigated their way through the room without knocking over any piles. When they finally arrived at her bed, which was probably the clearest surface in the room - she didn't like the smell of mixed herbs all over her sheets - they sat down and he took her hands in his big, warm ones.

"Listen, Bonnie," he said. "I've been thinking about what you said, that being Alpha to the Pack is such an important responsibility, and that I need another werewolf by my side who really understands that, to be my partner and help me. And you're right. Shay's perfect for that."

"Oh," Bonnie said, her voice tiny. Something was crumbling inside her, as fragile as a dead leaf. She tried to gently pull her hands away from Zander's, but he tightened his grip.

"No," he said, distressed. "I'm saying this wrong. Let me start over. Bonnie, look at me." She looked up, her vision clouded with tears, and met Zander's sea-blue eyes. "You, Bonnie," he said softly. "I love you. When we were fighting Klaus's army, I saw you casting spells to protect everyone, with this fierce kind of light in your face. You were so strong, and so powerful, and you could have been killed. Or I could have been killed, and we wouldn't have been together at the end. It made me realize what I should have known all along: you're the only one I want."

The crumbling thing in Bonnie's chest stopped its dry disintegration and began to melt instead, filling her with warmth. But she couldn't let Zander sacrifice the good of his Pack for her. "But nothing's changed," she said at last. "I love you, too, but what if loving me destroys everything else that matters to you?"

Zander pulled her closer. "It won't," he said. "The wolves on the Council can't choose who I love. I don't love Shay. I love you. Shay and I can lead the Pack together, but if it ever came down to it, I would rather lose that than lose you." He raised Bonnie's hand to his lips and kissed it softly, his eyes shining. "I can choose my own destiny," he said. "And I choose you. If you'll have me."

"If I'll have you?" Bonnie choked on her tears, wiped at her eyes, and then punched Zander softly in the shoulder. "You dork," she said lovingly, and kissed him.

Chapter 39

Stefan and Elena couldn't stop touching each other. Little touches, hands entwining, a light kiss, or a stroke to the cheek.

"You're alive," Stefan said to her, his eyes wide. "I thought I'd lost you."

"Never," said Elena, reaching up from her bed to tug him closer until he was sitting on the bed, his side against hers. "I'm not going anywhere without you."

Klaus was dead. And Elena had survived. The sheer amazement of it had her buzzing with joy.

But Stefan stroked her hair back from her face, and the look in his eyes - loving, but somehow still laced with concern - made her effervescence flatten.

"What is it?" she asked, suddenly apprehensive.

Stefan shook his head. "The task isn't gone," he said. "The Guardians still might take you away."

Elena had been avoiding that thought with everything she had, but at Stefan's words, she stilled and let the knowledge flood over her: the Guardians still expected her to kill Damon. And the punishment for not doing so would be leaving Earth. Losing Stefan.

"I will love you whatever happens," Stefan said. His brows were drawn tight, and Elena knew the terrors that warred in him: the fear of losing Elena after all, and the fear of losing Damon. "Whatever you decide, Elena, I trust you." He raised his head, and his gaze was steady and true, his eyes shining.

Elena reached up and ran her fingers over Stefan's forehead, trying to erase the lines of his frown. "I think . . ." she said slowly, "I think I can see a way that we can save both me and Damon. I hope."

Just then, Andres tapped gently on the half-open door to Elena's room and she greeted him with a smile.

"How are you feeling?" he asked seriously. "I can come back later if you're resting."

"No, don't," she said, patting the chair by her bedside. "I want you to fill me in on everything that's going on."

"If you want to talk Guardian business, I could leave you two here, maybe get Elena something to eat," Stefan said. "I didn't want to leave her alone."

Stefan kissed Elena once more and she tried to pour all the love and reassurance she felt into their embrace. When he finally pulled back, the lines of his face were softer, more relaxed. Whatever Elena was planning, his gaze assured her, he would be with her. As he left, Andres took the chair by her bed. "Stefan's been looking after you?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," Elena said, stretching luxuriously, and trying to turn off her serious thoughts for a moment. She'd almost died - she had the right to be babied and indulged for one day, surely. "He tried to make me something called a hot milk posset earlier today. Supposedly, I am at a delicate stage in my recovery." She started to laugh, but the laugh abruptly cut off when she caught the look in Andres's eyes. "What's the matter?" she said in a different, sharper tone, sitting up. "What's happened?"

Andres waved a hand dismissively. "Nothing has happened," he said. "Only, perhaps we should talk after you've had more time to recover. What I have to say is not bad news, I don't think, but it is . . ." He hesitated. "Surprising," he concluded at last.

"Now you have to tell me," Elena said. "Or I'll worry myself into a coma." Seeing the flicker of concern on Andres's face, she hurriedly added: "I'm joking."

"All right, then," Andres said. "You know how we found you in the tunnels, correct?"

Elena nodded. "Klaus was dead," she said. "You said that there was a legend that the blood of a Guardian born of a Principal Guardian would kill Old Ones." She shook her head. "That's the first thing I don't understand. How could I have that kind of family history without knowing it?"

"I'm having trouble understanding, too," Andres said. "Celestial Guardians don't have children, not that I'd ever heard. They're not" - he frowned - "people, not exactly. That is what I've believed, at least. I think we both have a lot to learn." He reached inside his jacket and withdrew a small leather-bound book. "I have brought you something that I hope will illuminate some of your questions," he told her. "I began to read it, and then I realized that it was intended for your eyes, not mine. The police finally let me return to James's house, and I found this there. I believe this is what he called you about, when he said he had found a way to kill Klaus, and that he hid it before Klaus killed him. It must have been sent to him after your parents died."

"My parents? What is it?" Elena asked, reaching out and taking the book. It felt oddly comfortable in her hand, as if it naturally belonged to her.

Andres hesitated for a long moment before he answered. "I think it's better that you find that out for yourself," he said at last. He stood and touched Elena on the shoulder briefly. "I'll let myself out."

Elena nodded and watched him go. Andres shot her a small smile as he closed the door behind him. Then, wonderingly, she turned her attention to the book. It was quite plain, without any patterns or words embossed on the outside, and was covered in a very soft pale-brown leather. Opening it, she saw that it was a journal, handwritten in a large, looping, dashing script, as if the writer had been in a hurry to get a million thoughts and feelings out onto the page.

I will not let them have Elena, she read, the words halfway down the first page, and gasped. Glancing down the page, names popped up at her: Thomas, her father, Margaret, her sister. Was this her mother's journal? Her chest felt tight suddenly, and she had to blink hard. Her beautiful, poised mother, the one who had been so clever with her hands and with her heart, who Elena had loved and admired so much - finding this was almost like hearing her speak once more.

After a moment, she composed herself and began to read again.

Elena turned twelve yesterday. I was getting down the birthday candles from the cabinet when the eternity mark on my palm began to itch and burn. It had almost faded into invisibility after so many years, but when I looked at my hand, it was suddenly as clear as the day I was first initiated into my duties.

I knew my sisters were calling for me, reminding me of what they think I owe them.

But I will not let them have Elena.

Not now, and maybe not ever.

I will not repeat the mistakes I have made, so disastrously, in the past.

Thomas understands. Despite what he agreed to when we were young, when Elena was just the idea of a child to him instead of her own funny, determined, sharp-witted self, he knows that we can't just let her go. And Margaret, sweet baby Margaret, the Guardians will want her, too, eventually, because of who I used to be.

The Powers my darling girls will have are almost unimaginable.

And so the Celestial Guardians, once my sisters and brothers, want to get their hands on them as early as possible, want to bring them up to be weapons instead of children, clear-eyed warriors with no trace of humanity about them.

Once, I would have let them. I stepped away from Katherine when she was only an infant, pretended that I had died, so that she could fulfill the destiny I believed was inevitable and right for her.

Elena stopped reading. Her mother had once had another child? The name must be a coincidence, though: the Katherine she knew, Damon's and Stefan's Katherine, was hundreds of years older than her. And about as far from being a Guardian as possible.

There were plenty of Guardians who looked rather like Elena, though. She reviewed in her mind's eye the faces that she'd seen in the Celestial Court: businesslike, blue-eyed blondes, crisp and cool. Could one of them have been her elder sister? Still, though, she couldn't shake off her unease: Katherine, her mirror image. She read on.

But Katherine was a sickly child, and the Guardians turned their backs on her, rejected the great power she could have been. She would not come into her Power for years, and they did not think she would survive long enough to see that day. A human child who probably wouldn't live to grow up wasn't worth their time, they thought.

My heart ached for her. I had abandoned my daughter for nothing. From a careful distance, I watched her grow: pretty and lively despite her illnesses, brave even in the shadow of the pain she suffered, adored by her father, loved by the household. She did not need the mother she had never known. Perhaps this was better, I thought. She could live a happy, human life, even if it was a short one.

Then, disaster struck. A servant, thinking it would save her, offered Katherine up to a vampire to be transformed. My sweet daughter, a creature of joy and light, was dragged unceremoniously into the darkness. And the creature who performed the deed was one of the worst of his kind: Klaus, an Old One. If Katherine had come into her Power, if the Guardians had made her one of them, Katherine's blood would have killed him. But without that protection, it merely bound them together, tying him to her with a fascination neither of them understood.

My darling girl was lost, all her charm and intelligence subverted into what, before long, seemed to be merely a vicious, broken doll, Klaus's plaything. I don't know if the real Katherine is still there underneath that shadowed life she must live now.

Elena gasped, a harsh sound to her own ears in the room's silence. There was no denying the truth now. Katherine's illness, Klaus's cruel gift, all the details Stefan had told her were here. Katherine, who had hated her and tried to kill her, who had loved Stefan and Damon centuries before Elena herself did, who had destroyed Stefan and Damon, was her half sister.

Part of her wanted to slam the book shut, to shove it to the back of her closet and never, never think about it again. But she couldn't stop herself from reading on.

I wandered for many years, mourning my daughter, turning my back on the Guardians who had once been my family. But, after centuries of loneliness, I met my sweet, honest, blindingly intelligent Thomas, and fell deeply, hopelessly, madly in love. We were so happy for a while.

And then the Guardians found us.

They came to us and told us that the Old Ones were gaining in Power. They were too strong, too cruel. They would destroy humanity if they could, would enslave the world in darkness and evil.

The Guardians begged me to have another child. Only an Earthly Guardian with the blood of a Principal Guardian could kill an Old One so that the Old One could never be resurrected. My peculiar situation - a Principal Guardian who had abandoned her post to live a human life, who had fallen in love - made me their only chance.

Thomas knew everything about my past. He trusted me to make the right choice, and I chose to say yes, under certain conditions. I would bear a child who could destroy the Old Ones, but she would not be taken from me. She would not be raised as a weapon but as a human girl. And, when she was old enough, she would be given a free choice: to come into her Power or not.

And they agreed. Elena's blood, Margaret's blood, was so precious that they would agree to anything.

But now they want to break that agreement. They want to take my darling Elena now, even though she is only twelve years old.

I will save Elena and Margaret, as I couldn't save Katherine. I will.

Elena is fiercely protective already of her friends and of her younger sister. I think she will choose to become a Guardian when she's given the choice, will decide to protect the larger world in the best way that she can. But it must be her decision, not theirs. Margaret is too young for me to tell yet whether she will have the makings of a Guardian. Perhaps she will choose another path. But no matter what I think they'll want in the end, they must have time to grow up before they have to make that decision.

I am afraid. The Guardians are ruthless, and they will not be pleased when I refuse to turn Elena over to them.

If anything should happen to me, and to Thomas, before the girls are grown, I have made arrangements to shield my daughters from the Guardians. Judith, my closest friend, will pretend to be my sister and raise Elena and Margaret to adulthood. I have already cast certain charms: as long as the girls are in her custody, the Guardians will not be able to locate them.

I would die, happily, to protect their innocence. The Guardians will never find them, not until they are grown women and can choose for themselves.

I cannot see the future. I do not know what will happen to any of my daughters any more than any parent does, but I have done my best to protect Elena and Margaret, as I was not wise enough to protect Katherine. I pray that this will be enough. And I pray that someday, somehow, Katherine, too, will find her way back into the light. That all three of my girls will be safe from harm.

Tears ran down Elena's cheeks. She felt as if a burden she'd been carrying for weeks had suddenly flown off her shoulders. Her parents hadn't planned to turn her over to the Guardians, hadn't had a child just to discard her. Her mother had loved her as much as Elena had always thought.

She had to think carefully now. Eyes narrowing, she shoved her pillows against the wall and sat up. Margaret was safe with Aunt Judith for the moment, and that was good. She couldn't consider all the ramifications of Katherine being her sister, not now.

But the fact that she, Elena, was special to the Guardians, precious to them, that her blood had unique Powers the Guardians were desperate to have on their side? The confirmation in her mother's journal might be the last piece she needed to put her plan to save Damon in motion.

Chapter 38

"Chloe?" Matt called cautiously, sticking his head into one of the empty sheds that surrounded the burned-out stables. The sky was starting to lighten in the east, signifying the end of a long night. There were still a few firefighters and EMTs near the blocked-off stables, turning over the ashes, so he had to be quiet. He took a deep breath, trying to calm down. Chloe had to be somewhere, he reminded himself. He had seen her after the fight, weary but not seriously hurt. She had probably just retreated, overwhelmed by all the blood and by the adrenaline from the fight. She would turn up soon.

The shed was silent and dark. Matt raised his flashlight and shone it around the empty walls of the tiny space: nowhere here for anyone to hide. As he was about to move on, a faint scratching noise caught his attention. Not completely empty, then.

Focusing the flashlight on the ground, he caught a glimpse of bright eyes and a long tail before a mouse zipped out of sight again. Nothing else.

"Chloe!" he hissed, heading for the old barn, the last outbuilding he hadn't yet searched.

Three werewolves, the most battered and bloody of the Pack after the battle, had stayed behind after the rest had left to hunt for Klaus and Elena. But they were gone now. They'd offered to help Matt search for Chloe, but he'd waved them off: at that point, he'd still been sure that he'd find her any minute.

"I'll be fine," Matt had told Spencer. "Go take care of your injuries. I'll find her. It's probably stupid to be so worried."

Spencer had always struck Matt as being more about hair gel than brains, but he'd pinned him with a surprisingly shrewd look. "Listen, man," he'd drawled in his preppy, rich-surfer-boy accent, still managing to sound sort of laid-back despite the pain in his voice. "I'm wishing you the best here, I am, but vampires . . ."

"I know," Matt had said, wincing. He did know; he could have written the book on reasons not to date vampires, but that was when he'd been thinking of Elena, not himself, and before he had met Chloe. Now it was different. "I'll find her," he had said, absurdly touched by Spencer's concern. "Thanks, though. Really."

He'd felt wistful while he watched Spencer and his friends walk off, like he would be the last person left in the world once the werewolves were out of sight.

Where could Chloe be? They had been shoulder-to-shoulder coming out of the stable after half the roof fell in. Chloe had been shaking, her pupils dilated and her hands streaked with blood, but she had been with him.

And then, sometime during the rise of panic as they realized that Elena had been under the fiery roof when it collapsed, Chloe was just gone.

Thinking of Elena in Klaus's grasp gave him a pang of guilt. This was Elena, his friend and the girl who'd been the sun he orbited around for so long. He wanted to be searching for her with the rest of them. But he needed to find Chloe, too.

The barn was rickety, one of its broad double doors hanging crookedly by a single hinge. Matt approached it with caution - he wouldn't do Chloe any good if he was caught and pinned under a falling barn door.

The half-broken door wobbled and creaked, but did not fall as he edged his way through the gap between it and the side of the barn, shining his flashlight inside. Dust rose in the beam of light, specks floating thickly in midair.

Inside, something shifted, and Matt walked forward, sweeping the flashlight back and forth. Far in the back, he saw something white.

As he came closer, Matt realized that it was Chloe's face staring into the flashlight's beam, wild with panic. After such a long search, it took Matt a moment to process what was going on: his first reaction was a simple swell of relief - thank God he'd found Chloe at last. Then he realized that Chloe was streaked with blood and that, quiet in her arms, lay Tristan.

Chloe blinked at Matt blankly for a moment, and then her face filled with dismayed realization. She pushed Tristan away from her, horrified. The werewolf let out a weak cry of distress as he hit the floor with a thump, then lay still.

"Oh, no," Chloe said, dropping to her knees beside him. "Oh, no. I didn't mean to."

Matt ran toward her. "Is he alive?" he asked.

Chloe had tried so hard, and he'd been there every step of the way, helped her as much as he could. Life was unfair enough. But now Chloe's head was bent over Tristan and she was patting her hand urgently over his body, trying to wake him.

Matt got down on the other side of Tristan and tried to check the werewolf's injuries. God, the poor guy was bleeding everywhere. He must have smelled like a banquet to Chloe.

"I'm so sorry, Tristan," Chloe whispered. "Please wake up."

"Tristan, can you hear me?" Matt asked, checking his pulse. The werewolf's heart was beating slowly and steadily, and he was breathing well. The Pack was tough. But the werewolf's eyes were unfocused, and he didn't respond when Matt called his name again, shaking him gently.

"I think I might have, um, calmed him down," Chloe said, stricken. "Like the rabbits."

"We should get him some help," Matt said brusquely, not looking at her.

She didn't answer. Matt looked up and saw the horror and guilt on her face, tears running over her rounded cheeks, making tracks through the blood around her mouth. She'd joked to him once that she was an ugly crier, and now she scrubbed at her running nose with the back of her sleeve. In the semidarkness, her eyes seemed like black pits of misery.

"Come on," he said, more gently. "This isn't the end of the world. We'll start over. You shouldn't have been in a battle right now. It was too hard on you to be around all that action. All that blood." Despite himself, his voice stumbled a little over the word blood. Matt gulped unhappily and went on, working to make his voice confident. "Everyone slips up when they're breaking an addiction. We'll get back to the boathouse, away from everyone. It's going to be fine." He sounded desperate, even to himself.

Chloe shook her head. "Matt . . ." she began.

"It was a mistake," Matt told her firmly. "Tristan's going to be all right. So will you."

Chloe shook her head again, harder this time, the ringlets Matt had always found so adorable flying around her head. "I'm not," she said miserably. "I'm not going to be all right. I love you, Matt, I do." Her voice broke in a sob, and then she took a deep breath and began again. "I love you, but I can't live like this. Stefan was right; I'm not really living at all now. I'm not strong enough. It's not getting better for me."

"You are strong enough," Matt argued. "I'll help you." Dawn was breaking outside, and he could see the ash and blood streaked on Chloe's tear-blotched skin now, the deep circles beneath her eyes.

"I'm so glad I got to stay with you for a while," she said. "You took such good care of me." She leaned forward, across Tristan's unconscious body, and kissed him. Her lips were soft and tasted of copper and salt. Her hand found his, and she pressed something small and hard into his palm.

Pulling back from the kiss at last, she said, her voice thin, "I hope someday you'll find someone who deserves you, Matt," and got to her feet.

"Don't . . ." Matt said, panicking, and reached out for her. "I need you, Chloe."

Chloe looked down at him, her face calm and sure now. She even smiled a little. "This is the right thing," she told him.

In a few steps, she'd crossed the barn and was slipping out through the gap between the doors. The sunrise was well underway now, and her body was dark against the pink-and-golden light.

Then there was a burst of fire, and Chloe crumpled into a heap of ash.

Matt looked down at the small hard object she had pressed into his palm. It was a little pin in the shape of a V, made of blue stone. He had one, too: the Vitale badge Ethan had given all of them, back when he and Chloe and the other pledges were all human, all innocent. The lapis lazuli charm that defended Chloe from the daylight.

He closed his fist tightly around it, ignoring the pain as its sharp edges pressed into his palm, and gave a dry, heaving sob.

He would have to get up in a minute. Tristan needed his help. But for a moment, Matt bent his head and let the tears come.

Chapter 37

Elena's shoulder banged against something hard, and she made a small sound of protest. All she wanted to do was sleep, but someone wouldn't let her rest. Her legs hurt.

Her head jolted against something, and Elena's perspective shifted. Someone was pulling her along by her legs, she realized, the rest of her body sliding along on the ground. Her hair caught, jerking her head before it came loose, and she groaned again. Slowly, she opened her eyes.

"Back with me, little one?" Klaus said, sounding disconcertingly jovial. He was the one dragging her, Elena realized, and although it was dark, he clearly had sensed when she awoke. He laughed, his dark, disturbing chuckle making her cringe. "I can't kill you with my teeth, or with my dagger, but an ordinary knife will work, won't it? I could tie you up and drop you in the lake to drown. What do you think?"

Elena's mouth was dry, and it took a couple of tries to get any sound out. "I think," she said at last, thickly, "that Stefan is going to save me."

Klaus laughed again. "Your precious Stefan won't be able to find you," he said. "No one can save you now."

They hadn't been to the safe house since they had left with Chloe, the night of Klaus's resurrection. When they arrived, the faint scent of vervain still lingered in the basement, and Stefan's skin itched in reaction. Meredith pried up a trapdoor in the floor, and Stefan lowered himself in first, the others following.

Everyone but Matt had come, weapons in hand, carrying flashlights and lanterns, tense and ready to fight. Matt had stayed behind to search for Chloe. Bonnie, Alaric, and Meredith stuck close together, their faces pale and strained. Shay, Zander, and the other werewolves stayed together, too, alert to every noise or scent in the darkness. And Damon, Stefan, and Andres formed the vanguard, each one of them straining for some sign of Elena.

They seemed to walk for miles, through underground passages that narrowed as they went, changing from concrete passages to dusty tunnels carved from dirt. Andres stopped frequently and touched the floor and walls, listening with his hands before picking a direction.

"Did you come this way when you smoked the tunnels?" Stefan asked Meredith as they waited impatiently during one of these stops, and she shook her head, wide-eyed.

"We're a lot deeper underground than I knew the tunnels went," she said. "I had no idea the Vitale Society had anything this elaborate."

"I wonder if it was the Vitale Society, actually," Bonnie interjected suddenly. "They used these tunnels, but I keep getting a sense that there's something older here. Something creepy."

Silently, Alaric raised his flashlight higher, illuminating a series of runes carved deep into the rock above them. "I can't read them," he said, "but these must predate Dalcrest by centuries."

The darkness that pressed in from all sides, now that Stefan focused on it, seemed to breathe with ageless secrets. It was as if there was something huge and sleeping, just out of sight, wrapped in itself and waiting to awaken. His chest ached with anxiety. Elena . . .

The steady thump of Klaus's footsteps stopped, but Elena was still sliding forward. With a shock, she realized that he was pulling her to him and she flailed desperately, trying to jerk herself away.

She was so tired, though. She'd used more of her Power than she ever had before, and she felt drained and helpless. Elena could do no more than struggle weakly as Klaus picked her up, gathering her in his arms as gently as if she was a baby.

"No," she whispered hoarsely.

She felt Klaus's hand stroking her hair back, and she shuddered with repulsion at the gentle touch in the dark. She struggled weakly, but his Power was holding her in place.

"I could have let the fire kill you," he whispered, his voice intimate and almost tender, "but what's poetic in that? My bite may not hurt you, but I want a taste of the girl that fascinates vampires so much. I've never tasted a Guardian before. Is your blood especially sweet?"

He pressed his mouth against her neck and Elena cringed. She couldn't fight anymore. His fangs pushed into her, rough and demanding, and it felt as if her throat was being split open. She tried to scream, but only a whimper came out.

He can't kill me this way, she reminded herself desperately. And yet it felt as if her life was draining away.

Andres was standing perfectly still, one hand pressed against the rock.

"What is it?" Stefan said sharply.

Andres opened his eyes. His face was desolate. "I've lost her," he said. "She was so close but now . . . she's not touching the Earth anymore. I don't know where she is."

"Elena! Elena!" Stefan shouted as he ran, bursting past the rest of the group. She couldn't be gone. Behind him, he could hear the pounding of Damon's boots close on his tail.

Ahead of the flashlights, they rounded the corner into complete darkness. Stefan funneled Power to his eyes so that he could see.

Just ahead of them, Klaus raised his head, blood streaming from his mouth and dripping down his chin. In his arms, Elena lay limply, her silken, golden hair tangled and dirty, hanging down over Klaus's arm. Stefan snarled and rushed forward.

Klaus licked at his lips, his pink tongue slow, and then he shuddered, a smile on his face. Slowly, still smiling, he collapsed to the ground, Elena landing with a thud in front of him. Stefan's heart plummeted even as he leaped toward her. Elena lay in the center of the path. She was motionless and very pale, her head turned to one side, eyes closed.

Blood was everywhere, staining her once-white top a deep, rich red. Her throat was covered with gore.

And beyond her, as limp as a discarded toy, lay Klaus. Although there was no mark on him other than a thin streak of blood at the corner of his mouth, Stefan had no doubt that he was dead. No one living looked like that, as if everything that had been part of him was gone, leaving a wax dummy in his place. Especially not the lightning-handler Klaus, who had shimmered with golden, filthy rage. He looked like a badly preserved corpse.

Elena, though . . .

To Stefan's wonder, Elena stirred, her eyelashes fluttering.

Stefan gathered her into his arms. She was so pale, but her heartbeat was steady. Above him, Damon hovered, his mouth twisted with anxiety.

"She'll live," Damon muttered, partly to himself, partly to Stefan.

Stefan opened his mouth to agree, but all that came out was a broken sob. He began to kiss Elena, peppering her cheeks and mouth and forehead and hands with light kisses.

"Stefan," she murmured weakly, and smiled. "My Stefan."

"What happened?" Bonnie asked as the others rounded the bend and ran forward. Only Andres stood still just past the bend in the tunnel, staring at Elena, his face full of wonder.

"She's the One," he breathed.

"The One what?" Elena asked, still smiling dazedly. She raised her hand and stroked Stefan's cheek.

Andres seemed to be having trouble speaking. He swallowed, licked his lips, and swallowed again, looking a little lost. "There's a legend," he said finally, hesitantly. "A Guardian legend. It says that one day a sworn Guardian, one born of a Principal Guardian, will come to Earth. Her blood, the blood of Guardians carried through generations, will be anathema to the Oldest creatures of darkness."

"What does that mean?" Stefan asked sharply.

Andres lifted his flashlight, lighting up Klaus's pathetic, diminished corpse. "It means," he said, his voice full of wonder, "that Elena's blood has killed Klaus. It would kill any of the Old Ones, the handful of vampires and demons that have walked the Earth since the dawn of human civilization . . . maybe before. It means," he said, "that Elena is a very valuable weapon."

"Hang on," Damon said. "That can't be right. I've drunk Elena's blood. Stefan's drunk Elena's blood."

Andres shrugged. "Perhaps its qualities are only fatal to the Old Ones. That's all the legend tells of."

"And her blood is special," Stefan said, his voice rough. He and Damon exchanged quick, embarrassed glances. Elena's blood was rich and heady, countless times more potent than any other blood Stefan had ever tasted. He had thought the difference was because of the love they shared.

"But . . ." Bonnie said, frowning. "Your parents weren't Guardians, were they?" she asked Elena. Elena shook her head, but her eyes were clouding over and her eyelids drooping. She needed rest, and proper medical care.

"We can talk about this later," Stefan said abruptly, and stood, lifting Elena carefully and gently into his arms. "She needs to get out of here."

"Well, whether she's the One or not," Meredith said, looking at the dead monster at her feet, "Elena killed Klaus." They all straightened unconsciously, smiling. They had nothing left to fear.