And once again. The triumvirate portioned out the pain before Damon's mind could receive it.
Keep the triangle moving. And a third.
Two more to go. Elena allowed her gaze to wander over the house. Up to the third floor where Bloddeuwedd had to be enraged at what had become of her party.
One more to go. The voice of a guest coming back to her. "That library. She has more orbs than most public libraries, and" - with his voice dropping for a moment - "they say she has all sorts of spheres up there. Forbidden ones. You know."
Elena hadn't known and still could still hardly imagine what might be forbidden here.
In her library, Bloddeuwedd, a single, lonely figure, moved in the brilliantly lighted great sphere to find a new orb. Inside the house music would be playing, different music in each different room. Outside, Elena could hear nothing.
The last blow. The triumvirate managed to handle it, allotting agonizing pain amongst four people. At least, Elena thought, my dress was already as red as it could be.
And then it was over, and Bonnie and Meredith were quarrelling with some of the vampire ladies who wanted to help bathe the blood from Elena's back, showing it once again unblemished and perfect, glowing golden in the sunlight.
Better keep them away, Elena thought rather drowsily to Damon; some of them may be compulsive nail-biters or finger-lickers. We can't afford for anyone to taste my blood and feel the life-force in it; not when I've gone through so much to conceal my aura.
Although there was clapping and cheering everywhere, no one had thought to untie Elena's wrists. So she stood leaning against the pillar, gazing at the library.
And then the world froze.
All around her was music and motion. She was the still point in a turning universe. But she had to get moving, and fast. She yanked hard at her bonds, lacerating herself.
"Meredith! Untie me! Cut these ropes, quick!"
Meredith obeyed hastily.
When Elena turned, she knew what she would see. The face - Damon's face, bewildered, half-resentful, half-humble. It was good enough for her, right then.
Damon, we need to get to the -
But then they were engulfed by a riot. Well-wishers, fans, skeptics, vampires begging for "a tiny taste," gogglers who wanted to make sure that Elena's back was real and warm and unmarked. Elena felt too many hands on her body.
"Get away from her, damn you!" It was the primal savage roar of a beast defending its mate. People backed away from Elena, only to close in...very slowly and timidly...on Damon.
All right, Elena thought. I'll do it alone. I can do it alone. For Stefan, I can.
She shouldered her way through the crowd, accepting bunches of hastily dug-up flowers from admirers - and feeling more hands on her body. "Hey, she really isn't marked!" At last, Meredith and Bonnie helped her to get out - without them she would never have made it.
And then she was running, running into the house, not bothering to use the door that was near to Saber's barking place. She thought she knew what was there anyway.
On the second floor she spent a minute being bewildered before seeing a thin red line in nothingness. Her blood! See how many things it was good for? Right now it highlighted the first of the glass steps for her, the one she had stumbled into before.
And at that time, cradled in Damon's strong arms, she hadn't been able to imagine even crawling up these steps. Now she channeled all the Power she had into her eye nodes - and the stairs lit up. It was still terrifying. There were no handholds on either side, and she was woozy from excitement, fear, and loss of blood. But she forced herself up, and up, and up.
"Elena! I love you! Elena!"
She could hear the cry as if Stefan were beside her now.
Up, up, up...
Her legs ached.
Keep going. No excuses. If you can't walk, hobble. If you can't hobble, crawl.
She was crawling as she finally reached the top, the edge of the nest of the owl Bloddeuwedd.
At least it was still a pretty, if insipid-looking, maiden who greeted her. Elena realized at last what was wrong with Bloddeuwedd's looks. She had no animal vitality. She was, at heart, a vegetable.
"I am going to kill you, you know."
No, she was a vegetable with no heart.
Elena glanced around her. She could see outside from here, although in between was the dome that was made of shelves and shelves upon shelves of orbs, so everything was weirdly distorted.
There were no hanging creepers here, no flagrant displays of exotic, tropical blooms. But she was already in the center of the room, in Bloddeuwedd's owl nest. Bloddeuwedd was nowhere near it; she was on the contraption that let her reach her star balls.
The key could only be buried in that nest.
"I don't want to steal from you," Elena promised, breathing hard. Even as she spoke, she plunged two arms into the nest. "Those kitsune played a trick on both of us. They stole something of mine and put the key to it in your nest. I'm just taking back what they put in."
"Ha! You - human slave! Barbarian! You dared to violate my private library! People outside are digging up my beautiful ballroom, my precious flowers. You think you're going to get away again this time, but you're not! This time you're going to DIE!"
It was an entirely different voice than the flat, nasal, but still maidenlike tones that had greeted Elena before. This was a powerful voice, a heavy voice...
...a voice to go with the size of the nest.
Elena looked up. She couldn't make anything of what she saw. An enormous fur coat in a very exotic pattern? Some huge stuffed animal's back?
The creature in the library turned toward her. Or rather, its head swiveled toward her, while its back remained perfectly still. It rotated its head sideways and Elena knew that what she was seeing was a face. The head was even more hideous and more indescribable than she could have imagined. It had a sort of single eyebrow which dipped from the edge of one side of its forehead down toward the nose (or where the nose should have been) and then went up again. The feature was like a gigantic V-shaped brow and below it were two huge round yellow eyes that often blinked. There was no nose or mouth like a human's, but instead there was a large, cruel, hooked black beak. The rest of the face was covered in feathers, mostly white, turning mottled gray at the bottom, where the neck seemed to be. It was also gray and white in two hornlike projections that shot up from the top of the head - like a demon's horns, Elena thought wildly.