And it was true that Elena was almost unbearably excited. Let the others think it was about her marvelous dress - and it was a marvelous dress, and Elena was profoundly grateful to Lady Ulma and her helpers for getting it done in time. What Elena was really excited about, though, was the chance - no, the certainty, she told herself firmly - that tonight she was going to find half of the key that would allow them to free Stefan. The thought of his face, of seeing him in the flesh was...
Was terrifying. Thinking about what Bonnie had said when she was asleep, Elena reached out for comfort and understanding, and somehow found that instead of holding Damon's hand, she was in Damon's arms.
The real question is: what will Stefan say about that night at the motel with Damon?
What would Stefan say? What was there to say?
"I'm frightened," she heard, and a minute too late, recognized her own voice.
"Well, don't think about it," Damon said. "It'll only make things worse."
But I've lied, Elena thought. You don't even remember it, or you'd be lying, too.
"Whatever happened, I promise I'll still be around for you," Damon said softly. "You've got my word on that, anyway."
Elena could feel his breath against her hair. "And on keeping your mind on the key?"
Yes, yes, but I haven't fed properly today. Elena started, then clasped Damon closer. For just an instant she'd felt, not merely a ravaging hunger, but a sharp pain that puzzled her. But now, before she could quite locate it in space, it was gone, and her connection to Damon had been abruptly cut off.
Damon.
"What?"
Don't shut me out.
"I'm not. I've just said all there is to say, that's all. You know I'll be looking for the key."
Thank you. Elena tried again. But you can't just starve -
Who said I was starving? Now Damon's telepathic connection was back, but something was missing. He was deliberately holding something back, and concentrating on assaulting her senses with something else - hunger. Elena could feel it rampaging in him, as if he were a tiger or wolf that had gone for days - for weeks - without making a kill.
The room did a slow spin around her.
"It's...all right," she whispered, amazed that Damon was able to stand and hold her at all, with his insides tearing at him that way. "Whatever...you need...take..."
And then she felt the most gentle probing at her throat of razor-sharp teeth.
She gave herself up to it, surrendering to the sensations.
In preparation for the Silver Nightingale's gala, where they would be searching for the first half of the double fox key to release Stefan, Meredith had been reading some of the hard copy she'd stuffed into her bag, from the huge amount of information she had downloaded from the Internet. She had done her best to describe everything that she'd learned to Elena and the others. But how could she be sure that she hadn't missed some vital clue, some vastly important thread of information that would make all the difference tonight between success and failure? Between finding a way to save Stefan and coming home defeated, while he languished in prison.
No, she thought, standing by a silvered mirror, almost afraid to look at the exotic beauty she had become. No, we can't even think of the word failure. For the sake of Stefan's life, we have to succeed. And we have to do it without getting caught.
Chapter 27
Elena felt confident and just a little light-headed as they set out for the Silver Nightingale's gala. However, when the four of them arrived on litters - Damon with Elena, Meredith with Bonnie (Lady Ulma being forbidden by her doctor to go to any festivities while she was pregnant) - at the Honorable Lady Fazina's palatial home, she was struck with something like terror.
The house was truly a palace, in the best of story-telling tradition, she thought. Minarets and towers soared above them, probably painted in blue and lavish gilt, but turned lavender by the sunlight, and looking almost lighter than air. To complement the sunlight, torches had been lit on either side of the path of the litters up the hill and some chemical had been added - or some magic used - to make their lights shine in varying colors so that they changed from golden, to red, to purple, to blue, to green, to silver, and these colors shone true. They took Elena's breath away, as the only things that were not tinged with red in the whole world that she could see. Damon had brought a bottle of Black Magic with him and was almost too high-spirited - no pun intended, Elena thought.
As their litter stopped at the top of the hill, Damon and Elena were helped out and down a hallway that cut out much of the sunlight. Above them hung delicate, lighted paper lanterns - some larger than the litter they'd been in a moment ago - brightly lighted and fancifully shaped which gave a festive, playful air to a palace otherwise so magnificent that it was a little intimidating.
They passed by lighted fountains, some of which had surprises - like the line of magical frogs that constantly leaped from lily pad to lily pad: plop, plop, plop, like the sound of rain on a rooftop, or a huge gilded serpent that coiled among trees and over the heads of visitors, winding from there to the ground and then back up to the trees again.
Then again, it was the ground that would turn transparent with all manner of magical schools of fish, sharks, eels, and dolphins cavorting, while in the dim blue depths far below loomed the figure of a gigantic whale. Elena and Bonnie hurried quickly over this portion of the path.
It was clear that the owner of this estate could afford any kind of extravaganza her heart desired, and that above all things what she enjoyed the chiefest was music, for in each area, splendidly - sometimes bizarrely - dressed orchestra were playing, or there might be only one famous soloist, singing from a high gilded cage perhaps twenty-five feet above the ground.