Contents 16 страница. where you eat or have parties—it has an enormous table on a dais at

where you eat or have parties—it has an enormous table on a dais at

one side, and a room for minstrels above what must be the dance floor.

Lady Ulma said that this is where the servants all sleep at night, too (the

Great Hall, not the minstrel gallery).

Then we went upstairs, where we saw—I swear—several dozen

bedrooms with very large four-poster beds that are going to need new

mattresses and sheets and coverlets and hangings, but we didn’t stay to

look around. There were bats hanging from the ceiling.

We headed for Lady Ulma’s mother’s workroom. It was a very

large room where at least forty people could sit and sew the clothes that

Lady Ulma’s mother designed. But here’s the exciting part!

Lady Ulma went to one of the wardrobes in the room and moved

away all the tattered, moth-eaten clothes that were in it. And she pressed

some different places at the back of the cupboard and the whole back of

the cupboard slid out! Inside it was a very narrow stairway going

straight down!

I kept thinking about Honoria Fell’s crypt and wondering if some

homeless vampire might have taken up residence in the room

downstairs, but I knew that was silly because there were spiderwebs just

inside the door. Damon still insisted that he go down first because he

has the best eyesight in the dark, but I think the truth is that he was just

curious to see what was down there.

We each followed him one at a time, trying to be careful with the

torches, and…well, I can’t find the right words for what we discovered.

For just a few minutes I was disappointed because everything on the big

table down there was dusty rather than sparkly, but then Lady Ulma

began to gently brush jewels off with a special cloth and Bonnie found

sacks and packages and she poured them out—and it was like pouring

out a rainbow! Damon found a cabinet where there were drawers and

drawers of necklaces, bracelets, rings, armlets, anklets, earrings, nose

rings, and hairpins and ornaments, too!

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I poured out a pouch and

found that I had a huge handful of glorious white diamonds dripping

through my fingers, some of them as big as my thumbnail. I saw white

pearls and black pearls, both smaller and perfectly matched, and huge

and in marvelous shapes: almost as big as apricots with pink or golden

or gray sheens to them. I saw sapphires the size of quarters, with stars

you could see almost from across the room. I held handfuls of emeralds

and peridots and opals and rubies and tourmalines and amethysts—and

a lot

And the jewelry that was already made up was so beautiful it made

my throat ache. I know Lady Ulma had a quiet little cry, but I think it

was partly from happiness as we all kept complimenting her on

of lapis lazuli, for the discriminating vampire, of course.

her

jewels. In days she has gone from being a slave who owned nothing to

an incredibly rich woman who owns a house and all the means she

would ever need to keep it up in style. We decided that even though she

is going to marry her lover, it was best at first for Damon to buy him

quietly and free him quietly, but to play “Head of the Household” for as

long as we are here. During that time we will treat Lady Ulma as family,

and will put the jeweler Lucen back to work until we leave, when he and

Lady Ulma can quietly take Damon’s place. The feudal lords around

here are not demons anymore, but vampires, and they have less

objection to humans owning property.

Have I told you about Lucen? He’s a wonderful artist with jewels!

He has a burning need to create—in his early days as a slave he would

create with mud and weeds, imagining that he was making jewelry. Then

he got lucky and was apprenticed to a jeweler. He’s felt sorry for Lady

Ulma for so long, and loved her for so long, that it’s like a little miracle

that they are truly able to get together—and most importantly, as free

citizens.

We were afraid that Lucen might not like the idea of us buying him

as a slave and not freeing him until we leave, but he never thought he’d

be free—because of his talent. He’s a slow, gentle, kind man, with a neat

little beard and gray eyes that remind me of Meredith’s. And he’s so

amazed at being treated decently and not worked around the clock that

he would have accepted anything, just to be allowed to be near Lady

Ulma. I guess he was an apprentice when her father was a jeweler, and

he fell in love with her all those years ago, but he thought he would

never, never ever

Every day Lady Ulma looks more beautiful, and younger. She

asked permission from Damon to dye her hair all black, and he told her

she could dye it pink if she liked, and now she just looks incredibly

beautiful. I can’t believe I ever thought of her as an old hag, but that’s

what agony and fear and hopelessness do to you.

be able to be with her, because she was a young lady

of quality and he was a slave. They’re so happy together!

Every one of those

gray hairs was from being a slave

I forgot to tell you the other upside of Meredith, Bonnie, and I

being “personal assistants” for a while. It’s that we can employ a

, with no property, no say in her

future, no safety, no ability even to keep her children, if she had them.

lot of

poor women who make their living by sewing, and Lady Ulma

actually wants to design and show them how to make our finest clothes.

We told her that she could just relax, but she says all her life she’s

fantasized about being a designer like her mother and now she’s dying

to do it—with three completely different types of girl to dress. I’m dying

to see

Meanwhile Damon has hired about two hundred people (really!) to

clean out Lady Ulma’s estate, put up new wall hangings and curtains,

refurbish the plumbing system, polish up the furniture that has kept

nicely, and to get new furniture where things have fallen apart. Oh, and

to plant ready-grown flowers and trees in the gardens and put in

fountains and all kinds of stuff. With that many people working, we

ought to be able to move in in just a matter of

what she’ll come up with: she’s already started sketching and

tomorrow the man who sells fabric will come and she’ll pick the

materials.

days

All this has just one purpose, aside from making Lady Ulma happy.

It’s so that Damon and his “personal assistants” will be accepted by

high society as the season of parties begins this year. Because I’ve kept

the best for last. Both Lady Ulma and Sage could immediately identify

the people in the riddles that Misao gave to us!

.

It just goes to prove what I thought before, that Misao never

imagined that we’d actually make it here, or that we could get entrance

to the places where they’ve hidden the two halves of the fox key.

But there’s a very easy way to get invited into the houses we need

to get into. If we’re the newest, splashiest nouveau riche

I know my writing is shaky now. I’m shaky myself at the thought

that we are actually going to look for the two halves of the fox key that

will let us break Stefan out of his prison.

(sp?) around,

and if we circulate the story that Lady Ulma has been restored to her

rightful place, and if everyone wants to know about her—we’ll get

invited to parties! And that’s how we get into the two estates we need to

visit to look for the halves of the key that we need to free Stefan! And

we’re incredibly lucky, because this is the time of year when everyone

begins to give parties, and both households we want to visit are having

early celebrations: one is a gala, and one is a spring soiree to celebrate

the first flowers.

Oh, diary, it’s late—and I can’t—I can’t write about Stefan. To be

here in the same city with him, to know the direction to his prison…and

yet to not be able to get to see him. My eyes are so blurred I can’t see

what I’m writing. I wanted to get some sleep to be ready for another day

of running around, supervising, and watching Lady Ulma’s estate

blossom like a rose—but now I’m afraid I’ll just have nightmares about

Stefan’s hand slowly slipping out of mine.

T hat “night” they moved in, choosing the hour while the other estates

they passed were darkened and quiet. Elena, Meredith, and Bonnie each

picked a room on the upper floor as a bedroom, all close together.

Nearby was a luxurious bathing room, with a pale blue and white marble

floor and a unique pool shaped like a giant rose, fully large enough to

swim in, heated by charcoal, with a cheerful-looking servant to tend it.

Elena was delighted with what happened next. Damon bought a

number of slaves quietly, in a private sale from a respectable dealer, and

then promptly freed them all and offered them wages and time off.

Almost all the former slaves were only too happy to agree to stay, and

only a few chose to leave or ran away, mostly women in search of their

families. The others would remain and become Lady Ulma’s staff once

Damon, Elena, Bonnie, and Meredith left after freeing Stefan.

Lady Ulma, was given a “senior” room downstairs, although

Damon almost had to use brute force to install her in it. He himself

chose a room that was an office by day, since he wasn’t likely to spend

much of the night in the house anyway.

There was a slight embarrassment over that. Most of the staff knew

of the ways of vampire masters, and the young girls and women who

came to sew or who lived on the estate and cooked and cleaned seemed

to expect some sort of rota to be worked out, with each of them taking

turns at being donors.

Damon explained this to Elena, who quashed the idea before it

could be implemented. She could tell that Damon was hoping for a

steady stream of girls, ranging from flowerlike to red-cheeked and

buxom, who would be glad to be “tapped” like beer kegs for the pretty

bangles and baubles that were traditionally given.

Elena similarly disposed of the idea of hunting for hire. Sage had

mentioned that there were even rumors of a possible Outside connection:

a very advanced training course for Navy SEALs.

“And they can come out the world’s only vampire seals,” Elena

had said sardonically, in front of a group of male slaves this time. “They

can go out and bite sharks. Certainly you guys can go out and hunt some

humans like a pair of owls hunting mice—just don’t bother to come

home afterward, because the doors will be locked…permanently.” She

held Sage’s gaze until her expression became a steely glare and he’d

hastened off to do something else around the estate.

Elena didn’t mind Sage’s informal moving in with them. And after

hearing how Sage had saved Damon from the mob that ambushed him

on the way to the Meeting Place, she had determined in her own mind

that if Sage ever wanted her blood, she would give it to him

unhesitatingly. After a few days, when he had stayed around the house

near Dr. Meggar’s and then moved with them into Lady Ulma’s

compound, she had wondered if her diminished aura and Damon’s

reticence weren’t depriving him of something he should know about. So

she’d thrown broader and broader hints at him, until once when he had

doubled over, and then, with tears of laughter (but had it only been

laughter?) in his eyes, had come over to her and said that the Americans

had a saying, no? You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it

drink. In his case, he said, you could lead a snarling black panther—her

normal mental iconic image of Damon—to water, if you had electric

cattle prods and elephant ankusha, but that afterward you’d be a fool to

turn your back on it. Elena had laughed until she, too, cried, but had still

pledged that if he wanted her blood, a reasonable share was his.

Now she simply felt glad to have him around. Her heart was too

full already, with Stefan, Damon—and even Matt, despite his apparent

desertion—for her to be in danger of falling for another vampire, no

matter how terminally fit they were. She appreciated Sage as a friend

and protector.

Elena was surprised at how much she came to rely on Lakshmi as

each day passed. Lakshmi had begun as a sort of gopher, doing the

running around that no one else wanted to, but more and more, she had

become Lady Ulma’s maid-in-waiting and Elena’s source of information

about this world. Lady Ulma was still officially bedridden, and having

Lakshmi ready at any time of the day or night, to send messages, was

wonderfully convenient. Too, she was someone that Elena could ask

questions of that otherwise would get her eyed as if she were crazy. Did

they need to buy plates or was food served on a large hunk of dried

bread, which acted as a napkin for greasy fingers as well? (Plates had

been recently introduced, along with forks, which were all the rage

now.) How much were the men and woman of the household entitled to

in wages (which had to be calculated from scratch, since no other

household paid its slaves a geld, merely clothing them from a

community uniform cache, and allowing them one or two “feast days” a

year)? Young as she was, Lakshmi was both honest and bold and Elena

was grooming her to become Lady Ulma’s right hand, after Lady Ulma

had become well enough to be the lady of the house.

Dear Diary,

It’s the night before the night of our first party—or rather gala.

But I don’t feel very gala. I miss Stefan too much.

I’ve been brooding about Matt, too. How he walked away, so

angry at me, not even looking back. He didn’t understand how I

could…care for…Damon, and yet still love Stefan so much that it felt as

if my heart was breaking.

Elena put down the pen and stared at her diary dully. The

heartbreak manifested itself in actual physical pains in her chest that

would have frightened her if she hadn’t been sure of what it really was.

She missed Stefan so desperately that she could hardly eat, could barely

sleep. He was like a part of her mind that was constantly on fire, like a

phantom limb that would never go away.

Not even writing in her diary would help tonight. All she could

write about were painfully tantalizing memories of the good times she

and Stefan had shared together. How good it had been when she could

just turn her head and know that she would see him—what a privilege

that had been! And now it was gone, and in its place was racking

confusion, guilt, and anxiety. What was happening to him, right now,

when she no longer had the privilege of turning her head and seeing

him? Were they…hurting him?

Oh, God, if only…

If only I had made him lock all the windows to his room at the

boardinghouse…

If only I had been more suspicious of Damon…

If only I had guessed he had something on his mind that last

night… If only…if only…

It became a pounding refrain in time to her heart. She found herself

breathing in sobs, her eyes tightly shut, clutching the rhythm to her and

clenching her fists.

If I keep feeling this way—if I let it crush me enough—I’ll become

an infinitesimal point in space. I’ll be crushed into nothingness—and

even that will be better than needing him so much.

Elena lifted up her head…and stared down at her head, resting on

her diary.

She gasped.

Once more her first reaction was to imagine death. And then,

slowly, because she was stupefied by so many tears, she realized that

she’d done it again.

She was out of her body.

This time she wasn’t even aware of a conscious decision about

where to go. She was flying, so fast that she couldn’t tell which way she

was going. It was as if she were being pulled, as if she were the tail of a

comet that was rapidly shooting downward.

At one point she realized with familiar horror that she was passing

through things, and then she was veering as if she were the end of the

whip in a game of Crack the Whip and then she was catapulted into

Stefan’s cell.

She was still sobbing as she landed in the cell, unsure of whether

she had solid form or gravity, and uncaring for the moment. The only

thing she had time to see was Stefan, very thin but smiling in his sleep

and then she was dumped onto him, into him, and still crying as she

bounced, as lightly as a feather, and Stefan woke.

“Oh, can’t you let me sleep for a few minutes in peace?” Stefan

snapped, and added a couple of Italian words that Elena had never had

reason to hear before.

Elena had an immediate fit of the Bonnies, sobbing so hard that

she couldn’t listen to—couldn’t even hear —any comfort that was on

offer. They were doing horrible things to him, and they were using her

image, Elena’s, to do them. It was all too awful. They were conditioning

Stefan to hate her. She hated herself. Everyone in the whole world hated

her—

“Elena! Elena, don’t cry, love!”

Dully, Elena lifted herself up, getting a brief anatomical view of

Stefan’s chest before she was sobbing again, trying to wipe her nose on

Stefan’s prison uniform, which looked as if it could only be improved by

anything she might do to it.

She couldn’t, of course; just as she couldn’t feel the arm that was

trying to encircle her gently. She hadn’t brought her body with her.

But she had, somehow, brought her tears, and a cold,

cable-wire-tough voice inside herself said, Don’t waste them, idiot! Use

those tears. If you’re going to sob, sob over his face or his hands. And,

by the way, everyone hates you.

Even Matt hates you, and Matt likes everybody, the tiny cruel,

productive voice went on and Elena gave way to a fresh gale of sobbing,

absently noting the effect of each teardrop. Each drop turned the white

skin under it pink and the color spread in ripples outward, as if Stefan

were a pool, and she was resting on him, water on water.

Except that her tears were falling so fast that it looked like a

rainstorm on Wickery Pond. And that only made her think about the

time that Matt had fallen into the pond, trying to rescue a little girl who

had fallen through the ice, and how Matt hated her now.

“Don’t, oh don’t; don’t, lovely love,” Stefan begged, so sincerely

that anyone would have believed he meant it. But how could he? Elena

knew what she must look like, face swollen and blotched by tears: no

“lovely love” here! And he’d have to be mad to want her to stop crying:

the teardrops were giving him new life wherever they touched his

skin—and perhaps the storm inside him had done best, because his

telepathic voice was strong and sure.

Elena, forgive me—oh, God, just give me one moment with her!

Just a single moment! I can bear anything then, even the true death. Just

one moment to touch her!

And perhaps God did look down for a moment in pity. Elena’s lips

were hovering over, quivering over, Stefan’s, as if she could somehow

steal a kiss like this as she used to when he was still asleep. But for just

an instant it seemed to Elena that she felt warm flesh below hers and the

flick of Stefan’s lashes against her eyelids as his eyes flew open in

surprise.

Instantly they both froze, eyes wide open, neither of them foolish

enough to move in the slightest. But Elena couldn’t help herself, as the

flush of warmth from Stefan’s lips sent a flush of warmth through her

entire body. She melted into the kiss, and, while keeping her body

carefully in the same position, felt her gaze go unfocused and her eyelids

close.

As her lashes swept against something with substance, the moment

swept quietly to an end. Elena had two choices: she could shriek and rail

telepathically at Il Signore for only giving them what Stefan had asked

for, or she could gather her courage and smile and maybe comfort

Stefan.

Her better nature won out and when Stefan opened his eyes, she

was leaning over him, pretending to be resting on her elbows and his

chest, and smiling at him as she tried to straighten out her hair.

Relieved, Stefan smiled back at her. It was as if he could bear

anything, as long as she was unhurt.

“Now, Damon would have been practical,” she teased him. “He

would have kept me crying, because in the end, his health would be the

most important thing. And he’d have prayed for…” She paused and

finally began laughing, which made Stefan smile. “I have no idea,”

Elena said finally. “I don’t think Damon prays.”

“Probably not,” Stefan said. “When we were young—and

human—the town priest walked with a cane that he seemed to enjoy

using on young delinquent boys more than as a source of support.”

Elena thought of the delicate child chained to the huge and heavy

boulder of secrets. Was religion one of the things locked away, put

behind doors closed one after another in secret there, like a chambered

nautilus until almost everything he cared about was inside?

She didn’t ask that of Stefan. Instead, she said, lowering her

“voice” to the tiniest telepathic whisper, the barest disturbance of

neurons in Stefan’s receptive brain: What other practical things can you

think of that Damon might have thought of? Things relating to a

jailbreak?

“Well…for a jailbreak? The first thing I can think of is for you to

know your way around the city. I was brought here blindfolded but since

they don’t have the power to take the curse off vampires and make them

human, I still had all my senses. I’d say it’s a city about the size of New

York and Los Angeles combined.”

“Big city,” Elena noted, taking notes in her head.

“But fortunately the only bits that would interest us are in the

southwestern section. The city’s supposed to be ruled by the

Guardians—but they’re from the Other Side and the demons and

vampires here long ago realized that people were more afraid of them

than the Guardians. It’s set up now with about twelve to fifteen feudal

castles or estates, and each of those estates has control of a considerable

amount of land outside the city. They grow their own unique products

and sell them in deals made here. For instance, it’s the vampires who

cultivate Clarion Loess Black Magic.”

“I see,” said Elena, who had no idea what he was talking about,

except the Black Magic wine. “But all we really need to know is how to

get to the Shi no Shi—your prison.”

“That’s true. Well, the easiest way would be to find the kitsune

sector. The Shi no Shi is a cluster of buildings, with the largest one—the

one without a top, although it’s curved, and you may not be able to tell

from the ground—”

“The one that looks like a coliseum?” Elena interrupted eagerly. “I

get a sort of bird’s-eye view of the city whenever I come here.”

“Well, the thing that looks like a coliseum is a coliseum.” Stefan

smiled.He really smiled; he’s feeling well enough to smile, now, Elena

rejoiced, but silently.

“So to get you in and out, we just head from below the coliseum to

the gate back to our world,” Elena said. “But to get you free there

are—some things we need to collect—and those are probably going to

be in different parts of the city.” She tried to remember if she had ever

described the twin fox key to Stefan or not. It was probably better not to

do it if she hadn’t already done it.

“Then I’d hire a native guide,” Stefan said immediately. “I don’t

really know anything about the city, except what the guards tell

me—and I’m not sure if I would trust them. But the little people—the

ordinary ones—will probably know the things you want to know.”

“That’s a good idea,” Elena said. She drew invisible designs with a

transparent finger on his chest. “I think Damon really plans to do

everything he can to help us.”

“I honor him for coming,” Stefan said, as if he were thinking

things out. “He’s keeping his promise, isn’t he?”

Elena nodded. Deep, deep in her consciousness floated the

thoughts: His word to me that he would take care of you. His word to

you that he would take care of me. Damon always keeps his word.

“Stefan,” she said, again in the innermost recesses of his mind,

where she could share information—she hoped—in secret, “you should

have seen him, really. When I did Wings of Redemption and every bad

thing that had hardened him or made him cruel came undone. And when

I did Wings of Purification and all the stone covering his soul came

away in chunks…. I don’t think you could imagine how he was. He was

so perfect—and so new. And later when he cried…”

Elena could feel inside Stefan three layers of emotion succeed one

another almost instantaneously. Disbelief that Damon could cry, despite

all that Elena had been telling him. Then, belief and astonishment as he

absorbed her pictures and her memories. And finally, the need to console

her as she stared at a Damon forever trapped in penitence. A Damon that

would never exist again.

“He saved you,” whispered Elena, “but he wouldn’t save himself.

He wouldn’t even bargain with Shinichi and Misao. He just let them take

all his memories of that time.”

“Maybe it hurt too much.”

“Yes,” said Elena, deliberately lowering her barriers so that Stefan

could feel the hurt that the new and perfect creature she’d created had

felt upon learning that he had committed acts of cruelty and treachery

that—well, that would make the strongest soul flinch. “Stefan? I think he

must feel very lonely.”

“Yes, angel. I think you’re right.”

This time Elena thought a good deal longer before venturing,

“Stefan? I’m not sure he understands what it’s like to be loved.” And

while he thought out his response, she was on tenterhooks.

Then he said very softly, very slowly again, “Yes, angel. I think

you’re right.”

Oh, she did love him. He always understood. And he was always

most brave and gallant and trusting just when she needed him to be.

“Stefan? Can I stay again tonight?”

“Is it nighttime, lovely love? You can stay—unless They come to

take me somewhere.” All at once Stefan was very solemn, holding her

gaze. “But if They come—you’ll promise me to leave then, won’t you?”

Elena looked straight into his green eyes and said, “If that’s what