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facing west, where the bloated, bloody red sun—too bright to look at in the higher,

cleaner air outside the city—constantly loomed on the horizon. The view all around

them was dreadfully monotonous—mind-bendingly so, with few trees and many

miles of dried brown grassy hills. Nothing interesting to a non-hunter ever showed

up. The only thing that changed was as they traveled farther north, it got colder.

It was difficult for all of them, living in such close quarters. Damon and Elena had

reached an equilibrium—or at least a pretense—of ignoring each other, something

Elena would never have imagined could be possible. Damon made it easier by

working on a different sleep cycle than the others—which helped to guard them as

the thurgs trudged onward, day and night. If he was awake when Elena was, he

would ride outside the palanquin, on the thurg’s enormous neck. They both had

such stiff necks, Elena thought. Neither of them wanted to be the first to bend.

Meanwhile those inside the palanquin began to play little games, like picking the

long dried grasses from the side of the road and trying to weave them into dolls, fly

whisks, hats, whips. Stefan proved to be the one who made the tightest weave, and

he made fly whisks and broad fans for each of them.

They also played various card games, using stiff little place cards (had Lady

Ulma thought they might give a dinner party on the way?) as playing cards, after

carefully marking them with the four suits. And of course, the vampires hunted.

Sometimes this took quite a long time, since game was scarce. The Black Magic

Lady Ulma had stocked helped them stretch the time between hunts.

When Damon visited the palanquin, it was as if he were crashing a private party

and thumbing his nose at the hosts.

Finally Elena couldn’t stand it any longer, and had Stefan float her up the side of

the thurg (looking down or climbing up were definitely not options) while flying magic

still worked. She sat down on the saddle beside Damon and gathered her courage.

“Damon, I know you have a right to be angry with me. But don’t take it out on the

others. Especially Bonnie.”

“Another lecture?” Damon asked, giving her a look that would freeze a flame.

“No, just a—a request.” She couldn’t bring herself to say “a plea.”

When he didn’t answer and the silence became unbearable, she said, “Damon,

for us—we’re not going on a quest for treasure out of greed or adventure or any

normal reason. We’re going because we need to save our town.”

“From Midnight,” a voice just behind her said. “From the Last Midnight.”

Elena whirled to stare. She expected to see Stefan holding Bonnie clasped to

him hard. But it was only Bonnie at her head level, hanging on to the thurg ladder.

Elena forgot she was afraid of heights. She stood up on the swaying thurg, ready

to climb down on the sun side if there wasn’t enough room for Bonnie to sit down

fast in the driver’s saddle.

But Bonnie had the slimmest hips in town and there was just room for all three of

them.

“The Last Midnight is coming,” Bonnie repeated. Elena knew that monotonous

voice, knew the chalk-white cheeks, the blank eyes. Bonnie was in trance—and

moving. It must be urgent.

“Damon,” Elena whispered. “If I speak to her, she’ll break trance. Can you ask

her telepathically what she means?”

A moment later she heard Damon’s projection. What is the Last Midnight?

What’s going to happen then?

“That’s when it starts. And it’s over in less than an hour. So…no more midnights.”

I beg your pardon? No more midnights?

“Not in Fell’s Church. No one left to see them.”

And when is this going to happen?

“Tonight. The children are finally ready.”

The children?

Bonnie simply nodded, her eyes far away.

Something’s going to happen to all the children?

Bonnie’s eyelids drooped to half mast. She didn’t seem to hear the question.

Elena needed to hold on to something. And suddenly she was. Damon had

reached across Bonnie’s lap and taken her hand.

Bonnie, are the children going to do something at midnight? he asked.

Bonnie’s eyes filled and she bowed her head.

“We’ve got to go back. We have to go to Fell’s Church,” Elena said, and scarcely

knowing what she was doing, unclasped Damon’s hand and climbed down the

ladder. The bloated red sun looked different—smaller. She tugged at the curtain

and almost bumped heads with Stefan as he rolled it up to let her in.

“Stefan, Bonnie’s in trance and she said—”

“I know. I was eavesdropping. I couldn’t even catch her on the way up. She

jumped onto the ladder and climbed like a squirrel. What do you think she means?”

“You remember in the out-of-body experience she and I had? A little spying on

Alaric? That’s what’s going to happen in Fell’s Church. All the children, all at once,

just at midnight—that’s why we have to get back—”

“Easy. Easy, love. Remember what Lady Ulma said? Nearly a year here came

out to be only days in our world.”

Elena hesitated. It was true; she couldn’t deny it. Still, she felt so cold…

Physically cold, she realized suddenly, as a blast of frigid air swirled around her,

cutting through her leather like a machete.

“We need our inner furs,” Elena gasped. “We must be getting near the fracture.”

They yanked down the palanquin covers and secured them and then hastily

rummaged through the neat cabinet that was set on the rump of the thurg.

The furs were so sleek that Elena could fit two under her leather easily.

They were disturbed by Damon coming inside with Bonnie in his arms.

“She stopped talking,” he said, and added, “Whenever you’re warm enough, I

suggest that you come out.”

Elena laid Bonnie down on one of the two benches inside the palanquin and piled

blanket after blanket over her, tucking them in around her. Then Elena made

herself climb back up.

For a moment she felt blinded. Not by the surly red sun—they had left that behind

some mountains, which it turned a pink sapphire color—but by a world of white.

Seemingly endless, flat, featureless whiteness stretched out before her until a bank

of fog obscured whatever was behind it.

“According to legend, we should be headed toward the Silver Lake of Death,”

Damon’s voice said from behind Elena. And, oddly, throughout all this chill, his

voice was warm—almost friendly. “Also known as Lake Mirror. But I can’t change

into a crow to scout ahead. Something’s hindering me. And that fog in front of us is

impenetrable to psychic probing.”

Elena instinctively glanced around her. Stefan was still inside the palanquin,

obviously still tending to Bonnie.

“You’re looking for the lake? What’s it like? I mean, I can guess why it might be

called Silver and Lake Mirror,” she said. “But what’s the Death bit?”

“Water dragons. At least that’s what people say—but who has been there to

bring back the story?” Damon looked at her.

He took care of Bonnie while she was in trance, Elena thought. And he’s talking

to me at last.

“Water…dragons?” she asked him and she made her voice friendly, too. As if

they’d just met. They were starting over.

“I’ve always suspected kronosaurus, myself,” Damon said. He was right behind

her now; she could feel him blocking the icy wind—no, more than that. He was

generating an envelope of heat for her to stand in. Elena’s shivering stopped. She

felt for the first time that she could unwrap her arms from clutching herself.

Then she felt a pair of strong arms folding around her, and the heat abruptly got

quite intense. Damon was standing behind her, holding her, and all at once she was

very warm indeed.

“Damon,” she began, not very steadily, “we can’t just—”

“There’s a rock outcropping over there. No one could see us,” the vampire

behind her offered—to Elena’s absolute shock. A week of not speaking at all—and

now this.

“Damon, the guy in the palanquin just below us is my—”

“Prince? Don’t you need a knight, then?” Damon breathed this directly into her

ear. Elena stood like a statue. But what he said next rocked her entire universe.

“You like the story of Camelot, don’t you? Only here you’re the queen, princess.

You married your not-quite-fairy-tale prince, but along came a knight who knew

even more of your secrets, and he called to you…”

“He forced me,” Elena said, turning to meet Damon’s dark eyes straight on, even

as her brain screamed for her to let it go. “He didn’t wait for me to hear his call. He

just…took what he wanted. Like the slavers do. I didn’t know how to fight—then.”

“Oh, no. You fought and fought. I’ve never seen a human fight so hard. But even

when you fought, you felt the call of my heart to yours. Try to deny that.”

“Damon—why now—all of a sudden…?”

Damon made a move as if to turn away, then turned back. “Because by

tomorrow we may be dead,” he said flatly. “I wanted you to know how I felt about

you before I died—or you did.”

“But you haven’t told me a word about how you feel about me. Only about what

you think I feel about you. And I’m sorry that I slapped you the first day I was here,

but—”

“You were magnificent,” Damon said outrageously. “Forget it now. As for how I

feel—maybe I’ll get a chance to really show it to you someday.”

Something sparked inside Elena—they were back to fencing with words, as they

had been when they’d first met. “Someday? Sounds convenient. And why not now?”

“Do you mean that?”

“Do I habitually say things I don’t mean?”

She was waiting for some kind of apology, some words spoken as simply and

sincerely as she had been speaking to him. Instead, with the utmost gentleness,

and without glancing around to see if anyone was watching them, Damon cupped

Elena’s scarf-bound cheeks with his bare hands, pulled the scarf just below her lips

with his thumbs, and kissed her softly. Softly—but not briefly, and something in

Elena kept whispering to her that of course she had heard his call from the moment

she first saw him, first felt his aura call to her. She hadn’t known that it was an aura

then; she hadn’t believed in auras. She hadn’t believed in vampires. She’d been an

ignorant little idiot…

Stefan! A voice like crystal sounded off two notes in her brain, and suddenly she

was able to step back from Damon’s embrace and look at the palanquin again. No

sign of motion there.

“I have to go back,” she told Damon brusquely. “I have to know what’s going on

with Bonnie.”

“You mean to see what’s going on with Stefan,” he said. “You needn’t worry. He’s

fast asleep, and so is our little girl.”

Elena tensed. “You Influenced them? Without seeing them?” It was a wild guess,

but one side of Damon’s mouth crooked up, as if congratulating her. “How dare

you?” she said.

“To be honest, I don’t know how I dare.” Damon leaned in close again, but Elena

turned her cheek, thinking, Stefan!

He can’t hear you. He’s dreaming about you.

Elena was surprised at her own reaction to that. Damon had caught and held her

eyes again. Something inside her melted in the intensity of his steady black gaze.

“I’m not Influencing you; I give you my word”—in a whisper. “But you can’t deny

what happened between us the last time we were in this dimension.” His breath was

on her lips now—and Elena didn’t turn aside. She trembled.

“Please, Damon. Show some respect. I’m— oh, God! God! ”

“Elena? Elena! Elena! What’s wrong? ”

Hurts —that was all Elena could think. A terrible agony had lanced through her

chest on the left side. As if she’d been stabbed through the heart. She stifled a

scream.

Elena, talk to me! If you can’t send your thoughts, speak!

Through numb lips, Elena said, “Pain—heart attack—”

“You’re too young and healthy for that. Let me check.” Damon was unfastening

her top. Elena let him. She could do nothing for herself, except gasp, “Oh God! It

hurts!”

Damon’s warm hand was inside her leather and furs. His hand came to rest

slightly to the left of center, with only her camisole between his probing fingers and

her flesh. Elena, I’m going to take the pain away now. Trust me.

Even as he spoke, the stabbing anguish drained. Damon’s eyes narrowed, and

Elena knew he’d taken the pain into himself, to analyze it.

“It’s not a heart attack,” he said a moment later. “I’m as sure as I can be. It’s

more as if—well, as if you’d been staked. But that’s silly. Hmm…it’s gone now.”

For Elena it had been gone since he’d taken it, protecting her. “Thank you,” she

breathed, suddenly realizing that she had been clinging to him, in utter terror that

she was dying. Or that he was.

He gave her a rare, full, genuine smile. “We’re both fine. It must have been a

cramp.” His gaze had dropped to her lips. “Do I deserve a kiss?”

“I…” He had comforted her; he had taken the terrible pain away. How could she

sanely say no? “Just one,” she whispered.

A hand under her chin. Her eyelids wanted to melt closed, but she widened her

eyes and wouldn’t let them.

As his lips touched hers, his arm around her…changed somehow. It was no

longer trying to restrain her. It seemed to be wanting to comfort her. And when his

other hand stroked her hair softly at the very ends, crushing the waves gently, and

just as gently smoothing them out, Elena felt a rush of shivering warmth.

Damon wasn’t deliberately trying to batter her with the strength of his aura, which

at the moment was filled with nothing but his feelings for her. The simple fact,

though, was that although he was a new-made vampire, he was exceptionally

strong and he knew all the tricks of an experienced one. Elena felt as if she had

stepped into clear calm water, only to find herself caught in a fierce undertow that

there was no resisting; no bargaining with; and certainly no possibility of reaching

by reason. She had no choice but to surrender to it and hope that it was taking her,

eventually, to a place she could breathe and live. Otherwise, she would drown…but

even that possibility didn’t seem so dire, now that she could see the tide was made

of a chain of little moments strung like pearls. In each one of them was a tiny

sparkle of admiration that Damon had for her: pearls for her courage, for her

intelligence, for her beauty. It seemed that there was no slightest motion she had

made, no briefest word that she had said, that he had not noticed and locked in his

heart as a treasure.

But we were fighting then, Elena thought to him, seeing in the undertow a

sparkling moment when she had cursed him.

Yes—I said you were magnificent when you were angry. Like a goddess come

to put the world to rights.

I do want to put the world to rights. No, two worlds: the Dark Dimension and my

home. But I’m no goddess.

Suddenly she felt that keenly. She was a schoolgirl who hadn’t even finished high

school—and it was in part because of the person who was kissing her wildly now.

Oh, think of what you’re learning on this trip! Things that no one else in the

universe knows, Damon said in her mind. Now pay attention to what you’re doing!

Elena paid attention, not because Damon wanted her to, but because she

couldn’t help it. Her eyes drifted shut. She realized that the way to calm this

maelstrom was to become part of it, neither giving in nor forcing Damon to, but by

meeting the passion in the undertow with what was inside her own heart.

As soon as she did, the undertow became wind, and she was flying and not

drowning. No, it was better than flying, better than dancing, it was what her heart

always yearned for. A high still place where nothing could ever harm them or disturb

them.

And then, when she was most vulnerable, the pain came again, drilling through

her chest, a little to the left. This time Damon was so mindlocked with her that he

felt it from the beginning. And she could hear clearly a phrase in Damon’s mind:

staking is just as effective on humans as it is on vampires, and his sudden fear

that this was a precognition.

In the swaying little room, Stefan was asleep holding Bonnie by his side, with the

sparkling of Power engulfing them both. Elena, who had a good grip on the

palanquin’s ladder, vaulted the rest of the way inside. She put a hand on Stefan’s

shoulder and he woke.

“What is this? Is something wrong with her?” she asked, with a third question:

“Do you know?” buzzing around in her head.

But when Stefan lifted his green eyes to her, they were simply worried. Clearly he

was not invading her thoughts. He was focused entirely on Bonnie. Thank God,

he’s such a gentleman, Elena thought for the thousandth time.

“I’m trying to get her warm,” Stefan said. “After she came out of trance, she was

shivering. Then she stopped shivering, but when I took her hand, it was colder than

ever. Now I’ve put an envelope of heat around her. I guess I dozed off for a little

while after that.” He added, “Did you find anything?”

I found Damon’s lips, Elena thought wildly, but she forced herself to blank out the

memory. “We’re looking for Lake Silver Death Mirror,” she said. “But all I could see

was white. The snow and the fog seem to go on forever.”

Stefan nodded. Then he carefully went through the motions of plucking apart two

layers of air and slid in a hand to touch Bonnie’s cheek. “She’s warming up,” he

said, and smiled.

It took a long while before Stefan was satisfied that Bonnie was warm. When he

did, he gently unwrapped her from the heated air that had formed the “envelope”

and lay her on one bench, coming to sit with Elena on the other. Eventually Bonnie

sighed, blinked, and opened her eyes.

“I had a nap,” she said, obviously aware that she had lost time.

“Not exactly,” Elena said, keeping her voice gentle and reassuring. Let’s see,

how did Meredith do this? “You went into trance, Bonnie. Do you remember

anything about it?”

Bonnie said, “About the treasure?”

“About what the treasure is for,” Stefan said quietly.

“No…No…”

“You said that this was the Last Midnight,” Elena said. As far as she could

remember, Meredith was pretty direct. “But we think you were talking about back at

home,” she added hastily, seeing terror leap in Bonnie’s eyes.

“The Last Midnight—and no morning afterward,” Bonnie said. “I think—I heard

someone saying those words. But no more.”

She was as skittish as a wild colt. Elena reminded her about time running

differently between the two worlds but it didn’t seem to comfort her. Finally, Elena

just sat by her and held her.

Her head was spinning with thoughts of Damon. He’d forgiven her. That was

good, even though he’d taken his own time about it. But the real message was that

he was willing to share her. Or at least willing to say he would to get in her good

graces. If she knew him at all, if she ever agreed—oh, God, he might murder

Stefan. Again. After all, that was what he had done when Katherine had had the

same sentiment.

Elena could never think of him without longing. She could never think of him

without thinking of Stefan. She had no idea what to do.

She was in trouble.

“O i!” Damon shouted from outside the palanquin. “Is anybody else looking at

this?”

Elena was. Both Stefan and Bonnie had their eyes shut; Bonnie was wrapped in

blankets and cuddled against Elena. They had rolled down all the curtains of the

palanquin except one.

But Elena had watched through the single window, and had seen how tendrils of

fog had begun drifting by, first just filmy tatters of mist, but then longer, fuller veils,

and finally blankets, engulfing them whole. It seemed to her that they were being

deliberately cut off from even the perilous Dark Dimension, that they were passing

a border into a place they weren’t meant to know about, much less enter.

“How do we know we’re going in the right direction?” Elena shouted to Damon

after Stefan and Bonnie woke. She was glad to be able to talk again.

“The thurgs know,” Damon called back. “You set them on a line and they walk

that line until somebody stops them, or—”

“Or what?” Elena yelled out of the opening.

“Until we get to a place like this.”

This was obviously bait, and neither Stefan nor Elena could resist taking it—

especially when the thurg they were riding stopped.

“Stay here,” Elena said to Bonnie. She pushed a curtain out of the way and found

herself looking too far down at white ground. God, these thurgs were big. The next

moment, though, Stefan was on the ground holding up his arms.

“Jump!”

“Can’t you come up and float me?”

“Sorry. Something about this place inhibits Power.”

Elena didn’t give herself time to think. She launched into the air and Stefan

caught her neatly. Spontaneously, she clung to him, and felt the familiar comfort of

his embrace.

Then he said, “Come look at this.”

They had reached a place where the land ended and the mist divided, like

curtains being held to either side. Directly in front of them was a frozen lake. A

silvery frozen lake, almost perfectly round in shape.

“Lake Mirror?” Damon said, cocking his head to one side.

“I always thought that was a fairy tale,” Stefan said.

“Welcome to Bonnie’s storybook.”

Lake Mirror formed a vast body of water in front of them, frozen right into the ice

sheet below her feet, or so it seemed. It did look like a mirror—a purse mirror after

you’d breathed softly on it.

“But the thurgs?” Elena said—or rather whispered. She couldn’t help whispering.

The silent lake pressed on her, as did the lack of any kind of natural sound: There

were no birds singing, no rustling in the bushes—no bushes! No trees! Instead, just

the mist surrounding the frozen water.

“The thurgs,” Elena repeated in a slightly louder voice. “They can’t possibly walk

on that!”

“Depends on how thick the lake ice is,” Damon said, flashing his old 250-kilowatt

smile at her. “If it’s thick enough, it’ll be just like walking on land for them.”

“And if it isn’t?”

“Hmm…Do thurgs float?”

Elena gave him an exasperated glance and looked at Stefan. “What do you

think?”

“I don’t know,” he said doubtfully. “They’re very large animals. Let’s ask Bonnie

about the kids in the fairy tale.”

Bonnie, still wrapped in fur blankets that began collecting chunks of ice as they

dragged on the ground, looked at the lake grimly. “The story didn’t go into detail,”

she said. “It just said that they went down, down, down, and that they had to pass

tests of their courage and—and—wittiness—before they got there.”

“Fortunately,” Damon said, smiling, “I have large enough amounts of both to

make up for my brother’s entire lack of either—”

“Stop it, Damon!” Elena burst out. The moment she’d seen the smile, she’d

turned to Stefan, pulled him down to her height, and begun kissing him. She knew

what Damon would see when he turned back toward them—her and Stefan locked

in an embrace, Stefan hardly aware of anything being said. At least they could still

touch with their minds. And it was intriguing, Elena thought, Stefan’s warm mouth

when everything else in the world was cold. She looked quickly at Bonnie, to make

sure she hadn’t upset her, but Bonnie was looking quite cheerful.

The farther I seem to drive Damon away, the happier she is, Elena thought. Oh,

God…this is a problem.

Stefan spoke up quietly. “Bonnie, what it comes down to is that it has to be your

choice. Don’t try to use courage or wit or anything except your inner feelings.

Where do we go?”

Bonnie glanced back at the thurgs, then looked at the lake.

“That way,” she said, without hesitation, and she pointed straight across the lake.

“We’d better carry some of the cooking stones and fuel and backpacks with iron

rations in them,” Stefan said. “That way, if the worst happens, we’ll still have basic

supplies.”

“Besides,” said Elena, “it’ll lighten that thurg’s load—if only by a little.”

It seemed a crime to put a backpack on Bonnie, but she insisted. Finally, Elena

arranged one filled entirely with the warm, curiously light fur clothes. Everyone else

was carrying furs, food, and poop—the dried animal dung that would from now on

be their only fuel.

It was difficult from the first. Elena had only had a couple of experiences with ice

that she had reason to be wary of—but one of those had almost been disastrous

for Matt. She was ready to jump and whirl at any crack—any sound that the ice was

breaking. But there were no cracks; no water flowing up to slosh onto her boots.

The thurgs were the ones who seemed actually built for walking on frozen water.

Their feet were pneumatic, and could spread out to almost half again their original

size, avoiding putting too much pressure on any one section of ice.

Crossing the lake was slow, but Elena didn’t see anything particularly deadly

about it. It was simply the smoothest, slickest ice she had ever encountered. Her

boots wanted to skate.

“Hey, everybody!” Bonnie was skating, exactly as if she were in a rink, backward

and forward and sideways. “This is fun!”

“We’re not here to have fun,” Elena shouted back. She longed to try it herself,

but was afraid to make cuts—even scuffs—in the ice. And beside that, Bonnie was

expending twice as much energy as she needed to.

She was about to call out to Bonnie and tell her this, when Damon, in a voice of

exasperation, made all the points she had thought of, and a few more.

“This isn’t a pleasure cruise,” he said shortly. “It’s for the fate of your town.”

“As if you care,” Elena murmured, turning her back on him and touching the

unhappy Bonnie’s hand both to give comfort and to get them going at arm’s length

again. “Bonnie, do you sense anything magical about the lake?”

“No.” But then Bonnie’s imagination seemed to fly into high gear. “But maybe it’s

where the mystics from both dimensions all gathered to exchange spells. Or maybe

it’s where they used the ice like a real magic mirror to see faraway places and

things.”

“Maybe both of them,” Elena said, secretly amused, but Bonnie nodded solemnly.

And that was when it came. The sound Elena had been waiting for.

Nor was it a distant booming which could be ignored or discussed. They had

been walking at arm’s length from one another to avoid stressing the ice, while the

thurgs walked behind them, and to either side—like a flock of geese with no

leaders.

This noise was a dreadfully near crack like the report of a gun. Immediately, it

sounded again, like a whiplash, and then a crumbling.

It was to Elena’s left, on Bonnie’s side.

“Skate, Bonnie,” she shouted. “Skate as fast as you can. Scream if you see

land.”

Bonnie didn’t ask a single question. She took off like an Olympic speed skater in

front of Elena, and Elena swiftly turned.

It was Biratz, the thurg Bonnie had asked Pelat about. She had one monstrous

back leg in the ice, and as she struggled, more ice cracked.

Stefan! Can you hear me?

Faintly. I’m coming for you.

Yes—but only come as close as you need to Influence the thurg.

Influence the—?

Make her calm, put her out, whatever. She’s ripping up the ice and it’ll just