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"It’s not a problem,"the fair ruler, Ryannen, said unexpectedly "We can make it so that your Mr Tanner repel ed an apparent vampire attack and the school cal ed in Alaric Saltzht, Idola?" - to the redhead, and to the dark one - "All right, Susurre?"

Elena wasn’t All right Despite the exa and sche Al she kneas that her voice had gone husky and that tears blurred her eyes "Andfor the Master Key - I want - "

Stefan squeezed her hand Elena suddenly realized that they were al standing, al three of them, beside her And the look on every face was the same Dead resolve

"I want Damon back"Elena hadn’t heard quite this note in her voice since the day she’d been told both her parents had died If there had been a table, she would have put her clenched fists on it and did her best to loom over the wo in a low and grating voice "If you do that - bring him back, exactly as he was before he walked into the Gatehouse - then you get the Master Key and the treasures You say no - and you lose everything Everything This is non-negotiable, get it?"

She kept staring into Idola’s green eyes She refused to see dark Susurre drop her forehead onto three fingertips and begin to rub it in slance to blond Ryannen, as looking at her steadily, having gone into people-reen eyes under their wil ful eyebrows Idola gave a little huff and shook her gorgeous head

"Look, so you for this interview"A glance at Susurre "The other things you’ve asked for - al together, it forms a very heavy ransom Do you understand that? Do you understand that it involves changing the meing the everything in print about Fel ’s Church - and that there is a lot in print - not tofor three huain I’m not sure we even have the personnel for this - "

Blond Ryannen put a hand on the redhead’s arm "We have it Susurre’s women have little to do in the Nether World I can lend you perhaps thirty percent ofto have to send up a petition to a higher Court for those spirits - "

Idola the redhead interrupted "All right What I was saying is that we e - if you throw in the Key However, your vaive life back to the lifeless We can’t ith vaone"

"That’s what you tell us!"Stefan cried, trying to get in front of Elena "But why are we so particularly damned, of al creatures? How do you know it’s impossible? Have you ever even tried? "

Red-haired Idola was esture, when Bonnie interrupted, her voice shaking "It’s ridiculous! You can rebuild a town, you can kil the person who’s real y behind al Shinichi and Misao did, but you can’t bring one little vaht Elena back!"

"Elena’s death as a vainal y ave orders to Shinichi and Misao: It was Inari Saitou -

Obaasan Saitou, as you knew her - and she is already dead, thanks to your friends in Fel ’s Church, eakened her -

and to you, who destroyed her star bal "

"Inari? Youit was her star bal in the Great Tree’s trunk? That’s impossible!"Bonnie cried

"No, it’s not It’s the truth,"blond Ryannen said si battle which nearly kil ed your friends Yes - but what actual y killed her was having her star bal destroyed"

"So,"dark Susurre said quietly, "if you fol ow the curvein a way your Damon did die to save Fel ’s Church from anotherthat hat he’d come to the Nether World to do

Do you not think he would besatisfied? At peace?"

"At peace?"Stefan spat bitterly, and Sage growled

"Woman,"he said, "you obviously have never met Damon Salvatore before"The tone in his voice -somehow - made Elena final y break off her staredoith the red-haired Idola She turned and looked - - and saw the enors

They weren’t like any of her ephee They were velvety and reptilian, and, unfurled like this, they stretched fro They also dee didn’t usual y wear shirts

He was beautiful this way, bronze skin and hair against those giant, leathery soft-looking arches But Elena, after one look at him, knew that the time had come to play the ace up her sleeve She turned around to aze squarely

"Al this ti for a Gatehouse ful of treasures,"she said, "and - one Master Key"

"A Master Key, stolen by the kitsune ages upon ages ago,"Susurre explained quietly, lifting her dark eyes

"And you’ve said that it’s not enough for you to bring Damon back"Elena forced her voice not to waver

"Not even if it were your only request"Ryannen tossed a golden lock of hair over her shoulder

"So you say Butwhat if I throw into the potanother Master Key?"

There was a pause, and Elena’s heart began to pound in sick terror Because it was the wrong kind of pause There were no shocked gasps No astonished glances from one Guardian ruler to another No looks of disbelief

After another ly, "If you mean the other stolen key that your friends had on Earth - it was confiscated as soon as they hid it It was stolen property It belonged to us"

She’s been here too long, in the Dark Diht with one part of herherself

Idola leaned toward her, as if to confiruess "It - simply - is not - possible,"she said emphatical y

"Real y, it isn’t,"the fair Ryannen added briskly "We don’t knohat happens to vah our purview We never see theo out"She snapped her fingers

"I don’t believe that!" Elena are that her voice had risen in volume "I don’t believe that for one moment!"

Voices, not attached to anyone in particular, burst into a cla a sort of poem: Not possible It’s sione, and to ask where is like asking where a candle flaoes when it’s blown out ( But shouldn’t you try to bring hiratitude? You four should be grateful that the other things you asked for can be done ( But in exchange for both Master Keys - ) No Poe can co Damon back! Elena must try to reconcile herself to reality

She has been paain? ) All right! If youcaone! His spirit was nowhere to be found in the ether! That is what happens to va down at her own hands, which were very clean but with broken nails and every knuckle bleeding The outside world had becorief, struggling with the knowledge that Idola, the central ruler of Guardians, hadn’t even mentioned before that they had looked for Daone

Suddenly, the rooh air There were only these woical Guardian woic to save Dah to try twice

She wasn’t sure as happening to her Her throat felt puffed out, her chest was both huge and tight Each heartbeat sounded through her as if trying to shake her to death

To death In her lass of Clarion Loess Black Magic

And then, Elena knew that she had to stand a certain way, and hold her arms a certain way, and whisper certain words in her ownof the spel , had only to be said aloud at the end

At the end - when things slowed When green-eyed Idola -

what a perfect naht - and fair businesslike Ryannen and nurturing Susurre - al stared at her with open er as, quietly and cals of Destruction - "

It was a soldier, just an ordinary one of the rank and file, one of the dark women, who stopped it She leaped up onto the dais, and, with inhuman speed, slapped her hand over Elena’s olden, green, and blue hal did not explode into frag in rivulets like lava, and the flower-fountain did not vaporize, and the stained-glass s didn’t shatter into ato her down, scarcely letting her breathe, even when she went liht like an animal, with her teeth and nails, to escape But she eventual y was coe’s deep voice raging and Stefan, in between desperate telepathic bursts to her, pleading and explaining, "She’s Stillnot in reality! She doesn’t even knohat she’s doing!"

But louder, she could hear the voices of the Guardians "She would have kil ed us al !""Those Wings - I’ve never seen anything so deadly!""A human! And with just three words, she could have wiped us out!""If Lenea hadn’t tackled her - ""Or if she had been another few feet away - ""She destroyed a moon, you know! No life on it at allnow, and ashes Stillfal ing from the sky!""That isn’t the point The point is that she shouldn’t have Wings powers at all She’s got to be clipped of thenized Ryannen’s and Idola’s voices at the end there She was Stilltrying to fight, but they held her so tightly and piled on her so ruthlessly that it had becoet air and al she did was exhaust herself

And then they clipped her Wings It was quick, at least, and Elena felt very little What hurt ht out with the fighting, and now she was ashas of Redes of Purification, white and iridescent as frosted cobwebs Wings of the Wind, like honey-colored thistledown Wings of Res of Protection - es that had saved her friends from Bloddeuwedd’s frenzied attack on them the first tis of Destruction - high, ebony arches with edges as delicate as black lace

Elena tried to keep silent as each poas taken But after the first one or two had fal en at her sides, in shadows that perhaps only she could see, she heard a sasp, and realized that it was her own voice And with the next cut, an involuntary little cry

For a moment there was silence And then suddenly there was overwhel, and Stefan, gentle Stefan, shouting blaspheuessed fro theet to her

He reached her, sos of Destruction were sheared froround It was good that he did reach her then, because at last, when Elena was the least dangerous she had been since the Powers of Wings had begun awakening in her, suddenly the Guardians seeerous women, and only Stefan was there to catch her and hold her in his arirl as ordinary Except for her blood They wanted to rob her of her blood as wellto "purify"it The three rulers and their attendants had already gathered in a deter theirover Stefan’s shoulder, could see his Stillspread fro to him like a bit of stray dandelion fluff "You have already dirowled "If you ’purify’the blood of this pauvre petite completely, she wil die - and then she aken You wil have created un vampire, Mesdames Is that what you wish?"

Susurre reeled back For the ruler of such a harsh and unyielding realentle - but not too soft to shear offher shoulders to ease them Maybe she didn’t kno uely

Then al herwar down the back of her neck, in tiny droplets Not blood No, this was infinitely more precious than what the Guardians had taken away

Stefan’s tears

She rocked hard, trying to take her oeight on her feet