She knew he was hiding something.

Chapter 15

Bonnie came down the hall of her apartment building slowly, dragging her feet. She was sure the apartment would be empty and that she’d be having dinner alone again. She’d given up on expecting Zander to be there.

As she turned the corner toward her own door, she stopped in surprise. There was someone kneeling in the hall outside her apartment, crouching to push something under the door. Bonnie’s heart thumped hard, adrenaline zinging through her body, and then she realized who it was.

“Hey, Shay,” she said, coming closer. “What’s up?”

Shay, Zander’s second-in-command, looked up, her hands half-crumpling the edge of the envelope she had been slipping through the gap beneath their door. “Oh,” she said. “Bonnie. I was just leaving Zander a note.” Her fingers scrabbled quickly, pulling the envelope back out from beneath the door. Standing, she stuffed the envelope into her pocket.

“Oh.” Zander’s not home. Just as I expected. “I can give it to him.” Bonnie reached out, but Shay stepped back, away from her.

“Never mind,” Shay said. “I’ll tell him when I see him.”

“But—” Bonnie gave up. Shay was already turning, her blond bob swinging, and walking away down the hall. She gave Bonnie a wave over her shoulder, not looking back.

“See you later, Bonnie.”

“Or not,” Bonnie muttered under her breath, unlocking the door. She tossed her keys on the hall table and kicked off her shoes before wandering toward the kitchen. The apartment felt quiet and still. She would have known right away that Zander once again wasn’t home, even if she hadn’t run into Shay.

In the dim kitchen, she drank a glass of water, and then absently arranged the flower-shaped magnets on the refrigerator door: red, blue, yellow, orange, red. The largest one held a note against the door.

B: I’ll be back late. Z

She glared at the note, and with a frustrated sweep of her hand, shoved the magnets so that they made a skittering noise against the smooth white surface of the fridge. Zander’s note fell to the floor. The note told her nothing. It was almost worse than if he hadn’t left her any message at all.

And Bonnie wanted to talk to him, she needed someone levelheaded and laid-back—she needed Zander—to help her figure out what she should do.

When she had used the vampire blood to find Siobhan, it had pulled her along like a whirlwind. Back in high school, when Elena had been trapped by Klaus between life and death, Bonnie had used blood to summon Stefan and Damon back to Fell’s Church. Ethan had brought Klaus back to life, and Klaus had brought Katherine, with blood.

Bonnie knew blood was dangerous and full of Power. She wanted her magic to be full of light and energy, something that pulled on the growing, striving parts of nature. Good magic, not the shadowy ambiguous Power you found with blood and violence.

Still, though…

It was scary. It was a really scary idea, one that made Bonnie a little sick just thinking about it. But she couldn’t get it out of her head. Blood magic might be what Elena needed. If she could reach Stefan, talk to him one more time, it might give Elena peace, help to ease the grief she carried.

Bonnie crossed to the sink and ran herself another glass of cold tap water. Gulping it down, she stared at the wall and tried to clear her mind. It would be worth it, she told herself. Blood wasn’t evil, after all, and she didn’t want to use it for an evil purpose. This was important.

Setting the glass down in the bottom of the sink with a firm thump, Bonnie made up her mind. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and called Elena.

“Listen,” she said when her friend picked up. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but do you have anything with Stefan’s blood still on it?”

After she got off the phone with Bonnie, Elena eased the bedroom door open and peeked in. Damon was asleep on the bed, his long black lashes heavy against his luminous pale skin. With his eyes closed and his cheeks still slightly flushed from drinking her blood, he looked surprisingly young.

Walking as quietly as she could, Elena crept through the room and to her closet. Damon shifted but didn’t wake as she opened the closet door. He must be exhausted; his reflexes were usually as quick as a cat’s. Elena was glad he didn’t wake. She didn’t want him to see this.

Remember how Ethan brought back Klaus? Bonnie had asked.

Blood. It was all about blood. Feeling oddly breathless, Elena peered past hanging clothes, a pile of shoes, until she saw a crumpled paper grocery bag shoved back into the corner. Her chest tight with sorrow, she picked it up and tiptoed out of the room, clutching the bag against her.

She put the bag gently down in the passenger seat of her car and tried not to look at it until she got to Bonnie’s.

When she arrived, she hesitated in the doorway, surprised. Bonnie had used a marker to draw a huge black pentacle across the kitchen table, with strange sigils carefully marked inside. Black candles were placed at each point of the pentacle. A brass bowl full of what looked like herbs and roots sat at its center. Bonnie stood beside the table, shifting anxiously from one foot to the other, her small face drawn with worry.

“That isn’t going to come off,” Elena said, numbly. “You’ve ruined that table.” For a moment, the old wooden kitchen table felt terribly important.

“I don’t care,” Bonnie told her. “Did you find something?”

Elena handed her the bag. “I couldn’t—” she licked her lips nervously. “I couldn’t bear to throw out Stefan’s shirt, or wash it. So I just stuffed it in the back of our closet.”

“Oh.” Bonnie looked down at the bag and then hesitantly opened it and pulled out the black shirt. Elena remembered Stefan wearing the shirt that last night, how soft it had been against her cheek the last time he held her in his arms.

Bonnie’s nose wrinkled, and a slight rotting smell wafted across the table. Elena flinched. That smell was Stefan’s blood. It had been long enough now that it was festering.

“You really think you can use the blood to bring him back, the way Ethan brought Klaus back?” she asked, her voice sounding thin and stretched to her own ears.

Bonnie bit her lip. “I don’t think so,” she confessed. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up too high. Ethan had to use the bloodlines of all the vampires Klaus had made—that’s why he needed Stefan and Damon, because they were what was left of Katherine’s line. But Stefan never made any vampires at all. I do think we can do something, though. Maybe we can bring him back, at least for a little while. Or contact him, if he’s out there somewhere.”

“Long enough to say good-bye,” Elena said softly. Tears were forming in her eyes. “I’d like that.”

“I’ll do everything I can.” Bonnie put the shirt down on the table and reached out to squeeze Elena’s hand. “Is it okay if I cut this shirt? Just to get a piece with some blood on it.” Elena nodded, and Bonnie let go of her hand and picked up the shirt again, along with a pair of silver scissors to snip at it.

Taking a glass of water from the counter, she dunked the cloth into it, and they watched as the water gradually turned a cloudy reddish-brown. Tiny flakes of dried blood floated to the bottom of the glass.

“Now I need some of your blood,” Bonnie said, picking up a black-handled knife from where it lay beside the glass. Elena arched an eyebrow questioningly but held out her arm. The blade stung as Bonnie drew it quickly across Elena’s arm. Bonnie held the glass so that a few drops of Elena’s blood fell into the water and mixed with Stefan’s. They both watched as the bright red of the fresh blood spiraled through the browner liquid.

“Okay, don’t freak out, but I’m going to put some of this on you,” Bonnie said. Elena nodded. Bonnie dipped her finger in the liquid, and Elena squeezed her eyes shut as Bonnie lifted her finger to Elena’s face. The water was cold, and Elena shivered as Bonnie’s finger traced lightly over her cheekbones, marking what felt like angular symbols on her forehead and below her eyes.

“We want to call him to you,” Bonnie told her, and Elena opened her eyes again to see Bonnie tracing circles and runes on her own cheeks with the thin mixture of blood and water. When she had finished, she placed the glass on the table and lit the five black candles. Their flickering light highlighted the wet brownish streaks on her cheeks, making her look like some kind of pagan priestess. “Give me some Power.”

Elena took a deep breath and tried to let her Power expand. Blinking, she could see her own golden aura entwine with the rose-pink of Bonnie’s. Then Bonnie began to chant in a language Elena didn’t recognize, something Germanic-sounding, and picked up the candle at the peak of the pentacle. Shielding the flame with one hand, she dipped the candle and ignited the mixture of herbs inside the brass bowl.

There must have been some kind of accelerant in with the herbs and roots, Elena thought, because flames shot up immediately, blue and green at their base.

“Koma!” Bonnie said firmly. Her voice rose. “Hitta heima! Koma hyrggr! Leita Stefan Salvatore!” The flames burned higher, and with her last words, she upended the glass over them, dumping out the mixture of blood and water. The flames sizzled and went out, sending up a plume of black smoke.

The shadows in the corners of the room seemed to grow darker. A chill crept up Elena’s spine. There was a breathless feeling all around them, as if someone stood just outside their field of vision, waiting to speak.

Stefan? Elena strained her eyes, watching the shadows. Bonnie slipped a cold hand into hers, and they waited. Elena’s heart was pounding, and she held her breath.

He was coming closer, she was sure of it. She could feel him, that indefinable, comforting feeling that Stefan was somewhere nearby. It was like coming into a room and knowing he was around the corner, just out of sight. Elena’s mouth was dry with anticipation.

Slowly, the feeling faded. After a moment, the room grew brighter again. Somehow, it seemed emptier. Elena took a deep, rough breath, her hands shaking. It hadn’t worked, she realized. Whatever had hovered at the edges of the room had departed. Elena swallowed hard. It hadn’t worked. Nothing was going to work, she realized, coldness spreading through her. Stefan was gone. Forever.

Bonnie looked at Elena, her eyes wet, and took a great gasp of air, letting go of Elena’s hand. “I’m sorry, Elena,” she said.

Elena sagged against the edge of the table and closed her eyes. She shouldn’t have hoped, she knew. But, just for a minute, Stefan had seemed so close. Her eyes burned with tears, and one slid from beneath her lids and trickled down her cheek.

Immediately, she felt Bonnie’s arms twine around her neck. “I’m so sorry,” Bonnie whispered, her voice shaking.

“I know,” Elena said, bending to rest her face against the smaller girl’s shoulder. “It’s okay. I’m just—” Her voice broke with a miserable half-laugh. “I’m so tired of crying all the time.”

Bonnie sighed, and hugged her tighter. “I know,” she said, her voice thick with tears of her own.

Chapter 16

Meredith watched carefully as two of Jack’s vampires sparred. After a series of hunts, they were back in the warehouse where she’d first found Jack and joined his team.

“Again,” she said, and they lunged at each other. Jack had asked her to help make them better fighters, and she hoped it meant he was starting to trust her, to depend on her. She was conscious of Jack shadowing her as she walked around the fighters. Even when she wasn’t looking at Jack, she was hyperaware of him, a prickling at the back of her neck letting her know that his dark eyes were fixed on her.

Soon, maybe, he’d be ready to tell her his secrets.

Broad-chested, stocky Conrad went in with his fists as she’d expected, telegraphing his moves so obviously that anyone could have seen them from about a hundred miles away. Nick, lanky and alert, blocked each blow easily and repeatedly.

“Stop,” Meredith said. She’d seen enough. Sliding between them, she put a hand on each side of Conrad’s face. “You’re looking where you’re planning to strike. Keep your eyes on Nick’s, and he won’t be able to guess your next move so easily. Trust your peripheral vision.”

Nick smirked at Conrad, and she stepped back so she could talk to both of them. “Neither of you is using your feet at all. You’re more agile now, you need to trust that.” She showed them how to do a roundhouse kick and watched as they tried it out, nodding approvingly when Conrad landed a solid blow, sending Nick stumbling backward, and Nick returned a solid kick. “Good.”

She told them to continue sparring and watched with satisfaction as Conrad slipped a punch past Nick’s blocking—they were learning fast.