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Elena couldn’t bring herself to care.
“Damon is coming after my friends,” she said to Stefan, gripping his sleeve even more tightly. “It’s all because of me. We have to protect them.”
“I know,” Stefan said. His leaf-green gaze was steady and reassuring. “Come back to the boardinghouse with me. We’ll figure something out.”
On the drive to the boardinghouse, Elena noticed how vividly red and yellow the leaves of the trees at the side of the road were getting. The long winding drive up to Mrs. Flowers’ boardinghouse was lined with graceful birch trees whose golden leaves glowed like candles. Elena shivered. Halloween was coming soon. They were running out of time.
The old redbrick boardinghouse was dark and silent. Stefan unlocked one of the oak double doors and led Elena up the flight of stairs ahead of them. On the second-story landing, Elena turned automatically to the right, putting a hand on the knob of the door to the bedroom there.
Stefan went still as he stared at Elena. “How did you know which way to go?” he asked.
Oops. When Stefan had brought her here after Homecoming, they had gone in to his room via the balcony. Elena had never been up these stairs before. Not in this version of her life, anyway. “Just guessing,” she said tentatively, and stood back to let him pass.
Stefan’s lips thinned suspiciously, but he didn’t say anything else. Elena meekly followed him through the bedroom and stood by as he opened what looked like a closet, revealing the flight of stairs that led up to his room.
Elena and Stefan stepped out of the stairway and into his dimly lit room. Stefan stopped dead, horror on his face. His room was destroyed. The heavy trunks that had stood between the windows were overturned, their lids smashed. Books cascaded from a broken bookcase, their covers dirty and torn as if they’d been stamped on. The blankets that had lain on Stefan’s narrow bed were shredded. A cold breeze blew through the room from a smashed window at the far end.
“My God,” Elena whispered. Damon must have done this.
The heavy mahogany dresser by the window was the only piece of furniture still standing, seemingly undamaged. Centered on its top stood a simple black iron box with a curving lid.
Stefan brushed past Elena and flung open the box. And then he froze, staring down into it.
“Stefan?” asked Elena softly after a moment. He didn’t move or answer, and she wasn’t sure if he had heard her. Stepping up beside him, she looked first at his face. It was even paler than usual, set in grim lines as if carved out of stone. His eyes, dark and stormy, stared unblinkingly down into the iron coffer, and Elena followed his gaze.
The box was empty.
Elena instantly understood. The iron box was where Stefan had kept his most precious things, the objects that recorded all his long, lonely history. His father’s watch, carried by Stefan since the fifteenth century. The ivory dagger he had been given for his thirteenth birthday. Golden coins from his homeland. An agate-and-silver cup his mother, dead at Stefan’s birth, had once treasured. Katherine’s lapis lazuli ring. In a different time, a silk ribbon from Elena’s hair.
All his treasures, gone. Elena looked back up at Stefan, but the words of sympathy she was about to say died on her lips. Stefan’s face was no longer blank and cold. Instead, it was twisted in silent fury, his lips drawn back in a snarl.
He didn’t look human, not anymore.
“I’ll kill him,” Stefan growled, his canines lengthening. “Damon destroys everything. For the fun of it.”
Elena turned on her heel and raced down the stairs. “Mrs. Flowers!” she called as she hit the second floor. “Mrs. Flowers, where are you?” She stopped and listened, frustrated. Despite the many times she’d been in this house, she had never quite gotten a mental map of Mrs. Flowers’ quarters, and the old witch woman wasn’t especially likely to come when she was called.
“What is it, girl?” The voice was cold and clear, and Elena whipped around, her heart pounding. Stefan’s landlady stood at the far end of the hall, a small, stooped figure, all in black.
“Mrs. Flowers,” Elena said desperately, going toward her. “Someone was in Stefan’s room. Did you see anyone?”
Mrs. Flowers was wise, and her magic was incredibly strong. But now the frail old lady looked at her warily, with no sign of recognition, and Elena remembered with dismay that, in this time, they had never met before.
“The message is for Stefan,” Mrs. Flowers said clearly, in a slightly singsong voice, as if she was reciting from memory. Elena’s heart sank further. Damon must have compelled her to let him in and deliver his message.
“I’m here,” Stefan said from behind Elena. “Give me the message.” He looked furious, still, but intensely weary. It was as if all the years, all the centuries, were catching up with him all at once.
“Damon says that you’ve taken something of his, and so he will take everything you have,” Mrs. Flowers said, her face impassive. “Your precious things are his now.”
“I never belonged to him,” Elena said indignantly. “And I don’t belong to Stefan. I’m not a thing.”
But Mrs. Flowers, her message delivered, was already drifting back into her private part of the house, her long black shawl fl
uttering behind her.
Stefan’s jaw was clenched tight, his fists balled and his green eyes dark. Elena didn’t think she had ever seen him so angry, not in all the years she had known and loved him.
If, as Elena thought, Stefan and Damon carried each other’s humanity … if it was the love between the brothers that was the key to Elena being able to change Damon and save them all …
