Midnight

Two long, black, velvet-lined boxes with yel owing cylinders of papyrus or paper inside them, one with a pure black rose lying next to it, and the other with a simple spray of light springtime-green leaves. Elena knew what the yel owed documents with their cracked waxen seals were. The deeds to the field of black roses and the kitsune paradise.

When you saw al the treasures together like this, it almost seemed too much, Elena thought. Any one object from any one of the Seven – no, now Six – kitsune Treasures was enough to trade worlds for. One sprig of the Royal Radhika, which was even now being returned, (pink larkspur changing to a white orchid) properly potted again, was immeasurably precious. So was a single velvety black rose, with its power to hold the most powerful of magics. One jewel from the hoard in the mining cavern, maybe a double-fist-sized diamond that put the Star of Africa and the Golden Jubilee to shame. One day in the kitsune paradise, where a day could seem like a perfect lifetime. One sip of that effervescent water that could make a human live as long as the oldest Old One…

Of course there should also have been the largest star bal in existence, ful of eldritch Power, but Elena was hoping that the Guardians would overlook that.

Hoping? She wondered and shook her head at nothing, causing Bonnie to squeeze her hand tightly. Not hoping. She didn’t dare hope. Not a breath yet.

Another attendant, red-haired, flashing them a cold green-eyed look, picked up the plastic gal on bottle that said Sector 3 Water on the label. Sage rumbled as she left, "Qu’est-ce qui lui prend? I mean, what is her problem? I like the water in the vampire sector. I don’t like the pump water in the Nether World."

Elena had already figured out the color code for the Guardians. The blond ones were al business, impatient only with delays. The dark ones were the kindest – maybe there was less work for them to do in the Nether World. The green-eyed redheads were just plain bitchy. Unfortunately, the young woman on the central throne up there on the dais was a redhead.

"Bonnie?"she whispered.

Bonnie had to gulp and sniff before she could get out, "Yes?"

"Have I ever told you how much I like your eyes?"

Bonnie gave her a long brown-eyed gaze before beginning to shake with laughter. At least it started out like laughter, and then Bonnie burrowed her head into Elena’s shoulder and simply shook.

Stefan squeezed Elena’s hand. "She’s been trying so hard – for you. She – she loved him too, you see. I didn’t even know that. I guess…I guess I’ve just been blind on al sides."

He ran his free hand through his already-tousled hair. He looked very young, like a little boy who had been suddenly punished for doing something he hadn’t been told was wrong. Elena remembered him in the backyard of the boardinghouse, dancing with her feet on his feet, and then in his attic room, kissing her hands, her knuckles bruised with hammering, the pulsing inside of her wrists. She wanted to tel him that everything was going to be All right, that the laughter would come back to his eyes, but she couldn’t stand the chance of lying to him.

Suddenly Elena felt like a very, very old woman, who could hear and see only dimly, whose every movement caused her terrible pain, and who was cold inside. Her every joint and every bone was fil ed with ice.

At last, when al the treasures, including a sparkling, diamond-set, golden Master Key, had been taken up for the young women on the thrones to handle, heft, examine, and discuss, a warm-eyed dark-skinned woman came to Elena’s group. "You may approach Their High Judgments now.

And,"she added in a voice as soft as the stroke of a dragonfly’s wing, "they are very, very impressed. That doesn’t often happen. Speak meekly and keep your heads low and I think you shal have your hearts’desires."

Something inside Elena gave a bound that would have sent her leaping to clutch at the retreating attendant’s robe, but fortunately Stefan had her in an embrace of iron. Bonnie’s head came off Elena’s shoulder, and Elena had to restrain her, in turn.

They walked, the very portrait of meekness, to where four scarlet cushions blazed against the golden weave of the floor cloth. Once, Elena would have refused to abase herself.

Now, she was thankful for a soft resting place for her knees.

This close, she could see that the rulers each wore a circlet of some metal, from which a single stone hung on to her forehead.

"We have considered your petition,"the dark one said, her white-gold circlet with its diamond pendant dazzling Elena with pinpricks of lilac and red and royal blue. "Oh, yes,"she added, laughing. "We know what you want. Even a Guardian on the street would have to be very bad at her job not to know. You want your town…renewed. The burned buildings rebuilt. The victims of the malach pestilence re-created, their souls swathed again in flesh, and their memories – "

"But, first,"interrupted the fair one, waving a hand, "don’t we have business at hand? This girl – Elena Gilbert – may not be eligible to be a spokesman for her group. If she becomes a Guardian, she doesn’t belong with the petitioners."

The redhead tossed her head like an impatient fil y, causing the rose gold of her circlet to flash, and its ruby to shimmer.

"Oh, go on then, Ryannen. If your recruitment levels are so low – "

The businesslike fair one ignored this, but bent forward, some of her hair held back from her face by her circlet of yel ow gold with its sapphire pendant. "What about it, Elena?

I know our first encounter was – unfortunate. You must believe that I am sorry for that. But you were well on your way to becoming a ful Guardian when we had orders from Above to weave you into a new body so that you could take up your life as a human again."