Midnight

"No."But then Bonnie’s imagination seemed to fly into high gear. "But maybe it’s where the mystics from both dimensions al gathered to exchange spel s. 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 dreadful y 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 make it harder to get her out!

This time there was a pause before Stefan’s answer came.

She knew though, by faint echoes, that he was talking telepathical y with someone else. All right, love, I’ll do it. I’ll take care of the thurg, too. You follow Bonnie.

He was lying. Or, not lying, but keeping something from her.

The person he’d been sending thoughts to was Damon. They were humoring her. They didn’t mean to help at all.

Just at that moment she heard a shril scream – not so far away. It was Bonnie in trouble – no! Bonnie had found land!

Elena didn’t lose another second. She dumped her backpack on the ice and skated straight back to the thurg.

There it was, so huge, so pathetic, so helpless. The very thing that had kept it safe from other Godawful Hel acious monsters in the Dark Dimension – its great bulk – was now turned against it. Elena felt her chest tighten as if she were wearing a corset.

Even as she watched, though, the animal became calmer.

She stopped trying to get her left hind leg out of the ice, which meant that she stopped churning up the ice around it.

Now Biratz was in a sort of crouching position, trying to keep her three dry legs from going under. The problem was that she was trying too hard, and that there was nothing to push against except breakable ice.

"Elena!"Stefan was within earshot now. "Don’t get any closer!"

But even as he said it, Elena saw a Sign. Just a few feet away, lying on the ice was the tickle-prod that Pelat had used to get the thurgs going.

She picked it up as she skated by and then she saw another Sign. Reddish hay and the original covering for the hay – a giant tarpaulin – were lying behind the thurg. Together they formed a broad wide path that was neither wet nor slick.

"Elena!"

"This is going to be easy, Stefan!"

Elena pul ed a pair of dry socks out of her pocket and drew them up over her boots. She fastened the tickle stick to her belt. And then she started the run of her life.

Her boots were fur with something like felt underneath and with the socks to aid them, they caught on the tarpaulin and propel ed her forward. She leaned into it, vaguely wishing Meredith were here, so she could do this instead, but al the time getting closer. And then she saw her mark: the end of the tarp and beyond it floating chunks of ice.

But the thurg looked climbable. Very low in back, like a dinosaur halfway into a tar pit, but then rising up along the curved backbone. If she could just somehow land there…

Two steps til jump-off. One step til jump-off.

JUMP!

Elena pushed off with her right foot, flew through the air for an endless time, and – hit the water.

Instantly, she was soaked from head to foot and the shock of the icy water was unbelievable. It caught hold of her like some monster with a handful of jagged ice shards. It blinded her with her own hair, it squeezed al the sound out of the universe.

Somehow, clawing at her face, she freed her mouth and eyes from hair. She realized that she was only slightly below the surface of the water, and that was al she needed to push upward until her mouth broke the surface and she could suck in a lungful of delicious air, after which she had a coughing fit.

First time up, she thought, remembering the old superstition that a drowning person wil rise three times and then sink forever.

But the strange thing was that she wasn’t sinking. There was a dul pain in her thigh but she wasn’t going under.

Slowly, slowly, she realized what had happened. She had missed the back of the thurg, but landed on its thick reptilian tail. One of the serrated fins had gashed her, but she was stable.

So…now…al I have to do is climb the thurg, she puzzled out slowly. Everything seemed slow because there were icebergs bobbing around her shoulders.

She put up a fur-lined gloved hand and reached for the next fin up. The water, while making her soaking clothes heavier, supported some of her weight. She managed to pul herself up to the next fin. And the next. And then here was the rump, and she had to be careful – no more footholds. Instead she grabbed for handholds and found something with her left hand. A broken strap from the hay carrier.

Not a good idea – in retrospect.

For a few minutes that qualified as among the worst in her life she was showered with hay, pounded with rocks, and smothered in the dust of old dung.