by Smith, L. J.
Do you know how old she is? Elena almost jumped to hear Damon’s voice in her head.
Who? Elena replied, trying at least to keep her envy—her worry—out of her telepathic voice. And am I projecting that loudly? she added in alarm.
Not all that loudly, but it never hurts to tune it down. And you know perfectly well “who”: that giraffe you were eyeing, Damon replied. For your information, she’s about two hundred years older than I am, and she’s trying to look around thirty, which is ten years younger than when she became a vampire.
Elena blinked. What are you trying to say?
Send some Power to your ears, Damon suggested. And stop worrying!
Elena obediently increased slightly the Power to what she still thought of as her burst ear nodes, and conversations suddenly became audible all around her.
…oh, the goddess in white. She’s just a child, but what a figure…
…yes, the one with the golden hair. Magnificent, isn’t she?…Oh, by Hades, look at that girl……Did you see the prince and princess over there? I wonder if they’d swap…or—or—do a quartet, dear?
This was more like what Elena was used to hearing at parties. It gave her more confidence. It also, as she allowed her eyes to sweep more boldly across the opulently costumed crowed, caused her to feel a sudden surge of love and respect for Lady Ulma, who had designed and overseen the construction of three glorious dresses in only a week.
She’s a genius, Elena informed Damon solemnly, knowing that through their mindlink he would see who she meant. Look, Meredith already has a crowd around her. And…and…
And she’s not acting much like Meredith at all, Damon finished, sounding slightly uneasy.
Meredith didn’t seem uneasy in the least. She had her face turned deliberately to show off a classical profile to her admirers, but it wasn’t the profile of level-headed, serene Meredith Sulez at all. It was a sultry, exotic girl, who looked as if she might very well be able to sing the Habanera from Carmen. She had her fan open and was gracefully, languorously fanning herself. The soft but warm indoor lighting made her bare shoulders and arms gleam like pearl above the black velvet dress, which seemed even more mysterious and striking than it had back at home. In fact, it seemed to have stricken one devotee to the heart already; he was kneeling before her with a red rose in his hand, so hastily picked from one of the arrangements that a thorn had pricked him and blood welled from his thumb. Meredith didn’t seem to have noticed. Both Elena and Damon felt for the young man, who was blond and extremely handsome. Elena felt sorry…and Damon felt hungry.
She certainly seems to have come out of her shell, ventured Damon.
Oh, Meredith doesn’t ever really come out, Elena replied. It’s all playacting. But tonight I think it’s the dresses that are doing it. Meredith is dressed like a siren, and so she’s acting all sultry. Bonnie’s dressed like a peacock and…look.
She nodded down the long hallway that led to a huge room in front of them. Bonnie, dressed in what looked like real peacock feathers, had a crowd of her own followers—and that was just what they were doing: following. Bonnie’s every movement was light and birdlike and her jade bracelets clinked together on her small rounded arms, her earrings chimed with each toss of her head, and her feet seemed to twinkle in golden sandals in front of her peacock train.
“You know, it’s strange,” Elena murmured, as they reached the large room and at last sound was muted so she could hear Damon’s physical voice. “I didn’t realize it, but Lady Ulma designed our dresses at different levels of the animal world.”
“Hm?” Damon was looking at her throat again. But fortunately at that moment a handsome man dressed in formal Earth clothes—tuxedo, cummerbund, and so on—came by with Black Magic in large silver goblets. Damon drained his in one gulp and took another from the gracefully bowing waiter. Then he and Elena took seats—on the outside of the back row, even if this was a rudeness to their hostess. They needed to be free to maneuver.
“Well, Meredith is a mermaid, which is the highest order, and she’s acting like a siren. Bonnie is a bird, so that’s the next highest order, and she is acting like a bird: watching all the boys display themselves while she keeps laughing. And I’m a butterfly—so I suppose I’ll be a social butterfly tonight. With you beside me, I hope.”
“How…cute,” Damon said heavily. “But what exactly makes you think you’re supposed to be a butterfly?”
“Well, the designs, silly,” Elena said, and she lifted her mother-of-pearl and gold and diamond fan and gave him a tiny butterfly rap on the forehead with it. Then she opened it to show him a masterly sketch of the same design as her necklace on its front, decorated with tiny dots of diamond, gold, and mother-of-pearl where they would not be harmed by the folds.
“You see? A butterfly,” she said, not displeased with the image.
Damon traced the outline with one long, tapering finger that reminded her so much of Stefan’s that it hurt her throat, and stopped at six stylized lines above the head. “Since when do butterflies have hair?” His finger moved to two horizontal lines between the wings. “Or arms?”
“Those are legs,” Elena told him, amused. “What kind of thing with arms and legs and a head has six hairs and wings?”
“A tipsy vampire,” suggested a voice above them and Elena looked up, surprised to see Sage. “May I sit with you?” he asked. “I couldn’t manage a shirt, but my fairy godmother did conjure up a vest.”
Elena, laughing, scooted over a seat so that he could take the aisle seat by Damon. He was much cleaner than when she had last seen him working around the house, although his hair was still in long wild unruly curls. She noted however, that his fairy godmother had scented him with cedar and sandalwood, and provided him with Dolce & Gabbana jeans and vest. He looked…magnifique. There was no sign of his animals.
“I thought you weren’t coming,” Elena said to him.
“You can say that? Garbed as you are in celestial white and gold? You mentioned the gala; I took your wish as a command.”
Elena giggled. Of course, everyone was treating her differently tonight. It was the dress. Sage, murmuring something about his latent heterosexuality, swore that the image on her necklace and fan was a phoenix. The very polite demon on her right, who had deep mauve skin and small, curling white horns, deferentially submitted that it looked to him like the goddess Ishtar, who had apparently sent him to the Dark Dimension a few millennia ago for tempting people to sloth. Elena made a mental note to ask Meredith whether this meant tempting them to eat sloths, which she knew were some kind of wild animal that didn’t move around much, or something else.
Then Elena thought that Lady Ulma had called the dress a “goddess dress,” hadn’t she? It was certainly a dress you could only wear if your body was very young and very close to perfection, because there was no way to fit corsetry into it or even to drape it to minimize an unflattering feature. The only things under the dress were Elena’s own firm young physique and a pair of scant, soft flesh-colored lace underwear. Oh, and a spray of jasmine perfume.
So it’s a goddess I feel like, she thought, thanking the demon (who stood and bowed). People were taking their seats for the Silver Nightingale’s first performance. Elena had to admit to a longing to see Lady Fazina, and besides, it was too early to try for a restroom trip—Elena had already noticed that guards were posted at all the doors.
There were two harps on a dais in the middle of a great circle of chairs. And then suddenly everyone was on their feet and clapping, and Elena would have seen nothing, if the Lady Fazina had not chosen to walk down the same aisle Elena and Damon had taken. As it was, she paused right beside Sage to acknowledge the roar of acclamation, and Elena had a perfect view of her.
She was a lovely young woman, who to Elena’s surprise looked hardly older than twenty, and was nearly as small as Bonnie. This diminutive creature obviously took her sobriquet very seriously: she was dressed entirely in a gown of silver mesh. Her hair was metall
ic silver, too, swept high in front and very short in back. Her train was barely attached to her, by two simple clasps at the shoulders. It floated horizontally behind her, constantly in motion, more like a moonbeam or a cloud than like real material until she got to the central dais and ascended it, then walked once around the tall uncovered harp, at which point the suspended part of the cape fell softly and gracefully to the floor in a semicircle around her.
And then came the magic of the Silver Nightingale’s voice. She began by playing the tall harp, which seemed even taller in comparison to her small body. She could make the harp sing under her fingers, coax it to cry like the wind or make music that seemed to descend from heaven in glissandos. Elena wept throughout her first song, even though it was sung in some foreign language. It was so piercingly sweet that it reminded Elena of Stefan, of the times they had been together, communicating by only the softest words and touches…
But Lady Fazina’s most impressive instrument was her voice. Her tiny body could generate an extraordinary volume when she wanted it to. And as she sang one poignant, minor-tuned song after another, Elena could feel her skin break out into gooseflesh, and a trembling in her legs. She felt that at any moment she might fall to her knees as the melodies filled her heart.
When someone touched her from behind, Elena started violently, brought back too quickly from the fantasy world the music had woven around her. But it was only Meredith, who despite her own love for music had a very practical suggestion for their group.
“I was going to say, why not start now, while everyone else is listening?” she whispered. “Even the guards are out of it. We agreed on two by two, yes?”
Elena nodded. “We’re just having a look around the house. We may even find something while everyone is still here, listening, for nearly another hour. Sage, maybe you could sort of liaise between the two groups, telepathically.”
“It would be my privilege, Madame.”
The five of them set out into the Silver Nightingale’s mansion.
28
They walked right by the weeping door-guards. But very quickly, they discovered that while almost everyone was listening to Lady Fazina, in each room of the palace that was open to the public, a black-clad, white-gloved steward awaited, ready to give out information, and to keep a watchful eye on his lady’s possessions.
The first room that gave them any kind of hope was Lady Fazina’s Hall of Harpery, a room devoted entirely to the display of harps, from ancient, bowlike, single-stringed instruments, undoubtedly played by individuals who were similar to cavedwellers, to tall, gilded, orchestral harps like the one Fazina was now playing, the music audible throughout the palace. Magic, Elena thought again. They seem to use it here instead of technology.
“Each kind of harp has a unique key to tune the strings,” Meredith whispered, looking down the length of the hall. On each side the line of harps marched into the distance. “One of those keys might be the key.”
“But how will we even know?” Bonnie was fanning herself lightly with her peacock feather fan. “What’s the difference between a harp key and the fox key?”
“I don’t know. And I’ve never heard of a key being kept in a harp, either. It would rattle around the sound box every time the harp shifted slightly,” Meredith admitted.
Elena bit her lip. It was such a simple, reasonable question. She should feel dismayed, should be wondering how they could ever find one small half of a key in this place. Especially considering that the clue they had—that it was in the Silver Nightingale’s instrument, suddenly seemed absurd.
“I don’t suppose,” Bonnie said a little giddily, “that the instrument is her voice, and that if we reach down her throat…”
Elena turned to look at Meredith, who was looking heavenward—or at whatever was above this hideous dimension. “I know,” Meredith said. “No more drinks for birdbrain here. Although I suppose it’s possible that they give out little silver whistles or instruments as favors—all big parties used to do that, you know—give you a gift.”
“How,” Damon said in a carefully expressionless tone, “would they possibly get the key into a favor for a party being given at least weeks away, and how could they ever hope to retrieve it? Misao might as well have told Elena, ‘We threw the key away.’”
“Well,” began Meredith, “I’m not at all sure that they did mean for the keys to be retrievable, even by them. And Misao could have meant ‘You’d have to search all the garbage from the night of this gala’—or some other party Fazina performed at. I imagine she gets asked to play at a lot of other people’s parties, too.”
Elena hated bickering, even though she was a champion bickerer herself. But she was a goddess tonight. Nothing was impossible. If only she could remember…
Something like white lightning struck her brain.
For just an instant—one instant—she was back, struggling with Misao. Misao was in her fox form, biting and scratching—and snarling out a reply to Elena’s question about where the two halves of the fox key were. “As if you would understand the answers I could give. If I told you that one was inside the silver nightingale’s instrument, would that give you any kind of idea?”
Yes. Those had been the exact words, the real words that Misao had spoken. Elena heard her own voice, repeating the words distinctly now.
And then she felt something like an arc of lightning leave her mind—only to meet another’s not far away. The next thing she knew her eyes were flying open in surprise because Bonnie was speaking in that blank toneless way she always did when making a prophecy:
“Each half of the fox key is shaped like a single fox, with two ears, two eyes, and a snout. The two fox key halves are gold and covered with gems—and their eyes are green. The key you seek is yet in the Silver Nightingale’s instrument.”
“Bonnie!” Elena said. She could see that Bonnie’s knees were trembling, her eyes unfocused. Then they opened and Elena watched as confusion surged in to fill the blankness.
“What’s going on?” Bonnie said, looking around to see everyone looking at her. “What—what happened?”
“You told us what the fox keys look like!” Elena couldn’t help this exclamation—almost a shout of joy. Now that they knew what they were looking for they could free Stefan; they would free Stefan. Nothing would stop Elena now. Bonnie had just helped move this quest to an entirely different level.
But while she was quaking inside with joy at the prophecy, Meredith, in her own level-headed way, was taking care of the prophet. Meredith said quietly, “She’s probably going to faint. Would you please…”
Meredith didn’t have to ask further, for the vampires, Damon and Sage, were each quick enough to catch and support Bonnie on opposite sides. Damon was staring down at the diminutive girl in surprise.
“Thanks, Meredith,” Bonnie said, and let out a breath, blinking. “I don’t think I’ll faint,” she added, and then with a glance up at Damon through her lashes, “But it’s probably just as well to make sure.”
Damon nodded and got a better grip, looking serious. Sage turned half away, seeming to have something stuck in his throat.
“What did I say? I don’t remember!”
And after Elena had solemnly repeated Bonnie’s words it was just like Meredith to say, “You’re sure now, Bonnie? Does that sound right?”
“I’m sure. I’m positive,” Elena cut in. She was positive. The Goddess Ishtar and Bonnie had unlocked the past for her and shown her the key.
“All right. What if Bonnie and Sage and I take this room, and two of us can be distracting the steward, while the third looks in the harps for keys?” Meredith suggested.
“Right. Let’s do it!” Elena said.
Meredith’s plan proved to be more difficult in practice than it sounded. Even with two glorious young girls in the room and one terminally fit guy, the steward kept spinning in little circles and catching one or another of them handling and peering into a harp.
Naturally, the han
dling was strictly forbidden. It put the harps further out of tune and it could easily damage them, especially since the only way to make absolutely sure that a small golden key was not in a harp’s sound box was to actually shake the harp and listen for rattling.
Worse, each of the harps was displayed in its own little nook, complete with dramatic lighting, a flamboyant painted screen behind it (most of them portraits of Fazina playing the harp in question), and a plush red rope across the front of the nook that said “Keep Out” as plainly as a sign.
In the end Bonnie, Meredith, and Sage resorted to having Sage Influence the steward to be entirely passive—something he was only able to do for a few minutes of time, or the steward would notice the gaps in Lady Fazina’s program. They would then each frantically search harps while the steward stood like a wax figure.
Meanwhile Damon and Elena were wandering the palace, looking through the rest of the mansion that was off-limits to visitors. If they found nothing, they intended to search the more available rooms as the gala continued.
It was dangerous work, this stealing in and out of darkened, cordoned-off—often locked—empty rooms: dangerous and strangely thrilling to Elena. Somehow, it seemed that fear and passion were more closely related than she had fully realized. Or at least, it seemed that way with her and Damon.
Elena couldn’t help noticing and admiring little things about him. He seemed to be able to pick any lock with a single little implement he produced from inside his black jacket, the way other people produce fountain pens, and he had such a swift, graceful way of taking the pick out and putting it back in. Economy of motion, she knew, earned by living for around five centuries.