“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?