07 The Return_ Midnight - L. J. Smith

stopped setting, were three moons. One was enormous, covering perhaps a sixth of the sky, shining in
swirls of white and blue, hazy at the edges. Just in front of it was a beautiful silvery moon at least
three quarters as big as it was.
Last, there was a tiny moon in high orbit, white as a diamond, that seemed to be
deliberately keeping its distance from the other two. All of them were half full and shone down with
gentle, soothing light on the unbroken snow around Elena.
“We’re in the Nether World,” Elena said, shaken.
“Oh…it’s just like in the story,” Bonnie gasped. “Exactly like. Even the writing! Even the
amount of snow!”
“Exactly like the story?” Stefan asked. “Even to the phase of the moons? How full they
are?”
“Just exactly the same.”
Stefan nodded. “I thought they would be. That story was a precognition, given to you
with the purpose of helping us find the largest star ball ever made.”
“Well, let’s go inside!” cried Bonnie. “We’re wasting time!”
“Okay—but everyone on your guard. We don’t want anything to go wrong now,” Stefan
said.
They went into the Gatehouse of the Seven Treasures in this order: Bonnie, who found
that the great black doors swung open at a touch, but that she could see nothing, coming in from bright
sunlight; Stefan and Elena, hand in hand; and Damon, who waited outside for a long time in the hopes,
Elena thought, of being deemed “a different party.”
Meanwhile the others were having the most pleasant shock since they’d taken the Master
Keys from the kitsune.
“Sage—Sage!” Bonnie shrilled as soon as her eyes adjusted. “Oh, look, Elena, it’s Sage!
Sage, how are you? What’re you doing here? Oh, it’s just so good to see you!”
Elena blinked twice, and the dim interior of the octagonal room came into focus. She
went around the only piece of furniture in the room, the large desk in the middle. “Sage, do you know
how long it seems? Did you know that Bonnie almost got sold for a slave at a public auction? Did you
know about her dream?”
Sage looked as he always had to Elena’s eyes. The bronzed, terminally fit body, like a
model of a Titan, the bare chest and bare feet, the black Levi’s, the long spiraling tangles of bronze
hair, and the strange bronze eyes that could cut steel, or be as gentle as a pet lamb.
“Mes deux petits chatons,” Sage was saying. “My two little kittens, you have astounded
me. I have been following your adventures. The Gatekeeper is not provided with much entertainment
and is not allowed to leave this fortress, but you were most brave and amusing. Je vous félicite.” He
kissed first Elena’s hand and then Bonnie’s, then embraced Stefan with the Latin two-cheeked kiss.
Then he resumed his seat.
Bonnie was climbing Sage as if she were a real kitten. “Did you take Misao’s star ball
full of Power?” she demanded, kneeling on his thigh. “Did you take half of it, I mean? To get back
here?”
“Mais oui, I did. But I also left Madame Flowers a little—”
“Do you know that Damon used the other half to open the Gate again? And that I fell in
too, even though he didn’t want me? And that because of that I almost got sold as a slave? And that
Stefan and Elena had to come after me, to make sure I was okay? And that on the way here Elena
almost fell off the bridge, and we’re not sure if the thurgs are going to make it? And do you know that