Caroline felt as though her heart had stopped and she felt her knees begin to buckle. "Nik …"

Klaus was at her side in a second. "We'll stop her, love."

"How?!" Caroline demanded. "How the hell are we going to stop a witch powerful enough to take the four of you out without breaking a sweat?"

"The dagger should have worked," Maddi said firmly. "We must have done something wrong."

"We'll find Dahlia and Freya," Klaus said, pressing a kiss to Caroline's hairline. "We'll stall her. You figure out a solution."

Sophie stirred at Caroline's feet and she dropped to her knees beside her again.

"Go," she said hastily. "We'll figure something out. Sophie?"

Sophie's eyes fluttered open and she sucked in a breath. "What did we do wrong?"

"We need to figure that out," Caroline said, helping her up. "She's going to sacrifice Freya to find Hope and I'm about to lose it."

"Okay, deep breaths," Maddi said. "Let's try and figure this out. Sophie, did you use everything to create the dagger?"

"No," Sophie answered, rifling in her pockets. "I've still got some of everything left, so we just need to figure out what went wrong."

"It's got to be the blood," Caroline said. "We had to work out the other two; we just assumed that the person she loved the most was Freya."

"Yes, but who else could it be?" Maddi asked. "She raised Freya; how could it not be Freya?"

"That's not love, though," Sophie said. "It's possessiveness. Freya belongs to her, but she wants Hope now, so she's happy to kill Freya to get to her."

"Then who?" Caroline asked. "I'm not even sure Dahlia is capable of love."

"Well, she must have been at some point," Sophie said. "Finn told Jeremy and Davina that Dahlia was furious with Esther for leaving her to get married and …" she trailed off. "Esther. It's Esther. All of this started with Esther breaking her promise to stay with her sister and she's still furious after all these years. That kind of hate only comes from love."

Caroline shook her head. "That can't be right."

"Caroline, I think she's right," Maddi said gently. "Esther's the only other option."

"It can't be," Caroline said, painfully aware that her voice was rising in pitch. "Esther is dead and she practically disintegrated; how the hell are we supposed to get her blood?! Obviously the blood of a child doesn't work, otherwise Freya's would have."

"Caroline, calm down," Sophie said gently. "No one ever cleared up the cabin and the ash is still there."

"Hang on," Maddi protested. "You're not seriously suggesting we resurrect her?!"

"Do you have another idea?" Sophie asked. "You agree with me on the blood, right?"

Maddi sighed. "Yes, I do. But I don't see how resurrecting Esther is going to help us. What's going to stop her from just grabbing Freya and leaving us all to deal with Dahlia?"

"Is there any way to just reform her body and take the blood from there?" Caroline asked.

"Ironically, no," Maddi said. "It's actually easier to resurrect her than to do that. We could use the ashes and the rest of Freya's blood to do that, but we're still left with how to control her."

Caroline retrieved the bag she'd dropped when she hurried to check on Sophie. "I might have the answer to that. Camille inherited these from her parents."

Maddi peeked into the bag. "Oh for … The coven's been looking for those for years! Anti-magic shackles," she added to Sophie. "Okay, I'll go along with this madness, on the condition that we put Esther down again afterwards, or the ancestors will be furious."

The cabin still gave Caroline the chills, but she busied herself with gathering the ashes together into a pile while Sophie reformed the dagger.

"Don't we need the blood first?" Caroline asked.

"Not necessarily," Sophie answered. "You don't need magic to add the blood, but if you add it without, it will need to be fresh. This is going to be a big spell; it could very well drain both of us."

"The ashes will be of Lenore's body," Caroline said now. "Is that going to cause a problem?"

"Yes," Maddi said. "That's why it's probably going to drain us. Resurrection is hard enough, but we need her original body, so that's going to complicate matters."

"If that happens," Sophie said grimly, pulling the rest of Freya's blood from her pocket, "leave us, and go, okay? We'll be fine."

"Okay, good luck," Caroline said, stepping back. "And thank you."

The two witches began chanting, drizzling the blood over the ashes, and Caroline grasped the shackles, shifting from foot to foot, squinting as light began forming where the liquid hit, growing brighter and brighter, before forming into a woman's body, painfully familiar and clearly startled.

Caroline blurred forwards, clapping on the shackles before Esther could react. "Hello again."

There were two thuds as Maddi and Sophie both dropped to the ground.

Caroline glanced at them, reassuring herself that they were both still breathing. "We have a meeting to get to."

"Aren't you going to check on them?" Esther asked.

"They're fine," Caroline said briskly, marching her towards the door. "You want your daughter back and I want mine safe - all of a sudden, those two goals have coincided. Time for a family reunion."

Caroline's phone rang just as they stepped into the Quarter.

"Caroline, she's here - we need that knife - we can't …"

The call dropped with a horrible noise that caused Caroline to wince.

"That was a spell," Esther said softly. She strode along at Caroline's side, her arms covered in the jacket Caroline had draped over her, one elbow in Caroline's tight grip. "It's Dahlia, isn't it?"

"She's going after my baby," Caroline said, her voice catching.

"I can't help you," Esther said softly. "I'm no match for Dahlia."

Caroline smiled tightly. "I love the fact that you think I'd trust you to try to stop her."

"This is the first time I died," Esther said. "Properly died. It was the first time I actually moved on, Caroline. And do you know what that does? It gives you perspective."

"That's nice," Caroline said, turning into the street the compound was on, "but I …"

She trailed off, seeing a body slumped just outside the front door.

Caroline faltered, reluctant to see who it was, and it was Esther that urged her forwards.

It was Felicia, and for a second Caroline allowed herself to hope that it was just a snapped neck, but the grey tinge to her skin said otherwise.

Steeling herself, Caroline forced herself to step over her dead body and led Esther inside.

A woman Caroline recognised from Klaus's sketch was standing in the middle of the courtyard inside a magic circle, with Freya crumpled at her feet held up only by her captor's iron grip.

Her siblings were facing her, unable to get to Dahlia through the circle.

"And you must be Caroline," Dahlia said with a cold smile, turning to look at her. Her eyes fell on Esther and she faltered, the first sign of any chink in the armour. "My sister in chains." She gave a cold laugh. "Is she to be a gift?"

"Leave my daughter alone." The words spilled out of Caroline's mouth before she could stop them, her hand clenched around the hilt of the dagger.

Dahlia's smile widened, apparently over the shock of seeing her sister. "That trinket can't harm me, Caroline."
She was right, of course.

It was harmless until Esther's blood was on it - and even then, she had no way of getting it over the magical barrier.

"Give the child to me now," Dahlia said. "It will make things far easier. People have already died."

Caroline finally wrenched her eyes away from her to look towards the staircase. Davina was crumpled in a heap, but Caroline could see her chest moving.

Matt lay not far away from her, his head at an unnatural angle.

He had Rebekah's blood in his system though. He had to.

A quick glance at Rebekah showed no sign of distress - although that could be a thousand years of experience.

"I will not hand over my child," Caroline said, shaking those thoughts from her head. "My baby is not a bargaining chip and she does not belong to you."

"But you see, my dear, she does," Dahlia said. "Esther promised her to me a thousand years ago. But then you're not very good at keeping your promises, are you, sister?"

"The child was my way of keeping my promise," Esther said.

But Caroline narrowed her eyes. "Technically, she was your way of getting Freya back. And I don't think that's the promise she's talking about, are you?"

"You promised me always and forever, sister," Dahlia hissed. "And you broke that promise and abandoned me to marry that Viking brute." She smiled again suddenly, regaining her composure. "But tonight, sister, I complete my vengeance." She reached into her jacket and pulled out a stake - a very white, very familiar stake.

The air seemed to freeze around them and Caroline released Esther's arm. "Where the hell did you get that?!"

"I cut it from the tree before it burnt down," Dahlia said simply. "I had been watching and waiting - I took it purely for this moment, and I have kept it all these years despite thinking I had missed my chance to make my sister feel the pain I did."

"You took my daughter," Esther cried. "Was that not enough?"

"You had other children," Dahlia shouted. "You had a family. You were my family and you took that away from me. I vowed to take everything from you. Freya was just the start."

"Unfortunately for you," Klaus said, "that stake is very much a one-trick pony. You can only use it once, and there are four of us."

Dahlia didn't answer, but raised her arm, pointing the stake towards the ceiling. With a flash of light, ash began falling like snow. "And now, sister," she whispered, "let us watch as I burn your children from the inside."

She flexed her fingers.

The four siblings gasped involuntarily, sucking in the ash that flew towards them, and Caroline watched in horror as they collapsed, choking on it as it crept towards their hearts.

"NO!"

She blurred to Klaus's side, her hands hovering, unable to do anything to stem the panic in his eyes, or the way darkness crept through his veins.

Her own breath was starting to come less easily, whether due to the sire bond or the panic, she didn't know.

Beside her, Rebekah screamed in agony and Caroline rose to her feet, fire in her veins, only to be frozen in space by Dahlia's next spell.

Esther's eyes were fixed on her children now, dawning horror creeping across her face, and Caroline began to feel some hope that maybe she meant what she said about death bringing new perspective - except Esther had no magic right now, and she was unable to free her.

Dahlia pulled Freya roughly to her knees, one hand at her throat, her eyes fixed on the sky through the window at the top of the staircase. "It is time. Soon I shall have the child." She looked straight at Caroline. "And I will destroy everyone who stands in my way."

Her hand tightened and Freya began gasping for air.

"You still blame me after all these years?" Esther asked, her voice shaking.

Dahlia laughed coldly. "Do not speak to me about blame, Esther. You like blaming others for your transgressions, don't you? You blame me for taking the child you promised me. You curse your son for being the product of an affair you had, condemn your children for the monsters you created. Suffocation is a slow way to die, they say - how many lives did you condemn when you suffocated Tatia?"

Frozen in place, Caroline could only watch as her family slowly died at her feet.

"Dahlia, wait!" Esther said suddenly. "You have won. Look around you. You have bested us all. And you were right. I was so focused on being a good wife that I forgot that it was far more important to be a good mother and a good sister. And I failed at both."

Dahlia's grip faltered and she finally looked her sister in the eye.

"At least let me try to make it right," Esther whispered, stepping closer to her. "Let me share with you the glorious freedom that I have found - in death!"

In a split-second, she had stepped into the circle and thrown the chains around Dahlia's neck, holding her tightly.

Finally freed of the spell, Freya collapsed. Although gasping for her, she threw her hands out, destroying the circle and ridding her brothers and sister of the ash in one movement.

Caroline suddenly found herself able to move and she stumbled.

"Be quick!" Esther called. "Niklaus!"

"Her blood," Caroline said hastily, throwing him the dagger. "She's the one."

Klaus caught it and blurred forward. In one movement, he had thrust the dagger into his mother's back and through into his aunt's chest.

Magic ripped through the compound, strong enough to knock them all off their feet.

Caroline landed heavily, rolling a couple of times with the impact. She ended up lying on her back, as winded as a vampire could get, wincing as her ribs knitted back together.

Klaus appeared in her field of vision and she blinked, taking his hand so he could pull her to her feet. "Are you alright, love?"

"I think so," Caroline answered, leaning against him. "Is it over?"

"It's over," he said, holding her close. "We're officially orphans."