"So why exactly does Silas need Stefan," Caroline asked.
"Because they are bound by blood and while Silas is very strong on his own it is possible for him to be stronger yet," Tatia explained. "There is a specific type of magic; ancestral magic which can call upon your ancestors or in this case, your descendant, for more power."
"So why didn't he grab Damon," the blonde griped.
"Damon is stronger," Lydia jumped in. "Not just physically but emotionally he's more stable, even if," Lydia glared as Caroline laughed at that, "he's made worse decisions they have always been made by Damon's own will. Stefan has been a slave to his own guilt and blood lust for too long and it has made his willpower weak."
"So how do we get him back," Damon asked. He wasn't used to people seeing things that way and truth be told it was freaking him out. It was one thing to think like that in order to justify his own motives; it was another thing for it to actually be confirmed.
"We don't," Tatia responded. "Not yet. Looking for ways to get Stefan back will only serve to distract us from our true cause, and if we complete our mission then we will get him back in the end."
"And how do you suppose we do that? Silas is the most powerful being we've come across," Caroline reminded the witches. "Do you really think that Silas isn't going to be prepared for you?"
"For the witches, yes; I think he will be prepared," Tatia replied, "but his goal has remained the same. He wants his true love; he wants me."
"You're going to lure him out," Damon said. "But what happens when he realizes that you're not the girl he loves anymore?"
"It will be too late by then," the eldest Petrova said. "You will have retrieved Stefan and our work can be finished. He won't see what I have planned coming."
Elijah stood mere feet behind his brother but he allowed him his privacy for the few minutes Klaus would take for himself. He knew his brother was thinking of her; Tatia had cursed his brother to reject whatever love he had been offered and while Niklaus may have pushed her and his feelings aside for centuries, knowing that the Petrovas once again had a hand in betraying the two brothers –imprisoning them down in the Salvatore basement—had brought those feelings to the surface.
"What do you want," Niklaus growled.
"I want for us to be brothers again," Elijah said to his surprise. "Everything that came between us and destroyed our bond happened a millennia ago. It's time for us to relinquish old hurts."
Klaus turned to look at his brother. "If I could I would have slain her myself," the hybrid swore though his eyes filled with tears. "The thought of letting a mere woman rule my thoughts and my life at the expense of my family infuriates me!"
"Which part," Elijah asked. "The part where you never truly found out if she was worth your love, or the guilt that comes with knowing she died so our parents could make us what we are today?"
Stepping ever closer, Elijah looked at his little brother. "I am sorry that I did not strike our father down the very first time he laid a hand on you. I should have killed him for laying his hands upon you, but I feared him as well and for that I failed you.
"I failed you," he continued, "because I let him convince you that you weren't worthy of anyone's love. And though you fought gallantly for hers, I stood in your way—"
"—It would have been you," Klaus interrupted. "I saw the way she admired you. Moral Elijah, the only decent member of our family."
"Why have you always diminished the quality of your love for her? You have denied what she meant to you for as long as we have been vampires—"
"—My love got her murdered! If I ever let myself think she mattered than—"
"—then what?"
Klaus was enraged. Why did his brother have to continue to dig into the recesses of his mind until he got at the very center of why he was the way he was.
"Forget it, brother. I have more important things to do tonight than discussing matters that no longer bare any consideration."
"Like what, may I enquire?"
Klaus flashed his famous wolfish grin. "Well, I could go find Stefan and thank him for releasing us from our prison or…I could go pay a visit to our captors and force them to tell me how exactly they managed to trap us in an 8' x 8' cell using magic that has long been lost to this world," and before Elijah could say or do anything Klaus was gone in a flash.