Hey guys. Once again this chapter is part of a much bigger one that I had to split up. It's just this is the busiest day in the world for my characters and I need to get it all out. On the other hand, that means the next chapter shouldn't take a week to write.
Which brings me to my next point. For those of you who review, thank you, I love you dearly. I love the favorites and the follows. But writing is hard, and takes up a lot of time, and I'm honestly not getting enough feedback to justify spending a lot of my time writing this story. If you enjoy it, leave me a message letting me know what you liked. If you didn't, let me know that as well. But while the first couple of chapters were written for fun, because I wanted to write them, now they're being written to continue a story, and if so few people are interested in the story, what's the point of writing it? Reviews are lovely, and my reviewers are lovely people. Be a lovely person!
Songs for this chapters are "Dark Paradise" by Lana Del Rey and "Despair" by Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Give them a listen!
Chapter Five: Some Sun Has Got To Rise
One of the truly great joys of being a witch was never getting a hangover. Just a wave of the hand and poof – no pain.
Of course this only really applied if the witch in question did not, in fact, get plastered out of his mind on embarrassingly cheap beer and pass out in a position on the couch that was so precarious that he did, in fact, fall from it in the middle of the night and was now waking up in a pool of his drool on the floor, his head pounding in the same rhythm as his little sister's persistent and very loud banging on his door.
"I know you're in there," Liv yelled. Knock knock knock. "You have no job." Knock knock knock. "You have no friends." Knock knock knock. "You have no life. What you do have is my Terminator DVDs and I want them back, Kai!"
"Please kill me," he prayed to the floor, then with great concentrated effort and a groan loud enough that Liv stopped knocking, he heaved himself up to his hands and knees. His pounding head changed its tune at this movement, now beating a fast staccato rhythm into his skull. He put one hand on his coffee table, nudging at the beer can pyramid his inebriated self probably had a grand time building last night, and one hand on the couch, which was missing half its cushions, and tugged himself up and to his feet.
The room swam sickeningly. Kai let out a belch then clapped his hand over his mouth when it threatened to turn into something more. His shirt was wrinkled and stiff in some places with his sweat, he had sometime in the night misplaced his pants, and his stylish five-o'clock-somewhere stubble had grown into wanna-be hipster scraggle.
Kai had been in many, many low places in his life. Realizing his father never loved him, being tricked by his dopey twin sister, the Prison World, the first eighty or so times he'd tried to kill himself, and that one time when Bonnie freaking Bennett sent her magic away in a goddamn teddy bear. But this was a whole new level of pathetic. After he'd left Jo yesterday he just wanted to make it all stop, and while normally that would mean maiming something, there was always the possibility that at any moment this bizarre guilt thing would start extended to strangers and at that point Kai would have no choice but to kill himself.
Kai rather liked being alive, so he chose alcohol instead. It seemed to work wonders for Damon, so he thought he'd give it a try.
"Kai? Are you dead?" Liv asked loudly through the door. "Let me know so I can start preparing for my own inevitable demise."
"I'm dead. I'm so dead," Kai replied back in a whispered yell that made his teeth ache, holding a hand to his head and summoning the will-power to mutter a healing spell. "Tell them to put you in blue for the viewing, you look terrible in black."
"I look awesome in everything," Liv shot back. He could practically see her flipping her hair over her shoulder. "But seriously, open the door."
His head was already clearing up, enough for him to lumber over to the door, draw back the deadbolt, take down the wards, and open it to greet his sister.
The light shone so brightly off her hair that he hissed and drew back, clapping his hands over his ears at the sound of Liv's gasp and ensuing giggles. "Oh, my God. You smell like a brewery. No, like a bathroom in a brewery. Kai, what did you do?"
Kai glared at her through one narrow eyelid. "That better be rhetorical."
Liv just laughed harder, pushing her way past the small space he'd left between himself and the door frame and into his apartment. She took in his trashed living room, the beer pyramid, noticing his missing jeans hanging from the ceiling fan at the same time Kai did. Kai shut the door gently behind him and walked past his sister, nearly doubled over in mirth, to collapse on his sole remaining couch cushions and will another healing spell through his body.
Liv finally calmed down enough to straighten and wipe at her eyes. "Rough night, big brother? Jo said you seemed upset, but not the 'one man rave' kind."
"Oh, Sissy said, did she?" Kai sneered, bad mood boiling over. Liv's smile dropped from her face completely. "You two had a nice chat about poor Kai?"
Liv's expression clouded over rapidly, her stance becoming defensive. "Can't blame us for keeping tabs on you, Malachai. You have this really bad habit of snapping and killing your siblings."
"Get your crap and get out or watch history repeat itself," Kai snapped, boiling at the thought of sisters laughing at him behind his back. Pathetic Kai who can't even handle emotions. He didn't need anybody's condescension, certainly not a member's of the fucking Gemini Coven.
But as he watched his sister's red, angry face pale so dramatically that her big blue eyes were the only color left his anger melted into the guilt constantly churning at the bottom of his stomach, turning into something else. But this one he knew, this one his father had taught him well: shame.
"Shit, Liv, I'm sorry," he said with a groan, tipping his head back onto the back of the couch. "I didn't mean it, I'm just…I don't know."
"You know, other people might be able to get away with that," Liv said in a shaky but forceful voice. "But not you. You don't get to do that."
Kai stared at her for a long time, his beautiful, headstrong, incredibly overdramatic little sister. This was all Liv was to him; he honestly couldn't really remember what she looked like as a four year old. She was brand new to him, but he was an old thing to her, the monster under her bed come back to haunt her again.
"Okay," he said, because he didn't want to promise things to her. Kai never kept his promises. "Okay."
Liv released a long slow breath. "Okay."
"Your movies are on the TV, by the way."
"I-" Liv started to say something, then stopped, looking conflicted. There was a furrow between her eyebrows, the same one that had always appeared on their mother's face whenever she looked at Kai. Then Liv moved all at once, hands akimbo and marching towards him until she was perched in front of him, knee-to-knee, on the coffee table. "Look, that's not the reason I came. I don't…I don't care about you, not really. But my life depends on yours, and if you're not alright, then neither am I. So, are you alright?"
"Well, not anymore," Kai said sarcastically. Liv rolled her eyes.
"Don't give me that. We're Parkers, not Partridges, and I have seen you stab way too many people to ever be comfortable in your company."
Kai sighed. The healing spell was mostly finished and he felt awkward having this deep conversation with his little sister in nothing but his boxers and a musty shirt. He used his magic to push Liv and the table back a few inches – holding his breath when the can pyramid wobbled then settled – and then stood, reaching and retrieving his jeans.
"I'm fine, Olivia," he told her, folding them in half then over his arm. "I just had a bad day. Strangely enough, even after forty years, you don't get used to them. So I went on a bender."
"Jo said you were…trying to help Bonnie?" Liv asked gently.
Kai looked down, sick of thinking and talking and worrying over the littlest witch. One more lost girl in the world. Did it even really matter, saving her? She had no family, and her friends seemed to cope stupendously well with her absence. Who was going to mourn Bonnie Bennett if she never came home?
"I think that's great," Liv said softly. Kai's head snapped up. "Bonnie used to help me with my magic and I was – oh, god, I was the worst. But she did the best she could with me. I probably would've lost my freaking mind if it wasn't for Bonnie."
"Maybe you could return the favor," Kai replied evenly, seizing the opening she had left for him.
Liv shook her head. "I'm not going into the prison world with you, Kai. I don't trust you. But that spell you were doing when I stabbed you in the Salvatore house? I could help with that. We could check on her."
Kai stared at her, a little gob-smacked. "I – why?"
"Because I need you to be okay," Liv replied intensely. "And apparently that's only gonna happen when you know she is, too."
Bonnie woke to the sound of whistling. At first she thought it was the music from last night, then she realized Kol was, once again, sitting on the couch beneath the window, watching her sleep.
He was flicking through one of the Algiers books, whistling incredibly high and clear a song Bonnie had never heard before. It sounded like something that would be played around a fire while a wrinkled old storyteller weaved an awesome tale of gods and men in a village years ago. For all she knew, she was probably more correct than not. Kol had lived a thousand years; the songs and stories he had picked up would probably take longer than her life to be sung.
"This is creepy," she told him. "Maybe being the very definition of the word means you don't even know when you're being it, so let me help you out. This," she waved a hand at him. "Is creepy."
Kol's whistle ended on a long, low note and he closed the book with a snap. "I was bored, love. I don't sleep much. Always afraid I'll wake up in a box. And then I remember, I am in the box. Just because it's now the size of the entire world doesn't mean it's not a box."
"That was very deep, Kol," Bonnie said dryly, far too disoriented to have this conversation. "Now get out."
"That's right. We have work to do. Meet me downstairs when you're ready. I don't suppose you'll let me run us into town?" When Bonnie shook her head, he stood with a sigh and left, muttering about wasted time.
Bonnie scrubbed herself clean with the water and cloth from the basin, then opened the wardrobe. The pants Kol had brought her that first day were wonderful, but the shirt had been stiff and itchy and the sleeves too long to be manageable. So after she tugged on the pants, she went to the wardrobe and pulled out the various chemises and shifts she found. One was a pale green, thick and soft, that fell to mid-thigh, and though she felt ridiculous pulling it on with her pants and boots it was incredibly comfortable. She grabbed the coat from last night, shoved the cure into one boot and the knife in the other, then made her way downstairs.
Kol was of course impeccably dressed, but she had never once seen him looking anything less than runway-ready, just like his siblings. Vanity seemed to be a Mikaelson family trait. "You ready?" she asked, tugging on the cloak and pulling her hair, nearly shoulder length now, from under the collar.
Kol was silent from where he waited by the door, and when she looked at him from under her eyelashes she could see the lines of tension in his body and face. She'd seen the look in his eyes before; in Jeremy's face the night Qetsiyah died, in Damon's the moment before the light swallowed him up and took him back home. Like he was never going to see her again.
She took a step towards him and the look vanished, the smirk and quirk returning in an instant. Kol moved to open the door then inclined his head, waving her forward. "After you, little witch."
The first mile was passed to the tune of Kol's song again, this time in a hum but with a mile and a half left to go, Kol's song ended again and he spoke. "So. I told you one of my secrets. How about an even exchange, love? Tell me a story of Bonnie Bennett's greatest pretend."
"I don't have secrets, Kol," Bonnie responded slowly, eyes caught on the clusters of iris and dogwood on the side of the road.
"Of course you do," Kol said. "For example, the fact that you smell wrong."
That got Bonnie's attention. "Excuse me?"
"Oh, don't misunderstand, you're still there, underneath it all," Kol reassured her, holding his hands up in pacification. "But there's something else, spread all over your skin. That first night, I thought it was just the blood on your clothes throwing me off, but it's been hanging all over you."
"You're not making any sense," Bonnie said, walking sideways a few steps away from him. "My blood smells different?"
"No, darling, you do." Kol gave her a slow, lazy smile. "You smell like two people at the same time. And it's not your blood, it's your magic that's gone all – funny. Do you remember the night before that silly dance at your school? I had you up against the lockers and then you brought me to my knees." He gave an overdramatic shudder. "That was glorious. I'd never forget how that kind of power felt."
"Creepy," Bonnie said, pointing at him. "Also, you can smell magic?"
Kol's face scrunched as he shrugged his shoulder. "Smell. Feel. Both are rather inadequate for the actual sensation. I was quite personally acquainted with magic myself as a human, more so than any of my siblings save Finn, and when I woke up as…what I am, and it was gone-" He broke off there, sly smile sliding off his face as he looked to the ground.
Bonnie gaped at him in stupefaction. "You were a witch?" But even as she said it, she remembered his mother, the incredibly powerful witch Esther. Was it really any wonder she had passed on her skill to her children? Kol's knowledge of magic and respect of witches started to make far more sense. Then the second part of his statement sunk in. "And it was…I'm so sorry."
She'd lost her magic more than once. Had it forcibly ripped away, had it manipulated beyond her control, felt it drain out of her and into another. She'd even given it away once. And every time the loss was beyond what she thought herself capable of handling. The only thing that made it bearable was the knowledge that she could somehow get it back. Kol's was just gone.
"Yes. Thank you," Kol said quietly, his eyes shuttered and somewhere very far away. He took a deep breath and continued with his story. "Well, after that, I thought it might be, I don't know, helpful to surround myself with witches. To watch them practice. To hear the words. They used to be in the old language then. Heyri jötnar, heyri hrímþursar, synir Suttungs, sjalfir ásliðar."
Bonnie could feel the words skitter along her skin like ice, calling out to something deep and cold. Kol glanced at her knowingly. "I spent so much time with them that I began to notice how differently they felt from the rest of the world. Witches don't just contain magic, they are magic. They – I can't describe it. They hummed, they sang, they smelled – brighter, maybe? Truly, a thousand years worth of words are wasted on me, what a tragedy.
"But you, Bonnie," he said, turning sharply towards her. "You sing two songs at the same time. It's maddening. So, really, you should tell your secret just to keep me sane."
"Assuming you're all there in the first place," Bonnie shot back, earning a self-deprecating smile from Kol. But he had piqued her curiosity about her magic. So she twisted the truth again, explaining that her magic had never come back after returning to life as the Anchor and her trek to Nova Scotia to take Qetsiyah's instead. She couldn't explain, even to herself, why she kept hiding Kai's existence from Kol, except that sometimes she had managed to convince herself that he was just a nightmare she had dreamed up one night and talking about him would make him real.
But Kol accepted her version readily enough, eyebrows rising high on his forehead. "So you're wearing another witch's skin, hm? Or, rather, you're letting her magic wear you."
Bonnie jerked back, stung. "Magic doesn't control me."
"And that was very convincing, love, but the proof is in the power. You're so detached from the magic that you nearly lit the Algiers brazier, an artifact so ridden with magic it's practically screaming, and you nearly blew us up yesterday. You really think you've got control?"
Bonnie stopped in the middle of the road, clenching her fists tight and remembering Silas wearing her dead boyfriend's face and screaming at her control, Bonnie, control! Kol stopped at her, acknowledging her fury with a single imperious eyebrow raise.
"I forgot how fierce a witch's pride is," he clucked at her, shaking his head. "I'm not saying this to insult you, Bon, I'm simply telling you the truth. Come on, love, I watched your face in the flames yesterday. I've never seen a girl so lost as you."
"I just have to get used to it," Bonnie said through clenched teeth. "Her magic is different."
"Her magic is yours," Kol shot back. "But you won't let it in. You're letting the magic define you, when it should be the other way around. But hasn't that always been your story, little witch? I wonder what it is about it that frightens you so."
"I do not need this from you," Bonnie snarled, stalking past him down the road. Kol followed after her.
"That moment in your school - you weren't scared, were you?"
"I was also under the influence of some very dangerous magic," Bonnie said, walking faster and faster to stay one step ahead of him.
"Magic is only as dangerous as the person wielding it."
"Coming from an Original, not reassuring."
Kol blurred in front of her and she skidded to a halt, staring up at his very intent gaze. "You were glorious, and you were unafraid."
Bonnie hands were still in fists; she could feel her nails starting to gouge into her skin. She relaxed them, flexed them, felt the magic but not in her bones as it used to be. It fizzed and sparked over her skin but never went any deeper. Her magic had been a part of her. At first she had resented it, then she accepted it, and then she loved it. But magic had always proved to be a dangerous game for Bonnie.
Power was her grandmother's cold body on the bed; the whispers of one thousand witches in her head; the cold, dark thrill of Expression; Qetsiyah's heavy touch transferring the Anchor; the Other Side, vast and infinite and hers. Power was Klaus. Silas. Kai.
And God, it hurt.
"You think your magic is gone," Kol said softly. "But I still smell it, underneath. Because it's a part of you, love."
She met his eyes again, and she fought against the instinct to trust the sincerity in his eyes. Sincerity and magic did not mix well. She edged around him and began walking again. "I don't want to talk about this."
Kol did not let the matter drop entirely, making attempt after attempt to bring it up. Bonnie chose to distract him, asking him random questions every few minutes. Some just occurred to her, some she had wondered at for a while. For example, how old was he when he was turned?
"Horrible fact of my life, number three hundred and ninety-five: I don't know. I know Rebekah was eighteen because we had just celebrated her birthday and I'm at least three years older than her, so I say twenty-one."
"Sure. And that choice has nothing to do with the legal drinking age in America."
"You think I bother with legality?"
New Orleans appeared on the horizon, and Bonnie had learned that Kol could play the violin and the piano, spoke seven languages including the very broken French he had displayed before, had enjoyed the seventeenth century the most of all he had lived, and had come within inches of deflowering Elizabeth I. That last tidbit he had volunteered freely. She was still cringing in amused horror at it when they stopped at the crossroads they had their first day here.
"The Treme haven is in St. Louis Cemetery," Kol explained.
"Fantastic," Bonnie deadpanned. "When does the light show start?"
Kol took a long look off towards the west. "Eight forty-seven. They got started late."
"Who did?"
"The orchestra," Kol replied bluntly. Bonnie opened her mouth, ready to pursue this new information, but he barreled on. "Now, listen to me. Treme witches are the embodiment of sacrificial magic. Do not touch anything in their haven. Every inch of that place is covered in blood, even if you can't see it. If it gets on you, it won't come off, ever."
"Were you scared of them?" Bonnie asked seriously. Kol scoffed and she stepped closer. "Kol, were you scared of them?"
Kol's eyes turned very cold. "Anyone living who takes that much pleasure in spilled blood is not to be trifled with."
Bonnie nodded. "I'll be careful."
This seemed to relax him a little, but he was still on edge as he led her through the maze that was New Orleans streets. Bonnie was beginning to hate silence from Kol; he gave everything away when he was talking, very much like his older half-brother, but when he was quiet his face became the spitting image of Elijah's: stoic and closed-off, impossible to read.
"I know Rebekah is your favorite sibling," she said conversationally. Kol's head turned just a fraction, but he was listening. "But which is your favorite brother?"
Kol exhaled sharply and shook his head, then nudged her shoulder to get her to turn right at another crossroads. The cemetery loomed large in the distance. "I suppose it would be cheating to pick the one who died when he was eleven. Never had much of chance to irritate, did Henrik."
"They're your brothers. Pick whichever you like."
He glanced sidelong at her, then forward, his face twisting up as he considered. After a long pause, he chose. "My eldest brother. Finn. He tried to have me killed. He was obnoxiously self-righteous and had a victim complex that would put your Elena to shame, but he was good. And he was mine. I'm sure you've heard that 'always and forever' rot from Nik or Rebekah or Elijah. It was hard, being on the outside of that. All I had was Finn.
"He understood what it was like, being completely cut off from your magic. Elijah never showed much passion for learning and Rebekah only the odd spell here or there. Niklaus' werewolf genes completely overrode his magical side; he had no talent for it. That's probably what gave him away to Father, come to think. But Finn and I would sit at our mother's feet and watch avidly as she summoned fire and lightning in the palm of her hand. He was the only one who would practice with me."
Bonnie listened quietly as Kol's voice grew softer and sadder. "When it was over and it was gone and my sister had left with Klaus and Elijah I went rampaging across the countryside. Finn came for me, the only one, and beat me into the ground. Then he dragged me home and cleaned me up and promised to stay by my side. When the hunters tried to kill us all and Nik decided to leave Finn sleeping…" He took a deep, shuddering breath. "Finn had always been sure to remind Nik when he was being the petulant whiny brat he was so very capable of being and Nik hated him for that. The idea that I loved one more than the other, even if Klaus had Elijah and Bekah's devotion so completely, was more than he could stand."
They stepped inside the cemetery, a veil of cold coming down on Bonnie's shoulders. She had met Finn when she tried to help Esther destroy the Originals and found him disturbingly remote, especially compared to his younger brothers and sister. Nine hundred years trapped inside a box would probably do that to someone.
"And now he's dead," Kol said, his voice turning flippant but his eyes still so serious. "So that's all rather pointless anyway. Your real question was Elijah or Niklaus, wasn't it? It's Elijah. His disapproval is a constant in my life and it makes me feel at home. And here we are." He gestured with a flourish at the large mausoleum they had stopped in front of and Bonnie, still recovering from the whiplash of his mood swings, shook her head at the ridiculousness of witches in dead people's houses.
The Tremes did not have any magical ward on their door, most likely because it was located in a cemetery. Bonnie opened it slowly and stepped inside, then immediately tried to back out, bumping into Kol.
"What is that?" she asked, nearly panting. "What is that?"
Kol's hands came up to grasp her upper arms. "Steady, love. What is what?"
Bonnie gazed wide-eyed down the long corridor in front of her, trying hard not to shake. Kol said she wouldn't be able to see it, but she could feel it. "It's like it's crawling up my spine. It's like screaming." Neither of those descriptors made any sense but Kol rubbed his hands up and down her arms reassuringly then moved her to the side so he could lead. Bonnie hated herself for being so weak but couldn't deny she felt a little safer this way.
"How peculiar," Kol said as they walked slowly down the hall. "That at the Algiers' you felt nothing but here you're all aflutter."
"You don't feel it?"
"Oh, I feel it, but what I am to be afraid of? There's nothing here that can kill me."
"How nice for you."
"Relax, little witch. I won't let anything hurt you," he promised. The corridor branched into three separate paths and Kol took the left without hesitation. Eventually it opened up to a low-ceilinged room lined with coffins that seemed to go on for ages. Bonnie could hear the people inside whispering to her.
"I hate this place," she muttered over and over. "I hate it, I hate it."
Kol glanced back at her, amusement morphing into something akin to worry at her skittishness. "What is the matter with you?"
"It's not right," Bonnie said with an insistence she didn't know she had before she said the word. "It's not…"
"Natural?" Kol guessed, then sighed. "Yes, I suppose to a witch who devoted herself to nature magic this would all be very disturbing. Buck up, darling, and get used to it."
His manner was blunt but effective. Bonnie took a deep breath and steeled herself. "So what is this? There's no books."
"Ancestral magic," Kol responded. He began tapping on the coffins, one by one. "They don't need books. They've got spirits in their head telling them where to go."
Bonnie shivered. "So what are we doing here, then?"
"Their grimoire," Kol replied as if it was obvious. Bonnie took a step forward, suddenly excited. "They do not keep theirs near as guarded as the Algiers'. Like I said, they don't need books. But I don't know…"
He kept tapping away and Bonnie watched him. Spirits in their head telling them where to go, he said. The whispering all around her flared up, grew louder, and Bonnie closed her eyes.
It would probably drive the average non-Treme witch insane, but Bonnie had spent nearly half a year with enraged vengeful ancestral witches inside her head, pushing her this way and that, always muttering and hissing. She was never alone. This was like coming back to a familiar if unpleasant home, and she let her muscles relax and her bones settle as she listened.
After what seemed like an eternity she became aware of a warmth in this cold place they were standing in, calling her in to come enjoy its comfort. She almost gave in, but remembering the Algiers' brazier, she kept listening. The room got colder and colder, the warmth becoming more inviting every second.
"Little witch?" Kol called from what seemed like very far away. "Bonnie!"
There was a circle of ice, black and repellent, somewhere to her left. There was her goal. She took one step, then another, but it was so cold. Bonnie's body began to shake, almost breaking her out of her concentration, but she kept moving. One more step, losing feeling in her toes and fingers, her lips. One more step, feeling her tears freeze on her face when she hadn't even known she'd shed them. One more step.
She raised her hands, placed them flat against a coffin, and opened her eyes. It was difficult; her eyelashes had frozen with her tears and become stuck together. Her hands were the whitest she'd ever seen them up against the wood and she felt like she'd been under a frozen lake for a long time. Kol's hands were on her shoulders.
"This is it?" he asked, and when she managed to nod he reached forward, tapped the wood hard enough to leave a mark, then picked her up underneath her knees and arms and the world blurred.
He took her to another room, still lined with coffins but silent and outfitted with couches and a fireplace. Kol placed her gently on a chair then went zipping about, gathering papers and logs left aside and placing them in the fireplace. He stopped, holding a bit of paper in front of her. "Can you light it?"
She nodded and mumbled the spell through frozen lips. The flame was weak but sufficient and Kol had the pile ignited and burning in an instant. He grabbed the arms of Bonnie's chair, dragged it and her towards the fire, and leaned over her.
"Do not move, do you hear me? You stay here by the fire. You-" He cut himself off, looking down and shaking his head, and distantly Bonnie realized that she'd frightened him again. Then Kol was gone. In the distance she could hear the sound of wood breaking and a smothered yell, and the next second he had returned with a red leather-bound book, about the size of the average paper-back in her day, in his very blistered hand.
The ice water running through Bonnie's veins was slowly draining away, but the feeling coming back into her extremities was almost as painful as losing it was. With Kol in front of her she clumsily slid out of the chair and closer to the fire, curling up against one side of the mantle.
"Your hand?" she croaked.
Kol looked down at it, shrugging. "Nothing I can't handle. What was that?"
"I listened," Bonnie managed. "To the spirits. They told me where to go."
Kol knelt beside her, hand reaching out and stopping just short of her cheek when Bonnie flinched away a little. "Seems the Treme witches had a contingency plan for witches like you. You foolish girl."
"I got the grimoire, didn't I?" Bonnie asked. "I won."
Kol's eyes gleamed. "Yes, you did. Were you afraid?"
Bonnie looked away.
"Why are you here?" Stefan asked, when he found Kai and Liv in his living room, Kai holding the ascendant with one hand and his sister's left hand in the other. Then he shook himself, holding up a hand. "Never mind. You can't be here."
"We're just doing a little spell, Stef," Kai said calmly. "We're gonna check on Bon-Bon."
Stefan had looked ready to protest at the first part of Kai's statement, but now he stepped forward, interested. "Why do you need to check on her? Damon said she should be back any day now."
"Well, 'any day now' has gone on for the past two weeks," Kai said mutinously.
Liv smiled reassuringly at Stefan. "We're just going to make sure nothing's happened to her."
Her words had the opposite of the intended effect. Stefan marched forward, his permanently furrowed brow coming down even more sharply over his eyes. "Nothing's happened? What could happen? Jeremy said she wasn't going to try anything again."
The thought of Bonnie trying to commit suicide again hadn't actually crossed Kai's mind, even though that now seemed like the most obvious answer to why Bonnie was now three weeks overdue. Liv saw both men look at each other, starting to panic, and rolled her eyes.
"Oh, come on, do you not know her at all? Bonnie only did that when she had been alone for months." Here Kai received a very pointed glare. "Now that she has hope, she's not going to give up. We're making sure that Bonnie has everything she needs, that she can do the spell."
"Right," Stefan said, visibly relaxing. "Bonnie's strong. She'll be fine. Are you-" Whatever he was going to say was drowned out by the blaring of his ring tone. He fished it out of his back pocket and answered. Kai could hear Elena Gilbert's tinny, anxious voice on the other end and smiled sardonically as Stefan's eyes widened comically. "I'll be there," he said into the receiver before shoving the phone back into his pocket.
"Problems in paradise?" Kai quipped. Stefan glared at him and walked to the couch, picking up his hoodie from where he had thrown it over the back.
"It's Caroline," he answered. Kai sensed it was more from the need to talk to somebody than actually wanting to confide in him or Liv. "She's set down these rules for her humanity switch, but now she wants to go to this rave…" Stefan stopped, a little lost, his head no doubt buzzing with the million things that could go wrong, then he snapped out of it, looking at the two of them. "If anything's wrong with Bonnie, come find me or Elena or Damon, got it?"
Then, without waiting for them to respond, he left.
"A hundred and fifty years old and he still loses his mind over a girl," Kai said, shaking his head in mock disapproval. He turned back fully to his sister and gripped her hand tighter in his. Technically, contact wasn't necessary, but there was no way he was going to let her lose him in this spell. "You ready?"
Liv nodded and closed her eyes. Kai followed suit, beginning to chant. "Phasmatos tribum invocio caveum, miscero mundio. Phasmatos tribum invocio caveum, miscero mundio."
He felt more than heard Liv echo his words and the world behind his eyelids exploded into white before darkening again. He opened them and found himself in the Salvatore boarding house, May 10, 1994.
Liv opened her eyes and moment later and looked around, dropping his hand but remaining close. "This is it. Wow. They haven't changed their furniture in eighteen years."
"Vampire taste. Both enduring and dismal," Kai remarked. As a test, he made a grab at one of Damon's many, many glass decanters that was sitting on the table behind the couch. His skin made contact with the glass, but he couldn't feel the temperature or texture of it. "We can touch things. Awesome. Try not to stab me this time, okay?"
Liv smirked. "No promises, big brother."
Kai hoped she was joking. He let go of the decanter, pocketed the ascendant, and began walking around the house. "Bonnie?" he called out. They listened to it echo off the walls and Kai's heart dropped. "Bonnie?"
"God, it's so quiet," Liv whispered. "I can't hear myself think over it."
"That's not it," Kai said slowly. "You can hear yourself think too well. The thoughts are too loud."
He could see Liv start and stare at him out of the corner of his eyes, but if there was one line of conversation he did not want to pursue, this was it. He was done with the prison world, he was free. This was just a temporary excursion and that was all. Something like claustrophobia was treading quietly on the outskirts of his mind but Kai pushed it away. He was fine. He was free.
He took a deep breath. "BONNIE!" Liv cringed briefly but straightened at the resounding silence that met them.
Kai thought something dim and unhelpful like please, no and then he was tearing up the stairs, stalking down the hall, opening door after door and calling her name loudly enough to hear over the sound of his heart pounded in his ears. Liv chased after him, repeating his name and telling him to chill, Kai! They reached Bonnie's bedroom and she ran into his back with a 'thwack' when he stopped dead.
There was Bonnie's bed, always so neatly made up, the knickknacks she had collected over her nine months stay crowding the bedside table. There was Damon's bed shoved in the darkest corner of the room. Here was her vanity with its mishmash of makeup she filched from the boutique downtown. Here was her grandmother's grimoire, sitting on the chair of her desk.
All covered in an untouched, fine layer of dust.
It took Liv a while to see what Kai's was seeing in that empty room, but she reached out and grabbed at his arm. "Maybe she's still traveling, Kai. Maybe something went wrong with the car. Maybe she stopped along the way for something else. You're jumping to the worst conclusion, and I'm telling you, this is Bonnie. She's fine, Kai."
"Okay," Kai responded, his voice sounding very far away even to his own ears. He slid a finger across her vanity, watched the dust come away. His heartbeat was slowing down, almost becoming sluggish, and his body felt like lead.
"We could do a spell," Liv suggested. "A locator spell."
Kai doubted it. They were here because of magic, and spells inside of spells were dangerously unreliable. At the same time, however, his prison world had been designed to allow magical to flow freely, even if the world was a giant spell itself. He picked up the grimoire. "Worth a try. There's a map downstairs."
The map was still marked with the jagged line of Kai's blood from Bonnie finding the ascendant the first time. Kai rubbed the spot on his chest where she had placed her hand uncomfortably and used the steak knife still set beside the map to prick his finger. One drop of blood he smeared on the cover of the grimoire and the rest he squeezed out onto the map. "Permisso laca tha tar. Permisso laca tha tar."
He repeated the spell over and over, but the drop of blood did not move. Beside him, he heard Liv's breath hitch. "Come on," he pleaded. "Move. Don't do this, come on."
He thought of Bonnie. Black hair, green eyes, the widest, brightest smile he'd ever seen the one chance he'd been lucky enough to see it. Brave and scared and better than him. The prettiest, loneliest girl in the world. But still the blood did not move.
Kai let out a roar and swept his hand across the table, scattering everything across it onto the floor. The windows behind him cracked and shuttered in their frames and Liv skittered around to the other side of the desk, watching him with wide eyes and raised hands.
"Calm down," she ordered. "We're not done yet. She's fine. Just – find me a candle."
Kai glared at her, caught in the eye of a storm of emotions and rooted to the spot. The house had been empty for months and she couldn't be found. Damon kept saying that nothing could happen to her, but a thousand possibilities flooded Kai's mind. She drove into a storm, lost control of the car and died in the bottom of a ditch. Alone. Qetsiyah's magic overwhelmed her and she overextended her magic and died in Nova Scotia. Alone. The spell didn't work and Bonnie gave in, slit her wrists and bled out in some random hotel bathroom. Alone.
"Kai!" Liv snapped, putting some magic in her command. "Find me a candle, now."
His sister's voice propelled him to action and he moved to the dining room, tugging one of the candles off the candelabras that sat on the table. He returned to Liv silently, handed her the candle, and watched her light it and close her eyes.
"Phesmatos Physium Calva," she whispered, clenching her eyes tight. "Come on. Phesmatos Physium Calva."
It was a spell to link the visions of witches. Jo used to practice it on him whenever he would go get himself lost in the woods behind their house, trying to escape their father. Kai held his breath, watching Liv mutter the spell repeatedly, brow growing more and more furrowed. She reached out a hand blindly for him and he took it, closing his eyes and echoing her words and thinking of that smile.
There was nothing but cold. Kai could feel it seeping into his bones, making his teeth chatter. His vision was black as night, but he could feel his body edging closer and closer to the warmth Olivia and the candle gave off. He felt as if his thoughts were freezing inside his brain.
Liv released his hand and grabbed his upper arm, shaking him. "Malachai!"
His brain moved slowly but he focused on the warmth of his sister's hand to bring him back, opening his eyes to her worried frown.
"You're shaking," she informed him. "And your lips are turning blue. What was that? Did you see anything?"
"N-no," Kai said. "I was cold. It was dark and I was cold. She was cold."
Liv stared back at him, eyes wide. "I didn't feel anything like that. Is Bonnie…I mean…" She drifted off, clearly not wanting to finish the thought, which Kai internally thanked her for. "We need to get you back. Take you to Jo."
Kai shook his head furiously. "We're finding Damon. His BFF is in danger and this time, he's going to do something or I'm going – vampires can't regrow limbs, right?"
"Jo first, then Damon," Liv said insistently. "I'm only okay if you are, remember? You're not okay." Kai opened her mouth to tell her where she could shove her commands, then closed it. Security was just about the only thing he could give his little sister, and when he considered all the things he had taken away…Kai shook his head. He was so tired.
He closed his eyes, grasped the ascendant, and cancelled the original spell. Back in the 2013 boarding house, hideous furniture still included, he stumbled over to the couch, ignited the fire, and pulled out his phone, dialing. "Hey, Sissy. So, funny story, but I might have hypothermia in the middle of May. Please come fix me. I'm at the boarding house. Bring soup."