when nothing happened, she turned it right. Nothing. Left.

The cell bars slowly began to lift into the ceiling.

Elena couldn’t believe it and for an instant thought she was

hallucinating. Then when she turned sharply to look at the ground she

saw that the bars were already at least a foot above it.

Then she looked at Stefan, who was standing again.

Both of them fell back to their knees. They would have both gotten

down and wriggled like snakes if necessary, the need to touch was so

great. The horizontal struts on the bars made it impossible for them to

hold hands as the bars lifted.

Then the bars were over the top of Elena’s head and she was

holding Stefan—she was holding Stefan in her arms!—appalled to feel

bones under her hands, but holding him, and no one could tell her he

was a hallucination or a dream, and if she and Stefan had to die together,

then they would die together. Nothing mattered but that they not be

separated again.

She covered the unfamiliar, bony face with kisses. Strange, no

half-grown, gone-to-the-wild beard, but vampires didn’t grow beards

unless they had them when they became vampires.

And then there were other people in the cell. Good people. People

laughing and crying and helping her create a makeshift litter out of ┅思┅兔┅在┅線┅閱┅讀┅