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brother,” he said.
    And it was true, Stefan remembered. In that hideous last battle with Klaus, Damon had stabbed the Old One with white ash, keeping him from striking the final blow against Stefan. But he hadn’t been responsible for Klaus’s death. Stefan had engineered the fight against Klaus, had done his best to kill him. But, in the end, he had failed, too. It was Elena, bringing an army of the dead against the Original vampire, who had killed him.
    “Elena,” Stefan said desperately. “ Elena needs you.”
    He was positive that would do it, that Damon’s armor would crack. Damon always came through for Elena. But this time Damon’s lip curled in a sneer. “I’m sure you can handle things,” he said lightly, his voice brittle. “Elena’s well-being is your responsibility now, not mine.”
    “Damon—”
    “No.” Damon held up a warning hand. “I told you. I’m done.” And with one quick motion, he slammed the door in Stefan’s face.
    Stefan rested his forehead against the door, feeling defeated.
    “Damon,” he said again. He knew Damon could hear him, but there was only silence from inside the apartment. Slowly, he backed away from the door. It would be best not to push Damon, not when he was in this mood.
    In this mood, Damon might do anything.
     
    “I’m so glad you came to see me, Elena,” Professor Campbell said. “I was worried about you after”—he glanced around surreptitiously and lowered his voice, although they were alone in his office—“our last talk.” He peered at her cautiously, his usually inquisitive and rather smug face clouded with uncertainty.
    “I’m sorry I ran off like that, James,” Elena told him, staring down into the cup of sweet, milky coffee he had given her. “It’s just . . . when you told me I was a Guardian and the truth about what happened to my parents, I needed some time to think. Last summer, I met a few Guardians. They were powerful, but so inhuman.”
    She still couldn’t accept that she was supposed to become like them. The whole idea was so big and horrifying that her mind kept scuttling away from it, focusing on solid and immediate concerns like the vampires on campus instead.
    Elena’s hands shook a little, making the coffee swirl and eddy. She carefully steadied her cup.
    James patted her gently on the shoulder. “Well, I have been doing some research, and I think I have good news,” he said.
    “I could use good news,” she said softly, almost pleadingly. “I don’t really understand what a human Guardian would be like. Would I be different than a Celestial Guardian?”
    James smiled for the first time since she had walked into his office. “After we spoke,” he said, “I started to contact all my old colleagues who have studied mythology or magic, anyone who I thought might know something about the Guardians.”
    Now that he had information to impart, James lost his tentativeness and seemed to expand, his shoulders relaxing as he hooked his thumbs into his suit vest. “Legend has it,” he said, his voice taking on its lecturing tone, “that human Guardians are rare, but there are always two or three in the world. Generally, their parents are recruited in the same way the Guardians recruited your parents, and then the children are handed over to the Guardians for training as they enter adolescence.”
    Elena closed her eyes for a moment, wincing. She couldn’t imagine being given to the Guardians and losing her human life so young. But if she had been, her mother and father would still be alive.
    “When the human Guardians reach young adulthood—about your age, Elena,” James continued, “they’re stationed where there are high concentrations of ley lines and, therefore, large amounts of supernatural activity.”
    “Like here,” Elena said. “And Fell’s Church.”
    James nodded. “The evidence shows pretty strongly that the Guardians recruit prospective parents from ley line–heavy places,” he said. “So the