(1) The Phoenix (D. Salvatore)

Chapter One Hundred and One

Alaric is sitting in a chair in the middle of the living room watching Daphne as she dumps a load of books onto the couch. Despite her rather slow morning, once she did get up, she wanted to get straight to it. Mainly because today is going to be busy enough as it is. Laying in bed for half the morning, as nice as it was, was a mistake.

"You can literally teleport" Damon points out with a smirk as he follows Daphne into the room. "We don't need to worry about travel times"

"That doesn't mean we can just lounge around all day" She counters and gives him a look. Damon chuckles.

"You have a hard time relaxing, don't you, Red?" He teases, she sticks out her tongue at him and turns back to her books. she does have a hard time relaxing here. At school, it was simpler. There was time to relax between homework, exams, and classes. None of that was life-threatening. Mystic Falls doesn't allow time to relax when one thing after another pops up and lives are on the line almost every single day. When is she supposed to relax exactly?

"Are you sure about this?" Alaric asks. Damon glances at him, shifting to linger close by just in case Alaric's alter-ego doesn't like Daphne poking around and he lashes out at her. They've seen what his alter-ego is capable of and hurting a teenage witch is not going to be a step he stops at. He won't care about who she is if she gets in the way of what he perceives as his mission, in this case, killing all the vampires and dealing with those that he believes are traitors to humans. It is why him being locked away was a good idea until they could figure out how to fix him. Him, sitting in the open in the living room, is not safe. Daphne takes a deep breath and holds out her wand towards Alaric. "Wait" Alaric starts, watching the end of her wand. "Is this going to hurt?" She pulls a face and shrugs.

"Not that I know of" She answers. She's never had it done to her and she's never heard from anyone that it hurts. It shouldn't. Mind reading doesn't hurt anyone, so why should the spell that boosts that? In theory, it shouldn't. Alaric lets out a breath and nods, more to himself as he accepts that this is going to happen.

"Okay" He whispers and sits up straighter in the seat. Damon moves closer to him, just in case. Daphne adjusts her hold on her wand, twisting her wrist slightly.

"Legilimens" She casts. Whilst she is a telepath in her own right, she knows that this spell will give her a boost. Letting her dig a little deeper than she would normally be able to on her own. it might just be the only way to get the location of the last stake. The sooner they get it, the sooner they can deal with Klaus. Like it is the last nail. That it will be closing that chapter on this whole mess. She can tell when the spell works because it is an influx. It's not how it usually feels. There is so much noise and mess. When she reads someone's mind, it tends to be what they are thinking at that moment. She can't dig around for past thoughts or memories. The spell boosts her range. Which means that she gets a barrage of memories and thoughts and it is difficult for her to shift through them to find out what she wants. It's all just noise and images flashing through her own head. She pulls her wand back, stopping the spell. Alaric slumps in the seat, Damon moving to check on him as Daphne lets out a breath.

"Did you find it?" Alaric asks. Daphne shakes her head.

"I've never used this spell before and my telepathy is...basic" She admits. "It might take me a few tries to get what we need" She tucks her wand into her sleeve. "Plus for a human, your mind is pretty fortified" She shrugs. Not sure what that is about. Perhaps because it is an alter-ego thing going on. It's like there is two different minds inside of his head. Which would make reading it difficult. She wishes that there had been a little more push on her mind reading at school, but they were more interested in teaching her not to do it because it is considered rude to be poking around, and she gets that, but surely learning how to use it would be useful too.

"What's Klaus gonna do if you can't find it?" Alaric asks them. Damon glances at Daphne who shrugs a little. She made her case very firmly with Klaus, but he is unpredictable and they are standing against him. There is no guarantee that even if they do hand over the stakes that Klaus is going to be off of their back. He's not the sort to just take threats and walk away from things. He's already proven to be very determined to get what he wants. No matter how many people he has to kill to get it.

"It's the only thing that will kill him, so wage war, murder people, you know Klaus stuff." Damon mumbles and shrugs before he checks his phone. "Stefan's on his way back," He tells Daphne who hums in acknowledgement as she picks up one of her books from a pile on the couch.

"Why?" Alaric inquires. Daphne glances up from her book.

"Stefan is gonna watch over you for a little while" She answers. "We have to assume that Klaus knows where Jeremy is because he threatened him, so, Damon and I are gonna go to Grimmauld to bring him back" She sets down the book and picks up another one to flick through. "I'll give the spell another go when we get back" She adds and then looks at Damon. "I'm going to go and pack a bag" He nods a little and then watches as she apparates out of the house. Alaric turns and gives Damon a look.

"You think this spell is going to work?" Alaric asks. Damon lets out a breath. He knows she's smart and powerful, but he's seen Bonnie fail spells before. And this is important, this is lives on the line, Klaus' rage on the line. To be fair though, it's all been something on the line since the moment she came home.