Sofia Lescheres saw him first, and she touched her sister’s elbow and went into the house without a word. Ysabelle watched her go, then stepped down off the porch to meet Elijah halfway. “She is grieving,” the tall witch explained, wrapping a mauve shawl tightly around her body. “There was a great deal of death last night, and in their anger the fools did not think to protect our people. Witches are dead, and she believes that her daughter is one of them.”

“She is,” Elijah confirmed simply. He considered trying to explain how she had died, but there was very little he could say that would not make it worse. He and Klaus had survived, and Vivianne was dead. Even surrounded by werewolves, the ground exploding, and a magical storm bearing down, the brothers had lived, and the witches would hold them responsible for failing to protect Vivianne.

And perhaps they would be right. If Klaus had not been so deeply, blindly in love, he would have tied her to a chair and been done with it. “It was quick,” Elijah offered. “Vivianne did not suffer.”

Ysabelle shuddered, and he could tell that she was holding back a sob. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I will tell my sister.” She clenched her hands, blue veins standing out angrily. “Those fools,” she repeated, and in those two short words Elijah could hear all of the raging she refused to do in front of him.

“My brother is in the cemetery now,” he told her. “We would like to help with the arrangements, if we may.” Even better if they could get Vivianne’s remains safely into a casket before anyone thought to ask why she was burned. “I understand that Vivianne’s father rests elsewhere, but we thought this place would be most appropriate, if her family agrees.”

Ysabelle hesitated, glancing back at her house again. It looked untouched by the storm, Elijah noticed. He guessed that his was not the only house she had used Esther’s grimoire to protect. “Sofia will be staying with me for a while,” she replied. “Her roof was lost, and she doesn’t want to see anyone. But it is a kind offer, and I think that if it were simply done...”

Elijah nodded. “We will take care of it,” he assured her. “We can begin work on a suitable tomb this morning. If Sofia will come to the cemetery two nights from now, I will make sure that she has a chance to say a proper good-bye. Alone, if she wishes it.”

“I think she will,” Ysabelle agreed. “Thank you.”

He left her there, unable to do more. Ysabelle and her sister would just have to live with their anger and their grief. Elijah guessed that it would be some time before they thought about the rebuilding and running of the city, and that suited him quite well.

He found Klaus still in the witches’ graveyard, looking sober and intent on his task. “I was thinking here,” he said at Elijah’s arrival. “You can see a bit of the river from right here.”

Elijah clasped his arm, then walked with him back to where their horses waited. He explained his conversation with Ysabelle, and they discussed whether they were likely to find a tradesman left in the city to build a casket and a little mausoleum.

Klaus seemed somewhat cheered by the news that a number of witches had perished in the storm, and Elijah was glad that he was beginning to look beyond his gloom. It would take Klaus time to heal, but forever was a long time to carry such a raw wound—and eventually his brother would start to let go of the pain.

As they returned to their home, Klaus’s horse snorted and shied in surprise. Elijah tightened his reins instinctively, looking around for any potential source of danger.

She was right in front of them. Rebekah sat on their porch, with her bare feet dangling carelessly in the muddy water. Her golden hair was plastered down against her skull, and her clothing was so soaked and filthy that he could not have guessed at its original color. Her beautiful face was dirty as well, but he could see where fresh tears had carved out tracks of bare skin.

She didn’t need to speak—it was obvious that she had also lost her true love last night. She would not be there, alone and weeping, if Eric had survived. He would never have wished that kind of a loss on her—or on Klaus, for that matter. To see both of them bereaved in one single blow was the worst kind of sorrow.

“It will be all right,” Elijah told her, then nodded to Klaus so that he would know Elijah spoke to them both. “There can be no replacement for what you have lost, but you have not lost everything. No matter who else is gone or missed or remembered, we will always have one another. We will always have family.”

* * * * *

The untold story of THE ORIGINALS has only just begun.

Read on for a sneak peek of

THE ORIGINALS: THE LOSS

Coming soon from creator Julie Plec,

Alloy Entertainment and HQN Books...

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PROLOGUE

1766

LILY LEROUX HAD promised herself that she wouldn’t cry. Her mother would never have forgiven her for crying. Lily’s job was to look strong and poised in her fitted black dress, to accept the community’s condolences without seeming to need them. She was in charge of New Orleans’s witches now, or whatever was left of them. She had to lead them, not lean on them.

They could certainly use some leading. Lily’s mother had done her best to hold them together after the hurricane they’d created had razed the city to its foundations more than forty years ago, but their losses had been catastrophic. And the guilt of having caused so much destruction...the guilt was even more devastating.

In the meantime, other players had stepped into the void of power left behind by the witches. The French had recently handed New Orleans over to the Spanish, who had chosen to wholly ignore their new territory. Instead, it was the vampires who had taken the reins.

The Mikaelsons—the Originals, three of the very first vampires in existence—had made their move at an ideal time. Elijah, Rebekah, and, worst of all, Klaus now ruled the city. The witches hated them with a passion, although Lily suspected that her mother had always nursed some kind of soft spot for them. She had categorically shut down any talk of retaliation or reprisal by reminding them that their own hands were responsible for their current sorry state. If they hadn’t tried to seek reckless revenge against the werewolves for betraying their truce, they wouldn’t be sequestered in the backwaters of the bayou.

And the result of that policy was that Ysabelle Dalliencourt’s funeral was a sorry shadow of what it should have been. She had led her people out of the ruined city and kept their community together, she had counseled them against a destructive path of war, and taught them to focus on themselves and their craft rather than on the walking abominations that sat on their former throne.

She should have lain in state in the heart of New Orleans, not in the sorry little clapboard meetinghouse the witches had built in the midst of a swamp.