of Damon."
His gaze left the candle and settled on his brother's face. Damon looked back at him with an inscrutable expression.
"I suppose I've always been jealous of him. The phantom was tel ing the truth when she said that. When we were alive, he was older, faster, stronger, more sophisticated than I was. When we died" - Stefan's lips curled up in a bitter smile of remembrance - "things only got worse. And, even more recently, when Damon and I found we could work together, I've resented how close he was to Elena. He has a piece of her that I'm not a part of, and it's hard not to be jealous of that."
Stefan sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "The thing is, though, I love my brother. I do." He looked up at Damon. "I love you. I always have, even when we were at our worst. Even when al we wanted to do was kil each other. Elena's right: We're more than the bad parts of ourselves. I have fed the phantom of jealousy, but now I cast my jealousy away."
The blue candle flickered and went out. Elena was watching the phantom closely, and saw the rose in its torso dul for a moment. The phantom flinched and snarled, then renewed its struggle against Mrs. Flowers's spel . As it gave a powerful twist, the older woman staggered backward.
"Now!" Elena muttered quietly to Damon, looking at him meaningful y and wishing more than ever that she had her powers of telepathy. Distract her, she hoped her eyes said. Damon nodded once, as if to say he understood her message, then cleared his throat theatrical y, drawing every eye to him, and picked up the dark red candle, the last one burning in the line. He dabbed a line of his blood down its length and spent a few seconds posed with his head lowered pensively, his long, dark eyelashes brushing his cheeks. He was milking the moment for every drop of drama.
Once every eye was fixed on him, Elena touched Stefan and indicated for him to help her approach the phantom from either side.
"I have been jealous," Damon intoned, staring down at the flame of the candle he held. He flicked his eyes up quickly at Elena, and she nodded encouragingly.
"I have been jealous," he repeated, frowning. "I have coveted that which my brother has, over and over again."
Elena slipped closer to the phantom, coming up beside it on its right side. She could see that Stefan was inching nearer on its left.
Mrs. Flowers saw them, too. Elena could tel , because the older woman raised her eyebrows fractional y and began to mutter her spel more loudly and fiercely. Damon's voice rose, too, everyone in the room competing for Jealousy's attention, to keep it from noticing Stefan and Elena's machinations.
"I don't need to go into every single detail of my past,"
Damon said, his familiar smirk appearing on his battered face, a smirk that Elena found oddly reassuring. "I think there's been enough of that here today. Suffice it to say there are things I... regret. Things that I would like to be different in the future." He paused dramatical y for a moment, his head thrown back proudly. "And so I admit that I have fed the phantom of jealousy. And now I cast jealousy out."
In the moment that Damon's candle went out - and thank God it had gone out, Elena thought; Damon was apt to cling to his worst impulses - the rose in the phantom's chest dul ed again to a dark pink. Jealousy snarled and wobbled ever so slightly on its feet. At that same instant, Stefan lunged for the cut across the phantom's chest and got his hand inside it, inside the phantom's torso, and grabbed for the rose.
A gout of green, viscous fluid spurted from the wound as Stefan squeezed the rose, and then the phantom screamed, a long, unearthly howl that made al the humans flinch. Bonnie clapped her hands over her ears, and Celia moaned.
For a moment, Elena thought they were going to win that easily - that by attacking the rose at the phantom's heart, Stefan had defeated it. But then the phantom steadied itself and, with a huge flexing of muscle, pul ed suddenly out of Mrs. Flowers's control, and in one smooth motion ripped Stefan away from its side, his hand coming empty out of its chest, and threw