I'm a man of my word - I make a deal, I keep a deal.

Hearing a rumor that Mikael was in town was, honestly, the last thing Elijah wanted to deal with. It was, however, the thing that finally dragged him across town to the Salvatore mansion. Honestly, he'd been putting it off for too long. It wasn't that he didn't want to see Rebekah. Gods, of course he wanted to see her. He'd missed her more than any other sibling Klaus had taken, and it was her death--thinking Klaus had just thrown her into the ocean--that had driven him over the edge.

But he wasn't certain how much she would want to see him. After Klaus had daggered her, surely she wasn't quite as loyal? But...he knew how deep those bonds ran, for both of them. Deeper than he wanted to think about, honestly. He just wasn't sure hers would run to him, as well. She hadn't come to find him, after all, any more than he had her--but maybe they hadn't told her?

Only one way to find out, and he'd be damned if he was going to let Mikael hurt her, so he found himself at the door to the boarding house, knocking lightly.

Damon answered, looking vaguely disgruntled when he saw who was on the other side.

"What do you want?"

Elijah sighed. "To see my sister."

"Are you going to take her away?"

Elijah arched an eyebrow. "That's up to her. I'd merely like to speak with her at the moment. Make sure she's all right."

"Why wouldn't she be?"

"Dagger. Back. At your dining room table. Dagger, heart, at Elena's cabin. Plan ruined, more than once. Do you want me to go on?"

"No one's put a dagger in your sister."

"Forgive me if I'd like to see proof of that for myself instead of taking your less-than-stellar word for anything."

Damon looked as if he were debating slamming the door, but it must have occurred to him, finally, that Elijah had been invited in multiple times and could just toss him aside and come in if he wished. He finally stepped aside. "She's in the library."

Elijah nodded his thanks, brushing past him much as he had that night at the party, and moved with no sign of his inward trepidation to see his little sister for the first time in far too long. Given the state of his temper upon Mikael's reemergence into their lives, it was probably a very good thing Damon hadn't pressed.