Before the girls left, Aleksander pulled out his phone to trade numbers with Bonnie.
“Just in case you need anything while I’m in town,” he told his cousin with an easy smile.
Before Bonnie could even put her phone back in her pocket, Caroline stepped right into Aleksander’s personal space, holding her own phone out with a bright, expectant grin.
“I should probably have your number too. You know, just in case Bonnie loses her phone. For emergencies.”
Bonnie groaned, hiding her face in her hands, while Elena just shook her head with a laugh.
Aleksander was highly amused.
With a charming chuckle, he took Caroline’s phone and typed his number in.
Across the room, Sheila watched the exchange, a rare, genuine smile softening her usually stern face.
Once the numbers were saved, the girls finally said their goodbyes and headed out the front door.
The moment the door clicked shut, the playful atmosphere in the room instantly vanished.
Lexi turned immediately to Sheila, her expression dead serious.
“She looks exactly like Katherine Pierce,” Lexi said, getting straight to the point.
Sheila let out a long, heavy sigh.
She walked over to the couch, taking a seat across from them.
“I take it you had the misfortune of knowing Katherine, then?”
Lexi nodded.
“Not personally, but I dealt with the aftermath. I’m the one who helped the youngest Salvatore get out of his Ripper phase. I spent decades getting him clean and onto an animal blood diet.”
Sheila’s eyebrows raised in genuine surprise.
She studied the vampire sitting next to her nephew.
Witches and vampires were natural enemies, but hearing that Lexi had dedicated years of her immortal life to stopping a Ripper and saving human lives…
it changed things.
Sheila finally saw why Aleksander trusted her.
“You did a good thing,” Sheila admitted softly.
She leaned back, shaking her head.
“As for Elena… I don’t know why she shares Katherine’s exact face. My knowledge of that vampire is strictly limited to what was written in my ancestor Emily Bennett’s diaries.”
“I know why,” Aleksander spoke up calmly.
Both Sheila and Lexi whipped their heads around to look at him.
“You do?” Lexi asked, her eyebrows pulling together in confusion.
Aleksander nodded.
He shifted on the couch, wrapping an arm comfortably around Lexi’s shoulders.
“Elena is a Doppelganger. Also known as a Shadow Self.”
“A Shadow Self?” Sheila repeated, intrigued.
“I’ve heard the term in old grimoires, but never the full story.”
“It goes back two thousand years, to ancient Greece,” Aleksander explained, his voice smooth and steady.
“Our ancestor, Qetsiyah, was one of the most powerful witches in history. She created an immortality spell, intending for her and her true love, Silas, to drink it together on their wedding day.”
“But Silas betrayed her. He stole the elixir and drank it with his actual true love—Qetsiyah’s handmaiden, Amara. By drinking it, they violated the absolute natural law that all living things must die. But Nature always demands a balance. So, to balance out two truly immortal beings, Nature created mortal shadow selves of Silas and Amara. Humans who looked exactly like them, born century after century, who could die in their place.”
Lexi stared at him, completely captivated.
“So… Elena is Amara’s shadow self?”
“Exactly,” Aleksander nodded.
“What happened to the originals?” Sheila asked, leaning in.
“Qetsiyah wanted revenge,” Aleksander said.
“She found Amara, petrified her immortal body, and used her to create the Anchor to a supernatural purgatory—the Other Side. Then, she lured Silas to a remote island and locked him in a tomb.”
Aleksander ran a hand through his dark hair, offering a slight shrug.
“She gave him a choice. He could take the cure she created, die a mortal death, and spend eternity trapped with her on the Other Side. Or, he could stay immortal and starve into petrification in the dark. Silas chose to starve. He’s been desiccating in that tomb for two thousand years, and the cure is still sitting right next to him.”
The room was completely silent.
Both women were staring at him in absolute shock.
The sheer scale of the history he had just casually dropped was overwhelming.
Sheila was the first to find her voice.
“Aleksander… how on earth do you know all of this?”
Aleksander offered a lazy, unapologetic shrug.
“I am the Avatar of Nature, Auntie. Besides, Qetsiyah herself contacted me when I was sixteen. We’re actually quite good friends. Honestly, when you get past the whole two-thousand-year grudge, her story is just slightly tragic.”
Sheila stared at him, completely speechless.
The idea that their most powerful, legendary ancestor—the witch who created true immortality and the Other Side—just casually chatted with her nephew was almost too much to process.
But Aleksander didn’t dwell on it.
His easy smile faded, and a slight frown formed on his face.
“Honestly, Qetsiyah isn’t the problem right now,” Aleksander said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.
“I am slightly worried about Elena.”
Sheila snapped out of her shock, her protective instincts immediately kicking back in.
“Why?”
“Because she’s a Doppelganger,” Aleksander explained with a heavy sigh.
“Doppelganger blood is incredibly rare and powerful. It’s the perfect binding agent for major spells and dark rituals. Every vampire, werewolf, or dark witch who needs to break a curse is going to want her blood. Sooner or later, that girl is going to be right in the middle of a massive storm.”
Lexi shifted uncomfortably on the couch.
As a vampire, she knew exactly how ruthless the supernatural world could be when it wanted something.
“She’s just a normal teenager. She won’t stand a chance.”
“That’s exactly why Nature gave her a defense mechanism,” Aleksander added, his dark eyes meeting Lexi’s.
“You know I can read auras, right? Well, when I looked at Elena today, I finally understood why the Salvatore brothers were so completely obsessed with Katherine.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s the Doppelganger aura,” Aleksander explained softly.
“It acts like a subtle, supernatural charm. Whoever gets pulled into that aura becomes fiercely loyal to them. They will fight, bleed, and throw their own lives away just to protect the Doppelganger at any cost. It’s almost intoxicating.”
Aleksander leaned back, shaking his head slightly.
“Since Doppelgangers are just fragile humans meant to die in place of immortals, Nature gave them that charm to help them survive. It draws powerful protectors to them.”
Lexi let out a slow breath, the pieces finally clicking together in her mind.
She thought back to 1864, remembering how Stefan and Damon had completely destroyed their own brotherhood, throwing away everything just to blindly protect Katherine Pierce.
“It wasn’t just love,” Lexi muttered in realization.
“It was the aura. They never stood a chance against it.”
“Exactly,” Aleksander nodded grimly.
“And if Stefan and Damon are heading back to Mystic Falls, it’s only a matter of time before they get caught in that exact same trap with Elena.”
While Sheila’s face twisted into a deep grimace.
The thought of her only granddaughter throwing her life away for someone else’s survival made her blood boil.
She started to stand up, her jaw set.
“I need to talk to Bonnie,” Sheila said firmly.
“I have to warn her right now before she gets pulled any deeper into this mess.”
“It won’t work, Auntie,” Aleksander sighed, holding up a hand to stop her in her tracks.
“They’ve been best friends for years. Bonnie is already linked to Elena. She’s completely submerged in that aura.”
Sheila let out a defeated breath and slumped back heavily into the couch, all the fight draining out of her.
She looked older in that moment, a grandmother terrified for her family.
“Then what do we do? How can my Bonnie possibly break free from an allure designed by Nature itself?”
“Self-realization is the only key,” Aleksander explained gently, his tone sympathetic but firm.
“If you try to tell her that her loyalty is being unnaturally influenced, she’ll just resent you. She’ll defend Elena even harder because, to her, it just feels like genuine friendship. Bonnie has to recognize the imbalance on her own. She has to choose herself.”
Lexi placed a comforting hand on Aleksander’s knee, understanding the tragic irony of it all.
It was the exact same trap the Salvatore brothers had fallen into.
As Sheila processed his words in heavy silence, Aleksander looked away, his dark eyes shifting slightly out of focus.
As the Avatar of Nature, his senses operated on a completely different level.
He could feel it humming in the air around them—the invisible, inevitable threads of Fate actively weaving in the background of Mystic Falls.
Destiny was already in motion, drawing the Doppelganger, the witches, and the vampires onto a collision course.
A quiet frown touched Aleksander’s lips.
He had the power to tear those threads apart with a single thought, to rip the town’s destiny to shreds.
But he knew better than to violently break the natural flow of time and consequence.
He couldn’t interfere just yet.
He had to let the pieces fall where they were meant to—until the absolute right moment.