Stronger than the memory of the sight came the memory of the feel—the wrenching need to protect the precious thing behind me.
I wanted to snatch Renesmee up into my arms, to hide her behind my skin and hair, to make her invisible. But I couldn’t even turn to look at her. I felt not like stone but ice. For the first time since I’d been reborn a vampire, I felt cold.
I barely heard the confirmation of my fears. I didn’t need it. I already knew.
“The Volturi,” Alice moaned.
“All of them,” Edward groaned at the same time.
“Why?” Alice whispered to herself. “How?”
“When?” Edward whispered.
“Why?” Esme echoed.
“When?” Jasper repeated in a voice like splintering ice.
Alice’s eyes didn’t blink, but it was as if a veil covered them; they became perfectly blank. Only her mouth held on to her expression of horror.
“Not long,” she and Edward said together. Then she spoke alone. “There’s snow on the forest, snow on the town. Little more than a month.”
“Why?” Carlisle was the one to ask this time.
Esme answered. “They must have a reason. Maybe to see . . .”
“This isn’t about Bella,” Alice said hollowly. “They’re all coming—Aro, Caius, Marcus, every member of the guard, even the wives.”
“The wives never leave the tower,” Jasper contradicted her in a flat voice. “Never. Not during the southern rebellion. Not when the Romanians tried to overthrow them. Not even when they were hunting the immortal children. Never.”
“They’re coming now,” Edward whispered.
“But why?” Carlisle said again. “We’ve done nothing! And if we had, what could we possibly do that would bring this down on us?”
“There are so many of us,” Edward answered dully. “They must want to make sure that . . .” He didn’t finish.
“That doesn’t answer the crucial question! Why?”
I felt I knew the answer to Carlisle’s question, and yet at the same time I didn’t. Renesmee was the reason why, I was sure. Somehow I’d known from the very beginning that they would come for her. My subconscious had warned me before I’d known I was carrying her. It felt oddly expected now. As if I’d somehow always known that the Volturi would come to take my happiness from me.
But that still didn’t answer the question.
“Go back, Alice,” Jasper pleaded. “Look for the trigger. Search.”
Alice shook her head slowly, her shoulders sagging. “It came out of nowhere, Jazz. I wasn’t looking for them, or even for us. I was just looking for Irina. She wasn’t where I expected her to be. . . .” Alice trailed off, her eyes drifting again. She stared at nothing for a long second.
And then her head jerked up, her eyes hard as flint. I heard Edward catch his breath.
“She decided to go to them,” Alice said. “Irina decided to go to the Volturi. And then they will decide.… It’s as if they’re waiting for her. Like their decision was already made, and just waiting on her. . . .”
It was silent again as we digested this. What would Irina tell the Volturi that would result in Alice’s appalling vision?
“Can we stop her?” Jasper asked.
“There’s no way. She’s almost there.”
“What is she doing?” Carlisle was asking, but I wasn’t paying attention to the discussion now. All my focus was on the picture that was painstakingly coming together in my head.
I pictured Irina poised on the cliff, watching. What had she seen? A vampire and a werewolf who were best friends. I’d been focused on that image, one that would obviously explain her reaction. But that was not all that she’d seen.
She’d also seen a child. An exquisitely beautiful child, showing off in the falling snow, clearly more than human…
Irina… the orphaned sisters… Carlisle had said that losing their mother to the Volturi’s justice had made Tanya, Kate, and Irina purists when it came to the law.
Just half a minute ago, Jasper had said the words himself: Not even when they were hunting the immortal children.… The immortal children—the unmentionable bane, the appalling taboo…
With Irina’s past, how could she apply any other reading to what she’d seen that day in the narrow field? She had not been close enough to hear Renesmee’s heart, to feel the heat radiating from her body. Renesmee’s rosy cheeks could have been a trick on our part for all she knew.
After all, the Cullens were in league with werewolves. From Irina’s point of view, maybe this meant nothing was beyond us.…