Joon and Taehyung had not been able to catch up with Moonybul before her trail disappeared into the sound. They'd swum to the other bank to see if her trail had picked up in a straight line, but there was no trace of her for miles in either direction on the eastern shore.
It was all my fault. She had come, as Jimin had seen, to make peace with the Cullens, only to be angered by my camaraderie with Minghyu. I wished I'd noticed her earlier, before Minghyu had phased. I wished we'd gone hunting somewhere else.
There wasn't much to be done. Joon had called Solar with the disappointing news. Solar and Hwasa hadn't seen Moonybul since they'd decided to come to my wedding, and they were distraught that Moonybul had come so close and yet not returned home; it wasn't easy for them to lose their sister, however temporary the separation might be. She wasn't answering their calls or texts. She was just gone. I wondered if this brought back hard memories of losing their mother so many centuries ago.
Jimin was able to catch a few glimpses of Moonybul's immediate future, nothing too concrete. She wasn't going back to Denali, as far as Jimin could tell. The picture was hazy. All Jimin could see was that Moonybul was visibly upset; she wandered in the
snow-swathed wilderness—to the north? To the east?—with a devastated expression. She made no decisions for a new course beyond her directionless grieving.
Days passed and, though of course I forgot nothing, Moonybul and her pain moved to the back of my mind. There were more important things to think of now. I would leave for Italy in just a few days. When I got back, we'd all be off to South America.
Every detail had been gone over a hundred times already. We would start with the Ticunas, tracing their legends as well as we could at the source. Now that it was accepted that Minghyu would come with us, he figured prominently in the plans—it was unlikely that the people who believed in vampires would speak to any of us about their stories. If we dead-ended with the Ticunas, there were many closely related tribes in the area to research.
Joon had some old friends in the Amazon, Jisoo and Lalisa; if we could find them, they might have information for us, too. Or at least a suggestion as to where else we might go for answers. It was unlikely that the two Amazon vampires had anything to do with the legends of vampire hybrids themselves, as they were both female. There was no way to know how long our search would take.
I hadn't told Jaewoo about the longer trip yet, and I stewed about what to say to him while Taehyung and Joon's discussion went on. How do I break the news to him just right?
I stared at Eunjin while I debated internally. She was curled up on the sofa now, her breathing slow with heavy sleep, her tangled curls splayed wildly around her face. Usually, Taehyung and I took her back to our cottage to put her to bed, but tonight we lingered with the family, he and Joon deep in their planning session.
Meanwhile, Hobi and Suga were more excited about planning the hunting possibilities. The Amazon offered a change from our normal quarry. Jaguars and panthers, for example. Hobi had a whim to wrestle with an anaconda. Jin and Rosé were planning what they would pack. Minghyu was off with Sam's pack, setting things up for his own absence.
Jimin moved slowly—for him—around the big room, unnecessarily tidying the already immaculate space, straightening Jin's perfectly hung garlands. He was re-centering Jin's vases on the console at the moment. I could see from the way his face fluctuated—aware, then blank, then aware again—that he was searching
the future. I assumed he was trying to see through the blind spots that Minghyu and Eunjin made in his visions as to what was waiting for us in South America until Suga said, "Let it go, Jimin; she's not our concern," and a cloud of serenity stole silently and invisibly through the room. Jimin must have been worrying about Moonybul again.
He stuck his tongue out at Suga and then lifted one crystal vase that was filled with white and red roses and turned toward the kitchen. There was just the barest hint of wilt to one of the white flowers, but Jimin seemed intent on utter perfection as a distraction to his lack of vision tonight.
Staring at Eunjin again, I didn't see it when the vase slipped from Jimin's fingers. I only heard the whoosh of the air whistling past the crystal, and my eyes flickered up in time to see the vase shatter into ten thousand diamond shards against the edge of the kitchen's marble floor.
We were perfectly still as the fragmented crystal bounced and skittered in every direction with an unmusical tinkling, all eyes on Jimin's back.
My first illogical thought was that Jimin was playing some joke on us. Because there was no way that Jimin could have dropped the vase by accident. I could have darted across the room to catch the vase in plenty of time myself, if I hadn't assumed he would get it. And how would it fall through his fingers in the first place? His perfectly sure fingers... I had never seen a vampire drop anything by accident. Ever.
And then Jimin was facing us, twisting in a move so fast it didn't exist. His eyes were halfway here and halfway locked on the future, wide, staring, filling his face till they seemed to overflow it. Looking into his eyes was like looking out of a grave from the inside; I was buried in the terror and despair and
agony of his gaze.
I heard Taehyung gasp; it was a broken, half-choked sound.
"What?" Suga growled, leaping to his side in a blurred rush of movement, crushing the broken crystal under his feet. He grabbed Jimin's shoulders and shook him sharply. He seemed to rattle silently in his hands.
"What, Jimin?"
Hobi moved into my peripheral vision, his teeth bared while his eyes darted toward the window, anticipating an attack.
There was only silence from Jin, Joon, and Rosé, who were frozen just as I was.
Suga shook Jimin again. "What is it?"
"They're coming for us," Jimin and Taehyung whispered together, perfectly synchronized. "All of them."
Silence.
For once, I was the quickest to understand—because something in their words triggered my own vision. It was only the distant memory of a dream—faint, transparent, indistinct as if I were peering through thick gauze.... In my head, I saw a line of black advancing on me, the ghost of my half-forgotten human nightmare. I could not see the glint of their ruby eyes in the shrouded image, or the shine of their sharp wet teeth, but I knew where the gleam should be. . . .
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 Eunjin 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," Jimin moaned.
"All of them," Taehyung groaned at the same time.
"Why?" Jimin whispered to herself. "How?"
"When?" Taehyung whispered.
"Why?" Jin echoed.
"When?" Suga repeated in a voice like splintering ice.
Jimin's eyes didn't blink, but it was as if a veil covered them; they became perfectly blank. Only his mouth held on to his expression of horror.
"Not long," he and Taehyung said together. Then he spoke alone. "There's snow on the forest, snow on the town. Little more than a month."
"Why?" Joon was the one to ask this time.
Jin answered. "They must have a reason. Maybe to see . . ."
"This isn't about Kook," Jimin said hollowly. "They're all coming—Aro, Caius, Marcus, every member of the guard, even the wives."
"The wives never leave the tower," Suga contradicted him 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," Taehyung whispered.
"But why?" Joon 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," Taehyung 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 Joon's question, and yet at the same time I didn't.
Eunjin 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, Jimin," Suga pleaded. "Look for the trigger. Search."
Jimin shook his head slowly, his shoulders sagging. "It came out of nowhere, Yoongs. I wasn't looking for them, or even for us. I was just looking for Moonybul. She wasn't where I expected her to be. . . ." Jimin trailed off, his eyes drifting again.
He stared at nothing for a long second. And then his head jerked up, his eyes hard as flint. I heard Taehyung catch his breath.
"She decided to go to them," Jimin said. "Moonybul 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 Moonybul tell the Volturi that would result in Jimin's appalling vision?
"Can we stop her?" Suga asked.
"There's no way. She's almost there."
"What is she doing?" Joon 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 Moonybul 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...
Moonybul... the orphaned sisters... Joon had said that losing their mother to the Volturi's justice had made Solar, Hwasa, and Moonybul purists when it came to the law.
Just half a minute ago, Suga had said the words himself: Not even when they were hunting the immortal children.... The immortal children—the
unmentionable bane, the appalling taboo... With Moonybul'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 Eunjin's heart, to feel the heat radiating from her body. Eunjin'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 Moonybul's point of view, maybe this meant nothing was beyond us....
Moonybul, wringing her hands in the snowy wilderness—not mourning Laurent, after all, but knowing it was her duty to turn the Cullens in, knowing what would happen to them if she did. Apparently her conscience had won out over the centuries of friendship.
And the Volturi's response to this kind of infraction was so automatic, it was already decided.
I turned and draped myself over Eunjin's sleeping body, covering her with my arms, burying my face in her curls.
"Think of what she saw that afternoon," I said in a low voice, interrupting whatever Hobi was beginning to say. "To someone who'd lost a mother because of the immortal children, what would Eunjin look like?"
Everything was silent again as the others caught up to where I was already.
"An immortal child," Joon whispered. I felt Taehyung kneel beside me, wrap his arms over us both.
"But she's wrong," I went on. "Eunjin isn't like those other children. They were frozen, but she grows so much every day. They were out of control, but she never hurts Jaewoo or Sue or even shows them things that would upset them. She can control herself. She's already smarter than most adults. There would be no reason. . . ."
I babbled on, waiting for someone to exhale with relief, waiting for the icy tension in the room to relax as they realized I was right. The room just seemed to get colder. Eventually my small voice trailed off into silence.
No one spoke for a long time.
Then Taehyung whispered into my hair. "It's not the kind of crime they hold a trial for, love," he said quietly. "Aro's seen Moonybul's proof in her thoughts. They come to destroy, not to be reasoned with."
"But they're wrong," I said stubbornly.
"They won't wait for us to show them that." His voice was still quiet, gentle, velvet... and yet the pain and desolation in the sound was unavoidable. His voice was like Jimin's eyes before—like the inside of a tomb.
"What can we do?" I demanded.
Eunjin was so warm and perfect in my arms, dreaming peacefully. I'd worried so much about Eunjin's speeding age—worried that she would only have little
over a decade of life.... That terror seemed ironic now.
Little over a month...
Was this the limit, then? I'd had more happiness than most people ever experienced. Was there some natural law that demanded equal shares of happiness and misery in the world? Was my joy overthrowing the balance? Was four months all I could have?
It was Hobi who answered my rhetorical question.
"We fight," he said calmly.
"We can't win," Suga growled. I could imagine how his face would look, how his body would curve protectively over Jimin's.
"Well, we can't run. Not with Demetri around." Hobi made a disgusted noise, and I knew instinctively that he was not upset by the idea of the Volturi's tracker
but by the idea of running away. "And I don't know that we can't win," he said.
"There are a few options to consider. We don't have to fight alone."
My head snapped up at that. "We don't have to sentence the Quileutes to death, either, Hobi!"
"Chill, Kook." His expression was no different from when he was contemplating fighting anacondas. Even the threat of annihilation couldn't change Hobi's perspective, his ability to thrill to a challenge. "I didn't mean the pack. Be realistic, though—do you think Minghyu or Jackson is going to ignore an invasion? Even if it wasn't about EJ? Not to mention that, thanks to Moonybul, Aro knows about our alliance with the pack now, too. But I was thinking of our other friends."
Joon echoed me in a whisper. "Other friends we don't have to sentence to death."
"Hey, we'll let them decide," Hobi said in a placating tone. "I'm not saying they have to fight with us." I could see the plan refining itself in his head as he spoke.
"If they'd just stand beside us, just long enough to make the Volturi hesitate. Kook's right, after all. If we could force them to stop and listen. Though that
might take away any reason for a fight. . . ."
There was a hint of a smile on Hobi's face now. I was surprised no one had hit him yet. I wanted to.
"Yes," Jin said eagerly. "That makes sense, Hoseok. All we need is for the Volturi to pause for one moment. Just long enough to listen."
"We'd need quite a show of witnesses," Rosé said harshly, her voice brittle as glass.
Jin nodded in agreement, as if he hadn't heard the sarcasm in Rosé's tone. "We can ask that much of our friends. Just to witness." He looked at his granddaughter Eunjin with adoration and a resolve came over him to protect EJ with all his might. He hissed at the thought of the Volturi harming my... and everyone's little baby girl.
"We'll have to ask them just right," Jimin murmured. I looked to see his eyes were a dark void again. "They'll have to be shown very carefully."
"Shown?" Suga asked.
Jimin and Taehyung both looked down at Eunjin. Then Jimin's eyes glazed over.
"Solar's family," he said. "Siobhan's coven. Amun's. Some of the nomads— Eunwoo and Jessi for certain. Maybe Sehun."
"What about Peter and Charlotte?" Suga asked half fearfully, as if he hoped the answer was no, and his old brother could be spared from the coming carnage.
"Maybe."
"The Amazons?" Joon asked. "Jisoo, and Lisa? They have a great relationship with Rosé. Maybe she could convince them?"
Jimin seemed too deep into his vision to answer at first; finally he shuddered, and his eyes flickered back to the present. He met Joon's gaze for the tiniest part of a second, and then looked down.
"I can't see."
"What was that?" Taehyung asked, his whisper a demand. "That part in the jungle. Are we going to look for them?"
"I can't see," Jimin repeated, not meeting his eyes. A flash of confusion crossed Taehyung's face. "We'll have to split up and hurry—before the snow sticks to the ground. We have to round up whomever we can and get them here to show them." Jimin zoned again. "Ask Jeonghan. There is more to this than just an immortal child."
The silence was ominous for another long moment while Jimin was in his trance. He blinked slowly when it was over, his eyes peculiarly opaque despite the fact that he was clearly in the present.
"There is so much. We have to hurry," he whispered.
"Jimin?" Taehyung asked. "That was too fast—I didn't understand. What was—?"
"I can't see!" he exploded back at him. "Minghyu's almost here!"
Rosé took a step toward the front door. "I'll deal with—"
"No, let him come," Jimin said quickly, his voice straining higher with each word.
He grabbed Suga's hand and began pulling him toward the back door. "I'll see better away from EJ, too. I need to go. I need to really concentrate. I need to see everything I can. I have to go. Come on, Yoongs, there's no time to waste!"
We all could hear Minghyu on the stairs. Jimin yanked, impatiently on Suga's hand. He followed quickly, confusion in his eyes just like Taehyung's. They darted out the door into the silver night.
"Hurry!" he called back to us. "You have to find them all!"
"Find what?" Minghyu asked, shutting the front door behind himself. "Where'd Jimin go?"
No one answered; we all just stared.
Minghyu shook the wet from his hair and pulled his arms through the sleeves of his t-shirt, his eyes on Eunjin. "Hey, Kook! I thought you guys would've gone
home by now. . . ."
He looked up to me finally, blinked, and then stared. I watched his expression as the room's atmosphere finally touched him. He glanced down, eyes wide, at the wet spot on the floor, the scattered roses, the fragments of crystal. His fingers quivered.
"What?" he asked flatly. "What happened?"
I couldn't think where to begin. No one else found the words, either. Minghyu crossed the room in three long strides and dropped to his knees beside Eunjin and me. I could feel the heat shaking off his body as tremors rolled down his arms to his shaking hands.
"Is she okay?" he demanded, touching her forehead, tilting his head as he listened to her heart. "Don't mess with me, Kook, please!"
"Nothing's wrong with Eunjin," I choked out, the words breaking in strange places.
"Then who?"
"All of us, Minghyu," I whispered. And it was there in my voice, too—the sound of the inside of a grave. "It's over. We've all been sentenced to die."
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