Bella was half-sprawled across an armchair that Felix had carried in for her, eyes scanning across the page of the book before she got distracted looking at the Queens. It was just the vampirism, she decided, burying anything else deep down. Bella knew she'd look just as attractive after her transformation. If that happened. Bella sighed, and the attention of the three Queens was immediately drawn to her.

"Is something the matter?" Didyme asked patiently; she had, against her better judgment, grown a little fond of the human.

"Oh, no, not the matter," Bella said. "I'm just…. a little confused. About why we're here. It's very cold."

"Ah," Didyme said. "We did neglect to inform you. I can only apologise."

Bella nodded her acceptance before Didyme continued.

"We are expecting a guest," she said, trying to gauge Bella's reaction.

"Then…. why do I need to be here?" the human asked, not catching on.

"The guest is Carlisle," Athenodora said, to a glare from her wife. "You need to be here as this pertains to you."

Bella blinked in surprise. She'd almost forgotten that she was here waiting for Carlisle to come; she had been very distracted, and she blushed a bright red. The Queens noticed, Sulpicia bit her lip, but none of them commented.

"Oh, right, yes, of course," she said, nodding her head frantically.

Sulpicia sighed, deciding to sneak the lead from Didyme's hands. "I apologise; Athenodora can be blunt, she doesn't mean anything by it."

A light flush crossed over Bella's cheeks, throat and ears, spreading even over the back of her neck. "No, no," she said, insisting, "you don't have to apologise for her. She is who she is. It's not a bad thing." She swallowed thickly, shaking her head a little - maybe she did want to defend Athenodora, but that was only because she'd been nice to her. Relatively. Taught her how to make flower crowns with surprising patience.

Didyme smirked, but it wasn't quite as full with calculation as it would have been a few days prior - there was something, she'd found, rather endearing at the blatant authenticity Isabella lived her life with. She reminded her a little of Athenodora; life without pretense. Athenodora had always struggled to be anyone except for herself, and Bella reminded Didyme of that trait - one she had always envied. Didyme had always struggled not to mould herself around the people in her life, around her parents, and her brother, and her wives. Finding out who she was had been a confusing endeavour. She still struggled with it, every single day. Her sense of self had never been stable, she never knew who she was, and sometimes she was so scared that people were going to leave that she'd do anything to make them stay. Athenodora never seemed to have that problem. She shook her head minutely, trying to focus her attention back on the display in front of her.

"I am glad," Athenodora said, a little stiffly - she had spent too much time around the human, she was sure, and her wives, probably. "Perhaps one day I will be appreciated by my wives in a similar fashion."

Bella laughed a little, a light sound, almost in spite of itself. "I'll keep my fingers crossed for you," she teased. "They should appreciate your… awesomeness," she said, for lack of a better word, "or whatever."

"You think I'm… awesome?" asked Athenodora, with her left eyebrow raised.

Bella blushed, her blood swirling oh so temptingly under her skin. Sulpicia took a deep, unnecessary breath.

"Ah," said the honey-haired queen, and an accommodating hostess smile crossed her face. "Carlisle is here! How… joyus."

Bella sat up a little straighter, putting the bookmark in place in her book and placing it, closed, on her lap. It was only a meagre handful of seconds later that the doors to the throne room were opened, and Carlisle, escorted by a guard Bella couldn't say she recognised.

Carlisle shot Bella a smile as he crossed the marble floor, and Bella returned it hesitantly - she felt emotions rise like bile in her throat at seeing him again; it wasn't, she thought, just Edward who had abandoned her. She drew herself in, arms wrapping around herself, her whole body tensing.

Sulpicia gave a meaningful glance to Bella, crimson eyes meeting brown and providing some sort of momentary relief that the human's head was too busy buzzing to have time to analyse. She gave Sulpicia a small smile, and the Queen nodded to herself, before dragging her gaze away and to Carlisle's. Athenodora shifted closer without really realising, Didyme had a frown etched into her face like it was carved into limestone.

Carlisle's steps faltered and he drew to a stop a few feet away from the thrones of the Queens, with guards milling around the perimeter of the room. Felix was close-by and he shot Bella a surprisingly friendly and non-flirtatious wink and smile combination when she caught his eye.

"Carlisle Cullen," Sulpicia began, her voice grave and sepulchral. This, Bella realised, was an entirely formal affair. "You have been called here to answer for the actions of your coven."

Carlisle visibly swallowed, and Bella was stricken by just how human he was in comparison to the rest of the vampires in the room; hard-skinned predators, but Carlisle had always been too… Bella wasn't sure of the word. Soft? But not quite. There had always been some golden knife edge of monstrosity beneath him. Bella shifted in her seat, immediately dragging all three of the Queens' attention to her. They snapped back to Carlisle, when he nodded.

"I understand, my Queens," he said, bowing his head in subservience.

Sulpicia stood, and took a step forward, down one of the steps that separated the platform the thrones were resting on from the rest of the room.

"First," she said, a strength and authority behind her voice that Bella felt very tuned in to. "What you are accused of: allowing a human to remain alive and unchanged in the face of knowledge about our race."

Carlisle nodded his understanding, having had enough experience with Sulpicia to know that she certainly did not enjoy being interrupted.

Sulpicia turned on her heel and made her way over to Bella, her hardness melting with each step towards the human - she was, she admitted, a little fond of her. "Isabella," Sulpicia said, her tone soft and lulling, mellifluous. "Would you mind answering a few questions for us?"

Bella swallowed, eyes darting between the Queens and Carlisle, before she nodded. "Uh, yeah, sure, no problem."

Sulpicia had a liquid gold, champagne smile at that answer. "Oh, you are a sweeting. Thank you."

She turned to face Carlisle, but remained by Bella's side. Bella, for her part, wasn't sure if she should stand up too.

"First, Isabella, how did you find out about our world?"

"Uh. I mean. From a book? The Cullens' differences weren't exactly… subtle, I guess? I just did some research and figured it out and then Edward pretty much confirmed it." She tried to be as honest as possible, not sure why the pang when she thought of Edward wasn't as strong or enduring as it had been.

"Uh-huh," Sulpicia nodded. "So you did have awareness of us before the day you came here to save Edward's life, correct?"

"Uh… correct?" Bella said, her voice wavering a little. She didn't want to lie, but this felt a lot like selling the Cullens out. But, she thought, it isn't as if they cared whether you lived or died, is it?

"And the Cullens," Sulpicia continued, waving her hand in the air in a circular motion, "did they do anything to dispel these thoughts from you? Anything to discourage you?"

"Uh. I don't… think so? They pretty much just… told me I was right after I figured it out. It wasn't much of a secret at that point."

Athenodora and Didyme nodded in consideration.

"So, even when they could have lied or distracted or otherwise removed you from the truth, to take a less violent path, they did not?"

"No. They didn't."

"And clearly you are still alive before us today, and very obviously, deliciously, still human?"

"Uh. Yeah. My heart's still beating, if that's what you mean."

"As I suspected," Sulpicia said, twisting around to shoot Bella a little wink that had her flushing and Carlisle bristling.

"I do rather believe that speaks for itself, and the verdict is obvious," said Athenodora in her blade-edge voice.

"Careful, Athenodora," Didyme said amicably. "You're always so eager to get to the end of things. Carlisle must be allowed to speak in his defence."

The three Queens, the guard in the room, and Bella all turned to face Carlisle, who was visibly uncomfortable at this attention.

"I hope you understand I did it for my son," Carlisle said. "He was… is… sure that Bella is his mate. Bella has always been discrete, has never caused us doubt for a second. And we were there to monitor the situation, and people wouldn't have believed her anyway, would they? The doctor and his family being vampires? Unlikely."

Bella bristled at that. "Can I say something?" she asked Sulpicia in a quiet voice, and the golden Queen waved a hand in assent. "There to monitor the situation? You left. You all left me. I could have told anybody, and you weren't there to 'monitor' that. And it's not like you fostered an impression on people that you were normal anyway!" Bella was raging, leaning forwards in her chair. Her hands balled in the tight, ungiving fabric of her jeans on her thighs. "Literally everyone at school thought your whole family was utterly weird, if I said that 'oh, that's because you're a family of vampires', people would have accepted that far more readily than I think you really understand." At some point in her tirade, she had stood, book falling off her lap, lying thankfully undamaged on the floor.

Didyme sighed and stood, moving over to Bella to rest a soothing hand on her back, and Bella felt better already.

"As you can see," Sulpicia said, "Isabella raises some very valid points. I believe we should take some time to consider this in whole," she said, gesturing to her co-rulers.

The other two assented, and Felix came over to pick up the book from the floor. He offered his arm to link with Bella's, which she accepted gratefully. The looming vampire lead her to the door, but halfway there, Carlisle called out: "Bella."

Bella stopped, and Felix stopped too. She turned to face him, and he had a painstricken expression on his face. It twinged something inside of Bella, but in a distant kind of way.

"Bella. Can we talk? Please?" Carlisle asked, desperation in his voice.

Bella looked to the Queens, who were watching her very closely.

Didyme sighed, and said: "We won't stop you, Isabella. The choice is yours."

Bella swallowed thickly and nodded. "Yeah. Okay. We can talk."

Carlisle gave her a pleased smile, and Bella sighed. Felix began to walk again, with Bella in tow and Carlisle trailing behind them.

Felix led them to the kitchen, and nodded at the fridge to Bella. "I think you should eat something," he said, "I hear it's very restorative."

Bella nodded, moving over to the fridge mostly so she wouldn't have to look at Carlisle, who was looming in the doorway. She rattled around, trying to decide on what to eat.

"What did you want to talk about?" Bella asked Carlisle, still not looking at sounded more tired than she realised she was.

"I wanted to apologise," Carlisle said. "I didn't realise the damage that us leaving would do. I just… listened to Edward. It hurt him so badly, but he wanted to keep you safe."

Bella scoffed loudly, surprised by how much contempt was roiling through her body. Muscles tensed, jaw locked, hands balled into fists in a momentary stop of her activities. She forced herself to continue, grabbing a few containers, deciding on a sandwich.

"Well, I wasn't safe, was I? Victoria was still there. If not for Jake and the rest of them, I'd be dead. My dad would be dead. Probably painfully. But I get the sense that nobody actually thought this through."

Carlisle had the uttermost look of pity on his face, and that's what broke Bella. "Look. I get it. You were concerned with Edward, not me, he's your priority. Look. I can understand that. What I can't understand is letting me into your family and doing it still. I can't understand letting him make all the decisions when it had to do with all of you. I don't understand why you didn't step in. I lost you and Esme and Alice and everyone that day, not just Edward. I was broken. You all broke me. I hope you understand that. I hope that matters to you."

Tears were welling up in Bella's eyes as she buttered bread, so she paused and took a deep breath. "I'm not sure I have anything left to say to you, not right now at least. Please, please, please, do what you did a few months ago and leave me alone."

Felix took a step towards Carlisle. "You heard the little human. Go find some other place to haunt, I'm sure Demitri will accompany you to wherever you'd like. Isn't that right?"

There was a little gust of wind and then Demitri was there, with a professional smile on his face. His hand grabbed Carlisle's upper arm, and he nodded. "Absolutely."

The departure wasn't without struggle, but it happened. Carlisle had worry etched on his face that Bella never turned around to see. A little sob escaped her.

"Oh dear, little human," Felix said, moving toward her and resting a surprisingly comforting hand on her shoulder. "Why don't I take over the task for you. You should sit."

Bella nodded and muttered a meek thanks, as she went to sit at the dining table as Felix got on with making her a sandwich. It wasn't, she thought, that it hurt so terribly she couldn't cope, but that it didn't hurt as much as she expected. She could think of Edward now, and it was like she was with Jacob - it was manageable, while not ideal. She was surprised to notice that it was the Queens that were helping most, made her feel not alone, gave her enjoyable company. And there was more, a flicker of her heartbeat whenever they came too close, butterflies in her stomach. But that wasn't- she wasn't. She shook her head. No. No. And anyway, they were all happily married. Together. It was ridiculous, and Bella wouldn't entertain the thought.

She barely noticed the plate of food set down in front of her.

"Is everything alright?" Felix asked, and Bella cleared her throat. "Uh. Yeah. Just wish Didyme was here, I guess. She always manages to cheer me up."

Felix laughed heartily as Bella began to eat. "Ah. Yes, her gift comes in very handy. So does Corin's, actually."

"Gift?" Bella asked curiously. She didn't realise that any of the Queens had gifts, not that she'd asked. It seemed rude.

"Yes. She's the only one of the Queens to have a gift," Felix said conversationally, and Bella felt her chest tighten.

"What… what is it?"

"Oh! The power to inspire happiness in others. It's wonderful for negotiation."

Bella felt like the world had just tipped out from underneath her. "Excuse me? What?"