"This is a mistake."
Caius' voice is like cold steel. He glares at Aro with unconcealed rage. The air in the Grand Hall seems to disappear in the thick cloud of tension generated between them. Everyone is frozen, even Chelsea seemingly powerless to diffuse the situation.
Aro leans lazily back in his chair, not breaking Caius' stare.
"I disagree, brother." His tone is light, but there is no humor in his expression. "Edward has given us no reason to think he should not be trusted. He leaves us every other day to hunt, and returns as promised. He has stood witness here to our justice. What is it that gives you pause?"
Caius doesn't look in my direction.
"He bides his time. You have a hall full of Guards. There is no need to send this boy."
"And how would you have him prove himself? Edward's talent is an asset to us all. You would have it wasted?"
Marcus stays silent. His thoughts are of a time and place I do not recognize. His thoughts are of Didyme.
Caius raises his voice. "I would have him use his talents here! There is no place for him in the field. Jane and Alec are more than capable."
Venomous pride surfaces in Jane's mind. Alec seems disinterested in the outcome of this argument. He is thinking about the task ahead. A small town in northern Scotland, where the long winter nights have given a pack of ranging nomads leeway to be careless.
"You are too cautious," Aro sneers, dismissively. "Edward will go with them. I will not discuss this further."
Caius springs to his feet. A long silence stretches; no one in the room moves so much as an eyelash, waiting to see what will happen.
"You will regret this," Caius spits, finally. He turns and sweeps from the hall, his robe flowing behind him. His voice is still clearly audible to us all. "We all will."
Aro gives a little clap, regaining the attention of the room. "Very well. Jane, you leave tonight."
Jane scowls at me. She appears torn by feeling pleased with Caius' endorsement, and hurt that Aro wants me to go at all.
We don't need you, and this fascination of Aro's will not last.
I shrug at her slightly. I will do what I am told; too much depends on it. Something about her thoughts bothers me, though. She is not the first to accuse me of being a 'fascination' for Aro.
It is slightly faster to fly than to swim and run, and so my customary robe is set aside in favor of the dark jeans and pale blue dress shirt that someone has laid out on bed. My passport sits on the side table, returned for the first time since my arrival. I fan the pages, mind racing at the possibilities. We'll be at an airport, with planes leaving in all directions. Can I seize the opportunity to run? My mind fills with thoughts of Bella, but the pictures swim and dissolve and I can't grasp them. All I can see is Caius' poisonous expression in their place.
The flight from Rome to Edinburgh is short and uncomfortable, with Felix's massive bulk seeming to take up all the available space next to me, spilling over the armrest. It is a relief to be back on the ground and running through the night air.
The fishing village of Lybster is on the coast. The squat stone buildings that line the main street have warm, glowing windows; a defense against the snow thick on the ground and the chill wind coming in off the ocean. Demetri has no trouble finding the trail, and we head inland, pulling up in a copse of trees bordering an old stone farmhouse.
"There are four of them," Demetri mutters. "Three males and a female."
Jane stares at the two-storey house, taking in her surroundings. Her scarlet eyes seem even more ferocious than usual in the moonlight. "Let's get this done," she says finally.
The vampires are in a large front room, sitting around a table in front of an empty stone fireplace, and they react with surprise and horror as Felix kicks in the door. Before they can scatter we fan out and stand before every exit, circling them. Their thoughts are bewildered and terrified. They know who we are; they have no idea why we are here.
The older male steps toward Felix, mistaking his size for authority. "Please. We've done nothing wrong. There's been some kind of mistake."
Jane knocks him from his feet and he cries out in pain, writhing terribly on ground. "Now, we all know that's not true, don't we?" Her voice is sweet, child-like, and laced with untempered malice.
The woman crouches at the side of the downed vampire, her thoughts filled with love and fear for one she thinks of as a father. "Please!" she begs Jane. "Stop!" She sounds just as Bella did; crying for me. Jane looks at her with disgust; but relents. The man on the ground relaxes with a whimper.
"You have broken the law." Jane's voice is brittle. She seems repulsed by the display of emotion before her; appalled by what she considers to be unforgivable weakness.
The youngest of the four looks to be about my age. He is running back over the last few months in his head, desperately trying to work out their mistake. It confuses me. The kills he recalls seem clean: a lone hunter in a forest, miles from anywhere; an aged fisherman whose body was recovered and thought to have fallen from his boat; an aimless hitchhiker whom no one appears to have missed. Nothing of the bloodbath we had described to us in Volterra.
I look at Jane. Something isn't right here.
"You're wrong about us," the boy tries. "We have only been here a couple of weeks. You must be looking for someone else."
"Really," Jane says quietly, pointing her pale finger at the woman still crouching on the floor, who looks up in shock. "I think you know what she is capable of."
The boy's mind roils in confusion. "Sarah?"
The old vampire has recovered enough to struggle weakly up into a sitting position. "Sarah has done nothing wrong." He says it with confidence, but his mind is filled with doubt. As if sensing this she turns to him, clasping his face in her hands. "Matthew," she whispers, sounding as if in tears. "I've done nothing. I swear it."
Jane laughs delightedly, and Sarah spins to look at her. "It's true, I..." Jane flicks a hand in Alec's direction and Sarah's mind goes instantly silent and blank.
"Now, now. We can't have you trying that on us, can we? Your gift may permit you to convince these wretches that your lies are the truth, but we both know better, don't we?"
Jane taps her foot impatiently, staring at Sarah's vacant expression, and then addresses the three men in front of her.
"This woman has broken our law. She has killed without caution, revealing herself to those around her. And you three have harbored her. You know the penalty."
"This is ridiculous!" The boy steps forward to protest, stopping as Felix snaps the leg off a nearby chair and brandishes it in front of himself like a club. "She hasn't done anything!"
Jane arches her eyebrow at him with a smirk. "Then why do your companions stay silent? They know, as we do, that your Sarah has a gift. That she can convince anyone that what she says is the truth."
I don't need to read Matthew's mind to know Jane is right about her gift; his face is a picture of guilt and fear. The fourth vampire stays mute. He, too, seems to be afraid that Sarah has, in fact, between killing wantonly and convincing them otherwise.
"Sarah!" the boy cries in panic. "Tell them! Tell them this isn't true!"
Sarah's mind remains a dense and quiet fog, thanks to Alec. I can't discern the truth or otherwise of Jane's story.
"She can't experience anything, right now," Jane says bluntly. "If we were to allow her to speak, she would only use her gift on us and convince us nothing had happened."
Matthew places a palm against Sarah's cheek. A benediction of sorts. His heart is breaking. He is wishing there was any way he could be sure of her innocence.
Jane taps her foot again sharply. "I'm tired of this. You understand the crime. Sentence will be passed on the girl in Volterra, where her power will not endanger us all. The rest of you knew what you were risking by staying with her. The sentence is death."
The boy screams as Jane raises her hand. Felix steps swiftly forward and snaps Matthew's neck, while Demetri nearly decapitates the fourth vampire.
"Edward?" Jane is looking at me with a tiny, wicked smile. "Would you like to finish him off, or shall I play for a while?"
The boy's eyes are scrunched closed in pain. She waves her fingers again, and his back arches in agony. I think of the fire I experienced through every nerve and muscle when she did this to me. The decision is easy. I kneel at his side, offer a silent prayer, and put him out of his misery.
Jane claps like a child. Like Aro's own.
I turn away from her abruptly, stalking from the room.
Demetri follows me out into the yard. His thoughts are curious. He is impressed that I killed the boy, but remains suspicious that I might be about to run. I walk to the nearest tree and start tearing branches off it.
"Are you going to help me?" I call over my shoulder. "A fire isn't going to build itself."
We work methodically, building a large bonfire on the frozen ground in front of the house, and before long the acrid smoke is curling up into the clear night sky. If Alec is struggling to keep the girl under control, he does not let on. His mind is calm and focused on the task at hand. I need more information, but I am not sure how to get it without compromising myself. Nothing about this night stacks up.
"Why didn't you tell me she had a gift?" I ask Jane, trying to sound as casual as I can. "I could have listened to her thoughts before she knew we were outside."
Jane looks at me with narrowed eyes. Her mind is a still pond. It feels deliberate, like the way Alice's mind fills with Urdu ghazals when she is trying to keep something from me.
"To what end?" she asks. "We know what she did; the scouts reported it to us last week. You were there. Why risk her convincing you otherwise?"
The scouts lied. Of this I feel certain. What I don't know is why. None of this makes sense. Why would Aro send me on a task that would reveal his double mindedness? Maybe Sarah is exactly what Jane says she is, after all.
Jane is studying my response. I shrug, aiming for indifference and feeling nothing but unease.
"We should go," she commands finally. "The fire is under control, and we need to get Alec back to Volterra swiftly. There is a flight in an hour."
Felix throws Sarah easily over his shoulder and we start our run south.