It was Jake who tore Victoria to pieces with his teeth, then phased and started a pyre with a small lighter he had stowed in a bag tied to his hind leg. Then he turned to me. I was cringing on the ground, rubbing my bloody hair all over my face like a madwoman, gasping and snarling, clamping my lips closed with my teeth, punching and scratching and tearing at my hair and flesh. The scent of human was overwhelming, it was pure, it was the answer to every question I'd ever asked, I was unmade, undone, lost forever to this holy divine aroma-

"There's a stream about half a mile down the valley," he said. "I'm going to phase and carry you so we can wash this shit off you."

I tried to fight him off, broke down, started chewing on my hair, oh god oh god, the taste of it, and there was still some in the flask just waiting for me–

Wolf-Jake intercepted me as I dived for Victoria's hip flask, nudged it with his nose and sent it flying into the flame. I let out a scream that echoed around the lightening hills. Then Jake bit me, hard, once on the leg and again on my right hand. Venom began to trickle out of the puncture-marks and I stuffed my hand in my mouth, tried to feel the pain of the bite, the awfulness of the taste of pure venom, and this kept me motionless long enough for Jake to slam into me so I overbalanced onto his back, and then we were flying, leaping down between the hills, ever closer to the sound of running water.

It took less than a minute. Jake ran faster than me by a long shot. Soon he dug in his forepaws and let inertia toss me into the middle of the creek. I flattened onto the creekbed until the water covered me completely. I rubbed at my face and the inside of my nose to loosen Riley's blood and send it whirling downstream, then dragged my fingers through my hair to rinse it. I opened my mouth and swished water around with my tongue, then swallowed great mouthfuls. It did not taste pleasant. In fact it tasted like acid, but it chased away that godly taste of Riley, oh Riley, oh if only I could have had a little more of heavenly, perfect Riley–

I had no idea how long I stayed under there.

Eventually I felt a hand close around my wrist and jerked upright, spraying a naked, human Jake with water. I immediately felt a wave of nausea overpower me and hunched over, retching up pale-pink water, purging my stomach, vomiting up my sin.

By the time I was done, Jake was sitting in the stream with me. His arms wrapped around me fiercely, holding me together like rope.

"You did so good, Bells," he was whispering. "You did so good. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

I turned and buried my face in his neck and shook helplessly. It was some time before I could talk. Already I heard my name being called. Emmett was looking for me. Alice's voice joined her brother's. They were worried about me. I was alive, I was safe, I was still me, and it was all because of Jake.

"Jake, I love you, I'm sorry," I babbled, squeezing him too tightly. "I'm sorry about everything."

"This was my fault–"

"It was her fault. If you hadn't–oh god, Jake, I was losing, I was losing the battle, I couldn't do it, I thought I was strong enough to fight her but I wasn't. Jake, she informed on us. She already told the Volturi we're friends with you. They'll come for us. Oh god, Jake, I'm so scared."

Alice and Emmett found us a few moments later, Jake sobbing all over the place, me shaking and cringing in his arms. Alice hung back, unsure of herself. But Emmett took control immediately. He slapped Jake genially on the back and hauled us both to our feet. He hugged me and passed me off to Alice, then gave Jake an awkward one-sided man-embrace.

"Dude," he said, "you guys fucking rock. Come on. You have to tell us what happened. Jake, man, you're a god. Now come put some damn clothes on."

Edward and Laelia were waiting for us on the shore of the manor island.

"Laeli!" I yelled the minute I saw her. She let out a squeal that must have been audible to dolphins out at sea and began plunging into the waves, Edward right behind her as usual. She loved playing in the water and had no fear of it, which meant that instead I lived in fear for her.

I vaulted over the side of my boat and left Alice to guide it to the dock. The water beat gently against my legs, swishing through the fabric of my jeans. I scrunched my bare toes in the gritty sand and scooped Laelia into my arms. She shook her head like a dog, spraying me with water from her tangle of coppery curls.

"What're you calling her, the Loch Ness Baby?" said Jake. He'd jumped out of the boat behind me. He was decent in shorts borrowed from Emmett. Emmett, disembarking with Rosalie further up the beach, was less decent in his briefs.

"Her name's Laelia Charlotte," I said, propping her on my hip and wading onto dry land. Jake followed us.

Laelia looked up at him, her eyes glittering with confidence that whoever this stranger was he would adore her immediately. "Who dis?" she inquired.

Jake cautiously stuck out his hand, which Laelia stared at impassively. She had no way of knowing that shaking hands is a thing, since in our family we tended to greet each other with hugs and kisses.

"Hello, Laelia," said Jake in a soft voice. "I'm Jake. I'm your mommy's friend."

"Otay," she said, her curiosity settled. She patted his still-outstretched hand once, the way she would pat a lamb, and then wriggled out of my arms and went tearing off after Emmett, whose state of undress she was loudly interpreting as a "baving suit". She was pretty determined to go swimming. The sooner, the better.

"I thought she was supposed to be a baby," said Jake, almost accusingly. "She's like, twenty-five."

"She grows really fast," I said. "I guess that's a hybrid thing. She'll grow up fast and then it'll kind of peter off and she'll just be like us, immortal. She's warm, though. She grows. She changes. So she's really not like us at all. What do you think? You like her?"

Jake smiled. "She seems like a pretty cool kid. Then again, I'd expect no less from Bella Swan's monster spawn."

"She's got us all wrapped completely around her little finger. She's going to be insufferable in a couple years. God, how much am I not looking forward to having a teenage daughter."

"Liar. How do you even know all this stuff about hybrids? I thought she was the only one."

"No, there's another one. Nahuel. Well, and he has some sisters, but we've never met them. He told us all about what to expect. He was really helpful." I searched the stragglers from the canoes and spotted him. "Hey! Nahuel! You got a sec? I want you to meet my friend Jake!"

Nahuel jogged across the beach to us, his long black ponytail streaming behind him, a cloud of kicked-up sand in his wake. "Hi," he said, sticking out his hand. There was dirt under the nails. "You're the wolf guy?"

"Uh huh," said Jake bemusedly, staring at Nahuel's hand like it was a snake.

Nahuel looked down at his own hand, shrugged and then dropped it. "I hear you were some kind of god back there. Wish I could've seen it. I was all the way on the other side of the park. There were some...she left some messes to clean up." His voice had developed a hard undertone. I glanced again at his dirty hands and realized what he'd been doing. Poor guy had gotten stuck on gravedigging duty. No matter how dead she was, I felt a powerful urge to kill Victoria all over again.

"I'm sorry, Nahuel," I said sympathetically. "You shouldn't have had to deal with that."

"No one should have to deal with that," he muttered. He shook his head briefly, looked up and gave Jake a tense smile. "You guys had your own troubles, from what I heard." Jake was still staring at him, still wordless, mouth still agape. Nahuel looked away, then back. "I...look forward to hearing all about it?" Nothing. "Okay, well, I guess I'll see you around." He gave Jake one last what-the-fuck glance, then strode away. Jake was staring after him with a sort of shocked tenderness in his eyes.

"Um, earth to Jake?" I said, waving my hand in front of his face. "What the hell, man?"

"He's drowning," said Jake. I whipped my head around to see Nahuel, hiking steadily up the path that led to the house. He most definitely was not drowning.

"I'm pretty sure they just call that walking," I said drily.

"No," said Jake, "his face. His eyes. Something's pushing down on him. Something big. He's scared and he's angry and he can't see any way out of it. He's drowning." He glanced over at me and actually looked angry at my apparent inability to follow his psychobabble. "Bells, how can you not see that? It's like, the most obvious thing I've ever seen in my life. Jesus, I have to help him."

"Jake, you don't even know him," I said. Was this some sort of joke? But Jake wasn't smiling.

"Doesn't matter," he said. "He needs my help. I have to help him. He's drowning."

I stared at Nahuel, now vanishing from sight around a corner of the house. Of course I'd noticed that he was very...grave. Very serious. And in some lights and at some times of day, there was a certain tension around his eyes. But I didn't know him at all. Some people were really serious. Maybe that was just the way he was.

"How come you're so…" I trailed off. There was a memory tugging at the corners of my mind. A conversation with Jake. After his dad died but before the start of our months-long fight. There was something about being a werewolf…

"Jake," I said suddenly as the word popped into my mind. "Did you perchance just imprint? On a half-vampire?"

Jake's mouth fell open in disgusted shock. I had to bite back laughter at the expression on his face.

"Shit," he whispered. "Oh my god. Oh my god." He started to rake his fingers through his hair, then winced at a painful scolding from the still-healing injuries in his hand. "This is so fucking embarrassing. Jesus. After all the shit I gave you about the monster baby." He turned to me and took hold of my shoulders. I would have laughed at the expression on his face if he didn't look so epically freaked-out. Not just freaked-out, either. Transformed. Transfixed. Shit, he had it bad, and he'd only met Nahuel two minutes ago. This was going to be fun. "Bells, be honest. Is there any chance you'll let me live this down? Like, ever?"

Oh, to hell with it.

"Oh, my darling Jake," I said, suppressing giggles, patting his cheek. "Not in the slightest."

My laughter didn't last long. We were in too much trouble for mirth. Alice managed to piece together a few fragments of visions. She saw that we would all be together when the time came, that the Denalis would be with us. She had no visions depicting the confrontation that would eventually occur, but she noted that she didn't see us leaving Oileáin Aonair before the visions cut out for good, sometime in the summer.

"And why on god's green earth would you leave Oileáin Aonair?" exclaimed Siobhan when she heard this. "Abandon us to the buzzards' tender mercies when they come here lookin' for you? Are you mad, or just heartless?"

"Siobhan, we've put you and yours in grave danger," said Carlisle. "It would be beyond cruel. We cannot ask you to harbor us–"

"Harbor you?" she scoffed. "I've been harborin' knowledge o' the wolves since you rung me up months ago. You told me about 'em right at the start o' all this. You can't be so daft as to think I've broken any fewer rules than you, if I let the lad go off 'thout skinning him myself. Nae, we're in this now thick as you lot. You might as well tell yer Russki friends to get over here, while the gettin's good. And we'll have no more talk of you leaving. If not fer you, we'd never have got our Bree here. The lass's been a blessin' and a boon such as this family's not seen since we got our Mag. We owe you fer that, if nothin' else. Anyway, I told you we were allies back months ago. And you know full well I never can tell a lie."

The situation was explained over the phone to Tanya, and the Denalis arrived a few days later.

"Esme, 'Lisle," said the one who could only be Tanya, going at once to embrace Edward's parents. Her luscious voice rang around the great hall of the manor house. "How you must be suffering."

"And you," said Carlisle, "knowing in what danger our alliance has thrown you. I am sorry, old friend. I am sorry to have brought this on you."

"You are not to be blamed," said the one who must be Laurent. He was dark-skinned and black-haired, with full lips and slightly slanted eyes. He held himself with an elegance that stood out even among these graceful beings; his voice was melodic and cultured. "It is James who began this, and Victoria who continued it."

"What is your plan?" asked the other male. Eleazar, the one who could detect the powers of others. He was looking at me curiously.

"We have none," said Carlisle. "Not yet."

"But Victoria knew of your powers?"

"Certainly she did," confirmed Carlisle. "She will have told all that she knows of Jasper and Alice. She may have known about Edward's gift, and according to Bella she was aware of Laelia's existence, even if she didn't guess Laelia's powers."

"Then I can assure you," said Eleazar heavily, "that Aro will seek to acquire Alice and Jasper. A clairvoyant—he has never met or heard of such a one before, and will lust after her power deeply. He will not overlook Jasper's value, either. Between the two of them, Alice and Jasper could enrich Aro's ranks as much as a hundred skilled fighters. Some of you will survive, then. Aro will bring Chelsea, as surely as the sun shines. Chelsea's gift is to weaken and strengthen the bonds of loyalty at her will. Or at Aro's will, I should say. It is his habit to bring her along whenever a coven slated for annihilation contains a member with a gift he would like to acquire. It is how he secured Demetri, the tracker. Heidi, too, and many others. It is said that Marcus himself still endures life without his mate only because Chelsea has influenced his mind to such a degree that he is more loyal to Aro than to himself. Alice, you would be raised to the topmost tier of Volturi's might. You would become Aro's right-hand woman, I am sure of it. He would value you beyond reckoning. Having learned of your gift, he will stop at nothing to make you his. The alliance with the wolves will be as nothing in comparison to his desire for your allegiance."

"I am not joining the Volturi," said Alice, aghast. "Turn on my own family? I could never."

"You will have no choice," said Eleazar. "Chelsea's gift has never once been evaded. And yet..." He looked at me once more, and his eyes were bright. "Miss Swan, I can see nothing of your potential, nothing at all. This has never happened to me before."

"Bella has a mental shield," said Edward. "I can't see her either. Neither can Alice and Jasper. No one can get through." No one? That wasn't true. Laelia could get through my shield. And that put me in mind of a dim memory, hard to make out because it happened to the old human Bella. When Jasper had first felt an unborn Laelia's emotions, he had shared them around the room. For a second, I'd felt it too. Jasper had gotten through to me once. Why, then? What had made that moment special? I filed this away in a dark corner of my mind, to talk about with Esme later.

"Then there may be hope for you," said Eleazar. "If your mind cannot be felt, then Chelsea cannot twist your loyalties. If you cannot be seen, then Demetri cannot track you. You and the baby can, perhaps, escape."

"Just me and Laeli?" I echoed. "But—"

"If it is the best we can hope for," said Edward in a low voice, "then at least it is something."

"Do not take this as a sign of our resignation," Esme said comfortingly. "But if all else fails, at least two of our number will survive. Probably, Alice could escape with you. If her powers saved her from James, perhaps they will save her from Demetri. And if Alice can escape, then the rest us, perhaps, can do the same."

"It would not be easy," said Tanya. "So many of us, to form so large a coven, to move about like nomads—how could we hope to escape notice?"

"We could not possibly escape notice," said Carlisle. "Demetri will know where we are without the need for footprints and scent trails. The best we could hope for, I fear, is that we could stay forever a step ahead. It would be a hard life. We could never settle down, never lay down roots as we have always done thus far."

"But we would be alive," said Esme softly. "We would be together."

"And we are not without weapons of our own," pointed out Tanya. "Jasper's gift could, I deem, cause more damage than little Jane's. Jane can only make you feel physical pain. What is that, in comparison with the torment Jasper could inflict? And we have Kate. Do not leave her out of your calculations. Her power has certain limitations, it is true; but it has strengths that Jane's does not. Tell them, Katya."

A willowy blonde with a serene face answered. "At first I could send a painful electric shock through my fingertips only," she said. "Then, with practice, through the palm of my hand. Now it is possible to run that same current across my entire skin. I am a hard one to hold. If Alec were to deaden all my senses, I still could inflict pain, because my power is triggered by thought and not by coordination of nerves or muscles. And my gift may be of shorter range than Jane's, but it would work on anyone, even a shield, because the magnetic current I generate is real. It would kill a human as surely as a lightning strike. It is no pain of the mind, but of the body. I could even hurt you, Bella. That is what I think. But I do not know for sure."

"Well," I said, "I guess we'd better find out. Since we're making a list of our assets, and all." I took a deep breath and extended one hand. Kate reached out and touched a finger to my skin. A blue sparkle crackled between us, and I drew my hand back sharply.

"Ow," I said, looking at the place that she had burned. There was no mark to show I had been shocked, no damage to the skin. But the pain had been real.

"You have that over Jane, at least," said Eleazar with satisfaction. "She can only make you think you feel pain—of course, the distinction matters little to those in her power. But Bella can evade her, I think. And if she can evade Jane, so too can Alec's power be avoided, and presumably Chelsea's and Corin's and all of the other Guards whose powers work on the mind. All those Guards who serve Aro, who enlarge his army and who enrich his ranks, will find Bella difficult to subdue."

"Then I can fight them," I said. Edward stiffened beside. "I can fight them," I said, "even if no one else can. If they can't subdue me, maybe I can subdue them."

"All of them," said Edward tensely, "against one? Bella, it is not only their powers that they use to enact order. They are all accomplished fighters. You would be torn in shreds. You couldn't even fight Victoria." I glared at him, annoyed that he was right.

"What if Bella were taught to fight?" said Eleazar thoughtfully. "What if she fought not randomly but with purpose? We all could fight, to distract them, to confuse them, while Bella went after Jane or Alec. Without them, Aro's army would be greatly weakened. We might stand a chance, if they were disarmed."

Edward let out a spluttering laugh. "You want Bella to go after Jane?" he repeated. "Are you insane?"

"If it could give us a leg up, it is worth trying, don't you think?" interjected Tanya. "If she could get close..."

"That's a lot of 'ifs'," said Esme. "Must Bella go after Jane?"

"Dearest," said Carlisle, "it may be our only option."

But Esme shook her head gravely. "Then we will be no better than them," she said. "Bella is not a warrior. She is young. She has Laeli to look after. Teach her to fight, by all means. She will need to fight if she is to escape, should our pleas for clemency fall on deaf ears. But do not put this on her." She looked at me, and her eyes were suddenly bright and speculative, hard as jewels. But when she finished, her expression was awash with gentle compassion once more. "This is too much to ask of any newborn."

"We will teach her to fight," conceded Edward. "But not to be an attack dog."

"That is wise," agreed Esme. "Let us pray it does not come to that."

I'm a little torn on how I feel about Breaking Dawn's second half. Of course the "showdown" is ridiculous, but it was crazy fun to meet all these new vampires. They all have different powers and different personalities. Alastair cracked me up, and even if Garrett's whole 'Murrica Fuck Yeah gimmick got old fast I did like his bits with Kate. But there were some problems.

1. The witnesses are meant to carry the story across the finish line, and in some ways they do accomplish this (all the witnesses introduce a feeling of grandness and importance to the end of the story that would otherwise be lacking). However, we meet them far too late in the series for them to be used very effectively. I feel like Meyer had (very understandable) difficulty wrangling that many new, strange, different characters, while also trying to wrangle the completion of the story's plot and forge a bond between the readers and Renesmee. That's a lot to do! I wonder if it wouldn't have been a bit more successful if she'd just cut down on the number of new characters. Maybe stuck with just a few covens, one or two nomads. A lot of them end up as dead weight. And even the ones who aren't dead weight have problems: the grand-finale speech taking the Volturi to task is delivered by Garrett, a character we don't even meet until the last book is more than half over. and frankly, he hasn't earned the right to give us our catharsis.

2. Much of the book's initial appeal revolved around the Cullens as an ensemble, but as the pages flew by, the Cullens began to betray a lack of depth, both individually and as a family unit. So it's nice to have all these new characters to stir things up and inject a little more life into the series. But (of course there's a but) Meyer has a very real problem with developing interesting, realistic, diverse characters. Nearly all of them feel like stereotypes. Of course all the Russians are blonde supermodels. Of course the 18th century American nomad is a brave, noble patriot. The Romanians are slimy hissing creeps. But by far the most offensive stereotypes arrive from South America. The Irish coven eats humans too, but they get to be described as "civilized" while the three members of the Amazon coven are described as "wild", "fierce", and "uncivilized", all of them unusually tall and muscular and just generally feral-looking. Like, good god, woman—you do realize that South America was home to some of the greatest civilizations on earth, right? And that it was "civilized" whites who ruined it for them, stomped their magnificent cultures into the dirt, suppressed their rich histories, and enslaved whichever natives survived the genocide? I mean, shit. I don't even know what to say anymore. Stephanie. Come on. We know you think brown people are all dirty, dirty savages. You can tone it down already.

P.S. I always try to respond to reviews, but anyone who comments defending Meyer's racist description of the savage South Americans will be ignored by me. I don't have time for that shit. Read up on Pre-Columbian, colonial and present-day South America and then tell me Meyer has a leg to stand on. It's not made clear which tribe or civilization Senna, Zafrina and Kachiri belonged to, or even when they were turned, because Meyer did not apparently feel that that information was important (although she goes into obnoxious detail about the personal history of everyone else in the series, including names and dates and even goddamn pedigrees). For more context about colonialism in South America, and why it matters that Meyer left a big blank space in the Amazon coven's history, there's a fantastic documentary in Netflix Streaming right now called Breaking the Maya Code. It's fun to watch and goes into some depth on the beauty and sophistication of Mayan writing systems, as well as the institutional suppression of native history and education during the time of European colonialism in South America. I recommend it to everyone, but especially to anyone who may be tempted to splutter But, but, but, it's not so bad because...