I was upstairs with Rosalie, lying in our bed. Demetri was taking a nap downstairs with Leah keeping an eye over him, though she was probably asleep too.

The whole family was preparing for the trip. Edward and Carlisle were deep in planning how to approach, Emmett, Lucia and Jasper were more excited in the hunting plans. The Amazon offered a change from our normal quarry. Jaguars and panthers, for example. Emmett had a whim to wrestle with an anaconda. Esme was planning on what to pack.

Rosalie had been busy packing our bags for the trip to Canada, but I stole her away. "relax" I whispered. "I've taken this trip many times, I know what to do"

"what if they don't accept him? What if they don't know?"

"shh. Rose, it won't hurt to ask."

"Let it go, Alice; she's not our concern," I heard Jasper say. I wasn't too concerned as I was relishing in the closeness I got with Rosalie.

I only heard the whoosh of the air whistling past the crystal then the smashing of crystals on the floor. Rosalie and I shared a look before zooming down the stairs to the living room.

Alice was facing us, her eyes were halfway here and halfway locked on the future, wide, staring, filling her thin face till they seemed to overflow it. Looking into her eyes was like looking out of a grave from the inside; I was buried in the terror and despair and agony of her gaze.

I heard Edward gasp; it was a broken, half-choked sound.

"What?" Jasper growled, leaping to her side in a blurred rush of movement, crushing the broken crystal under his feet. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her sharply. She seemed to rattle silently in his hands. "What Alice?"

Emmett moved into my peripheral vision, his teeth bared while his eyes darted toward the window, anticipating an attack. There was only silence from Esme, Carlisle, and Rose, who were frozen just as I was.

Jasper shook Alice again. "What is it?"

"They're coming for us," Alice and Edward whispered together, perfectly synchronized. "All of them."

Silence.

In an instant Rosalie moved to Demetri, Leah hadn't moved an inch afraid to wake him up, but I could see the tremor of her hands. She handed Rose the sleeping boy before running off. I ran to Rose, looking down at the boy... my boy.

"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 them 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 froze looking down at Demetri then glanced at Renesmee before meeting Bella's eyes. I felt like I knew why... Irina saw them and me. What if she ran for the Volturi, her mother was killed because of immortal children. What if she thought Renesmee and Demetri were just like them.

"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. Irina poised on the cliff, watching. What had she seen? A vampire and a wolf, and two children. Exquisitely beautiful children, 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.

"immortal children" I breathed out.

Bella nodded

"Think of what she saw that afternoon," I said in a low voice, interrupting whatever Emmett was beginning to say. "To someone who'd lost a mother because of the immortal children, what would Renesmee, or Demetri look like?"

Everything was silent again as the others caught up to where I was already.

"But she's wrong," Bella went on. "Renesmee and Demetri aren't like those other children. They were frozen, but she grows so much every day. They were out of control, but she never hurts Charlie 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-"

The room just seemed to get colder. I could feel the growl wanting to escape my lips at the thought of someone hurting my son, my family, my pups as far as my inner wolf was concerned.

No one spoke for a long time.

Then Edward whispered into Bella's hair. But everyone heard him. "It's not the kind of crime they hold a trial for, love," he said quietly. "Aro's seen Irina's proof in her thoughts. They come to destroy, not to be reasoned with."

"But they're wrong," she 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 Alice's eyes before - like the inside of a tomb.

"What can we do?" I demanded. I'd worried so much about Demetri's speeding age - worried that he 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 Emmett who answered my rhetorical question.

"We fight," he said calmly.

"We can't win," Jasper growled. I could imagine how his face would look, how his body would curve protectively over Alice's.

"Well, we can't run. Not with Demetri around." Emmett 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. Demetri wiggled in Rosalie's arms, still peacefully asleep. "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."

Bella's head snapped up at that. "We don't have to sentence the Quileutes to death, either Emmett!"

But the others were looking at me. I know Embry, Leah and Seth would fight. Would Sam?

"Chill, Bella." His expression was no different from when he was contemplating fighting anacondas. Even the threat of annihilation couldn't change Emmett's perspective, his ability to thrill to a challenge. "I didn't mean the pack. Be realistic, though - do you think Jacob or Sam is going to ignore an invasion? Even if it wasn't about Demetri or Nessie? Not to mention that, thanks to Irina, Aro knows about our alliance with the pack now, too. But I was thinking of our other friends."

Carlisle echoed me in a whisper. "Other friends we don't have to sentence to death."

"why don't we let them decide?" I asked looking at everyone "If we can amass the numbers, Aro would think twice, he would hesitate, any smart person would. If they'd just stand beside us, just long enough to make the Volturi hesitate. We could try to explain, no laws have been broken"

"Yes," Esme said eagerly. "That makes sense, Alex. 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," Rosalie said harshly, her voice brittle as glass. I rubbed her back, holding her to my side.

Esme nodded in agreement, as if she hadn't heard the sarcasm in Rosalie's tone. "We can ask that much of our friends. Just to witness."

"We'd do it for them," Lucia said.

"We'll have to ask them just right," Alice murmured. I looked to see her eyes were a dark void again. "They'll have to be shown very carefully."

"Shown?" Jasper asked. Alice and Edward both looked down at Renesmee. Then Alice's eyes glazed over.

"Tanya's family," she said. "Siobhan's coven. Amun's. Some of the nomads - Garrett and Mary for certain. Maybe Alistair."

"What about Peter and Charlotte?" Jasper 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?" Carlisle asked. "Kachiri, Zafrina, and Senna?"

Alice seemed too deep into her vision to answer at first; finally, she shuddered, and her eyes flickered back to the present. She met Carlisle's gaze for the tiniest part of a second, and then looked down.

"I can't see."

"What was that?" Edward asked, his whisper a demand. "That part in the jungle. Are we going to look for them?"

"I can't see," Alice repeated, not meeting his eyes. A flash of confusion crossed Edward'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." She zoned again. "Ask Eleazar. There is more to this than just an immortal child."

The silence was ominous for another long moment while Alice was in her trance. She blinked slowly when it was over, her eyes peculiarly opaque despite the fact that she was clearly in the present.

"There is so much. We have to hurry," she whispered.

"Alice?" Edward asked. "That was too fast - I didn't understand. What was - ?"

"I can't see!" she exploded back at him. "I'll see better away from Nessie, too. I need to go. I need to really concentrate. I need to see everything I can. I have to go. Come on, Jasper, there's no time to waste!"

Alice yanked, impatient, on Jasper's hand. He followed quickly, confusion in his eyes just like Edward's. They darted out the door into the silver night.

"Hurry!" she called back to us. "You have to find them all!"