I took an unnecessary breath to settle myself.

How different this kissing was! I read his expression as I compared the indistinct human memories to this clear, intense feeling. He looked... a little smug.

"You've been holding out on me," I accused in my singing voice, my eyes narrowing a tiny bit.

He laughed, radiant with relief that it was all over-the fear, the pain, the uncertainties, the waiting, all of it behind us now. "It was sort of necessary at the time," he reminded me. "Now it's your turn to not break me." He laughed again.

I frowned as I considered that, and then Edward was not the only one laughing.

Carlisle stepped around Emmett and walked toward me swiftly; his eyes were only slightly wary, but Jasper shadowed his footsteps. I'd never seen Carlisle's face before either, not really. I had an odd urge to blink-like I was staring at the sun.

"How do you feel, Bella?" Carlisle asked.

I considered that for a sixty-fourth of a second.

"Overwhelmed. There's so much..." I trailed off, listening to the bell-tone of my voice again.

"Yes, it can be quite confusing."

I nodded one fast, jerky bob. "But I feel like me. Sort of. I didn't expect that."

Edward's arms squeezed lightly around my waist. "I told you so," he whispered.

"You are quite controlled," Carlisle mused. "More so than I expected, even with the time you had to prepare yourself mentally for this."

I thought about the wild mood swings, the difficulty concentrating, and whispered, "I'm not sure about that."

He nodded seriously, and then his jeweled eyes glittered with interest. "It seems like we did something right with the morphine this time. Tell me, what do you remember of the transformation process?"

I hesitated, intensely aware of Edward's breath brushing against my cheek, sending whispers of electricity through my skin.

"Everything was... very dim before. I remember the baby couldn't breathe..."

I looked at Edward, momentarily frightened by the memory."Renesmee is healthy and well," he promised, a gleam I'd never seen before in his eyes.

He said her name with an understated fervor. A reverence. The way devout people talked about their G.o.ds. "What do you remember after that?"

I focused on my poker face. I'd never been much of a liar. "It's hard to remember. It was so dark before. And then... I opened my eyes and I could see everything."

"Amazing," Carlisle breathed, his eyes alight.

Chagrin washed through me, and I waited for the heat to burn in my cheeks and give me away. And then I remembered that I would never blush again. Maybe that would protect Edward from the truth.

I'd have to find a way to tip off Carlisle, though. Someday. If he ever needed to create another vampire. That possibility seemed very unlikely, which made me feel better about lying.

"I want you to think-to tell me everything you remember," Carlisle pressed excitedly, and I couldn't help the grimace that flashed across my face. I didn't want to have to keep lying, because I might slip up. And I didn't want to think about the burning. Unlike the human memories, that part was perfectly clear and I found I could remember it with far too much precision.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Bella," Carlisle apologized immediately. "Of course your thirst must be very uncomfortable. This conversation can wait."

Until he'd mentioned it, the thirst actually wasn't unmanageable. There was so much room in my head. A separate part of my brain was keeping tabs on the burn in my throat, almost like a reflex. The way my old brain had handled breathing and blinking.

But Carlisle's a.s.sumption brought the burn to the forefront of my mind. Suddenly, the dry ache was all I could think about, and the more I thought about it, the more it hurt.

My hand flew up to cup my throat, like I could smother the flames from the outside.

The skin of my neck was strange beneath my fingers. So smooth it was somehow soft, though it was hard as stone, too.

Edward dropped his arms and took my other hand, tugging gently. "Let's hunt, Bella."

My eyes opened wider and the pain of the thirst receded, shock taking its place.

Me? Hunt? With Edward? But... how? I didn't know what to do.

He read the alarm in my expression and smiled encouragingly. "It's quite easy, love.

Instinctual. Don't worry, I'll show you." When I didn't move, he grinned his crooked smile and raised his eyebrows. "I was under the impression that you'd always wanted to see me hunt."

I laughed in a short burst of humor (part of me listened in wonder to the pealing bell sound) as his words reminded me of cloudy human conversations. And then I took a whole second to run quickly through those first days with Edward-the true beginning of my life-in my head so that I would never forget them. I did not expect that it would be so uncomfortable to remember. Like trying to squint through muddy water. I knew from Rosalie's experience that if I thought of my human memories enough, I would not lose them over time. I did not want to forget one minute I'd spent with Edward, even now, when eternity stretched in front of us. I would have to make sure those human memories were cemented into my infallible vampire mind.

"Shall we?" Edward asked. He reached up to take the hand that was still at my neck. His fingers smoothed down the column of my throat. "I don't want you to be hurting," he added in a low murmur. Something I would not have been able to hear before.

"I'm fine," I said out of lingering human habit. "Wait. First."

There was so much. I'd never gotten to my questions. There were more important things than the ache.

It was Carlisle who spoke now. "Yes?"

"I want to see her. Renesmee."

It was oddly difficult to say her name. My daughter; these words were even harder to think. It all seemed so distant. I tried to remember how I had felt three days ago, and automatically, my hands pulled free of Edward's and dropped to my stomach.

Flat. Empty. I clutched at the pale silk that covered my skin, panicking again, while an insignificant part of my mind noted that Alice must have dressed me.

I knew there was nothing left inside me, and I faintly remembered the b.l.o.o.d.y removal scene, but the physical proof was still hard to process. All I knew was loving my little nudger inside of me. Outside of me, she seemed like something I must have imagined. A fading dream-a dream that was half nightmare.

While I wrestled with my confusion, I saw Edward and Carlisle exchange a guarded glance.

"What?" I demanded.

"Bella," Edward said soothingly. "That's not really a good idea. She's half human, love.

Her heart beats, and blood runs in her veins. Until your thirst is positively under control... You don't want to put her in danger, do you?"

I frowned. Of course I must not want that.

Was I out of control? Confused, yes. Easily unfocused, yes. But dangerous? To her? My daughter?

I couldn't be positive that the answer was no. So I would have to be patient. That sounded difficult. Because until I saw her again, she wouldn't be real. Just a fading dream... of a stranger... "Where is she?" I listened hard, and then I could hear the beating heart on the floor below me. I could hear more than one person breathing-quietly, like they were listening, too. There was also a fluttering sound, a thrumming, that I couldn't place...

And the sound of the heartbeat was so moist and appealing, that my mouth started watering.

So I would definitely have to learn how to hunt before I saw her. My stranger baby.

"Is Rosalie with her?"

"Yes," Edward answered in a clipped tone, and I could see that something he'd thought of upset him. I'd thought he and Rose were over their differences. Had the animosity erupted again? Before I could ask, he pulled my hands away from my flat stomach, tugging gently again.

"Wait," I protested again, trying to focus. "What about Jacob? And Charlie? Tell me everything that I missed. How long was I... unconscious?"

Edward didn't seem to notice my hesitation over the last word. Instead, he was exchanging another wary glance with Carlisle.

"What's wrong?" I whispered.

"Nothing is wrong," Carlisle told me, emphasizing the last word in a strange way.

"Nothing has changed much, actually-you were only unaware for just over two days.

It was very fast, as these things go. Edward did an excellent job. Quite innovative-the venom injection straight to your heart was his idea." He paused to smile proudly at his son and then sighed. "Jacob is still here, and Charlie still believes that you are sick. He thinks you're in Atlanta right now, undergoing tests at the CDC. We gave him a bad number, and he's frustrated. He's been speaking to Esme."

"I should call him...," I murmured to myself, but, listening to my own voice, I understood the new difficulties. He wouldn't recognize this voice. It wouldn't rea.s.sure him. And then the earlier surprise intruded. "Hold on-Jacob is still here?"

Another glance between them.

"Bella," Edward said quickly. "There's much to discuss, but we should take care of you first. You have to be in pain..."

When he pointed that out, I remembered the burn in my throat and swallowed convulsively. "But Jacob-"

"We have all the time in the world for explanations, love," he reminded me gently.

Of course. I could wait a little longer for the answer; it would be easier to listen when the fierce pain of the fiery thirst was no longer scattering my concentration. "Okay.""Wait, wait, wait," Alice trilled from the doorway. She danced across the room, dreamily graceful. As with Edward and Carlisle, I felt some shock as I really looked at her face for the first time. So lovely. "You promised I could be there the first time! What if you two run past something reflective?"

"Alice-," Edward protested.

"It will only take a second!" And with that, Alice darted from the room.

Edward sighed.

"What is she talking about?"

But Alice was already back, carrying the huge, gilt-framed mirror from Rosalie's room, which was nearly twice as tall as she was, and several times as wide.

Jasper had been so still and silent that I'd taken no notice of him since he'd followed behind Carlisle. Now he moved again, to hover over Alice, his eyes locked on my expression. Because I was the danger here.

I knew he would be tasting the mood around me, too, and so he must have felt my jolt of shock as I studied his face, looking at it closely for the first time.

Through my sightless human eyes, the scars left from his former life with the newborn armies in the South had been mostly invisible. Only with a bright light to throw their slightly raised shapes into definition could I even make out their existence.

Now that I could see, the scars were Jasper's most dominant feature. It was hard to take my eyes off his ravaged neck and jaw-hard to believe that even a vampire could have survived so many sets of teeth ripping into his throat.

Instinctively, I tensed to defend myself. Any vampire who saw Jasper would have had the same reaction. The scars were like a lighted billboard. Dangerous, they screamed.

How many vampires had tried to kill Jasper? Hundreds? Thousands? The same number that had died in the attempt.

Jasper both saw and felt my a.s.sessment, my caution, and he smiled wryly.

"Edward gave me grief for not getting you to a mirror before the wedding," Alice said, pulling my attention away from her frightening lover. "I'm not going to be chewed out again."

"Chewed out?" Edward asked skeptically, one eyebrow curving upward.

"Maybe I'm overstating things," she murmured absently as she turned the mirror to face me.

"And maybe this has solely to do with your own voyeuristic gratification," he countered.Alice winked at him.

I was only aware of this exchange with the lesser part of my concentration. The greater part was riveted on the person in the mirror.

My first reaction was an unthinking pleasure. The alien creature in the gla.s.s was indisputably beautiful, every bit as beautiful as Alice or Esme. She was fluid even in stillness, and her flawless face was pale as the moon against the frame of her dark, heavy hair. Her limbs were smooth and strong, skin glistening subtly, luminous as a pearl.

My second reaction was horror.

Who was she? At first glance, I couldn't find my face anywhere in the smooth, perfect planes of her features.

And her eyes! Though I'd known to expect them, her eyes still sent a thrill of terror through me.

All the while I studied and reacted, her face was perfectly composed, a carving of a G.o.ddess, showing nothing of the turmoil roiling inside me. And then her full lips moved.

"The eyes?" I whispered, unwilling to say my eyes. "How long?

"They'll darken up in a few months," Edward said in a soft, comforting voice. "Animal blood dilutes the color more quickly than a diet of human blood. They'll turn amber first, then gold."

My eyes would blaze like vicious red flames for months?

"Months?" My voice was higher now, stressed. In the mirror, the perfect eyebrows lifted incredulously above her glowing crimson eyes-brighter than any I'd ever seen before.

Jasper took a step forward, alarmed by the intensity of my sudden anxiety. He knew young vampires only too well; did this emotion presage some misstep on my part?

No one answered my question. I looked away, to Edward and Alice. Both their eyes were slightly unfocused-reacting to Jasper's unease. Listening to its cause, looking ahead to the immediate future.

I took another deep, unnecessary breath.

"No, I'm fine," I promised them. My eyes flickered to the stranger in the mirror and back. "It's just... a lot to take in."

Jasper's brow furrowed, highlighting the two scars over his left eye.

"I don't know," Edward murmured.

The woman in the mirror frowned. "What question did I miss?"Edward grinned. "Jasper wonders how you're doing it."

"Doing what?"