“I don’t understand. What are they? What treaty are you talking about?” I whispered the words fast, but it was obvious from the wolves’ alert ears and watchful eyes that they were listening. Wolves that understood English? Eleanor had said Edythe was translating. Did she speak wolf?

“Beau,” Edythe said in a louder voice. “These are the Quileute wolves. You remember the story?”

“The—” I stared at the massive animals. “They’re werewolves?”

The black wolf growled louder, but the dark brown one in the back blew out a funny huff that sounded almost like a laugh.

“Not exactly,” Edythe said. “A long time ago, we made a treaty with another pack leader. They think we’ve violated it. Can you tell them how you were transformed?”

“Uh, okay…” I looked at the black wolf, who seemed to be in charge. “I’m, uh, Beau Swan—”

“She knows who you are. You met Sam once—at the beach in La Push.”

She. The cloudy human memories distracted me for a short second. I remembered the tall woman at La Push. And Jules saying that the wolves were her sisters. That her great-great-grandmother had made a treaty with the cold ones.

“Oh,” I said.

“Just explain to her what happened.”

“Right.” I looked at the wolf again, trying to picture the tall woman somehow inside it. “Uh, a few weeks ago, there was a tracker—er, a vampire tracker—who came through here. She liked the way I smelled. The Cullens told her to back off. She left, but Edythe knew she was planning to try to kill me. I went back to Phoenix to hide out till the Cullens could… well, take care of her, you know. But the tracker figured out where I was and caught up to me. It was a game to her, a game with the Cullens—I was just a pawn. But she didn’t want to just kill me. She… I guess you could say she was playing with her food. The Cullens found me before she could kill me, but she’d already bitten me. Hey—do we still have the video?” I glanced over at Edythe, who was staring at the wolves. She shook her head. I turned back to Sam. “That’s too bad. The tracker was filming the whole thing. I could have shown you exactly what happened.”

The wolves looked at each other. Edythe’s eyes were narrowed as she concentrated on what they were thinking. Suddenly the black wolf was staring at her again.

“That’s acceptable,” Edythe said. “Where?”

The black wolf huffed, and then all three were backing away from the house. When they got to the edge of the trees, they turned and ran into the forest.

The Cullens all converged on Edythe.

“What happened?” Carine asked.

“They aren’t sure what to do,” Edythe said. “They were asked to clear us out. Sam is the actual chief of the tribe, but only in secret. She’s not a direct descendant of the chief we made a treaty with. They want us to talk to the acting chief, the true great-granddaughter of the last wolf-chief.”

“But—wouldn’t that be Bonnie?” I gasped.

Edythe looked at me. “Yes. They want to meet at a neutral location so that Bonnie can see you and make the call.”

“See me? But I can’t get that close.…”

“You can do it, Beau,” Edythe said. “You’re the most rational newborn I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s true,” Carine agreed. “I’ve never seen someone adapt so easily. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were a decade old.”

It wasn’t that I thought they were lying—just that maybe they didn’t get the magnitude of what they were proposing. “But it’s Bonnie. She’s my dad’s best friend. What if I hurt her?”

“We’ll be there,” Eleanor said. “We won’t let you do anything stupid.”

“Actually…,” Edythe said.

Eleanor looked at her, shocked.

“They asked that we bring no more than their pack—only three. I already agreed. Beau has to be one, I have to be one, and the other needs to be Carine.”

It was clear Eleanor was hurt.

“Is that safe?” Earnest asked.

Edythe shrugged. “It’s not an ambush.”

“Or they hadn’t decided to make it one. Not yet,” Jessamine said.

She was standing protectively by Archie, and there was something wrong with him. He looked a little dazed.

“Archie?” I asked. I’d never seen him look like… like he was behind things instead of ahead of them.

“I didn’t see them,” he whispered. “I didn’t know they were coming. I can’t see now—I can’t see this meeting. It’s like it doesn’t exist.”

I could see that this was news only to me. The others had heard it before we’d arrived, and Edythe had already picked it out of his head.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“We don’t know,” Edythe answered sharply. “And we don’t have time to figure it out now. We want to be there when they arrive. We don’t want them to have a chance to change their minds.”

“It will be fine,” Carine said to the others, her eyes on Earnest. “The wolves are just trying to protect the people here. They’re heroes, not villains.”

“They think we’re villains,” Royal pointed out. “Heroes or not, Carine, we still have to accept that they’re our enemies.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Carine whispered.

“And it doesn’t matter either way tonight,” Edythe said. “Tonight Beau needs to explain to Bonnie so that we don’t have to make the choice between leaving Forks and raising suspicions, or getting into a fight with three barely legal wolves who are just trying to protect their tribe.”

“Archie can’t see if you’ll be in danger,” Jessamine reminded her.

“We’ll be fine. Bonnie won’t want to hurt Beau.”

“I’m not sure that’s true now. And I know she won’t have any problem watching you get hurt.”

“I can hear the wolves just fine. They won’t take us by surprise.”

“Tell us where to go,” Eleanor said. “We’ll keep our distance and only come in if you call.”

“I promised. There’s no reason to go back on my word. We need them to see that they can trust us, now more than ever. No!” Edythe said as Jessamine apparently thought of another argument. “We don’t have time. We’ll be back soon.”

Eleanor grumbled, but Edythe ignored her.

“Beau, Carine, let’s go.”

I took off after her, and I could hear Carine do the same. Edythe didn’t run as fast this time, and we both easily kept up.

“You seem very confident,” Carine said to Edythe.

“I got a good look at their minds. They don’t want this fight, either. There are eight of us. They know they won’t win if it comes to actual bloodshed.”

“It can’t. I won’t hurt them.”

“I’m not in disagreement with that. But it would cause problems, if we left now.”

“I know.”

I listened, but my thoughts were far away, thinking about Bonnie and Charlie and the fact that I should be nowhere near human beings right now. I’d heard plenty from the others about the newborn years, especially Jessamine, and I wasn’t ready to try to be the first exception to the rule. Sure, I hadn’t had a hard time picking up most things, and everyone was surprised by how… calm I was, but this was different. Edythe had been very careful to make sure I was never tested when it came to the most important thing—not killing anyone. And if I screwed up tonight, not only would I destroy my father’s world—he needed a friend now like he never had before—but I’d also ignite some kind of war between the Cullens and the giant werewolves.

I’d never felt clumsy in this new body, but suddenly that same sense of impending doom was hanging over me. Here was my chance to mess things up in a really spectacular way.

Edythe led us northeast. We crossed the freeway where it turned east toward Port Angeles and continued due north for a short time, following a smaller road. Edythe stopped in a wasteland on the side of the dark road, a large clearing recently made by loggers.

“Edythe, I don’t think I can do this.”

She took my hand. “We’re upwind. Carine and I will try to stop you if something happens. Just remember not to fight us.”