"How much of a history lesson have you gotten so far?" he wonders, looking back out the window. They're in Norway right now; it shows a forest.

"Kind of a patchy one," she says.

"In 2005, when Elspeth was very, very young, the Volturi caught me. It was standard procedure, at the time, for Chelsea, or Addy copying her power, to destroy all the magically unprotected relationships of a captured witch. So that in the event we ran away, we'd be less likely to find old covenmates, and spread the story. Chelsea couldn't affect mate bonds. That was it."

Well, that's... upsetting.

"Bella's immune. Of course. And we've had time to - rebuild, since."

"That's good," she says.

"Yes. It is a rebuilding, though, not a - restoration. The initial instinctive things - are gone. For Elspeth too, for that matter. She could remove artificial add-ons but not replace things taken."

"It's handy that Bella killed Chelsea already," she says. "Saves me the trouble."

"Yes. She was just - incandescently furious."

Personally, she doesn't run to the incandescent. She is very room-temperature about it. But Chelsea is an intolerable threat and needs to be erased as thoroughly as possible. So it's nice that Bella took care of that for her. She is a good empress and can have a cookie.

"She doesn't eat cookies, anymore," Edward says, smiling slightly.

"A metaphorical cookie. A bronze cookie on a plaque to hang on her wall."

Edward glances at the wall. "I don't think it would improve the decor, much. Perhaps she'd disagree."

"Hmm, not sure what I'm hoping for there. If she did, I'd have to find a bronze cookie."

"If she wished to hang a bronze cookie from the wall I'm sure she'd conjure one."

"In that case, we should definitely suggest it."

He laughs. "When she's through with the mess around the people Elspeth already somewhat resurrected, I expect she'll come here and we will be able to do so."

"Who gets the job of explaining what it's for?"

"It was your idea," he says mildly.

She laughs. "Fair enough."

"Do you want the rest of the history lesson, while we're waiting for her?" Edward asks. "The twentieth century, the eventful few years after Bella appeared on the scene, the fledgeling empire."

"Go for it."

Edward proceeds with a summary. He pauses to go into more detail whenever she wonders about something, steering between "global historical summary" and "the story of his life" depending on what interests her; let it never be said that mindreading is not convenient.