Jasper Hale Whitlock

He remains perfectly still as you pass by, his robe brushing the stone, your power emanating from you in controlled waves. Neither hostile. Nor friendly. Certain. And beneath this certainty, recognition.

You know him. He feels it with acute and painful clarity.

Alice's secret suddenly made perfect sense. The blind spot. The avoidance. The way she had always kept him away from the paths that led here. She wasn't protecting him from the Volturi.

She was hiding it from you.

Jasper lowers his eyes, not out of submission, but out of instinct, because something ancient within him understands the truth before his mind.

Whatever judgment you are about to make... His destiny is no longer in his own hands.