“That is the truth of the world,” Invidia said harshly. “We are selfless when it suits our purposes, or when it is easy, or when the alternative would be worse. But no one truly wishes to be selfless. They simply desire the acclaim and goodwill that comes from being thought so.”

“No, Invidia,” she said quietly, firmly. “Not everyone is like that.”

“They are,” Invidia said, her voice shaking with unsteady intensity. “You are. Under the lies you tell yourself, part of you hates me. Part of you would love to pluck out my eyes while I screamed.”

“I don’t hate a serpent for being a serpent,” Isana said. “But neither will I permit it to harm me or those I care about. I will kill it if I must, as quickly and painlessly as possible.”

“And that’s what I am to you?” Invidia asked. “A serpent?”

“That’s what you were,” Isana said quietly.

Invidia’s eyes shone with a feverish intensity. “And now?”

“Now, I think you might be a mad dog,” Isana said quietly. “I pity such a poor creature’s suffering. But it changes nothing about what I must do.”

Invidia dropped her head back and laughed. “What you must do?” she asked. She put her fingertip on the table, still smiling, and smoke began rising in a thin, curling thread. “Exactly what do you think you could possibly do to me?”

“Destroy you,” Isana said quietly. “I don’t want to do it. But I can. And I will.”

“If you go shopping for a hat, darling, be sure to get one several sizes larger than the one it’s replacing.” She glared at Isana. “So you were the choice of the flawless Princeps Septimus, over every woman in the Realm actually qualified to be his wife. So your child by him was recognized by Gaius. It means nothing, Isana. Don’t think for an instant that your strength can compare to mine.”

“Oh,” Isana said, “I’m quite sure it doesn’t. It doesn’t need to.” She stared at Invidia for a quiet moment, her expression calm, then she picked up her knife and fork again. “When have you gone too far, Invidia? At what point do the lives your new allies take begin to outweigh your own?”

The expression drained out of the former High Lady’s scarred face.

“When does your own life become something you don’t want to live anymore?” Isana said in that same quiet, gentle voice. “Can you imagine another year of living this way? Five years? Thirty years? Do you want to live that life, Invidia?”

She folded her hands in her lap and stared at Isana, her scarred face bleak and expressionless.

“You could change things,” Isana said quietly. “You could choose another path. Even now, you could choose another path.”