She folded her hands in her lap, and said, calmly, “And both of you are now worried that I have realized so much about you both. About who you are. About what moves you. You’re both wondering what else I know. And how else I might use it against you. And why I have revealed what I know here, and now. And you, lonely Queen, wonder if you have made a mistake in bringing me here. You wonder what Octavian inherited from his father—and what came from me.”

Silence filled the hive. Neither of the two half women to whom she spoke moved.

“Do you think?” Isana asked in a conversational tone, “that it might be possible to have hot tea with our dinner tonight? I’ve always found a good cup of tea to be most...” She smiled at them. “Reassuring.”

The Queen stared at her for a time. Then she whirled to face Invidia, and said, “You may not have the remaining crafters,” she hissed. Then, the hem of her tattered gown snapping, the vord Queen stalked from the hive.

Invidia looked after the Queen, then turned to Isana. “Are you mad? Do you know what she could do to you?” Her eyes flickered with disquieting light. “Or what I could do to you?”

“I needed her to leave,” Isana said calmly. “Do you wish to be rid of her, Invidia?”

The burned woman gestured in burning frustration at the creature clamped to her. “It cannot be.”

“What if I told you that it could?” Isana asked, speaking in a calm, almost-toneless voice. “What if I told you that the vord possess the means to cure you of any poison, to restore the loss of any organ—even to restore your beauty? And that I know its name and can make a fair guess at where it might be?”

Invidia’s head rocked back at Isana’s words. Then she breathed, “You’re lying.”

Isana offered the woman her hand calmly. “I’m not. Come see.”

The other woman took a step back from Isana, as though the offered hand contained pure poison.

Isana smiled. “I know,” she said calmly. “You could be free of them, Invidia. I think it is very possible. Even against the Queen’s will.”

Invidia lifted her chin. Her eyes burned, and her scarred face twisted into what looked like physical pain. Terrible hope pulsed from her, and though she tried to hide it, Isana had been too near her, through too much, for too long. There was no more hiding it from her finely tuned senses. Though it sickened her to do it, Isana faced her calmly and waited for the pressure of that hope to drive the other woman to speak.

“You,” Invidia rasped, “are lying.”

Isana shook her head slowly, never looking away from the other woman’s eyes. “Should you wish to change your future,” she said calmly, “I am here.”