Caesar frowned long at the king. “You can’t maintain this, Isabel. You can’t be an honorable gentleman and be with Joyce. They’re a whore. I don’t mean prostitute—you and I both know prostitution can be an honorable profession in its way—but Joyce actively wants to live up to the old archetype and be a filthy, treacherous, honor-destroying whore. Right now you’re the only evidence the world has that there can be a morally pure leader anymore. Joyce will tear that all down. For fun. To prove they can.”

The king smiled, soft. “Joyce has the right to tear it down; they built it up.”

“What do you mean?”

“When Madame and I convene for our… trysts… Madame plays Vice and has me play Virtue, and we’ve been doing it for twenty years; after enough play a part becomes habit.”

The Emperor shook his head. “I don’t believe you’re a good man just because of that. I think you always had this in you, Madame just brought it out more.” He limped a step toward the door. “Same as with me.”

Martin did not yet help me to my feet. “Caesar, may I address Madame a moment, before we go?” he asked.

MASON had a smile for a Guildbreaker scion, even here. “Of course.”

Madame herself perked, adjusting her skirts as if to get the rustling over with before the next scene of an opera. “What is it, Martin?”

“It would benefit you at some point to recognize that, like the Porphyrogene, I too have grown up. My Emperor has given me literally unlimited resources, public and clandestine, and the trust of Romanova gives me even more, all dedicated to the service and safety of Domini Jehovah. I could likely have captured Sniper today if you had made me your accomplice instead of, or in addition to, Dominic. I caught you, after all.”

Madame’s smile had a lively, rolling glow, as Hera or Demeter wear in frescoes. “My dear Martin, Dominic I can predict.”

Martin frowned. “I do not exaggerate, Madame, when I say I believe myself to be possibly the most predictable person on Earth.”

“Of course you are, dear Martin,” she answered, “but you can’t keep a secret from Jehovah for five minutes, and only Earth’s greatest fool would dare try to predict what He will do when you tell Him something.”

Martin considered that a moment. “It is certainly true, Madame, that I keep secrets from Domine only in the most extreme situations, but that is because, if Dominus orders or advises something, it is the right thing.”

She shook her head. “What He wants is not always what’s best.”

“False, Madame. Dominus always wants what is best. You raised them thus.”

Spain and Caesar watched in quiet fascination as ever-calculating Martin judged it worthwhile to raise his voice in argument against immovable Madame.