Isabella nodded at the holy paladin standing guard over Bernadetta's cell as she entered into the room. She had elected to take Alice's advice to seek out Bernadetta immediately when she learned that Abigail and Allison were preoccupied with another matter. They had agreed instead to meet for lunch to discuss the issue of Arthur and his coming fate.

Bernadetta looked toward Isabella immediately upon entering. The wound on her neck was wrapped with a section of her dress that had been torn away. She sat in the corner with her chair. She looked much worse than she had merely one rest ago.

"I assumed that I would be waiting at least another eight hours," Bernadetta said. "It seems I've misread you once more."

Isabella walked in and then shut the door. "If it was only my own perspective that guided my actions, that might well be the case. You can thank the woman whose life you saved. She spoke for you."

Bernadetta looked away from her. She stayed silent for a long time, and Isabella waited patiently for her words.

"Ever since I was sixteen, I've been caught between behemoths trying to grasp Dovhain in their hands," Bernadetta eventually said. "I always understood that a single serious mistake would be the time that I was squished without notice. It seems that time has come."

"It was impossible for you to predict that I would be able to solve the problems that neither Edgar nor his Archwizard could," Isabella said. "But enough self-reflection. What were you going to offer?"

"Snake oil," Bernadetta said. "Deeds for goods I don't have."

Isabella was surprised by her candor. "Are you telling me that you're useless to me?"

"More or less," Bernadetta admitted. "I can provide information. But the moment I made my misjudgment, that information was bound to end up in your hands. I've never been tortured, but… I can assume the outcome." Her eyes looked distant, hollow. "My patrons in the Eagaliteth have always kept me on a tight leash—anything I hold, they have equal claim to. They don't value me enough to provide a ransom that you'll be satisfied with."

Isabella walked over to the table. "Then give me information I need."

"Their network is quite pervasive. I could talk for weeks, but if you'd provide me with writing implements, I could write it all down," Bernadetta said.

"Let's start with what's important. Who were these patrons you mentioned?" Isabella asked, leaning against the table.

"They're two rather old gentlemen with black skin," Bernadetta explained, looking distantly. "They call themselves the sages, and nothing else. I suspect that they're not from here, because they have an accent. They approached me when I had just learned that I was likely going to become one of your father's mistresses."

Isabella listened closely, but took all that she said with a healthy dose of skepticism.

"They've never once told me their motivation for what it is they're doing, but I have some speculation if that interests you," Bernadetta continued. "They offered to get me out of my predicament if I would become their instrument. In hindsight, it wasn't the brightest choice. But in my mind, the alternative was dying at your father's hands after being… toyed with by him. They were the first two behemoths I was caught between, I suppose."

Isabella raised a brow. "Why wasn't it the brightest choice?"

"Because it inexorably tied me with Edgar and his power," Bernadetta explained. "The Archwizard… the sages think him a hack. To them, he probably is. It's their magic that bound you with him. One of the first things I did was discreetly distribute the know-how to him." She looked over. "Do you know what they called me? Honeybee."

Isabella frowned. "I don't understand."

"Nor did I, for quite a while. I thought it was a term of endearment… but I learned otherwise, eventually. A honeybee's stinger, unlike a wasp's or a hornet's, is barbed. The honeybee's stinger tends to get caught on skin. When the honeybee tries to fly away, the stinger pulls out, rupturing the lower abdomen. The bee cannot pull away without essentially disemboweling itself."

Isabella crossed her arms. "I see."

"I've been perpetually forced into situations where it was expected that I die," Bernadetta explained.

"Forced how?"

"Forced by remaining useful enough to stay alive," she continued. "That first assignment… I was to leak the magic, nothing more. Once I had, they intended to kill me to sever all links back to them. Instead I used Duke Albert as the vector for the leak, establishing a relationship that gained me close access to the royal palace—something I knew they needed."

"Spying on me, you mean," Isabella said.

"You were the excuse," Bernadetta said. "The branch that I needed to swing on to move my way up the tree. Even the sages were entirely ignorant of the potential that you held. I could tell you the long and wearisome tale of my exploits, but I suspect those stories wouldn't provide much insight into what you need to know. Suffice it to say that in time I managed to remove my designation of honeybee, but not without great difficulty."

"You're claiming that you managed to survive all of this time and build up all that you did on your own?" Isabella walked around the table to sit closer to Bernadetta, though she was still wary.

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"I was hardly independent. Whenever I had need of them, and whenever I could persuade them it was worthwhile, I could borrow the great powers of the sages. That was a tremendous advantage which I'm not blind to," Bernadetta said. "But yes… I survived. I learned very quickly that I had to make myself more trouble to kill than I was to keep around. Your upheaval shot my plans," she admitted freely. "The ties I'd painstakingly built with the Archwizard weren't feasible to maintain any longer. The king would probably treat me as he treated your mother. I could see the inevitable dead end."

Isabella wasn't yet sure how much of this story was genuine, but she didn't rush to probe yet.

"What do the sages actually want?" Isabella questioned. "Or at least, what's your speculation?"

"One of either you or Edgar alive," Bernadetta explained. "They claim you as 'seeds.' They're very pleased by death being Edgar's trigger, because it allows them laxity. They were interested in discovering your location. My gambit in coming here was to provide them with that information, and hopefully soften perspectives as to my intentions."

"Why have you never tried to escape?" Isabella asked. "How do they keep you tied to them?"

"Why haven't you?" Bernadetta looked over pointedly.

Isabella narrowed her eyes.

"You could leave all of this behind. But instead, you're here in the north, planning something. Why is that? I don't expect an answer, mind, but I'm making a point."

"You want power," Isabella said decisively.

"I want what power gets me," Bernadetta rephrased. "The same as anyone else. Do you know what satisfied me more than anything else? My father abused me as a child, you see. My mother endeavored to keep it from embarrassing the household. When I was sixteen, they intended to sell me to the king for a bridge, the rights to collect tolls on said bridge, and prestige. They always took your mother's marriage to King Edgar, unceremoniously as it ended, as a point of envy. Camilla wasn't well-liked in my family, you see—she was something of a black sheep."

"Did you have them killed?" Isabella asked, having heard Felix discuss this before.

Bernadetta nodded. "I see that you've already looked into it."

"Revenge on your enemies? That's why you remained here?"

"Partly. But I haven't finished telling you what I think the sages' motivations are, and that's rather integral." She rested her head against the wall. "I believe that they want to engineer a utopia in this land."

"Presumably that's a huge issue for you," Isabella said dryly.

Bernadetta looked over. "Fundamental changes in society require tremendous upheavals. They abhor aristocracy and monarchy to the very depths of their being. I've never had the opportunity to truly ask them of their ideology, but they believe its collapse a historical inevitability."

Isabella herself had recently been grappling with that idea. Nevertheless, she pressed, "And what about that suggests building a utopian society?"

"The language they use," Bernadetta explained. "The… the things that they say," she said. "They speak of us as if we've gone down a wrong path, a path that needs to be corrected. They speak of rebuilding from the ground up. And the idea of Edgar being a 'seed.' They speak of a seed being sown on fresh soil." She shook her head. "If I had more time to think, perhaps I could vocalize it clearer."

"Give me an example," Isabella urged.

"'Beyond memory lies truth,'" Bernadetta said, recounting it as if the words haunted her. "They speak of the 'purity before thought.' They're not… not inherently malicious, I don't think. I think they believe they're doing a great moral good. But I get the sense that what they think is best for the world… the world wouldn't necessarily agree. They loathe me for what I do, but they deem it 'necessary.' They're willing to contravene their own morals in their aspiration for something at the end of the road."

Bernadetta played with her hair. "I want revenge against them. Against Edgar. Against many others… though, perhaps Edgar's beaten me to that. I suspect he's purged a great deal of nobles. And what the sages want… I don't want it to succeed."

Isabella stepped away from Bernadetta and walked to the other corner of the cell. She thought on what Bernadetta had divulged.

"I think that you've been honest," Isabella said. "But that's because you know that I value it. You're still looking for a way to survive this. You think that by cooperating completely, I'll be generous."

"All I have is what I know." Bernadetta looked at her. "Somewhere, I lost your trust completely. If I offered to do anything—introduce you to the sages, for instance—you'd likely have me killed on the spot. My death is still quite likely, I think."

Isabella stood there in silence for a few seconds. She tried to get a grasp on how Bernadetta thought. Was it a brave face, and nothing more?

"What would you do, in my shoes?" Isabella asked.

"Kill me," Bernadetta answered without hesitating. "Once you have what you need… why keep me around? Anything can happen. It's not worth risking it. You can't show mercy to someone who'll exploit it without any compunctions."

"Aren't you afraid of dying?"

"I believe you saw me crawling on the floor in fear just yesterday," Bernadetta said with amusement. "Of course I am. Even now, I'm worried this wound will become infected, or that you'll finally stop hesitating on doing what you know to be the right move. I've spent so long walking in fear of death, Isabella. At some point… I think I became unable to live without it. Life becomes very sluggish and gray when I think of stepping away from it all."

As Isabella stared, trying to discern the truth from what this woman was saying… it was as if her image overlapped with another. Arthur. She exuded the same sort of fatalism that he did. She was glad she had this conversation, though it was difficult. It gave her much to consider.

"You killed me," Isabella said.

Bernadetta looked over. "What?"

"I became queen. Then I came down with the wasting illness," Isabella said, knowing Bernadetta was smart enough to put together the pieces. "Then you stole upon me while I lay bedridden, and smothered me with a pillow after raving about how much you hated me."

"And then you went back in time," Bernadetta said, just as quick as Isabella predicted. She looked off to the side, thinking. "Edgar had likely reassumed the throne, then. And I must've been… hmm."

Isabella walked toward the door, and opened it up.

"You're leaving?" Bernadetta asked.

"Someone will send you writing implements," Isabella promised. "You're being monitored, and the only person who'll see what you write is me and those I trust absolutely."

Bernadetta leaned her head back. She looked minutely frustrated, but she said nothing more. Isabella left the cell more confused than when she'd entered.

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