“Little,” she says, honestly. “In practical terms. Madame de Fonce’s arguments were persuasive then and they are persuasive now; I have not now become more persuaded of them than I was. I have simply—”

She folds her hands in her lap, quiet and still, and breathes smoke out through her nose.

“Allow me to be plain, within the limitations of my ability,” she says, a wintry smile quirking the edge of her bow-shaped mouth. “I am vain, Isaac, and I do not relish the prospect of what I have determined to do. For my vanity, and my comfort, I have been reluctant to act upon the knowledge I have long had. But I shall be the third and not the second, and Monsieur Viktor’s work is proven, and I do,”

she gazes past him,

“find that I fear death, the further I walk away from the death experienced by that woman in whose image I was made. It was a great comfort to me to know that in her death, I could never be returned to her life. It is no longer sufficient comfort. And— whilst I am being clear, it is not lost on me that I will rely on you a great deal, as well as l’Docteur and Monsieur Viktor, in pursuing this course. After all that we have seen of one another, I did not think it right to expect Docteur Strange to broach this on my behalf, nor to sit in our discussion of it.”