It's far too incisive an observation, and lands in precisely the same place as the first question had. Alexandrie's gaze sharpens for a moment as she re-files Helena as a force in her own right rather than a curiosity. And moreover, one of those forces like Thor who have the natural temerity to be so forthright as to cut right through the careful weave of falsehood and deflection she had so intently studied how to form the warp and weft of.

"In winter, how can one tell which are dead? What if the branch is simply... waiting, and to cut it would injure the tree?"

This is a foolish question, and a foolish place to ask it, but even so she looks at the other woman with the guarded mix of hope and sorrow with which one views a soothsayer after asking a question they can already feel the answer to. Tell me something else.