Perhaps unexpectedly, Benevenuta laughs, musical and light; not cruel, but a little wry. "There," she says, amused, "you see? You express yourself perfectly clearly. You're thrown because you don't prepare for the answers."

A tilt of her hand - "It's no more for me to choose your path than to give you a voice. I can do neither. What I can do, what I am willing to do, is ensure that you understand the consequences of both before you act. That you act deliberately. You give me idealist's answers and I admire them, but the idealist who doesn't see the battle they fight achieves nothing. And the battle is much, much more than knowing when you are spoken to rudely. It is knowing what they think before they think it. Any path is risky - any path risks more than just yourself. Do it blindly, loudly, and it won't be you who is hurt first."

Benevenuta didn't choose that path; she was the weakness targeted when her mother did. She doesn't set out to dissuade Ellana, but something worth doing is only ever worth doing right and with your eyes open.