"Would you like to know your faults?" she asks softly, and Nimueh makes a broken noise that might have been a laugh.

Jadis says nothing, only looks up at her blinding whiteness, the fragility of this woman who has outlived them both, and the obscene color of Nimueh's lips in her pale haven.

"Antagonism is a wasted effort," the Snow Queen murmurs, and her fingers brush the hair of the boy at her side--not the first to try to best her puzzle, nor the last--"you see, the race of men will always seek its own destruction; we must wait out the years, simply to be there when its hunger is strongest."