One of the ways that his actions earlier today may have been a mistake was if they drew the queen's attention to his convention activities that she'd otherwise been overlooking. It likely would have been worth it if it worked, but...

He'll see the queen. Maybe what she says will be informative. She almost certainly won't kill him, that would turn the other archmages against her while right now they seem content to dance to her tune.

He follows the page across the street to the palace.

He doesn't startle when he enters the office, because he's not an amateur, but that's not the queen of Cheliax that he was expecting to see.

"Ser Cansellarion. Thank you for taking the time to meet with me. Now, could you please explain what the fuck you were thinking?"

"I was thinking that self-interest would lead the other delegates to vote in favor, and that without the ability to draw taxes the - other - queen would wield much less practical authority."

"Brilliant plan. If it had worked it would have torn the country in six, removed any possibility of real representative government, made it a dozen times more difficult for us to collect and rescue the million damned souls still circulating on paper, and not even meaningfully limited her ability to do anything because she's an immortal archmage whose power does not, ultimately, come from taxes. I understand that you have a grudge against her. I understand that you don't trust her. I hate her too. She's a horrible person who deserves the final blade. But she also clawed Cheliax away from Hell and is trying to build it into something actually decent. You, as far as I can tell, are trying to burn it to the ground to spite her."

"Not to spite her. To limit her, to check her power -"

"To limit Cheliax, and destroy Chelish power. If you want to go after her, go after her secret demiplane full of magic items and weird plants and rabbits or something like that. Or try to talk Élie and Naima around to doing something. I don't think it'll work but at least it's not - it's attacking her, not innocents who happen to be nearby. I think -

Do you remember the revolution in Galt? Nearly every Iomedan abandoned us. Some who thought we were compromising with evil too much in purging the diabolists. Some who thought we were compromising too much in showing restraint in the purges. In the end... the committee that led Galt through the terror was composed of evil people. The directors who overthrew them were evil men. Cyprian is an evil man, or at least not a good one. Galt has had a lot of evil rulers in the past decade. None of them served Hell. Most of them would've gone there, if not for the final blades, but they weren't trying to serve Hell and they didn't, in the end, serve Hell. If the purists had had their way, none of them could have ever taken power, the infighting would've never stopped, the revolution would've been crushed and - who knows how the war would have gone, in the end, without Cyprian. Who knows if Élie would have made it out.

I used to think - sure, you can work with people who grew up under Infernal rule, how could you get anything done if you refused to do that, but you can't just work alongside really evil people, ones who aren't even trying to be good... I almost killed Shawil, once, thinking like that. I think I was probably making a mistake. We wouldn't have won without Shawil and Cyprian and - her - or if we had it would have been worse. More people dead, more people damned. And they probably wouldn't have helped us if they thought that the moment the dust settled and everyone let their guard down and shared a drink in celebration we'd turn and try to cut all their throats. They shouldn't have helped us, if that's what we were planning to do."

Goddess, is that what he was doing? He'd been thinking of it as an alliance of convenience that had obviously already ended, that needed no formal dissolution because nobody expected cooperation outside of fighting the forces of Hell side-by-side... But Myrabelle did give him a county. He'd thought that was part of some scheme, but maybe it was an offer to continue working together, which he should either accept or reject explicitly, not - give the appearance of accepting while betraying it in spirit.

"I see what you're saying. I'll think on it... Am I really talking to Catherine, here?"

"Oh, you want to check this isn't just the world's worst invisibility spell?" She stands up and walks through the desk.

"... I guess that doesn't really prove anything either, does it? I'm Catherine. The real one. I'm not smart enough and I don't know enough about magic to have a clue how I'd go about proving it, but it is me. I think she wants to yell at you too but I got to go first. Probably because she - and Élie and Naima - thought you'd be more likely to listen to me. Because I'm not evil, and also because I'm right.

...Before you go, ser Cansellarion? Alexeara? You look exhausted. Are you sleeping enough, a full two hours a night?"

"No, but it's not a problem. There's a paladin spell to skip sleep."

"It is very clearly not working. Go to bed tonight. Get some actual sleep. And... find yourself a wife. Or a squire or something if paladins don't marry. Someone who'll remind you to take care of yourself occasionally."

'A wife or a squire or something'. Ha! It's good advice, though. If he managed a wife it'd also free up all the time he spends dodging interested women a third of his age. Probably.

"I'll do that. Thank you, Catherine."

"Any time."

"Alex. Are you trying to start a civil war?"

He'd much rather be talking to Catherine again. "I am not trying to start a civil war."

"Glad to hear it. Perhaps you'd care to explain what else you were hoping to achieve with your little stunt this morning? Or by running around telling all my resurrected nobles that I'm evil?"

"To weaken you." Obviously.

"How about we make a deal, Alex. If you're so determined to oppose me that you'd throw this country into war and anarchy, then just wait. Give me fifteen, twenty years to put Cheliax in order. I won't do anything egregiously evil in the meantime. Then, if I haven't already managed to hand the crown off to Catherine, I'll abdicate, you'll abdicate, and we can go off to the ruins of Sarkoris and fight it out where there's no civillians around to be collateral damage."

That is obviously a trick. She'd win that fight, without a doubt. And he has no reason to expect her to keep to her end of it, if he gives her twenty years. It's - the shape of something Iomedae would agree to, but the details are all wrong.

"No. I'd lose, and I don't trust you."

"I didn't think you'd agree. If you come up with some terms that you would agree to that let me put Cheliax back together without worrying about you tearing it down, please let me know. Ask Shawil or Élie if you doubt I'd keep to them. That's all, I won't keep you from the convention any longer."

"I'll think on it." Out the door he goes. Hopefully everyone's had their fill of dramatic floor debates for the day and he can think about Catherine's words while people debate the price of cabbages in Ostenso.