If she asks around someone will eventually direct her to the Grey Stallion Inn. Victòria is sitting at a table on the ground floor, reading a pair of pamphlets.

Lluïsa approaches looking vaguely chastened. "Delegate Ferrer, I would speak with you; what I have to say is, I confess, a Matter of Some Sensitivity and Embarrassment and I would beg your Time and Sufferance to walk with me somewhere out of the Range of Listening Ears; I would propose the Nearby Bridge" flinch suppressed "as a Place both Visually Public and Conversationally Private. You may walk with me under my Umbrella; it is of Fine Construction and serves well in these Rains."

This is really suspicious but she can't actually think of what sort of trick it's supposed to be. Delegate Oriol i Cornellà probably has easier ways to kill her if she wants to, and almost certainly easier ways to get her arrested.

"...Sure. Do I need to bring my notes? I don't want them getting wet, I don't know how good your umbrella is."

"If you feel you will Wish to Make Reference to them only; I do not expect to Withdraw my own while Out in the Rain."

She shares her fancy waxed umbrella as they step outside to head towards the bridge, black as everything else she has. It's not perfect but it's an expensive umbrella.

How is she supposed to know if she'll want to reference them if she doesn't know what they're going to be talking about!!!

She wraps them up as best she can and follows Delegate Oriol i Cornellà.

It helps with cultivating the proper amount of manufactured embarrassment that her fear of crossing this bridge is actually somewhat embarrassing!

Once they're out far enough she'll speak.

"This Conversation touches upon Secrets which I hold in Confidence regarding you; in order that they be Kept Unrevealed, the Purpose of this Conversation that I will name to any who ask is my Apology for my Sharp Words at our Earlier Meeting; I will indeed make such Apology that this may be a True Statement."

"If you become Moved to Strong Emotion while we Converse, you would preserve your Secret best by not being Moved to Shouting Words Loudly; you have my Blessing to Strike me in Anger or shout Insults free of Meaningful Content, that any Onlookers might consider it an Extension of our Earlier Quarrel. I would ask that you employ Measured Restraint as I have been Hurled from this Bridge once already and do not wish an Accidental Reprise."

"Valia Wain is Alive and Imprisoned; she has Retained me as her Attorney. This is not a Secret and I would have made Disclosure of it during our Ostensible Exchange."

Lawful people are bizarre. That's not at all the point here but it's still true.

"Is she—" No, that's a stupid question, of course she's not okay. So is can I see her, no one is going to let an avowedly Chaotic Calistrian priestess into their dungeons.

"Are they going to kill her?"

"It would be quite Lawless to do so. I believe the Defense I am Constructing to be Legally Sound and Efficacious. This is not to say that she is Safe from the Peril of Possible Execution, merely that it is my Intention and Business to make a Strong Defense and thereby Prevail."

"Under the Protection of my own Magic of Secrecy, she named you and Delegate Rivera as her Assistants in the Drafting of her Speech; this Fact is what I am holding Secret, and the Secret Purpose of this present Meeting is that you may give a Full Recounting of how such Drafting took place. The Secret being known to you already, I have no reason to ask Additional Constraints of you, and your own Interest includes that it not be Revealed. I have Endeavored to Behave in no Manner which might tend to Evince Knowledge of any Secret, and will certainly not have either of you Summoned before the Court. The Attorney's Practice in such matters is that of Parallel Construction; should I learn of you Useful Information for the Defense, I will not make Employment of it without first Constructing and Employing an Unrelated Way in which I might have Learned such Information."

"As this is a point of the Arcana of Law, I will answer any of your Questions regarding it."

It's Asmodean, is what it is. Not in a literal sense — if the archmages and the Queen wanted the country ruled by Asmodeus, they'd've left him in charge — but in the sense that matters. The sense where — it doesn't matter whether you broke the law. It doesn't even matter whether you did anything wrong. All that matters is that you angered someone more powerful than you, and they're going to try their damned best to convince people that means you deserve to die for it.

And she should have realized it. When the archmages were more interested in stopping people from saying diabolists shouldn't be at the Convention than in stopping diabolists from being there in the first place. When she found out the queen had granted amnesty to anyone who'd killed and raped and tortured as long as it happened before she came to power.

When the war ended and the archmages never bothered to deal with the priests, never bothered to deal with the minor nobility. When she realized (the first time she realized) that they didn't care about the ordinary people, didn't care about justice, didn't care about anything as long as they had peace.

And she sat there helping Valia compare her speech line by line against the Queen's decrees, making absolutely sure that it was legal, as if that was the sort of thing that mattered—

And Valia is probably going to die for it.

Even knowing that the archmages were barely bothering to pretend to be Good, she'd thought they'd be trying harder than this.

Her chest is burning. She doesn't know if she's angry at the Queen or the archmages or the man who wrote that awful pamphlet or the rioters who strung up innocents from lampposts or herself.

And — it feels like she's signing her own death warrant, but — it feels wrong to just let Valia be put to death if she might be able to stop it—

"...If I tell you something that could help her and you can't find it out any other way I'm okay with you saying it anyway. If your magic secrecy spell allows it, I don't really know how it works. Only if it'll actually help, not if they'll decide to just kill her either way."

She swallows. "And if it would be helpful for me to testify I can do that too. But only if it'll really help her, not if it'll just make things worse, I don't know how to tell."

"The Lawyerly Art of Answering Unhelpfully is one quite difficult to Impart Rapidly, and if Questioned by Others would be useful to Employ. Nonetheless it is the Select's wish to Maintain the Secrecy of your, and of Delegate Rivera's, Involvement, and its Revelation would not Advantage the Case that I currently see; I mean it to Remain Unknown at this Time."

"I used a Spell to Shield a portion of Conversation when Meeting with the Select; it has the Useful Quality that any Speech sounds Indistinct in a manner like to those Portions of an Overheard Conversation one does not quite Catch in one's Ears. As for its Custody after Learning it, there are High Degrees of Secrecy involving such Diverse Methods as Geases, Modification of Memory, and Recondite Magics; such are not Wantonly Employed, as every Spell does risk greater Attention to the Existence of a Secret, but any Number of such Methods may or may not have been Employed in this case, save that I have not Bespelled you in particular. My Written Notes either do not Exist or are Magically Protected, though I shall not say which of these is the case; my Memory is Prodigious and I know Apposite Spells, so it could well be Either."

"Chiefly among the Information I wish to Learn is the Sequence of Events leading, eventually, to the Publication of the Detestable 'Friend of the True People'. Beforehand and as the Source for its Deplorable Plagiarism was Published a Faithful Transcription of the Speech, this I know. Though the Convention Hall be closed, I am not such a Fool as to think Information can be Contained Within. But of the plans of your Group as regards the Writing, Copying, or Publication of the Speech, I would know, and would know whether any were Executed or merely Discussed."

"We'd talked about writing it up as a pamphlet but we never actually did it. Or at least, I didn't, and as far as I know neither of the other two did either — I'd been planning to see if I could get the spell from Calistria today, I'm not sure if priests get it or only wizards. ...I'm still not sure, I ended up asking her for other things instead. And then during the Diabolism Committee Valia also said it was important to try talking to the Queen first, in case she actually did care about stopping Evil nobles, if someone'd tried that and it had worked maybe she wouldn't have even wanted it copied at all? I'm not sure."

"A Priest may scriven though I do not know if Calistria grants it; I imagine it is Simple and Useful enough to be granted by All Gods, except perhaps some Foreign God of another Continent I have not heard of whose Domain is Hatred of Writing. I am not myself overly familiar with the Divine sort of Magic. I say this hoping it does not Encourage the Publication of Dubious Literature," she smiles, "unable as I am to put a Halt to it. At any rate this is Useful Information; I shall need to Manufacture a Pretext to speak with Delegate Rivera but that the Prosecution cannot produce Evidence linking Select Wain to any Publications or Pamphlets is Important to Know."

She sighs. "While I think on what other Information I may ask after, you are Owed my Apology for my Sharp Words and Uncharity. I am rarely moved to Inadvisable Ire... but you must know the Feeling of Wrath, which Poets often claim Gathers in the Breast but for my own Part tends to Gather behind my Eyes, causing Clouded Vision."

...Yeah. She knows some things about that feeling.

"None of us were trying to get innocent people hurt. We were thinking — Valia was worried that normal people who hadn't done that much wrong would think the diabolism committee would go after them, just because they used to pray to Asmodeus or something like that. This is pretty much the opposite of what we wanted. ...but I see why you'd be mad, if you thought we were trying for this."

"Perhaps," she allows, "it is only Obvious if you are Native to this City."

"Subjects of the Queen... or 'Citizens', to whatever Legal Disposition that Anarchic Galtan Style may refer, should be Free to Act on the basis of Studying the Written Law. Is this not the Purpose of a Constitutional Empire? It matters, to me, that you did this. Perhaps not to you, I cannot Fathom the Depths of the Chaotic Mind." And was never, fortunately, of the social class to consider selling herself into prostitution. If you just can't deal with that any longer, and start murdering clients... perhaps that's how one ends up chosen by Calistria. It makes some sense... no, that's false, it still doesn't make much sense. More sense than the confusing Valia Wain.

"I cannot imagine what Advice an Azata of Elysium would have Descended from its Plane to Impart and I hope it was not to Imbibe Strong Drink and Cease all Attempts at Useful Work." She's curious about the azata story now that she's not infuriated. Though it's hardly anything admissible in court.

"......It did not tell me to do either of those things. Or, I mean, I guess it did think that I should leave the Constitutional Convention and go to another country to learn what laws are like in places that didn't just stop being ruled by Asmodeus, but I don't think that's because it thought I shouldn't try to do useful work, it just thought the whole convention was a really bad way to set up a government.

It had a bunch of different advice but I don't know what you most want to know about." Also, a lot of it touches on things that she really doesn't want to talk about with Delegate Oriol i Cornellà.

"Researching Foreign Laws is a wonderfully Entertaining Diversion," typical-minds Lluïsa happily. "I cannot begin to Fathom why the Archmage has gone to Great Expense and yet has not Furnished the Convention Hall with a Comprehensive Library of All Systems of Law and Governance. Does he perhaps imagine that Books are Trivial to Acquire? The great Foolishness of Archmages! At any rate you must visit my Library as Paltry as its Stacks may be and Peruse the Volumes."

Blink blink. She doesn't understand what Delegate Oriol i Cornellà is playing at here. If it's some sort of trick to get Victòria to follow her alone into a building there have got to be easier and less suspicious ways to do it. Maybe she just... owns a bunch of books that she thinks will support her side, or something? That's not a problem, Victòria is perfectly capable of ignoring what the books say if the books are saying things that are stupid.

"I appreciate the invitation," she says, which isn't exactly a yes but isn't a no either. "Did you have any other questions for me about the azata or about Valia's speech?"

"I shall be glad to receive your Visit; my Office Address—" she very awkwardly writes it out on a small notepad produced from somewhere while keeping the umbrella held up and covering both of them, making for quite the production, and hands it over; despite everything, it's a little damp. "I would know if you might Manufacture a Pretext for my meeting Delegate Rivera similarly, without disclosing the Existence of Secrets in so doing. I have not made her Acquaintance as I have with you."

"She's a Shelynite? I'm not sure if there's anything you'd need to talk to a Shelynite about. Or she's on the Diabolism committee, and maybe some of the others but I don't know for sure, but I'm also on Diabolism so it would need to be something you couldn't have just asked me about. —Also I thought of a thing the azata said that might be relevant to you but only if you're married. Are you married?"

"I am unmarried," but curious. "Is Elysium in Favor of Marriage, or Opposed to it? A great Benefit of Skilled Wizardry is avoidance of any need for a Husband; I suspect that I am quite unsuited to Marital Duties."

Does that come across as sympathetic or smug, she hopes the former.

"Uh, it said it was fine for marriages to work any way where both the people involved were okay with it, and then said it didn't really get how humans work. Which is probably... anti-marriage but not very strongly? But I'm not sure. That's not the thing I was thinking of but if you're not married and never going to be married it probably doesn't matter."

"Were I forced into Matrimony I suppose I should have to devote Spells to the Matter and it seems a Sad Waste. For your part there is, I suppose, the Knife and whatever Spells you have of your Deity which I suppose to be Well Chosen. If you should require a Defense for such of me at least Attempt to make it as Easily Defensible as you can manage beforehand." Small smile.

Blink. She can think of at least three things Delegate Oriol i Cornellà could mean by that but none of them are things she'd've expected her to even offer to defend her for, even if she doesn't mean it to be taken seriously.

Small smile "I don't think many people are going to be trying to force a priestess of Calistria to marry them, it would be a pretty stupid thing to do." Or be interested in marrying one at all, what with how half the men on the streets of Westcrown seem to think she's a whore.

"Certainly your Goddess has the Strong Deterrent Quality of Her Wrathful Reputation," she replies.

See, you can sort of get into a Chaotic mindset if you try, even though promised deterrence really seems more Lawful.

"I shall return you under my Umbrella to your Inn, then, if that be all. Your Secret being Select Wain's Secret I will keep it unless her Word may bid me Otherwise."