"No." Yes, but not as part of a mob, she didn't burn down anyone's house, not even the people who deserved it. She was careful, she wasn't going to hurt anyone, it's nothing like the people who burned down innocent people's houses for fun.

She's picturing — soaking the area around it in water, walking through the school, making absolutely sure that no one had somehow ended up inside. The way her chest twisted up hearing stories about everything that happened there (a flash of something else, something upsetting involving a faceless twelve-year-old girl, that immediately gets shoved down), everything that was apparently still happening there. (It's mostly a visual memory; it comes with a face, clear enough in the darkness that it's probably being pulled from earlier memories, but not a name.) Finding the Asmodean Disciplines, which they still had for some reason. Setting the fucking Disciplines on fire. The confidence that comes with doing something you know is uncontrovertibly right. Flames, hot and bright and beautiful. Sticking around to watch it burn, just to be absolutely sure that the fire didn't spread.

There's enough visual detail to it that if you happen to have spent some time in the area since the riots it's not hard to figure out which school it was.

Well, there you go, you can hang people for that. Not helpful for the prosecution of Valia, except in that they can spin it as 'Valia's associate who helped write the speech was out burning down the city', but a crime. 

"I'm glad. It will be helpful to Valia that her friends cooperated with the police and didn't participate in the riots or do any murder or arson. It helps avoid the appearance that - you all planned this so you could cover for the crimes you wanted to commit, that night."

There's something — confusing — about how she says that, but Victòria can't quite put her finger on what. She was watching for witnesses, there shouldn't be anyone who can report her unless Raimon sells her out, and he wouldn't. Unless they put her under a Truthtelling but even then it depends on what they ask her, and they haven't yet, and if it really comes down to it this woman is reasonable and trustworthy enough that she might be willing to leave it out in her report to the Queen. ...Unless they want her to testify in court, but there's true things she can say in court, it feels a little like diabolist trickery even though it's not but she could say she didn't riot, didn't hurt anyone, didn't kill or loot or rape or burn anyone's house down, she just can't say she didn't do anything illegal. The arson wasn't even related to the speech! 

(—Not that it matters. Even if she could testify under a Truthtelling that she'd never committed a crime in her life, they'd just execute her either way. Maybe that's what felt confusing, the idea that anything was going to matter to Valia's trial, but — it could be true, it's probably not but this woman seems really convinced that they're not going to just convict her if she's really innocent, she just has too much faith that the Queen will actually care.)

"We didn't plan it at all." (True.) "We didn't know there were going to be riots. If we'd known people were going to go out and murder innocent people because of it we'd've said something else."

"I'm glad. What we're going to do is write up a statement exonerating you of everything, and then you'll have the opportunity to read it under a truth spell, and then having demonstrated your innocence you'll be released. All right?"

That depends a lot on what's in the statement but if she says so it's as good as a confession, and she doesn't want to count on this nice-but-probably-Lawful woman agreeing not to tell the Queen.

"All right, that's fine with me. ...Why haven't you let Valia go yet?" Maybe she was part of the mob that went after the nobles, but if so this woman could've just told her, it still would've been wrong to arrest her but not Asmodean.

She's already working on drafting the statement.

I assisted Valia Wain in writing her speech, but we believed at the time and believe now that all of the contents of the speech were legal speech permitted by the Queen's decrees. We did not anticipate the riots. We did not want innocent people to die. Our intent was to write a speech that obeyed all relevant laws and that did not result in the deaths of innocent people.

I did not assist in copying or distributing the speech, and do not know who copied or distributed the speech.

On the evening of the 3rd of Sarenith, I did not commit murder, theft, arson, or other crimes. I do not believe Valia to have committed murder, theft, arson or other crimes. 

"Does this look all right? I think that unfortunately Valia wasn't willing or able to sign a statement exonerating her completely. I don't know what the hold-up was."

She's going to die.

She already knew she was going to die. It's pathetic and contemptable to be — scared? upset? angry? — just because she believed for ten seconds that she wasn't going to die. The Queen doesn't care how reasonable and justified your crimes are, it doesn't care if you hurt anyone, it doesn't care if you did anything wrong. If you hurt the Queen's precious stablity then you're as bad as someone who murdered a house full of innocent people, and never mind if the thing that was stable was a school still teaching people with the Disciplines.

Unless you're Delegate Ibarra, in which case burning down houses full of innocent children is fine. Unless you're a diabolist noble, in which case you can murder your servants and rape their daughters and anyone who says you should die for it is a traitor. The azata thought the convention sounded like a Mephistophelean plot — which doesn't make sense, there's no need to play pretend about fighting Asmodeus if they're on his side, but it's true in the way that matters, which is that she'd gladly sacrifice every ordinary person in Cheliax to avoid minorly inconveniencing someone important. A category which includes diabolist nobles and powerful murderous wizards but not priestesses of Iomedae, and certainly not anyone like Victòria.

She knew that already, so it really shouldn't be upsetting.

...She should have run. She knew they were probably going to kill her. She doesn't know for sure anyone innocent would have been in the range of her channel. And even if she hadn't made it out of the city she could've gotten someone to warn Raimon — her hand darts to the place where she normally keeps her holy symbol — Calistria, if you can hear me, please help Raimon get away — I don't know if this is the sort of thing you can help with but please— 

And it's not going to matter because even if she were completely innocent it wouldn't matter but she has to try — it feels dirty and Asmodean, even though it's completely different, even though she's not doing anything wrong—

"I — set fire to a copy of the Asmodean Disciplines that I don't own. And also a pair of whips that I don't own. I have Create Water, it wasn't going to burn anything I didn't want it to, but I don't think I can read this as written. Can we edit it to — 'On the evening of the 3rd of Sarenith, I did not commit murder, did not riot, and did not burn down any houses or businesses'?

—Valia wasn't involved. If the Queen wants to hang me for burning the Disciplines it's not like I can stop her but Valia had nothing to do with it."

(it's not going to work, it's not going to work, Hell is the destruction of hope so if Hell's recaptured you can't let yourself start to hope—)

"If you can say that you only burned a copy of the Asmodean disciplines and two whips and not anything else and didn't commit or attempt murder or other acts of violence that'd probably be good enough."

"I can say that." She isn't sure she can say it but she isn't sure she can't. She wasn't sending Sparks at the school. And she didn't do any murder or violence and didn't try to, that part is easy.

"I don't think you're being straightforward with me, Victòria. What actually happened? Where did you find a copy of the Asmodean Disciplines and two whips? Did anything else burn?"

She's picturing the inside of the school again. "I — I know you're reasonable but the Queen isn't, and you'd have to tell her — I didn't hurt anyone—"

"I don't have to tell the Queen everything. I'm not even allowed to tell the Queen everything, actually, she's far too busy for that. Just the important stuff. I need to know what happened so I can know if the city is safe from you. But if the city's safe - that's the important thing. I don't have to tell the Queen about every crime anyone has ever committed. But I can't decide if it's a big deal or not if you won't even tell me what actually happened."

"I — I didn't hurt anyone—" (we didn't hurt anyone, there's that boy again) "—I was careful—" (and now she's remembering how she felt when Delegate Ibarra admitted to being a mass murderer who went after children, every way she thought about hurting him none of which would even slightly work against a fifth-circle wizard who Fireballed a crowd of innocent people—)

"—there's a school, or, was a school, the one back home had closed down but this one was still running, it was still using the Disciplines, and it was — the one back home was run by a priest and this one was worse — one of the teachers raped a twelve-year-old girl and no one cared—" (she's thinking about being thirteen years old, beaten within an inch of her life for trying to stop some kind of nobleman, the details aren't clear in her thoughts from raping her, and everyone just pretended like it was fine, as if they didn't all know exactly what had happened — and thirteen is practically an adult but a twelve-year-old is a child—)

"—anyways. I was careful, I checked to make absolutely sure there wasn't anyone inside, I took all the other books that weren't the Disciplines so I could bring them to the temple of Nethys—" (actually, she ended up not even being strong enough to drag them once they were all full, Raimon had to bring them both, she felt a little bad) "—I made sure all the area around it was covered in water so the fire didn't spread, I stuck around afterwards just to be sure it wouldn't, until the rains had totally put it out. And, yes, I burned it down. But I didn't burn down anything else, and I didn't try to, and I wouldn't burn down someone's house even if they were an Asmodean because there might be someone innocent inside. And also because it would be harder to make absolutely sure it didn't spread."

She swallows. "—It really didn't have anything to do with the riots, it was just coincidence that it happened the same night. And I didn't tell Valia."

"Thank you. Telling me the truth was the right thing to do. I told Valia too - it might seem like it's always better to lie but it's not. In the end there's still the truth, and in the court that really matters we all still answer for it. People can't help you if they don't know what they're helping with. I'm glad you were careful. It still seems like a risky thing to do, honestly, but - taking steps to make it less risky is a lot better than not taking those steps. 

Are you all right?"

"...Not really. I keep — I know you trust the Queen a lot but I'm scared she's just going to execute Valia anyway, even though she didn't do anything wrong—" And she's scared they're going to execute her, and Alicia and Raimon and while she's at it maybe she'll decide to execute Liushna too for being a bird-person, it doesn't make any less sense than arresting Valia—

"- you know what, we need to finish this interview first - which means you signing what you just said, that you meant it and it's the whole truth - and then, if you'd like, I can arrange for you to see Valia. Just so you know she hasn't been hurt and Her Majesty's treating her fairly."

It hadn't occurred to her that that might even theoretically be an option and now that she knows it is she wants it very, very badly. It wouldn't even help with the thing where the Queen is probably going to execute Valia, even if she hasn't been tortured that doesn't mean she's going to be okay, but — she'd still get to see Valia —

"I can sign to what I said." She hasn't told them about Raimon but she doesn't have an issue with signing that what she said was the whole truth when it wasn't. No one saw them, he didn't help to write their speech, he'll be fine as long as she doesn't give him up.

"I've been writing it out for you to sign. But if I'm going to recommend to the department that we not worry about it or tell the Queen about it it has to be the whole truth, understand? Both because someone might ask you to repeat it under a truth spell and because my job is to have the whole picture when I decide if someone's a danger to innocent people or not. So even if it seems like a small thing, like that, I don't know, there was a cat sleeping in the school and maybe the cat burned too - I can't say 'I decided this is fine and we're not going to pursue it', and then have you not pass a truth spell for it and have to go back and figure out what's actually true."

"...I was working with another delegate to do it but if I tell you which one I'm worried the Queen will kill him." Raimon Pages, one of the other Calistrians. If they don't know what he looks like she's also conveniently visualizing him. "Uh, and I also spent a lot of that evening talking to an azata, I can tell you about the azata if there's things you need to know about it. And Victòria isn't the name I was born with. I can't think of anything else that's relevant but I might've forgotten something. —are you married? The azata told me something that might be important if you are — that's not relevant to the school thing, just, it seems like it would be good for you to know." And she might never get the chance to tell anyone. Probably she should be telling this woman everything the azata told her that's important. Maybe she can tell the rights committee not to turn people into skeletons.

"I'm not married but I am happy to take notes on things that are generally important to know. Thank you for telling me about the other delegate. I won't ask his name."

Oh, thank the gods, Raimon is going to be okay.

"So the thing I was thinking of was, apparently it's Evil for a husband to force himself on a wife, even though they're married. And it said that it's really Evil to turn people into skeletons to work the mines, but that probably the guy who suggested it — Delegate Requena i Cortes — was probably just doing it for reasons that were a horrible tragedy, not because he was going out of his way to be Evil, and that — it was a normal thing for mortals to really want something that they can only get by hurting people and then convince themself it's not Evil to hurt them. I don't know if it's right about how Evil he is but if you could tell him and also the rest of the Rights Committee about that I'd really appreciate it. And it said Asmodeus isn't dead and that Elysium would know if he was — lots of the pamphlets have been saying he was dead. We talked about lots of other things but — those are the main ones I can think of that are important to know, I might be forgetting some, I didn't have my notes from that conversation with me when I got arrested." It said a lot of confusing and upsetting things about hurting Evil people that she really doesn't want to repeat and probably can't explain anyways, but she's mostly trying not to think about that. It shows up in her thoughts as a confused tangle of emotions more than anything coherent. 

"—We did also talk about buildings burning down, I forgot to say that earlier. Not — I didn't — it was the one that brought it up, when it was explaining how sometimes you can hurt innocent people by accident, and I kept what it said in mind when I was burning down the school so I could make sure I didn't hurt anyone."

"Huh. Thank you, that's all good to know. I will pass it along to the committee if you don't get the chance to do so yourself." And will she sign the confession if it's not labelled CONFESSION in bold block letters at the top, and swear that it's the whole truth aside from the name of the other involved party she's withholding for his safety?

Assuming it doesn't have anything obviously objectionable, and includes some disclaimers about how it was totally unrelated to anything Valia did and Valia had no idea it was happening, she's happy to sign.

"Can I see Valia now?"

"Yes, of course. Let's head over there." And then someone will have to keep up the mindreading and also just eavesdropping, see if the girls betray any more to each other, but she can assign that to a junior person and get some sleep.