Valia isn't sure what to do with themselves, now, after that. "...so other than being arrested by the new Queen of uncertain Evilness how have you been."

Oh, good, she was completely failing to come up with things to say for her last chance to ever talk to Valia.

"...not great, honestly. I was so worried about you — when I couldn't find you I thought you were dead — the Judiciary Committee tried to have an emergency meeting but we barely got anything done, your lawyer and I kept getting into arguments..."

"I like her. Don't be angry at her, if they hang me, it'll be because the law had nothing to do with it. She was - if it takes six working pieces to have a Good justice system she was definitely one of them."

"I won't be, I promise. We weren't mostly arguing about that, it was — I kept trying to suggest ways to make the justice system work better, and she kept getting annoyed that it wasn't following ... some sort of lawyer rule about how constitutions are supposed to be ... only she didn't explain why very well, I think she thought I was stupid because I haven't had lawyer training. And she kept accusing me of being part of the riots even though I wasn't." To be totally fair to the diabolist lawyer she did also accuse her of arson, which was technically true.

"She mentioned to me that she came to harm in the riots so I think she is - probably scared like the rest of us, but being lawyerly about how she lets it on. I think everyone's scared, really.

I was planning to prepare - something to say, if the trial is real and I'm found innocent, but it's very hard to focus on that when I can't believe it might really happen."

Victòria mostly doesn't believe it'll happen either. "Do you want help writing it?"

"I should say yes but I notice that I don't -

- I'm scared that it will hurt more to be sentenced to death if I spent any time thinking or planning as if -"

Hug. Hug hug hug.

"I think — I think it probably will hurt more. And — I don't want that — but you're the bravest person I know, you stood up to the Asmodeans in Pezzack, I think — I know — you're brave enough to do it anyway.

...you don't have to think like you might be found innocent. You could think about it like — Pezzack had a theater, right, that was what set things off — you could think about it like, you're writing a script for a play, and in the play someone like you is found innocent — because anything can happen in a play—"

Hug. That's helpful, which isn't surprising, because Victòria is good and kind.

"Right. Okay. I want to say - that the speech was wrong, that it was a mistake. That I am innocent, under the law, and to a just Queen that matters, but that no one should imagine that the result of the trial means that I did nothing wrong, or that they would be wise to do what I did."

But Valia didn't do anything wrong, the problem is that Evildoers decided to just go out and kill innocent people — maybe it can still be a mistake even if it's not her fault, if they'd know what was going to happen they'd have done something different —

"I think — one thing I was talking about with the azata was, sometimes even when you're trying to do the right thing, sometimes you still end up hurting innocent people by mistake. And if you're found innocent, they're saying — that that's what happened, that you weren't trying to hurt anyone innocent, but innocent people still got hurt. But if you knew that innocent people were going to get killed you'd never have made the speech, and now that we've seen what happened other people shouldn't try and copy you. You're better at speeches than me but I'd phrase it like—"

She is happy to provide wording suggestions for as long as Valia wants.

Yeah. Just like last time except last time lurched everything into sickening disaster and this time's just a play, a very unrealistic play that establishes how good its Queen is by having a trial in which someone is innocent.

"They wrote a bunch more letters confessing to the arson, but not to anything new. Maybe some flashes of other past crimes but - the arson's plenty, and we're busy -" 

          "Thank you. Yes, I don't need anything else. It's gotten more complicated to put people to death but not that much more complicated. - one final thing."

"Yes?"

           "I don't want Wain brought out for trial a disheveled wreck. Her Majesty's very proud of treating all the prisoners like one's cousin who's in the guest room until he sobers up. And I don't want the crowd to pity her, and I don't want them imagining what happened to her. They can have their fun with the Calistrian whore but this one's sensitive. Get her cleaned up, get her clean clothes, heal her if there's anything to heal."

"The Calistrian one actually isn't a whore, as far as I can tell."

        "More's the pity. Being a whore isn't a hanging offense and being an arsonist is."