"Yes."

"Why did you believe that the parts of your speech that denounced the Archduke Blanxart and the Delegate Ibarra by name, and that listed in detail the people who you considered the targets of the committee on excising diabolism, complied with the Queen's decrees against making lists of people who were guilty of evil deeds or of crimes?"

It feels like there's something curling up inside her, making her feel sick. She hopes that when the prosecutor dies the devil that comes to claim his soul is every bit as ruthless and Evil as he is. She hopes that he spends every second of every day in Hell thinking of the innocent people he hurt and wishing he'd done something, anything else. She hopes it hurts every bit as much as the priest always said it would.

Probably she shouldn't be hoping that Hell gets another servant but it feels unjust if he can just — stop existing, after everything he's done. Maybe they can torture him most of the way into a devil and then decide to just use him as a paving stone.

They’ve got the teenage Iomedaean terrified that she’ll start another riot, making her defend herself with one arm tied behind her back. Using her own good against her. Thats one way to do a show trial. Really, if the people are so ready to rise up, maybe it’s the regime who should be terrified not her.

Memorizing every detail of that prosecutors face. Just in case they make the mistake of not stashing officials in scrying-proof rooms after important trials, long enough for Anarchic-Good adventurers to find something else to be angry about. 

" - well, I thought they had to be lists of names, so 'all of the evil nobles in Cheliax' wasn't disallowed under that decree. Though it was a great evil, to denounce people for being Evil without checking far more thoroughly to see if they really were. The Menadoran nobles have been trying and the Church is -"

"Just answer the questions."

"Sorry. I thought that the decree only covered lists of names so I didn't do one of those."

If that's a denunciation list then a newspaper is a denunciation list.

But if the Queen is Mephistopheles, maybe it is.

"You named Archduke Blanxart and Delegate Ibarra. And you confessed earlier that you had meant to denounce the Count-Regent Napaciza, even if you avoided naming him in so doing."

"I wasn't denouncing the archduke! I was - complaining that I thought he had poor judgment. But I'm sure it's legal to complain that people have poor judgment, or at least lots of people at the convention were doing it. 

I was denouncing Delegate Ibarra, I guess, but I didn't expect a mob to go after him because that's stupid."

"Because that's stupid?"

"People shouldn't do murders. They should report problems to the Queen, and not try to solve them themselves."

"I don't think that's what you meant when you said it would be stupid."

And if the Queen is Mephistopheles she's not just sitting next to a court wizard holding the dominate on the judge, she's probably dominating the judge herself.

Lluïsa can at this point recognize that this is insane catastrophizing but it doesn't help.

Pay attention. Bear witness to whatever Valia Wain is doing that isn't quite suicide, somehow.

She meant he could take them if they did. And she was so unwise enough to think that this true fact meant they wouldn't try.

"I was not trying to get anyone to kill Delegate Ibarra, I was just complaining about him."

"I don't think that is what you meant either. If you had said such a thing of a man in Pezzack, what would have happened?"

"In Pezzack if there was a powerful evil wizard, and he worshipped Norgorber, and he bragged about how he had burned down houses that had children inside them, people might decide they had to do something about him. And so they'd get everybody together who was a very strong fighter, and we'd talk about it and decide if it had to be done, and then they'd - ambush him on the street and try to kill him before he cast a spell. 

And I know that murder on suspicion is a great evil and I know that one should report crimes to the Queen and not try to solve them one's self, but - see, in Pezzack there wasn't the Queen, there was just us. I - have not had time to learn very much of the teachings of Iomedae but I think that the law, as it functions in great cities where great harm will come if people war on each other, is very different than the law in smaller cities where everyone knows who they trust and where you can't hold a wizard to give him a trial. I don't know if the thing they do in Pezzack was unlawful but I can't think what they should do instead.

And I guess when I said that Delegate Ibarra worshipped Norgorber and was a powerful Evil wizard if I'd thought about what would happen I might've predicted that the strongest men in Westcrown would ambush him on the street and try to kill him before he cast a spell. But I wouldn't have predicted they'd go to his house. Because that would get them killed, and not work, because he's a powerful wizard."

"So you thought they might try to murder him on suspicion but they would try more effectively."

"I was - imagining an entirely different kind of place where everything is very different, when I thought about what might happen."

"And when you denounced Count-Regent Napaciza?"

(someday he'll be squished down into a paving stone, unable to hurt anyone, unable to do anything but feel the fires of Hell around him—)

The prosecutor is a piece of shit garbage human but it's not like Liushna had been unaware, at this point, that Cheliax still has lots of piece of shit garbage humans in it. 

"The Count-Regent repented and is an ally to the Church of Iomedae and a better one than I am and it was a great evil and a great betrayal that I spoke against him." This Valia feels strongly about, unlike the question of whether she wanted a more organized mob to stab Ibarra.

"Indeed. And yet you denounced him, expecting - what?"