"You've had a rough time. Try your best, though. And tell her I'm gonna have to get out after, I gotta do it all officially."

Amoli comes back a couple days later. She looks happy, but very very tired. "Catherine! How are you, how are the children -"

"They're well." The baby and the toddler are, anyway. She hasn't seen her two eldest in days, and the middle one is running about the castle somewhere. The toddler sucks his fingers and stares up in quiet fascination at the miraculous appearing woman. "You look tired, would you like to sit down?"

"That'd be nice." She waves at the toddler and sits. 

"I've been thinking about what you said. The situation is - complicated."

She nods.

"I hate to think that I'm making the wrong decisions, but I don't know what the right decision is, and I haven't been able to talk to anyone about it in - a very long time. I don't know that I should trust you, either, but if you give me your word not to discuss it without my knowledge then I suppose I can try to explain it."

"I absolutely won't discuss anything you tell me without your knowledge, except that one of the rules of my job is that I'll inform someone about ongoing risk to someone's life other than yours. If that doesn't work, I can get you someone to talk to who is not allowed to share that either."

"...yes, I think you had better. Thank you for telling me."

She pulls out a little glass square and draws her index finger across it in a series of swoops. "Is it urgent?"

"I... suppose it isn't particularly."

Amoli looks kind of concerned anyway but doesn't ask anything else. She puts the glass square away. "There were a few other things I wanted to talk with you about, but it might make sense for it to wait until you've talked this over with someone."

"It might. I suppose you can say them if you like."

"If you want to avoid becoming pregnant while you work these things out we have some options for you. They aren't dangerous and aren't noticeable to anyone else."

"I don't particularly expect that to happen?"

"Okay. It's completely your choice."

"I see."

"Would you like me to leave them here or take them with me? Babies should not eat them."

"Perhaps you should take them with you, then."

"All right." She checks her glass device again. "Someone can visit in two days, is that okay?"

"Yes. Take care of yourself."

"Thank you. You too."

She'll just... sit here praying rosaries on her fingers or something. Maybe see whether her second son has found any frogs, or produce an endless supply of English and Norwegian and Arabic vocabulary for the two-year-old. Truly she is qualified to slay ageless demons.

Two days later someone else visits. She introduced herself as Elina. “Anoli said you needed to talk to someone who couldn’t reveal any confidence.”

"I did ask for that. I don't know whether it's necessary, and I suspect that if it were then the responsible thing would be not to tell anyone at all, certainly not the representative of an incomprehensible foreign power, but my allies are somewhat limited."