"Hi."

"Before I talk to your captive about my assessment of your personality and motives, is there anything you want to tell me to give me a clearer picture?"

"About your personality and motives. About the goals you're trying to accomplish. Or miscellaneous things that might affect how I see you," she says. "I've heard you may be trying to assail a palace, and you don't seem like the sort of person who would assail a palace for trivial reasons, but I don't actually know whose palace it is or why you want to assail it and that seems like relevant information for this purpose."

"It's the Queen's palace. She is... not the worst of all possible masters, but she isn't good, except in the sense of being skilled. It doesn't matter if someone wants to work for her or not because she can have anyone she wants; and if someone tries to betray her or annoys her personally she resorts to torture; and she leaves worse masters who don't happen to interest her as vassals to run rampant on their own."

"Those are pretty good reasons to assail a palace," Royal says agreeably.

"And if I can get the Queen she can be used to keep everyone else. She's unique in having the property of knowing fairies' names so I wouldn't really be able to let her go if I wanted to do anything much, but everyone else in her court - including her best sorcerer, who seems broadly willing to help me given enough reason to believe I am who I seem to be - would be better off for it."

"I think I'm interested in helping you accomplish this goal," says Royal. "And Sunnydale's most recent disaster has been taken care of - did you hear me talking to my Watcher about the woman who was stealing her daughter's body? We fixed that - so I'm between immediate projects."

"I heard your Watcher's name. You will notice I have done exactly nothing with it, but I can't help but think you've been waiting for me to admit it for some reason."

"I have noticed you doing exactly nothing with it," she says. "Which is promising. And you might not have heard, I wasn't sure. But it was an opportunity for you to demonstrate good faith, and you did. It is much easier to cooperate with someone when I don't strongly suspect them of concealing a major advantage over one of my closest allies."

"I would have mentioned it before any plans were put in motion that involved me getting anywhere near the Queen or anyone else who could plausibly order me, because then such a person would have had all the names I know out of me in a heartbeat. Arcane is locked down for now but very smart, so I suppose if he changes his mind about working with me and gets the drop on me it could come up then too. I have no designs on your Watcher. I was just paranoidly enjoying one more person no longer being in the ranks of those who could if they so chose hurt me."

"Thank you for explaining," says Royal. "My Watcher isn't going to want to go anywhere near you for the forseeable future, but when I explain what you're trying to do I'm sure he'll be happy to help with research on local magic, which is something he's very good at."

Nod.

"Anything else before I talk to Arcane?"

"Are there any other things you think I might have overheard? Because I can't think of anything else significant."

"I don't have any lingering suspicions about things you might be keeping quiet about knowing, no. But if you wanted to go into more detail about your motivations for conquering Fairyland, that would help me form a clearer picture."

"It's badly run. I think I could do better."

"Seems plausible that you could."

"And I'm willing to take the risk. Arcane's in a more awkward position because he's much too dangerous to let go, so he's basically choosing between joining my revolution or being turned into a small animal and kept in a box, but he doesn't seem innately horrified by the former option."

"I see."

"Anyway. Can I get a good reference?"

"Yes."