"They're the same kind as the last time," she says, since she confounded the woman with the alcohol concentration last time. "How's Chelam?"

"In a bit of a state, actually. We removed and executed the duke and all but one of the counts and are trying to provide security in their place but there's really quite a lot of catastrophes. That's - what I wanted to talk to you about. May we speak confidentially?"

" - oh. Uh, quite probably, but I don't grant that request with fewer than twenty hours to think about it. I'm sorry, I should've mentioned when we picked a date."

" - huh. No, don't apologize, that's reasonable. I cannot reasonably get back and then visit again in that time but I am sure I can find a way to entertain myself for a day. Do you have recommendations for restaurants? Can I visit that museum you worked at?"

"- yes, we can speak confidentially."

"Thank you. 

I told you that I work for the new Queen who overthrew the Thrunes. That's true. It's incomplete. The whole story is - I was an undercover agent in Egorian. I spent my whole life preparing to do it. They have frequent mind-reading, to determine the loyalty of their agents. My mother had a theory of how she could teach someone to project false thoughts and fool mind reading, to beat truth spells like some song-sorcerers can. I was able to master it. 

You could not rise to any prominence in Egorian without selling your soul to Hell, so I did, while intending to betray them. I made arrangements to keep passing information to my mother. I helped make the Galtan revolution and the Andoren revolution go well in a way that incidentally discredited the people whose job I wanted. I helped assassinate Infrexus. I was appointed Abrogail's spymaster. I betrayed their secrets to the forces of Good until I was discovered."

"Gods. - thank you. I - what are you planning to do, then?"

"Live forever? - not by lichdom, there are better ways." She generally hates it when people pity her but she wants Carlota's cooperation here and the pity is probably the route to it. "I - it was worth it, of course. I didn't really expect to survive the war - well, I didn't, but my mother retrieved me - so it's a bit odd making any plans past that, but I don't regret it."

" - there are better routes than lichdom? Known to you? - sorry, that just has rather startling implications all by itself -"

"You meet a lot of people as Cheliax's spymaster. There is a secret druidic technique for restoring an aged person to their youth, and I'm planning to get it done shortly. That'll get me another sixty years. 

I want to spend them as the Duchess of Chelam. I - don't want to leave Cheliax. It is the place I have devoted my whole life to. I know it like a child, and I'm invested in it, and I want to keep fighting for it. But it would wholly discredit the Queen's reign, to keep me on as her spymaster, and invite questions we don't want people digging into, and - and also she doesn't want me. She feels - badly about what she did to me, right -"

"About raising you to do this?"

"Yes. It doesn't bother me, but it bothers her. And I find it fairly unbearable to work closely with her rather than reporting in a secret dreamscape once a month.

So - I want to start over. I want another chance at life. I want a name that people don't think of as among the worst monsters in their history. I asked for a duchy. 

I would like to use your name, when I start over."

"If what you have said is true I do consider myself extraordinarily indebted to you but that is a - very substantial ask."

"I know. We can go to some part of Axis that has truth magic, if you'd like. - I can beat a lot of kinds of truth magic but haven't specifically tried on any in Axis and would expect that it doesn't work just like if I undetectably mindread people here an inevitable shows up to yell at me."

" - I feel badly about asking you to leave and let me think again, when I know that it's extremely expensive for mortals to stay in Axis for any length of time, but I want to take at least a day to think about whether I might want to do that and what things I want to worry about if so."

"I found somewhere it was legal to sleep in a Rope Trick. I spent a lot on food but - for the experience, it's not as if I need to eat."

"Then come back tomorrow. Also I would appreciate your permission to discuss the request with my husband and will at some point require that if I'm going to agree."

"If he is willing to agree to confidentiality you can discuss the request with him confidentially. If he needs a day to think about it then maybe we should meet in two."

"No, that's me. I have - complicated internal injury around having been embedded in a culture that strongly expected promises of me that I wasn't really qualified to make or keep. Lots of people take ten minutes to think, but trying to take ten minutes to think is very stressful to me, and things come to mind hours later. Many people are like that, but a minority of people."

"I don't think I have that problem but possibly I only don't have it because I plan for adversarial negotiations in advance and don't agree to anything I didn't have a longstanding intention to."

"Seems practical in an environment with a lot of mind control - mind control is illegal in Axis and if you attempt to employ any I will not be angry like I was about the divinations, I will be angry like I'll ask my company to track you down for prosecution."

"Breaking laws in Axis would be very stupid and I haven't done it. The Detect Thoughts was legal - though also it was wrong and I should not have done it and apologize for it - I think I just tripped some kind of rule about learning things I'm not supposed to know."

"Anyway. Confirming explicitly that I have your permission to ask my husband for confidentiality about our conversation and, if he agrees, to tell him its contents?"

"Yes."

"Then same time in a Golarion day, I guess."