Victòria is here to investigate the Rights Committee's latest idea for actually punishing wizards who break the law. She hadn't been expecting the palace would actually let her look at the antimagic cells, but she's not about to turn down the chance, and she's definitely not about to leave just because the Evil nobleman who wants to ban Calistria is here. If he decides to murder her or something it'll just prove to everyone how much he sucks.

When he has her killed, it will be a public execution for the numerous capital crimes she has committed, and certainly not when the archmage will just bring her back. He's just going to ignore her presence while he considers the number of people that can be safely held and various floor plans for dividing it into multiple cells, as long as your definition of ignoring includes the occasional disdainful and dismissive glance.

Unfortunately, that programme is a rather large ask for his self control. "Here to examine your future lodgings? I'm afraid your abilities don't merit enough respect for it, so you'll have to settle for the ordinary cells."

That's — bizarrely upsetting, actually — it would be fine, she'd be fine, nothing bad even happened to her last time, it's just for some reason it feels like the walls are pressing in around her and she's sitting alone in the dark waiting to die—

"I know this isn't how things worked under Asmodeus, Delegate Curto, but it's not a crime to say Evil nobles shouldn't be allowed to do whatever they want to people."

Wow, that insult kind of sucked. She should really get better at coming up with good comebacks, it keeps coming up.