"Yes. Quotes include 'if you want to dress your pets up and have tea parties, that's your business, but don't pretend this is a proper wedding'. And my friend told them to let us go, and they slit her throat, just for that, and said 'I suppose that's what happens when you try teaching whores some respect - '

" - although that one was the guard captain. Who is downstairs right now."

The guard comes back in with the extra set of clothes. 

"Also," he says, "I'd like your weapon."

       " - of course, your grace."

It's a short, hooked sword. He hands it to Aria.

" - thank you."

"Change. I'm not looking. - also I find women in clothes distinctly more appealing than women out of them, given the sample I grew up with, but I assume you'd still rather I not look."

" - I'm going to try not to process that sentence until I'm done with this, honestly."

He doesn't look.

She changes. Tests the sword in her hand. It's lighter than she's used to but it's infinitely better than nothing.

" - okay. You can look."

He turns around. "Where did you last see Fazil and Mahdi?"

"We were separated before we even made it into the palace. I have no idea where they are."

Sigh. "Okay. I guess we go to where you saw them last?"

Nod. " - can we just go, are your guards going to have a problem if we leave this room - "

"They're gonna have a lot of problems. I don't know how to think about - if we have to fight them we'll lose, but they won't fight me if I'm the pharaoh, and if I'm not then they...don't exist..."

Nod. "I am also worried about the effects of the nightmares bleeding into each other. The guards from my nightmare are not going to be reliably friendly."

"We can try to sneak out. Not from here, though, we'd need to be a couple of floors down."

"Okay. I'll - follow your lead, I guess?"

"Hmmm." He goes to a potted bamboo, rips it out, snaps it to about the length of a longsword. "Remember the thing I did to the plate?"

Nod.

"Refine Improvised Weapon. Now it's a sword, but they'll need Detect Magic up to notice that and I know who has it and who doesn't." He tests the balance of the bamboo stick. "Trade you? Since you're not allowed to have a weapon here -"

Nod. She hands the sword back.

Bamboo stick. And they can head out.

Yep. She'll follow him.

They walk through his palace. 

     "Your grace, what's she -"

"Found Fazil and Mahdi yet?"

     "No, your grace."

"Better go get on that."

They go down a staircase. He stops short. 

"- guess you're telling the truth."

"Hm?"

"That's not the palace."

She looks around. The palace walls sort of melt into a different style, something Fereldan. The stairs come out in a kitchen, with a dead human on the floor. Around the corner there's a storage room, with two more dead humans and an elf woman whose throat has been cut.

"This is the Arl of Denerim's estate."