"Ah. Yeah, that doesn't seem like it would be enforceable here. Exile would be manageable, though."

"I worry about public opinion. I don't know if any of them normally live here, but they at least seem to know people here. - we should maybe walk and talk, I don't know how long the gr- the people you recommended to me, will hold them."

He can do that.

"If they live here, then it will be substantially more complicated - I'll talk to people and see what public opinion is like. Maybe offer to allow them to be mindread to prove their innocence if they want, though doing so would be complicated."

"Mindread!"

"Yeah, it's a particularly common ability for the Malestrom to grant."

"Eeeeugh I don't have a better idea right this second and it's better than them getting killed or hurting Eefa but I dooooon't like it."

"Huh - that's not an unusual opinion here, though it's at least partially downstream of the general superstition about people who have been touched by the Maelstrom, which I haven't gotten the impression you shared."

"What, no, superpowers are cool, specifically violating the otherwise inviolable privacy of the mind is fucked up."

Nod.

"Uh, possibly you would like to know that my mom can read minds. She doesn't, in practice, and it would be very obvious if she were trying to read yours, but she can in theory attempt to do that."

"How would it be obvious?"

"It would feel like something was uh, drilling into your brain. Which is another reason why people might be reluctant to be mindread to establish their innocence - not all mind readers are like that, but there isn't anyone else in town I would trust to do so responsibly. Her pupils would also rotate rapidly if she were doing so."

"Gotcha."

"It's not nearly as nice a power as yours seems to be."

"I agree."

"I probably won't offer the mind reading alternative at all unless I can talk to one of them in private."

Nod.

It doesn't take them long to the market, where Lucien briefly interrogates the purported wolves who deny everything, including having followed Pelape at all.

"-Pelape, how certain are you that they were stalking you and Eefa?"