"Artifacts?"

So Annie explains how artifacts work and what she knows about which ones are operative on her.

Sophie gets bored during artifact number three and asks if any of them are about weather and if not can they talk about something more interesting or is Annie the sort of person she has to be polite to.

"Uh, I don't have to explain it if you don't care."

"I think it's probably somewhat interesting, but my science tutor is ill and Lucette hasn't been writing me as many letters as she used to and when she does the letters talk about you more than the weather. Though they are still much better than other letters."

If Lucette makes a face and no one in the conversation notices it did she really make a face at all?

Probably not! "...if you two want to catch up about the weather I can go read a book or something."

"-if you'd like? We still have to test to see if the strange contact phenomenon I felt with you will repeat itself when you touch Sophie."

"I hadn't gotten to that part in my explanation but perhaps it doesn't need to be fully explained." She holds out her hand in Sophia's direction.

Poke.

"That is definitely the feeling of touching an empowered, except without the bit where you get to learn how annoying they find you."

"...well, hopefully that difference is enough that no one is going to try to force me to marry anyone."

"Do you have a demon?"

"No, but it seems like proving it would tend to be difficult. Anyone who thought I might have a demon might object to the measure of having me supervised all the time to observe none manifesting over a demonstrative period of time."

"Well, then I don't see why they would need to force you to marry someone."

"-it's possible some people wouldn't believe her?"

"Is she not very trustworthy?"

"I can be very trustworthy without everyone naturally knowing that."

"Oh, that makes sense."

"I do think it would be best if this did not become widely known."

"Okay. I guess I don't have a lot of reason to touch random empowered people."

"Sophie, do you think that you'll be very capable of keeping this a secret?"

"It's not about the weather so I don't see why I would talk about it - I thought that was obvious."

"I suppose it was."

"...for it to be a secret you also have to withhold the information if someone asks about it without making it obvious that you're doing that, though."

"I can just change the subject to being about the weather instead of whatever they are asking about. I do that a lot already."