"Are second wives a normal thing - Ibyabek doesn't do that -"

"Osirion does. I think they are generally inadvisable but there are some situations where they are the least bad option, and many of the problems are mitigated if you're very very rich."

Kyeo is growing to really dislike the word 'rich'.

"Carissa, do you want us to make rules that you can't have one guest at a time?"

"I think you can trust your people not to hurt me, ma'am, and I like having Kyeo over."

"I am very sure of our people, I just wanted to check what'd make you feel comfortable."

"Being able to be useful would make me feel more comfortable."

"We're - working on it. We'll ask some other people for ideas, too. Ultimately, if you don't want to betray us to Asmodeus, we want to let you live a free life. You could get an Atonement."

She nods. 

"And, uh, I'm not going to -" he waves a hand vaguely, glancing at Fazil.

"He's gay. .... I don't know if Osirion has the concept."

He looks perplexed, so maybe not.

"A perpetual bachelor," offers Isavel, half-smiling. "Carissa, I recognize this is a really difficult situation, but - we want you to be safe and we want you to be happy and if you want anything to change you can talk to the guards about it, all right?"

"Thank you, ma'am. I'm very comfortable aside from the wanting to be of use."

"- I'm what?"

"....exclusively attracted to men? They have people like that even in Osirion, I just don't know if they bother having a word for it."

"I went to the hospital about that and they released me with a clean bill of health!"

"Did you prefer....not to be attracted to men?"

"Before all this nonsense happened to me I'd intended on getting married like a normal person, and not - being philosophically troubled at people, yes..."

"...can the hospital only make you not attracted to men and it can't make you attracted to women because I don't see why that would help with getting married like a normal person."

"...I'm reliably informed that one is supposed to get to like one's wife better over time."

" - I don't think that works."

"- you can make it work but ideally you do a lot of work on matching up ahead, find a girl who isn't any more interested than you in being married, so she won't be disappointed, and then you can each have people on the side."