What if, instead, they could live in a world where people who heard things nobody else heard were left alone about it. What if that.

...Mordred doesn't realize he said that out loud until a couple seconds after it leaves his mouth.

"I mean, my parents meant well," she says. "I was really distressed about it and they did think that I was being attacked by a demon. And if I actually were being attacked by a demon I would want them to take steps to keep me safe. But we didn't have any more money for the bhopa."

"I'm glad they meant well. But -- Lev this is really more your story than mine, do you want to say it --"

"No."

"Then what I'll say is that I used to write about abuses in asylums."

"Yeah. It is-- not good, the way they treat people who are different. But I think the lesson of my story is that-- it's important to know what's really true. If I am being attacked by a demon, and exorcisms help, you should exorcise me. If I am not, or exorcisms don't help-- you can hurt people a lot even without meaning to."

She's quiet, for a moment, before saying,  "My parents were very good. You are not like this, in the West, but a lot of people in India-- would not spend money saving a girl.

A boy will take care of you when you get old, you see, and a girl-- costs money for her dowry." 

Mordred bites down a dozen different responses all of which are true and none of which are helpful and instead says "I'm glad they were good to you."

"This is where I disagree with Louise," she says. "Louise thinks-- it keeps people safe, if they don't know. You can't meddle with things man was not meant to know if you don't know that they're there to be meddled with. And I think that what you don't know will hurt you."

"If someone is lying to you, you can never know how big a mistake you're making."

"And you don't have to know something is there to get involved with it."

(He's thinking of Lev but he's also thinking of Lacie and Oswald.)

"Exactly. None of us knew when we got involved."

God. That's -- what he should have expected really but he still hates it. FUCK the cult.

You can't say that, though. "None of us either," he says instead.

"I knew-- better than most-- but I had no idea that I was signing up for the worship of the Thing With A Thousand Mouths. Not that I regret it, of course," she adds quickly. "There is nothing I want more than to venerate our god."

maybe there should be. and maybe you should get to be honest about it if there is. "Of course. I -- didn't know what I was getting into at all. Not that I regret it either."

This is a perfectly truthful statement and also it is a lie in every single way that counts.

"I've always wanted to have power. My abilities gave me a taste for it."

"The ability to exert control over the world, through knowledge or through telepathy--"

"And if I keep working with Savitree I will have more than I could have imagined."

He nods. (Is it just him or is that sentence invoking the concept of power where it really doesn't need to be invoked to deliberately make a point?) "The ability to just do things that need doing -- who wouldn't --"

"Yeah. Not having to be-- weak or helpless anymore."

Hello he is kind of creeped out by this cult.

Yeah it's INCREDIBLY GODDAMN CREEPY. But James White wouldn't say that so Mordred can't.

(It would, in fact, be really nice to not have to constantly be fighting three levels above his own weight class. To be able to just get things done if they're important and nobody else is doing them. ("Most men would not even have done so much," Douglas Henslowe had said, and Mordred still isn't sure he got across that yes, he knows, that's the problem.) He hasn't ever found it scary how much he wants that, but when it's phrased like this, talking to Inaaya --

-- well, he's not letting that conflict show on his face.)

"It's all the same, really. Knowing things is nice but what matters is being able to do something with it."

Blasphemy.

"In theory, I guess. In practice you are talking to someone who spent six months obsessively researching the development of Middle and Early Modern English for literally no reason at all."

Smile. "Well. It is achieving something."

"It's making me think you're very cute."

"I had no reason to think that would happen at the time, though! -- I wonder if I can justify all my random research this way, it's not not making connections --"

"You never know how knowing things is going to be useful. Understanding the world better is always valuable.

Tell me about Early Modern English?"

(She hops down from the tree and sits on the ground; when Mordred gets down too she repositions so that if he moved just a little bit he could touch her.)

He can talk about Early Modern English!! He talks with his hands when he's invested in things and not thinking about not looking weird; when he shifts their knees brush and he doesn't move away.