He shivers every time she does. "No, I don't."

"It's really beautiful. You're going to be beautiful."

He has never in his life had anyone call him beautiful. It's -- nicer than he might have thought. "That'll be a change," he says; he's still smiling.

"Men are all ugly," Inaaya says, "you have a nice personality."

She flops with her head on his shoulder. "And someday you will be nacre all over and you will be beautiful."

"And plausibly rend the sanity of all who view you."

"Someday all of those things," he agrees. He's not not laughing; he wraps an arm around her shoulders and pets her hair.

She makes a purring noise like a cat.

"I'm not going to be yours," she says.

"Of course not. You're yours."

✨

"I'm going to do what I want and you can do what you want and we won't-- own each other."

"We won't own each other and either of us can say no."

And none of the games cultists play with each other. He can't give her anywhere near as much as he wants to but he can give her this.

"It's nice not to be-- owned."

She presses one of her fingers into one of Mordred's bruises. "You make good faces."

He's making one of said faces now. "I'm glad you think so."

Inaaya thinks they should do it again, and this time he should have to tell her about Esperanto while she's being so terribly distracting.

(She is very creative in ways to be distracting.)

Mordred will do his level best, but at a certain point he is distracted enough that coherent sentences are not so much happening.

Once they've finished, Inaaya says, "You should come meet the others."

...yeah, he really should. "Okay," he says, and smiles up at her for a moment and then sits up to get clothes back on.

"It'll reassure them," she says. "You know, with you working for Walker and everything. That you're not just taking advantage of me to find out what the Emporium is doing."

There is no noticeable pause in getting dressed. "Fair enough!"

Very very casually: "If you are I won't just cut off your hand, when I am thinking about body parts to cut off."

"If I was that would be very reasonable of you."

"I'm glad we're on the same page here." She's looking for her clothes. "We have no interest in Walker or his affairs and he should leave the Emporium alone."

"I will convey that as best I can."

Which is zero. He can convey that zero.

"It's not like he doesn't have his secrets." She considers this. "It's not like Trammel didn't have his secrets. If Walker has secrets he's doing an excellent job keeping them."

"Can you say what you guys are doing here?"

Oh good he had in fact come up with an answer for that. "Keeping tabs on Malta. Probably shouldn't say anything more specific than that without checking, though."

"Fair." She does up her hair. "I guess you won't be able to tell me if he has plots other than figuring out how to get as much money as possible."

"Probably not," he agrees.

This is true! He would not be able to tell her! That does not make it not a lie.