Mariam makes a cup of tea in the British fashion.

She sits down and drinks it. A flash of disgust crosses her face.

"How have you been enjoying Malta?"

He's broken into a hospital, gotten murdered, discovered some facts about Montgomery Donovan, met Martin, and attempted to learn a spell. On the whole it's been very mixed.

"It's been lovely," he says, and does not even a little bit suppress the urge to smile at Inaaya when he says it.

"I certainly hope you are not neglecting your work in favor of Inaaya."

"Captain Walker is not a forgiving man."

well he did let me live once and that time I'd just broken into his boss's house, so this is a bad thought process.

"I am not, but saying 'I can't talk about that' repeatedly makes a very boring conversation and I would like to think I have learned at least half of a social skill since I was thirteen."

She blew on her tea. "Indeed."

"I myself have been... mostly recreational."

"A certain amount of building assets for future use, of course, as one does."

Does Mariam know that she is in fact allowed to make tea that she actually likes and nobody in this room is going to judge her for being insufficiently English about it. This room has Inaaya in it.

He thinks about how to respond to the thing she actually said, rethinks it, and then decides that eh, fuck it, the image he's going for is 'weirdly sincere' and not 'good at social games' anyway. "Of course. -- can we collectively pretend I am somewhat better at words than I actually am and managed to express interest in a way that was not prying, I've revised the exact phrasing three times and still can't get it to sound right."

"Of course."

"I would not want to make you feel uncomfortable."

"Terribly rude and does not advance any of my goals at all."

"I have been making connections among the aristocracy, acquiring blackmail material, building my relationship with Peter Lukas, and strengthening an organization which I may use for my purposes going forward."

"The evil anti-sex one."

"Certainly. No one is going to think the illicit drug dealers are in charge of it."

"Something something the Baptists and the bootleggers." Inaaya's very charming.

"We hardly benefit from Nectar being illegal."

"Nothing would please our God more than to have it available in every corner drug store."

"Walker, I understand, has plans along these lines."

Does he now.

"He is... less devout."

"I imagine that that is why he employs such an... unusual... researcher."

'Fuck you, devout is Gale's word, Trammel doesn't get to have it' momentarily crowds out 'Wow, rude.'

"I imagine so," he says cheerily.

"Not that that is a bad thing. Inaaya herself is quite unusual."

"Savitree disagrees with... certain aspects of the approach we had under Echavarria's and Trammel's leadership."

"I had gathered that impression, yes," from how Trammel wrote in his skin diary that he thought she was a blasphemer, why is his life like this.

"We hope Walker might be more open to, mm, cooperation."

God he hates long-term enough lies that it actually matters whether he says things that can be checked.

"I hope so too," he says, instead of either confirming or denying it, because what he hopes is unverifiable and therefore it does not matter that he extremely hopes Walker is not willing to communicate with Savitree even a little.

"Close-lipped," Mariam comments. "Is he this quiet with you, Inaaya?"

"No," Inaaya says, "because I don't talk about cult bullshit."

"Inaaya has discovered my secret which is that I can and will talk about languages and Bertrand Russell for essentially arbitrary amounts of time." (He is not thinking about the last time this came in handy for practical purposes, which was when he was filibustering his own murder.)

"Such a heartwarmingly pleasant secret, and if I suddenly discovered an interest in the topics you would not believe me."

"If Inaaya keeps handling our cult relations I'll have to raise her salary."

"I would believe that you did not object to me going on about languages and Bertrand Russell!"

She sips her tea. "You are sharp and you hate liars which is a terrible combination for my... particular brand of social skills."

"I don't hate liars." I'm terrified of you but I don't hate you.