"You dislike lying, then."

"Mariam, please stop interrogating my boyfriend."

"I am not in fact dating him so you can learn information about Captain Walker."

"And don't try to tell me you're just making conversation."

"I won't."

"Lying to James seems very unlikely to help me get anything I want."

that's actually kind of sweet what is WRONG with him. "Thank you," he says, very quietly.

Sips tea. "Although you shouldn't assume that the interrogation is going one way."

"I assume James is trying to get as much information from me as I am from him."

"I don't think so?" Inaaya says. "He seems. Honest. Straightforward."

Louise snorts.

...well, okay, there is nothing Mordred can say about that that is going to sound good and not terrible, what if instead he just. Doesn't. "I would be happy to talk about almost anything else," he says instead.

"Agreed."

"I would rather talk about Nazis and you know how little I want to think about Nazis?"

"Walker's planning to sell Nectar to them," Mariam says mildly.

"Right! Great. That's going to work out well."

It is kind of funny that Mordred has gained almost no knowledge of Savitree from Mariam but has learned quite a bit about Walker, and when he says funny he means at least he hasn't been murdered a second time. "I feel like this is not really something else."

"Yes. Cult bullshit is not something else. You know how little I want to think about our marketing strategies?"

Mariam raises an eyebrow in warning.

"That's also not something else, has anyone in this room been reading anything interesting that you want to talk about."

"Yes," Louise says.

"That's also not something else. James, what do you think of the pulps?"

Mordred mostly knows science fiction via Agravaine but he does in fact know it and can have opinions on it and then they will NOT be talking about whether he is a straightforward and honest person which is the single worst topic in the history of terrible topics.

Inaaya wants to FIGHT the Lensmen series for being fascist. She thinks Conan is much less fascist.

Lovecraft is good but has he considered being less racist constantly????

Did you know he went to Miskatonic? Louise disapproves of how he keeps hinting about the true nature of the universe.

NOT A DIFFERENT TOPIC.

Mordred not only knows he went to Miskatonic but met him at Miskatonic and feels that perhaps he should ever talk to a human person and maybe it would improve his dialogue.

Ooh. What was he like. Was he that unpleasantly racist in person.

"He was terrified of everything for the crime of not being Providence Rhode Island specifically and as far as I could tell communicated only in writing."

"Hm. You should tell him that you can't disguise being a tentacle alien by pretending to be Indian. How would that even work, surely you would be able to distinguish me and a tentacle alien."