"In as many as several ways you are distinguishable from a tentacle alien, yes."

"If I were a tentacle alien you would know because I would have taken advantage."

Eyeroll.

Have they considered adequately how cool it is possible for fictional aliens to be if the author has any imagination at all? Mordred doesn't like Lovecraft very much just on a style level but appreciates that he has any sense of scale, unlike some writers when he says something took place over the course of thousands of years it seems like he actually means it and isn't just reaching for a large number because large numbers sound good --

Inaaya DOES have thoughts about this and it veers off into Inaaya's patchy but very enthusiastic understanding of biology.

(She knows that there is a fish species where some of the male fish pretend to be females in order to sneak into the males' harems. She does not know that whales are not a kind of fish.)

(Mordred wants very much to take her to the natural history museum in New York, possibly with Lev.)

This is pretty far from the subjects he can talk about with confidence but he's enthusiastic about the concept of jellyfish.

Jellyfish are VERY good.

Eventually, though, Inaaya says that she's tired and needs to get some work done but she had a lovely time and wants to see him again.

Very earnest smile. "Me too."

And then it's just him and Mariam and Louise. Which - okay. He can do this. This is going to be fine.

Louise is absorbed in her books.

Mariam catches him alone on the way out.

"You're very unusual for a cultist."

Wow that is not great as an opening but hey could be worse -- "That's true."

"I'm not sure you realize quite how unusual you are. Have you spent much time in LA?"

"Inaaya has spent hardly any in Bangkok, it's easy to avoid if you're on a team like ours."

He'd told Inaaya he hadn't been doing the travelling thing for very long but he can probably reasonably claim he only joined the cult at all fairly recently?? And it's going to be very hard to cover for just how little time he's actually spent interacting with the LA cult or how little he knows LA as a place if he says he's spent years immersed in it.

"Not much, no."

"At least you've learned to dodge questions. A useful skill."

It's not the cult that taught me how and when to shut up -- he's not going to think about that. "Mm."

"Let me give you a friendly word of advice."

"Because Inaaya likes you, and having a psychic on the team is very useful, and I don't fancy having to do another search for a new member."

Mordred -- does not go still. He holds himself like he's relaxed and nothing is wrong and he has this interaction all the time and he is not scared of her.

"If you don't learn to act like one of us, and fast, you are going to die."

Been there, he thinks, done that.

"I'm not going to try to kill you because my goals are best advanced by having you alive and Inaaya happy. But you by default are going to trust me saying that and that's a problem."

"If you don't claw your way up to power someone else is going to claw you."

Honestly Mordred does a little bit believe her about that but mostly because he's not already dead.

(It's very elegant how in fact he has not interrogated Mariam at all and yet he's still learning more than he expected to at any point. This is a bad thought process.)

"Captain Walker is... the better person to be working for, I think. If you were still working for Trammel I don't think Joan would give you a month."

"If you're competent, if you keep your head down, if you don't try to get promoted, maybe you'll be alive until it's more convenient for someone else for you to be dead."

The first thing he thinks of that is none of too-revealing, obviously stupid, or out of character is "I'm flattered you think that would be longer than a month."

Mariam can almost certainly tell how measured he is about sounding casual; he's not sure he has room to care.

"Odd that you wouldn't decide to get out if you have reasonable expectations of your life expectancy."

"--I suppose there are various reasons that you might want to stay in regardless. None of which you're interested in telling me and many of which I might want to investigate."

If he's lucky Savitree and Walker will be on bad enough terms that that'll be difficult. If he's very lucky she won't find anything and will draw her own conclusions and maybe even tell him what they are.

Mordred has no delusions that he's especially lucky.

"Mm," he says instead of any of that. "Have a good day."