"Why..."

Asmodia doesn't have any words left in her.  This can't be real.  It's a form of torture where they let you into the gardens for a few minutes and then pull you out again and put you back at the copying table, or somewhere much worse.

It's a rather interesting question, isn't it?

But you're safe for now.  I would suggest taking this opportunity to sit down and weep.  It is safer to weep here than in Cheliax.

A god of Good who heard her call, before, but couldn't save her then?  But no, that makes no sense, how would They hold power here in Hell, unless everything she's ever been told about how the entire universe works is a lie.

Asmodia finds a place that looks soft to sit down, a little bed of unusually thick grass, obscured by enough trees and bushes that it might feel a little safer.  She sits there.  She doesn't seem to be crying yet?  Part of her mind suggests that she should be terrified of her failure to follow instructions.  Part is running with the theory that things are as they seem, and if they are, she can already predict she won't be punished.

"Safe for now?" Asmodia says.  "Am I allowed to ask - what you mean - for now?"

You have 100 years in my gardens, and if your stay of torment is not renewed before then, you will then return to Hell and whatever is to be your fate.

That clock only runs while you are here in Hell; your time on Golarion does not count against that stay of torment.

"Why - I don't understand - is somebody - trying to make use of me, somehow?"

Few souls are useful to no one.  But if there is any use of you that could repay the price that has been paid for this, it is a use beyond My sight.

The thought occurs to her that, if she's not that useful, then someone, somewhere, she doesn't even know it's possible, but maybe possibly it's because someone somewhere in all of everywhere must -

"Is it because - somebody cares what happens to me?"

Perhaps.

"But -"  Asmodia struggles for words.  "But -"

But it can't be somebody who cares about everyone, the way Good might, because there are people in Hell, freshly arrived in Hell who might still be saved, who are much more the sort of person that a Good god would care about, and going through much worse than copying spell diagrams for the time before she gets raised (they'll still probably raise her), and if you had the power to give someone a stay of torment you would give it to them instead, unless -

"But it would have to be someone who cares about me personally and there isn't anyone like that!"

There isn't?

"Nobody who has power!  Nobody who means anything!"

"Nobody who could command this, or pay for this, or bargain for this!  Nobody like that cares about me!  Even Carissa Sevar, whatever she is, doesn't actually care about me and wouldn't bother to save me like this, or if she did, she'd take credit for it so I knew, and she wouldn't, she'd think I was being weak and that a short stay in Hell would motivate me to work harder, for her, which it would, and she wouldn't pay me with 100 years in advance either, so I, I don't understand, I don't understand at all -"

Not all puzzles are easy for mortals to solve, and some are difficult even for gods.

But if you'll pardon an old soothsayer Her crypticisms, allow Me to ask you this, Asmodia.

Were you expecting this to happen to you?

"No.  No I was not actually."

Then consider that you may have been wrong about something.

"Wrong about what?"

Ah.  That is the hazard of soothsaying, is it not.  It is far easier to guess that you must be wrong about something, than to guess what exactly it is that you are wrong about.

But one of the things you believe, perhaps more than one, must clearly be wrong.

Asmodia doesn't have any words left.  She sits on the thicker grass and stares down at her hands.  Nothing is hurting her.  She isn't being forced to do anything.

The thought occurs to her that this state of affairs is more pleasant than Cheliax, and Raise Dead requires her consent.

...that would be why the part about 100 years, maybe, it's - so she doesn't just stay here - but then why 100 years and not 1 week - she doesn't understand - but Asmodia guesses that she's supposed to go back and, do something, somehow, to earn the rest of her reprieve or at least her nonexistence or something - for who, who's her sponsor, how she's supposed to work for them if she doesn't know -

What was she wrong about?

Asmodia sits on the thicker grass and stares down at her hands.

What was she wrong about?

Well, either, she's not a useless waste of a person, in some way that Erecura Herself can't foresee, like She said, or, Erecura didn't say, that anything was beyond Her sight, She just asked other questions back, when Asmodia suggested, suggested that, somebody, somehow, somewhere, somewhere in all of everything everywhere, cared about her personally, and did this for her.

She does start crying, then.

Carissa snuggles Keltham in silence until she thinks - she's not totally sure - he has fallen asleep. 

She's still not sure if it was in fact a good idea to push Keltham on the Second Law and on being more sadistic, she's not sure she'll know for a while if it was the right call or not. She understands the Second Law stuff better now (though she's still hoping she'll get it better still once she sees the transcripts) but she suspects it's not something she can use to do anything, making the universe look more like a sex story will also make Keltham wonder if Cheliax is doing that on purpose, besides how it involves lying and lying remains very dangerous. 

The whole thing might have gone better without the Queen involving herself but - Carissa's not actually sure. It's not as if there are a lot of agenda-free eighth circle casters who understand the project well enough to get through a conversation with Keltham at all. And the Queen's agenda right now seems to involve convincing Keltham that Carissa is very valuable, which does feel nice. Even though it's probably false. And even though Carissa's pretty sure that anyone else would've assigned a milder punishment for what was admittedly a very insubordinate thought but she's been having her thought transcripts read by the Queen and by high-ranking Church officials for several days now while trying to run a sensitive operation and she actually thinks most people would have had, like, two insubordinate thoughts. Or even three. 

Keltham awakens, feeling groggy but noticeably better.

Here is his Carissa, very snuggly. 

Outside, the rain has started to lessen, a little.

He can hear it.

He opens his eyes.  Does his Carissa look to be awake herself?

Yep. Holding very still, so she doesn't wake him, but looking relaxed and comfortable and not at all like she's been internally contemplating how to demonstrate convincingly to Keltham that Cheliax isn't mind-controlling him but could if they wanted to and whether the Queen has asked to be notified when Carissa goes in for her punishment.