"Are you under the impression that your mortal rank among mortals entitles you to the deference of a greater devil?"

"I am under the impression that I do our Lord's work, serve our Lord's interests, and you will answer my questions in the service of our Lord's interests unless you have good reason to believe that Asmodeus desires me not to know a thing.  Conduct your business, devil of contracts, my time is also valuable."

Without another word, Glosialabolas turns to Carissa Sevar.  "It seems your soul may not yet be sold to us.  It is, it seems, a good sign that you came to us more eagerly, this time, than upon your last.  But there is yet some - affirmation, renunciation, that must be completed by someone, or with someone, and it is not of you alone, nor of Asmodeus alone, before Asmodeus gives you His leave.  Our Lord is eager to have you; that much is clear."

There is an obvious guess here, but he is forbidden to tell Carissa Sevar if she does not know.

"There's a - god agreement of some kind, isn't there, and I triggered it. Are you allowed to tell me who."

"I cannot even tell you if your guess is true."

"Tell me, alone or in company, as you prefer, why Sevar's soul has so much value that three Wishes would be something Hell would even consider."

"Carissa Sevar.  Will you agree to seek me as your agent for compacting in the future, if in return I agree to do my best to see that you then receive the price you named today and not one grain of spellsilver less, even if I must go seeking among every devil of Dis?"

"Perhaps, by the time Asmodeus permits me to sell my soul, my estimation of my worth to Hell will have grown, and I will not settle for this price. No."

Then if he is to profit nothing from all this, let the next devil after him profit little more.  He cannot tell Carissa Sevar outright; for of which things are forbidden to speak and to who, it is also forbidden to speak.  But at suitable levels of abstraction over the secrets of secrets, it becomes permissible to hint.

"To answer your question fully is something that is forbidden," he tells then the importunate priestess.  "But Carissa Sevar and her ilk, it is speculated by some in Dis, might prove apt at training petitioners or even devils."

To answer more than one such question is below the pride of Hell even for a priestess bent on their Lord's work, and so Glosialabolas now turns and turns again and departs Golarion empty-handed.  At best there may come some future apportion of favor for the contract he wrote for Carissa Sevar and her mortal, if that seed ever bears its own fruit.

"Dis thinks we might do it," she whispers, very quietly, watching him go. 

Might transform how devils are taught, figure out how to do it faster, make them better - make Law something they can wield like dath ilan can - or even better -

Yes, Asmodeus would pay three Wishes for that. He ought to pay a hundred Wishes for that, really, though she shouldn't get all of them to herself. 

"I will now examine you immediately as Keltham was promised, Sevar.  Stand fast."

The examination is much faster when the Grand High Priestess does it, than when Carissa last went through this process, but it is still not instant.  She feels like some part of her is being poked, and maybe even this time like she can feel herself shrinking away.

She's not very worried she's become a secret cleric in the last day and a half, but she obediently holds still. 

There are two people in all of mortal Golarion who might reason along the pathway that Aspexia Rugatonn now reasons, and one of them has been in Golarion less than a week.

"Done.  The results are as expected.  Should the question arise you may tell Keltham that you are no hidden cleric; though, if we are to pretend your soul has been sold this day, he should have no further reason to keep asking.  For what it's worth, even taking into account all 'tropes', I do at this point truly disbelieve as strongly as any mortal may disbelieve in anything that there is any part of you which is a cleric of Zon-Kuthon."

"You may come with me momentarily, Sevar, to engage in such petty and expensive manipulations as are needed to give Permanent Detect Magic to one still of fourth-circle."

"Subirachs, a word before then."

Hidden clerics are practically unheard of so this is incredibly unsurprising, though Carissa notes the wording very carefully so she can convey it to Keltham later.

Subirachs follows Rugatonn a sidestep, to be surrounded a moment later by silence and mist.

"Subirachs.  You failed the last time I tested you in matters such as these.  And yet, as I have not failed to notice, you still aspire to the position of Most High."

"Answer me this riddle if you'd be considered again as a candidate for my crown.  You have been told such as we know of 'tropes'.  What should I have done if my examination had shown Sevar to be an unfinished cleric of a Lawful Neutral god?"

Subirachs does not, of course, panic.  There is nothing particularly heretical about maneuvering early to be considered as a possible next Grand High Priestess if anything should happen to the current one; she has in fact not done the slightest thing to undermine Aspexia Rugatonn or bring her any danger.

"We should certainly not inform Keltham," Subirachs states.  "He would then come to believe that 'tropes' govern."

"A Chelish child could guess at such concealments.  And Sevar?"

The obvious answer is to have Sevar renounce her unwanted clerical allegiance - if Rugatonn's examination had really shown that just now, then Carissa would almost surely be unaware of it in truth, as Keltham predicted.

If the obvious answer and obvious reason were the true one, Aspexia Rugatonn would not have laid this down as a challenge to touch her crown.

"May be subject to unknown god-agreements which we should not so lightly trespass upon in our Lord's name," Subirachs states.  "One also observes that Sevar is less than perfectly disentangled from Keltham, and that, if she herself knows that 'tropes' govern her, she may not be able to conceal her newfound belief from Keltham."

Aspexia slaps her hard across the face, more of a rebuke than a punishment.  "You are aping my ways and comprehending none of them.  If you cannot surpass the test, know your place and say so.  You are not ready to lay eyes upon my crown, Subirachs, and at this rate you never will be."

There isn't actually anyone worthy of Rugatonn's crown except Rugatonn, and if something happens to her, the Church will need a Grand High Priestess anyways.  Subirachs keeps this thought to herself; she doubts Rugatonn wishes to be reminded of it.

"The true answer, Most High?"

"Keltham told us over and over, that if Carissa was somehow a hidden cleric, all tests would not avail to detect her whatever was tried."

"Keltham just now wondered if some strange pathway might somehow lead to Sevar not truly selling her soul, while appearing to have sold her soul, and then also evading the test then applied to her; he demanded it occur immediately afterwards."

"Do you now see what one should do, and why, upon detecting Sevar as the hidden cleric of a Lawful Neutral god?"

She considers it.

"I do not, Most High," she answers frankly this time.

"A disappointment like so many others."

"Consider this.  Who is not allowed, by the 'trope', to detect Carissa Sevar by any test, if she is a hidden cleric?  Somebody on Golarion knows; a god at least knows.  The 'trope' does not prevent the fact from being known to anyone.  If there is a conspiracy in Cheliax to hide the fact from Keltham, does this violate the 'trope' because the conspiracy knows it?  My understanding of 'tropes' suggests no."

"Then upon detecting Carissa Sevar as the cleric of a Lawful Neutral god, although it might indeed be very much in our own interests, in that case, to have Sevar renounce that link somehow formed, and make new sale of her soul if that was the obstacle, we cannot tell her.  Do you understand?  If we now tell Sevar or Keltham, we would not have been able to perform the test successfully in the first place; just as the test performed on Sevar last time, when she would have been told, did not then detect her.  Keltham would not have arrived in this plane, perhaps the entirety of this reality would have failed to ever exist, if that event could have any other outcome from Sevar's and Keltham's perspective."

"Oh, and in case you had still failed to comprehend as much, Carissa Sevar is in fact the unfinished cleric of a Lawful Neutral god, very likely Irori."