"...I'll probably have to ask the registrar, honestly, I've got no idea where they'd be. Presumably in their dormitories, but what do I know which dormitory is which."

"I can take you to the registrar's office." It's kind of convenient, actually. He can check his mail. 

It's about a five-minute walk, along a paved and well-swept path through some very nice gardens, pretty even in late winter with the snow melting into puddles and mud. Leareth won't try too hard to make conversation, but he's opening to answering Sophie's questions if she brings any up. 

She's mostly just looking around. "It's a pity it isn't later in the year," she muses. "Lete and Marya must have told me about the lily gardens every time they bloomed, ever since they left home."

"Maybe you will have a chance to visit again. I am generally here several times a year."

Leareth knows a lot about the area, and can add some commentary, since it seems that Sophie has never been here before. 

They reach the registrar's office. "Do you need help with anything else?" Leareth asks Sophie. "I have a couple of errands I should complete while I am here." 

"No, I'll be alright. Should we meet back here in a candlemark, will that give you enough time?"

"Yes, it should." 

And he's going to keep an eye on her with Thoughtsensing and listen in via scrying if necessary, while he checks in with several of his local contacts and collects his mail. He's not expecting to have to intervene, but he does want to know what was said. 

Excitement excitement (nerves) happiness love!

Love love excitement happiness - mild irritation - love!

Mild irritation. Guilt! Severe irritation. Mounting anger.

"- glad you got out of the shop, but - Sufya, I don't like the sound of this. This man just walks into the shop and -"

Sufya grinding her teeth. "Marya, I'm not stupid. I wouldn't believe it if there wasn't evidence. And he's treating well with me."

"Like Fana treated well with you, practically locking you in that little apartment and working your fingers to bleeding?"

"Fana's your mother -" Sufya starts.

"And I'm enough like her to know when she's being horrid!"

"He - isn't. Like that."

"Well, that's good to know. What about the fifteen thousand other ways a man can be a bastard?"

"He's helping me."

"You could get help that won't come with some mystery price twenty miles down the road!"

Sufya getting to her feet. "This was a mistake."

"Oh, don't -"

A door slamming.

"Sufya, please-"

Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. Anger. Guilt.

Leareth will be ready and waiting for her back at the registrar's office, with absolutely no indication on his face that he overheard any of that. 

She approaches him and pauses to glance at a nearby timed candle. 

"Quick errands," she says blandly. "I suppose I was the one who suggested a candlemark."

"I finished a while ago, I did not exactly have to go far." He holds up the satchel of mail. "Are you ready to go now?" 

She swallows past an obvious lump in her throat and nods. "Thank you for bringing me here," she says. "Hopefully I can come back some time."

Leareth wishes he could reassure her - both that it's reasonable to be worried, and also that, in fact, she's going to be fine - but he doubts there's any sequence of words he could say that would actually convey it. She has no reason, yet, to take what he says at face value. 

He's a bit preoccupied while walking back to the Gate-archway, though hopefully that can be attributed to something he read in his mail. 

The second Gate also goes up in about two seconds, and Leareth hustles Sufya across and takes it down as efficiently as he can. It's almost fifteen hundred miles, and he turns paler for a moment and leans on the wall to catch his breath. He wasn't expected back so soon, which means that someone should be here very soon to check in. And then Nayoki will have to Gate over, because obviously he wasn't about to bring Sufyia directly to his secure research facility. 

"Welcome," he manages. 

They've stepped out of an elegant blind stone archway, into a stone corridor. It's very clean and well-lit by mage-lights, with a rug on the floor; it nonetheless gives off the strong impression of being deep underground. 

Sufya immediately goes to support him as he leans, almost on reflex.

That's thoughtful of her. Leareth manages a brief, appreciative smile. 

He recovers quickly; there's a node nearby to draw on, and by the time two of his staff from this location arrive to investigate the Gate, he's standing unaided. 

"This is Sufya Milin, from Rethwellan," he says. "She is Mindhealing-Gifted and I would like her to meet Nayoki." 

The mage who just caught up blinks at him. "- Is that a new hat? It...suits you." 

"Sufya makes very fine hats." 

Sufya bows to the new arrivals. "Hello. - he poached me from my stepmother's hat shop, it was all part of the process. And it does suit him."

He looks at Leareth. 

Looks at the hat. 

- looks at the hat with mage-sight. It's not magical. 

"....I have questions but I'm guessing it makes sense for you to answer them once Nayoki is here. Any other logistics that need to be sorted out?" 

"Can you set her up with a guest room and show her around the library, please? I want to speak to Nayoki privately once she arrives." 

The mage nods. 

"My name is Alrin," he says to Sufya. "Do you need help carrying anything?" 

Sufya really isn't carrying much. She hefts her bag higher on her shoulder and shakes her head. "No, I'm fine. Lead the way, I suppose."

She is so curious about the private conversation Leareth wants to have with Nayoki, but if she's in a spy story, which is her life now, she had better get used to feeling curious about things and picking her battles on what she investigates. Curiosity will not kill her; eavesdropping might.

Leareth's mage is mostly not chatty. He walks her down the hallway, through a heavy wooden door that he appears to unlock using magic, down another hallway, up some narrow but thoughtfully carpeted stone stairs, and into a different hall, narrower and slightly less thoroughly lit but less austere. It's still clearly underground, but there are soft tapestries on the wall, and the row of narrow doors have artful carvings of leaves and berries and look much more decorative and less thoroughly-reinforced. 

There end of the hall is cut off by a curtain, rather than a door. Alrin calls out - not in Rethwellani, the language is unfamiliar to Sufya - and pattering footsteps precede a young woman stepping out, answering him in the same foreign tongue. 

Alrin turns back to Sufya. "We can give you a private room, but need a few minutes to get it ready. Would you like to wait in the library?" 

"Certainly, wherever's convenient."

She wonders if she's going to be learning that language. Maybe she should ask. No she shouldn't, it'd be presumptuous. If someone needs her to learn a language they'll tell her.

"- what would you recommend I start reading, if I'll be in the library anyway?" she asks instead. "Is there - a handbook, a manual or something, that can get me on my feet in... this organization?"

That gets her a surprised and mildly impressed look. 

(The answer is that, yes, there are a number of handbooks, and all of them are rated for a particular level of secrecy and he has no idea what Sufya is or isn't approved for, and also none of them are exactly going to be sitting around in a low-security library.)

"I think there are some texts on Mindhealing," he offers instead. "The organization schema is fairly intuitive, but there's also an index on the desk."