"Please do not bother Hugo. It would upset me dearly," she says, closing her eyes for a moment.

"They're not bothering me, ma'am."

"Good!" she says, smiling again, clapping her hands. "Well, if you need anything, I'll be right outside."

"Thank you, ma'am."

Madame Coconut leaves, but her floral scent lingers for a little bit before vanishing.

"Would you and your companion mind answering some questions under Heliotrope's Honesty?"

"I don't know what that is."

"It's a fragrance that makes it obvious if you are being deceptive. It doesn't compel you to speak — you may choose to remain silent for a question or say that you hereby refrain from answering."

"I am not really excited about inhaling drugs where I have only your word to go on about their effects."

What direction to go for...

"It's not a drug. And it doesn't have any mind-affecting effects. The way it works is that the fragrance vanishes if you lie. And I would be under the same effect. It's that candle over there near the incense burner; it should be labeled."

If they look, there will be a candle labeled that! It's a little used. It has a floral, woody scent.

"...I've never heard of anything that works like that."

Huh???????? Not knowing Heliotrope's Honesty is one thing, but this is another.

"It seems to me that you really did get here by accident and I'm offering to do this now so you don't get arrested instead and have answers wrenched out of you. You suddenly appeared in a restricted area. There are confidential documents here — don't try jumping out the window, you'll die." It seemed important to add that for the Very Confused and Ignorant People.

"Do you in fact have the power to prevent us from getting arrested et cetera?"

"Yes, if I say that you are attendants or retainers. And put your names on the manifests. And make up a different story as to how you got here. The difficult part is if you cause a huge stir and I have to publicly announce a pardon. I could attest to what I said with Heliotrope's Honesty but there's no way to light the candle which only causes me to be under the effect and not you — it fills up the whole room.

I'm the Emperor, by the way. Hugo, Director of the Cielos Consortium, Keeper of the Imperial Formulary, Warden of the Routes of Xiedos, and all that."

"Yeah, okay, we can do the candle thing."

"Okay, great." He points to the other smaller table with chairs surrounding it.

He moves to the alcove, eyes unmoving from the pair, and then takes out a tiny metal box from the inside of his jacket. He presses something, and a blue flame comes out of it, which he puts to the candle to light it. Then he closes the box. The smell of heliotrope and oak fills the room, as promised.

"Let's go to the other table because I don't want to risk burning my paperwork." He'll move to the table and put down the candle in the middle of it, and sit on one of the chairs.

Twins cooperate with this.

"I'm going to demonstrate the mechanism of the candle. My name is not Hugo Cielos."

The smell of heliotrope in the air totally disappears, as expected, though the smell of oak remains. Several seconds later, the smell of heliotrope gradually strengthens again.

"There. So, you can tell that I lied." It's a little misleading for him to be presenting it as though it's a binary — you can measure deceit based on how much the heliotrope disappears, but, oh well.

"If you are going to answer a question, please reply by copying the wording of the question in full sentences and not just 'Yes' or 'No' or moving your head — otherwise it won't count."

"Noted."

"Please describe the events that occurred from your perspective just before you appeared in this room."

"I was asleep in my bed at home before that. I believe that is also true of my brother and that we both woke up here."

"Is that true for you too?" he asks her brother.

"I kind of still think that I am dreaming right now but I guess yeah I believe that before the part where I was in that room and also during it I was asleep?"

"Okay. Please tell me your names."

"I'm Kybele, called also the Curator or Gazette."