"...Sure, that'll do it." He could be lying but it probably won't matter, having to act like he didn't hear anything, or even having an excuse to act like he didn't hear anything, is probably good enough.

He shows her into the room where Feris is, and then puts a silencing illusion, and illusion earmuffs to match, on his head, and reads from his computer, glancing up only occasionally.

Feris, lounging comfortably, does not rise. "I am Feris of Leopard Hill, and you must be the escaped slave they found me." He speaks as though she is a person who is his inferior.

"Oh, is that how my lord deigns to speak to me," she drawls, conjugating her verbs as though she isn't a person and dripping sarcasm in every other way.

"I am giving you a chance to be worthy of it. Is that something you've had before, slave, or is it the first time anyone has bothered to wonder if you could be something other than livestock?"

"Vanda Nossëo wondered."

"No, slave, they didn't. They wondered if you had a mind at all. That's what they care about. I wonder if you have anything beyond that."

"You want to know if slaves are people? They already read my mind about it, and not just to check if I had one." She speaks as though they're equals, now that she's not being sarcastic.

"Did they. I read that report. Which one are you?"

"The dog-walker."

"Ah, the patricide. You might suit my purposes, yes. So you wanted revenge and thought all of Sesat was at least as awful as you. Have you noticed yet that it is Sesat, not the people individually, causing all the problems?"

"What?"

"Hm. ...Have you ever known a slave who was both unbroken and innocent? You don't have to tell me who."

"...Yes."

"And if I met them and wanted to treat them kindly, what would happen if I were caught?"

"You seem like someone who can get away with basically anything."

Feris laughs. "I suppose from your vantage point there's hardly any difference between me and the Star-of-Stars, hm? But you understand that it would be something to get away with, not something allowed in the ordinary course of things."

"...You should anyway. It's just cowardice to let them threaten you. Even if it's that everyone would treat you like shit forever, even if it's that you'd be marked, even if it's that you'd be maimed."

He smiles. "Oh, I'm not saying I'm a good person. But I could have been a harmless one, and I have known a good person who was still pushed into doing awful things."

"Okay. So?"

"So I need to break Sesat."

She bounces excitedly. "Well, why didn't you lead with that! What do you need from me?"

"First of all - I don't actually know yet if I'll need this, you came quickly - do you think if it proves necessary you could help me talk a slave down from trying to get a restraining order?"

"...That sounds like the kind of thing you'd ask me to do because you hate us and want us to suffer and excuse with a story you think I'll like because you know me well enough to know what I want."

"I can explain it and I might be able to get the envoys to lend us their truth songs to verify my explanation. For all your flaws I do not know you to be an oathbreaker and if I have your word that you won't spread it around or try to stop me except on the basis of information I don't have that would cause me to want to be stopped if I knew it, I will tell you my plan."

"...Can I get a deadline in there so I'm not carrying it around forever."

"The ultimate success or failure of my plan or a year from now, whichever happens first."

"Until that time I won't tell anyone or go out of my way to interfere but I'm not promising I'll go out of my way to not interfere if something I was already going to do would make it harder for you to do your thing, unless I have information you don't that would make you want me to try to interfere, I swear."

"I need a teleporter who - "

"Oh, I think I know this whole plan."

Feris raises an eyebrow and waits for her to elaborate.

"Uh. You need them to be Sesati. You need them only Sesati, so it's a Sesati thing and not a Vanda Nossëo thing or a Mîr thing. At least one person's already out there trying to get the teleport. But even a really great person, even if they were only pretending to go along with things and secretly all along had a plan to betray Sesat, they'd still have had to pretend to go along with things, and they'd've done stuff that someone could get a restraining order about, and you have no idea how to say 'so I know we never ever gave any sign of it before but we only hurt you as part of a clever scheme to help you, and now that you have the upper hand we need you to not do even a tiny fraction of the shit that's been done to you.' Or at least you don't know how to say it and be believed."

"If I were sure this one was like you I'd be asking about making them whole. If it's even possible."

"Any idea what that would take?"

"No. But maybe you can figure it out."

"Maybe. So you want me to come back when you've - are you buying this slave or what - "

"Yes, and only if it's feasible but I expect it will be. I don't think there's anything else we specifically need Nelen not to hear, we can ask about truth magic as long as you can be oblique about questioning me - you see why you have to be, right?"

"Honestly? Maybe you should ask if you're stepping on anything. Can't you ask it in a way that lets him say 'well he didn't tell me he was for sure going to do that' later?"

"I talked this over with someone sworn not to reveal anything I said. Nelen is not such a person."

"Yeah, okay." She turns toward Nelen and starts waving.

This catches his eye pretty quickly and he pockets his computer and takes off the illusion earmuffs, and with them the sound baffles. "Yes?"

"Can I get a truth spell to ask Feris if he was telling the truth about some of that stuff?"

"Yes." He sets one playing.

"So were you telling the truth?" Fere asks.

"Half of the most important claims are things you guessed without me saying anything, why is that your question."

"Well, did I guess right?"

"Close enough."

"Is your guy who did the thing really..." Fere gestures vaguely.

"Unusually sympathetic to Vanda Nossëo's values compared to the rest of Sesat? Yes. And not too much of a selfish coward to do anything, either."

"And the person you think might trust me, should they trust me? From their own point of view?"

"I don't know but I'm not secretly plotting to harm them in any way I haven't told you about already. Also, I'm not necessarily advising you to tell me, but if you know at least one innocent person I think it'd improve the odds that we can turn public sentiment against the practice if you tell Nelen or Tarwe or one of the others how to find them. I can leave, I have so much else to do."

Nelen looks between them in slight puzzlement. "There's someone I should find?"

"Apparently! I guess! Can we talk after Feris leaves?"

"Of course."

"I don't strictly need to stay long enough to hear back from Tarwë, if you'll let him know I went to go manage things in Sesat and give me a ride back."

"Of course. Where should I put you?"

"Near the palace, I think."

Pop.

When Nelen gets back Fere is pacing antsily.

"What do you want to talk about?" he asks her.

"Okay, so, first of all Feris thinks you could use information about slaves that are innocent and aren't all..." She gestures vaguely. "You know. Too broken to be people. Is that right?"

"- use it for what? I mean, we could try to talk to them but we'd still have to work around their owners."

Shrug. "I don't know, I just heard of any of this today! If I had to guess, because they'd undermine the whole story about why slavery is right? But if you don't know what you'd do with them we can just skip that part, I have a different thing to ask."

"Go ahead."

"So... what happens if someone decides to have a kid with a slave, you successfully get slavery banned, and then they both want the baby?"

"It'd go to family court. If the kid is old enough to have a preference, they get to live with whoever will have them that they choose. If they're too young, in humans it's about four or five that you can get really consistent opinions even in complicated cases, then they'd try to figure out which parent is better prepared to provide a good environment for the kid."

"...Isn't basically everyone in Vanda Nossëo about equally prepared to do that?"

"- no, not at all. Some people manage to struggle with money even when they're collecting basic, but more commonly the worry is that they'd neglect or endanger or abuse a child."

"Oh. ...Is that, by any chance, something people are more likely to do if they've just spent years or their entire lives being horribly mistreated."