((Asmodia is massively torn between how this would be clearly good for Korva and clearly bad for Asmodia.  Asmodia is not of course giving any outward signs of this, at least not at Korva's level of Sense Motive.))

"Don't worry, my dear innocent boy.  None of my advisors are friends with me."

"As for your fascinating, I daresay somewhat Asmodean request, I fear I shall have to decline.  We did not mirror your own error, Keltham; Korva Tallandria is now become far too valuable to Cheliax," and is a defection certainty and knows too much.  "Will you have Meritxell, then, or nobody?"

Keltham turns to his upcoming hosts and raises his eyebrows in inquiry.

"We'll - commit to chaperoning her, and to not reading her mind or enchanting her, as is illegal in Osirion anyway. I cannot without more consideration commit our government to sending her back, if when you ask for her she wants to stay."

"Then we can, perhaps, send her along in some short time when your government has reached a decision there."

"You're not even asking if Meritxell wants to go, Keltham?  I'm pleased."

"Yeah, see, the whole mindreading and torture thing makes the concept of informed consent or even having opinions really quite questionable.  When Meritxell has been placed beyond the reach of all threats, and had a time then to think for herself, it will afterwards be possible to meaningfully ask her if she wants to go back."

And meanwhile, you don't even ask, or give her a chance to express her opinions.  Very good.

"I suppose it does befall me, at this point in the lineup, to describe my own relationship with you, Keltham."

"When I ascended to this throne, I promised myself I wouldn't die of old age on it.  That, after all, would mean that I'd played my reign far too safely, and lost out on most of the fun."

"It would be fitting for me to lose my head and crown to the person you could become.  Someday.  Sometime in my sixties, perhaps."

"Not this Keltham, though.  That would be absurd and embarrassing."

"And meanwhile, Carissa is due some punishment for her failure.  But I will take personal care of it, and ensure that her due punishment does not weaken her.  And before you think to object, be told that such as Carissa Sevar cannot be allowed to punish herself, which is the alternative."

"So I shall take charge of your Carissa, for a time.  She does need a keeper.  But I'll keep her properly owned by you, awaiting her true master's return.  I haven't forgotten the compact you forced me to sign, after all, that if an untampered truthspell ever shows Carissa to love me more than you, she's to be delivered to your ownership in chains."

She's leaving out a very great deal about their relationship, her and Keltham and Carissa.  But there are secrets Abrogail must yet keep, for how they chain into other secrets to one aware of tropes.

Oh, and the last line of course is for the Osirians' benefit.  What must they be thinking, now?

One of them is thinking that she's quite certain that a woman of Irori could manage to be her own keeper, did she wish.

Derrina signed up for an advertisement for a rapid response group that might need to fight an army, in a good Lawful Neutral cause, so long as she was hanging around Sothis anyways.

Since she didn't know that advertisement was aimed at the interdiction zone, her signing up doesn't count against Irori, as Derrina understands it; Irori's interventions outside the noninterference zone are not bound to avoid causal impacts on the zone, they simply cannot be chosen on the basis of their zone impacts.  Everything touches everything, sooner or later.

Still, to tell Sevar, within the zone, the information that she learned directly of Irori - that might be a bit much.  She is not privy to the exact boundaries drawn by gods; she should not push them.

"I can stay in Cheliax and keep watch on Carissa Sevar for you, Keltham of dath ilan, if Cheliax grants me appropriate safe-conducts about it," Derrina calls from within the army.

"And what negotiating leverage would enable Osirion to demand such a thing?"

"I have some idea of what Keltham is prepared to pay for Carissa Sevar's safety, as it happens.  But allow me to give a more Chelish answer.  Keltham, truthspell, please."  Derrina is already walking towards him.

...sure.  Tap.

"I herewith resign from Osirion's army and relinquish my pay from this expedition."

"Be told, Abrogail Thrune, that if I'd attacked by surprise, I could have killed at least you, and probably also Aspexia Rugatonn."

Derrina, as it happens, is being totally honest about this.

Golarion combat balance is normally structured around the assumption that a heavily speed-focused 10th-level monk cannot, before she attacks, read off a scroll of antimagic field.

- has she, this whole time, been completely wrong about Osirion and everyone in it. 

Because -

- even if only one in a million of them is like that -

The rest of the Osirians are mostly busy concealing their reactions of 'wait, we had a girl along?' and 'wait, we had a girl who can assassinate the Queen of Cheliax along?' and in many cases 'wait why didn't we do it, then'.

"Wouldn't be the first time I've been killed.  Keeping me dead is a lot harder.  Now who's this with the temerity to make that claim?"

"Whoever you are, and however you know things, I appreciate whatever it is you're trying to do, but I was still hoping to resolve all of this without violence."

"If saying that out loud is the limit of your grasp of negotiations between powers in Golarion, Keltham, then I'll be pursuing my own purposes here without your help."

"I am Derrina of Jalmeray, monk of Irori."

"Keltham, tell Carissa Sevar to take those damned earrings off, now that it's become clear that you can't just order her to follow you to Osirion."

"Fair, thanks for reminding me.  Carissa, remove those earrings from yourself."

She does. Drops them back into her bag. 

Monk of Irori.

Osirion is less cool than Carissa had briefly imagined it might be.

"You've succeeded in attracting Hell's attention, Derrina of Jalmeray.  What do you intend to do with it?"

"There's other powers taking an interest in all this besides Hell, and I see no particular reason why Hell should be allowed to charge around making a reckless mess of things."

"Mine is not the gift of tact, especially to royalty.  I don't trust you around Carissa Sevar.  My options for doing something about that did include killing you by ambush and Teleporting that overpriced headband of yours to someplace it wouldn't be easy to get back, which would have impeded your meddling after your resurrection and probably lost you your throne.  I chose to play somewhat nice instead.  If there's to be no reciprocation in kind for that forbearance, the next person who has that option - perhaps me again, someday you're not particularly expecting it - will not be so kind."

"I'm afraid, little piece that'd be a player, that Queens cannot afford to go about giving concessions to anyone who threatens their person.  It's not how things are done, especially in Cheliax.  I'd fall from my throne a day later, did I give in to such a demand.  Comprehending this draws on the same underlying faculty as 'tact', and it seems you are missing it entirely."

"Tell me then, Queen of Cheliax, who understands these matters so much better than I, what alternative do I have to deciding that you've become a hindrance to Irori's purposes and ending your reign?"

She is, of course, still reading Carissa's mind.

"Carissa, dear, can you talk to this lunatic for me?  I do fear that humoring her is increasingly beneath my dignity."