After dinner:

At the appointed time, Tanidio goes to a private place and doesn't resist the Scry. 

And the Message comes--

How is it going?

"The details of my incompetence are not presently relevant but I will make a full confession of them once you're here."

You're going to stop being incompetent. 

"That is my hope."

Chrisor decides that he will not interrogate Tanidio about the disloyalty Asmodeus had mentioned. Interrogations over Scry are tricky, and Tanidio did make a full confession. 

"I need books. A standard primer for a person just learning to read, I think probably one from Absalom with some words changed will work fine. Math, science, magical theory. Folk stories, I think we can find a book of folk stories from Old Cheliax and it will be fine."

Done.

"Our strategy's wrong. He's too Good to care if he's humiliated. I think if we tried to give him fewer slaves he'd assume that all the other slaves were going off and working on something more important and that's fine, or maybe that the government is bad but he should just try to do his work and not ruminate about it. I think the thing we should do is to try to convince him he's an important person and everyone else's desires should be submitted to his. I'm planning to give him everything he wants. That's what's up with the primer, incidentally, we picked up a random urchin who doesn't know enough about Asmodeus to accidentally tell Bun the truth, because Bun cares about her. It's a Good impulse but I think-- if we train in him the habit that he should be able to fulfill his every random Good impulse, no matter how inconvenient it is to others, that will allow him to be entitled and inconsiderate while justifying to himself that it's okay-- I have him cooking because he thinks cooking is fun even though he consciously knows that that will lead to more dead children than putting that energy into working, I have him using me as a sex slave--"

I'll tell the girls. 

With appropriate caveats, of course. 

"Bun hasn't caught on at all as far as I can tell, he believes everything."

Situation summary until the scry is up. 

And Tanidio does. 

Meanwhile Bun is writing notes on what medical ethics baby doctors medical students should know.

... he knows ethics. He uses it all the time.  But at the moment all he can consciously remember is "consent good, advertisement bad."

Tanidio can distract him from ethics. 

He should really be getting ready for the students, buuuut...

The students can take care of themselves.

And Tanidio is right there and very distracting.

(He does actually manage to get his first few lessons planned before the students arrive. Just not that evening.)

Tanidio is a glorified laundry wizard during the day. He fucks Bun at night and also during the morning and also occasionally sucks him off in the closet when he needs a break during the work day. He pumps Bun subtly for information, and then not so subtly once he realizes that Bun is too Good to notice being blatantly pumped for information. He puts in orders for other things that Bun might ask for that would be inconvenient to fake quickly. He sends Chrisor everything he figures out about Bun. He tries to encourage Bun to be more entitled, a project which involves keeping track of all of Bun's desires and making sure they're fulfilled before Bun even thinks about wanting them. He's very good at it. Bun protests most of the time but he occasionally hasn't commented on it. 

He tutors Imelda in reading, because it will help their cover, and because it's something to do other than prestidigitate. 

Tanidio doesn't lie. Fortunately for the maintenance of the lie, Bun is Chaotic Good, and perfectly willing to attribute all the ways that Cheliax isn't Good to the fact that governments are inherently Evil, and also to the fact that no one has electricity or antibiotics or rice cookers. (Tanidio in principle agrees that governments are inherently Evil but he is kind of weirded out by how much Bun takes it as an article of faith.) 

Tanidio is having a good time, a fact which he doesn't like thinking about and carefully puts out of his brain every time it comes up.

Whenever he has spare Infernal Healing, he punishes himself physically, and heals it before Bun can notice. Whenever he doesn't, he does pullups and pushups and squats until he vomits. There is always something to punish himself for. If nothing else, the affection with which he looks at Bun when he's asleep. 

Why are humans like this.

At least he's learning about brains. 

Imelda is learning to read, and to write, and to do math! She is very quick at it. Sometimes it feels more like she's remembering things than that she's learning them the first time, but she doesn't like thinking about that for reasons that she also doesn't like thinking about. 

She keeps pressing Bun for more information about anatomy and physiology and organic chemistry and diseases. Human bodies are the most interesting thing in the world. 

One morning, it occurs to her that there are classes, and classes will contain more information about medicine. 

She instantly heads to the workroom.

"Bun?"

Imelda is learning very quickly for an educationally neglected child. It's very impressive. And she likes medicine, and it's very adorable. (He may even end up with two generations of medical students. That's planning too far ahead, but still. )

"Yes?"

"Can I be a medical student? I can read entire sentences now, Tanidio says, and I don't hardly stumble over my words anymore. I'll study REALLY hard I promise."

Awwww. "You're a bit too young.  -- You could sit in on some of the classes,  if you like." The basic ethics and 'how science works' wouldn't be inappropriate for a kid,  and maybe after that she will be bored and stop coming without him having to make her feel left out.

She nods enthusiastically,. "I'm going to study really hard and learn everything and be a doctor like you!"