Well.
Altarrin is trying to hold himself so he looks calm and unthreatening and friendly and also definitely not sexually interested in Carissa right now, which is - actually a fairly difficult mix of signals to be trying to send, especially when he is sitting on his bed right next to her under dimmed mage-lights.
(The last thing is fixable. He thinks a command at them and they brighten, not quite to a daylight-level.)
There are still multiple other reasons why this is complicated to handle right just on an interpersonal level, which in Altarrin's opinion is still the most irritating kind of problem-complexity, if not the most difficult to solve.
"....I should probably acknowledge to you explicitly, at this point, that agents loyal to me - mostly loyal to me, at the very least not disloyal - have been reading your thoughts for as much of the last day as we could manage.
"I am not reading your thoughts now, since I lack that Gift - not that I expect you to believe me on that front, until I have done more to establish why you ought trust me when I give my word -
"- Anyway. I - we - know more than you have said out loud about how Cheliax is structured differently. I - have on many occasions wished I could tell you that the Empire is - more functional, and makes better use of its people. I am not sure it does, though - of course it makes an enormous difference that our world does not have known or legible afterlives..."
I suspect some people I know would say that it enforces an unnatural hierarchy, one not borne out by native ability and determination
Altarrin is pretty sure he knows exactly who she means, and he's not exactly predisposed to agree, but he isn't going to bring that up yet.