She's pretty sure this interaction is happening entirely on the superficial level, entirely for the audience's benefit, that there's nothing she's supposed to read into this except a cue for how to respond and nothing they're getting except her thoughts and a better read on how well she can bluff. If she's wrong they could tell her privately.

Probably making her life stressful so they can watch how she handles it is in fact the best possible way to achieve their results here, and good for her too if she handles it well. She is not weak, she is not going to be bothered by it. 

"Altarrin asked Ketar to come here, not you. I didn't miss that."

She shrugs airily. "Did they have a Mindspeaker look at you at your school?"

"Yes. That's how I got my translation artifact, by studying with - Orella -"

" - dead?" Merda guesses from her face. The girl is either very good at lying or is barely lying, transposing real events into a different setting.

"I don't know. Probably. - almost definitely." She's just lying, her underlying emotional state uncomplicated. No one Carissa cares about is dead, not the way it's possible for people to be dead in this world. (Or do they just wake up somewhere else? She'd be much more optimistic if it wasn't the case that the gods kept and recycled the souls - how fast do they lose themselves, how completely, in what order - but she's here just off erasing her memory so probably they're somewhere, except she was never as convinced as Keltham that that was good enough -)

Merda breezily ignores the distress, whether it's feigned or real. "Can you use your Gift while Ketan watches?"

"- I guess but it's slow, it'll take all day even for something trivial -"

"Well, you don't have to finish anything, we just want to see how you work. And maybe you have all day, for all I know."

...fake Carissa would glance hopefully at the door. 

"He doesn't care about you."

"I know that, I'm not an idiot."

(Is that meant to be a favor? A pointless jab? If the place isn't Lawful Evil then maybe some people really wouldn't realize. Fake Carissa obviously wants to get Altarrin to fall in love with her, but is entirely clear-eyed both about the fact that it probably won't work and that falling in love with him herself would be the worst possible way to go about it. ...what is the best way to go about it, she hasn't considered it but fake Carissa would've done so. She doesn't understand him enough, and of course fake-Altarrin and real-Altarrin aren't much like each other. Real Carissa's comparative advantage in seduction is probably in her tolerance for suffering, unless all of Abrogail's games were in fact aimed at actively misleading her about whether she's tougher and more stubborn than average....no, that doesn't hold up, she'd've noticed if the other girls were like her (and also would Abrogail really have bothered with the games, if she didn't actually truly want Carissa?) ...anyway, fake Altarrin has a script, and is sticking to it, and fake Carissa hopes to get him off it but isn't yet oriented enough to have a guess about how....)

Ketar's goal here was not, in fact, to stress Carissa out more in order to see her thoughts while stressed! (Probably some of the Thoughtsensers do that, at least with people whose loyalty they're genuinely worried about. He...isn't, particularly, with Carissa.) 

Abrogail. That was the monarch of her country, right? Who– he remembers catching a thought that Abrogail would toy with people, and Carissa's current thoughts are reinforcing that. And she thinks this place isn't 'Lawful Evil', whatever that's supposed to mean, she's flashing past the concept too fast for him to catch it but there's a lot of content there. 

...What does she mean, that fake Altarrin and real Altarrin aren't much like each other? What is 'real Altarrin' like?? Unless she just means the part where Altarrin, like everyone else, is playing games in public, but he's - pretty sure it's more than that. 

Why is 'tolerance for suffering' an advantage for seduction, how would that even COME UP, exactly what does Altarrin get up to in his bedroom with his women anyway

(Carissa probably is tougher and more stubborn than average, but Ketar is not at all sure it would help for him to reassure her of that. ...And she's a very, very good actress - if he hadn't been reading her thoughts, he would absolutely have believed in her distress...) 

"I don't want to be here all day," he says (which is true.) "If it's going to be slow to demonstrate, then I think you should start by just - describing how it feels to use it? Focus on the feeling where I can read it, but without actually doing it, if that makes sense." 

:Wild Gifts are usually very instinctive: he adds privately to her. :You can - make something up, about how they trained you - I don't think I want you to actually do magic in front of Hakkon, he's not trained on artifacts but he might still notice it looks weird. ...And Altarrin might want you to do magic later for him, you should save it for that: 

He almost adds something else, and then...doesn't, because he can't think of any reassurances he could offer that she would believe. 

"It feels like - if you had some water, and some grooves in a rock, you could see how the water would fill the grooves in the rock even before you pour it, it's just obvious - and then if you do that for a while, you get to a point where if you know how to want the water to flow, you know what grooves you want to put in the rock?"

Hakkon is the guard? And it's not safe for him to notice anything - this palace might actually be even worse than Egorian, in Egorian while her loyalty was in doubt everyone brought near her would be soul-sold and entirely reliable. Of course, even if Altarrin has people like that he might not use them, if that'd suggest he thought she was worth the trouble. Maybe it's that. 

Instructions are reassuring; when you get instructions you can abide by them. 

Merda peaceably takes notes. Asks Ketar whether she's a gifted liar or barely-lying, it's important to how to proceed from here. 

:- He's not one of Altarrin's people: Ketar confirms to Carissa. :He'll sell information to basically anyone who'll pay. But he's - not very observant or clever with it, he'll make the obvious assumptions from what this looks like, which I think is what Altarrin wants: 

(What is 'soul-sold'??? Ketar makes a mental note of it. Maybe Altarrin has already asked about it in private, but maybe not.) 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaah does he want to tell Merda that Carissa definitely could pull off plotting a scheme while comprehensively lying to them, even if she isn't right now - it seems like that just results in them wanting to read her mind more -? 

:She's a very good actress: he acknowledges to Merda. :But she's - mostly just using it to fit with Altarrin's cover story - she thinks Altarrin is the one who can keep her safe, if she cooperates with his game here, she's not trying for any other plots: Pause. :...She's not actually upset, or feeling very scared or nervous, that was acting. She's - tracking that it's dangerous here, I think she might assume it's even more dangerous than it is, but she's - calm about it, I think it'd take a lot to faze her:  

This causes Merda to feel a flicker of genuine respect, which doesn't happen much. She ignores it. 

:If she's a good liar she is probably also competent to be careful with her thoughts to impress you or make you feel bad for her: she cautions Ketar. 

"What were your plans for your life before everything fell apart?"

" - well, to make things with my Gift for the school, or for sale."

Fake Carissa can be like real-Carissa in that respect, both of them with ambitions too small for their abilities, fake Carissa because she's temperamentally not that ambitious and real Carissa because she was, she realized eventually, deliberately misled about how exceptional she was her entire career at the Worldwound and possibly also while in school. She's not mad about that. The person to be mad at about it would be Maillol, for one thing, and she just feels sick to her stomach when she thinks of him, but more than that, it was - fair play by Asmodean rules, she should've seen it coming and corrected for it, the fact she didn't reflects poorly only on her. And they stopped once the strategic situation changed. You aren't owed other people ignoring their incentives in order to be nice to you.

(Which is maybe a useful thing for her present mindreader to see that she believes? She does believe it. She's not an Abadaran, her conception of fair play isn't that the gains from trade be split equally. She's pretty sure it's naive and silly to even have a conception of fair play but to the extent she does anyway it's that you can do as you please if you leave people stronger and better, and that it's their business to figure out how to become stronger and better when subject to approximately arbitrary treatment. Hell wouldn't actually bother her, if it was the thing she'd told herself it was.)

What is that supposed to mean??? Does Carissa think this is going to be reassuring for him to pick up and if so WHY?????? 

He makes a mental note of the name 'Maillol' even though he's not sure whether Altarrin would consider that important. He considers summarizing some of that to Merda, or bouncing to her directly, to see what she thinks of it, but - he's genuinely not sure if it's the sort of thought that would get Carissa in trouble with Altarrin, and Merda will very likely report it to Altarrin if it is. 

(He feels half a step closer to pinning down the difference in her thoughts from the first time he mindread her. She - wasn't tracking two completely different personas then, he wouldn't have said she was ambitious or at least not that she had ambitions in her current situation, and - he suspects now she does. And he doesn't know what they are. He hasn't noticed even a hint that they're opposed to Altarrin's interests, but - Merda probably has a point, that if Carissa can pretend so effectively in her words and expressions, she can do it in her thoughts as well.) 

Out loud, he asks if she can say what the development process looked like for her translation artifact. "Take a minute to think about it, if it's complicated to explain." 

And privately:

:Are you expecting Altarrin to hurt you unless you make really sure it's not in his interests to do that?: 

(He thinks...not, overall...but he doesn't really understand why.) 

Altarrin is probably a pragmatic person who will hurt her if it's a good idea and not if it isn't. He does come across as nicer than that, behind closed doors, but as per previous conversation with Merda she isn't an idiot and does not expect his generosity to be unconditional, or necessarily any more real than his possessiveness.

She...doesn't intend to make hurting her a good idea? But this doesn't feel like any kind of exceptional element of the situation; obviously one should at many times be endeavoring to make it look to your superiors like hurting you would be a bad idea. You can try to do this through weakness, looking like someone who will shatter if hurt, but it's hard to look like that without it being true, and it's both inherently contemptible and strategically ill-advised to be someone who will shatter if hurt. And you can try to do this through being valuable or being easy to correct, and that works better. And you don't want to build your entire life around never getting hurt; if Altarrin can hurt her and feel more assured thereby of her reliability, then that's a good trade for her. If he were the sort of person to develop feelings for her by hurting her that'd be a good trade, though -

(this pokes the internal injuries enough to give a glimpse of them, all tightly wrapped up in contempt for herself for feeling them; Keltham, Keltham, Keltham, and the paralyzing horror of shuffling along silently behind him imprisoned by her own magic item as he pieced it together and it all fell apart - a different man with a knife at her throat, and the sinking realization that even this being a strategically terrible idea wasn't going to protect her, plus that since she'd thought it would she wasn't ready -)

- anyway, she intends to not give him cause to hurt her and be fine if he hurts her anyway, like any sensible person would, and she sincerely does not begrudge him this. She was at least a little bit in love with Abrogail and Abrogail tortured her to death.

(Merda has definitely noticed that Ketar is concealing things to protect Carissa, but that's Ellitrea's problem so long as it doesn't bring him to the point of trying to run off with her this very conversation, and that's what she has the guard for.)

Initial reaction: INTERNAL SCREAMING!!!!!!

(Ketar is not as good an actress as Carissa. He's trying hard to conceal his reactions but not entirely succeeding.) 

Second reaction: all right, so Carissa's world is awful and her Queen...tortured her to death?...and this was in some way flirting, if he's - reading that correctly - Ketar is actually very dubious that he's reading it correctly but he doesn't, especially, want to ask. 

:She's not plotting against Altarrin: he tells Merda. :She's...hiding something, I think, but it's not that – she might be plotting something but if so it's either with Altarrin or on his behalf. - She would betray him if it looked like the best way for her to survive but I assume Altarrin knows that: 

And Altarrin might be planning something that will hurt her very badly, and - honestly he's not sure Carissa would notice, or consider it worth mentioning, if it's not as bad as being tortured to death. Even if it's still objectively very very bad. 

He...isn't sure he can do much about that. ...Well, he could make a mental note and tell Altarrin about the thing he glimpsed, so that Altarrin has a better sense of what things he might step on that would damage Carissa very badly and thus be a strategically terrible idea, but...he doesn't really want to do that, and not only because it would involve Altarrin's attention on him and that's terrifying in itself. 

:- Is there anything else you want me to ask her privately?: he adds to Merda. 

(His Mindspeech is going to be leaking more than what can be picked up from his expression alone; to Merda he's clearly upset about something.) 

Merda is considerably less convinced the girl is harmless.

:Maybe ask directly if she's used her magic on him.:

(Ketar would not at all have said that Carissa is harmless. But - she's dangerous in the way Altarrin is, in the way Altarrin prefers his allies to be as well. ...And maybe in more ways than that, but if she has ways of protecting herself against Altarrin, he - kind of wants her to keep having that - and so he's not actually sure he wants to know...) 

:He might've asked her to: Ketar points out. :It's useful magic: 

But, sure, he'll direct that question to Carissa in private Mindspeech. 

She's going to try quite hard to avoid thinking about the answer in too much detail, actually. Only with his permission or for his benefit, he knows everything I did she responds curtly and now she's thinking about Gorthoklek descending the moment Nidal attacked and the sky lit up when the gods were wrestling over it and Keltham's visions of dath ilan, shining metal cities -

That is REALLY NOT REASSURING AT ALL. He doesn't think she's straight-up lying, about the fact that Altarrin knows all the magic she did, but he isn't sure he would notice - she's better at controlling her thoughts than just about anyone he's read before and that's saying quite a lot - and she's definitely implying that she did some magic without his advance permission -  

:Did you do magic to protect yourself from him: because you could probably spin that as 'for Altarrin's benefit' if Carissa thinks she's more useful to him undamaged, and certainly Altarrin could easily be aware she'd done it, :or - protect both of you from someone else, without having time to ask him first -? ...I'm sorry, I really don't want to hurt you I don't want you to get in trouble I don't need to know all the details if it's a sensitive plot with both of you but I do need to have an answer to tell Merda that isn't incredibly suspicious - I don't think it's fair of her but she's suspicious of you she's worried you - did something to suborn Altarrin, she thinks he's not acting like himself - she's loyal to him -: 

(Also what is Hakkon thinking, what are the servants thinking - he told Carissa to take her time thinking about the answer to his spoken question but he doesn't know if it's been long enough to be suspicious...)