Ketar really wishes he could still read Carissa's mind, because he has no idea what that particular expression means, or whether it's important. 

He shrugs again. "People say he's - fair. No one says he's nice, but - I think he does trades even when he wouldn't really have to and could do whatever he wanted. ...In public, I think lots of people do different things if no one can see, but. I guess you - aren't in trouble with him." 

:Merda, do you have more things to ask her or tell her? Do I - need to be here - I'm not really doing anything if I can't read her anyway: He wants to report to Ellitrea or at least write things down before he forgets all his mental notes, and it's sort of humiliating being stuck in here with two people who clearly think he's an idiot. 

:You can go.:

And a little more gently than she's ever sounded while speaking aloud: :I wasn't different from you when I was your age.:

...Huh. Ketar isn't sure what she gets out of saying it. Aside from just...being friendly...but Merda has not, so far, given the impression of someone who does things to be friendly. 

He's still confused, but he's mostly confused about Altarrin and Altarrin is not the safest person in the world to ask probing questions about, even before now he would have been able to notice that. He'll - find a way to ask Ellitrea if it still seems important later. Carissa is fine, probably, and doesn't actually want his help. 

He goes. 

"Right," says Merda, "I'm going to run you through who is paying attention, what they're playing at, and what impression I'm trying to give them of what's happening."

And she launches into this with some quite-apparent satisfaction about how magical researchers haaaaaate this stuff.

Carissa is definitely not going to give her the satisfaction of betraying how tedious she finds this. 

Ellitrea, when he checks, is still in a meeting. Ketar takes cryptic notes, mostly just as a memory aid, and then fills out detailed and non-cryptic fake notes about his observations of Carissa's "Wild Gift".

He reports to her office a half-candlemark later, with his written report on the Wild Gift. 

Ellitrea's office is not shielded against scrying. 

"You're early," she says with some snappishness. "Bad enough for Altarrin to pull this on a day's notice. Can't you find something useful to do until I finish this?" 

:Pretend to do paperwork or something: she suggests. :I want us only talking about this behind scrying shields or in private Mindspeech: 

:Right: 

He pretends to work on making a neater copy of his observation notes, that won't take a lot of his attention. 

:She's used to Thoughtsensing checks – er, or whatever kind of mindreading they have in her home country - she used to be the mindreader doing them. She's good at controlling her thoughts, and she's very good at lying. She's - incredibly intelligent, she has the magic that makes her smarter, I might've missed something that way too. She thinks of herself as - selfish, willing to be ruthless to survive, I think she'd betray any of us if she thought it was the best way to be safe here, but she - wasn't thinking about doing that. And she might have been hiding things, but I think it'd have been hard to completely hide if she was - hostile to Altarrin - and she really wasn't, she– I don't think she really likes him or trusts him, I'm not even - totally sure if they're really sleeping together, she didn't think about it at all. But she thinks he's competent to - manage the situation, make plans - and she's trying to work with him: 

He'll go through everything he managed to remember long enough to cryptically note it down. The most salient part to him is that her world, or at least the country she's from, is really really horrible, and she's not certain yet that here is much less horrible, though Ketar thinks it is. He doesn't bring up her thoughts about Altarrin getting her pregnant, or the glimpse he caught of the - rape? - by her superior. He does mention that she seemed to be a little bit in love with Abrogail, the Queen of Cheliax, even though Abrogail 'tortured her to death'. (Ketar is confused because she isn't dead, but that was the thought she had.) 

...She's definitely more ambitious than the persona she was putting on, and that's different since yesterday, he doesn't know what changed but something did. She's definitely keeping secrets for Altarrin; they did some poking and Ketar at least is fairly sure she isn't keeping secrets from Altarrin, at least not in a hostile way, and if she is Altarrin is aware of it and thinks it's strategic for him not to know. 

Merda arranged for them to have a conflict that ended in Carissa storming off to her room - which will definitely get spread around the palace, Ellitrea should keep an eye on that, but Ketar doesn't think it looks suspicious in a way that will make anyone guess the real secret, it mostly made Carissa look immature - and got an opportunity to explain court politics to her in private. Probably there will end up being rumors about that, since Merda was ostensibly here to take notes for Ketar and Ketar left first, but at the point when he was headed out of the suite, no one's thoughts were hinting that they suspected it was anything other than Merda setting herself up to be owed a favor, and maybe trying to extract some information to trade later. 

(Ketar does not mention the horrible awkward interaction. He should probably ask Ellitrea for advice but he can't bring himself to do it now.) 

Honestly, Merda's read is going to be more useful, somehow despite the fact that Ketar is a Thoughtsenser. And it's clearly coming across to her that Ketar has a - crush, or something, he's not really objective about Carissa. She mostly hadn't been very worried that Carissa had mind-controlled Altarrin, and she's not sure Ketar would have caught it if Carissa had, so his report is a little reassuring but not very much new information. 

Ketar is clearly not saying everything. Ellitrea isn't inclined to push him on it right now; if he's hiding something important, Merda will be able to suggest what it might be, and she can go from there. But Ketar isn't exactly skilled at plotting, so she isn't very worried. 

She finishes filling out paperwork and stamps it with Altarrin's seal and slides it across her desk to Ketar. "Put this on the out-tray for me, and then you can say your piece. Keep it quick, I have another meeting after this." 

Ketar describes some fake observations about Carissa's Wild Gift, and suggests the next step is to have a mage - Altarrin would do - observing while she actually makes an artifact, but it's time-consuming and she needs special materials for it, he didn't want to ask her to do something just as an example when he wasn't sure if Altarrin would want her to make something in particular for him later. 

He keeps it quick, and then is handed a couple of cover errands that will give him openings for some more discreet mindreading. He flees. 

Ellitrea will keep having meetings interspersed with discreet Mindspeech side conversations. Altarrin is still busy, so she dispatches a note with a request that Merda, once she's available, bring her this set of documents from one of the mage-instructors' personal records on their lowborn student cohort. (She happens to actually want those records, too, for a different pre-existing project; it's annoying to set aside time for it now, but Carissa's arrival will look like a bigger deal if she drops all of her routine work.) 

She waits. 

Merda arrives, with the files in hand and a characteristically grouchy expression. It's known she doesn't like being around Mindspeakers, even though she has notably good shields. 

:An interesting woman,: she says flatly. :I don't think she plans to be a problem but if she changes her mind she'll be a big one.:

"If you have a few minutes, I need to dictate a letter," Ellitrea says, in a tone that means this is not really a request. 

:I think that matches Ketar's report. I was unsure if he was being soft on her or how much he wasn't saying, I am sure he was not saying everything. He thinks she is - not loyal to Altarrin, not loyal to anyone here, but playing along while he looks like her best option? ...He admits she is probably keeping secrets - meaning she can pull that off even with a Thoughtsenser, and Altarrin might block us from checking her again anyway. But he claimed she was keeping secrets for Altarrin, not from him. What do you think?: 

:Am I right that he was reading her yesterday when Altarrin had her brought to him?:

:He was. He reported that she was trying very hard to be cooperative and harmless. - He thinks something changed, between last night and today: 

:Right. Well, my read is, she thought Altarrin wanted cooperative and harmless, so she was going to give him that, and now she thinks he wants her to do things. I don't know what things, but they must serve the Empire. She's - enough of a lever to do a whole lot of things, and all she has to think is that doing it is safer than not doing it. 

I think your kid would've lied to us to protect her if she had enough context to direct him in doing that. In practice, I think he mostly conveyed what he noticed. He's a shit interrogator, though. When he notices someone is hurting and off-balance he feels bad for them instead of pressing them. I think last night he - watched her prepare herself for Altarrin, or for whatever someone like him would do in the shithole she's from, and he didn't like realizing he was a part of that. 

And then she's not bad at being evasive. It seems like Altarrin doesn't in fact want her pinned down, so - fine. It's his neck.:

Put like that, it's not suspicious behavior for Altarrin at all. Altarrin has always preferred to work with people who can accomplish things if he hands them resources, and he's used to setting it up so that his goals are in their interests as well. It...still bothers her a little, not knowing what the plan is, but mostly because it leaves her unsure how to prepare for it.  

Sigh. :In our debrief he told me about six times that Carissa's world is horrible. I think he - disliked wondering whether we are just as bad. My read is that not - there is doing whatever you need to accomplish anything, and then there is - any lenience or friendliness being considered against their religion and their god's will, and at least we avoid the religion half of that: 

Shrug. :He is a better spy than interrogator, I would be inclined to have him read servants and clerks to track the rumors here, but I should speak to Altarrin about whether we keep him involved at all. Do you have advice one way or another?: 

:That seems fine to me, he's not going to feel the impulse to protect them and that's where I think his judgement gets worse. You might want to have Altarrin sit down with him and say something soothing about how he does what he can to not hurt his people.: It's not as if there are lots of other Mindspeakers running spare. 

A faintly dubious look. :If you think he would take Altarrin at his word enough that it would even help? ...I suppose he might, it - fits with the rest: Pause. :You said Carissa lacked enough context to tell Ketar to lie for her. Do you think she has enough context to navigate court politics in general and maintain her cover story, or should Altarrin be keeping her away from people for a few more days?: 

:I didn't want to linger outrageously long, but I think I got her mostly up to speed. The context she lacked to get Ketar to lie for her was - she's too cynical, too guarded, didn't expect he might want to help her even if she needed it, and hadn't thought of any concrete things that she could get if she did have help to try to angle for. I think she should mostly stay in Altarrin's rooms, maybe occasionally venture out to make it clear he doesn't feel the need to keep that tight a handle on her if I'm confident no one else will try to grab her when that happens. 

She wanted to know if he intends to have her pregnant. - and picked a cover story that makes that less likely, so I bet she's hoping not.:

:I cannot think of any reason why Altarrin would want to get her pregnant! Anyway, it sounds like she should stay in his rooms for at least the next day or two, while you get a handle on what rumors are circulating and who might be tempted to grab her. I would be inclined to have Ketar report to you, if you think you can work with him, I am actually very busy: 

:I don't mind him. He was - trying to do the right thing, the blithering idiot.:

Ellitrea raises an eyebrow. :Altarrin would like him. ...And be exasperated with him, but still: She's just about out of letter material to dictate. :Is that all?: 

:If she does kill Altarrin do mind that it's his own fault, and not mine.:

And she hands off the requested records and then departs.

Carissa has a relaxing day reading more books, writing down some notes on metallurgy and spellsilver, and not really thinking about anything, which she is aware might be a strategic mistake but she isn't used to operating with prophecy active and has decided to lie low for a while and doesn't feel safe enough to try to fix any of the inconvenient things about her and her feelings.

She's pretty sure, at this point, that while Empires are dangerous places regardless, without the Asmodeanism they're less grindingly awful minute to minute. She's not sure that makes them better-by-her-own-values at all.