"I think you ask Dukes or maybe Counts where to find their Grands.  I know where to find the Duchess Carnidine; probably Counts know where to find Grands."

"So, back to Marina, then?"

"And I tell her I don't want to meet Carnidine now, but would be interested to meet Carnidine's former boss. That'll probably make some waves."

"Yeah, about Marina.  Marina is probably at least slightly confused about you and of course carefully not showing it.  She probably doesn't believe you were actually trying to recruit her, because nobody would do that in public--or maybe thinks you really are that new to noble politics, in which case she'll report that to Carnidine; and Carnidine will either try to blackmail you onto her side, or kindly delegate a Countess to follow you around and help you, in hope that brings you to her side."

"Okay? Sounds like that's just going to happen whether I want it to or not. Thank you for the advance warning."

"Anything else to talk about before we go back?"

"I'm all kinds of confused about all of your implicit assumptions and everything you might be trying to accomplish or maybe not accomplish, but we shouldn't try to sort that out right now and I'm not even sure I could put it into words."

"That makes us about even, I think? There are so many cultural gaps here it's hard to know where to begin to try to bridge them. I'm confused about a lot of things."

"I do want to thank you. I would be so much worse off without you. I can see that you are trying quite hard to help me out here, and I imagine it's frustrating how alien I am."

She experimentally puts her hand on his shoulder. It could be in just a friendly way. She wants to see what happens.

He'll tilt his head to press against her hand, briefly.

"Boring and repetitive is frustrating.  Strange and unfamiliar is vastly preferable."

He smiles, with the deliberate smile of somebody who has to make his face do that because it doesn't usually do that on its own.

She'll run her hand gently up the side of his face, then, a quick caress, before turning and heading back in the direction where they left Marina.

She wonders if he even caught that she was flirting with him, or if it was lost in translation. If it was lost, that wouldn't be the first time. She's used to having to escalate her flirtations until people finally notice.

He'll follow, of course.

He's now surer that she's flirting.  He hopes he's not missing what's culturally meant as a direct order to fuck her; he sometimes misses direct orders like that.

Opalyn finds Marina again.

"Thank you so much for waiting for us. I have a favor to ask of you. Would you be willing to put me in touch, not with Duchess Carnidine, but with your Grand Duke instead?"

"I see you have chosen the boring path."

"Grand Duke Blossom-the-Flowers never holds court on what is, by his own reckoning, even-numbered days; nor days divisible by 3.  He won't change that for any momentary mess.  In somewhere around six hours, I'd guess, go to the furthest edge of the Facility where it borders on the merely dramatic; that's where the Farm put the parents-and-kids section of the Facility."

"There are children in this prison?"

"It's pretty rare that a young kid gets sent to the lewd section of the Farm, yes, but sometimes a parent goes there and you can't exactly ask a friend to babysit your kids for the next fifty years."

"I see."

What a place to grow up.

"Well, thank you very much for your help. I may look for you again sometime soon."

And Opalyn takes her leave.

"You'll be back."

"She always says that every time I leave.  In fairness to her, I have always been back so far."

As Opalyn and Iilasir wend their way back into the main part of the refectory, she asks him how to find the academy, so she can start to learn some wizardry.

She also snags another cupcake. It looks like chocolate but it tastes like... banana-mint? Huh.

Wisdom is never hard to find for sorcerers who seek it, even in prison!  The nearest academic intake office is not far from the refectory, and the prison officer manning the desk will no doubt be back in just a moment.

"Again, thank you for all of your help. Are you interested in joining me later when I go and speak to Grand Duke Blossom-the-Flowers? Happy to pay with more explanations about my world."

"I'm not sure what it is you imagine could possibly be more interesting than yourself, but in any case yes."

Opalyn now suspects Iilasir of flirting back!

She's still not sure how she feels about him -- they have trouble understanding each other -- but she's starting to trust him, and he's more or less her type, and if she's honest with herself she'll probably bang him at some point.

"See you later, then. I'll find you in your quarters when I'm ready to go."

She smiles at him, touches him lightly on the chest, and turns to go into the Academy.

"As you wish."  He goes.

Opalyn marches up to the front desk of the Academy looking to see if there is a bell or a buzzer or... what did Iilasir call it? A door-blooper?

Not obviously.  She could try knocking on the desk, one supposes, or wait to see if there's a magical-person-detector that went off.