"I - That surprises me." Rose despises her now. That's not surprising at all. She could maybe have managed her more carefully to avoid it but...

"I always presumed you didn't care about me at all. In a sense I learned I was wrong about that at the same point as the - distortion got corrected - and thinking you care about me does some of the same thing…

 And it worked. We won. I do not think I would forgive you if it hadn't worked."

"I wouldn't have easily forgiven myself. You have always cared a lot about - effectiveness -

I wish I'd been better at showing that I loved you. That seems like an unforced mistake."

"No," says Lilia. "I wouldn't have believed it. I respected that you didn't pretend."

"Because any other loving mother would not have treated you as I did."

"Because I don't even know what it means to love someone, if it is compatible with what you did. And because it was an obvious lie to tell, and - unverifiable - believing people secretly possess feelings that don't affect their actions in any way is generally a stupid thing to do -"

"And you believed it now because I freed you?"

"I took the possibility seriously since you said that you would rather be my ally. But - yes. You took a significant risk with no obvious strategic benefits, that was quite likely to destroy a lot of things you worked hard on. I know more of your secrets than anyone else alive."

"Still?"

"I told Alex some things. Not who you are." Which he obviously already knows but it still would have been significant for Lilia to have non-confidentially told him. "He could probably have gotten more out of me but the man has the killer instincts of one of your rabbits."

"He wouldn't want to use your grief against your purposes. It doesn't surprise me. You can tell him who I am if you'd rather he hear it from you, it will probably make its way to him soon anyways. Would have already, I think, if Rose weren't angry with the Iomedans for working with me."

"She knows they did so knowingly?" Lilia should keep in mind that even if Rose almost never surfaces and never does anything that Lilia can notice this doesn't, actually, mean that Rose wasn't trained by their mother. 

"I don't think anyone who was really paying attention would have thought that Rivad was Clepati, nor that the Reclamation would believe that. She asked me to confirm it, anyways. Before."

Lilia nods. Feels afraid, though she really shouldn't. She's spent so long caring about nothing more than keeping her mother's secrets. Now - it's not that she doesn't care about protecting her mother. It's that the Church of Asmodeus is in shambles and they're doing nothing to provoke the Church of Iomedae. "Well. They'll find out, we'll outlive them. The only Good person I've run across who had a reasonable reaction to my inexplicable youth was Endel. It seems like a crippling deficiency of the Church, really."

"We'll outlive the individuals. Mostly. But Iomedae's Church keeps records. And occasionally they summon people from Heaven to consult on history."

She could just mean 'so we'll have to go in and destroy their records and bind and kill some angels', but Lilia's pretty sure she doesn't mean that.

...also, she realizes, if her mother meant to dispose of Alex in Heaven she'd have to stop her. Luckily her mother isn't in fact proposing that. Her mother...isn't proposing solving this problem at all.

"Your decisions grow more confusing."

"Do they really? I'm afraid I don't understand what's confusing about them now that wasn't a minute ago."

"I thought you believed that you could work with them without ending up under their permanent scrutiny. If you think they'll do a good job of chasing you down forever - you're risking even more, and things like 'Alex is a fairly reasonable person' and even 'they couldn't kill you if they wanted to' aren't applicable because someday there'll be an unreasonable person and killing people is getting easier."

"At the point where I started working with them openly they had already learned many of my secrets. Much of the damage was already done. I thought you knew that."

It's a reprimand, because Lilia not knowing something Lilia should know obviates Lilia's entire purpose. It stings just as much as it always did. 

"I lost my whole international organization. I know what you told me, what Alex told me, and what a couple of civilians in Vigil who believed me to work for a radio show in Absalom told me. In particular I wasn't sure whether there existed some agreement with them already related to your being in Vigil at the time of the miracle - I know you and Clepati participated in the fighting that morning -"

"Well. They knew some before the miracle and more after it, though before the miracle I was just openly working with Clepati who only knew as much as Nethys."

"Is it true of Iomedae that She wouldn't have spoken to you if this wasn't in your interests or is that only for - solicited or individual interventions - I guess She was ready to fight Arazni and this was not in Arazni's interests -"

"She would not have spoken to me if she thought that would have been contrary to my interests but I don't - she doesn't have perfect knowledge of what my interests are or what the effects of her interventions are. Prophecy is broken. She did ask if I wanted to hear what she had to say before saying it."

"Is - what She said to you - part of you deciding to do -" Lilia gestures at herself. She figured it out, eventually. It's not that she is desperate for her mother to be Good, but she would like it if her mother were principled. And also her mother has a complicated history with the church of Iomedae and she'd like to pick up more fragments of that so she can eventually piece the whole story together.

"I…don't know. At the time I took it as a threat and I was determined to ignore it. Even before She said it it was the case that I loved you and regretted - that I hadn't seen another way - 

I don't know whether Her words had an effect. I think if they did the bigger effect was that - the risk was smaller, because of what Her people already knew."