They will not get to him first-thing in the morning! They have a limited supply of trained interrogators and he's Just Too Far Down The List.

Well. He's at least somewhat rested. If they keep being professional about this, they might even feed him. That's - a better starting place than he could have been in, for facing this. 

It would be nice if he also had his head more fully in order, but that's going to be difficult to accomplish without any of his records or even paper to take notes on, and when quite a lot of his moment-to-moment emotional reactions are still affected by the inherited body. Dalan was not a child who was used to feeling trapped in terrifying high-stakes situations where it was very important to stay in control, which - speaks well of his father the Baron, really, though the rest of the whole situation doesn't necessarily - but does mean that Leareth keeps having to override emotional patterns that want him to respond to being stressed by crying. 

They're pretty unlikely to have someone who's good at it scrying the prisoners even intermittently, given the resources they've demonstrated so far. Leareth should still, probably, be assigning some small likelihood that he missed some of their precautions, and someone will burst in as soon as he does any magic. Is he ready for that? 

...Ready enough to make it worth the benefit of being slightly more capable, he thinks, and starts very carefully trying to layer a shield over himself. Against physical attacks, not because he's expecting anyone to hit him but just because it's the simplest variant and will stand out the least against the ambient mage-energies of his body, making it less noticeable if the first person to interrupt him is someone with mage-sight. 

He can definitely get started on that, and will get reasonably far into it before he hears someone stomping up the stairs to his tower cell.

His control seems reasonably intact, once he's a little more used to the sheer lack of raw power. In a technical magical sense, he ought to be capable of casting a compulsion on the interrogator if that seemed useful, though of course it's another question whether he could sneak it past the compulsions placed on him not to plot escape or sabotage. 

- oh, convenient, they're not even trying to sneak up on him. (Presumably because "catching the secret mage in the act of practicing magic" is not even slightly something they know they should be trying to do.) He has time to unweave the shield and reabsorb its meagre energies back into his reserves - and then spends the rest of the time trying to get his heart rate under control, because apparently one of the traits he's inherited with his adolescent body is "easily startled." 

He's sitting up on the cot and at least externally calm by the time the footsteps reach the cell door. 

(He wants his Thoughtsensing back. He will presumably end up missing it for a huge number of reasons, and it wouldn't even necessarily be useful - they might still be careful enough to bother to provide interrogators with shields even against an incredibly rare Gift - but it's just another way for him to feel frustratingly powerless.) 

They have no idea that he is anything other than a fairly low-status prisoner! It's a guard, not even a mage-guard, just someone large enough to wrestle prisoners with a uniform and a stick. "You're to come with me." 

(His compulsions think he should go with this person.)

He will go with the guard, trying to seem composed but still appropriately meek and harmless. 

(It's probably not worth trying anything on the guard's compulsions - it's not obvious how he could justify cutting the man's compulsions as anything other than blatant sabotage, not that it's particularly clear if it would even help. He could in theory try to add a neutral compulsion unrelated to the guard's current duties, just for the information value of whether he can - a top-security top-paranoia installation, if they were being thorough, would block even an assumed non-mage from planning to get someone else's compulsions modified regardless of the intent, which would incidentally block doing it at zero removes, and he doesn't think this place is that careful but isn't sure exactly what all of the compulsions on his mind do - but, either way, it would be hard to pull off casting a compulsion unnoticeably-to-the-guard while distracted walking in a hallway, and there might be mages around to notice. Leareth is tempted but holds back.) 

He's led down the stairs to a room - they aren't shackling his hands, just trusting in the compulsions - where a breakfast pitched to a member of a nobleman's household, a pitcher of what he would guess is watered wine, and a mage are all waiting.

(It's not hard to recognize he's a mage, especially considering how many of Leareth's scholars were from the Empire; he has the neck-cord and breast-badge that mages of Master rank are expected to wear, with the focus-stone and ward-amulets clear. His hair is white and his face is little aged, which could mean anything from twenty to eighty, depending.) 

The guard salutes, goes to stand by the door. "Stay." (That's an order, from the perspective of his compulsions.) "Your name?"

This is not a surprising question and he's ready for it. "Dalan."

The setup is...unexpectedly friendly? Maybe? Not enough that he's inclined to relax at all, but he's curious to see how they're approaching it. Does it seem like he's going to be offered a seat in reach of the food, or is this more "they're setting him up to stare at it hopefully while he gets questioned first"? 

The second. Totally the second.

"You are the acknowledged natural son of the Baron of Assadar?"

Well, it's not like he's desperately hungry. (He is quite thirsty, but doesn't particularly want wine even if it's watered, and he has the discipline to ignore it.)

"Yes." 

He draws a piece of paper out of his pocket.

"Do you worship any gods..." And then he's going to go down the long list of synonyms for this and related questions (like "are you concealing god-worshippers from the empire"), and then ask directly if he's plotting treason against the Empire, and go down the list of synonyms and related questions for that.

It's mostly trivial to answer "no" to all those questions, since he in fact doesn't worship other gods! (And is not currently personally plotting anything that would count under the various synonyms for treason against the Empire, and it would be surprising if his operations in the north involved any of that.)

Navigating it does mean a lot of leaning on his memories as Leareth, and mostly deliberately not poking at the fragments of the boy he killed, which - could be awkward if they decide to dig into any questions of the nature "what were you doing two days ago", but he'll handle that if and when it happens.

(It would also be awkward if they're cross-referencing with any testimony from the rest of the household, if Dalan was in fact an active participant in their family's worship. Leareth is limited in how much he can plan for that, though, and - will see if it comes up.) 

Unfortunately, this mage might be going over everything with polite disinterest, but the checklist was written by someone competent, because the next stage is eight synonyms for "are you a mage," including "have you ever used magic".

....That is not very surprising. There really wouldn't have been a way to get around it by equivocating between Leareth and Dalan in his head, since both of them are/were mages and have used magic, and so that's not something he tried to plan around. Yes, he's a mage. 

(Do any of the questions, or the answer-without-withholding-information compulsion, require him to commit to saying anything about how long he's been a mage? Or are they going to pause everything to re-evaluate the compulsions and precautions on him first?) 

(He's definitely glad he didn't try anything with compulsions on the guard, since obvious followup questions would include what magic he's done and whether he's done any magic while a prisoner. Of course, now he's going to lose the opportunity to try it, but - it was probably predetermined that he wouldn't get any opportunities to try it and accomplish anything -) 

(It is not at all helping to be slightly panicking but his body is anyway.) 

The answer-without-withholding-information compulsion does not require him to say that - "yes" does not count as withholding information.

At that point the mage visibly wakes up, murmurs something through a comms-spell.

"Has your Gift ever been formally tested, and if so, what was the result?"

"...I don't know." 

It's convenient that Leareth doesn't have the slightest recollection off the top of his head of what his measured potential was in previous incarnations in the Empire - or, honestly, what the formal testing consists of and where they draw the categories - since that would be - more awkward - he's not going to think about it too hard. He in fact has no idea what the Dalan's raw potential without...special encouragement...would end up being, and also doesn't know off the top of his head what Leareth's potential would have measured as if formally tested (though "not knowing" that definitely involves some notthinkingaboutit.) But he apparently can't in fact push it as far as an outright no without upsetting the compulsions. 

He blinks. "You don't know if you have ever been formally tested?"

"...I don't know what my result would be." Which is probably going to sound weirdly evasive and aaaah it would be really helpful if he could be calm about this. 

This kid appears to be under a lot of stress! "Answer the question," he says. "There is nothing wrong with mage-gift, whatever your family told you. The Empire is founded on it."

That is absolutely not what Leareth Dalan is stressed about, but he manages to be slightly less tense.

"I - don't - remember being formally tested," he says, which is in fact literally true.

... This is still suspicious but kids are weird. - Then he gets a message and immediately compulsions the kid not to final strike.

Incredibly reasonable and it's a little surprising they didn't do it right away! (Though redundant, in this case, it's covered by the no-sabotage compulsions and plausibly also by the compulsions against leaving, Leareth did not poke at that since there are a number of reasons he wasn't even considering Final Striking.) 

He can tell that the mage is suspicious and is really not sure what to do about it. Either they're going to end up asking the right questions to notice that something is - very strange - or they're not. And of course it's not even clear whether avoiding suspicion accomplishes anything, from his perspective, even if it feels more like being in control. 

Leareth has very little idea what would be helpful to steer toward, and quite a lot of his attention is still going toward just staying calm enough that he can think. He could proactively offer more explanation - like that Dalan hadn't told the Baron about his mage-gift yet - but will instead wait to see what the next questions are. 

Next questions, nothing; the next stage is giving him the Default Mage-Prisoner Compulsions According To The Checklist (which he'd guess is being fed to this guy through a comms-spell, given how surprised he was), which prevent him from using his magic to leave entirely separate from the compulsion not to leave and also prevent him from casting compulsions or altering compulsions or using his magic on anyone but himself or using his magic to interfere with the interrogation or or or...

That's so reasonable of them. It's almost calming, actually, just because displays of competence are abstractly reassuring to his mind even if not directed in a way that's helpful for him specifically. (And it's not like it makes his situation that much worse, given how useless his barely-awakened Gift is.) 

He's holding very still, his expression one that could be parsed either as "composed" or "frozen." 

Right. The mage (looking tired after all this compulsion-work - compulsions are low energy, but there's a lot of them on the Standard Checklist and they're finicky work if you're undertrained) waves Leareth at the food. "Eat, drink as you need." He gives Leareth a superior smile, perhaps intending to be calming. "Someone will be here shortly to speak with you."