:...Not really? He seems busy and stressed - worse than usual - but I would've said he likes her. Or - respects her. Whatever the thing is he actually...does...with people he approves of, I sort of don't know if he likes anyone: Mental shrug. :You know him better than I do: 

:I'll think about it.: She has some speculation but Ketar doesn't need to hear it.

...He spends fifteen seconds agonizing over whether to tell her about the Emperor, but it's not like he's even sure that Carissa was serious about it. She's hard to read that way. Presumably if she is serious about it then she'll - bring it up, if and when Merda talks to her.

He has another five minutes of not-nearly-as-contentful summaries on other mindreading he's done. This person thinks Carissa is pretty and is paying her extra attention mostly for that reason but hasn't actually noticed anything to be suspicious about and definitely isn't going to pursue it any further while Carissa still very clearly belongs to Altarrin. This other person is pretty sure she's a fake and doesn't know what the real game is - maybe the 'Wild Gift' doesn't exist at all and Altarrin is making the magic artifacts himself for some Altarrin reason? - but isn't especially invested. This other girl has a theory that Carissa and Altarrin must be having exceptionally arduous sex, since Altarrin has been noticeably tired sometimes, and she's hoping maybe Carissa will let a few of the details slip once they've gotten to know her better. This other person thinks Carissa has terrible taste in fashion. 

And then he'll drop the connection and move on with his day, if Merda doesn't have any other questions. 

Merda doesn't, especially. It seems like mostly no one's going to get curious until Altarrin makes a move. Or Carissa does.

Does Carissa want to see her? They have a similar engineered arrangement for that.

When she's done with her HAT.

It takes her most of a week, though that's with a little headband-making on the side. The tricky part is getting the hat to exist in a format that wouldn't be incredibly bizarre to leave on during sex. She thinks she can make it willing to shapeshift into a tightly-fitted wig. 

She doesn't try all that hard to hide the signs she's absorbed in a project; it'll probably look more suspicious if she seems to be concealing it. 

Altarrin is also preoccupied, but he does notice that Carissa is very absorbed. It's - fine, probably, at some point the Emperor is going to notice if she's falling behind on headband production (and the Emperor still wants his translation rings, and Altarrin does at some point want a magic item of Detect Thoughts), but he's reluctant to push Carissa too hard on that. It feels like she...needs space to have her own plans, right now. 

(In public with her, he's harried but warm. He hosts more dinners with the engineering-research mages, and sometimes, when they're talking about magic, he almost seems genuinely happy.) 

He does at some point, near the end of the week, ask Ellitrea to ask Merda if she has any idea what Carissa is working on right now? He's not worried or anything, but it's clearly taking up a lot of her attention, and she didn't want to tell him the details for...operational security reasons, probably...but he could use Merda's sanity-check on that. 

Merda thinks Carissa is up to something! She's aware that's not the most reassuring possible answer. It's ....probably not something stupid. 

No, he doesn't think it would be stupid. He'd - appreciate if Merda can keep an eye out, though. 

The week passes. 

- one of Altarrin's mages wakes him with an urgent communication-spell report, inconveniently during the block of time when he and Carissa are actually asleep. There's a problem down south. Again. A building - exploded? Sounded like a Final Strike, probably by a Master-potential mage from below, maybe a cellar? They're not sure if there was a cellar, they didn't actually have building plans. 

It was during a diplomatic meeting. With all of the lords on the local Council who were willing to cooperate with the invading force, and General Isktar. As far as they know everyone is dead. 

It was presumably the work of the underground resistance? They don't really have any leads on it, though, given how a Final Strike doesn't leave an identifiable body. 

He's so tired. 

(He would have been the one running that meeting, if he'd decided to stay. He somewhat reluctantly delegated it to Isktar, because the diplomat on site would be even worse, and it seemed like an exceptionally bad time to be away from the capital for so long.) 

...He should probably warn Carissa that he has to leave. Is she awake? 

Not yet. 

He doesn't really want to shake her awake and he also doesn't want to wait. He'll - creep out of bed, and cast a tiny mage-light in the palm of his hand so he can write her a note explaining. If she wakes up while he's at it, he'll explain in person. 

Wizards are sound sleepers. Or at least, at the Worldwound the ones who aren't die of it.

Then Carissa will wake up alone in the room, with a note resting on Altarrin's side of the bed. 

Major assassination plot in Stormhaven. Mage called a Final Strike under a building during diplomatic meeting. Most of the local nobles willing to work with us are dead. General Isktar assumed dead. Followers of Atet probably responsible.

I need to travel down and see what can be salvaged. Ask Ellitrea or Merda for updates. 

(There's a line scratched out.)

You should prepare Teleport daily just in case.

- Altarrin. 

It does not escape Carissa that Altarrin probably came extremely close to being in that building.

It feels abruptly like she can't afford to go ahead with her Emperor plan and can't afford not to. Altarrin's suggestion for her if he dies is to ...flee the Empire? Does that mean he thinks it'd be far too dangerous to stay?

Why does he even have to go, can't he just send someone else - isn't she more important -

- stop being stupid. Is she going to finish her hat and try this plan, or huddle here and flee the country if Altarrin gets himself killed. 

Altarrin is immortal, but she isn't, and she's not sure she can accomplish lichdom if she has to start over from scratch without an empire behind her. 

Hat. Plan.

"Are you allowed to keep any of your own secrets?"

Well, that's an opener. "Allowed, sure. Will I, probably not."

"I'll take 'probably not'. I want to seduce the Emperor."

"Dear fucking gods, girl. Your horrible planet screwed your head on backwards."

"I know that, but this isn't actually about that. This is about my having a path to be safe here if Altarrin gets himself killed. Or gets bored. As it's well understood he always does."

"Right, but someone without her head screwed on funny goes, Merda buy me a house in the nice part of town."

"Merda, how much you think you could make, if Altarrin was dead, selling information about who I really am and which nice house in town you bought me to the highest bidder in the palace?"

" - wow. You know, I'd be insulted, except I did already concede that this is your head being screwed on backwards and therefore no reflection on me."

"It's not an insult! It's a question about product pricing."