"Is it, like, possible he was successfully working with them and you perceived this as being suborned. Because it would straight-up be out of character for him to make people who trust him worse off by their own lights, he's manipulative as fuck but you can trust him on that -"

"I have no idea if he made improvements to their personal lives but they became incapable of performing their jobs to their previous standards," snaps Chua. "Manipulation by an outside actor with undisclosed aims is antithetical to security."

"I don't think Ms. Chua has had much exposure to Maitimo's virtues that she'd trust, Michael," says Mirelótë. "I am sure that in most respects your job of sequestering ill-intentioned daeva has been so well done that arriving as late as we did in the GCP's history it's invisible to us. It would probably be disingenuous to attempt to thank you on behalf of all the people who you have been and still are protecting, especially since they cannot even be identified specifically. I imagine the bleedoff of employees who normally liaise for you with politicians was even less welcome to you than to us. Perhaps now that you've unraveled the mystery you could rehire them, or rearrange your organization so that you need not interact with Elves in order to search for answers any further."

Sigh.

"I don't need advice from you on how to handle my staffing," says Chua.

"I apologize."

"You can have your damn jurisdiction split. Figure out with Niari what to do about it if some daeva kills some of both before getting caught, she seems to tolerate you," she says, waving at them like they're irritating flies. "If you come up with a way to hand over that fairy without illegal curses that is not a good time to bicker with us about double jeopardy or any suddenly invented Elf law that comes to the same thing, you just turn him in. You stop complaining about my organization behind my back to every president in the solar system and you tone it down with the Elves swarming my prison and you tell your little brother to take his acquittal and call it done and I won't tell anyone demons can make Elves like a vending machine makes pizzas."

"I understand."

"Now get out of my house."

Mirelótë ducks her head politely. Anything else need covering -

Don't think so.

So she leaves.

"It didn't seem like a good idea to ask but I'm not actually clear on what she wants from Minor, should he stop whatever EU activism thing he's currently up to..."

"I think that's not about the GCP in particular but maybe we can ask Niari."

"Works." Shrug.

"It's not just that she was incompetent once the Elves showed up, you know, Celendra didn't get a fair trial and that was well before that."

"In what way would asserting that have helped?"

"Not at all, so I didn't say it. It's still true."

"Yes."

They go home.

"Evening" is available if the new fork wants to continue the noon-afternoon sequence.

He'll do that. "We should have people checking regularly for unauthorized forks -"

"Cam was checking Hell. Obvious oversight in retrospect. I'm so sorry."

" - I mean, checking would not in this case have resulted in anything different happening to me, they let me write you. Debated it for a bit first, I think, but - it seems unwise to hold temptation against people."

"True. I do imagine it was frightening."

"Terrifying.  I asked if anyone else knew and Lilie said 'no' and I said 'that's important to us' and Ms. Chua just said 'I imagine it is', and I wasn't sure - plus, like, now I exist and would have preferred not to." Sigh. "Maybe Lilie'll convince her she can stop gagging demons."

"I'm not sure Lilie thinks very highly of other demons."

"No, but she could confirm that they can't take souls."

"There's that."

"That is the whole ostensible justification for the gagging, as far as I know."

"...having spoken to Melkor I am not certain that it's a completely ridiculous concern that people might be talked into trusting people they begin with a bias against but in generic form that applies just as well to angels and fairies."

"And isn't best handled with gags. By all means don't let them talk at length to their summoners alone lest they get their sympathies, but not letting them communicate anything at all for decades -"