"It's a little silly, Gloria," he began. Was he unaware of the knife? Was he uncaring? Could she leap forward and take his heart right now? She knew he had survived an axe from Catch, but that had been before. That had not been her special blade. That had not been here and now. She'd make sure to finish what she started. "We can't pretend all those things didn't happen. I wouldn't want you to. Pretending is what Rhaena does. Imagining is what she makes people do. We have to be better than that. I did what I did. And yet, despite that, you sit in your seat, right there and I sit in my seat and we talk, yes?"
She still didn't understand, and it was fine. She had no context, no way of understanding. "They aren't your friends out there, Gloria. That's not what that was." He had to laugh and some of it was at her, but she had been missing and missing. Now it was time to spell it out. "They respect you, especially the ones that just grunted. That damn dwarf. He grunted, no? Bastard. You, Camello, and this is a bit of a contradiction, but it is okay. You've had a hard," he started counting on his fingers with his free hand. "well, a hard time of things. This is Myrken and Myrken like your Jernoah is not a place to go stomping about asking questions, getting in everyone's business, and reaching above your station. It is a place to keep your head down, to know where you fit into our little society, and to keep quiet. The people who do elsewise? Elsewise? Is this a word? It should be a word," he shrugged, sipping at his wine, this already turning into a longer and more annoying speech than he would like. "Those who see the holes, that try to answer the questions natural in this accursed place, those people get noticed. Many of them end up out in that room. And these people, they notice others who do it. They've noticed you. Those people out there? They are not your friends but they are your fellows. This is a bureaucracy. It serves itself.
"I on the other hand, will die if Rhaena Olwak wishes it. One thought and I am dead. She cannot change what I think, though. Therefore, only I can question her. Some questions are successful. Some are not. Some of the people out there, in that room, are helping me come up with the right questions. Do you start to see yet, or do we go around the circle again?"