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SUMMARY: Continued from "Carol 2" - Carol's run has ended in custody. The priest is allowed into the interrogation room. She remembers the way things were. Other Janus members are briefly introduced.

"Is as is," Carol says in trader as Priest-Ross takes his seat across the table. When he responds with a glare of suspicion she switches to English. "Since you're not going to get me any more confined than I already am, we can talk. Correct?"

"Roslyn--"

"Goddess. Fine." She sighs and sits back from the table. "Today you got only one thought. I can tolerate that for the sake of this really stupid situation. Believe me, it pisses me off, but I need you." She waits for his response. He is still going to be thinking this is a rescue. She has to find a way to make him work under her leadership from this girlish body in a jail setting. "Can you do this, Ross?"

"If – if you are Roslyn, I will help you. I am here for Roslyn." He leans across the table, extending a hand for her to reach out to, if she only would. "I will help her fight this thing. I will bring her back into the loving embrace of God."

This is a negotiation, and she has never been patient enough for them. In fact, it is Ross's job to handle all this soft-conflict nonsense. "Look, I don't know why I'm suddenly a white kid. But I'm here and I obviously have a lot to fix. Maybe – if I can set things right – maybe the girl you're looking for can come back from wherever she went and Auntie Em and the gang can live happily ever after. But I really need you playing along, Ross. I got no means right now. I can't even get my gear. Can you step up here, Ross, or am I talking to a crazy man?"

His eyes squint while he considers the implications. It is clear he should never cooperate with a demon on any request. However reasonable this one sounds, it did drag poor Roslyn into the company of other demons. Her skin is now covered in fresh cuts and scrapes. It has been as draining and damaging to her as the others. Still, it might be weaker than the rest, and Roslyn must be saved.

"Let me speak with Roslyn."

"There is no Roslyn here, Ross." She closes her lips around the curse that is nearly automatic with challenges to her identity. Her past is a series of awakenings from black holes of memory and swarms of people telling her half-truths and outright lies about who she is. This time she knows better. She is sure by now that she has all the information of her recent past up to her encounter with him.

She had just returned from a long circuit offworld rebalancing the Empire by tracking down and disposing of mercenaries guilty of unlawful acts against an innocent planet. They were the remnant of an army loyal to one side of a pointless title dispute between two noble houses.

She had used the time homeward to wash the blood from her uniform and settle her mind. So much of the soldiers' guilt was in the act itself, rather than the motivation. They were following orders, playing by the rules of the Empire for the benefit of their house. They would not have faced her sword if they had kept their advances to the occupying militia on that planet. By razing the native cities, they committed murder rather than war. That was the problem with purebred Kuipes: too arrogant to believe there would be anyone present who did not have a stake in their power struggles.

When she landed her ship inside the hangar, she took note of the royal barge.