I closed the door to the office with a click and threw my arms around Hadrian so happy to see him alive and functional. He yelped in pain and I flinched back, blushing scarlet at having forgotten that he had been shot only hours earlier. The office was one of a senior scribe, empty save for a large desk with neatly organized paper baskets and a large passage written on the wall: A moment wasted is a moment stolen from the Emperor. Cheery as always. I cleared my throat and toyed with a stray strand of hair, reluctant to admit what I had done, then I squared my shoulders and summarized.

"I believed Arbiter Ortega might have been involved in signaling the assassin who shot you," I began, tackling the easier of the two matters first, if kidnapping an Arbites officer could truly be described as 'easier'. 

"I uhh... conducted a psychic interrogation," I admitted.

"He screamed a lot," Clara added unhelpfully and I shot her a sideways glance.

"There won't be any permanent damage," I said, a touch defensively. Ortega had certainly been trained on how to resist interrogation, I had sampled some of those memories and he was no more damaged than any other servant of the Emperor by my mental rummaging. 

"He didn't call the assassin, but I think someone may have had access to the vox net he was using to contact the authorities, I asked Lazarus to run it down," I explained. Hadrian looked somewhat troubled but he didn't interject.

"Then I interrogated the other witness to the shooting," I rushed on, hoping against hope that I wasn't going to have to make a full accounting.

"Other witness?" Hadrian asked, arching an eyebrow at the closed expression which stole over Clara's face. "What other witness?"

"The shooter," I explained, "I...uh disabled him after he shot you." Hadrian's face was confused and skeptical.

"Lazarus said he was dead," Hadrian prodded. I licked my dry lips, trying to find an artful way to evade this line of inquiry. Clara apparently felt no such compunction. 

"Oh he was dead all right, but that didn't stop her from asking questions. Just ordered his corpse to sit up and spill the ploin juice," she said, plowing remorselessly forward.

"I would hardly say I 'just ordered' him to do it," I added crossly, reflecting on the colossal effort it had taken. Clara rolled her eyes.

"Really not sure lingering on the creepy-ass sigils, nude bathing, and applying a dead guy as makeup are going to improve the take away here sister," Clara retorted.

"You... raised someone from the dead?!" Hadrian demanded. I crossed my arms beneath my breasts hugging my storm coat tight.

"Well technically I only called his spirit back to answer some questions," I admitted.

"Technically is doing A LOT of work in that sentence," Clara opined.