The sudden shock of horror that goes through him isn't in words, thoughts in words being suddenly dangerous, but he has no choice but obedience now and obeys.
It's been too long since Ferrer Maillol has expected to need to control his thoughts, since he's been answerable to someone who could read his mind and also he had something to hide.
To almost-fifth-circle Detect Thoughts wielded at Intelligence 24, there's more information, there, than Carissa will have seen when she was third circle; Intelligence 24 is more than enough to handle it.
- that Maillol himself would have been annoyed with this outcome but accepting of it, if not for the Asmodia part, that you can't reasonably ask people to sustain the kind of perfectly lockstepping performance they had around Keltham once Keltham is gone, Sevar is green and expects too much -