"When I left the project I didn't do a good enough job giving it continuity of orders, and also everyone was very uncertain how things were going to shake out without me, and Avaricia decided to make a play for being in charge if I didn't get back, or second-in-command if I did, and started needling Asmodia.
They'd pulled practically all the high-quality Security we'd enjoyed when we had you and sent them to Nidal and replaced them mostly with people who they were maximally confident wouldn't defect on exposure to ilanism, which mostly meant people who just enjoyed being awful people. And who started going after Asmodia and the other girls thought of as loyal to me, in variously plausibly-deniable or not-even-very-plausibly-deniable ways. And Asmodia was - a heretic, and naive - she thought that they'd do what was in Cheliax's interests if she just kept pointing out how stupid it was for them not to - she tried to get Abarco and Maillol to make them stop - and then when it didn't work she killed herself.
No one thought she'd do that because Hell is worse. But she'd died and gone to Hell already, right, back when Nidal attacked us, and - she came back happier and healthier - she must've gone to the gardens, because Erecura foresaw that I'd bargain for that - so she didn't have anything to fear. So she killed herself.
At which point Abrogail pulled me out of my punishment for failing with you and I went back and I - knew that Maillol and Subirachs had allowed this deliberately because they thought it'd be good for me to terrorize some people into submission for once -
- the other students are all okay, I think. Pilar eventually stepped in and started protecting them with her Cayden powers. Meritxell's helping her with training the new candidate-ilani. Korva's running the Project's effort to get synthetic diamonds, though of course not knowing at all what conditions help mean they're a long way off. I own all their souls and they'll get the Gardens too if they die.
Iiiii notice myself being nervous about discussing Abarco because many possible ways that conversation could go will make me annoyed at you for things that are completely not at all your fault and are entirely my own."