Having washed his hand of more bureaucratic details, Yavin was gratified to see a response to Rosier's offhand comment. You learned to make leading statements after enough years of keeping secrets, and once you learned, it became a bad habit. Almost as bad as picking at someone's thoughts on a slow night in a popular restaurant. We all have our poisons, he supposed.

            "I wasn't aware you knew. But, um - Virgil doesn't know.  Nor do I think many at the Ministry do."

"I didn't know, exactly" he replied, returning to his seat and raising his dark eyebrows in Sasha's direction. "Not until you said it and then, aha, and then thought it. You made assumptions based on a, um, a vague remark. A secondhand remark. A poor thing to, hm, to squander yourself on."

The first year or two of training was less about an intellectual capacity and more about the capacity to keep secrets, after all. What was the point of all this if they had a loose nut in the machinery? A squealing lamb? They only needed one person to ruin it - the right person with the right secrets.

Yavin raised a finger and shook it in the manner of a strange schoolmaster: "Don't do that again. Not even with, ah, with me," he lowered his hand to gesture at himself instead. "You'll be playing with secrets that don't belong to you. And, I'm sure you've heard this before, but, hah, our Unspeakables do have a habit of... getting lost down here."

It happened every now and then, in this Ministry and even in MACUSA. Usually they disappeared doing something uncanny, something work related. Every now and then they disappeared point blank.

"Have a good day," Yavin smiled gently, "and I hope to, ah, to see you at the new moon."

Sasha blinked and, for the briefest moment, stared, taken aback by what apparently had been some little trick or test on the part of Morgenthau.  Slowly, he shook his head and dropped his gaze to the skeleton sitting in the chair, trying to decide whether there would be any benefit in pointing out he understood the difference between information that benefited from discretion and information that required secrecy.  Changing the rules of the chess match and applying different, arbitrary values to the game pieces without informing the other player of those changes was hardly an effective way of testing the other's skill at chess.  It was just a way of exerting your absolute power in a relationship.

But, Sasha suspected the man wouldn't hear.  Or, care.  From what Sasha could tell, there had been a facade around the man that seemed to have slipped in the last few moments.  Sasha had been around enough men like Morgenthau.  The man wanted to be right.  Needed to be right, no matter the cost, and, the man's final and entirely unsubtle threats confirmed as much.   

For the first time, Sasha's certainty about this whole opportunity wavered.  Not because of the job.  Not because of the secrecy.  Those were things he felt confident in.  Sure, there'd be a learning curve - like with every new endeavor - but, at the very least, a learning curve like this one felt like it would require a degree of trust between those that were his colleagues and supervisors.  And, those last few comments sowed doubt in the rest of the conversation.  Now, nothing about this man suggested he was trustworthy.  This was a man who, in subsequent breaths, discouraged open communication, admitted to gathering information from classmates and who freely tossed out death threats. 

The man possessed all the signs of someone who presumed ... believed he knew more about others than he actually did.  Which wasn't an uncommon trait and, Sasha assumed, was considerably more common within the Department of Mysteries.  He had no doubts he, himself, had an equally inflated perception of his own knowledge.  But, there was an important difference.  Sasha didn't have authority over anyone else.  He couldn't, on a whim, 'lose' someone in the bowels of the Ministry without any repercussions.  When that self-perceived possession of superior knowledge was combined with being in a position to do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, to another person, that was when it because untrustworthy.  Dangerous.  His father had had it.  Kronos had had it.  Sasha had hoped he'd, finally, managed to escape men like that. 

Sasha didn't trust this man.  From the sounds of it, Sasha had to assume Virgil communicated freely with this man.  Which meant, Sasha wouldn't be able to trust Virgil.  He'd have no one he could trust in a job where it seemed like trust was of paramount importance.  And, if this man really was as carefree with the idea of 'losing' people in the Department of Mysteries as his offhanded use of the comment suggested, the confidentiality agreements of the department would mean Sasha would have no recourse.  No way to seek help.  Sasha would be a pawn. 

Maybe he'd be better off going it alone.  He could connect with colleagues of Professor Trishna.  Spend his summers traveling the world and connecting with wizarding academics at various universities.  Seek out magical higher education in different countries.  He now knew they were out there.  Luckily, he had the three days to consider working for the Ministry and, if he decided against it, he could stand to lose the memories of this meeting. 

Better than getting murdered by a sociopathic supervisor in the Department of Mysteries. 

With a nod and a polite, "thank you," Sasha let himself out of the office and out to main street to catch a cab home.  He needed a drive and a good, long hack to consider the options.