"It doesn’t look wrong," she says, suppressing her annoyance.

“The lady knight said he just walked away while you were talking and was nowhere to be seen when you looked around for him?”

"Yes, sir. It was about thirty seconds."

“Enough time that he could’ve just wandered away in a totally nonmagical fashion, or do you think he disappeared?”

"Either way he was very thorough about it."

“Guards didn’t see anyone by that description, in or out.”

"Acknowledged, sir."

“You see him again, send someone to fetch me.”

"Should I also try to stop him from disappearing again?"

“You’re a wizard?”

"Fifth circle, sir."

His reaction to that is expressive, but what exactly the expression is is hard to read. “Yeah, all right. You see him again, you stop him disappearing.”

"Yes, sir."

The first thing she tries is scrying, though she's not optimistic about it going through; if he's a spy, and not just an unusual crusader, then he's probably practiced throwing off spells, and she's only met him once in passing, maybe not even in his real face. Or her real face. It fails the first time, and the second time, but she keeps trying every evening she has the spell free, alternating between the supposed spy and Iomedae's dead siblings.

Iomedae’s dead siblings are much less difficult about being scried, probably because they are children and not trying to hide things from the Shining Crusade. They are in Axis or in Heaven; it appears that the guardian angels were not in fact negligent, or that Iomedae’s family members have a strong innate inclination towards Lawful Goodness, or both.

The spy resists the first nine scries. The tenth reveals a very young man, probably still a teenager, with the thin wispy beard of someone who can't grow a full one. He’s in a barracks that looks like most of the other barracks the Crusade has put up in Vellumis, lying on a narrow cot and practicing casting a cantrip one-handed; after a few minutes one of his bunkmates sleepily asks him to cut that out as he’s trying to sleep. 

Alfirin keeps watching for as long as the scry lasts, sketching the man’s face (or at least the one he’s wearing now). When the spell ends, she heads over to the barracks and casts locate creature on the bunkmate.

Down this street and up this narrower one, in one of the row of buildings named after all the Emperors currently in good standing in Imperial histories in order.

Alfirin enters the building with the spell still up, to pinpoint and note down the room.

Third door down.

That’s enough to take to Lord Entat, or whatever secretary gets between her and Lord Entat.

“Ten scries,” says Lord Entat. “I suppose we’ll be very careful. Good work.”

"Thank you, sir. Do you need me for the arrest?"

“Well, I’m not a powerful wizard myself. Do you have the spells to get him today?”

"That depends, sir, on whether he’s a third-circle wizard with nondetection or a seventh-circle lich. Or a shapeshifted dragon. I’ve spent many of my spells for the day but he may have too. If he’s fifth circle or below and I have backup I expect I'll manage, if he’s sixth circle or above it comes down to how well we take him by surprise. And if he's a dragon -" she shrugs.