When they return triumphant from Kantaria there is a summons waiting for Alfirin; Lord Entat wants to conduct an interview about the alleged spy in the camp.
Lord Entat is a squat, grouchy old man who says “ah, you’re a girl,” with apparent dissatisfaction when Alfirin enters. He shows her Iomedae’s sketch of the man. “Does this look right to you?”
“The lady knight said he just walked away while you were talking and was nowhere to be seen when you looked around for him?”
“Enough time that he could’ve just wandered away in a totally nonmagical fashion, or do you think he disappeared?”
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.”
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.
That’s enough to take to Lord Entat, or whatever secretary gets between her and Lord Entat.
"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.
Lord Entat raps sharply on his desk and a young priest comes in. “Arrest tonight: will I tell you in an hour it went well?”
"I've worked well with Iomedae and her people, but she usually calls me in for wizard backup rather than the other way around. I don't know if she's busy at the moment."
“Does she have a secretary?” Entat asks his own secretary.
“Yes, sir. I can go check if she’s available.”
“Goes well,” the priest reports.
“Love to hear it. - we should still get you good backup,” he tells Alfirin, because sometimes wizards try to be too clever for their own good about prophecy. “If you do stupid things in response to the omens then it’s much less useful checking them.”
Iomedae is available. “I heard we might be arresting a seventh circle lich?”
"We're arresting the maybe-spy from last month, who turns out to be quite scry-resistant and is hopefully not a seventh-circle lich but we should plan for the worst."
A seventh circle lich is not, in fact, the worst possibility that jumps to mind to plan for, though it is very difficult to imagine why anyone more dangerous than that would be here in person a week after inviting their suspicions. She reaches for her unfathomably expensive new sword."Do we know if he's living?"
"I'd prefer to take him alive, if we can - I want to know who he reports to. But if I make the sword merciful then we'll be in a tight spot should it turn out it's centuries too late to take him alive. I suppose I could bring a backup sword." She saw a woodcut once of Cayden Cailean dual-wielding rapiers - one merciful, one vicious. It was probably intended as philosophical commentary of some kind but perhaps it was just good sense if you arrest a lot of people of uncertain deadness.
"Yes, I agree that we want him alive. I have a hold person but it might not stick even if he is one, so I think I should try to counterspell if it comes up and you should focus on the actual arrest."
“I carry a second circle pearl of power,” says Iomedae, and hands it over to him. “Do you know how to use it? It’s hard to get wrong.”
“I’m going to save the holy avenger for the worst-case scenario here and go in with a borrowed merciful sword,” Iomedae decides. “I know someone who has one I can borrow.”
