Alexeara Cansellarion is in his study when he gets the vision from his Goddess, which means he must have fucked up quite badly.
"She certainly does not seem to take much care with who she offends. Do you plan to do an interview?"
"Well, that would put an end to the conspiracy theory that I am she, which I find very flattering."
"Aren't you the most powerful wizard on the continent? Surely having a conversation with yourself isn't beyond your abilities. Do her voice as an illusion and speak your own lines - it's just sound, not that I doubt you could do it with someone watching via scry."
"Perhaps I can ask her to conspire with me to say nothing in the episode incompatible with such a theory. I don't know, she does not seem very temperamentally inclined to mislead people even in the service of great goods, like my amusement. Are you confident in your security today, or gambling?"
"Confident. I gamble sometimes, but not with being kidnapped to Hell. Though if you're about to offer a way to be more confident I won't turn it down."
She tosses her, across the table, a tarnished little bronze charm. "It'll only work once, so if you're sure of today pick some other one."
"Are you going to tell me what it does, or do I have to guess?" She could figure it out within a minute but most people with her publicly known capabilities could not.
"It gives good fortune in a moment of unusual unluckiness. You mustn't wear it around all the time or it'll save you from stubbing your toe on your coffee table, and be expended thereby, but it's nice for something like this. I sold Lastwall a half-dozen; I think they prefer purchase orders they can put in their books to presents over tea."
She pockets it, then. "Was there something you wanted to talk about, or just have tea and listen to the radio together? I'm not sharing my sources, it might endanger them."
"I would never ask. But I'm always thinking about Andoran's future, especially in this moment where I have a reasonable suspicion we'll find ourselves at war soon, and if that's a matter you've thought about yourself I find myself an eager listener."
"The future of Andoran? You want my thoughts? Are you imagining that I'll have the good fortune to win my war with Cheliax, and the poor sense to immediately turn around and pick a fight with my ally who is still the most powerful wizard on the continent? Or are you asking me to help defend Andoran if Cyprian starts looking this way? I don't know if I can commit to that. I'd try to talk him out of it, of course, but - that's hinging on him hypothetically having reasons to listen to me in the future."
"It would, I think, be awfully rude, to ask you for commitments over tea! No, I just mean that I haven't the faintest idea how you think a place ought to be run, whether it's Cheliax or Andoran or Galt, and nor have I any good guess how you plan to drag Cheliax out of its current state even if you were to conquer it, and these questions have acquired some strange new urgency lately, with girls on the radio all but saying the war's next year."
"I had hoped, once, for - a crown surrounded by republican institutions. I don't know if it would hold up, in the Chelish heartlands. Not that I expect to win that crown without someone else deciding to hand it to me, if the war is next year. Girls on the radio have thrown everyone's plans into disarray, I imagine."
"Well, it's a comfort to hear that it's not just me and dear Abrogail." A clock chimes, and Felandriel's radio - a fancy kind with a magical speaker - comes to life; the dials turn of their own accord.
"This is Freedom Radio, reporting live from an undisclosed location somewhere in creation. This week, we're talking with Afasi Kennadas, a fifth-circle priest of Pharasma, goddess of Creation, birth and death – but first, we're going to talk about a matter near and dear to many of us: why do so many babies die? I was initially planning to pose this question to the priest, but then it occurred to me it isn't really a question of theology. After all, no babies - or very few of them - die because the gods willed them dead. They get sick, or they're born sick, or they're born funny-shaped or too small or unable to breathe. Rich families save their dying babies. They get powerful priests to come drive an illness from their child's body, or they cut away a crippled part and regrow it right, or they use the most powerful of healing magic that can address almost any ill whatever its cause.
My family was rich, but not so rich that we could call a powerful priest for a sick baby, and so we prayed for them, and when our prayers were not enough we buried them. Three of my sisters, two of my brothers. The gods didn't do that. So what did?
We have talked before about the germ theory of disease, the theory that sicknesses are caused by tiny living creatures that can be shared from person to person, or pass through tainted water, and which spread and multiply inside the human body. Such diseases are everywhere, and when a flu comes to a household, probably everyone in it will get sick. But the baby is likeliest to die? Why is that? What I learned from great scholars in the functioning of the human body is that babies are born practically without the defenses which a healthy body can raise against disease…"
It's about ten minutes in that she feels it. A yanking twisting dragging sensation that she tries to claw her way away from and - can, but only barely, and she can feel the little bronze talisman from Felandriel Morgethai dissolve on her skin. She blinks at it, wide-eyed.
Alfirin doesn't feel a thing, but she sees Iomedae's expression change - she glances at Cansellarion and he nods - Iomedae's still here, and that's the most important thing -
...Iomedae's still here and wearing an unstable homemade explosive vest and if she gets blown up Alfirin will never forgive herself even though it was obviously the right decision at the time… She'll start disarming her own vest and wait impatiently for the broadcast to end.
Iomedae's trying incredibly hard not to sound any different, it was important for making Cheliax think that she is in Sothis. Unfortunately, it was distracting, and she paused, and also the cleric of Pharasma was not informed about the plan to pretend they were in Sothis and is a perceptive person even when all he has to go off is a mid-sentence intake of breath. "Are you all right?"
Ugh, that probably ruins it, and if it's ruined then she wants to switch strategies towards mocking Abrogail on-air but the orders were not 'pretend unless you failed at pretending and cannot achieve your pretending-related goals anymore', though she should have asked for those orders, if she'd thought of it.
"Oh, I'm quite well," she says. "I was saying that I'm told it's possible to save born-early babies but you have to keep them warm and get them good air, and how do you do both of those things at once? Put them by a fire, and the air isn't good enough for them and they'll likely die; keep them somewhere dry with clean fresh air, and it will be a great nearly impossible labor keeping them warm, when their body can't produce enough warmth itself. So the best thing you can do is to keep the baby on their mother, touching her skin, every waking moment, somewhere away from a smoky fire, and that's nearly as good as what they do for kings." She has so many things to say to Abrogail right now and she's not allowed to say them and she's mad at herself for not clarifying what to do if she failed to act like nothing happened.
(Catherine is still having tea with Morgethai and reluctantly lets the wish slip away. She's mind blanked and very good at hiding her magic but she's also sitting right in front of an archmage, inside that archmage's sanctum; It's not worth the risk.)
Cansellarion can tell Iomedae wants to talk about the attempt, but he doesn't want to speak up and risk his voice getting on the broadcast - he whispers to Alfirin, who goes over and whispers to Iomedae that she can say whatever she wants, no use keeping up the deception once it's been blown. (She disarms the main trigger for the vest while she's there.)
Iomedae smiles gratefully and continues talking through how to care for premature babies, but when she's reached the end of the segment she says, "I do feel obliged to confess that my earlier answer to you was only half-true. You noticed I seemed - surprised by something?"
"Someone tried to cast a Wish, to interrupt our conversation. Now, it could be that they hate early-born babies, but that wouldn't actually be my guess."