Portals can be pretty much whatever size - she has an upper limit but 'big enough for two carts side by side with comfortable clearance between them' isn't close to it - and making the portal small isn't a very good security measure. Passwords are a better one, if they'd like.

Still requires trusting her.

She's not going to insist unless they want portals offworld, even if password-protected seems strictly better than not; whatever they want to do is fine by her.

They definitely want password-protected, with "I swear I have never served the Enemy" as the password. Can she alter the password? Alter size?

She can set a spell up so it can be deactivated and then cast a new one that's different later, or she can cast two spells in the same spot that take different passwords and act differently. She can't alter a spell once it's been cast, but the first option does basically the same thing anyway.

They would prefer it unalterable anyway.

Sure.

Breaking spells is a thing, they probably want to know about that. There's only a limited amount she can do about it, but it's unlikely to come up for a spell on stone anyway, and she's doing what she can to make the spells as permanent as possible.

They will happily ask her hours and hours about her magic system and whether such-and-such experiment has been tried.

It was approaching bedtime when she came. She can come back the next day, though.

They have some really good ideas for experiments, and also she eventually gets around to actually casting the portal spells they want. When she's done with that, she stands back, considers for a few moments, and...

It seems to me that that's proof enough that that sentence is pretty safe. I still don't think my species can swear, but: "I swear I have never served the Enemy." For whatever that's worth.

It does relax them visibly. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Any more spells you'd like me to cast today?

Portal to an uninhabited habitable world? Or is that too challenging?

'Too challenging' isn't the problem there; the fact that she can't even slightly guarantee that an unknown world is safe is the problem. Also checking that a world is uninhabited is a two-step process so even if they come up with a way to check safety it's going to take a while to find one.

All right. Then they're fine in the meantime.

Uh. Maitimo should know that the other host seems to have crossed the Ice.

...okay. Would they like to give her some details about this or are they all too busy now?

That's all they've got, thanks.

All right then.

Does 'the other host seems to have crossed the ice' make sense to you?

Oh no.

Right, okay. I'll see if I can get us a view, and then you can fill me in on what's going on?

Of the Ice?

Of the other host, I'm guessing I'll be able to find them if I put a portal over the city and look? Though 'group of people in a cold place' is also something I can do if you think that's more likely to work, I don't know.

They can't be within fifty miles of the city, they'd have heard about it a lot sooner than that. How far would the portal be?

I can do it so it's overhead?

Yes but how far overhead? In order for us to see people who are probably hundreds of miles away?

Overhead of them. I can aim for the host if I know about their surroundings, 'a bunch of people in a cold place' is probably specific enough, right?