"Something about preserving a reputation for political neutrality? A lot of good that'll do her when the Queenscourt takes her planet."

"She does understand how the Queenscourt... works... right?"

"She can read my mind and doesn't seem shy about doing it when she perceives danger. If she has failed to notice how the Queenscourt works it is not through lack of opportunity."

Promise shudders at "can read my mind".

"And I tried to explain," he adds. "I am not sure how well I managed. She isn't a very cooperative mortal. She left me here while she went to contact her local national government, whom she expects will be happier to help."

"The local magic does allow sweeping the court? Securely?"

"Unknown potential failure rate if someone's kind-magic lets them escape local magical restraints, or if one of the mortals involved makes a mistake through lack of familiarity with vassalization. Otherwise, yes. I arrived here through an untargeted application of local magic, and it can be targeted, and set up with wards so that the summoned individual is unable to leave the area they were summoned in."

"Okay. Is it one-way, are we stuck here?"

"I'm stuck here through some kind of mistake in my summoning that wasn't fully explained; it was implied that summoned individuals can usually be returned with trivial effort. I haven't yet tried gating back to the fairy realm because I want to minimize the amount of information about this world that is even theoretically available there, so I don't know if it's possible, but I can't afford to assume it isn't. And if you came through a tear, that suggests gates are also possible. If you came through some other unknown phenomenon, I have no idea what that suggests."

"I assume it was a tear, but I couldn't see it coming the way you could've." Promise belatedly realizes that Arcane is still carrying her and extricates herself to begin flying under her own power. "Where are we? Do the mortals live under the ocean?"

"We are on the bottom of the world, which is a flat square; the mortals live on the top. 'Down' apparently points toward the middle. I have not yet arrived at a satisfying explanation for how all that works."

"Huh. Why are we here? More to the point, why are you here; I'm here because a tear or tearlike thing put me here."

"I asked to be put somewhere with open sky that rained occasionally, since I didn't know how long it would be until the uncooperative mortal or someone else contacted me again."

"Oh, that makes sense." Pause. "It's completely harmonically blank everywhere?"

"Yes."

"Does that make sorcery as easy as it sounds?"

"Yes."

Promise giggles. "I'm still freaked out about the mind-reading thing, but that's cool."

"The uncooperative mortal with mental powers is much less unpleasant than she could be, but still not exactly pleasant."

"Do you think she'll want to read my mind?"

"I hope not. I cannot claim to predict her motives."

"I wonder if I shouldn't make it clear I'm around. Am I useful particularly to a plan of sweeping the Queenscourt?"

"If she reads my mind again she'll notice you. And I don't know how valuable you'll be in a strictly practical sense, but you might help me deal with uncooperative mortals. Dealing with uncooperative mortals is arduous."

"Sure. I'll help you with that. Although I'm not sure I'll wind up being good for very much if she can't stay out of my head."

"Let's hope she can stay out of your head, then."