Until that last statement, she'd successfully distracted herself from the question of what she even is anymore.  But now, her mind's racing again down uncomfortable directions.

In a new universe where the 'physical laws' are just special-cases of magic...  If she was confident it's the same magic she's used to, she'd be wondering if she was now just a Fay-golem.  No, that's not quite the same thing; she'd be a Fay-golem without physical instantiation which has never happened - well, not that she knows of since the Days of Wonder -

"...Do I have a way to tell if you're...using the native magic?  You already did that."

"I haven't the slightest clue how to differentiate the cases of 'you are in the same wider multiverse as you were' versus 'this is actually a different...whatever...', though - but there's ...enough plot you've clearly run into just by having your life that I know wouldn't have counterfactually shown up in mine, to lead me to think that wherever you're from is genuinely somehow out of bounds - and I wouldn't subject anybody to a lost Age trope if I could fucking help it, personally speaking -

"Which is to say that, to borrow something from a friend of mine - you're in your own story, and it wasn't supposed to run into mine.  But I do agree in wanting to make the best of it!  And on trading magic tips.  I'm tooting my own horn a bit, but I think I can probably come up with something that'll help inside your native magic paradigm.  Assuming we can get you home."

Somehow, whether or not she might be a Fay-golem, it feels comforting and homelike to hear that the same magic she was casting is the same magic Alicia is talking about.

But trying to parse the rest of what Alicia was saying just throws up so many more questions.

"... what are those bounds my world is out of?  Is it something about - the Days of Wonder - but you say it happens often enough, across different worlds or something, to be a trope?

"And of course I wouldn't start a Last Elven War either, but -

"- Oh, if it happens that often, do you know how it started?  Not even Queen Elethy knows!  Nobody and nothing survived to say how!"

"Across works of fiction I've read, more like.  Because, and this is going to sound insane but the most unfailingly reasonable and competent person I know here believes me, I'm technically supposed to be in one."

"So...Sorry.  I can't tell you why your war started.  It isn't in this plot to begin with and that's where my information ends.  ...Probably for reasons that weren't worth the cost, I'm sorry to say, just because that's true of most wars - but...I'd need to get a much closer look and for the tools I'd lean on to work there.  I suppose I could try, but Void divination is all about confirmation bias.  ...If we had - "

She emits a frustrated swear.  "Ciara is going to be so disappointed in me for not getting her in here sooner.  One moment, if you don't mind -"

There is but a moment, and then there is -

A woman who stalks into the room like all the imperiousness that Alicia has discarded was carefully gathered up in her wake and assembled into armor.

"Alicia.  Why did the conversation you are having get this far without my presence?  Yes, this is unexpected, but the unexpected, especially such as this, means you need support more."

"...Well.  She started talking about magic and I got distracted?"

"...Yes, I can see how that would have happened.  Would our guest care to introduce herself?  Otherwise," she adds, with an almost conspiratorial air, "it will likely be months before her highness realizes she forgot to ask."

"It would be hard to think of anything that was worth the cost of the Last Elven War.

"But if you're saying we're both supposed to be in a piece of fiction -"

She cuts herself off when Ciara enters.  She doesn't want to get existential in front of a strange... Queen?  Tutor?

Aeslin curtseys quickly when Ciara asks her to introduce herself.

"Aeslin Sellon -" She quickly realizes Ciara hasn't introduced herself yet, and follows up with an awkward "ma'am.  Intendant-General of the Royal Research Mages of Suinel, by Her Majesty Queen Elethy.  And... well, several other things too."  She laughs a hollow chuckle, eliding both her honorary degrees, her ambassador's commission, and her brevet military rank for the war.

"I'm afraid I wasn't intending to be here - it was a magical accident, at least on my end though it seems to have been one here too?  I'm happy to be here - I couldn't have asked for better company than Her Highness - but I'm afraid I don't know where I am."

That last one is rather more the case than she's saying at the moment.

Well.  This is a decidedly...Interesting...twist of fate that rightly should not have been, by all their knowledge.  But Alicia has already been flapping butterflies' wings...  Even if this is meddling, they'll make it work for them.

"It is a pleasure to have you here, regardless of the circumstances; someone who can keep up with her Highness when she starts in on magic talk is a blessing.  I can't, not beyond, mm, practical applications.  And in the spirit of introductions given, I shall give one in return - you may know me as Ciara Beraen; I manage the royal household for their Majesties, King-Regnant Ambrose Laertes Vaudelle and his consort Queen Jethelia.  Among other things."

"...She's the very reasonable and competent person I mentioned earlier."

Ah, Ciara's the chamberlain, or something close to it - maybe the same role as Tilda at home.  "I'm glad to meet you, Ciara!  And I'd love to hear about those practical applications sometime, too.  They're actually one of the main focuses of the Research Mages - or at least they were before the current, er, unsettled times and now the war."

"I'm sorry you haven't found anyone who can keep up with you yet!" she says to Alicia.  "I don't know what I would've done without first Svarendar, and then Elethy!  They never had time to work with me as much as I wanted - but it meant so much to know they could.  And that they had things to teach me, too."

And then she turns back to Ciara.  "- but, er, Alicia was saying you both agreed we were supposed to be in a piece of fiction?  Which, when I think about it, rhymes weirdly with how she says the physical laws are all just special-cases of magic... That isn't the case where I was from, at least as far as we know or guess.  But magic is the only way I can think of someone could create a universe I could be inside and still maybe be a 'me' thinking about this..."

"...I see.  We shall have to review operational security again, your highness, if you're spilling this many things that should be secret - yes, the circumstances are extenuating, but really.  You know better."

"...Still, if you know that much - ah, how do you prefer to be styled? - then it will not further harm to confirm that I do believe that this universe was created according to a narrative, given certain evidence.  I sha'n't be disclosing the details of why, at this time."

Alicia tries to open her mouth, after that statement.  She meets Ciara's expectant and disapproving gaze first, however, and whatever she was about to say remains, instead, unsaid.

"It is not that we believe you are a danger.  It is that we would both, surely, prefer to not put our guests in danger, and if you are likely to be here for a while - which you will likely be, or at least in our company at the Academy if external consultation is necessary - knowing the wrong things could unfortunately leave you there."

"Ah, just call me Aeslin.  My official style at home is 'Lady' - it's the same as half the nobles - but I don't care in private."

"And why is being in a story secret?  Or is that something else you're not going to disclose?"

"That's not a secret so much as something that no-one will believe you about, because the story everyone else who knows, knows, is 'I had a vision'.  Which is, conveniently, not properly falsifiable and not even really wrong besides - I did, in some senses, have a vision of a future.  It's just the rest of it that I'm...not mentioning."

"Well, that makes sense... I wouldn't think I'd believe you, except that I've got another world to compare against and yours does look much more like something that could be spun up as a story.  If you told me my own world was a story, I'd ask how that could possibly be.  But when you told me that about this world - I thought it made sense."

"But... if we're in a story... how could I get out of it?  Not that I hate being in it - at least not right now - but - do you really think I can get home again?"

"Infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters will produce everything as a story somewhere, in an infinite multiverse."

"As for how to get you home...

"I'm not sure.

"I wish I was more sure, but there's so much I don't know about what happened that I'm not really even able to pull something out of my - ahem."

And if Alicia doesn't have three ideas of how to throw magic at it at the drop of a hat, then it's pretty serious.