"Nnnnot exactly. They need a Mindhealer to 'confirm something', it's very urgent, I should bring you in on it but avoid telling anyone else including any of the other Heralds, and can I find a pretext to be in either Waymee or Havenbeck today or tomorrow that doesn't make it obvious it has any connection to Vanyel going north." 

"All right, hmm. He's - really worried about operational security, that would make sense if he thinks Leareth has a way of spying on the Heralds, he's probably less likely to have arranged a way to spy on your office. And they're asking for you, and not any other backup, they're - not mostly expecting a fight - 

- oh! That would be...I think they did it! I think they rescued the priest! Stef, what did you doooooooo I want to knooooooow... All right, I assume either Leareth did something horrible to him and they need a Mindhealer because he's really not okay, or - maybe they're worried Leareth did a compulsion sort of thing to him but with Mindhealing so Vanyel couldn't detect it? Is that a thing?"

"I mean. I couldn't do that! ...To be clear, I could do a set-command but you really would not need a Mindhealer to confirm that, and the letter is definitely saying they need to confirm something, not fix something. If they're worried Leareth did something to compromise him that they can't detect at all by reading his mind and need a Mindhealer to notice at all, well, I'm kind of suspicious of the whole thing where people seem determined to believe Leareth can do something because it's generally believed to be impossible.

...Though I suppose maybe they want confirmation because they did notice something might be off. In which case it would definitely be good to either fix it or reassure them they can stop panicking about it." 

"That would fit with them not wanting to just come back to Haven, too, if they're worried he could be dangerous because Leareth got to him." 

Jisa is biting her tongue on the words 'I think there's an argument I should go.'

There totally is! She's looked at Select Blai with Mindhealing Sight before; she'll be able to see any changes at a glance. She can defend herself; she can probably take Need, who's with Shavri right now but was weirdly restless all morning. It'll actually be less obvious to spies in Haven that she's gone anywhere, since she's been "off sick" from her work at Mindhealers' so she can do secret Gates instead. 

She's never been to Waymeet or Havenbeck, but she does have the trick of Gating off someone's memory of a location - it's not even that hard, as weird ways of doing Gates go - and Sarissa from White Winds just rotated back from Waymeet and probably has a nice fresh memory of somewhere shielded she can Gate in, so she could go right now rather than wait for the next scheduled Gate and try to come up with an unsuspicious pretext. It wouldn't even stand out given all the Gate-activity there's already been today. 

On the other hand, she is lifebonded to the heir. 

On the other other hand, she really doesn't think Vanyel would have felt comfortable asking Melody to put herself in this situation if he thought there was significant danger. 

Also Melody is going to be beleaguered about it and Jisa waaaaaaaaants to go

Enara is worried but not actually arguing against the plan. 

...Yeah, all right, she's going to make her case. 

Melody feels like she shouldn't let Jisa win this argument, but - she doesn't actually want to go north, and Jisa is honestly better at winning arguments than she is. 

"Treven is going to be furious with me if something happens to you and he finds out I knew, you know." 

"I'm going to tell him I'm doing something that I think could help us not lose the war and I don't think he should know the details yet." 'Not lose' includes not fighting it, but Treven is too panicked to be reasonable about that still being among their options, and even Jisa has to admit it looks a lot less likely after this morning. 

Also, she's going to be a coward and tell him by leaving a note, but if she says that to Melody then Melody will give her that look again. 

She hesitates. "....Um, if I don't come back and don't send any messages and you're - not sure if something happened to me - I think you should tell Brightstar. Stef said we especially shouldn't tell Heralds, but he's not one, and - he knows ways of finding me and checking if I'm all right." 

Brightstar was kind of alarming last time Melody briefly interacted with him, and she's not sure if Jisa is just too close to him to see that, but Melody nods and only looks a little dubious. 

Asking for Need back is a perfectly normal and expected thing to do and does not arouse anyone's suspicion, and Need is unsurprisingly fully on board with the plan, even though the person being rescued from danger is a man.

It's almost too easy to leave some breadcrumbs so that the White Winds mages think she's helping Savil with something and Savil thinks she's with Treven and Treven thinks she's gone to check on Mindhealers' and also she's mentioned to at least six people that she's probably going to go to bed early, and there's enough happening at once that it should take really quite a long time before anyone notices she's not in any of the places where they think she could be. Rolan is almost certainly way too busy to notice that Enara isn't in Haven. And hopefully this is straightforward and she's back by morning if not earlier. 

It's only midafternoon when she leaves, though midafternoon just after Midwinter still means sunset is in less than a candlemark. 

Stef has still been waiting for over two candlemarks, hiding outside town without even having a weather-barrier because Vanyel is twenty miles away, and he's by now pretty miserable about this situation, and trying to figure out which of his life choices he should be regretting, because it seems like 'going with Vanyel' should never be one of them but if he had stayed in Haven he could be warm right now. 

Hunt hunt hunt for his mind, he didn't say anything about where to meet but hopefully he's findable around here somewhere... 

:Stef? You called for a Mindhealer?:

Stef nearly falls off Yfandes' back, not that this takes much.

:Jisa? What are you doing here?: 

:Look, I'm deciding not to be hurt that you didn't ask for me in the first place, but really! I can defend myself if something goes wrong and also I was pretty sure you wanted me to look at Blai and I've read him with Mindhealing Sight before, Melody's never even met him.: 

He didn't say anything in the letter about it being Blai. 

:You rescued him, right? I'm not going to demand the whole story from you right now but only because I should really check if he's all right first. What are you worried about?: 

Being a Thoughtsenser who can sense anyone coming and knowing White Winds illusion-techniques that barely leak any mage-energy makes it very easy to get to the edge of town without being seen and head in Stef's direction. She walks separately from Enara, because a spy watching with Farsight probably can't tell Companions apart that well and she's not dressed as a Herald or making it easy for anyone to see her face. 

:We, er, didn't exactly rescue him.: That WOULD be a much cooler story, though Stef cannot imagine how Jisa thought they could possibly have pulled it off. :Leareth...apparently decided to let him go.: 

:What, really? That's - good, right - 

- all right I can imagine what you might be worried about -: 

:Van says he seems normal now. For him, I mean. But there was definitely a Mindhealer involved, he was set-commanded and they blocked his magic - they undid all of that before letting him go, but he doesn't know what else they did.: 

:...Okay. So that, uh, probably means Leareth knows that we're here?: Fortunately she has the hood of her cloak - not Whites, she's dressed like one of the Rethwellani mages - pulled over her head, and doesn't think anyone saw her anyway. :Though - if he gave Blai back then it seems less likely he's planning to attack you? He didn't have to do that.: 

:Van's been thinking himself in circles trying to figure out how it could be a trap. ...I think it's more likely not to be, at this point, Leareth wouldn't have to bother with something this convoluted. And the plan can't have been to get you out here and vulnerable because we didn't even ask for you.: 

:I was careful about leaving, he shouldn't know I'm here. ...I guess if I do see Mindhealing-compulsions on him then it's probably a trap and I should get out. But I can check from far enough away that he doesn't know I'm there, I've been practicing with my Sight and Enara can boost me.: 

All right. It's this way. They can get there in another candlemark because apparently Companions were holding out on them about how fast it's possible to run through a snowy forest. 

She's in Thoughtsensing range well before she's in range for Mindhealing Sight, and will take the opportunity to start zeroing in on Blai's mind and see if she can notice anything weird from here. 

He's much different to read when he is playing chess, even just against himself (Feniss didn't seem interested or possibly didn't know the rules, and he can't actually talk to her). Pawn takes knight, queen takes pawn, if the rook moves to threaten the queen then that pawn is able to advance but probably the other knight can grab it before it promotes,

...Huh. That's definitely different but it would be a baffling choice for Leareth to have used Mindhealing to make him do that! Unless the idea is to make it hard to mindread him about his actual motives, but - plausibly he's just doing this because they've been sitting there waiting with nothing else to do for four or five candlemarks. 

She slows down once they're close enough that Blai could conceivably hear any noise they make, and then dismounts a hundred yards off and advances on foot. She could see a set-command at fifty yards, she thinks, but they're pretty sure it's not that, so she'll need to get closer to see more detail. 

Forty yards...thirty...there's his weird garden with its lovely trellis, has anyone been interfering with it? 

Some things have been pulling on it but it's not the kind of trellis that takes damage just from being yanked on or it couldn't hold up all those vines! The trellis thrives on being yanked some occasionally. How else would you know it was sound.