Eventually she lets go.

"I'll let you know when I'm gonna get Sovi. Though I might end up holding down the group size, if she wants to get a friend out or something and we'd have a capacity issue."

"Yeah, that makes sense. I think Mahdi was planning to work on teleport capacity but I don't know how much there is to gain there."

"For all I know she has a boy she likes and a friend and a favorite slave. It's been a while. She's friendly."

"At some point you don't need a higher caster level for teleport, you need a bigger bag of holding."

"Maybe we should have Fazil on hand at this end in case somebody suffocates in there."

"I'm sure he'd be happy to, but we should try to not need him. I thought I was going to suffocate in a bag once and it was no fun."

"Yeah. I don't even really expect her to want to grab anyone, it just occurred to me, we haven't been in contact."

Nod. 

"G'night."

And she goes off to her own room.

Belmarniss spends the next several weeks assisting her parents with a move into a rental house and acclimation to a) life and limb b) the Material Plane c) the surface and d) Sothis specifically, and, when they don't require her, selling spells in considerable quantity. She has Hagan's money for him by the time her mother says they're ready to have Sovi extracted.

"Ideally we'd scry her first," she tells Mahdi, "I know you're about to groan at me, but I can't even tell you what schedule she's sleeping on, let alone when she'll be unsupervised."

"Yeah, all right," he sighs, and tries to scry her.

Sovi is... somewhere dark. Belmarniss peers at her. "Alive, awake," she reports. "In a crowded place, but she might be out of there in a minute, she's walking - down a side tunnel, now there's just a couple people around."

"Ready?"

"As I'll ever be." She holds out her hand.

And he aims for the scried location.

"Sovi -"

There's a shriek from down the hall and Belmarniss tells the shrieker "Shut up and I won't dissolve your face" and he stops shrieking and instead cringes.

Sovi says, "Niss?"

"Yeah. You need to pack anything?"

"- uh -"

"I recommend the answer be no."

"No."

"Cool. Let's get out of here."

"Who's this guy, your -"

"He's our ride." Sovi huffs and holds out her hand.

And he Teleports them back.

"Ow fuck ow," says Sovi, clapping her hands over her eyes.

"Penumbra - do you not have that -" says Belmarniss.

"I don't and anyhow you didn't warn me!"

"Sorry. I'll think through my next kidnapping better."

Sovi rubs her eyes and squints. "I have Drench and Mage Hand and that's it, I never got farther than that."

"Huh."

"So where are we?"

"Osirion. Sothis."

"Wow. Why?"

"I've been based here for a while. Are you going to thank Mahdi?"

This had not occurred to Sovi. "Uh, thanks."

"Any time! For five hundred gold, a thousand for a round trip." But he smiles at Belmarniss. "I'll let you two get caught up?"

"Yeah. Thanks so much."

"Why can't you teleport?" Sovi asks.

"Why can't you cast Penumbra?"

"Oh, come on."

"I got Rynaeri and Chal."

"Aw, does that mean I don't get to follow you around on your adventures?"

"Even if I didn't have them I would not have you follow me around on my adventures while you know Drench and Mage Hand, I'd just set you up with - I don't know, fire response night shift? And maybe cover your rent for a while."

"I don't have Chimney."

"This is the surface, anything that's on fire long enough has a chimney."

"Oh. Yeah, that's a good idea then!"

They walk to Rynaeri and Chal's place.