"They don't travel along roads, and they're fast," she says. "The paths aren't warded, they just usually don't have to worry about an ambush - they're not on a predictable schedule and it's genuinely very rare for a food claim on a fairy to get anywhere - half the reason he wanted me is that leaflets get strong food claims on our trees - and they're forbidden to break under torture."

"But mortal food claims are something else entirely, we should probably assume he'll have strengthened his security there."

"Right. So they may be in pairs or with escorts, or armored, or traveling invisibly, or under heavy ward, and probably moving less often."

"Of these, armoured and under heavy ward are the biggest problems. Armour... I'm pretty sure we can deal with that, I think I've made it pretty clear that mortals are much better at destruction than varies in general, but wards are more your area of expertise than mine."

"There aren't any flawless wards, you can batter any of them down, but it'll give them a chance to react."

"But I mean, what sorts of wards could there be, what kind of battering would we need, etc. A special bullet could cut through armour easily, I'm not as sure about wards."

"I don't know what bullets can or can't do. By default the factor is time and not force, though."

"Bullets can be made to go through almost arbitrary materials, depending on thickness, can be made to explode on impact, that sort of thing. But basically what I want to know is: I set up a trap that detects invisible fairies and shoots them with something to vassalise them. How does the ward make that go wrong? And I realise there are many possible wards, but if there are general kinds and stuff..."

"The thing you shot at them bounces off and they know something shot them and can destroy it."

"Would anything bounce off? Including, say, a bit of metal yea small travelling over four hundred metres per second?"

"...I don't know, we don't have those, but it might well."

"Okay... How would we deal with that? Tech doesn't have solutions for sorcery, and I'm only nineteen and have only been doing magic since I was four. Properly, since I was five."

"I don't know how to break a ward either, he never deployed me for combat applications or infiltration or anything. It will disintegrate under enough - friction, is the usual term - so if you wore away at it with something they wouldn't notice somehow... anything stronger than a rainstorm will do it eventually."

"But if they're travelling from court to court under wards we wouldn't necessarily have that time, and trying and failing to disable them would show our hand. Are wards detectable?"

"Not directly. They affect how you have to fly - or do anything else - but if they're invisible then we can't look and see."

"Affect how you have to fly? How's that?"

"You have to try to be more - compact, if you spread out it interferes."

"...okay, so there's some way to at least have a hunch that something's up. Friction, though, do you mean like physical friction?"

"Not literally, but that'll do it too."

"That gives me some hope about bullets, then, though I might have to get creative about causing lots of friction on someone... If there's something we won't have it's time."

"I can do wards well enough for proof of concept, although mine won't be as good as once cast by a better sorcerer and he has those."

"Oh, good, that's much better than wild guessing. I take it the difference's only in how much 'friction' would be necessary to destroy them?"

"And whether there's a built in alarm or anything, I can't do those."

"...hm. Would this alarm be of the sort that makes sounds or that quietly lets Thorn or whoever know that the ward's been breached no matter the distance?"

"I'm not aware of alarms that work at the distance they'd have to if we get someone midway between courts. The Queen might have someone who can do that but I don't think Thorn does."