"Well, yes, presumably one of you would do it while invisible. And we still need to figure out how exactly we'll capture our first vassal and how that'll fail and so on so forth so we can know where to put that gate anyway."

Nod.

"I'm thinking we might nab one of the lower-ranked fairies when they're not around powerful sorcerers, as a first step in the ladder."

"Dangerous. They can leak as much as anyone can and don't gain us as much."

"But on the other hand more powerful sorcerers are more likely to give us trouble... Well, I suppose you can order them well enough."

"I can maybe order them well enough. They've all had my same 'education'."

"...right. Do you know how the internal dynamics of his courts work? You mentioned ranks aren't set in stone and stuff, there might be some sweet spot of rank and accessibility, someone who's high enough to give us access to a place where we can trap Thorn but low enough that we'll be able to properly capture them if we need to."

"Nothing comes to mind. Like - anyone could be sent to the torturers if Thorn didn't want to attend to them personally, but the torturers don't get to go around ordering anyone around and it would be obvious if one were wandering outside their rooms, and they know some names but other people are just ordered to obey them. They're hard to rank; they have a fair number of names but few privileges in using them."

"How much freedom of his court did you have when under him?"

"Depended on what he was trying to get me broken in. At most I'd be allowed to go to the court library and study, or do sorcery he wanted done."

"But you didn't get to see the social dynamics? Who came and who went, how often, who did what, should I stop asking questions?"

"I heard things. I saw some things. I was his project, he didn't keep me in a cupboard. But I don't know as much as a more cooperative vassal would have picked up."

"Okay, so, what can you tell me about power and stuff in there? How many people would usually stay around the court, how many were permanent—do people travel often between courts? That would maybe be a prime situation to capture someone."

"There's regular messengers, delivering things and information. You could get one of those, maybe, they travel alone... They're not good sources of names but they can move around pretty freely."

"They travel alone?"

"Yes. I mean, maybe not right now, if Thorn's being paranoid about you based on your mother's information."

"I... don't know if my mother would necessarily presume I'd try to capture a messenger, but having messengers go here and there all on their lonesome by default... Are the paths between his courts warded? Because even if he sends more fairies it's probably possible to overwhelm them there."

"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..."