"Ser Bhedlis, the determination has already been made. If she is a spy for Kelesh then she’s a spy who can conceal that fact from every divination and enchantment I cared to try on her, and if she's a spy for Kelesh who can do that you'd never have caught her in Isfahel. And at any rate," she smiles thinly, "the Shining Crusade has no quarrel with the Padishah Empire."

“The Padishah Empire seems to think otherwise, or why’d they be sending spies?”

"Perhaps for the same reasons Emperor Kydonus is." Alfirin waves Seldeg away, impatiently. "Your concerns are noted. If my apprentice should return please consult with me again before you apprehend her or interrogate her or whatever it is you're planning."

"The cheapest satisfactory options are to call a daemon to consume my soul or to arrange petrification, ideally in a demiplane where time passes slowly relative to the Material. If you prefer the latter, I was thinking I could ask Arazni for the demiplane as the favor she offered me. It'll have secondary uses. Even without time dilation, and particularly with it, by the time I'd arrive in Hell through the stone weathering I doubt anything I know would be of significance to you, but of course trapping my soul would offer more assurance, so I explored that option as well as a backup. I found a supplier in Geb and can make the purchase immediately, if we want to reveal a few of the spells, or in about a year, if we don't."

Lilia is pleased with herself. She worked very seriously on the assignment. She looked up another dozen soul-destruction options for viability, even though everyone feeds souls to daemons, in case everyone is doing that just because they've heard of everyone else doing it. If her mother isn't that attached specifically to destroying her, her mother will get a demiplane out of this. It's solid work. She would, herself, be a little sad, to kill a subordinate this useful.

" - Ah - these are the options for…causing yourself to not be conscious? This is what you want?" Bleak and depressing and - not really any more of a sign than everything else that she already knows about her future self’s parenting - but if it’s what Lilia wants out of life Alfirin feels obliged to help with it.

Lilia looks baffled and impatient. “These are the options for ensuring that your secrets do not reach Hell on a timescale relevant to your interests.”

"I...appreciate that." Or at least the thought behind it - no, maybe not. That really depends on the thought behind it.

"I suspect there are ways to - tolerably - ensure that which leave you alive. If you'd prefer that."

“There are,” she agrees immediately. “Most straightforwardly if you had memory editing, but even without your having yet invented it. It’s actually not clear to me whether my soul contract remains in force, Hell not being in possession of their half of it."

What does 'if you'd prefer that' mean. Is her mother trying to bait her into begging for her life? Why? No, take her more literally than that. Her mother suspects there are ways to protect her secrets, which leave Lilia alive, whose success depends on whether Lilia prefers to be alive -

Right. Best friends with some Good gods.

Obvious once you think about it.

The fact that Lilia had those options to hand but did not lead with them or even propose them on her own indicates... something. 

"That seems like it would be worth investigating."

That’s an order, or close enough. To pursue life, if the forces of Good can believe that Lilia truly and deeply wants it. Which they'd better, because she does. Lilia smiles at her mother. It’s terrifying. “I’ll report back.”

(They have been meeting in Mansions of Arazni's, only her version of the spell produces treehouses rather than mansions, lush and lively; they give the impression you could wander away into them forever, or at least for a week or so, though no one has ever dared to give it a serious try. After one meeting Arazni gestures for Alfirin to stay, not-urgent.)

"How are you doing?"

She is not very used to fielding personal questions these days and pauses a moment to reorient out of staff-meeting mode. And then another moment to figure out what the question's answer is.

"About as well or poorly as would be expected, given the givens." which are probably only nearly unprecedented at least in their relevant features. "I am functional and expect to remain so for the near future."

"If you would prefer we not speak of it ever again, we don't have to." 

"I don't think, now that it's been discussed once, that speaking of it more will further damage my interests. Was there something in particular you wanted to say or ask?"

“I'd meant to discuss it after the war, but have been reminded not to delay things that don't need delaying.

I met Aroden when I was about your age. Well, give or take two decades, I’d have to check my notes, but - an age mortals live to reach. He wasn’t, he was a couple thousand years old.

He was moderately reassuring, about how that turns out.”

"I know it turns out - okay - for some wizards. Mostly the ones who find some way to remain alive rather than becoming undead, it seems to be a majority of them unless you treat pre-existing personality traits as disqualifying -

I'm not going to become undead, if you were worried. Or if anyone else was. About that."

"For some reason I think it is front of mind for some people. ...I wasn't worried. At eighth circle there are a great many better options.

In fact the thing I meant to say was -

- do you need help?"

"I - 

- am surprised you're offering"

“You’re going to try it, and it’s really one of those things that goes a lot better if it goes a lot better, so to speak.”

"I...maybe need help. I did it already. It's not as - clean - as Aroden's looks from the outside, or Nex', but - I don't know if that means anything - I am worried about who I am in Lilia's time. I don't know whether that's because my method of living until then is flawed, or whether it's - related to everything else wrong in Lilia's time - or whether I just -"

"People do also change ...mundanely, because all their friends are dead, because they have no equals and don't remember when they did. That is at least as common as - something going wrong, magically...most forms of magical loss of integrity I am familiar with come with mania, obsessions, difficulty remembering or describing what you used to care about, confusion about the behavior of other people, impulsivity-”

"I have only a secondhand account of what I was - would be - like but that doesn't particularly sound like it. It also doesn't particularly sound unlike it. I formed an intention to give any future daughters of mine a message for myself and teach them Crusade history better but that obviously didn't work - I don't know whether that's because I abandoned that intention or just that time doesn't work that way - "

"I was not too worried because your daughter - while obviously a deeply concerning person - sought you out, when she found herself here, and was not afraid of you. - terrified of me, but apparently in her timeline I am Geb's lich-queen, I'd be terrified of me too."