"All of you forget, we are not in Taldor but on the Shining Crusade, and the law of the land here is - well, mostly still Taldor's, though the Abadarans convinced me to use them for arbitration in a bunch of capacities where Taldor uses common law, and I rewrote every single bylaw that saw fit to use the word 'treason' because they meant eight different things by it. - all eight of them things Marit's guilty of, probably, lucky for him I rewrote those."

"You say "the law of the land," but we're in an extradimensional space, which, if I recall my history correctly, at least makes the jurisdiction ambiguous." 

"An extradimensional space produced by - Oh Tanat's not from Taldor, is she. Well, yes, that does complicate matters then."

"Where is she from? I meant to ask, the food – well, it's delicious, but I've never seen anything like it before in my life." 

"Oh, this is what they eat in Galt in our poor, benighted age. You'll have to do your own mansion to show us future Galt's food, I suppose.

Tanat is sworn to the cause of the Shining Crusade, and extradimensional spaces created by her in the course of crusade operations are subject to the courts appointed by, and to the ultimate authority of, the Knight-Commander. ...now Alfirin's extradimensional spaces are a problem."

"Of course, under Sarkorian law Marit is guilty of far worse crimes than mere assault."

Marit raises his hands defensively. "I'm not a wizard! The sword just has a mind of its own. Nothing to be done about a sword with a mind of its own."

"I think that might actually also be illegal."

Élie knows very little about Sarkoris because in his day it's a gaping rift in the fabric of reality. 

"But can it really be said that the laws or Sarkoris or anywhere else apply to archmages?"

Iomedae sets her hand on the scabbard of her sword and makes it glow. "This is the law of this land and I'd say it applies to archmages about half the time. More if they're evil."

"Is that, 'it applies to half of all archmages' or 'for any given archmage, it applies half the time'?"

"For any given archmage, it applies half the time, or twice in the time it takes them to cast a spell."

"Oh dear. And, ah, what exactly does the law of the land say we should do?"

- Alfirin's very very slightly bothered by that joke, why. 

'half the time, more if they're evil'.

She hadn't - meant it to be a joke with an edge, actually - she'd been referencing Tar-Baphon -

"The law of the land says that we should have a toast to Elie!"

"Wait until I've done something to earn it!" 

"Fabricate!! You genius idiot!"

"Oh, well, that was years ago, and I absolutely don't accept honors for groundbreaking magical discoveries more than three weeks old."

"Technically, the discovery was only years ago for you, for the rest of us it's still centuries out. I believe that makes it much less than three weeks old, no? To Élie!"

"To Élie!"

Crusade leadership staggers their sleep, and the non-spellcasters can stay awake with Keep Watch for a full week, and some people (well, Marit) never tell anyone else their sleep schedule at all, so when the meal has concluded no one heads up to any of the mansion's sumptuous bedrooms. Instead they head back to work, though Arnisant does lament the lack of time to take a hot bath first. 

"Thank you for joining us for dinner, Élie. We'll have to do it again sometime. And probably debate theocracies more, that seems important to get to the bottom of. It'd be pretty surprising if I got my state right on the first try."

On the one hand: getting to tell Iomedae herself exactly what he thinks of the government of Lastwall. 

On the other: risking his chance to save the trillions of souls in Hell another millenium of torment. 

This is one of those situations where he's going to have to be circumspect, isn't it? Damn it. 

"I would like that very much. Governments are rather a hobby of mine."

"I can't say the same. I've never met one that didn't madden me."

"Oh, neither have I, but I cherish the hope that in, oh, my grandchildren's lifetimes, some of them will madden me less."