"That's fair. In that case I am sorry that circumstances conspired to have the world overrun by the tyrant unless you spent your life fighting him, though I suppose you'd hardly be an archmage otherwise." Iomedae thinks she herself would've tried a crusade against Nidal, if there hadn't been a good one to join.

(She couldn't have asked for Arazni for that. And thus wouldn't have killed Arazni doing it.)

"And if you want to join me I really would be delighted. I enjoy your company. I just don't want to - hurt you, when I leave, and now that I say that it is very obviously a stupid thing for me to try to exercise any control over."

"I think it's going to hurt me terribly when you leave whether we spend the intervening years apart or not."

"Surely I could be so obnoxious you'll be glad to be rid of me - no, I suppose that doesn't work either because of the fashion in which you'll be rid of me. The obnoxious bits will remain. 

...I do not plan to change what I'm doing, at all, but I regret that it'll cause you pain."

"I know. You wouldn't be - " the woman I love "- you if you would."

"When I - asked you to leave - that's about my shortcomings, not yours. I was not sure of my ability to be appropriately professional; I was not in doubt of you."

"When you - what?"

"- yesterday." She supposes it was longer for Alfirin - no. Wait. That's not what Alfirin interpreted her as saying at all, is it, Alfirin interpreted her as referring to the thing they never talk about. "Sorry. I was talking about yesterday. I didn't - the first time, I didn't mean to - I don't think I asked you to leave?"

"You didn't, that's why I was confused...technically I think you didn't yesterday either - " She replays the conversation in her head " - Though, close enough I suppose. Thank you for clarifying." Alfirin is not going to say anything about Iomedae's inability to be professional; that would be unprofessional too.

"Right, then, that's everything I wanted to clear up. I do not know if there is more we should discuss."

"I'm glad.

In the future, if you have questions for me, I won't hold asking them against you. Even if they're none of your business."

It's not that she thinks Alfirin will be irritated, it's that the impulse to monitor Alfirin's life and make sure that Alfirin is safe and happy is an impulse fundamentally incompatible with the professional relationship they are maintaining. 

She doesn't say that. She bows her head slightly. "I will keep that in mind. And you know I hope that you can ask me anything, in whatever confidence you need."

"Yes, I know that." Now, when she doesn't need it.

"I suppose I should go check in on Élie, after a week with no real sleep and nobody to talk to he might be going kind of stir-crazy."

"Of course. Convey our best wishes."

- actually, wait. 

" - you've been in the Material this last day? I figured you were with him."

"...Yes? Sorry, I know it's - unstrategic - to spend a lot of time here doing things that don't have to happen here, but - I was upset. I wanted to take some time away from work. I know I should have tried to do that in the demiplane where it would've taken less time but -"

" - you hardly need to apologize to me! I - "

Nope, that's the mental motion of feeling like it's an emergency when Alfirin is in pain and alone, and that is a mental motion she needs to not make.

"I should've asked rather than assuming. I'm sorry."

"...If you...harmed me... in assuming that I was being a more responsible archmage than I actually was... then I think you are forgiven?"

Why does talking to Alfirin always make her feel like a blithering idiot. You'd think 'because Alfirin is much smarter' would be a sufficient explanation except somehow that's barely even related. 

"We are both of us in pain but I think I'm the one who was more stupid about it. Do go check on our second archmage, if he goes mad in isolation it'll be terribly inconvenient."

She nods and plane shifts away, less confused on net than she was when she came here but still somewhat confused.

Iomedae is going to get back to work. She should make an appearance on several fronts or the men will wonder if something's wrong, and then she just received a draft of some proposals for the archmages to soul-trap Tar-Baphon which seem worth reviewing and doing the math on, though the answer is likely to be 'no, these won't work'. And if one or two of them are unexpectedly promising then she can get the archmages themselves to look at them.

She sends them notice about four hours sidereal-time later that there are proposals in a state to be looked at, if they're interested.

Oh joy, proposals. They can take another hour (six minutes) to wrap up their current spellwork and plane shift over.

"Can you help me guess the odds a Dominate Monster works? There are some clever ideas here to get you each two shots at it but I don't know whether that's likely enough to work to be worth the substantial expenditure to do it."

(Élie is only slightly stir-crazy! He's been spending his time thinking about how to build a causally isolated toy model of prophecy and he's not even done telling Alfirin all the ways it doesn't work!)

"I wouldn't like my odds on general principle. I'm no enchanter." 

"That depends on how many specific preparations we can manage, his spell resistance is very strong, without prayer beads or anything else I'm... one against eight? One against ten? For getting through that and then of course he can still probably resist with his native will... With prayer beads and some other preparations that's probably... one against two? For spell resistance. And then - probably one against three again for beating his will."

"Do you know the spell that temporary enchants a weapon to weaken an enemy's spell resistance?"

"I do not. Say more?"