…So that's a no.

That's a "Do you want to talk to me as much as you want twelve thousand absalom pounds?"

That's a no.

There's got to be something cheaper than a fifth-circle spell to let you talk. Would Enter Image not do it? 

We can talk, just - more complicatedly. There's a - thing where we both fall asleep and have a dream together, and we can talk there. Or we can talk - the normal way, with my mouth, taking turns - but it's kind of unsettling -

- And of course we have to be in private, and I'm always worrying someone's going to walk in on us. I haven't actually tried enter image with this sort of arrangement- it would be less unsettling for Catherine at least, just as alarming for anyone who walks in unexpectedly, but I think it could work - depending on the image. How's your drawing hand, Marit?

If you want a portrait of Catherine, Sosiel will serve you much better. If you want one of you as I remember you - I expect I could do a passable version. 

It would be me as you remember me - I think if it were a painting of Catherine it might drag her along. And I don't have any portraits of myself from those days. And I don't actually remember what I looked like, very well. We could also find another…face I've used, there are portraits of some of those.

I'll give it a try. …spending a fifth circle spell slot on this every day would be less costly if I could plan on some of your spells, should we be trying to think of a fiction by which you could cast them for the Crusade?

I think instead of casting telepathic bonds for us you should let me cast them, for one - The obvious one is that I can be another contracted wizard you know - I guess another elf is not going to be suspicious to most people - It was mildly suspicious to me because I expect to know of all the relevantly powerful elves, but most people aren't me - I'd be doing it under just an alter self and a nondetection for a while, but that's pretty minimal risk of exposure if we set up the story right.

You can even be the same elf I usually am, if you want, I can share the hair.

Even better. Thanks. (Not just for the hair, of course. For being the sort of person who would notice her admission of weakness and not comment on it and not use it against her.)

Of course. - I cast Nondetection from a staff, to save on the materials. We'll run it down if we're both using it but you're welcome to borrow it occasionally.

(He absolutely noted it. He's absolutely not going to ask further.)

Appreciated.

Alfirin's got a bit of healing so I don't think she needs it?

A bit of healing?

Alfirin probably did not especially want him to learn that. The implications are fairly mind-boggling. Well, archmage. (Who currently doesn't have even eighth circle spells.)

This one he can't exactly fail to acknowledge but he can fail to press. 

If Iomedae's been giving you spells this whole time I'm going to be very upset with... one of the three of us, he says. I'll pick at random which one, I'm too busy to be upset with any two.

…I've had the healing since the Crusade, she admits, I never told anyone because I prefer to be underestimated and the reasons it might seem like a good idea to share it widely don't apply. Using blood for material components I picked up… somewhere in the mid 4500s. Please keep both of those secret, obviously. She is not going to point out the reason that Iomedae couldn't give her spells even if for some reason She wanted to.

…Oh, says Catherine, I thought blood was just the component for that spell.

I confidently intend to keep your secrets, Marit confirms. And I'd be surpassing you on that world's greatest hypocrites list if I complained about people hiding important capabilities from the Crusades they serve.

“It seems kind of ….unkind,” says Seelah.

“What kind of report would you think was not unkind?”

“- well, we cleared out the whole Fane of demons, and even though everyone was injured and on edge we managed to not have a fight about it, and then you apologized to Galfrey and calmed everything down. And it just doesn’t say anything about any of that, only what people did stupidly. You’d think whoever wrote it is annoyed with all of us.”

“The report recommends I commend Catherine and Ember.”

“- all right, annoyed with all of us except Catherine and Ember.”

"I think if I'd written it I'd have said a bit more plainly that we were impaired in responding appropriately because of the surprise assassination attempt from our purported allies in the middle of the night. In fact, my supplemental is going to say that. But I do think - if you’re training a soldier to swordfight, you want to tell them what they’re doing well even if they’re getting a lot wrong, so they don’t get discouraged and give up. But if you’re trying to figure out what went wrong, among people who have enough responsibility that their mistakes are very large, then the point isn’t to cheer anyone up, it’s to make sure everyone’s clear on precisely what happened.

…also quite likely the author is annoyed with us. This was a very bad mistake that could have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.”