"He is not secretly part-demon to my knowledge. I sometimes suspect Galfrey deliberately only sent me people who are either of questionable character or cultists but I am known to assume ill intentions very readily. He is probably a terrible Shelynite because the Good gods are unfixably bad at conveying their priorities or because they are themselves terrible.

I am reasonably confident Nenio had her memories erased in some kind of encounter with Areshkegal which probably had other side effects but I don't have so many sixth circle wizards I can afford to be picky. The passphrase to make her amulet of natural armor strangle her is ‘rhinoceros glade silversmith'. - Sunhammer's crafting for me."

"Do you want me to do anything about that?"

If he trusts her enough it makes more sense for Sunhammer to be her Dominate than his; she was better at it nine hundred years ago and is probably better at it by a much larger margin now. If he doesn't trust her quite that much it changes the situation from ‘both of them could easily kill the other but only with great difficulty do it for good and without a lot of contingencies triggering' to one where her advantage is very large. This is also a question he pre-calculated in advance but he did so using evidence that turned out to be mistaken. "I'll think about it."

Well, that's a reasonable level of distrust for him to have, if not totally consistent with how he's reacted to other things in this conversation. "Of course."

She sighs, again. "You thought it was me, when Catherine kissed you."

Oh no, apparently they do have to talk about this instead of just meticulously never talking about this for the rest of their lives. "I had - presumed it was you all along since I saw the clone. In hindsight there were signs but they could also have been - precautions for third parties, precautions to fool me. You'd know I was watching, you'd be very careful - that was the lens through which I was seeing everything.

I -" what does he want to say here. I'm sorry for thinking it was you when the woman you're sharing a body with kissed me unexpectedly? He's not going to say that. He somewhat feels it but he's not going to say it. The thing to address about the situation is that he didn't decline her, except he can't think what he wants to say about that either. ‘I regret that it is now common knowledge that I would sleep with you if you weren't sharing a body with a random Galatian noblewoman.' He cannot say that either. 

"You are my only living friend as well," he settles on. "I've found your presence very comforting. Even if I was substantially wrong about some important facts about it."

He really is determined not to address this directly. Alfirin has played the game where she spends forty years meticulously avoiding any suggestion of intimacy with a comrade, and then centuries after their death wondering whether she should have done otherwise; She's not particularly inclined to do it again.

"Are you interested, given that Catherine is alive and sometimes conscious, assuming that she doesn't mind, which I do not know but I'm not going to ask her and risk upsetting her with it if you wouldn't be interested anyways."

"I think it probably depends on details of your situation with her which I assume you'd have volunteered if you wanted me to know. Do I want you, yes, do I want you and a prisoner, no, do I want you and an ally half-informed of the situation who won't remember anything happened - I'm going to go out for the evening and think back through six months I've been misreading and then I can get back to you about that as well as about whether you can have Sunhammer."

"That seems like the right thing to do, here. If you're confident of your control of Sunhammer I don't need or particularly want him." She stands up again and heads to the door.

He's running at least a little bit of a risk with Sunhammer. He doesn't say that. He really does need to think through all of the interactions that he processed as interactions with Alfirin and weren't. He waves her out, and puts the map of Cheliax away, and -

How do you answer a question like 'is it acceptable to sleep with your old friend who is sharing a body with your subordinate, possibly voluntarily -' 

It's not like he's built something new in the place in his heart where Iomedae and her way of seeing the world used to live merely because he's evicted her. He'll just have to get by without any kind of theory. 

"If Catherine is not inclined to spy on us, free to decide as she likes, gives her assent, and need not fear she'll end up with child, then I'm all right with it," he tells her, the next day, once they've verified they're alone.  The long list of conditions so she can convey a ‘yes' or a ‘no' without specifying which was violated. He's of course trusting her not to be lying, but - while he doesn't trust her not to be evil, he does trust her not to be stupid, and arranging to ruin their working relationship would just be stupid. "I think it's unlikely but not vanishingly so we'll have problems with Sunhammer; the demiplane fork is here."

"You really ought to be more careful about checking who you're speaking to, when we're in private. It is me, this time, but you shouldn't assume. I will tell you tomorrow, whether those conditions are met." She'd say that even if she knew all the answers now, but, in the event, she doesn't. She takes the fork. "Do you want me to take over managing Sunhammer or is this just so I have access if something goes wrong?"

"If you're willing to take it over I'd prefer you do so. Alternatively if you know any obscure curses I could be more sure of my hold. - if you're liable to leave soon I'll keep him, I'm not willing to put him to other purposes." 

He's not actually sure if that's Lastwall's rule - he didn't tell them about Sunhammer - and Mendev doesn't have a rule at all, but one has to draw the line somewhere. If he decides to give up on Lawful Good he wants it to be out of a principled conviction he should do something else and not out of disillusionment over Iomedae specifically. 

"You will only use the man to oppose his god and his god's allies, and not for anything else? An odd principle."

"He was convicted of crimes against the Crusade, the Crusade can punish him with service. He did not by committing crimes against the Crusade become my personal property."

"If someone convicted me for - various crimes - and sentenced me to permanent domination, I'd rather be their personal property if they were using me against Asmodeus than be put to use hunting down all of my great-grandchildren, or something, even if the sentencing body had a legitimate interest in hunting down my great-grandchildren."

"I won't use him for anything else, though, if that's where you've chosen to draw the line."

"The principle doesn't run through the interests of the prisoner. The legal code doesn't have any provisions for 'or a punishment mutually preferred by the judge and the convict' because the judge isn't in fact the injured body and everyone in Mendev is spectacularly corrupt and it'd make matters worse if judges can collect personal slaves by offering it as an alternative to the mines...I don't know if Mendev has mines, and the Crusade doesn't, but you take my meaning. 

I don't know how Iomedae'd do it but I'm - making a point of not trying to do everything her way, in case that's how we got into this mess in the first place." 

"Less discretion like that makes sense, if you're setting rules for other people and not just yourself."

She plane shifts. She dominates Sunhammer. She plane shifts again, this time to the gardens to have a conversation.

The next day Alfirin tells Marit that his conditions are not met. "Also, what weapon are you using these days? I might have someone to introduce you to who is a sword." It is related; she'd have avoided that introduction if she and Marit were sleeping together.

"It's funny you would say that because my current sword is, in fact, someone. Named Finnean. We're not clear on what happened. I would of course be happy to meet another sword." He's not going to give any indication of whether he's guessed which condition is unmet, and in fact he doesn't know - though he is quite interested in what the Alfirin and Catherine situation is.

"We'll have to go on a minor excursion to fetch him…next oathday, I think. He's in a secret tomb in Osirion, which I think should be no trouble for us to get through, but it only shows up one night each month. He goes by Frostbite, now."

"Would I recognize some other name he's gone by?"

"Probably not. After and before your time, not internationally famous." There's not much reason not to tell Marit, besides Alfirin's habitual reluctance to give away her secrets, or the fact that it'd be making it too easy for him, in the game they play. Which is reason enough, when there's nothing at stake.

Yeah, all right, he'll figure it out himself.