"Wish is - I think the only known spell, though I'd have to ask a wizard to be sure - which can teleport someone out of a forbiddance. If it couldn't - I expect they wouldn't try it. I asked if she was Good because some of the protective spells that we'd use only help Good people…I think we will not be able to protect her as well as we can you, even if she is Good. Paladins are already very resistant to magic and the same protections we have that only work on Good people work better on Paladins. I'm sorry."

Iomedae nods, tightly. There's no point getting upset with him about it. "May I tell her about this."

"Yes. Tell her not to tell anyone else, of course… And bring her with tomorrow, to the broadcast. Dismissed."

" - if the things that we did go wrong, and Cheliax kidnaps me, what should I do."

"I don't think you'll be given the opportunity to kill yourself, or Alfirin or any other people they get, but if you do get it take it. We'll try to get you back regardless, but - raising you might be the easiest way to do that. And it gets you out of their hands. We'll go to a priest of a Good god, so you know it's us."

"I could wear an explosive vest? Probably not by tomorrow. I'll ask Alfirin."

"If she can make one by then it seems like a good idea."

Iomedae does not try to find Alfirin until their workday is done, and it is totally unremarkable that she'd try to find her at that time.

"Hey, you. How are the crank-guns coming along?"

"Overheating at half the rate of fire that is supposedly obtainable. Though that's still 200 rounds a minute, so I wouldn't say they're useless in the field as is. You can take a look tomorrow, see if I'm missing something obvious. Shall we get dinner?"

"Sure." Neither of them need to eat, but Alfirin mostly appreciates this for the ability to get absorbed in work and skip lunch with no consequences. It feels weird to skip every meal just because they can. "Company mess or should we have them bring us something?"

"We should have them bring us something, I have another engineering project I maybe wanted to throw at you when we're in more private."

"Okay." They go mention it to their secretary and then head back to their suite.

And Iomedae takes a deep breath. "Apparently Cheliax is planning to try to kidnap me with a Wish during the broadcast tomorrow. Probably just as - Freedom - because I was mean to them on the radio, they probably don't know any of the rest, but -"

Alfirin throws her arms around Iomedae. "They can do that? No, it's not - it's not fair."

Iomedae bursts into tears. "It's not fair. It's really scary. I didn't know magic could - without even knowing where you are, or who you are - I wasn't even sure wishes were a real thing -"

"Is Lastwall going to - can they stop it? They're going to stop it, right?"

"They seemed to think they could probably stop it. …but also they thought that if we did have time to make an explosive vest it'd be a good idea."

"No no no no - I mean - I can do it, probably. I just -"

"I know. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I didn't - I don't think I'm sorry I said the things I said but I should've - known first what might happen - they can raise me right away, if I do die -"

"Okay. We can get you back. If anything goes wrong which it probably won't. We'll get you back. We will."

"I love you," Iomedae says, which is not a thing they've said to each other before but comes out of her mouth ahead of all the things she meant to say.

"I love you. I'm really scared. I can't - I can't lose you. I don't know what I'd do."

"You're not going to lose me. Lastwall can protect me, and worst case, I'll explode on them and Lastwall will raise me. And absolute worst case the goddess Iomedae will probably intervene, because She can't afford to have Cheliax capture me either. It's going to fail, and it's going to make Cheliax look stupid and weak, and it's going to make them actually weaker since they can't use the Wish to do anything else. …but I'm scared too. Because - because I didn't know this was possible at all, and -"

"And there could be another dozen things like it, that we don't know about yet and won't until -"