Probing, Alex?

"If I have spells ongoing which need to be recast regularly, I will do that. If they need maintenance because you dispelled them I won't."

Which means there will probably still be dominated people in Lastwall reporting to her against their will, though Cansellarion having license to try to find them all is not in fact worth one fewer allied archmage, so he won't push.

Marit's current read which he's not going to helpfully volunteer is that Alfirin is not in fact abducting and torturing anybody but absolutely refuses to admit this as relevant, or seek any kind of agreement of the sort that only exists between people who are mutually not doing any abducting and torturing. 

…that's not a surprising way for Alfirin to turn out, really.

"So I'm just an old cavalry general and I'm not always sure I'm following conversations like this, can you just confirm that I've got this right - you're offering to help us out in the war against Hell, and to stop any hypothetical abduction of our citizens that you're doing for the duration of the war, and in exchange you want us to not take the help you're offering and use it to stab you in the back."

"Approximately!"

"And that's it? You don't want to be the new Queen of Cheliax, you don't want an archduchy or a sack full of diamonds or anything? Amnesty for your past misdeeds? A free pass for future ones?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"...Pardon, do you mean to say it's ridiculous to imagine you might want any of those things or ridiculous to imagine you're not asking for them?"

"It's not ridiculous to imagine I might want some of those things, but I would not demand them as the price for working together against our common enemy. And though I'm sure you'd try to pay me in diamonds, if we came to terms on that, I can't imagine you'd agree to an amnesty for past evils when you don't even know what those past evils are."

"I think we want some lawyers," says Heliu, "To write this all up, in language we all agree on, and make sure there aren't any loopholes or tricks before we commit."

"Go ahead, having it all spelled out formally should help avoid misunderstandings. But I'm not trying to trick you here and I'll swear to it."

"You could lie."

Someone noticed. Besides Alex, that is.

"If I'm willing to break my oath, how will a contract save you?"

"We'd at least have something to point to, to outside observers -"

She gives up and rolls her eyes. "If it pleases you."

"I think the most important element is actually - if it looks to us like you are abusing this agreement to abuse our people while we are committed to not using our knowledge of you to respond, then is the agreement void? What clarification should we seek before we consider the agreement void? The lawyers cannot prevent you from breaking your word, but they can make it clear under what circumstances we'd be breaking ours, and lay out some degree of breaking-your-word where we're allowed to respond. While ensuring that this conclusion won't be arrived at accidentally if you are mostly keeping to what you've outlined here."

"Sure, get the lawyers. I assume Lastwall has some and you're not contracting out to the Abadarans, but if you are and for any required arbitration I prefer the church of Abadar outside of Osirion."

"We can do that for arbitration, yes, and have our own lawyers to draft it."

"Are we in this room the only parties to this agreement, or is there anyone else?" Cansellarion asks. "Clepati, who already knows who you are, for example, or Morgethai since a lot of the ways we'd most benefit from open cooperation involve multi-archmage operations… or anyone else who we should avoid investigating?"

"Did you have someone in mind for that last category?" Of course he does, he's thinking of Lilia. She sighs. "Look, Alex, you never would have killed me if I didn't want you to. I'm not holding a grudge. Thank you for making it quick. Leave Lilia alone, she's had a difficult time of late and you can't say she hasn't earned your forbearance."

Well.  He was hoping she wouldn't notice his suspicions. Or that they were wrong. (He doesn't trust that she isn't holding a grudge. She's no paladin. She can lie.)

"You may want to ask Marit how he manages a smidge of subtlety while remaining Lawful Good."

Marit has absolutely no context on this.  He doesn't know who Lilia is, can only guess who Alex is, and is gathering that Alex murdered Alfirin recently, which - good for him, really.

"I do not think I could have been one of Iomedae's paladins, while mortal. - I could now, but I am cheating, now."

"...Okay, let's set that matter aside for now, unless, Alexeara, you think that impacts your willingness to work with her…"

"I was willing to work with her when I was suspicious, this doesn't change that much." He's not delighted about a deal where after the war he has to pretend he doesn't know Myrabelle's alive or where to find her, but it's not like he'd know that if they hadn't been negotiating this deal.