"I've heard most of it before, yes. I guess most people trying the lecturing don't know that. I may have some disagreements about what is - desirable, for the world - but it does not seem to me that debating that is among our most pressing concerns. Those disagreements aren't what anyone's planning to destroy me over."

Well that sounds like they've entered dangerous territory. "If there's anyone planning to destroy you presently I would expect they're either an idiot or an Asmodean," he says.

"I am sure She is planning to wait until I no longer serve Her interests but Iomedae was pretty clear about considering me at least an eventual enemy if I don't shape up."

"Well, if She's either an idiot or an Asmodean I think She's most likely not an Asmodean," he says, consideringly. 

"I did say She's not planning anything presently... It is possible though unlikely that She is instead spectacularly bad at communication."

"No, I'm sure She meant it. It'd be - indecent to accept your help were you wrongly assured we won't ever be enemies. Only I'm sitting here and it doesn't cost entire planets for me to spend an hour rather than a moment speaking with you and so it's terribly tempting to just go 'okay, but that's stupid, how about instead we're not enemies?'

And - she had that inclination too, right, which -"

"I was surprised she bothered to say anything - I might want to not be enemies, some day, but it does not seem like a reasonable thing to prioritize now."

"Well, it seems possible She disagrees about that, but if so she did not clarify to me why she thinks it's a reasonable thing for you to prioritize now and I don't actually have any guesses, from what I know it looks like we should all prioritize bleeding Asmodeus dry and surviving what He rains down on us in so doing."

"On that we're agreed. I don't think she meant for me to prioritize being less personally evil over poking Asmodeus in the eye, I am not at all worried about my safety from Her in the short term."

He nods. "Do you want me present while you do diplomacy with Lastwall, or should I stay in my library correcting someone's imaginative fantasies about how we won at Renchurch without an archmage?"

"I would hope I don't need you for diplomacy with Lastwall."

"Oh, I'm sure you don't need me, which is why I didn't ask that."

"I'd appreciate your presence."

He unfurls himself fully from the library table and follows her.

Lastwall is apprehensive about their diplomatic meeting with the adult Alfirin who is a probably-evil archmage, probably essential to the war effort, and probably Iomedae's notable mistake that got edited out of the history books. Also quite possibly a lich. Marit thought it was moderately unlikely that she was here to assassinate them all, but that if she was she'd probably succeed.

Cansellarion is additionally apprehensive. Mysterious evil archmage, around but operating secretly since the Shining Crusade, who the Goddess says is allied with them in this war but not in all of their concerns - the obvious thing to do is to look back through the history books and try to guess who she might have surfaced as, and the blindingly obvious candidate is Myrabelle. He can't imagine, if so, that she's not holding a grudge.

Alfirin is apprehensive about the meeting with Lastwall's leadership. She hasn't openly met with people - besides Lilia -  who know she's an evil archmage in decades, and she has to assume, having summoned Marit about it, that they know a great deal more than that. And she's going to have to keep a good working relationship with them for the remainder of this war because, while she'd love to be surprised, she really doesn't expect Asmodeus to stop at 'Arazni and a Duke of Hell'. She's also apprehensive about Cansellarion, who almost certainly suspects her prior identity now that she's acting openly.

"Alright," she says when she sees that everyone is assembled, "As I see it, there are a couple ways we could do this. I could keep spying on you, and on Cheliax, and intervening without warning you where I think I can do this without tipping my hand or putting myself at risk, and you can be constantly looking over your shoulders wondering if I'm lurking there, or we can do something less stupid than that. My price is my privacy. I want you to not dig into my affairs, to let me move on after the war without being monitored more than you'd monitor someone you don't know to be an archmage. If I use some secret magic I know to help you, I don't want you turning around and planning how to counter it if we come into conflict in the future. I don't want you telling other people about me. I want to not be worse-off for having revealed myself to you." Nevermind that she only did it thoughtlessly and accidentally.

This is sort of classically the kind of deal you are supposed to be able to make and hold to if you are Lastwall and only if you are Lastwall, the point of Lastwall being structured the way it is. It's complicated in practice, obviously. If you see someone running around leveraging holes in your security - if subordinates who don't have the whole picture see that - it takes a lot of skill to be attentive to how you had that information and not patch them. Iomedae did it routinely and warned that most people couldn't do it routinely. But they can do it for this. Probably.

...With an evil archmage you also of course have to worry that this is cover for an agreement which is wildly restrictive of them under circumstances she intends to bring about. It's not immediately obvious how it's that, but it's probably that. That worry is what you bring in lawyers for, though, and write something very very careful.

What an Iomedaen evil archmage. Probably she wouldn't appreciate being told that.

Well, at least it's better than Razmir.

"To get a better sense of your request," Cansellarion asks, "Are you intending to operate against us during the course of this war? I think it might be difficult for us to pretend we didn't notice, if during the course of this war we find you - abducting Lastwall's citizens and torturing them, or something -"

She doesn't roll her eyes because that would be rude, and she's trying to be diplomatic. It's not that ridiculous a question to ask if they don't know very much about her, except insofar as someone in her position less inclined toward sincere cooperation against their common enemies could just lie.

"While we are openly allied I will not start new operations or plots aimed at harming Lastwall's direct interests. To the extent feasible I will abort or pause any ongoing operations and plots aimed at harming Lastwall's direct interests. I will not use resources you have provided me with in order to do things I believe that you would disapprove of unrelated to this war. If I am engaged in activities unrelated to this war which I believe you would disapprove of, or if I start any such activities, I will attempt to deprioritize them to the same extent that I would if I were not allied with you. I am not as good at that as Iomedae was. I will not start any new espionage targeted at Lastwall or at the Glorious Reclamation. If I have any existing information-gathering operations targeted at Lastwall or the Glorious Reclamation I will not actively advance them, though I also will not order them stopped; if I have any such operations which report back to me regularly I will keep taking reports. Is that satisfactory?"

What an Iomedaen evil archmage.

"It sounds," Cansellarion says carefully, "like you intend not to start new operations targeting Lastwall's people and institutions, and like you don't intend to wind down ones that are ongoing without requiring maintenance. What about ongoing ones that require some maintenance - re-casting spells..." like dominate person, perhaps?