He does not try; he discards his phone somewhere and cuts its relationship with himself. He does not return to his apartment, either—his stuff is already tucked away somewhere. He grabs a new phone and records a voice message to send to Diana: "I swear that, as far as I'm aware, I have not been followed by Conquest nor am I in any way compromised."

No need to record anything. She picks up for the unfamiliar number, and his promise is a pretty good way of not getting hung up on.

"Sadd- Sam? You're okay! Where are you? No one's heard anything since you ran; our bird's eye view lost you after the escape."

"I'm alright. Plans A and B did not work but C did, as far as that goes. I'm somewhere you don't know about, and... is it just me or is the city very cold?"

"I've seen this before. The Lord's at war, so he's blocking the exits. Making an arena. There'll be a blizzard; that's just the world noticing the roads are impassible and coming up with something that might plausibly have caused it. Last time it wasn't the middle of winter and there wasn't such an easy explanation."

"What was the explanation then?"

"Flooding and unlucky rockslides, mostly. This is...probably a less bad way of getting trapped."

"Yeah. I wonder, if we try to leave right now will the blizzard cut us off fast enough?"

"No idea. We'll see what it looks like once you're safe. There's a car on the way; just say where."

He gives the address.

By the time his allies arrive, snow is starting to fall. Just a few flakes, but Diana's guess is that the blizzard started around the outside of the city and is moving in.

"...I'm gonna make a call," he says, and does.

"I can probably get you out if that's good enough," Johannes offers once he's explained. "It's not a win but it's more of a loss for Conquest than for you."

"Can you also get my allies out?"

"If it works for you, it'll work for them.

This does risk tipping my hand, but my name and face should be fine as long as they don't know where or what to associate with it."

"Okay, thank you. When you get us out, where would we appear?"

"Hm, just outside Toronto and then I'll take you all to Jacob's Bell? A safe house in Ottawa could come in handy, but I didn't anticipate this."

"That will probably work. I'll see with my allies what they think of it."

The only allies who really want out are Diana and Doug; luckily those are the only two who need it.

Johannes asks Sadde to improvise a beacon with Bob—emphasizing a connection to the person he got it from; that's not too much of a stretch, right?—and then the three of them are in the middle of the blizzard. And then the four of them are in a windowless but comfortable-looking room, well stocked with books and glittering with magic, that could very easily be a practitioner's private library if not for the fact that nearly all the books are mundane ones.

"Pleasure to meet you," he says to Diana. "I'm Johannes Lillegard. Welcome to my demesne. Is there anything I can offer you beyond the safety?"

She declines, and is still a step too far behind to notice that he ignored Doug.

"Thank you very much for this. We should probably figure out a way to get out of your hair."

"The main question is whether you even want to go back to Toronto. Let Conquest fight a war with no one to conquer, and it'll undermine his authority there."

"And collateral damage," Doug says, to Johannes' surprise. "He has a disaster elemental, fire and lightning as destructive force, and it'll be what's looking for us."

"Yeah. I'm very okay with him getting undermined and spending power, but I'm so not okay with the collateral damage." Pause. "And I really want to overthrow him, he's a bastard who doesn't deserve to be Lord."

"Most Lords are. Does this go for the, the two of you as well?"

"Yes," Diana declares, at the same time that the crow says "she's not going back without me."

"Then what we should be doing is planning. Toppling a Lord by force is difficult, but maybe we can develop counters for whatever he has."

"He's going to be spending force on me all the time I'm not caught so there's that. Diana has astrology on our side, even if Conquest tries to destroy her light sites he's unlikely to find them all?" he says, ending that like a question and looking at Diana.

"I have whatever sites we can get to in person, since the control center's down."

"And he knows about the ones you went to while setting up the Cetus trick," Doug adds. "I have a list but it's from memory and you should check it over. And the bigger problem is, he could just call on everyone to have them help their Lord defend the city. Then we get squashed. He probably won't, because then he has to portray us as a credible threat, but he could."

"And if he does that, and we don't show up to threaten him, that'll undermine his authority," Sadde counters. "I'm reminded of a little servant of his that is none too happy to serve..."