“…And it thinks I risk its privacy? I mean, empirically yes, I suppose, but I wouldn’t‘be if it hadn’t spooked me.”

"It doesn't appear to have the best judgment for such things, or at least some reason for operating on a hair trigger. Once I knew to go looking, there are rather a lot of mysterious deaths by beheading around Arendae, and more who got spooked around him like you did but reacted by getting out. It's a wonder even Mendev hasn't noticed the problem."

She hums thoughtfully.

"I expect he entered into the pact willingly - the level of empowerment doesn't make sense without it, and there are fewer limitations on what powerful entities are able to do without reprisal if they act through mortals. But there's willingness and there's willingness."

“…Yeah. What do you know about how his mother died?”

"She was killed by a Lilitu about two decades ago, along with his father, some Iomedaean preists, and a number of servants. Nobody central to the incident left a skull intact enough to interrogate, unfortunately, so I'm not sure if the Lilitu was drawn in by the deal or he made it as a result of it; it seems unlikely they were unrelated."

"I've heard rumors that the Lilitu was found suspiciously headless."

"Yes. It's not a guarentee, but it's definitely suggestive that the deal came first and the demon got too close. The bigger problem is that if it can kill a Lilitu it can probably also kill anything else I send with you, so unless you're willing to stay away from him going forward I ought to get rid of it first. Would using one of the crusade's spies to bait it interfere with what you're trying to accomplish there?"

“As in, sacrificing the life of someone who is working for the crusade? …Not if you Raise them after, I guess. Otherwise yes.”

Probably not, then. It'd be more convenient than finding a demon or cultist she can use as a patsy, but she can think of plenty of other uses for that kind of money and she'd rather put in another hour's work to avoid spending it. 

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Still. If this is going to be a pattern with your boytoys, perhaps I ought to do some preemptive spying on all your future conquests."

"Mooooooom, I haven't had any other boytoys, you can't draw a pattern from one example, that's not how science works!"

"All the more reason to proactively collect data!"

“I’m going to need to filter future conquests for being okay with being spied on or having secrets that justify doing it anyway,” she grumbles. “Maybe I’ll ask Anevia to matchmake me when Daeran and I part ways.”

"I suppose I might get somewhat less protective once you can teleport yourself to safety, but I really don't want to leave it up to luck. Or perhaps sixth circle is a better metric, with contingency? Your current  current career will should help with that eventually."

Hug. "I understand. I'm not telling you no, just--figuring out how to work with it."

She appreciates this! She would do it anyway, even if Luzai wasn't cooperative, since while there are many things she would compromise on for Luzai's happiness her safety is very emphatically not one of them - but it's good to not have to.

"If you think of a way I can make it easier on you, let me know. There are some things I won't budge about, but if there's specifics that bother you more than others I can try to work around it."

"It's not that urgent. Daeran's getting dragged along on the crusade so I imagine even if I went looking for a replacement immediately after we part ways I can put that off for a while and I don't in fact intend to look for a replacement that quickly. I specifically like him, I'm not that invested in just not being single."

That's true. No romantic dangers for Luzai other than the (admittedly fairly substantial) one she's gotten herself into already, and now that she knows what she's dealing with it's very unlikely it'll get anywhere at hurting her daughter, so she can force herself to (partially) get over her reflexive dislike for anyone that puts Luzai at risk. There's a sense in which she still doesn't think Arendae is 'good enough' for Luzai, but she at least has enough self awareness to know there probably isn't actually anyone on the planet she wouldn't think that about. Luzai likes him and he makes her happy, that'll have to suffice.

Maybe a distraction is called for. Now that she's gone over everything important and gotten the requisite teasing out of the way, how does Luzai feel about talking magic? Maybe lesser planar binding, she's had a sneaking suspicion for a while now that it's at least not theoretically impossible for it to stabilize at 4th circle. All her attempts so far have gotten is a slightly more aesthetic formulation of the standard capabilities, but she can show Luzai some of the math pages where there are some tantalizing hints about how it could work if you just threw away everything you thought you knew about magical scaffolds to invent a new spellcasting tradition and also dealt with several unsolved problems in topology.

OH FUCK YEAH

After several hours of getting deeply, passionately nerdsniped by this, Luzai comments, "It is such a shame that I haven't rescued Istraya yet, she would love this."

There's a burst of painful nostalgia, for all the times Seshka used to ask her for things just like this, but she doesn't let any of the complicated emotions show on her face as she spends a moment reminding herself it's Seshka doing it now too. It doesn't help that she can't just instantly agree, either.

She tries to avoid operating outside of the wound and abyss herself whenever possible, and kidnapping someone from a blood lord without showing up in person or leaving a trace is the kind of thing it'd be really hard for her disposable minions to pull off. She'd probably have to burn some valuable assets on it, like one of the necromancers she's been offering deniable tutoring to, or else leave herself at the vagaries of the adventuring market rates for shady requests to raid a blood lord. He'd still be alive after too, and there's no way he'll fail to figure out that his missing daughter is with his other daughter in the long run without some substantial divination protections.

"I'll give it some thought," she hedges.

(She's probably going to end up talking herself into it eventually, she's got enough self awareness to figure that one out, but hopefully after she thinks of a better way to pull it off instead of before).

She kisses her mother on the cheek. "It's not urgent," she says firmly, "unless I guess Father moves up his timetable after Villibor and I ran away. Don't fret too much."

After those first few days, she can settle into a bit of a routine. It's still warm enough that they don't really need endures, and after the first few days there's less call for her mounts specifically than while they were running everyone's horses ragged keeping cultists from getting away, so she's got some freedom for in her prep as long as she includes enough crowd control and her performance remains adequate. She does still have a watch rotation (with fiendish presence and detect magic both called for) but if she's open about the magic item crafting they can probably schedule things around that and her sleep most days, it's a rare skill.

Anevia also wants invisibility prepared most days - they've only got one other in house caster for it and a lot of the cultists in their ranks haven't gotten sufficiently paranoid yet, so she wants Luzai to be on hand to cast it in the evenings in case she needs to follow someone suspicious. (It doesn't have the duration to really do proper spy work with, but it's often plenty to get past whatever initial check they do when they meet up and then find somewhere hidden to listen in from).

And then as one of the people who helps out with demon checks for returning scouts, it won't be long before she learns there's a fight in her future. There's been a lot of patrols running up the river, clashing indecisively with demonic patrols, and the crusade's information security isn't good enough to keep all the details under wraps if you're someone they trust or own a map. Apparently the demonic disarray isn't enough that they're going to let the crusade cross the Sellen uncontested, and given how few good places there are to do it that's going to involve real combat somewhere.

It still gives Luzai warm sparkles in her chest, that Anevia trusts her even knowing what she knows. She preps every spell Anevia wants and several that other people happen to want that she has the slots free for, and makes magic items for the Crusade, and spies on the demons using her crystal ball, reports her findings, and accepts tips on how to use the ball more efficiently for espionage.