He's right, of course, but it is among the cruelest possible phrasings, and she realizes abruptly that he is afraid to lose her, and angry about the last time she gallivanted off on a desperate mission, and scared, probably, about the fact that the world is ending and they probably only have one gamble left and she's decided to make it this one. 

"I'm sorry," she says, quietly. "Find me a better shot, and I'll take it."

"Let me go with you."

"No. Most plausible ways for me to die stupidly are not aided at all by having another unarmed prisoner present, and you are not replaceable on the mission-critical getting me off the island afterwards operation."

"Fine."

"If we all die you get one hundred years of being unbearable about it in the Halls."

"You know, just because Lucian saw the Halls is no reason to be sure they really exist. Surely it is within the powers of the Seven to have fooled him."

"If there are no Halls you get to be unbearable for two hundred years. Will you take me to Driftwood and turn me in for the bounty?"

"No. Make Seena do it."

During the war no one really had the spare resources to crack down on Sourcery, but Bishop Alexandar made it a top priority when they reached a peace, and she couldn't even disagree that vehemently. No Sourcery, no Void invasion, and while that wasn't attainable - you can't stop everybody - little Sourcery means little Void invasion, which means maybe time to recover and retool and figure out how to win, which it quickly became clear meant "how to get the gods to grant the world another Divine." She spent two years on a mission to the Ancient Empire, chasing down a rumor of a lizard candidate for divinity who turned out to be dead.

Alexandar, of course, had been trying to ascend himself. She got sparser and sparser updates on how that was going. 

When she came back he'd announced that collars had been developed for blocking Sourcery and that Sourcerers would be deported to Fort Joy, where there was research in progress on a cure. She'd wanted to confront him. Matten had argued that she'd probably been gotten out of the way on purpose, that confronting him was stupid, and that she should either get over her death wish and play to win or get the rest of her people out to Palavar so that she can kill herself in whatever manner she finds most emotionally satisfying.

He won that argument.

She doesn't have a death wish, not really, just a - profound and existential uncertainty about her own judgment which makes it hard to keep taking long shots, over and over, knowing that most of them will fail and make the window of hope even narrower. It would be easier to just go out to a border fortress in an area half-overrun by Voidwoken and kill fifty of them in a day every day until one day the fortress was overrun. But there's no winning that way, just delaying the inevitable. 

The best real play she's thought of is to do what she should have done five years ago and try to take the Divine Order from Alexandar, if necessary by killing him, and then try to become Divine herself.

And for that, the first step is Fort Joy. Quite possibly the last step! But definitely the first one.

Imene isn’t an idiot, but she is also not very experienced in subterfuge. She is sure she will succeed at the part of her plan where she fights her way out. She is optimistic she will succeed at the part of her plan where she figures out what, exactly, Alexandar is up to at Fort Joy, and maybe even the part where she makes the atrocities stop by talking down the people engaged in them.

She is very worried she will fail at the part of her plan where she is undercover long enough to discover the atrocities in the first place.

It is easier than she expected. Fort Joy's now-quite-large population of displaced Sourcerers are mostly neglected to prey on one another, not actively surveilled; there are simply too many of them for this number of wardens. No one seems particularly interested in who she is, or what she wants.

There is not enough food (an atrocity, technically, but not the kind of matter she can accuse Alexandar over; everyone who she complains to about the food will instinctively see that it's a nearly impossible problem and that they'd neglect it too.) There are at least a lot of fish in the ocean around Fort Joy. She makes friends because she is good at spear-fishing and does not charge the small children for food. They flock to her and tell her rumors. That the cure is dark magic; that the cure is just an execution; that the cure doesn't exist at all and is just meant to keep them cooperative.

There were rumors on the mainland, too; she can’t take rumors to the Bishop’s seat, and in any event one of the questions she most needs to answer is whether he already knows.

Eventually the children show her to the cave where the elves hide, the prisoners of Fort Joy having segregated themselves by race and set up their own internal governments in the way that people predictably will. She proposes that the children share the fish with the elven children. She does not go in herself. The elves will be grateful to her if she gives them fish, and - subterfuge is always nearly intolerable but this in particular would be.

She spends a long time praying for the strength to go in and does not find it, which has never happened to her before.

She asks one of the children to ask around about whether the elven children need anything else, and they report back that the caves are full of vicious amphibians, and that is sufficient to find her the strength, apparently. She goes in and asks permission to hunt them. She can use amphibian parts to make arrowheads. 

"You will likely die," observes the lone elf perched on a rock by the mouth of the cave, "But if that is how you wish to go I won't stop you."

Imene is shabbily dressed and barely armored. It’s subterfuge. That’s how you do subterfuge, she’s pretty sure; less about lying to people and more about not looking like someone they’d think twice about in the first place. She probably won’t die. But it would be very stupid not to take a warning seriously just because it’s probably intended for the weak spear-fisherwoman she appears to be. “What makes them so dangerous?”

"The fire. And the lightning. And they are large enough to swallow you whole, if they cared to, but I think they are not hungry again yet after their last meal. Even when they are hungry, it's the fire and the lightning that get most people who go after them. Perhaps you'll fare better, if you're expecting it."

She will almost certainly be fine. Matten's voice (after a few years of working with someone, you hardly need them around to hear the advice they'd give you) is of course still that it's a risk for no benefit, because Fort Joy's secrets are not hidden in the caverns where frogs prey on frightened elven children.

Saving the world is very bad for people. Saving innocent people is very good for them. And ultimately she cannot imagine winning this without being someone that she herself would want to trust, and someone who does nothing but execute on their latest long shot makes few decisions that build trust, few that can be observed and judged on their own terms.

She looks down into the caverns. They're spacious; even unlit, you can tell how far they stretch on from the scent of the air and the distant sound of water. "I don't plan to get very close," she says seriously, "and I'm good with a bow. But thank you for the warning."

If she succeeds the cavern is safer and they can actually use all the space. If she fails, that's a good meal or two for the whole group. "Go ahead then. What are you called, so we'll know if someone comes looking for you?"

Oh no subterfuge. “People around here call me Spear. Because I fish with one. And because I haven’t given them another name.”

"Very well, Spear. You may call me 'Stick' if you survive the frogs. If you don't... try to crawl back this way."

She considers her for a moment and then reaches into her bag and pulls out a resurrection scroll. “I have been told I have a stubborn soul. It sticks around. If I crawl back but not quite far enough, and you manage to get me once the frogs have gone off to whatever frogs do, I’ll pay you more than the scroll’d fetch in here.”

"What reason would I have to do that, instead of keeping the scroll and whatever else you have in that bag?"

"The money's not in the bag." She shows it; a couple of healing potions, a couple of invisibility spells. "I suppose I ought to also pay you more than those are worth too, though if I'm having a bad time with your frogs I'll probably use them."

"Most of the Magisters don't take bribes, so money's only useful until Griff realizes he'll probably never be free to spend it."

"Something that painful to realize? Sounds like we have all the time in the world."

"I'll consider the option if it comes up but we'd probably rather have the scroll, for an emergency." And the meat but most humans find that disgusting and taboo, so she doesn't mention it.

How honest of her. Imene smiles slightly and then feels guilty for acting friendly; around elves it is always hard to shake the sense that anything other than wearing the truth on a brightly painted sign around her neck is betraying them all over again. Doing that would not be a reasonable risk the way that fighting the frogs arguably is.

"Keep it all the same, while I'm out hunting; it's not as if I'd rather it end up in a frog's stomach." 

And she'll head off, to try to find a good spot, and to splash some glowing pigments around until she's learned the shape of the space and assured herself she can shoot in it. 

Alaherren gives a quick whispered explanation to Amyro, who takes up her position at the cave entrance, then guides 'Spear' through the camp and past the barricade to the frog-infested back half of the cavern. She perches on the barricade when Spear is past and settles in to watch, or at least listen.