Meanwhile on the Valdemar front is "Fool's Fire" by Louisa Swann. This one stars Riann, a Karsite Foreseer who fled to Valdemar in a previous story, but now has to deal with the priests sending somebody to hunt her down regardless because it's not like they ever really respected national boundaries before. That and they're just kind of vindictive like that.
On the downside, this one doesn't entirely play nice with canon. It's supposedly in the time of the Karsite demon cultists and the Valdemar anti-magic measures, but there are oddities there. The Valdemarans are aware of why they don't have magic, how the vrondi are keeping mages out, and that it does still exist elsewhere, and they really shouldn't. Stefen and the Companions made very sure of that. Plus Riann has a pet change-rat-weasel that really shouldn't exist as there shouldn't be any change circles to create one.
But on the positives, there's a theme in this story of threats being on all sides. But there's really only the one threat. Every other "threat" is only in her mind, as she's spent so long being hunted and hiding that she's got paranoia and trauma telling her that perfectly harmless things or people who want to help out are dangerous. That things are wrong somehow. And the story doesn't spell out why she feels that way, that's just up for the reader to realize.
But secondly, this story in a collection called Smoke and Mirrors actually has a professional stage magician. And Riann escapes the hunt for her by taking inspiration from the show and uses a mirror to make it look like she's trapped in a burning shed that collapses in on "her". During which she had to deal with (and make use of) a whole lot of hot smoke from said fire. Congratulations, this one actually read the assignment and provided Smoke and Mirrors!
