As winter ends, Ivar is helping Section Monkey test arcanological restraints in between language lessons. On his way out from a session of that, he runs into Malagi Choman, the giant Havonian warrior from section Wolf. A giant, Havonian killer who seems just a little elvish to Ivar's trained senses.
After letting Jotol know, they arrange for Malagi to test the restraints as well, and then test some good old heavy iron shackles "for comparison". Thus restrained, Malagi is detained and placed in a cell. He is confused at being fingered as a half-elf and basically cooperative. Maybe he was cursed by the last elf he killed (a winter hunting expedition a month before)?
Section Unicorn is called in and sent to the Fortress to get "the special prisoner" to verify Ivar's diagnosis. This turns out to be an elf, kept shacked in a dark hole in the most secure part of the fortress. They move him into a covered wagon inside a carriage-way and bring him to Group 23, where he is again moved without seeing the sun. There they make him verify the elfiness of a collection of people, including Lucia (who didn't go along, instead scrying unsuccessfully on what might have changed Ivar), Jotol, and some others. He picks Ivar out as the only elfy one, oozing contempt for everyone the whole time. Mission accomplished, he is returned to his hole.
Ivar is now detached to talk to Malagi warrior-to-warrior and prevent him from killing himself so that Group 23 can have proper revenge on whoever did this to him. The others search his flat with the assistance of a weasely man from section Wolf, finding little of interest other than a bottle of the Duke of Generaux's finest wine - a wine so good that only a few cases are made in a year. It turns out that section Wolf was sent to teach him a lesson, which they did (along with his entire house, burned to the ground, his family, guards, and so on). In the process they looted two bottles of this year's bottling of this fine wine.
Malagi took one and drank from it after killing an elf over the winter. The other is still with the weasely man, who reluctantly hands it over. A quick sniff reveals a strange, minty oder to the wine, and some testing with Section Monkey and some scratch goblins reveals that the wine does turn goblins in to more elfy goblins. So does the minty potion recovered from Darjapor last summer.
"They can give you a stick to bite down on." - Sasha helping Gaius through his trauma on watching goblins consume one of the finest wines known to man.
This provokes a bit of a panic. Favors are called in and some bottles from previous vintages are brought from the Emperor's cellar and tested. Earlier years do not seem to be tainted, and the difference in smell is obvious (so the Emperor's tasters are briefed).
Section Unicorn is dispatched to Pennisia to find out what happened to the rest of this year's vintage... possibly in the courts of kings across the continent!