Yeah. That sounds -- very much like what Anemone would say.

Mordred feels vaguely like he should be crying, or about to be, but in fact he's not, like it hasn't really set in, or like the part of him that runs emotions has been hollowed out.

Zoe remembers the tarot reading Anemone did for her. About making the choice to keep going, through hardship, and finding strength, and staying connected to people.

Magnificence can pat the other sad human too? They are all SO sad.

There are a lot of words happening. He can't quite tell what's being said what with how he's crying and Lev who is saying them is also crying but he can feel the rhythm of them, the point of it, and it's very -- not comforting, exactly. It's very Anemone.

"I brought her notes. Because what she wants us to do is-- put this thing to sleep."

"Yeah. Yeah, she would want us to go on, and finish it."

"We can get them out with the other notes, and the, the photos -- god, the photos seemed so important 20 minutes ago, I'm not even sure they tell us all that much--"

Finally her dedicated training has paid off.

Zoe hiccups a bit at how Anemone doesn't get to see Magnificence's photos. She would have been so proud.

She would have been happy with the results of the dinner, too, probably. Mordred was looking forward to telling her. And. Well.

Zoe wonders how the hell she is going to tell Magnificence so that he is actually able to understand. She's not sure whether it's worse for him to think Anemone's abandoned him, or for him to really understand she's gone.

A few hours of crying later, the investigators meet up to take a look at what they've found.

"So it seems like there are something like rooms under the Obelisk of Axum, which I think was in doubt? Rooms which Magnificence was able to access. Araari, can you read this--" he shows her the cartouche in the unknown language.

Zoe peers at the cartouche as well. It is totally unfamiliar to her.

It says, “By the hand of Royal Ezana, open not this cursed/doomed tunnel/worm-work.”

"...So is worm-work just the standard word for all kinds of tunnels or is that an unusual way of putting that would you say."

"I am more concerned about the fact that it informs us not to open it; I suspect the archaeologists would not listen even if they can read it."

"Isn't it already open? Or is there some further thing beyond where Magnificence took the picture?"

"Speaking of archaeologists and their relations to ancient evils," he says to Mordred, "I was focused on not saying much of anything last night so I missed some of what was going on on your end but are we in fact passing ourselves off as employees of Samson Trammel now?"

"Wha-"

"We are doing that yes. Or we are doing that for as long as we reasonably can, there is nothing actually preventing them from asking the cult in Los Angeles if James White and Michael Taylor and Mary Bell exist, but apparently Savitree and Trammel have never gotten along so hopefully it'll be a while before they do that. Also, apparently Trammel is dead."

"...Of what. Also if he's dead how are we working for him."

Of the news of death she has received today, this one is much more welcome than the last.

"Cancer according to Louise but I'm not sure how much I believe it, and they're under the impression that he hired us and now we're working for Captain Walker."

If the cultists are being given a fake cause of death this throws the whole claim into question. He is so suspicious of the concept that Samson might actually be dead.

"To be fair I have no reason to think he wasn't hiding cancer? It just seems suspiciously convenient and it's not like we can check and I am suspicious of any information that came from Mariam, or at least any information that came from her before she decided to tell me that she knew we were cultists and we should share information since we work for the same god. They know we're lying about being academics so we can drop that, I haven't given them any information they didn't already have because I wanted to check in with everyone first but if we're going to keep the lie alive we will have to at least look like we're helping."

"What does helping look like." She is not particularly interested in even appearing to help the cult.