"Well," Montgomery says. "What do you want me to do now?"

"I guess I can. Just get someone else to make my choices for me?"

"The me of two years ago would have had such contempt for me."

"I'm so sorry," he says to Montgomery.

"....for what it's worth I think you're doing remarkably well in a terrible position and if I had lost everything I cared about I would not be nearly this good at reevaluating, and I think that the you of two years ago is just wrong. But I understand if that isn't worth much."

"I am. Tired. Of this."

She stands up. "You may visit me at my office tomorrow when you have more of a plan."

"Okay." And he leaves.

Looks around. There's a taxi down the block from the coffeeshop; he heads toward it.

Deep breath. How is this harder than talking to Montgomery was.

"Hi Zoe."

"Hi Mordred! What! Were you doing in there!"

He's not answering that until they're in private. Sorry.

"FINE," she says, and vibrates with frustration for the duration of the drive.

Once they're outside the hotel, and no longer in a small enclosed space with a stranger:

"I was talking to Donovan. --she showed up having obviously been crying, I took a chance, it worked better than I could possibly have hoped for, I am guessing things on everyone else's end went way worse but for my part we have an ally who is an extremely powerful sorcerer and can sign off on basically anything we want to do and is willing to help us close the Mouth."

"Great and I'm certain that super powerful sorcerers in charge of cults are very trustworthy if they're crying. Because no one ever lies while crying."

"You know, I am in fact aware that people sometimes lie when crying."

"Fine. You can explain to me later in more detail why you believe Montgomery Donovan is your ally in destroying her life's work after you have spoken with her once."

"I was stuck at the door of that party for HOURS fending off weird conversation from creepy cultists and bored out of my mind. I have no idea where Oswald or Anita is, there was no sign of them at the party when I finally got off shift. They are probably dead or kidnapped or fed to a mouth or something and I have no idea where to look. That is what's actually important right now."

"...........Anita wanted to grab the kids immediately, right? Have you looked at the hospital?"

"How does everyone else keep track of these things! No, I haven't, let's go to the damn hospital." And if they're at the hotel they can update Lev on their whereabouts first, and then to the hospital.

There's Frank's car!

"Are you also going to run to the hospital?"

"Why does anyone think this is a good idea?"

"Lack of any better ideas. You say that's where everyone else went?"

"Honestly because -- yeah, that, if we're at the hospital at least we have any idea what's going on."

"Anita ran in there about an hour ago to try to rescue the kids, then Oswald joined her."

"If you all die I'm going to tell the new team to make better choices."

"If that happens you will be so right to tell them that."

"If we all die that will be so incredibly fair of you and I will not blame you in the slightest," Mordred agrees, "and not even just because I'd be too dead to blame anyone for anything."

"Okay, do we want to go in the front, or try to... be sneaky somehow?"

"You should go in the front, because you have a job working as a guard and therefore have a reason to be there, and I should stay here, because everyone else who has a job working as a guard is potentially someone who has seen my face and knows I'm supposed to be dead."

"I don't exactly have a job as a guard here but fair enough."

"I will tell them... they didn't need me at the party anymore... and I was sent here where I could be more useful."

"I'd keep it low on details and just say you got suddenly reassigned, the more detail you give the more there is that someone might call you on?"

"...yeah, that makes sense."

"And -- you know, the normal stuff, be polite, act like this is normal and you're supposed to be here."