Lela Donovan is dying.

They're doing the sort of things you should do if a person is dying, but she doesn't really seem to be responding to them. She keeps not breathing, and then having occasional gasps.

Solazzio, who left in a rush, comes back with a piece of paper.

Okay so maybe the thing to do here actually is to get the doctors to STOP doing the stuff Solazzio tells them to? Somehow?

Or disrupt the spell. Can she disrupt the spell? Zoe knows one (1) spell and it doesn't seem all that relevant here.

Dr. Solazzio double-checks the paper. If Zoe glances at it, she can see that the letters aren't in English.

And she can recognize from what Mordred's told her that the paper is written in the International Phonetic Alphabet-- like it's in a language Dr. Solazzio doesn't speak but really wants to make sure she's pronouncing right.

Okay. Okay. All I have to do is lie and sound convincing about it. I can do that, right?

Zoe shouts to the doctor. "That should be an /e/, not an /ɛ/!"

Thank god Mordred is a huge nerd and somehow any of it managed to stick????

Solazzio pauses. "Who said that?"

Well, in for a penny--

"I did, I don't mean to get in your way but my friend was teaching me that alphabet and I'm pretty sure that you're saying some of that wrong."

"You think so?"

A guard says urgently, "we can't take the risk with Lela."

"At this point I'm not sure what else to do... she has days, if not hours."

"Yeah, he was telling me that, uh, it's easy to mix up those sounds, because they're right next to each other. I remember practicing the difference."

"I don't buy this for a minute. You're a sorcerer."

"I think she used to work for Captain Walker," one of the guards contributes.

"But Captain Walker doesn't want Lela to die either," says a second guard.

"I don't think we can be sure of that," says a third.

Zoe has NO clue if this is going to make things better or worse for her. "I barely count as a sorcerer, I only know one spell! But when I was learning it my friend drilled pronunciations into me, saying things right is really important, and what you were saying didn't seem to be helping--"

"She seems pretty honest," the second guard contributes.

Solazzio sets the paper aside. "A failed spell is worse than no spell, and-- Miss Donovan will be by soon to investigate this. Take her to the warehouse."

"Miss Donovan will be by in the morning to talk to Walker's sorcerer spy."

"Fine, whatever you need, I just want to make sure that little girl makes it."

Meanwhile, when Oswald gets out of the hospital, there's Mordred, talking to Joan Kramer of the Emporium of Bangkok Antiquities.

They make deeply awkward eye contact for about half a second, don't acknowledge each other, and Oswald walks Tereza to the getaway car.

"Well, you got one of the kids."

"Still not sure why we're kidnapping people?"

"Honestly, I've been confused by every decision you guys have made since Savannah."

"Horrible medical experiments. Anita is dead."

Belatedly he realizes this is not the most sensitive approach in front of the sobbing child. He was socially competent for possibly 10 whole minutes and it's taking a lot of mental energy.

Tereza already KNEW both of those things.

She eyes Frank suspiciously. "Is he going to put things in my blood?"

"What? No."

"What is going on," Frank asks the steering wheel.

"Nobody is going to put things in your blood ever again," he says, maybe 70% sure that he can assure this. Into the car. Hugging Tereza in the back of the car. Positioning Tereza such that people cannot easily see her in the car.

"They were doing horrible medical experiments on little kids, Anita went in to rescue the kids, she got shot, one of the girls screamed and collapsed, I used my guard position to get up there, Zoe showed up and did about the same thing, I got out, now we're here. If you need a better explanation than that I'm not sure I can give one."

"Do you know why Mordred is talking to a cultist outside the hospital."

"I sort of wonder," Frank says, "what any of this has to do with the death of Mr. Winston that we are allegedly investigating."

"No! No, I don't know why Mordred is taking to a cultist! I don't know anything! No one ever tells me anything! They're just like 'Frank, we're breaking into the house of a film producer now.' 'Frank, we're going to Ethiopia now.' "Frank, we're breaking into a hospital in Malta now.'"

"We can try to explain more ahead of time if you'd like. --I'm not sure it would help. There is a lot going on and not much of it is certain or makes sense or is the kind of thing that could be predicted in advance."

Hug hug hug the traumatized child.