And the guards look at each other, shrug, and give him the meds.

He gets back; Tereza takes her meds slightly grumpily and then curls up for a nap.

"I don't think our central goals for Malta have changed? We still want to close the major Mouth here, we still want to figure out the... rift... lady... moon... thing, we still want to save the kids, we just have -- a few more options for how we're going to do any of that."

"Montgomery said I should meet her in her office today when I had more of a plan, I am debating putting that off given how last night went and how little she is going to want to deal with another thing."

"You shouldn't stand her up, though."

"...yeah, that's true. Okay, so, plan, do you guys know if there's a day of the week when the warehouse is predictably emptier than usual?"

"There's not a particular day but it's less busy on the night shift, midnight to 4:30. Different note -- I'm thinking through our new options and we've gotten somewhat on the same page with Montgomery but we should probably also get close to the same page with Mariam and Joan and so on?"

"I am not sure what work you've done there already but it seems necessary if we want their help with the Mouth."

"On the one hand I'm inclined to leave it until after the Mouth is closed because it's fewer balls in the air at once and a really good proof of intentions, on the other hand -- yeah, we might want their help."

"It's only a good proof of intentions if they believe you that we did it. Probably easier to convince them if they actually see it happen?"

"I am.... concerned how Montgomery is going to react if I promise not to tell any of her competitors what she told me on pain of being extremely painfully murdered and then Savitree's team shows up."

"Which I guess means it's mainly a good idea if we can keep them from knowing about each other. I'm not sure if this is less active secret-keeping or more."

"Going back to the warehouse, are you just thinking of information-gathering or do you have a next step for that in mind?"

"I had a very tentative not-quite plan which was that Montgomery would tell everyone to clear out while she did something experimental, we would come in through the catacombs -- Montgomery's house is blocked to them but the warehouse isn't for some reason, Martin said? -- and we'd cast the spell while everyone was out."

"This will probably not survive first contact with reality because when have our plans ever, but, you know."

"It's definitely better than nothing! And if that's your thought I can definitely see why we wouldn't want to bring in Savitree's team for any of it."

"What if they notice that the warehouse is mysteriously empty, and decide that this is their moment to close the Mouth themselves?"

"Then we have a comedy of errors which is definitely super not my fault and didn't involve me telling anyone what Montgomery told me and so is less likely to get me slowly turned to dust, which is my objection to the plan where we bring the Emporium in on it."

"I think Montgomery Donovan doing something experimental is one of the worse times to rush in if you think you're working against each other but it'd depend on what they know from the outside I suppose."

"I am... honestly more concerned about Lukas. I'm not sure how specifically Lukas might fuck this up but it feels very much like he could."

"The other thing, which is making me lean towards telling the Emporium earlier rather than later which side we're on, is that last time we broke into a building with a Mouth in it we had to immediately flee the state."

"Yeah it seems pretty unlikely we'll have much opportunity for chatting when the whole cult notices the Mouth is closed."

"...If any other parts of the cult work out that a major member with lots of power is working at cross-purposes with them they will probably be a lot more concerned with fixing that than they were with a few outsiders finding one big secret and getting away."

"Sorry, I'm not sure if you're referring to Montgomery or Savitree there?"

"More immediately Montgomery, since this plan relies on her clearing out a warehouse so that we can come in and close the Mouth there."

"It just seems like 'Montgomery made everyone leave so she could do something and then when they came back the Mouth was gone' by itself could a really bad set of information for people to have."

"Yeah, I... don't have a good solution for that."

"We should probably come up with some kind of plan for getting Montgomery out before the cult finds her. With Lela, ideally, or who knows what will happen to her."

"Ugh. Is there any way to get the Emporium to cooperate with us without Montgomery turning you to dust. There's just so many things to keep track of..."

"Maybe if we ask Donovan to ask them to provide cover for us, since they do have a bit of a relationship... We are leaning very heavily on trusting that Donovan is just going to go along with all of this. I believe that you have good reasons to assume that but we haven't actually confirmed it."

"Maybe we should hash something out, run it by her and see if she'll work with it and where she thinks the major kinks are."

"...yeah that is. Probably a better idea than trying to do all the planning upfront."

"She knows the major players better too, she might have a better idea of what security we need and who we need to watch out for."