"I guess. Savitree is... a pretty major member of the cult, though. I guess Donovan is too but I, well, know the context, which I guess is what you just said."

"I've never actually met Savitree I just know what Inaaya believes about her -- and Inaaya spent a lot of time trying to figure out if I was -- the sort of person she could trust, she said something like -- this isn't exact words -- 'I don't think anyone could pretend to be you, I think you'd have to actually care about freedom to fake it that well, and I hoped if I trusted you the person who cared about freedom would come out even though you're working for Walker' -- and this is stupid and I've been trying to come up with a way to say it that wasn't so obviously stupid since it happened but I walked in the door and there was an immediate crisis and we've all been really busy since and, well--"

And here he cuts himself off before he can add even more em-dashes to this already unnecessarily long sentence.

He has suddenly gone from zero feelings to a whole lot and he has no idea what any of them are.

"...If you are actually right about Inaaya and Donovan and the rest of them you're going to be able to hold it over us for the rest of our lives., you know."

"Go to bed. You're not going to figure this out tonight."

"You're both going to be able to think more clearly with a night of sleep."

"....yeah. Okay. Fair." And Mordred goes to bed.

Oswald falls asleep very quickly.

Zoe, on the other hand, spends the night in a tiny, dirty cell with a cot that was NOT designed for sleeping comfort.

It does contain a helpful pamphlet about The Power of Positive Thinking.

Zoe will do her best to sleep and when that fails she will resort to reading the pamphlet.

Did you know that you will fix all your problems if you think positively about them. Then you will not have any problems anymore.

Because you are thinking positively about them, and positive things are not problems.

This is a very helpful pamphlet for people who are currently in a cell in a warehouse next to a mouth spewing Nectar, a situation you might otherwise conclude is something approximating a problem.

Thank you pamphlet for your very helpful advice. I'm sure when I am fed to the mouth it will be fine as long as I am sure to think positively about it.

The next morning:

"I so extremely do not want to deal with this right now. Please give me one reason I shouldn't drown you and feed you to the Mouth."

Oh wow now would be a great time for her to know anything about what Mordred spoke to Montgomery about last night.

If she makes it out of this she will be sure to be MORE PATIENT with Mordred. And yell less.

WELP HERE GOES NOTHING "Because I'm one of the people trying to save your daughter and close the mouth. And that spell the doctor keeps casting is just making your daughter sicker."

"Name the people you're working with."

"And please remember that I am not a patient woman and nothing would satisfy me more than your death."

...would Mordred have told her his actual name? He thought she was their ally. He won her trust somehow. Probably he told her his actual name.

"You spoke with my teammate Mordred last night at the coffeeshop. I don't know if he told you his real name but I bet he did."

"Describe his personality."

"He's a sap and I was ready to wring his neck when I saw him with you. He keeps giving people chances he shouldn't and it's already gotten him killed once. But he's a lot smarter than me, and I trust him, and he said you were an ally."

Montgomery relaxes. It looks like a load has been taken off her shoulders.

She slumps into a chair. "What on earth were you doing at the hospital?"

"Trying to find the rest of my teammates. I'm not sure why they were there, I don't remember that being in the plan, but I think they were hoping to get your daughter and Tereza away from that sketchy doctor."

"What... was the plan?"

"Just, get into your party, poke around your house, see what we could learn about the local Mouth and any weaknesses it might have. I was guarding the door, Mordred was watching from the coffeeshop, and the others went upstairs. We were never supposed to go anywhere else."

"I must say I disapprove of people poking around my house."

She doesn't sound particularly bothered by it.

"And also kidnapping my daughter."

"Well, it didn't seem like she'd been getting the best of care, where she was. And it didn't seem like anyone else was going to do anything about it.

I can't speak for why my teammates decided to try something last night in particular but I think we would all have felt pretty shit if we'd just abandoned her entirely."

Montgomery thinks that having an opinion on this would require her to take actions, and the past twelve hours have sapped her already minimal ability to take actions.

"Did one of you try to kill my daughter?"

"I would be shocked if one of us had, and would demand a really fucking good explanation, and still might not take it even if they had one."

"Someone showed up and got shot and then my daughter almost died."

"Is dying."

"Is dying more quickly than she has been dying for the past year."