"I hadn't heard about anyone getting shot. I'm so sorry about your daughter and if her current condition is because of my teammate I would understand if you killed me. Last I heard, one of the few things we all agreed on was that we needed to help Lela."

Oswald looked okay, so it must have been Anita who was shot. Zoe wonders how bad it was. Probably very, or Anita would have still been there.

"Go."

"I'll--"

"I'll figure something to tell Peter."

"Thank you. I'm sorry."

Zoe goes.

And a little bit later, Zoe sheepishly opens the door of the hotel room.

"Zoe! You're... not kidnapped?"

"I... was. But now I'm not?

Mordred, I am dearly hoping for that explanation of why Montgomery Donovan is now our ally in destroying her life's work, because I am very confused."

"Hi Zoe, I'm glad you're alive, Tereza is with Lev.

The short version is that she is very tired and very miserable and very bad at taking actions and has stopped using Nectar and it turns out when you fuel everything you do with the spit of an evil god for ten years this makes it really hard to think straight when you stop, and so she's grabbing the only plan she has that is coming from someone who even seems like they want to help her and Lela.

I don't actually know if that makes things more confusing or less?"

"It... clarifies a bit. They threw me in a cell and in the morning she came and questioned me and I threw all my chips behind your story and she looked very tired and let me go."

"I'm lucky I happened to meet up with you before I met up with her. Sorry for getting on your case about it. I don't completely understand but she could have killed me and had every reason to and didn't, because of you. So, uh. Thanks."

"...I don't know, I feel like you had every right to get on my case about it."

"I'm still worried about you spending so much time alone with cultists, and I would really like you to keep us more updated on what you're doing! But. If you can convince them not to kill us then that's... a big deal."

"That is extremely fair of you and I'm sorry about the lack of updates, things kind of... happened fast."

"And -- I have been trying to figure out how to say this so it sounds less stupid but I'm giving up on that and saying it the stupid way -- the Emporium is also fighting the Mouth. Not in the way where I talked them into it, in the way where they were doing that before, they still think we're cultists working for Walker."

"How did you figure that out? Are you sure?"

"In the light of day this somehow sounds more implausible than it did last night. Is there some... nuance to that? Are they still cultists? Because it seems like they can't be doing the exact same thing we are if so and I'm not sure what they might be doing instead."

"I figured that out by spending enough time with Inaaya that she believed I had the general personality I in fact have and decided to try to talk me into switching from Walker's team to hers, and I'm -- about as sure as one can reasonably be?"

"They're not doing the same thing we are, they're legitimately working for Savitree and affiliated with the cult, they do take Nectar, Inaaya seemed to think LA Nectar is way worse than Malta or Bangkok on the eating your goals front but from the conversation with Montgomery I'm not convinced she's right."

"But -- she kept checking, over and over again, that I was the kind of person who wouldn't usually be working for the cult, and she was noticeably really stressed when it came up that the person I was pretending to be takes LA Nectar, and frankly if it's not true what motive is there to say that it is."

"That... does seem like it would be a really weird and confusing way to trick you into helping the cult."

"I guess the thing I'm trying to figure out is what specific thing they're fighting, why they're fighting it, which parts they're comfortable with or even in favor of, what a good outcome looks like to them."

"I mean, I can generate some ideas, being into Gol-Goroth but not the Liar, wanting the Nectar but not the nightmare god baggage, so on, but I'm just wildly guessing here and it feels like some amount of stuff hinges on the actual specifics."

"That I am also unclear on because we only had one conversation about this -- it was the night before I came back and your bed was trying to eat you -- and she didn't want to tell me specific details because she was worried I'd tell Walker about them."

"I don't mean to -- interrogate you or anything, this could genuinely be a really important development, I'm just -- I'm very confused about something major and I don't like it."

"--Why did you get kidnapped, Zoe? What did she want to know?"

"Yeah that's completely reasonable. Inaaya, at least, is fighting the Mouth because she thinks torturing people is wrong and hates that the cult makes horrible people better at their goals at the expense of innocents, but -- I don't know any of the others nearly as well, I could try to guess but they'd be guesses."

"She wanted to know why I was at the hospital and if I or my teammates were trying to kill her daughter and... stuff like that? I don't remember all of her questions. She seemed to mostly care about her daughter. She asked me a lot of questions about Mordred, I think to see if I really knew him."

"How are they fighting the Mouth? Do they know how to stop it? What does the cult think they're doing?"

"I don't know because Inaaya was worried I'd tell Walker, I don't know because Inaaya was worried I'd tell Walker, and I assume the cult thinks they're archaeologist researchers trying to learn more about how the occult works since that's how they presented themselves other than that one conversation?"

"What were we doing at the hospital? Montgomery said someone got shot? Is Anita...?"

"What name did you give Donovan for Mordred, Zoe? This is important, he's trying to balance a lot of identities here and we want him able to keep track of who knows what about him." He is serious but he's also not not joking.

And-- ah. That question. He's not joking at all anymore. "...Yeah."

"It doesn't matter I told her my real name --" and, ah. Yeah. Oswald had said last night but they hadn't... focused on it.

"Yeah, she... she got shot."