"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."

"Okay. So. Prototype plan: she tells the guards to leave, we cast the spell, we leave through the tunnels, if she wants to vanish from Malta before the political shitshow hits then's the time, we expect she knows more about what kind of security we'll need and who or what to watch out for and we tell her so?"

"Are we still aiming for dead of night, is it's better for her to schedule it up front so it seems routine or to spring it on them so they can't plan for it, are we relying on ourselves for security, does she trust her guards for that, can we instead for lookout get the Emporium on board and her on board with the Emporium which is a whole subset of things, we need to find a good exit from the catacombs where we can stick the plane but that's less of a question and more of a mapping exercise..."

"If we're bolting after we want everyone and everything that isn't involved in the ritual on the plane beforehand."

"And... what do we do if the ritual fails?"

"You said you found a suicide note, right?"

"Yeah."

"Does anyone else know about the... rift... lady... moon... thing? Especially anyone who knows Montgomery and might find it weird if she's doing things at the same time?"

"We have no idea who does or doesn't know about the rift lady moon thing.

And -- so last night Montgomery specifically said that the ritual shouldn't fail, but if it did we have the rituals of self-denial as a backup. I don't know she meant herself but given the existence of a suicide note I am making an educated guess."

"...If we do this we're not going to get a chance to deal with the moon maw opening afterwards, are we. So either we wait until after whatever's going to happen with that has happened or we leave Malta without figuring out what's happened to Portia."

"I don't think we can delay closing the Mouth for something we barely know anything about. We can maybe wait past the next new moon."

"We don't actually have any reason to believe it's going to happen on the next new moon, or in any sort of timely manner at all, we thought it was going to happen on the last new moon and then it super didn't. --we could probably ask Montgomery and the Emporium about it, I bet they'd know more than we do."

"That's what I'm saying, we can maybe wait until the next new moon but we can't afford to wait indefinitely. --I think the Emporium is the next thing we need to discuss, it's the major part of the plan that we haven't discussed how to pull off."

"And then I think go to Donovan with this and ask her about security concerns and if she'd be willing to work with the Emporium on keeping people out."

"Yeah. As for the Emporium -- they don't know Zoe exists, they know you as that guy Anchisa likes, and they know me as Inaaya's weirdly sincere and bizarrely friendly boyfriend; I think I should invite them to some reasonably neutral location and then hand them the instructions to cast out the black pharaoh and offer whatever proof they need that we mean what we're saying. This plan is kind of stupid but I think any plan is going to be kind of stupid."

"And then if Montgomery agrees we can ask them to make sure people stay out and if she doesn't then she knows more than us about security. I think that's... all we're going to get before going to her."

Mordred presses his hands against his eyes. "Right. Cool. So... I'm going to go write to Donovan and tell her we'll get back to her in a couple days, and then I'm going to write to Mariam and invite the Emporium to, uh, a park or something tomorrow. Sound good?"

"As good as it's going to be."

"If the Emporium doesn't know I exist, should we keep it that way, or are you planning to introduce me?"

"I was thinking we'd introduce you? We could also not if you'd rather they not know you exist but it seems simpler to be lying as little as possible."

"It feels like it keeps some kind of option open if they don't know about me? But I don't know that we need it and lying as little as possible definitely does seem simpler."

"Anything else we need to figure out before we leave or are we good?"

"We're good, I think."