He tries to quietly get her attention through the window without actually gesturing or looking completely at her. Does she even recognize him. How good are little kids at recognizing people.

She recognizes him and her eyes are wide.

She sobs harder.

Actually he is perfectly within his rights to try to make reassuring faces at her. She is a sobbing child. If anyone asks he can tell them the plain truth, which is that there is a sobbing child in there.

Sob sob sob sob.

Oswald is not a medical expert but Lela doesn't super seem to be breathing.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Fuck!!!!!

Uh what happens to Tereza if Lela dies. Probably nothing right at this very moment he's just multitasking on possible freak outs.

Nurses are shouting at each other. IVs are going in veins. A chaplain has been called in on general principles.

What he would like is to lean on Tereza's door and then it just happens that leaning on the door handle causes the door to open and then Tereza runs out and then he can catch her, as is his duty as a guard, and then spend a while comforting her instead of returning her to the bed, as is his duty as a human being with a single ounce of compassion. He experiments with leaning on the door and/or handle in case this does anything whatsoever. The idea is that if it fails he is just looking mildly stupid in the background.

And for ONCE something goes Oswald's way.

"She died," Tereza says into Oswald's shoulder. "She said that she was going to get me and then she died."

"I know," he says into her hair, "I know," and he cannot make her any promises so instead he holds her tight and makes soothing noises and prays for an opening to get out of there.

"I don't want to be here anymore."

Zoe arrives in a hurry, doing her best to look Official and Guardly.

Zoe sees: Oswald clutching Tereza, a bunch of guards looking somewhat stressed, a bunch of VERY stressed-looking doctors and nurses standing around Lela Donovan who does not seem to be breathing.

Fuck. Okay. Zoe tries to think of what a fresh guard on the scene would do.

She turns to Oswald. "You, get that girl back to her room. We need to give the doctors space."

Zoe! Zoe is here! Zoe had better have a plan that does not involve Tereza going back in her room when Oswald just got her out, he attempts to communicate with his eyes. What little amount of plan she has at this point, anyways.

Maybe he can pretend that her room was some other room and just walk off with her. Did any of the guards see her walking out of the room he's standing right next to.

Zoe does not particularly care where Oswald takes Tereza! She doubts any of the other people here will follow him if he takes her somewhere Not Here! "Just get her out of the way!"

He promptly gets Tereza out of the way. In fact he is going to get Tereza as far out of the way as he reasonably can. If he can get down the stairwell on the strength of acting like he knows what he's doing he will. Maybe he can get all the way outside on the strength of this even.

Oswald can in fact get outside on the strength of He Looks Like He Knows What He's Doing and Everyone Else Is Running Around Like Headless Chickens.

Zoe turns to the other guards. "If any of you needs a bathroom break or a coffee, go now and be quick about it. I'm fresh and I can hold your position while you're gone. We're probably going to be here a while."

She takes up a guard position vaguely near the doctors and tries to watch what's going on with Lela.

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????