"All sorted?" she confirms, at a similar volume, before tentatively opening the door.

Dunn's creepily leaning over an unconscious guy, efficiently going through his pockets now that he's been handcuffed.

... looks like it's sorted? Mostly?

Is it a compliment to her compliance or an insult to her threat level that she never got the handcuff treatment? Not important right now.

"All sorted," he agrees. "The Captain is interviewing the man now," he says, mouth twitching at his own word choice, "so hopefully we'll know more about who he is and why he's been chasing you.

"I must say, your performance today was spectacular. I'm sure the man never realised you were onto him."

His praise earns a little smile.

"Thank you. Mostly I tried to pretend he was beneath my notice for his incompetence. Uh. Do you need... help bringing him in? Or?"

"No, it's quite alright. No need to disturb your sleep, especially when you need so much more of it than we do."

"And I do have work tomorrow," she agrees, wryly. "All right. Thank you, and good night."

"You're welcome, and thank you, as well. Have a good night, Ms. Moretti," he says, bowing with his arm across his chest and his hat in his hand, then goes to assist the Captain with the ex-stalker.

Rather unprofessional, doesn't James think?

James is sure he has no idea what that could possibly be referring to.

"You too," she says, before shutting the door and going back to bed.

The next day, she shows up to work like nothing happened.

Hey, quick question, asking for herself: does being a member of the Nightwatch, who was definitely instrumental in capturing a criminal, mean she gets to hear about interrogation results? Please? Pretty please??

Naturally.

The man was part of the Secret Order, which is a secret organisation primarily based in the Intis Republic. The Nightwatch considers capturing this guy really lucky, because they've had run-ins with the organisation in the past and never managed to get such good insight into them. Apparently, they were the ones who caused the Antigonus Family Notebook to end up in Welch McGovern's possession, and the plan had been to see if the history buffs could cough up the secrets of the book for them so they wouldn't face danger. McGovern, Bannister, and Moretti were in fact expendable pawns from the start, to be disposed of afterwards.

Of course, it went wrong when the artefact caused the three patsies to kill themselves and then vanished into thin air. Elaine was the only clue they had (according to this guy, who might not know much) about the Notebook's whereabouts, especially since her survival despite McGovern's and Bannister's suicides was mysterious and exceptional. It seems that they're kind of scrambling, too, because this plan was not necessarily approved by the higher-ups in the Order, so whoever came up with it really fucked up.

Interesting. So whatever happened to the book, it's not in their hands, either. Which is something.

"Who names their secret order 'Secret Order,' anyway?" wonders Elaine, to Neil, the one who granted her this knowledge. "What kind of fundamental lack of imagination is their order based upon, that they can't even pick a name that has any unique characteristics??"

He chuckles. "Well, this may be deliberate. A generic name, so it is harder to pin them down. They're an ancient organisation, dating back to the Fourth Epoch. We might have documents about them, here, untranslated, somewhere..."

"If they're going to go to all of the trouble of being a secret organization, they should at least have some measure of showmanship about it," sniffs Elaine. "Anyway, point me at the most likely documents, I will enact my vengeance upon them. By translating them."

"Certainly, certainly," he says, walking over to a pile of books and looking at the spines.

...then to another, and looking at its spines.

.......then another.

"Hmm...."

(She is probably going to end up reorganizing this entire work area. Just wait. She's going to do it.)

"Or I can acknowledge that the world is bigger than this one group that annoyed me in particular, and work on whatever you think would be best," she says, wryly.

"Oh, no, I am just... having some trouble finding the books.

"Perhaps you could help me reorganise this place?" he suggests, unwitting.

DID SOMEONE SAY REORGANIZE THIS PLACE?

Permission given! She's gonna reorganize the shit out of all of this!! Gonna be by language, then culture, then time period, then associated groups referenced therein - oh, oh, she should start color coding for associated groups so they can be easily found despite the organization of the place being more about the overall historical situation of the Northern Continent than anything else, because that is a priority, letting people access the knowledge in reference to hostile groups they're researching, but some of these materials reference multiple groups or groups split off, so just organizing by group isn't really feasible -

ahahahahahahahaha!!!!

Oh... goddess.

Neil might have unleashed a demon.

Does she... want help?

No, get out, this is her domain now.

She will graciously tolerate assistance in the form of offering information and context she does not have. So he can know where everything is and what exactly she's doing. But this whole place has the arrangement known as 'haphazard,' instead of intentional, and she suspects that he doesn't actually care that much about it.

He is also allowed to run, if he'd rather avoid the demon he's unleashed.

Oh, no, he'll stay. It's early in the morning, too, he can drink some coffee and watch and opine.

Okay! Works for her! She will mostly forget her coffee while on her organization rampage, but would still like a cup. It just gets drunk sort of sparingly, between other tasks, while she happens to be over near where she left her coffee cup.

Breaks? What are breaks. There is a collection of texts and writings to organize!!!!!

They're gonna be color coded~