“That’s not what I’m asking,” Relay said.

Foil frowned. Her mask covered most of her face, but the shift in her lips was unmistakable.

“He wants a read on you,” I said.

Relay met my eyes without moving his head, then looked back to Foil.

“I want to help,” Foil said.

“You believe Tattletale’s information is good?”

“Yes,” Foil said.

“But you have doubts… not about the information?” Relay asked. “About your team.”

“If I was a hundred percent certain, I think that would be more concerning,” Foil said.

“If you were a hundred percent clear you were on the right side, you’d be a Fallen—” Relay retorted.

Precipice didn’t move a muscle at that, but Relay looked at him all the same.

“—but if your head is full of noise and contradiction when it comes to your team, that’s almost as bad,” Relay finished.

“I can do the most good where I am, with the Undersiders,” Foil said.

Relay, head still unmoving, looked down at his hand, where it rested on the table.

“Do we move forward on seventy percent confidence?” Relay asked, without looking up.

“Cradle is a danger and he’s done nothing to earn trust,” Cinereal said.

“He’s done nothing wrong that we can say for certain either,” Relay pointed out.

“He likes to bide his time,” Precipice said. “But there have been hints that he’s doing business. I believe it.”

“You’re biased,” Relay said.

“I definitely am,” Precipice replied.

Relay nodded at that, as if it was entirely okay now that the bias was out in front of things.

“He’s cold and focused right now. I won’t get into how I know, but I have a sense of him, like he probably has a sense of me and how I’m doing. He’s dangerous. I could see a world where he’s doing this. Using tech to torture people like that.”

I cleared my throat. I had all eyes on me.

“The activities of Cradle seem to be only half of it,” I said. “It’s a half I’d like to ask you all to please let us tackle.”

“Us being who?” Relay asked.

“What’s the other half?” Weld asked, before I had a chance to answer.

I drew in a deep breath. “The Undersiders and Breakthrough will tackle the situation with Cradle. I think we have some sense of his motivations. Love Lost too. We plan to keep them separated if we can. In exchange, we’re helping the Undersiders with a related problem. But the mercenaries are up to something else and we’d like to ask you to focus some attention on that.”

Cinereal still had that dangerous, intimidating thing going. She leaned back, looking very casual and very ominous, and she asked, “How bad is this else?”