“No recruiting happening yet, but some splintering of teams or targeting of vulnerable people,” Effervescent said.

Tattletale rolled her head back. “You’re prying. You stopped for all of five seconds and you’re prying again. As a professional pryer, I’m in actual pain here.”

“You tell me not to pry and then you tempt me with a line like that,” ‘Effy’ said.

“Do you have anyone?” I asked, aiming to interrupt. “Do you know anyone who fits this bill? It could be recent, could be just starting. New or fringe member, is my guess, but someone where there were recent revelations or some initial grumblings, or anything weird that has you or your group distancing yourself from them.”

Anelace and Effervescent exchanged looks.

“Who?” Tattletale asked.

“It’s not that cut and dry,” Anelace said.

“That’s why we’re digging into it,” Tattletale said.

“It’s why I brought Tattletale in. She can figure out what isn’t that cut and dry,” I said.

“Who?” Tattletale asked, in the next breath.

“Two of ours,” Anelace said. “Kind of ours. We were looking at recruiting, with the shift in the amount of work we’re doing and the ground we’re having to cover. We have a lot of thinkers and we got to know some others through duties like watching the portal or sitting in on diplomatic meetings.”

Right. Crystalclear had mentioned doing those duties. Keeping an eye on people coming in through the portals, keeping an eye out for stowaways, for trouble, for criminals. Many of the thinkers had worked in groups to make sure they covered enough bases. Weeding out problems before they entered the city and disappeared into the maze of lost people trying to figure out what their identity on this new world looked like.

“And you recruited two of them?” I asked.

“Ratcatcher and Big Picture,” Anelace said. “We didn’t get to the recruitment part. We had a branding department working with Ratcatcher to see if we couldn’t Foresight-up her costume, get the right design while keeping her look. Big Picture was starting to look into it, Countenance invited him on some patrols, and he went with. Getting a feel for things.”

“And it went sour,” Tattletale said. She looked more lively and interested than I’d seen her in… maybe ever.

“Yeah. Sour’s a way to put it,” Anelace said.

“Don’t get carried away,” Effervescent said. “Because I really don’t think this is a setup.”

“You don’t?” I asked.

“They confessed,” she said. “Big Picture confessed, one hundred percent, no objection, was fine with leaving. No fuzz, my read on it was clear.”

“And Ratcatcher was fuzzy,” Tattletale said. “Because…”

Anelace answered, “Because it’s Ratcatcher. I don’t know if you’ve met her, but when she’s quiet she’s like a toddler with a fork in their hand, inching toward a light socket.”