“Cauldron kind of doesn’t get to lay claim to saving the world when they created ten thousand problems and solved one. We don’t know if we would have been able to do it if they hadn’t caused the messes they had. If Gray Boy hadn’t killed heroes, if Eidolon hadn’t broken the Protectorate and Wards…”

“A discussion for another time.”

“Mm hmm. I look forward to it,” Sveta said.

Tattletale stopped in her tracks, putting out a hand to stop me.

“What’s going on?” I asked. The four of us were on the landing, nobody was on the stairs above us or below.

“Stop at the top of the stairs. Look natural,” Tattletale murmured. “We can talk, just know it’s a bit of a bear trap.”

“Bear trap?”

“There are rules and expectations. This is a floor for meetings and private conversations. You don’t come here without invitation and you need the go-ahead to cross the room, unless you’re really trusted or too big to fuck with. If you don’t meet the standards, then anyone who has a problem with you can say you were listening in, and you’re out.”

“And people have a problem with you?” I asked.

“Imagine,” Sveta murmured.

“Let up, Sveta. I get it. And yes. A problem with me and a problem with you. Bluestocking doesn’t adore you, and she didn’t warn you for a reason.”

“Okay,” I said.

Tattletale indicated with her hand, and we made our way up the last set of stairs. With the height of the ceiling in the space downstairs, the second floor was closer to being where the third floor would be in another building.

Upstairs, things were nicer. Maple planks for the floor, trimmed with what might have been walnut. The lights were dimmer, each table had a small window beside it, with lamps for illumination after hours. A bar in the corner was backlit so the light shone through the various colored bottles. Behind the bar was a man in his sixties with deep black skin and a white beard, no hair on the top of his head, but trimmed hair at the sides and back. An earring glinted in one ear.

I recognized him and I had no idea where from. I felt like he was placed into the same mental drawer as the Slaughterhouse Nine, somehow, but however much I rummaged and tried to put a mask to the face, I couldn’t.

Which was ridiculous, because he was gray-haired and gray-haired parahumans weren’t a thing.

“Who?” Sveta asked.

“Table in the corner,” Tattletale said.