“Now who’s wasting time? It’s possible she’s gone, but it’s also possible it means she’s taking breaks, going on errands, or it means Teacher might be anticipating having to replace her.”

“You grinned like the cat with the canary when you heard it,” I pointed out.

“Yes. But getting into why has to wait until we can be more sure we aren’t being observed. What happened back there, that was another push.”

“Push? The way you said that tells me you aren’t thinking of Midas pushing this guy down the stairs,” I said. I looked down at the Old Man.

“It was another nudge, to drive in a wedge, to screw things up. Subtle and deniable.”

“Midas was?”

“Bluntforce was. The guy with the knob obsession.”

Nubby, the guy who’d had the spiked armor, except all the spikes were rounded off. “They sent him a message and…?”

“And knew with pressure that Midas, who was only barely on our side, would feel the need to reclaim his authority. Because Midas knows how fragile his hold is, and Midas has always been one of the voices advocating for violence. If it weren’t for that push from Bluntforce, our man of gold would have played along.”

“You’re sure about this?” I asked.

“Pretty sure. The parts I’m not sure about are the parts that you’d probably consider minor. They’re on our trail, nipping at our heels. Just in case you were wondering.”

“This is going to be a thing when we get to Engel and her group?”

“If it is, that’s fine. As I see it, the goal has shifted. We know seventy-five percent of what’s up. We have a pretty good idea about who, when, where, how much and how broad, we can guess about the how and why. Right now, we’re looking for two things.”

“A way to stop it, deny him what he wants,” I said.

“Well, in a manner of speaking. I would say we need to find a chink in the armor. That’s one thing. The other thing we want is standing. Authority.”

“This isn’t because you lost a lot of yours when you lost New Brockton?” Sveta asked. “Or because of what Midas said about you having lost it all? Because I can’t help but notice the first thing you did after hearing that—”

“Sveta,” I said.

“—was talk to your team. Sorry. I’m done.”

“You see what I have to put up with, Snuff?”

“No comment. I don’t want to get in the middle of this.”

“I’m paying you.”

“That you are.”

Tattletale turned around. Sveta moved her head closer to mine to make the face-to-face interaction easier.