“Yes, my friend?” Mister Sun said.
“I’m sorry to bother you at this hour, Mister Sun,” said the voice on the other side of the door. It was a man, but that was about all Cass could tell. “But we’re looking for someone.”
“And someone you’ve found. Well done.”
“Is there anyone else here with you tonight, sir?”
Cass immediately started thinking through the options. There was a back entrance that led out to the alley behind the tea house, but surely they’d be covering that. She knew there were rooms upstairs, but she’d never been up there. No way to know what their escape options would be from that direction. Most likely, nothing subtle.
“Yes,” Mister Sun answered.
“Could you identify them for us?”
“I’m always at your service, my friend.”
There was a long pause, until it was clear that was all Mister Sun intended to say. “Who else is in there, Mister Sun?” the voice asked, sounding irritated.
“My associate Mister Painter and I were just enjoying a drink together.”
“I’d like to verify that, if you don’t mind.”
Mister Sun stepped back from the door, but didn’t open it further. Cass ducked back behind the wall. A chair scraped the floor in the main room. Painter standing, maybe.
And then…
“Alright, just had to make sure. We had a request come down the chain to check in on him. Sorry for the interruption.”
“Glad to be of service, my friend. Good night. Stay safe.”
“You too, Mister Sun. Night.”
Cass heard the door slide shut again, but didn’t move until Mister Sun poked his head into the back room.
“Strange,” he said. “It was the guard.”
“Because of befff-fore,” Painter said from the other room. “The one in th… the alley. Said she’d come by. I f-f-forgot.”
“Right. It’s alright, Painter.” Cass chided herself for having forgotten it too. It wasn’t exactly a minor detail. “Thanks yet again, Mister Sun.”
They returned to the main room and took their seats again. Painter retrieved his mug from the floor and promptly filled it almost to the brim with the cloudy milky-white liquid from the bottle. Cass poured tea from the pot into both her and Wren’s mugs.
“If you have all you need,” Mister Sun said, “I will retire to my room.”
“Actually, Mister Sun,” Cass replied, “why don’t you pull up a chair?”
Painter was starting to feel quite a bit more relaxed and just a little pleasantly warm. It’d been, what, an hour, an hour and a half maybe? Whatever it was, they’d spent about two and a half mug’s worth, anyway, bringing Mister Sun up to speed and discussing their options. Or rather, Cass and Wren had done so. Painter had mostly been drinking and listening. Talking wasn’t really his thing, and he wasn’t sure he had much to offer anyway. Everything still seemed so surreal and horrible. He didn’t even want to think about it. But there really wasn’t anything else he could think about. He truly hadn’t meant to kill those men. It’d just been so easy. So terribly, terribly easy.
“I don’t know what else to do,” Cass said. Painter realized he’d tuned out and had no idea how much of the conversation he’d missed.
“What about Able?” Wren asked. Cass shook her head and bit her lower lip. There was something really attractive about the way she did that. It wasn’t the first time Painter had noticed it, but it seemed like maybe it was the first time he had noticed that he’d noticed. Or maybe he’d had more to drink than he’d thought. Or maybe both.
“Too risky,” she said. “If they really do have a trace on, we don’t know who else might be running it. Unless you think you could slip it?”
Wren considered it, but then shook his head. “I don’t think so, Mama. I don’t know what to look for. And what if looking for it is the thing that sets it off?”
Cass sipped her tea and shook her head slightly. “And there’s no telling what their backup plan is if that alarm gets raised.”
“It might be raised already,” Mister Sun said. He seemed more serious than usual. And he wasn’t calling them all my friend, which somehow seemed odd. “They might already be looking for you.”
“True,” Cass said. “I really don’t see any other way. I’ll just have to risk it.”
“Mama, I don’t want you to go,” Wren said. He looked really tired. And with good reason. It was after midnight.
“I know, baby, but I don’t think we have any other options. Once I get outside the wall, I should be able to find at least one of them pretty quickly. If not Able, maybe Swoop or Gamble.”