"—and Rotwood's class is like, snore, because it's just mindless memorization. I mean, you'd think it'd be interesting because it's myths and magical creatures and stuff, but it's all arbitrary things without any actual basis in fact. Like, I know that sounds insane, because magic, y'know? But he pretends it's based in fact, and one of the textbooks he's making us use is just one of his old unpublished theses, so like, yikes, right? And—"

Rose smiles and lets Arthur—or Spud, as he'd said she could call him—talk, but she keeps most of her attention on 88 and 89. If they've spotted her, they haven't given any sign of it, and she's fairly sure they would have; they aren't exactly being subtle. They've taken off their masks but have done nothing to hide their insignias, unless she counts napkins tucked into shirt collars since those at least partially obscure it.

Anyone who knows anything about the Huntsclan would notice them and know them for who they are from across the room, though. In obeying her order to remove their masks but disregarding her order to effectively hide their uniforms, they've compromised their identities. If they pledge—

Well.

They might not even get that far.

She shouldn't let them.

Besides, she doesn't think they'll start a fight with her in the middle of the restaurant even if they don't want to hear her out.

"Could you excuse me for a moment?" she says, and Spud breaks off and blinks at her. "I think I recognize those two."

"Uh, yeah, sure. But when do you think—?"

She's on her feet and halfway across the room before he can finish.

It's hardly polite, but this is important. She can apologize to Spud after if he'll hear her out, but she won't get another chance to speak with 88 and 89.

Not outside of any obviously watchful eyes, at any rate.

88 and 89 are pretending to duel with breadsticks when she slips into a seat at their table. She waits a beat, then two, and clears her throat when they don't notice her.

89 starts, and 88 drops his breadstick. "Aw, man, look what you made me—" He breaks off when he realizes who she is. Leaning forward, he whispers, "Huntsgirl?"

At least he's keeping his voice down.

They have some sense after all.

Not much, but some.

"Why didn't you meet us?" 89 asks as she opens her mouth to speak. "It's been way longer than an hour."

"It's been ages," 88 agrees immediately. "This, uh, totally isn't us abandoning the mission, though. We just needed to grab some food for, y'know, investigative purposes. Making sure no magical creatures have been in here. Or taken 99 through here. Stuff like that."

They don't know anything.

Rose isn't sure if that's a blessing or curse.

Since they think she's still Huntsgirl, they're more likely to hear her out, but clearly her orders already only carry so much weight with them. She's not sure if that's insolence or inexperience on their part, but she no longer suspects it's because they've been told anything. 18 knew more of the truth than these two do, so 23 and 42—if that had been their work in the alley—would have received similar briefings, but 88 and 89 must have been given the official story and not thought twice about it.

Were they anyone else, she would suspect them of acting unaware to try to get her to lower her guard, but she's fairly sure they're genuinely terrible actors and aren't simply phenomenal ones.

That means they're in over their heads.

They'll be sunk before they realize they should have been swimming all along.

"Forget about the mission," she says. "It's been compromised. We've been compromised. You'll be safest if you renounce the Huntsclan right now and go back to your old lives. Initiates within their first year are well within their rights to do that, and you haven't pledged."

They stare at her.

89 is the one to ask, slowly, "Is this a test? This is a test, isn't it?" To 88, in a stage whisper, "This has to be a test."

"It's not a test," she says, but 88 is already nodding sagely.

"Exactly what I would say if I were giving the test," he says, sharing a conspiratorial look with 89.

"Does this mean we pass?"

"This isn't a test," she repeats, but she isn't sure what she can say that will make them believe her. She could wipe the makeup off her face to reveal the bruising beneath, but that would lead to other questions, and chances are good not all those questions would come from these two. "There isn't any test. It's entirely too likely that we'll be hunted if we aren't already, so—"

"So we'll hunt them right back," 88 cuts in. "We're Huntsclan. That's what we do to magical creatures. It's kinda in the name."

"Being hunted by the Huntsclan," she hisses, hoping they'll take the hint and lower their voices to match hers. "Because we're compromised. Whatever you've heard about compromised agents isn't exaggerated."

Well.

It might have been.

The truth is bad enough without the exaggeration, though, and these two hardly seem to grasp what's at stake here.

If they remain convinced this is a test, they're going to ruin everything. If they realize it's not a test but think they can salvage things for themselves by turning her in, the possible consequences generally would be worse, but at least it would be a familiar worse. She'd rather the predictability of a knife to the back than the wild card these two would be if they came up with increasingly inventive ways to pass a nonexistent test.

She tries a different tack. "Look. You know how important keeping your identity a secret is. You can't go undercover if every magical creature worth their salt knows you on sight. So if you removed your masks, why didn't you at least try to hide your uniforms?"

"What do you think this is?" 88 asks, gesturing to the napkin he's wearing like a bib.

"Have you memorized where the cameras are in this area?" Rose asks flatly, and she's not surprised when they shake their heads. "Exactly."

"We kept our masks on when we were in the street," 89 assures her as if that somehow makes all this better. "We just took them off before coming in here so they didn't think we were robbing them."

Rose frowns. "Have you been here the entire time?"

"No!" 89 says quickly. "We take turns checking the meeting spot."

Rose raises an eyebrow, and 88 wilts. "They have bottomless breadsticks here. Bottomless breadsticks. It's, like, some promotional thing, meaning they won't always have bottomless breadsticks unless it goes over well, so if we hadn't come now, we might've missed it. How could we not take advantage of that? Lunch was forever ago."

This could be their last meal if they aren't careful. "The mission is over." Maybe, if she says it like that, they won't fight her. Maybe—

"So you found 99?" asks 88. "Where is he?"

"99 is no longer your concern. You're compromised, so unless you want to face those consequences, renounce the Huntsclan. Now."

"Okay," says 88, "like, I get that we haven't passed the test yet so you still need to do that, but you had to have found something if you didn't meet us till now, right?"

Rose opens her mouth, but the waitress—or possibly the owner, judging by her conversation with Jonathan?—bustles over to their table from Jonathan's, so Rose keeps her silence. Her conversation with 88 and 89 is already risky; the restaurant isn't crowded, and the faint music alone won't be enough to obscure their words. As confident as Rose is that this woman has no affiliation with the Huntsclan, making it easy for anyone to overhear their conversation is foolish.

"How are you boys doing over here?" the waitress asks, sparing Rose a curious glance before returning her attention fully to 88 and 89.

"Could we have more breadsticks?" asks 88.

"Please?" adds 89.

"I'll be right back with some," the waitress says, reaching for the basket even as 88 snags the final breadstick and takes a bite from it. The waitress doesn't blink at this and keeps a smile fixed on her face. Her mask is truly impressive; Rose imagines she can't be impressed by 88 and 89, but she doesn't let that show, not like she had when scolding her son.

Rose waits until the waitress has disappeared into the kitchen before turning back to 88 and 89. "I've got a secondary assignment, but I can still handle 99 on my own. It will go better if you two separate and keep out of sight."

89 frowns. "What secondary assignment? Besides, aren't we supposed to back you up? And learn from you when we do it? How is separating from you going to help?"

"You don't have the clearance for that." They shouldn't be surprised by that answer; it's believable enough. If she has a shred of luck left, if they noticed her talking to Spud or see her leaving with Jonathan, they'll assume that's her secondary assignment. If she's even luckier, they'll be too preoccupied with stuffing their faces with breadsticks to notice at all. "For your purposes, all you need to know is that our entire team needs to scatter if we want to survive this."

88 points the remaining stub of his breadstick at her. "Okay, so, special secret assignment aside, the second part of the test is being hunted and not getting caught?"

Well.

That's not exactly wrong.

"Not getting caught is imperative," she agrees, "just like not saying anything if you are." Then, because she doesn't think they'll listen to her if she doesn't spin it to fit their convictions, "Renouncing the Huntsclan if you're in a tight spot isn't as bad as you think it is. It's more like tapping out of the fight before anyone gets seriously hurt."

She's not sure she's convinced them and is still debating what more she can say when Jonathan appears beside her. "You about ready to go, Rosebud, or did you want to stay and eat here?"

Rosebud.

No one has ever called her Rosebud.

88 and 89 visibly startle at the nickname, their mouths dropping open as they stare at Jonathan. 88 is the first to recover, looking over at her with raised eyebrows. "Rosebud?"

She's not sure if they're surprised she trusted someone with her name or if they don't know her as anything but Huntsgirl and think Rosebud is her name. Knowing them, it might be both.

"Think about what I said, okay?" It sounds too much like a plea even to her own ears, which does nothing to help 88's blatant skepticism.

"Yeah," says 89. "Okay. We'll think about it." He smiles, but 88 just crosses his arms.

She doesn't know if she's said enough, but she gets to her feet anyway. "Good luck." She turns without looking at Jonathan and walks back towards Spud's table.

Hesitation only holds Jonathan back for a second; he catches up to her before she can make it six steps. "Good luck with what?" he hisses under his breath. "Those two are— They're like you, right? What should we do about it?"

"It's fine," she says without breaking her stride, because even if it's not, it's as fine as it's going to get if they won't listen to her. They're not the ones she was ever seriously worried about. "We can go after I talk to Spud. Arthur."

"But—" He breaks off, glancing over his shoulder before she can think to warn him against it. "What if they report in? About seeing you?"

They hadn't reported in to anyone yet or they wouldn't still be calling her Huntsgirl, so she doubts they'll start now. True, if they did, it would help their case, but it wouldn't be enough. They'll be able to save the Huntsclan time by narrowing down her location to a specific time, but Jonathan's description will only get them so far unless one of them has a better memory than she realizes. Neither of those things will negate the fact that they've been compromised, though, so if they don't renounce the Huntsclan, the best they can hope for is indefinite desk duty.

Still, she's not sure if their information will be enough for that.

"It's fine," she repeats, and it doesn't matter that he's apparently unconvinced because he's run out of time to protest for now.

At least, she doesn't expect him to continue the conversation in front of Spud, so she's not surprised when he doesn't.

"Hey, sorry about that," Rose says as she slips back into the seat at Spud's table that she'd abandoned earlier. Behind her, she hears Jonathan sigh before he walks off. "Turns out they were exactly who I thought they were, and we had some catching up to do."

Spud glances over at 88 and 89 as his mother drops off a new basket of breadsticks at their table. A mix of emotions flits over his face, too quickly for her to discern any of them with confidence, before an easy smile slips into place. It bothers her that she can't tell if that's his true expression or just a mask; she's had enough years of training that she should be better at reading someone than this, even when she doesn't know them well.

"I get it," he says, sounding as relaxed and unbothered as he looks. "You never know when you might run into old friends, you know? Or new friends. Or old friends you see a lot but you just didn't see for, like, a weekend, but you just know there was a lot going on that you'll have to catch up on. Me 'n' Trix are like that, but I'm grounded till I get my homework done, so we can't even work on it together."

"Yeah," Rose says softly, thinking of Jake. "I know exactly what you mean."

"But, uh—" Spud clears his throat. "You didn't say if it was Millard Fillmore you're going to, but if it is, you can hang with us once you start. Y'know. If you want. Obviously you don't have to but. You could. And if it's not, you can always hang with us after school. We usually go skateboarding, but I've got an old board and helmet you could borrow if you want to try it. Assuming you don't already have your own, which would be awesome, but if you don't, and you do wanna try, we could teach you. It's awesome. You get a good run going and it's just like you're flying. I mean, sometimes you're scared but it's a good scared, you know? So the offer's on the table if you want it. I mean, starting school in a new place where you don't know anyone can't be easy, and…."

Rose's heart aches because he's offering her something normal, a dream she'd given up completely. Were circumstances different, it's something she could have had. And if nothing had changed, if he'd made this same offer to her in a few months when she'd joined the school undercover as a student to investigate Rotwood's knowledge and potential leads—

She might've been able to argue that the appearance of having friends outweighed her lost training time.

It might've been something she could have had in that instance, too.

Now, she doesn't see how it's possible.

She doesn't want to tell him that, though.

"I'd love that," she says when he pauses for breath, since it's true, but she doesn't answer Spud's question about where she's going. She doesn't know where she's going. "Hopefully it works out; there are a few things on my end that are still up in the air, so it's safest if I don't make plans just yet."

"I'll give you my number," Spud says and starts to scrawl it on the corner of one of his papers before she can protest. He rips it off and slides it over to her. "Trixie's great, so she won't mind the company, honest."

Rose folds the paper and tucks it into her pocket without looking at it, already sure she won't ever have the chance to use it. "I think you'd be a good friend to have." It's not an answer, and it's not agreement, but it's the truth.

That's all she can offer him right now.

"The best!" he says, and that, if nothing else, is a real grin spreading across his face. "Trixie can back me up on this when you meet her, but I can track down the best videos on the internet. Nothing can hide from me. The gods smile on me and bestow me with gems like monkeys hiding cheese that will have you cracking up for days when you think back on it. They just keep finding more places to hide the cheese and—" He must notice her expression, which she fears has tightened into something more confused than pleasant. "You've gotta trust me on this. It's way better than it sounds."

"I'm sure it is."

He throws up his hands in exasperation, clearly not believing her placid agreement for a second. "It is! I didn't spend a whole hour perfecting and applying my own search algorithm to come up with garbage."

"An hour?" she repeats dumbly, because that's not a feat even 42 can dream of matching—not for a job well done, anyway—and she hasn't met anyone better at computers than he is. He's better at formulas than anything else, admittedly, whether he's working out a new chemical compound or building a computer program for a specific task, but— "You can't be serious."

"I know, I know," he says, giving an embarrassed shrug of his shoulders and not quite looking her in the eye. "It's way longer than I usually need. I wasn't even doing five things at once like normal."

"No, that's— That's astounding." Part of her wants to say unbelievable, except she does—inexplicably—believe him. She doesn't know enough to guess at what a reasonable time frame for such a task would be—days? Weeks? Months? Years? It would depend on the level of sophistication, surely, and the level of existing framework he was working from (surely he'd been working from something to do it so quickly?), but still. This level of technological genius….

Her eyes slip down to Spud's half-finished homework, covered in more doodles than answers, and she wonders if he sets himself seemingly impossible goals out of sheer boredom.

"You can hit me up if you ever have trouble with something like that," he offers. "Not, like, that specifically, unless it happens to be that specifically, but things like that. No promises, but challenges are fun, so I'd be up for trying."

It's such a fantastic offer that it hardly seems genuine. She'd never be able to come up with an equivalent, but it doesn't feel like he expects anything beyond friendship. The sheer kindness of that is staggering.

"I might have to take you up on that sometime," she says quietly, and he gives her a goofy grin in return.

Jonathan reappears before either of them can say anything else. "Maria says we can eat in the back room. If you'll excuse us, Arthur?"

"Uh, yeah, sure, man." Spud's smile is weaker now, but it's still there.

"It was nice meeting you," Rose says as Jonathan tugs on her arm. He's holding both his travel mug and the pizza box in his other hand, and though the latter's braced against his chest, he steers her effortlessly around the stage, skirting 88 and 89 as he pulls her into what appears to be a larger room typically reserved for private groups. She's not sure it's better than being in the open—there are mirrors on the walls and ceiling but no windows that might serve as an alternate escape route—but she can appreciate his effort.

"Away from prying eyes," he says with a smile as he sets the pizza box onto the table, but his expression looks forced. He's worried. She's only known him for a matter of hours, but she can tell that much.

"88 and 89 aren't the people I'm worried about." They can still do damage, but even injured, she's sure she could take them both in a fight. Jonathan doesn't look convinced, so she adds, "They're just initiates, and they're compromised. They'll tell the Huntsclan everything they can to save their own skin, but anything they say will have to be verified. That'll take time."

"Will it take enough?"

"I don't know." There isn't any way to know without knowing what the Huntsclan already has.

Jonathan worries his bottom lip. Then, "I'll call my sister."

"I'm sorry?"

"My sister. I'll call her. I don't know what I'll tell her, but I'll come up with something. We'll stay with her until this blows over. She…she might stop asking questions once she sees us. She always seems to know when I'm lying, so she'll know I'm trying to make the best choice I can here."

Rose immediately shakes her head, though the pounding that results reminds her that she is far from fully healed even if she is markedly better than she was. "I can't stop looking for Jake."

"My wife will keep him safe. I know she will."

As part of the magical world, Rose has no doubt that his wife knows how to fight far better than he does, but one person—two people—can only fight on multiple fronts for so long before they're overwhelmed, and once they're found, that's exactly what will happen.

It won't be enough.

In her current state, Rose won't be enough, either, but at least she'd be with Jake again.

"Are you sure there's no way to contact her?"

Jonathan shakes his head. "She doesn't have her phone with her, and I can't send messages the way the rest of her family does."

Rose frowns, wondering what he means before dismissing it as unimportant. If it's a method only available to magical creatures, it won't be open to her, either. "Surely she left you something to use in case of an emergency?" He would have had no reason to tell her before, but maybe now, if he's considering revealing more of his family to her anyway—

His right hand reaches up to brush his left breast pocket, but in the end, all he says is, "No."

It doesn't matter if it's a lie or not since Rose, for all her pretending, isn't in a position to force him into doing what she wants.

She doesn't want to, either.

She wants to be the person he thinks her to be, not the one she was trained to be.

She's no longer Huntsgirl. She's not 93, either. Despite bearing the Mark of the Huntsclan, she's not part of the Huntsclan anymore.

She's only Rose.

"I'm defecting from the Huntsclan," she says, her voice the barest whisper. The words come more easily than she expects. "They aren't my family anymore, I don't belong to them, and I'm not going to help them. I just want to help my friend, and I can't do that if you don't help me."

Jonathan quirks his lips at her in something that's too sad to be a proper smile. "I know. I want to help, too, but sometimes helping is surviving now to fight later." He pushes the pizza box towards her. "Get started on this. I need to call Patchouli."