"The mal affinity would be really valuable on graduation day," Annette muses. "--And I think I heard something about them having two useless freshmen this year, I have no idea if that's true or not but it...might go some way towards explaining anything?"

"Has anyone seen him unambiguously casting a spell with no animals around? Or conspicuously avoiding doing that? It'd be a clue to whether he could theoretically go clean."

"Frank thinks he was casting a spell outside Frank's room."

"He was," says Frank firmly. "No idea if he had a mouse in his pocket, though."

" - we can figure out for ourselves where we each individually draw the line, when it comes to the actions of indie maleficers, the thing we need to be on the same page about is the response to there being a Shanghai maleficer," says Annaka.

"I heard the same, about the useless freshman. And - I've heard some things about the head of Shanghai that - could explain why he's willing to take out some high-variance bets for them."

Landon lets out a slow breath. "I - sorry, I'm not sure how to say this and it's less urgent than the rest but I think it's got to be said. In the 'goddamned tragedy' scenario, I...honestly don't know what we could do to, well, mitigate the long-term damage to relations between the Anglosphere and Sinosphere. And maybe that's just flat outweighed by all the other factors. But it...could be pretty bad. If they end up telling one story and we're telling another." 

"If the kid is—I hesitate to say 'innocent'—if the kid is maleficing because he grew up underinformed and doesn't know better, and Shanghai is putting their weight behind the hope that he'll turn around, and we can't convince them otherwise, I'd almost say it's worth stepping back to see what they make of him, just because it would be so ongoingly bad if we sparked a permanent Anglo-Sino enclave war by taking him out. I have younger siblings in here and more on the way, I assume many of you do too, it's awful if a loose maleficer kills them but this school has survived several of those and I'm not, actually, sure the school would survive a long-running feud between two halves of the student body that by and large can't easily talk to each other."

"Easier to survive than if one clique thinks they can murder whoever they like." Daisy, oldest survivor of that enclave that mostly died trying to take down one of their own for maleficing.

"We know how enclaves who take in maleficers turn out," says Fakir, one of the two seniors from Paris. "If nobody takes action, and the kid doesn't die, it'll be a repeat of last year, regardless of how well he means now. Not this year, and not next year, but the year after that, or the year after, when everyone's younger siblings are focusing on graduation. That's who the casualties are going to be, and there's not much question that they'll happen."

"He's not going to be much harder to kill in three weeks, though. We - I just think that if we make a decision in a hurry, here, it's - predictably going to miss some considerations." 

"If the casualties of doing nothing would be fewer, over the long run, than the casualties of a war that could spill outside the school, then we should do nothing. The only reason it might possibly be a good idea to start a war is if the alternative is having a war started anyway and we need it to be now and not later."

"I want even less for my younger siblings and cousins to spend the next four years watching their backs for attacks from Shanghai's faction on top of mals. Malificers can be dangerous but they're not a whole half of the school." 

"Even if the kid sincerely intends to quit, lots of kids never intend to start and do, when things get desperate. Someone who has done it before and knows he's good at it? Is going to stick to his determination to quit which he formed in the first place because it's oh-so-safe here?"

"And - it seems pretty bad, if the Anglo and Sino kids hate each other," Frank says. "But to be clear, I think that ship has fucking sailed. They put us in this position, however we decide to react, they're juggling live grenades over the heads of our younger brothers and sisters, and I do hate them for it, and I think I'm right to."

"It has been less than a week since Chicago," Annaka says. "For all we know, our parents are at war. If Shanghai's doing weird shit, a good theory is that they know more about what news to expect next induction than we do, and are expecting that news to spark a war inside."

"If Shanghai is stockpiling weapons to use against other wizards, then it's too late not to worry about them."

Your hardline prejudice against malificing is showing, New York. What's next after this, Pisa? A witch hunt through the rest of the enclaves for anyone who's ever drained a rat? 

"With Shanghai's support the Scholomance might stay safer than where he came from for him. He was a lone indie in South Africa.

"I still say diplomacy is the only sensible next step here." 

Fakir snorts derisively at this.

"Right, maybe we can make sure only our kids don't have to spend the next four years watching their backs for attacks from Shanghai's pet maleficer."

Great! Fantastic! This is going about as expected but that is not great. "Okay," Annaka says. "Thank you. Now you're all in the loop. The thing you can tell everyone else about this meeting, by the way, is that we think Masozi murdered Sophie and you should warn all your underclassmen away from him, action pending whether Sophie dies or not. I am not expecting that only that will leak, but I will keep track of who else is the origin of further leaks. If you want New York to be able to consider you a resource in further planning, tell me or Frank that. If you want New York to publicly complain about how you won't play ball with anyone else, tell me or Frank that. If you have some brilliant plan I haven't thought of, one it probably won't work, but two, tell me or Frank that. If you have a warm intro to some enclave that's not here, now I'm going to have to go talk with them so everyone isn't pissed with us.

If you try to do diplomacy with Shanghai unilaterally I expect it to explode spectacularly; even if you're really sure that diplomacy is the way to go here, please let's make sure it's between the people with decision power about whether there's a war, which are not you. If we look internally divided that makes a war more likely; I still think we might be able to avoid one with a show of uniform reasonable but completely firm opposition to what Shanghai's doing, and I don't think we're going to avoid one with less. 

If you learn anything about Masozi, or about what Shanghai wants, through some mechanism other than going around asking which I urge you not to do, please tell me or Frank."

Well this has all gone to hell. Damn. Time for damage control - better to be hanged for a conspirator than let these fools keep digging the hole deeper and let the whole school burn down around them - That metaphor was too mixed to make sense, but that's not important, it's not like anyone's reading his thoughts and if they are they're not judging him for the quality of his metaphors. Winston stands up and walks to the front of the room.

"Annaka? A quick word, please?"

"Yes?" She does a privacy spell.

"Are you trying to avoid a war or to win one? Because this has made both of those a lot harder."

- ouch. The real answer is "I don't know????" but she can't just say that. 

"....it depends what happened in Chicago? Or -  I'd rather avoid a war but I suspect it might already be too late for that, in which case I'd love Shanghai to put up a nice sign saying 'hey you have to fight us now or die', which they've just kind of done, so -"

"Well at least some of the next steps look the same either way. You're right to be looping in the other enclaves, just - maybe that should've happened sooner, right now this probably looks like a big American conspiracy to discredit Shanghai - Start with Seoul and Kyoto, don't try to get any commitment out of them but make sure they know what's going on and why we're all freaking out about it. Someone unilaterally killing Masozi would probably have allowed you to get either outcome before this meeting but now it wouldn't lead to a peaceful resolution... Arresting him would work better - If you want to do that you should still talk to Kyoto and Seoul first but then move to detain Masozi right after that, while you're still looping in the other enclaves."

Annaka has no idea whether this kid is any good at geopolitics. He's good at sounding like he's good at geopolitics, which is half the battle. "- I'll go talk to Seoul next, you're right," she says, because he is right, about that. "I'd have looped more people in before the meeting but - a lot of them would be delighted if New York and Shanghai wipe each other out, which seems like - not the spirit we needed while we're trying to problem-solve -"

"Not that I didn't appreciate the invitation, but this meeting was too big for problem solving. If it'd been smaller it would have been better for making plans and not having them leak, if it had been bigger it would have been better for establishing common knowledge that Shanghai is in the wrong here. This size just created confusion and limited your options and sent a message to the other enclaves that they weren't valued enough to include - I know that's not why you did it but it's how it'll be read - I'll stop taking up your time now, this meeting started a clock ticking and whatever you decide to do you'll need to act quickly. I'll be in the library making plans, send someone to get me if you need me."

" - right. Thanks."  Ugh. "Frank can you go talk with - Sao Paolo and Buenos Aires - I'm going to talk to Seoul -"

" - Kyoto too. Maybe even Beijing, but - do them last, it'll tip your hand, but having Beijing looped in privately before any public confrontation starts makes it look like this is about Shanghai's misbehaviour and not about New York trying to put down their rival." And off he goes. Hopefully they listen.