And here's someone from New York who looks EVEN MORE TIRED. "Hey! Urgent problem, can we talk quickly? - I'm Annaka. New York."

"Yes," she says, "of course," what on earth is the urgent problem that leaves a New Yorker that visibly stressed, "I'm Hitomi Inoue, come in." 

"Thank you. I'll try to keep it quick.

So, on Thursday, a freshman with a bit of a maleficer vibe followed our freshmen down to the senior dorms and got into a fairly bizarre confrontation with them. We started keeping an eye on him, and warned him to stay away from our freshmen; Friday morning he jogged over to the homeroom of one of them to swap into shop with them - Monday morning. Our freshmen are taking Monday morning shop, it's a long story. Johannesburg slot, so we reached out to them, and he got it because the day he showed up in Johannesburg an extremely suspicious mal accident killed one of their soon-to-be-inductees. Reached out to more people, learned that his affinity seems to be mal control, so that makes the Johannesburg incident look even shadier. And then someone who went on a supply run with him noticed that a girl who'd also been on that run hadn't been seen since. I send someone to go break down her door, someone to go bring the maleficer in, and I find him at Shanghai's table. 

Is it true that - Lan Xichen's been putting about that he adopted the kid?"

"...not an adoption, no, but Shanghai is considering picking him up as an ally, they're very impressed that he made it to the Scholomance without learning a single spell he didn't write himself. Xichen's been going around all the Mandarin-speaking tables about it." 

"Okay." Deep breath. "Do you think - the fact he has admitted to some students we interviewed that he malefices and is good at it would be news, to Lan Xichen?"

"It would not. Part of Xichen's speech is that Masozi was interrogated under truth potion and was horrified to discover the effects of malia and would not use it again, and while Shanghai does not tolerate maleficing, under the circumstances forgiveness is a virtue." 

"Did they ask him about Johannesburg, or about Sophie?"

"Sophie is the girl from the supply run, I assume? I'd be very surprised if anyone here knew she existed let alone to ask about her. I don't believe they asked about Johannesburg."

Because if they had asked about Johannesburg Xichen would either have told everyone the answer, if it was reassuring, or had some very reasonable explanation for why they should overlook it, if it wasn't.

Annaka haaaaaaates doing diplomacy in the Sinosphere, she always feels like everyone is not saying all the things they're not saying. 

"I have heard complimentary things about Lan Xichen's judgment," she says after a moment. "But his decisions here confuse me, and people hearing them secondhand are - frankly, very scared. And - I don't tend to think of confused fourteen-year-olds who just heard of maleficing as the best judges of their ability to quit it, or their - enduring determination to do so, once people stop watching so closely."

Hitomi considers this.

"Lan Xichen's promise on Friday was that if Masozi went back to maleficing it would be dealt with as if any other student had done the same, and I have never known his word to be broken once given. I would not expect it to be a surprise to him, that Masozi might not be the best judge of his ability to stop, and I would not expect him to have considered an alliance at all without cause to think well of his— enduring determination." 

"If some - other student - has some rats and gets - hair that's too black at the roots," oh no is that racist because probably Asians don't get that specific maleficing side effect what with having black hair anyway, "or teeth too white, or footsteps that echo, we roll our eyes and keep away from them, that's how we handle that. If someone working closely with an enclave does that -

- New York has dropped graduation allies, for maleficing. Because it would be very bad for the Scholomance, if people thought we had something to gain from a fight, instead of everything to lose from it."

If it's racist Hitomi seems neither to object nor to notice. (Honestly, she's much more annoyed at having it laid out for her why an enclave taking in a maleficer is worrying, as if she were a freshman or more likely a twelve year old.) 

"Yes," she agrees, "Kyoto has too, and so has Shanghai. Which is, I expect, why Xichen is going around the enclave tables explaining to everyone his reasoning, and clarifying that Masozi promised under truth potion to stop and if he fails will be made to stop." 

Going around which enclave tables - that is not a politic thing to say. 

"Well, I'll look forward to the day when he gets to New York," she says, which isn't a politic thing to say either but she's having a VERY BAD DAY. "Is it - unusual, for Lan Xichen to demonstrate such a strong alliance and use a truth potion to assure people of the integrity of - a freshman who got here three days ago -"

It is absolutely not politic. If Hitomi felt inclined to be a bitch, she would ask very politely if the American enclaves intended to inform the Sinosphere ones of their alliances.

"Oh, it's absolutely unusual. His spiel is that Masozi is an absurd talent with no resources to speak of and he doesn't want that talent to go to waste, and of course if he weren't aware that people would need very strong reassurance he wouldn't be going nearly so far out of his way to give it." 

So far out of his way, indeed. All of three tables over, certainly not as far as the other side of the cafeteria. 

"We lost an enclave three days ago. It is - really, stunningly bad timing for deeply unusual hostile-looking moves with maleficers who already made us nervous with their habit of stalking our freshmen, to the point where it is - hard for me to understand how that decision was made, no matter how impressive his spells and how sincere his repentance. If he's sincere he still will be in a month, and his spells will be rather more impressive."

(So far as to use a truth potion in the first place, she didn't think she'd have to say, and so she doesn't think to clarify.)

"Unfortunately," she says, maybe a little bit pointedly but with her accent it's hard to tell, "communication across the Pacific goes slowly both ways. By the time the loss of Chicago was common knowledge on our side of the cafeteria he'd already told Beijing and Kyoto, and if that news had made Xichen retract the alliance I doubt Masozi would have been around at all in a month." 

"Look, if he didn't kill a kid for his slot and if he didn't kill the girl on his supply run - and I lean that he did both - we're not going to put him down just for lying about his affinity and stalking our freshmen. We didn't kill him when he did those things, we did an investigation that turned up the other things. It seems like maybe Shanghai's investigation was less thorough, if you haven't heard anything about Johannesburg. 

You think all this is fine and there's nothing to worry about?"

"I expect nonetheless that if Xichen had publicly made an alliance, made lots of promises about it and his intention to take responsibility for anything going wrong, and then immediately dropped it when bad news from the Anglosphere arrived, that would have ended badly, whatever New York's intent would or would not have been.

But yes, I'm not worried about it." 

"Okay," says Annaka, tiredly. "Thank you, then."

Nod. "Best of luck to you."

That presumably does not mean 'with assassinating Masozi in a way that doesn't spark a war'. Annaka raises an eyebrow, nods. 

...maybe St. Petersburg next? They'll be mad at her from a completely different direction. It'll be refreshing.