Masozi gets up and follows her. He's stunned and upset and confused enough that he's not even checking for mals, just staring woodenly at nothing and mechanically putting one foot in front of the other. 

He's going to die. It would be incredibly stupid for Lan Xichen to offend New York even more over this, so he won't, he'll do the smart strategic thing, and then New York will kill Masozi and it will all be over and he's never going to see his baby sister again. She probably won't even know she ever had a brother. 

Man when he survives this he's going to be so goddamn loyal to Shanghai. Maybe that's what Lan Xichen is thinking?

"Kind of stupid," she says, "breaking your promise the day after you made it. Like, at least wait a week, right?"

...There's no point in trying to defend himself. Every time he's done that it's only made things worse, because he doesn't understand any of the rules and it's too late now. So he just keeps walking, and tries to cry quietly. 

Annaka gets back from talking to St. Petersburg and Kiev and - journals. Mostly she is writing the incredibly long angry rant about what a horrible person he is that she would dearly love to deliver to Lan Xichen and can't. International diplomacy is all about smiling at horrible human beings who you know for a fact are incredibly evil and not blowing up the world with them. World War II was won by siding with Stalin, and all. But probably privately someone wrote a rant they wouldn't say to Stalin about what a shit human being he was. She hopes they did that. She thinks a little less of them, if they convinced themselves that probably all those gulags and famines were a misunderstanding, just because it made it easier to smile at his horrible horrible face. 

Lan Xichen is objectively probably slightly less of an awful person than Stalin because as far as she is aware of he has not had the opportunity to cause any famines but it's still a very very vicious angry rant.

Lan Xichen arrives and bows deeply. "I'm very sorry about all stress this has caused you. I'm sure you have horrible weekend. Please accept these gifts as token of my apology."

Nie Huaisang bringing in tea, perfume, and candies was actually useful. He's really been much more useful than Lan Xichen expected.

One step behind him and to his left, Meng Yao bows.

Well, it's not the least promising start ever. She's tempted to say what she would actually consider to be adequate compensation but that's probably NOT INDIRECT ENOUGH. "My concern is for the Scholomance," she says instead, "and for the precedents set by the great enclaves like Shanghai that all others look to."

"Everyone's primary concern here is to prevent war and ensure justice. Masozi has been placed under guard by one of our best seniors and my own brother. We request Kyoto to send guard and welcome you to send your own so you know there's nothing untoward happening."

"We'll send someone. But independent of whether Masozi is the maleficer responsible for this particular incident, it is agreed that he was a maleficer as of three days ago, yes? And a quite competent one who could draw malia from rats without hurting himself? Can he in fact use mana at all, at this point?"

"I see him use mana myself. He can draw from Shanghai's powersharer if you want confirmation?"

"Mostly I want to understand your intent in doing such a dangerous and threatening thing."

"I like to read your reports first so we are on same page? --Also, I apologize for absence of Wen Qing. She is busy saving life of Sophie."

"How good of her."

Annaka passes her reports across the table. Again. They're so neatly organized and underlined. "There are some redactions on page 4, for a private matter."

A few pages in, Meng Yao thinks: well, this looks bad.

"I like promise of confidentiality please? I wish to discuss things that I don't wish to leave this room."

Annaka would REALLY LIKE to be able to present her parents with a complete account of her actions but she'd like to survive to graduate even more, probably, if only because it's a prerequisite. "I can agree to keep confidential things you tell me in the course of the investigation, though I might learn them through some other route."

"I agree. I say which things are confidential before I say them. --My sworn brother makes truth potions. Much of what I have to say Masozi confirms when he is under truth potion. I distinguish what he says under truth potion and what he can be lying about. I understand if you're worried that we lie about whether he take truth potion. Later I think we arrange for him to repeat his statements under truth potion. We figure out then how to assure you that is truth potion."

God, this is expensive. 

She can mostly understand him if she concentrates. She bets people didn't have that problem with STALIN.

"That...is good to hear and would help.

...even if I accept that he swore that he wanted to stop, and meant it, I think he is likely to fail at that. Most people can't kick an addiction the first time they try. I see why you would believe in his good intent. It still looks like you did a reckless and confusing thing, and I don't understand why." Oh no that's probably too direct.

"Requesting confidentality, we have six freshmen this year. Two are useless: Wen Ning is monolingual in Mandarin and too meek to fight even in practice; Nie Huaisang responds to stress by breaking into tears. Three of the remaining are not suited to form alliances to protect first two: Jiang Cheng is angry at everyone; Lan Wangji doesn't like speaking; and Wei Wuxian says whatever is on his mind no matter how offensive. The last is Song Lan who disappears during induction. His room is empty so we believe he is prevented from induction somehow, perhaps killed. I am relying on Song Lan to take care of other five, and he is not here. So I seek out alliance with someone competent and vulnerable. Masozi dies without Shanghai, so he is loyal and grateful. He's not reliant on me being there or on charming personality of Jiang Cheng to shepherd Wen Ning and Nie Huaisang out. He has no options besides us. So we ally quickly, because without us he dies, that is point." 

"Surely 'competent and vulnerable' describes several freshmen who are not maleficers and very alarming to everybody!"

"Not so vulnerable that they die without us for certain. --Well, Chicago, but we don't know about Chicago when we ally." Thoughtfully, as if a side point: "Induction is very dangerous this year and we both-- Anglosphere and Sinosphere-- are victims."

Don't say that you bet his enclave was involved in Chicago, that will not help. It can go in the angry rant. 

Don't ask why Shanghai sent dead weight, either. It's not like Julia has the world's most useful affinity. (Julia's just immature, though. She'll grow up...)

"So you figured - you make it clear that he won't survive without you, he is loyal, he gets your deadweight through even after you're gone, and if everyone else is a little scared that you have a pet maleficer, well, no harm done, you can kill him for it if he becomes too much of a liability?" 

"He's very intelligent. I teach him Mandarin to get a sense of this. I suspect strong chance of him making valedictorian in spite of before the Scholomance only teaching himself things from books. You lead enclave. You put yourself in my shoes. You have freshman with strong chance of being valedictorian. You have chance to make him loyal to you so he can't be poached by other enclaves. There is year you are very worried about-- there is chance everyone dies, which is unthinkable for enclave of our power. Your own brother is in this year. Freshman malefices in past, but he is horrified by this, he wants to stop even before you speak to him, and he has no idea of consequences. You have reputation with Sinos, you can explain to them. You don't know he troubles Anglos! He doesn't say this. As far as you know he has never met them. So you take chance on freshman and keep close eye on him. Sinos know you do this, are not worried-- even Seoul who hates me is not worried." He bows. "I apologize for oversight not speaking to Anglos. In general, you don't pay attention to us, we don't pay attention to you. My English is very weak. I expect Seoul to convey information to you in reassuring manner full of hatred of me personally so you know they are not biased by liking. I expect this to happen in few weeks where you are reassured by everything is fine so far. I am busy managing Sinosphere, it is overlooked. I am sorry. I know it causes you very stressful weekend, and I wish it does not happen. --Of course perhaps he is maleficer and then Shanghai is very grateful to you for collecting such useful information. We owe you many favors in this case for your hard work."

Well, she doesn't want to die. 

"Maybe he's a maleficer now. I do believe you he'll drop them, if he is. Maybe he's not. If he's not, and he's loyal to you, and he's got a bunch of dead weight to carry across the finish line in four years - which is also the year with my kid sister in it - how do you think he's gonna try to pull it off."

"I expect he learns to use his affinity to do to mals what you're scared he does in Johannesburg. --Request for confidentiality, his affinity isn't mal control, it's minds. He pushes it in direction to be able to sense mals. I don't know if he controls mals but I am very very very surprised if he does, freshmen aren't that good at getting their affinities to do things they don't want them to do. He lies about it because he knows everyone is scared of him and doesn't know why and worries that mind control affinity scares them more. He confesses to me without meaning to when I give him truth potion."