" - hi, Orion. if it's Morse code it's comms not an alarm, you're supposed to try to decode it. No mals, but do you want to pass a note to Annaka for me?" She rips a sheet out of her notebook and starts writing. 

"Yeah, sure. - oh, is that mal-spotting-kid, what's wrong with him -"

Has he missed ALL announcements for the last several days. "We're - investigating whether he murdered someone."

"What? Yikes?"

The Shanghai senior shouldn't be this amused by Oblivious Freshman but she totally is. 

She tries to catch Rin's eye to see if she's also amused.

Rin is absolutely also amused, not that she's going to say anything about it. 

"Here's your note. Annaka's in the reading room, I think, but knock, don't just try walking in, okay?"

"Okay! Bye!" says Orion, pocketing the note, and off he trots.

Masozi is so tired of being afraid.

And he's...vaguely aware, that if he spends the next many hours panicking, he's going to be exhausted, and not very able to think, and - his survival - his sister's survival - everything he could ever try to do or build or fix in his entire life - is maybe dependent on doing things exactly right in the next few hours. 

He focuses on his breathing, and tries to do the meditation exercise like Wei Wuxian taught him.

(This is actually mana-generating when he's upset, it turns out. Normally it's not very good for that at all, because it's too pleasant and not hard enough, but dragging his mind away from the misery and terror over and over is one of the hardest things he's ever done.) 

Masozi forces his body to relax, and once his heart is pounding less intensely and his breathing is level, he forces all of the stupid pointless emotions down into a corner and boxes them away. It's not helping, right now, and he knows that in a fight for your life, you need to set aside all the things that don't help - and this is a fight for his life, just as much as any of the mal encounters in the wilderness of Malawi were. It's an unfairly confusing fight, but reality isn't trying to be fair, how could it. 

Lan Wangji thinks very very carefully because this calls for political subtlety, which is not his strong point. Sizhui and Xichen got all the political subtlety in the family. He got being really good at hitting mals with a sword.

Then he thinks very carefully because English is a very difficult language.

"I think Lan Xichen is honorable person who make sure justice is done," he announces.

...Unsure whether this is a reason Lan Wangji shouldn't be here or the precise reason that Lan Wangji is here??? Politics gives her a headache.

"So are we all, all honorable men," says Olivia dully, staring at the wall. 

This is why Lan Wangji doesn't do politics. He has no idea what that means.

It's the speech from Julius Caesar, and it's stunningly apropros. She has substantially upgraded her opinion of this Shanghai kid. 

Rin thinks maybe she was too harsh on Olivia. 

"I have always known him to be faithful and just," she agrees. 

What is happening! He's so confused. This needs to stop.

He opts for Silence.

Oh wait can this be entertaining instead of just being smelly guard duty, that sounds way more fun. She raises an eyebrow slightly at the Sinosphere kids. "To refuse a crown, though, that would be unlike him, from what I've heard of him, no one rules an enclave as a sophomore without their share of ambition and then some."

"And yet, he hath brought many home to Rome, whose talents did the general coffers fill." 

We're... quoting Shakespeare at each other now?, the Shanghai sophomore thinks. At least she thinks it's Shakespeare. Maybe it's Chaucer or Milton or someone. Anglos are weirdly unlikely to just make a list of the books you need to read to be an educated person.

He is very quietly screaming on the inside and he wants to go back to his room and play his guqin until the world stops being so loud and bright except that he doesn't even have his guqin because of the weight allowance so actually he's going to go back to his room and bite himself until the pain drives all the noise out of his head.

"And where will those talents take a budding maleficer in two years, do you think, when Lan Xichun graduates and isn't around to hold him in check? For the evil that men do lives after them."

What is happening here. Is this some kind of bizarre ritual. Are they…casting a spell? To murder him?? He’s SO CONFUSED.

No one is paying attention to Lan Wangji so maybe he can give Masozi a sympathetic eyebrow tilt????

Olivia sees that and parses it as commentary on their Shakespeare sparring. She's so impressed with the cultural education these Sinosphere kids get. No way could she even vaguely keep up on their famous historical texts.

Masozi has no idea what this means, so he just looks at Lan Wangji with no expression at all on his face.