Lan Xichen speaks a few seconds of very fast Mandarin. Everyone in Shanghai enclave except Lan Wangji and Meng Yao would be surprised by his vocabulary.

"Jaipur."

- Annaka also recognizes them. Ugh, shit, she was going to loop India in at some point but then Meng Yao showed up and now - 

They are NOT going to go for a plan where New York lets this slide if it looks good enough in exchange for the opportunity to press Shanghai about Chicago because they do not care at all about Chicago. 

"Hello," she says because not saying anything seems like it'd be even worse than saying that but saying that was still pretty bad.

(Masozi is being so quiet and harmless.) 

Meng Yao thinks Jaipur should have been required to file a notice in triplicate of their intent to show up and cause problems so that he would have enough time to coordinate with Lan Xichen and Annaka (whom he has decided is competent and likable) and Olivia (whom he is optimistic is the same even though she hasn't talked much. She has to be better than Frank). 

He bows because that's always a safe start.

"Hello. Are you interested in observing the interrogation?"

"We heard there was a murder," says one of them, a tall boy whose English doesn't even sound particularly accented. "But if you have the situation well in hand, we're perfectly happy to remain here on standby."

He would have said 'if New York has the situation well in hand', but he figures it'd sound a little too pointed.

"This... seems to be in question. Annaka?"

"There's a dead girl - or nearly dead, there's still a school nurse and they're trying emergency medicine. It is uncertain if it was a murder. I did not want to wait until we were certain, to act. He's just said, under a truth potion, he didn't do it; I don't know if that means we need to be looking for a different murderer, or if it means the girl just caught the flu. - we found her in her room, insensate. She'd last been seen in his company and he has a history - which he's renounced, from when he was an orphaned indie in rural Africa, but, you know, it's not an easy habit to kick, I thought we'd better check."

There are a couple sentences of very fast Dhundari. 

"We're happy to let you continue handling this. We would prefer for one of us to remain on standby in case there are additional problems, if you don't think that will interfere."

Masozi doesn't understand most of it but he's fairly sure that the gist is that he's about to be murdered. 

"I think that's a good idea. We should all be on the same page, to avoid problems like last year."

"I'm always happy to have Jaipur's advice on such sensitive issues."

"We're just glad it's being taken seriously."

And the other one runs off; the tall one who's been talking stays.

"What question are we on?"

"When is the last time you drew malia."

"I ....?"

And now he's dizzy again. Enough that he topples over on his bed, without meaning to. 

"...I don't know where you - want your cutoffs - malia and cheating and -?" 

(Five seconds of incomprehensible sobbing.) 

And a deep shuddering breath.

Masozi sits up. Straightens himself.

"The last time I got mana from a mammal was - six days ago? There was a rat in a drainpipe in Johannesburg? ...The last time I got mana from a bug was on - Thursday? That was induction day, right? Three days ago? .....And then I found out that using malia would make you crazy and change your values so you...wanted to kill people....and that would be the worst thing because people dying is BAD–" 

Masozi breaks off, because talking out loud is no longer working. 

"Have you felt bad because of not drawing malia since then?"

.....That is the most baffling question imaginable but he should probably at least try to answer? 

"- I...don't know what you mean? I - having to use malia is bad? Because...rats or mice, don't have - that many feelings - but they have some and so it's bad when they die? And I.... So it's just better, right. To - not kill things that might have feelings that matter?" 

Annaka does not trust that at ALL, truth potion or no truth potion.

"When you go a while without using malia, do you feel different."

"...I don't know?" 

Pause. 

"I - guess I have less power. Because it's - just the mana I can make normally. So I can - do fewer things - save fewer people–" 

Pause. (Masozi is shivering uncontrollably, again, despite the blanket.) 

"- but it's worth it. If - following the rules....?" 

And he bursts into tears again, before he can finish the sentence.

"--Meng Yao, please check on how Wen Qing is doing with Sophie."

Bow. "Yes, er-ge."

(He does go check on how Wen Qing is doing with Sophie, but first he makes a detour. Wei Wuxian has apparently spontaneously decided of his own free will to get math books for Masozi, and Yanli is hard at work making candy. Meng Yao kind of questions the logic about math books but he guesses that's not weirder than how he's going to spend this evening making floor plans and designing curricula for his future enclave.)

"So you - get withdrawal, but you're trying to push through it, because you want to follow the rules? Why do you want to follow the rules?"

Masozi feels like something is wrong about that question? And it hurts, that it's wrong, but he doesn't know what he can do about it. 

"....I - want to make things better and not make things worse?"