Lan Xichen enters the room. 

"We want to interrogate Masozi privately," he announces to the guards. "--Do you want guard?" he asks Annaka. 

Masozi holds perfectly still on his bed and does not look at Lan Xichen, 

"I'd like it if Olivia could stay; she leads New York with me, and I trust her." 

Excellent. Second-in-command identified and it's not Frank. 

"Yes. We both take people who lead our enclaves with us."

Lan Wangji, who was very concerned that "guard" meant he might have to do more politics, is very relieved.

"Right," Annaka says briskly. "Masozi? I'm Annaka Sanderson and this is Olivia Mandel. We're here to figure out what's going on."

Masozi is going to continue watching this as though from a great distance, rather than letting himself have any feelings, since the feelings would inevitably be panic and horror.

He looks at Annaka with a blankly neutral expression; he’s still carefully not making eye contact with Lan Xichen. “Okay.”

"Thank you for your time," he says to Rin, Lan Wangji, and Unnamed Shanghai Senior.

"They were good company," says Olivia, "and had some insights I'll hold dear as we proceed."

No. Stop that. No more subtext.

Lan Wangji decides this is a dismissal and flees to his room, where he piles up every piece of fabric he owns on his bed and then crawls under it and bites himself so hard he bleeds.

"Do you need food or water or anything," Annaka says to miserable curled-up kid. "We have a long list of questions and it'll be better if you can explain yourself clearly."

Masozi lifts his chin. Forces himself to uncurl and sit up straighter. “No. S’fine, I can answer questions.” 

"Okay. You can also ask for food or water later. Do you understand what's going on, has anyone explained."

Olivia is transcribing, neatly, in her notebook.

Lan Xichen says gently, "Masozi, I think you need to eat and drink." 

Masozi looks blankly at the wall a yard sideways from where Lan Xichen is. Why is he saying things in that gentle comforting voice, again, it doesn’t make sense and it’s not helping. 

“Okay,” he says flatly.

He looks at Annaka. “Sophie’s dead.” A flicker of fresh grief and misery and confusion, quickly folded away. “You think I killed her.”

"We need to check. You're the last person seen with her."

Masozi gives her an empty look. “I haven’t seen her since Thursday. What…happened to her…?”

"We don't know. She - collapsed and deteriorated suddenly. It looks - sort of like the flu and sort of like a maleficer drew from her."

- right, he should probably explicitly say the true thing. “I didn’t kill her. I didn’t kill anyone— I guess I knifed a guy once who tried to hurt my sister. I never killed anyone for malia. People dying is bad.”

"We're going to give you a truth potion and then you can confirm that for us, all right?"

Nod.

"Food and water first. --Meng Yao, get food from Yanli, please."

Annaka politely sits back and waits for the food and water.

"I'm on it."

"Yanli," he explains to Annaka, "has affinity for food. I think she gives him food that is tasty enough that he eats even though"-- he gestures.

(Also it's a kindness that he can get away with.)

Masozi waits in silence. He’s inexplicably shivering now, despite the room not being at all cold.

"Here. Blanket," he says, keeping an eye on Annaka to see if she considers this unwarranted sympathy.

Annaka is mostly trying to parse if Seoul is right that Lan Xichen is thinking with his dick but she's not the best judge of that even without the extremely high stakes and the culture gap. Anyway doesn't he already the sworn brother and she should look up whether that's a gay thing or not and if so if it is a monogamous one.

In that case he wraps Masozi's blanket around his shoulders.

Masozi tenses up and flinches away when Lan Xichen reaches to touch him. Other than that, he's still and quiet and externally calm while they wait. When food and water are brought, he drinks the water, and eats a little without paying any attention to what it is and hopes that that will satisfy Lan Xichen so they can go on and get this over with and he can find out if he's going to die. 

Lan Xichen doesn't have any sort of feelings about that because those are the kinds of feelings he made himself unable to feel because that isn't very good for politics. (He wonders what Annaka makes about his indifference to Masozi flinching.)

"You drink truth potion. It's larger dose, it's going to feel stranger."

Annaka figures that Lan Xichen is a normal person who doesn't lose a lot of sleep about miserable children facing their impending death, because if he lost much sleep to that he'd be out of sleep and dead.

Masozi drinks it. 

The effects are, in fact, a lot more noticeable than the earlier time. It's not that he's stopped feeling distant from the room and what's happening in it, exactly, but somehow at the same time his thoughts feel much more...pinned down? Like the world is made of grooves and paths and patterns, all the things-that-are-true, and he's glued so tightly to the what's-true-now that there's no room to be anything more than that, anymore. 

He waits for someone to tell him which of the threads of what's-true-now he's supposed to be steering down. 

"Did you try to draw malia from Sophie?"

"No. ...I don't think I - could. Even if I'd wanted to which I didn't. She's a wizard and she's not six." 

"Did you use any magic on Sophie, or on her room, or with the suit of clothes that she was making for you?"

...The high dose truth potion is very weird. He - can't seem to think about what he wants right now. Not that he was very successfully doing that before, but it's a different flavor of it now. Before it felt like there just wasn't space for it, in between the terror and the desperate struggle to keep it under control and the fact that he has no idea if he'll survive the next hour. Now it's...as though the concept of wanting doesn't make sense, anymore, it's been flattened out of existence by how tightly bound his mind is to what's true-already-now. 

It would be very upsetting if he were able to - access preferences about that, right now. Instead it's just confusing and stressful and makes him feel disoriented. 

"No. ...I don't think so? I used magic nearby her to find mals, I was being a lookout for her supply run so she could get cloth. I - walked her to her room after and I checked her room for mals too? It shouldn't've done anything that'd stay. I didn't–" 

He stops, because he's confused about something, and now the threads of what's-true are suddenly tangled and this is, for some reason, intensely panic-inducing. 

"–that doesn't make sense, if something happened to her on Thursday and you think I did it - how would she - there wasn't a suit of clothes yet! It was just fabric!" 

His hands are twitching with the desire to hug Masozi and tell him that everything is going to be all right, he just needs to take a deep breath and tell them the truth.

...Annaka probably won't let him get away with that.

He says nothing.

"Did you expect her to die?"

"No! ...I - what - maybe? Not this soon? She wasn't - dangerous enough - careful enough - I, I wanted to, but I didn't -" 

The truth potion effects are making it incredibly hard to think about! He...wasn't expecting her to die this weekend...but she DID...so the true thing is that he should have expected it?? and the only reason he didn't is that he had false beliefs about the world???

And he - wanted - to intervene, somehow - he thinks he wanted to protect her - but he didn't because she's dead and so what does it even mean, that he wanted to....? 

He's so confused that it's making him literally dizzy. 

"Is this a normal potion side effect?"

"It takes everyone differently but usually messes them up. I think question too broad and it confuses him so he doesn't know what the true thing to say is?" He carefully tries to remember the use of the past tense in English and then says: "Do'ed you do something you thinked would make Sophie die?"

Annaka's Mandarin is even worse than that so she does not smirk. 

"No! I didn't! I don't want her to be dead!" 

And he starts crying again, even though he's somehow still far away from his body and the room. 

Lan Xichen has Resting Pleasant Smile Face so his level of smugness is concealed from Annaka. 

"Before, what about question maked you upset?"

Aaaaaaaaaaaah this is UNFAIR, he's being asked questions about his emotions and his goals and what he wants - okay, to be fair, only in the past tense - but even so it's incredibly hard to dig down far enough to reach that. 

"......I didn't want her to die. People dying is bad. I - I wanted to, to be strong enough, fast enough, that I could - do something -?" 

(And now he's imagining Sophie dying alone, again, except she has his baby sister's face, and he can'tdothisanymore–) 

A couple Indian upperclassmen run up and stop in the hallway outside Masozi's room. Lan Xichen, at least, will recognize these as two of Jaipur's seniors. They don't immediately say anything.

There are TOO MANY THINGS happening. Masozi curls up into a ball again. 

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?"

"You think that following the rules about maleficing will make things better than breaking the rules about maleficing?"

"....Probably? I - I don't know who made the rules or if they're - right about how things work - but I think...maybe it doesn't actually matter? If they are? Because - if I break the rules then you'll kill me, right? And then I - won't be able to try to make anything better, ever again?" 

His head hurts. Probably something else also hurts but he can't tell where or what it is. 

"Someday we'll graduate. And then you'll be facing graduation yourself, and you might die if you don't malefice, and then, following the rules wouldn't be the best way to stay alive, would it?"

That is way too many 'mights' and futures and hypotheticals! Masozi's entire mind is tightly bound to what's true right now and he has no idea how to assess what might or might not be the best way to accomplish a hypothetical goal that he might or might not have in the hypothetical future!!! 

He stares blankly at Annaka.

"Why do you think there are rules against maleficing?"

"....Because if people do it then it - makes them crazy and makes them think that other people dying isn't bad?"

"I think hypotheticals are hard for him because they don't have defined truth value," he says to Annaka.

That makes sense but makes the question 'is the kid going to start again as soon as it looks good for his life expectancy' harder to answer!! She deviates from the sheet, though, due to the fact all of those questions will clearly just make him choke up.  "Can you think of a situation where a person would malefice, and they wouldn't be doing anything wrong?" 

"It is more convenient if he gets overwhelming guilt about concept of lying like I do, but we are not in most convenient world in many ways."

"I mostly just look for 'he does not think maleficing achieve all his goals if no one knows of it!'" she hisses at him in very mediocre Mandarin. 

PANICPANICPANICPANIC - 

Masozi tries very hard to focus on the actual question he was asked. 

".....Are - I can't - I - are you going to kill me if I have the wrong thoughts...?"

"We aren't going to kill you for wrong thoughts," he says. "We're just concerned that you might malefice in future even if you don't mean to now."

"I'm not going to do it by accident!" 

"If you did not kill anyone, and do not mean to, I will not kill you; being a future danger is not the right case for a trial like this. But if you think maleficing is a good idea as long as you are not caught, and you think everyone is wrong that it is so bad, and you think that your life is so important, then you are a future danger, and then New York cannot agree that Shanghai did an acceptable thing here. And Shanghai is a great enclave, and we do not command them, and they can decide to proceed however they like, but they are a great enclave because of their wisdom."

Shanghai is a bunch of IDIOTS led by STALIN but she is not a complete idiot herself and she is aware that she has to let them make it their idea, if anything they hear here in fact inspires them to drop Masozi.

Lan Xichen sees what she's doing and appreciates it greatly, he definitely thought Meng Yao was going to have to be blunt about the political considerations here.

Masozi stares confusedly at her for a long moment. 

".....Being caught wouldn't be the worst bad thing about maleficing?" he forces out. "I - if it's really true - I don't know if it is - but if it...gives you brain damage so you....start thinking it's okay for people to die....then–"

(Everything hurts so much and his thoughts are so tightly bound -)

"...It's not okay for people to die! It's never been okay! And it - the world doesn't - it happens anyway so we, we have to -" 

This is probably the "wrong" "thing" to say, and Masozi is vaguely and distantly aware of that, but not in any way that would affect the thoughts he can have right now, let alone the words he's allowed to say.

"Do you think it's worth it to save more people's lives?"

Thank you, Lan Xichen!

Everything hurts. 

"....I don't know. I don't - understand - how any of the - the rules - the world - what - how–" 

PANICPANICPANIC–

Focus. 

He's very far away and answering a question that's made of just words and math, for distant people in a distant place...

"....I think it could - be worth it? Sometimes? For someone who understood - all of the things. That mattered. All the rules that - would matter to other people...."

"...I don't. Understand the things. So I - shouldn't. Try to do plans like that." 

"Are you willing to trust other people who know the rules better?"

".....I don't understand." 

--crap. Hypotheticals. 

He tries to think of the least hypothetical way to say this and lands on: "I understand rules better than you, I say 'don't pull malia,' and you listen to me?"

Masozi's actual thoughts, right now, are that he isn't sure whether he trusts Lan Xichen to be right about how the world works.

...But maybe that's not the key decision criterion, here? Because, obviously, Lan Xichen is the more powerful of them. He's - maybe? confusingly? - someone who can decide whether Masozi lives or dies. And that's a strategic consideration, just as real as any physical facts about the world... 

"Yes." 

Well, it's not absolutely nothing to work with. 

"Can you tell us what happened the day you arrived in Johannesburg."

.....What? Why are they asking about that. 

"- I don't remember exactly. I - I was trying to find the enclave, and - one of the floaty-cloud sort of mals came at me? And I felt it coming, in time, and then I had to drain a rat nearby to get enough mana so I could make it not come after me." 

"After you found the enclave. When a kvenlik attacked."

"....That wasn't the day I arrived?" Masozi says, confusedly.

"Okay. The day the kvenlik attacked. Tell me what happened."

Masozi manages to catch and stomp on several pointless digressions, which are emotions about that day rather than factual truths which he's supposed to say out loud. 

"....If I'd been stronger I could've saved everyone."

He thinks that's true? Probably? ....It might not be and now he's panicking about that. 

"Did you know it was going to attack before it did."

"....Yes?" 

"Did you lead it to attack Johannesburg."

What. 

"No! I - why would I - it killed people!" 

Neither Lan Wangji nor Meng Yao is in this room so there is no one here who can tell how profoundly Lan Xichen is radiating smugness.

"It killed people and got you a Scholomance spot. Right?"

"....I - if I'd been stronger I could've saved everyone - I, I knew - it was my choice - I could've tried to save everyone but I didn't...." 

"This spell does not work," she says tightly to Lan Xichen. "He is not actually answering the questions. I don't see how we can do this while he's under some kind of brain damage spell that makes him not answer yes/no questions with a yes or a no."

"You have better truth potion, we can wait for this one to wear off and give it to him instead. --What is first thing that happened when you knew mal was there?"

She says something quietly to Olivia, who stands up and leaves. 

Okay finally a question that doesn't hurt and doesn't twist his brain into circles trying to figure out what it means! 

"...I hid behind a -" he doesn't even remember what the obstacle was, "- behind a something? Might've been a car. I - checked how many wizard children were in range. There were five. I checked how much mana I had and - how many rats were in my range - I knew I could run away - I thought I probably didn't have enough to protect everyone..." 

Pause. 

"....There were two children on one side of the road and three on the other side." 

Annaka is incredibly incredibly not thrilled about letting Lan Xichen ask all the questions because when she asks them the kid refuses to answer and makes pathetic whimpering sounds; that's what trying to sneak something past someone looks like. But she grits her teeth, for the moment, because she's curious where Lan Xichen is going.

"What doed you do next?"

"I...... There were two on one side and three on the other? And I - couldn't go to both sides at once. ...The three kids were older. I - thought they had a better chance of fighting off the mal. ....And I guess I - I knew probably one of them was going to be going to the Scholomance. And I - thought about that...? And whether if they died I would get their spot."

"....And then I went to the side of the street where the two younger children were and I protected them." 

"You said that you knew the mal was coming in advance? How did you know that?"

“I can sense mals. If I’m close and I have mana. …S’not really my affinity, I had to stretch it, feeling where people are’s easier. Or animals. I - felt it maybe five seconds away before it came around the corner. So I - had to decide so fast…”

And he made the wrong decision, apparently, even if he doesn’t fully understand why or what, and now he’s going to die without ever seeing the stars again. 

His body is having trouble breathing from the effort of staying in control and not crying, but it feels like something that’s just happening, somewhere else. 

"--May I speak to you in hallway please?" he says to Annaka.

"Sure." They can step out.

"I'm sorry. He has bad reaction to truth potion. Mind control magic in general-- I'm not sure if New York has someone with affinity?-- is very very finicky, very easy to go wrong, and produces very weird results. I have forty-two variants on 'calm down' for this exact reason. Normally this high dose is very unpleasant but doesn't make someone this bad at answering questions. When I am on high dose of truth potion I just keep getting distracted by concept that lying is morally wrong and start crying about past lies I have told."

"Did he react like this the last time you gave him a truth potion to ask him about maleficing?"

"No! I give him small dose. It makes him more coherent but it's easier to think around and be deceptive. I think high dose be more reassuring to you and then he can do lower dose for public event. --I thinked it, it doesn't seem reassuring now."

"That makes sense. I think - we are not getting very far with this, though. Is there a way to take it off him, so we can just - talk to him - I'm also not sure we can do the public version now, because Jaipur is here. Which is very reasonable of them." Deep sigh. "I need - I need reason to think he's not a loose cannon, and the truth potion is not helping with that. Maybe when it has worn off he'l be able to display more of, uh, what you see in him." Because Annaka sees an impulsive emotional wreck who declares his sympathy for rats and men alike, but kills rats whenever he needs to, and thinks that the reason you shouldn't malefice is because seniors will kill you if you do, which - is understandable, really, she doesn't actually feel very much judgment for the kid at this point, but clearly makes him an incredible danger to geopolitical stability and every student around him if he's cornered and doesn't expect anyone to be powerful enough to retaliate.

"It wears off in time, not very long I think. --Also I suspect he is incoherent because he's afraid he's going to die, which I think we rule out? Since he doesn't kill anyone."

"Yes, we can tell him that." Should she be explicit about - well, he can't have gotten this far by being an idiot. "Though realistically if the most reassuring thing I can say to worried Anglo enclaves is 'he says he won't do it while Lan Xichen is around to stop him' then at some point someone's going to take matters into their own hands. It won't be me, it won't be my people, I don't want - the look of New York fighting Shanghai about this - but if we actually want him to live we need something better."

"Yes. And it's hard because-- most people under truth potion say they pull malia from a rat to survive, if they have to? Especially people who have to think about it in past. Enclavers are more likely to say 'no, I never pull malia' because they are never in situation where they pull malia or die. But this is not reassuring to Jaipur as answer. If my judgment of character is good I can set up incentives so he doesn't pull malia, I can kill him if he does, but I can't make it so if incentives are not arranged just so he doesn't pull malia from rat to keep Wen Ning alive. --Which is thing I want, you know, makes absurd sacrifices to keep useless person alive."

She feels cold, suddenly, and very very tired. "Yes. I get why you want that. 

A former maleficer that would not make me afraid when he joined an enclave, would not make me expect war even if I don't start one, would have to be a very unusual person. Probably that kind of person doesn't survive as an indie in Africa. Probably anyone who survives as an indie in Africa is ruthless and dangerous and willing to do whatever it takes and maybe a little bit insane. Probably all of them trust the powers that be about as far as we've earned it, which is not at all, and when we tell them not to malefice probably they all hear 'we'll kill you', not a moral argument.

But I think it is very bad for the Scholomance if Shanghai has associates who are former maleficers, ruthless, dangerous, willing to do whatever it takes, and a little insane. I don't see a way around how bad it will be, not really, not from here." 

"--I wish I talk to New York six months ago because I always want to say 'here is why I think it works out' but you have no reason to trust me on any of this? As far as you are concerned I am nonentity for six months and then almost start war by being very confusing and hiring maleficer who is impulsive unstable person with very strange priorities. No reason to trust me at all.  Also much of my thought process requires relying on my judgment which you have no reason to trust at all! I have been only having bad judgment from your perspective." He sighs. "Perhaps in future I earn your trust now that I see this is important. If it does not become war that neither of us want, if people do not die for stupid reasons."

"That....seems like a good summary of the problem. I wish we had talked six months ago too." STALIN, she adds in her head, because it makes her feel better though she doesn't actually have any reason to think it's an applicable metaphor. 

"I think this is maybe why they do not normally put fifteen-year-olds in charge of important geopolitical entities."

This feels like a concession but Annaka...doesn't know what to do with it? And maybe the culture barrier is getting in the way again? 

"What do you think your parents would do?"

"--Not be in situation because they are in prison since before I am born."

- wow awkward. Possibly she also needs to be spending more time knowing what exactly is going on in the SInosphere. 

She's pretty sure at this point that her parents would've just assassinated Masozi, and that she'll hand them all the transcripts and they'll tear up and say she did so well and not tell her that they would have just assassinated Masozi, because they can't interact with the fact that she had to decide. Maybe that's unfair to them. She hasn't seen them since she was fourteen. 

She rejects the first ten things she wants to say for being escalatory and probably counterproductive -

"I think if I were in your situation, I would go around saying, New York was stupid and wrong, they thought he killed someone but he didn't. And it is a good thing Shanghai is monitoring the situation closely or they would have killed him, which would have been wasteful. But - not because New York objects - we should not ally with someone who doesn't know what he's doing. We should keep monitoring closely, we should invite Jaipur to monitor closely as well, but we should make it clear that he doesn't work for us, that he doesn't work with us, that he is a freshman indie with a lot to learn before it's safe to have him at the table."

"--Problem is that I try very hard to be person who keeps my word and I make promise to Masozi that he is our ally and we take care of him. And to be person who is trustworthy you have to keep promises even if they hurt you, or no one will be able to trust you keep promise at all. If I say to Masozi 'you don't work with us anymore,' how do you trust me when I say 'I kill Masozi if he malefices'?"

I don't trust you on that anyway! she thinks but does not say. 

"I think-- best we can do is buy time? Three months, six months. More time for seniors to prepare for graduation, for freshmen to learn spells. If all goes well, Masozi is old news, is boring, and everyone gets distracted by studying and interpersonal drama. 'Shanghai has former maleficer' is like 'Pisa is maleficers.' I appreciate if you do not try to assassinate Masozi but we do not hold it against New York if he dies. Maybe I am trustworthy to you by then. Maybe you go to war with me with stronger position, more time to prepare, and stronger alliances from rest of Sinosphere because you gave us every benefit of doubt."

" - okay. Thank you. I'll think about that. It sounds better than a war."

"We do not hold it against New York if he dies" was probably the best she was ever realistically going to get. 

"--In Sinosphere we apologize a lot and give gifts when we are not so sorry in reality and it makes it difficult to apologize to someone who has no reason to trust apology is sincere. I kowtow but I think you do not take it in sense it is meant."

"It does not really seem like it would solve any of my problems, no."

"If you think of apology that helps I am happy to give it. I like to speak with you more, also? I think we avoid problems like this in future if we have better sense of each other. --Not saying you should trust me? But you should have better sense of how you don't trust me."

...maybe there is a better epithet than STALIN. 

But -

"Right now I am very angry. I feel that - you are putting the school in danger for this idea of yours, and maybe I just need to be more understanding, but maybe the exact opposite, maybe it was a mistake trying to be understanding and I should have moved farther, faster, instead of looking for a good reason when I knew deep down there wasn't one. Maybe I let 'I don't want to die' and 'I don't want to be the person who started a war' win out over knowing what's right and holding this place to it, and if in ten years the school is too dangerous to send kids to it'll be my fault."

"Yes. That makes sense. I-- do not think I make the school more dangerous, although you have no reason to believe in my good intent or trust my judgment. Normally I solve this sort of problem with mind magic-- at least intent, if not judgment-- but I think you maybe have enough of mind magic for today? I want to give many of Shanghai's resources to provide reassurances but I don't know what is reassuring and don't want to make assumptions, and-- I can't make reassurances that make myself less trustworthy, that goes against whole point."

"It is not very like me to turn down resources that might help my people but I think 'Shanghai paid New York off' is not a thing I want people to say. Even if they'll say instead I lost my nerve."

"We tell Masozi he is not going to die. It's cruel to make him worry longer."

"Yes. Sounds good." He's totally going to die, though.

The had left him alone with no more questions for a while, before Lan Xichen came back in. 

Masozi doesn't really know what's happening, and his thoughts are still pinned down in tight grooves, but there's a little more space to let them finish when he's not being interrupted constantly. 

And...he thinks he managed to say the true thing, which is that he didn't kill Sophie and he didn't kill the children in Johannesburg. And on reflection he - doesn't think that the extent to which he was causally involved, there, when he had five seconds to decide which way to run, is...something that even New York could disapprove of? No one was expecting him to care about other people's lives. 

It would be simpler if he didn't care, in a lot of ways. Because then he could follow the rules and it wouldn't be giving up so much. He...can't change the fact that he does care.

But he can be less stupid about it. He can try to understand how the world works, here, a world so much bigger and stranger than he ever knew was possible - and better, gloriously so, but endlessly complicated - and then he can figure out how to make plans that will actually work. 

So he can survive. So he can take as many others with him as possible. So that, someday, when he's grown up, he can go back for his baby sister. And for other people's children. 

There are stars, outside. He wants to live to see them again. 

...He's not a shape of person that Annaka knows how to trust. She thinks he's going to hurt people. He - has to explain, somehow, has to convey why she can trust that he won't hurt her people, which means that - needs to be true - and it might not have been true of Masozi-three-days-ago, Masozi-three-days-ago had hurt people when his life or his family's lives were in danger from them, because he saw a tradeoff and he made it. But that scares the enclave kids, here, and if they're afraid of him then he dies, and so he has to...be different, be something and someone they can understand, and that means he needs to understand them... 

(All of these thoughts are scattered and spread out and not quite verbal, struggling against the limits of the truth potion, it keeps feeling meaningless to be a different shape of Masozi because that's not what's-already-true-now, but it - he knows there's a future - he can try to hold onto that the way he would hold onto math, manipulating the logic of it, seeing what the answer would be, and that can be true enough to allow...) 

Math is reassuring, actually. It helps steady him. 

He multiples numbers in his head for a while until the door opens again. 

"We know you don't kill Sophie or Johannesburg children so we don't kill you. You stay ally to Shanghai enclave because I keep promises."

.....That wasn't at all what he was expecting. It doesn't make sense. They're still scared of him and that's why they want to kill him. So he won't hurt their people in the future. 

But - maybe he wasn't understanding something right, again. He doesn't think that Lan Xichen is lying. 

"I -" He swallows, his mouth painfully dry. "I - want to say - why I, I want to - not be dangerous - not hurt people - I, I don't understand things here but I - want to - I want to, to not break anything -?" 

He is again running into the problem where all his thoughts that are about expressing plans or intent are getting splintered against the rocks of what's-already-true-now. 

"I think truth potion take you very badly and you wait until it wears off before saying anything."

Meng Yao runs in, bows, and says, "Tintin."

"What?"

"--Tintin. Freshman. We sent him to go investigate the death of Song Lan"-- he turns to Annaka to explain-- "not expecting him to find anything, really, just trying to see how competent he is at a real job-- anyway, he's dead and his gun has disappeared."

- Masozi freezes, panic like ice water suddenly flooding through his veins again. 

"....I didn't!" No one's asked him but he can still think true thoughts, right now, and they'll know he's telling the truth. "I didn't kill him! I don't know who he is!" 

"--Of course not, there's a freshman maleficer targeting Shanghai and they framed you."

(Does he know this is true? Eh. But it sure would be convenient.) 

Annaka stands up and presses her power-sharer. “I don’t think you’re suspected in the murder of Song Lan either,” she says to Masozi, much more calmly than she feels. “But there is something up, we do not lose freshmen at this rate in a normal year - and it almost has to be a freshman because they’re too brazen for much of a life expectancy-“

"It has to be a freshman, Song Lan was never inducted." They killed him for his induction spot. "--I wonder if they're trying to start a war-- obviously our reckless behavior is also involved here but they're seizing the opportunity--"

“There’s a dead Toronto enclaver too, first night, we thought it was suicide. Christ.”

"--I think we should avoid doing anything to change the status quo until we find this maleficer and figure out who they're working for and what they want."

“Point taken,” Annaka says tightly. And she looks over at Jaipur’s representative to see how they take it.

"The Jaipur freshman who informed us that there had been a murder said that she noticed - Masozi's - maleficer aura on day one, but failed to report it to her superiors because several other freshmen also seemed off to her, and she thought that it was more likely that her gut was wrong than that there were multiple maleficers in the freshman class. Last I saw, she was making a list of those other freshmen, in case she wasn't wrong about them, either. That's one place to start, if you think you have an uncaught murderer in the freshman class."

"We can also send teams to stake out freshman classes looking for maleficers. Sino and Anglo so everyone's looped in."

“Yeah. If we watch every shop class and stop the kids with an aura we’ll have them by Thursday. Though at this rate that’ll be four more dead kids, so faster would be better.”

"I tell Sino freshmen and you tell Anglo freshmen to be careful."

Masozi wants to offer to help but every single time he's tried to help anyone since arriving at the school, it's ended in disaster. 

(Except for with Wei Wuxian. That one - briefly, at least - earned him allies.) 

He shivers quietly and doesn't interrupt. 

"I think we meet somewhere that smells better in an hour once we have time to talk to our associates."

“Yeah, all right.”

Meng Yao bows and leaves.

....What is he supposed to do now. Is he still a prisoner under guard. 

Masozi looks pleadingly over at Lan Xichen. 

After Annaka leaves, Lan Xichen says, "Masozi, I'm so sorry. I hope you forgive me."