Ennis gets the door. "- yes?"

He looks for Paige; she was involved in handling last year's fiasco. "Can you send your underclassmen out."

Paige is confused. "- what, all of them, for how long? If the Domina's son gets eaten because I sent him wandering the halls -"

"I'll stick with the others, Paige," sighs Ennis. The underclassmen file out, leaving just Paige and Leo and Louis and Eleanor.

"I'm sorry," Asher says. "Shanghai's adopted a maleficer suspected in two murders and we're considering whether to assassinate him."

"- bloody hell," says Leo, after a silence.

"Yep. Annaka wants everybody who stands to lose in the room, you can all come or send one. She'll explain everything but I can answer enough questions for you to figure out who's going."

"I'll go," groans Paige. "Louis, you too, take minutes."

Louis sighs and gets up.

"We're in classroom 404." And he's gone and off to the next reading room, which Boston and Philadelphia share. Knock knock.

"Come in," says Ryan, looking up from where she and her two yearmates are poring over a massive diagram with a 'this had better be important' face.

Unfortunately, Asher's news is very important. "Can you send your underclassmen out." Preceding this at all with 'I know it's a big request but' or something would undermine the urgency, so he's ignoring his instincts and just saying exactly what needs to happen to everyone. 

If this is some bullshit she's going to gossip about him so hard later, and he knows that, so it's not some bullshit. "Everyone who's not a senior needs to clear out."

Everyone who isn't a senior clears out.

"Shanghai just adopted a maleficer suspected in two murders and we're considering whether to assassinate him."

Ryan lets out a breath that's just barely not a sigh. "You want to go over the evidence here and now, or get everyone in one place so you only have to do it once?"

"The latter. Annaka's got nine witness interview transcripts, I'm supposed to tell you however much you need to know to decide who to send."

"I'll go. Sam, Aaron, you guys can go ahead and start fabricating if you get the blueprints done, if you want my input on something I'll give it but no need to wait."

Next up: New Orleans/Atlanta.

An Atlanta senior opens the door, raising an eyebrow in surprise when she sees who it is. "Hi, what's up?"

"Confidential, can you send your undergrads out - does New Orleans even have any seniors -"

"No," says Suze.

"Is this about -" begins Bella, but she cuts off.

"I guess whoever's oldest from New Orleans," says Asher, not quite nodding at Bella but not not nodding at Bella either. 

She briefly weighs the potential consequences, then turns and says, "everyone from Atlanta under the age of seventeen, scoot." 

"Annette, what's going on--" one of the other seniors asks before she makes a cutting motion. 

The underclassmen file out with various grumbling and glances at the New York junior. 

Bella tentatively gathers her belongings, waiting to see if she is interrupted at doing that.

She already knows most of it but it'll be weird if there's one freshman in the room; Asher waits for her to leave.

Then he tells them. "New York has been investigating a maleficer suspected of two murders. Then, this afternoon, Shanghai adopted him. We're deciding whether to assassinate him."

"Uh," says Suze, "do we know... why... Shanghai did that...?"

"No. We know they know he's a maleficer, we don't know what they're thinking."

"What were the two murders?" Annette asks. 

"I don't have Mandarin, do you have someone investigating who has Mandarin?" asks Suze.

"The murders are suspected, not confirmed, we were in the middle of trying to get confirmation when they adopted him. His affinity is - mal control, we have documentation he's been coaxing mals in the bathroom to him for trade supplies. He showed up in Johannesburg, got turned away because they were full up, and then a really convenient attack from a kvenlick - they're not urban monsters, they're too big and mundies see them - took out one of the other fourteen year olds; he was on the scene by coincidence, heroically saved some younger kids, and got the slot. Then a girl went on a supply run with him, was friendly with him, agreed to tailor some clothes for him, and a couple hours later was bedbound with - well, either half her life force drained or a really conveniently timed bout of severe illness. She'd have died if we hadn't broken down the door in the course of the investigation, and she's....probably going to die anyway, the nurse didn't look optimistic. Annaka's been leading this and she has, like, spell-adequate Mandarin, and so does Olivia, we are going to need someone fluent but we want to get everyone on the same page first."

"Okay," Annette says grimly. If this kid killed an enclaver, something has to be done. "Do you need all of us or just representation."

"Whoever you want to send."

"Okay. David, Octavia, you stay here and keep the underclassmen from getting too inquisitive. Ethan, you come along with me." 

Suze collects her stuff. "Where're we going?"

"Room 404."

Well that's not a concerning omen at all.

Montreal and Toronto. Knock knock.

The door opens on a (the) Montréal junior. 

"Can we help you?" She asks, more flat than anything. 

"Need to talk to your seniors. It's an emergency."

"Montréal doesn't have any seniors," she steps back a bit, though, looking over to Toronto's part of the room. 

"Sure, your juniors and Toronto's seniors, whoever makes calls for your enclave."

On the Toronto side of the room, someone stands up—an impeccably dressed girl who looks too old for school, clocking at 23 or so even though she can't reasonably be much more than 18. "That would be me."

"And me," Sara nods, "Only the seniors and juniors?" 

"We're going to have a time fitting everyone in the room as it is, we're talking to, uh, all the non-Sino enclaves."

"I can speak for Toronto," says Anne. "Assuming your business is worth my time but that seems like a reasonable assumption."

"I wish I were wasting it." He turns to look expectantly at Montreal.

She gives a wry smile, "It's just me, and the frosh. Are we going to get an explanation before we block off our next hour for a mystery?" 

"Once the room's clear I'm authorized to give you as much information as you need to decide whether to come and who to send."

Well then, if it's that urgent she can go rustle up her freshmen and send them to wait outside. 

Anne does the same, leaving a handful of her fellow seniors in the room.

"There's a freshman maleficer suspected of two murders; we were in the middle of an investigation when Shanghai publicly adopted him. We're trying to figure out what to do."

Anne sighs deeply. "Where is the meeting?"

"Room 404."

"I'll be there."

"Mhm." She's already packing up her bag. 

Australia and New Zealand have corners in the main reading room so he has to be more oblique. "Emergency, need you to send a rep or maybe several down to 404."

Some wordless glances and raised eyebrows are exchanged and one senior each from Sydney and Auckland stand up and head for the stairs. Winston, the Auckland senior, lingers a bit to see who else is being told.

London! Paris! Miami! Santa Barbara! DC! Seattle! Sacramento!

But not Shanghai or Kyoto or Seoul or Kiev or Istanbul or Damascus or São Paulo. Interesting. Down the stairs to 404.

Sacramento has their own small reading room. Thanks to Larisa's convenient affinity, she even has a portable ward-fortification, linked to a tasseled silk cord with fine copper and gold wire woven in. She brings it in with her every day and sets it up across the door. 

She's currently sitting in an overstuffed armchair with her feet propped up on the table, a book arranged loosely over the arm, and Vanya curled up at her feet; she flips pages with one hand and occasionally strokes his hair with the other. 

When she hears someone approaching, she looks over. "What." 

"Hi. We need to talk. Annaka says you'll say you're busy and she says she's sorry, it can't wait."

Larisa pats Vanya's hair again and doesn't move. "Sure. Let's talk." 

"Alone."

"Seriously?"

But Larisa shifts and stands up. "Cassie, Killian, Tristan, all of you duck out." She tugs Vanya to his feet, squeezes his shoulders. "You too. It'll just be for a minute." 

Cassie glowers at the interloper and then loops back to take Vanya's hand and nudge him out of the room. 

"Okay. What." 

"There's a freshman maleficer suspected of two murders - uh, one is an ambiguous case because the girl's not dead yet, just - for all my mana halfway life drained. I'm sorry. And Shanghai just announced that they're adopting him and we have to figure out what to do."

"Fuck," Larisa says, with no particular intonation. She drags a hand through her short hair. "Right. For fuck's sake, again? What sort of freshman is murdering people three days in?" Groan. "Okay. What's the plan, then?" 

"Get everyone on the same page. Before the Shanghai thing we were probably going to kill him once we had confirmation on the murder, now we have to figure out whether to expect Shanghai to retaliate if we do that. And - they're not idiots, so if they're doing this they have a reason - Annaka thinks it might have something to do with Chicago somehow - just come on down, she'll present what we've got -"

"Can I grab Landon for it too." This is politics, and politics is really not Larisa's thing even slightly. 

"Yep, absolutely."

"When and where." 

"404, now."

"Okay. Fine. 'Now' had better mean 'in five minutes' because I've got to make sure Vanya's taken care of for the next god knows how many hours before I can head over." 

"I still have some enclaves to hit up. I am sorry. But - we act fast enough maybe it doesn't happen again, right -"

"Yeah. I'll...be right down." 

Larisa's internal monologue right now consists almost entirely of Russian swearwords, but she nods firmly to Asher and then leaves the room to coordinate things with the juniors and find out where Landon is. 

Room 404 is a classic classroom, with a blackboard and little individual desks with attached chairs. Annaka's pacing and greeting people as they come in. She wanted to hand out copies of transcripts but she doesn't have those, everything happened too fast.

Eventually she's pretty sure every enclave she expected to send someone has someone here, and time is valuable, they all need it to prep for graduation if they're not about to all die, so she launches into it. 

"Chronological order. Two months ago a solo indie from Malawi, named Masozi, shows up in Johannesburg; he'd heard rumors of the Scholomance and wanted a spot. He claims to be just starting to learn English, have no Mandarin, but have survived on his own for a while at that point. They were full. He left the enclave, but hung around the area. A short time later a kvenlik attacks, kills one of Johannesburg's inductees. Masozi saves some younger kids. They offer him the spot.

Thursday afternoon, New York freshmen were heading down to our senior dorms to pick up stuff left behind by the graduating class when he's spotted following them. I have this conversation from six different perspectives but they basically agree: my kid sister Julia tells him 'hey, we're not going back to the dorms, we're going down to the senior level and it's not safe for you to go there alone'. He says 'I'll be a lookout'. Julia says 'we have enough of those already'. He runs right up into the middle of their formation, past Julia, to Orion who has point, and says 'I can spot mals, hey Orion, remember me, I spotted a mal in the cafeteria.'

Orion says 'do I know you?' Julia says 'kid, people you don't trust are as dangerous as mals, and we don't trust you. Go away'. He ignores her and tells Orion 'there's a mal at the bottom of the stairs!'. Witnesses, who are all freshmen and barely know what they're doing, disagree on whether he did some kind of minor spell as he said that. Orion runs off. The kids all stand there glaring at each other until Orion comes back, at which point someone asks Masozi 'so, your affinity is spotting mals?', he says 'yes', and Julia tells him he can follow if he stays ten feet behind. New York's witnesses are unanimous in thinking this was just Julia wanting to avoid a confrontation, nothing influenced.

They get down to Frank's dorm and mention this to Frank as a funny story, he thinks he's a potentially serious story, steps outside and is distracted by some attacking jaculi from figuring out what spell the kid is standing there casting. Kid's a maleficer; it's subtle, but Frank was involved in last year, he's sensitive to it at this point. Frank tells him that New York doesn't associate with maleficers and to clear out and stay away from the New York freshmen. Masozi says 'they weren't looking where they were going, I just want to make sure no one gets hurt". Frank tells him to seriously clear out and he stalks off, not in a rush at all.

This is enough for us to plan on warning the freshmen off him at breakfast Friday, but before breakfast Friday, something weird happens during homeroom. The kid leaves his homeroom and runs over to the homeroom of another of our freshmen to ask if anyone is in Monday morning shop class."

Deep breath. 

"Breaking chronological order to share something I was specifically ordered by the Domina not to share, but which is important to our reaction here. Orion Lake is one of New York's freshmen. He has an affinity for killing mals. And he does not have a mana capacity limit that we have been able to find. When first hooked up to a New York power-sharer he drew the whole enclave's reserves. He put it back. But he's a goddamned fucking superweapon in the wrong hands, and I am doing absolutely everything I can to not give the slightest indication we're the wrong hands. He will have nothing to do with this, if we need to take action. He will never have an enforcement role in New York. He likes killing mals, he's good at killing mals, we aren't pointing him anywhere else. 

He's in Monday morning shop. All the New York freshmen are in Monday morning shop, because he can keep them safe and they arranged it among themselves and thought they were very clever.

And Masozi asked our freshman who wasn't in the supply run and hadn't been warned off him, got told about Monday morning shop, and placed himself in there too. That is how we started investigating him."

She pauses there for questions. 

Larisa raises her hand. 

"...If he doesn't speak Mandarin, then why the fuck does Shanghai want him?" 

"We think he might have lied to Johannesburg about not speaking Mandarin. He has several classes in it."

That really does not seem much less inexplicable! How and why would a random African indie kid - clearly a poor one, too - have a chance to learn Mandarin? And if he did, why the fuck would he lie about it and make himself sound less qualified and prepared to survive the Scholomance? 

She doesn't interrupt again, though. 

Annette from Atlanta raises her hand. "How solidly do you trust Frank? Last year was a shitshow and I'm all in favor of cracking down on maleficing, but I hope you can understand why someone from the South would want to be cautious about the possibility of going after a black kid because he was uppity and a white guy said he had bad vibes." 

"He admits to the maleficing. He told some kids he went on a supply run with that rats don't hurt if you do it right, and they were appalled and told him it's bad for you, which apparently he'd been completely unaware of. Asked a bunch of questions about what kind of brain damage it causes. They tried to convince him to go clean, though it might be too late for that without stopping magic use which he can hardly do in here; he was reportedly noncommital."

"--Wow, okay."

Suze is acutely conscious of being the youngest person in here. Still. "How did you come by the information that Shanghai's adopting him?"

"He was sitting with them in the cafeteria when I went looking for him to ask some questions about the dying girl, which I haven't told you about yet. I flagged down a friend from Seoul and asked how he'd gotten that invite, she said 'oh, yeah, Lan Xichen's adopted him, gave him clothes and has Shanghai warding his room and everything'. I said 'are you fucking sure' and she said 'not a lot of African indies here, Annaka, and he came around to the whole Sinosphere on Friday, to let us know'."

Winston has a question, but it's one of those questions that should be asked in private and not in front of a third of the senior class. He files it away for later.

"What avenues do we have for learning more about what the fuck Shanghai is thinking?" says Anne from Toronto.

"Let's discuss that in a minute, I want to finish catching everyone up.

The following us to the senior dorms and the shop class thing are enough for us to do an investigation. Our primary focus was whether he's a danger to Orion, frankly. I don't know what will happen if a maleficer tries to pull from the kid with infinite mana reserves but the answer might well be 'new exciting kind of mal that eats the school'. We went to Johannesburg and got the story on his induction. We talked to some kids who'd been on supply runs with him and got the story about the pulling from rats without it hurting. We talked to some kids who'd seen him - lure mals to him with magic, in the bathrooms, he'd been offered trade goods for mal grubs and he could make the grubs wiggle out of the drains to him. One guess is that his affinity is not mal-detection but mal-control, it'd explain that and the conveniently timed jaculi and the kvenlik in Johannesburg. But we're not sure. Another guess is that someone else arranged that for him with their own goals, which he may or may not know; that'd gesture at some explanations for the beeline to Orion and the speaking Mandarin and the sudden friendship with Shanghai, but it's also practically impossible to prove or disprove in here, so." Shrug. "We also talked to someone who'd heard him say that he can stop maleficing in here because it's so safe in here, which isn't encouraging for his actions once it gets dangerous in here."

"And finally, an hour ago, while talking to a New Zealand kid who was on a supply run with him, she realizes she hasn't seen another girl who was on that supply run and friendly with Masozi, Sophie, since the supply run. No one else has either. We break down her door. She's alive but barely, remains to be seen if she'll make it. She spent the last couple of days tailoring a suit of magical clothes for Masozi while delirious and mostly unable to move. She - it looks a lot like someone drained her life force and was too inexperienced to take all of it, but maybe she just caught the flu at the worst possible time, that's her own hypothesis. So if not for the Shanghai complication we were planning to confront the kid and make a decision once it's clear if Sophie lives and whether he did her, but while we're rushing the girl to the infirmary we learned of the Shanghai complication.

And...for the Shanghai situation the most important thing here is that he's openly admitted to maleficing, said he can draw from rats without it hurting which suggests pretty inured to maleficing, and that they've adopted him three days in which they never do even with indie freshmen who are clean as a whistle. I don't know what the fuck they're playing at but I'm terrified, and I'm mad, and my present inclination is to kill him tomorrow morning in shop and let Shanghai decide what they're going to do about that. But - it seems reasonably likely that what they'll do about that is have a war, so we're not doing a damn thing unless people are behind us and we've exhausted our other options, and that's what we're here to figure out."

"Have you considered options for making his death look like an accident?"

Sigh. Probably this was inevitable, but he was really hoping Annaka wouldn't make that explicit yet. And that Annete wouldn't just blurt that out.

Sigh. "It's one of the reasons we haven't gone marching over to the Shanghai table yet. If we don't indicate that we've noticed anything, and he dies in Monday morning shop, then, well, he was a moron who took Monday morning shop as a freshman, too bad so sad. But when we started the investigation we didn't have concealing it from Shanghai in mind, and we've talked to fifteen people. I don't feel great about betting that it won't get back to them. 

Furthermore, now that it's under discussion, if he does die, which he has decent odds of doing because he's an idiot in Monday morning shop, it looks like us, even though anyone would've given good odds that a random indie freshman taking Monday morning shop doesn't make it to Field Day anyway."

"After what happened last year, anyone who spills about this discussion if he does die is an idiot who shouldn't have been included," she half-mutters. 

"Why not try diplomacy, if we're damned if he dies whether New York does it or not."

"Maybe that's what we do next, but I want to figure out what to say, if so. On my own recognizance I'd march over there and say 'no, you're not adopting a maleficer, hilarious how such a horrible insult to your character made it into the rumor mill, you'll publicly announce that you've got nothing to do with him and if we need to kill him then we will, got it' but, well, firstly I only have spell-Mandarin and Lan Xichen only has spell-English, and secondly, it's not going to work, there's no way he just hasn't realized everyone's going to be terrified and pissed off. And the kid dying in an accident might be a catastrophe, but it also might be ambiguous enough Shanghai backs off; it's not sure enough it'd turn out fine to make me happy but I wouldn't say we've got nothing to lose."

"If you talked to Shanghai and they dropped him like an acid potato and promised not to have anything to do with him again, would that even change anything? It sounds like you'd still be just  as worried for your freshmen's lives."

"It would change the odds there's a war if he dies," Annette points out. 

"Yeah, probably we still kill him but we'd finish the investigation into Sophie, first, and let Johannesburg lead on the investigation of that, and we, you know, send out notice of intent and our nicely collated evidence and no one ends up under the impression that we -" She glances over at Atlanta - "uh, lynched a kid for being weird and smelly."

Nod. 

Winston really wishes people would stop shouting things out and constraining poor Annaka's options. This meeting is a really unfortunate size, too large for effective secrecy or planning and too small to not look like a conspiracy to those on the outside.

Landon lifts his hand. 

"I'm not sure this is actually decision-relevant in most of the scenarios, but I feel better about plans where it is relevant - how much evidence do we actually have of this kid's intentions? Because it seems like the things we know for sure are compatible with him being - clearly a threat we need to take out ASAP - but also compatible with him being an incredibly clueless child who managed to stumble his way in here half by luck, and really didn't have any way of knowing about the risks of pulling malia until a few days ago. And...I mean, even in that case it's probably not worth the risk, but - it'd affect the perception of it, right, if Shanghai knows - or thinks they know - more about that then we do." 

"I assume they think they have a good read on their pet maleficer, seems incredibly unwise to adopt one you don't have a good read on. I ...have no idea how we'd figure out if he's sincere, other than that if Sophie doesn't have the flu that rules it out. 

Even if he's just an innocent kid in way over his head - I'm not actually sure we have a choice, here, like he's an innocent kid in way over his head who can therefore have been inferred not to have brought mice, and if he's at the point of drawing rats without feeling a thing I'm pretty sure he can't go clean while still using magic half as much as you need to to survive, in here. But yeah, distinct possibility that this is just a goddamned tragedy and Shanghai.... 'feels sorry for him' does not seem in character, or appropriate given the stakes....has a plan for the mal control affinity? That's the most optimistic possibility I can think of..."

"I really don't like condemning an indie kid for malificing in Sub-Saharan Africa," is Sara's input, "If he's actually drained a human, sure- but he might not have. People drain rats all the time in the Scholomance, if that's all it takes we'd have to kill- well, some established enclavers, for one." Her sister, if she wasn't already dead. "If he can trade for some rats and didn't kill anyone, is it any of our business?" 

"The mal affinity would be really valuable on graduation day," Annette muses. "--And I think I heard something about them having two useless freshmen this year, I have no idea if that's true or not but it...might go some way towards explaining anything?"

"Has anyone seen him unambiguously casting a spell with no animals around? Or conspicuously avoiding doing that? It'd be a clue to whether he could theoretically go clean."

"Frank thinks he was casting a spell outside Frank's room."

"He was," says Frank firmly. "No idea if he had a mouse in his pocket, though."

" - we can figure out for ourselves where we each individually draw the line, when it comes to the actions of indie maleficers, the thing we need to be on the same page about is the response to there being a Shanghai maleficer," says Annaka.

"I heard the same, about the useless freshman. And - I've heard some things about the head of Shanghai that - could explain why he's willing to take out some high-variance bets for them."

Landon lets out a slow breath. "I - sorry, I'm not sure how to say this and it's less urgent than the rest but I think it's got to be said. In the 'goddamned tragedy' scenario, I...honestly don't know what we could do to, well, mitigate the long-term damage to relations between the Anglosphere and Sinosphere. And maybe that's just flat outweighed by all the other factors. But it...could be pretty bad. If they end up telling one story and we're telling another." 

"If the kid is—I hesitate to say 'innocent'—if the kid is maleficing because he grew up underinformed and doesn't know better, and Shanghai is putting their weight behind the hope that he'll turn around, and we can't convince them otherwise, I'd almost say it's worth stepping back to see what they make of him, just because it would be so ongoingly bad if we sparked a permanent Anglo-Sino enclave war by taking him out. I have younger siblings in here and more on the way, I assume many of you do too, it's awful if a loose maleficer kills them but this school has survived several of those and I'm not, actually, sure the school would survive a long-running feud between two halves of the student body that by and large can't easily talk to each other."

"Easier to survive than if one clique thinks they can murder whoever they like." Daisy, oldest survivor of that enclave that mostly died trying to take down one of their own for maleficing.

"We know how enclaves who take in maleficers turn out," says Fakir, one of the two seniors from Paris. "If nobody takes action, and the kid doesn't die, it'll be a repeat of last year, regardless of how well he means now. Not this year, and not next year, but the year after that, or the year after, when everyone's younger siblings are focusing on graduation. That's who the casualties are going to be, and there's not much question that they'll happen."

"He's not going to be much harder to kill in three weeks, though. We - I just think that if we make a decision in a hurry, here, it's - predictably going to miss some considerations." 

"If the casualties of doing nothing would be fewer, over the long run, than the casualties of a war that could spill outside the school, then we should do nothing. The only reason it might possibly be a good idea to start a war is if the alternative is having a war started anyway and we need it to be now and not later."

"I want even less for my younger siblings and cousins to spend the next four years watching their backs for attacks from Shanghai's faction on top of mals. Malificers can be dangerous but they're not a whole half of the school." 

"Even if the kid sincerely intends to quit, lots of kids never intend to start and do, when things get desperate. Someone who has done it before and knows he's good at it? Is going to stick to his determination to quit which he formed in the first place because it's oh-so-safe here?"

"And - it seems pretty bad, if the Anglo and Sino kids hate each other," Frank says. "But to be clear, I think that ship has fucking sailed. They put us in this position, however we decide to react, they're juggling live grenades over the heads of our younger brothers and sisters, and I do hate them for it, and I think I'm right to."

"It has been less than a week since Chicago," Annaka says. "For all we know, our parents are at war. If Shanghai's doing weird shit, a good theory is that they know more about what news to expect next induction than we do, and are expecting that news to spark a war inside."

"If Shanghai is stockpiling weapons to use against other wizards, then it's too late not to worry about them."

Your hardline prejudice against malificing is showing, New York. What's next after this, Pisa? A witch hunt through the rest of the enclaves for anyone who's ever drained a rat? 

"With Shanghai's support the Scholomance might stay safer than where he came from for him. He was a lone indie in South Africa.

"I still say diplomacy is the only sensible next step here." 

Fakir snorts derisively at this.

"Right, maybe we can make sure only our kids don't have to spend the next four years watching their backs for attacks from Shanghai's pet maleficer."

Great! Fantastic! This is going about as expected but that is not great. "Okay," Annaka says. "Thank you. Now you're all in the loop. The thing you can tell everyone else about this meeting, by the way, is that we think Masozi murdered Sophie and you should warn all your underclassmen away from him, action pending whether Sophie dies or not. I am not expecting that only that will leak, but I will keep track of who else is the origin of further leaks. If you want New York to be able to consider you a resource in further planning, tell me or Frank that. If you want New York to publicly complain about how you won't play ball with anyone else, tell me or Frank that. If you have some brilliant plan I haven't thought of, one it probably won't work, but two, tell me or Frank that. If you have a warm intro to some enclave that's not here, now I'm going to have to go talk with them so everyone isn't pissed with us.

If you try to do diplomacy with Shanghai unilaterally I expect it to explode spectacularly; even if you're really sure that diplomacy is the way to go here, please let's make sure it's between the people with decision power about whether there's a war, which are not you. If we look internally divided that makes a war more likely; I still think we might be able to avoid one with a show of uniform reasonable but completely firm opposition to what Shanghai's doing, and I don't think we're going to avoid one with less. 

If you learn anything about Masozi, or about what Shanghai wants, through some mechanism other than going around asking which I urge you not to do, please tell me or Frank."

Well this has all gone to hell. Damn. Time for damage control - better to be hanged for a conspirator than let these fools keep digging the hole deeper and let the whole school burn down around them - That metaphor was too mixed to make sense, but that's not important, it's not like anyone's reading his thoughts and if they are they're not judging him for the quality of his metaphors. Winston stands up and walks to the front of the room.

"Annaka? A quick word, please?"

"Yes?" She does a privacy spell.

"Are you trying to avoid a war or to win one? Because this has made both of those a lot harder."

- ouch. The real answer is "I don't know????" but she can't just say that. 

"....it depends what happened in Chicago? Or -  I'd rather avoid a war but I suspect it might already be too late for that, in which case I'd love Shanghai to put up a nice sign saying 'hey you have to fight us now or die', which they've just kind of done, so -"

"Well at least some of the next steps look the same either way. You're right to be looping in the other enclaves, just - maybe that should've happened sooner, right now this probably looks like a big American conspiracy to discredit Shanghai - Start with Seoul and Kyoto, don't try to get any commitment out of them but make sure they know what's going on and why we're all freaking out about it. Someone unilaterally killing Masozi would probably have allowed you to get either outcome before this meeting but now it wouldn't lead to a peaceful resolution... Arresting him would work better - If you want to do that you should still talk to Kyoto and Seoul first but then move to detain Masozi right after that, while you're still looping in the other enclaves."

Annaka has no idea whether this kid is any good at geopolitics. He's good at sounding like he's good at geopolitics, which is half the battle. "- I'll go talk to Seoul next, you're right," she says, because he is right, about that. "I'd have looped more people in before the meeting but - a lot of them would be delighted if New York and Shanghai wipe each other out, which seems like - not the spirit we needed while we're trying to problem-solve -"

"Not that I didn't appreciate the invitation, but this meeting was too big for problem solving. If it'd been smaller it would have been better for making plans and not having them leak, if it had been bigger it would have been better for establishing common knowledge that Shanghai is in the wrong here. This size just created confusion and limited your options and sent a message to the other enclaves that they weren't valued enough to include - I know that's not why you did it but it's how it'll be read - I'll stop taking up your time now, this meeting started a clock ticking and whatever you decide to do you'll need to act quickly. I'll be in the library making plans, send someone to get me if you need me."

" - right. Thanks."  Ugh. "Frank can you go talk with - Sao Paolo and Buenos Aires - I'm going to talk to Seoul -"

" - Kyoto too. Maybe even Beijing, but - do them last, it'll tip your hand, but having Beijing looped in privately before any public confrontation starts makes it look like this is about Shanghai's misbehaviour and not about New York trying to put down their rival." And off he goes. Hopefully they listen.

Daisy finds a Frank-or-Annaka before she leaves. "I'll help with anything."

" - thanks," Annaka says. She is - not surprised by that one, at least. 

And then Larisa is waiting in the hallway nearby.

Far enough away that she's clearly not trying to eavesdrop, but close enough - and visibly paying enough attention - that she obviously wants Annaka to talk to her if Annaka feels like it. 

" - hey," Annaka says on her way out the door. 

"Hey." 

Brief pause. 

"...I just wanted you to know that you've got my backing. Whatever you decide you have to do. I - Landon is going to be difficult about it. He's all trying to 'think about long term consequences'. Which I reckon we can deal with after we graduate. I'll handle the arguments with him about it." 

"- thank you. I figure, anything at all the adults can do, I'll delightedly leave to them. But they can't do anything about 'the Scholomance is full of maleficers'."

"Yeah." Sigh. "We're on our own. But.- it's we. It's not just you and it's not just New York." She fingers the handle of her axe. "We got through last year. We'll get through this too."