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It takes three days for Liu's old room to be cleared out. Her first two nights back home, Liu spends in a guest room.
She tells herself it's all right. She made it home alive. She's graduated from the Scholomance: that's plenty of good fortune already. And Zheng and Min came home too, three years early. Their rooms need to be cleared out too.
Liu has got her life and Xiao Xing and the memory of having kissed a girl she really likes.
Wanting anything more would just be greedy, and not smart at all.
Her mother pours the tea - black and bitter, the way her mother likes it. "You cut your hair."
Liu reaches for the hair that is no longer there, suddenly self-conscious.
Part of her wants to protest that it's not fair. She did what was expected of her. She kept Zheng and Min alive.
"We arranged for you to spend some time resting," her mother says, briefly touching her long and perfect braid in a gesture mirroring Liu's.
Liu almost replies that rest sounds wonderful: some quiet place where she can be alone, where she can decide what is possible and what is too much to hope for.
Friendships built inside the Scholomance fall apart all the time. When your life depends on getting along, on making friends; when you think you might very well be dead in another week - it makes sense not to consider the future.
Liu's not going to pine for Yuyan only because they kissed, only because she thought it meant something. If Yuyan feels the same, she knows where to find Liu's family. If not, there are other girls in the world.
There are boys too, of course. Liu isn't quite sure if she's done with boys just yet.
"Things did not go as expected." Liu bends her head, remembering Zixuan. He wouldn't have been able to help her now, either. Shanghai isn't that close.
If it had been, Liu might have seen her parents more often than a few days a month.
Her mother grimaces, then sighs. "No. First Bangkok, and then this ... upheaval. I suppose you did the best you could." She holds out a plate of too sweet cakes.
Liu takes one, trying to look grateful, humble. She remembers banging on El's door, yelling, 'we should send the mals to school'.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
It still seems like a good idea now, but not one she should share with her mother. Instead, she sips her tea and eats her cake and tries not to grimace at the taste of either.
(It helps that she's had a lot of practice.)
"He wasn't supposed to become your familiar, was he?" Zheng asks, watching Xiao Xing scamper around Liu's room, whiskers trembling.
Liu still has the memory of picking out a victim every six months. She remembers closing her hand around something small and furry and helpless that would be dead already if not for her.
She tries to focus on her magazine instead. All hairstyles look good on the models showing them off, but that is no reason to believe they would look good on her too. "No."
Women in her family are there to protect and serve, to take on the burdens the men cannot. Four, five years of her life surely would have been worth Zheng and Min graduating safely. Perhaps she should keep her hair short, go for a tomboyish look.
"Do you think there's going to be a war?" Zheng asks. "Between the enclaves, I mean? Auntie says we should be glad that we don't have one yet, that nobody will bother attacking us."
Enclave wars rarely stay limited to enclaves. No enclaver would risk their life when they can get someone else to do it for them - for money, for favors, for future promises.
Liu's sure Shanghai would be as generous as they've always been. And it would be a fair offer, wouldn't it, to help people build an enclave of their own in exchange for them helping you to keep yours safe?
"I think nobody knows yet what happened to Bangkok," she says. "I think we should be careful." Enclaves aren't built by reckless people.
"I think I don't even want to live in an enclave," Zheng says. He's still young, and happy to have no responsibilities other than to exist. "I bet you do, though, eh? With Wang Yuyan. And a lot of mice."
"They don't have to be mice." She likes the idea of Xiao Xing getting to have a little family of his own. She likes the idea of having a home herself. "They can be other kinds of animals." She wonders what sort of hairstyle Yuyan would like.
"I want a tiger," Zheng said. "Or a dragon. Can you do a dragon, Liu?"
Liu does not think she wants to do a dragon. She suspects the dragon would feel the same way she does. "I'll think about it. When you're older."
"You sound like a grown-up." Zheng's tone makes it clear that he does not consider this to be a good thing.
I don't feel like one. Grown-ups work for the good of the family. Grown-ups know that work is more important than spending time with the people you love. Grown-ups know that kissing a girl means nothing at all.
Grown-ups don't have their heart skip a beat when their elder cousin comes and tells them that a distinguished visitor from Shanghai has expressed a desire to see them.
It's Yuyan, of course it's Yuyan. Nobody else from Shanghai would want to see Liu - except maybe Zixuan. Liu is glad it's not Zixuan. Zixuan coming to see her would do no good at all. Her family would jump to conclusions. It would be awkward for everyone.
This way, it's only awkward for Liu. Her cousin leaves the two of them with milk tea and melon cake and a curious glance at Liu that means there will be questions about this conversation sooner rather than later.
"We're sending emissaries to all the important families we work with," Yuyan says. She sounds vaguely apologetic. "I volunteered."
Yuyan's affinity is communication. It makes sense Shanghai would use her as a diplomat. It makes sense that her family would give her responsibility, that they would listen to her when she tells them what she wants.
"It's good to see you again," Liu says, because telling Yuyan her family hasn't told her about any of that would sound too much like complaining.
"It's good to see you again too." Yuyan smiles. Liu remembers kissing her, remembers holding Yuyan's hand in her own while applying the healing ointment.
'Can you check these calculations for me?' she'd asked, and Yuyan had checked them, puzzled at first and then Liu had watched her expression change as Yuyan started to realize what the numbers actually meant.
"I ... " Yuyan hesitates. "I would like to meet the rest of your family? If that's all right?"
"You're an emissary from Shanghai. You'd have a hard time not meeting them," Liu says, before her mind makes the connection. Of course Yuyan will meet with Liu's parents. Of course Liu's parents will treat her with respect and listen to what she has to say. That's what you do when Shanghai sends an emissary.
"Yes. I suppose that you're right." Yuyan smiles again, but it's a polite smile now, with maybe a hint of ruefulness, of 'fair enough, message received, pity, but glad to have gotten that cleared up right away'.
"I didn't mean - " Liu swallows. When Zixuan asked, the answer was easy. Zixuan would have made the ideal son-in-law, a fine addition to a family looking to build an enclave.
"It's okay," Yuyan says. "You don't have to pretend, or worry that I'm going to make trouble for you with your family or something like that. I wanted to ask, that's all."
"I would love for you to meet the rest of my family." Liu reaches out to take Yuyan's hand. The scars are almost gone already. Shanghai employs only the best healers. "If you can spare the time."
Yuyan squeezes her hand. "We're not at war yet - and even if we were, I think that some things are important enough to make time for."
Liu wants to ask, are things really that bad? Chloe's in New York, and possibly Aadhya as well by now. Not El, unless Orion's talked her into it somehow, which seems unlikely. More likely, they're in Wales, safely away from it all.
I don't want Aadhya to get hurt. Or Chloe. Or anyone else.
Nobody knows what happened to Bangkok. Maybe it wasn't another enclave at all. Maybe it was something else, something we should fight together, side by side, the way we did it in the Scholomance.
"I hope you're thinking of something other than introducing me to your favorite family members right now, because that's not a very happy expression."
"After you're done here, I think we should go to Wales," Liu says.
"After I'm done here, I think I deserve a vacation, and if that happens to involve travelling to Wales, I think my family would be more or less okay with that."