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Chapter Text

All was not quiet on the Russian front, no matter how Lan Wangji wished it was. It had been a long time since he’d seen a stir like this, with secretaries and messages flying back and forth between offices like flights of swallows. His brother had been holed up in the war room for hours with the other heads of the Russia House, and it was all because of Wei Wuxian.

It wasn’t directly his fault, of course, it never was. Wei Wuxian was like a breeze-you never saw the things he touched directly, but the ripples of his action shook the leaves for miles. This time, it had been his big mouth that had gotten him into trouble, and Lan Wangji was ready to wring his neck for it, but he had to find him first.

The phone jangled, startling him from his annoyance. When he picked up, he was both relieved and enraged to hear Wei Wuxian’s voice on the other end. “My secretary says you’ve been ringing half the night.”

“Well, we needed you. For a publisher, you sure do travel a lot. Without telling anyone where you’re going.” He knew he was being sharp, letting his irritation into his voice, but he couldn’t help himself. Everything about this free-spirited, roaming troubadour of a publisher drove him to distraction.

“You know I don’t like to be tied down,” Wei Wuxian replied breezily. “Why don’t I take you to lunch and we talk it over? I can treat you to that nice place in Soho you like so much.”

“You’re the one that likes it-” The line went dead. Lan Wangji took a deep breath and tried to centre himself. It didn’t work.

The trouble with Wei Wuxian was that he was impulsive, reckless, arrogant, disorganized, unprofessional, horrifically charismatic, and kind. The kindness was the worst of all. Without it, Lan Wangji would have been able to dismiss him as an art house braggart, a flighty writer type that couldn’t be relied upon. The problem was, he believed in people, and they believed in him. Lan Wangji even believed in him, and he hadn’t had the luxury of belief in a very long time.

When he arrived at the Yiling Teahouse, Wei Wuxian was holding court at a corner table, resplendent in his dark suit and crimson tie. He even wore a pocket square. Wait staff smiled and greeted him as if he lived there, and he gave them each a sunny grin in return, lighting up the room every time. The sunniest grin, however, was reserved for him, and he didn’t like it at all.

“You know you’ve kept me awake nearly every night this week?” he said cooly, sliding into his chair. Wei Wuxian’s brows drew up in mock concern.

“You’ve been dreaming about me again?” He said. Cheeky bastard.

“No, I’ve been cleaning up your messes, as usual. I thought we talked about you staying out of trouble when you were on the other side of the iron curtain? Keeping your head down? Keeping your mouth shut?”
“Oh, lay off it, old sport,” Wei Wuxian groaned with an impressive display of pathetic agony. “You know I’m never trying to get you into trouble.”

Lan Wangji ground his teeth in frustration. “No, but you’re not trying not to, either. Instead, you’re attending parties with arthouse writers and dissidents who send you back notebooks filled with classified Russian files with cover letters from obscure publishers politely requesting your attention.”

It was more than he would have shared in public, but it gave him the satisfaction of watching Wei Wuxian gape like a landed fish.

“Classified files? What on earth are you talking about, Lan Zhan? You know I don’t get mixed up in that sort of nonsense.” There was real fear in his voice, and Lan Wangji took entirely too much pleasure in making him suffer a little bit more.

“Well, it seems like you did this time. My brother wants to talk to your rather urgently about it, actually.”

“Your brother? What the hell for?” Wei Wuxian gestured fruitlessly, waving his hands about like an idiot as he searched for words. “Look, don’t tell me you’re messing me about because I flirted with you in a board meeting last month. This is pretty heavy retaliation, don’t you think?”

In spite of himself, Lan Wangji’s cheeks turned pink. “This has nothing to do with the board meeting,” he said with all the icy dignity he could muster. “And I’m not ‘messing you about’. This is some serious trouble you’ve gotten yourself into this time, and I think you’d better come back to the Russia House with me and tell us all about how you know ‘Ghost’.

*

It was inconvenient, being in love with an officer of British Intelligence. Lan Zhan never talked about his work, and Wei Ying tried his best not to ask about it, but it gave every one of their interactions a hidden mystique that he couldn’t get enough of. Lan Zhan was posh, stuck up, and a plodding slave to procedure and routine, but he had that way of blushing at the most inopportune moments that never failed to delight. He also looked quite nice in his tailored grey pinstripe, a fact which did not escape Wei Ying as he followed his...friend up the stairs to the fourth floor of MI6’s Russia House.

He’d been before, once or twice, but never on serious business. It had mostly been to apply for visas, harass Lan Zhan, or flirt with one of the secretaries while he knew Lan Zhan was watching. That probably counted as harassment, but it was a particular category he saved for special occasions.

Today, they had rolled out the red carpet for him. Lan Zhan was there, of course, acting in his capacity as visa specialist and international law consultant, but it was the three men at the head of the conference table who were truly running the meeting. Lan Xichen was polite, in a detached sort of way, but Nie Mingjue stared at him with such overt hostility that it was a wonder his pocket square didn’t catch fire. Perhaps the red carpet wasn’t the celebratory kind.

Once the questions started, Wei Ying knew he was in the shit for real this time. Lan Xichen was gentle, even soft, but his persistent questions had a way of picking away at Wei Ying’s nerves.

“You’re a publisher, is that right, Wei Wuxian?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“And you make regular trips to Moscow and St. Petersburg for cultural exchange and book related events?”

“Yes, I do.”

“When was the last event of that type you attended?”

“Oh, I don’t know, probably the one in March? Some sort of agricultural text fair or something.”

Nie Mingjue moved a little, his hands balling into fists, but Lan Xichen shot him a look and he remained silent.

“Perhaps you could provide us with a little more detail about that event, Wei Wuxian?”

“More detail?” Wei Ying repeated incredulously, “It was nearly six months ago! I’ve been to six events like that since, I don’t even really remember what it was about.”

“I’d appreciate it if you would try.”

“I don’t know what sort of detail you want.”

“Oh, anything you remember,” Lan Xichen said with a placid smile, “Anything interesting that happened? Anyone you met for the first time?”

“I’m a publisher,” Wei Ying replied, “I meet people every day.”

“Any particular people stand out on this trip? Anyone you went for drinks with? Had a long conversation with?”

“Oh, there were a bunch of publishers and agents that went out for drinks on the last night of the conference, sure,” Wei Ying said with a wave of his hand, “That happens all the time. We went out to some garden or other with loads of cultural significance, then we drank our faces off. It was nothing special.”
Lan Zhan winced at his directness, but Wei Ying wasn’t ruffled. It maybe wasn’t the kind of night high society government officials went in for, but it had been a damn fun night and he wasn’t about to apologize for it.

“So, why are you asking me about this?” He resettled himself in his chair, one ankle resting on his knee, doing his best to heighten his air of dubious respectability. “It was a minor conference, nothing untoward happened, and it was six months ago. What’s all the fuss about?”

Lan Xichen, a master of dissembling, did not answer his question. Instead he asked, “Do you know anyone by the name of Ghost?”

Wei Ying pulled a face. “Ghost? I know what the noun means, but not the proper one, sorry.”

“Never met anyone by that name?”

“Not that I know of. Why?”

“Well, he seems to think he met you. Found you quite impressive, as a matter of fact.” Lan Xichen’s smile was a thin, humorless thing. “He got in touch with your brother last month, gave him a book to bring to you. His agent said it was a manuscript for publication., that you had promised to publish it for him. Any of this ringing a bell?”

Wei Ying shook his head. He was starting to run out of patience for being dragged around in circles by this pompous official. If he was in trouble, they’d do better to just have out with it and let the chips fall where they may. He was about to tell them so, when Lan Zhan’s quiet voice cut through his angry haze.

“Please try to remember, Wei Ying. It may not seem like anything, but a lot could hang ou this.”

“I’m telling you, Lan Zhan, I don’t know what any of this is about!” Wei Ying burst out, “I went to a publishing conference, sure! There were Russians there, because it was in Russia and hosted by the Russian cultural ministry, and some of those Russians invited us out for drinks. I talked to some of them, their faces all blur together, and I don’t recall talking about any kind of super secret spy mumbo jumbo! What else do you want me to say?”

“So,” Nie Mingjue cut in, clearly at the end of his patience, “You can’t tell us why anyone would want to send you a book manuscript for publication that contained detailed notes on the Russian aerospace and atomic programs?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Wei Ying sputtered.

“You heard me. Anything about that meeting you’d like to tell us now?” Nie Mingjue leaned across the table, his heavy brows drawn low over his dark eyes. “Anything new you have to share in light of this rather crucial detail?”
Wei Ying shook his head, shocked. “No, nothing. I...I have no idea what you’re talking about. Yunmeng publishes poetry, novels, that kind of thing. I wouldn’t even know a rocketry document if it leapt up and bit me.”

“You see?” Lan Zhan said cooly, looking across the table to his brother. “I told you, he’s not spy material. Not even close.”

“Hey, I wouldn’t go that far-”

“No,” Lan Xichen replied, ignoring Wei Ying’s protest completely, “I see that. But it doesn’t change the facts. The information Ghost sent us could change the entire course of our foreign policy, but we have to know if it’s genuine. I know you don’t like the idea, Lan Zhan, but we don’t have a choice.”

Wei Ying hadn’t panicked in a long time, but the look of resigned sorrow on Lan Zhan’s face filled him with a sudden premonition of terrible things to come.

“Now, wait just a minute,” he began, “What the hell’s going on here?”

“I’m sorry, Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan said softly, “I tried to keep you out of it.”

“Congratulations, young man,” Nie Mingjue said with a smile like a barracuda, “looks like you’re going back to Russia.”

II.

Watching the patchwork of Moscow resolve itself from behind a solid layer of cloud cover, Wei Ying replayed his last conversation with Lan Zhan over and over again.

“Remember,” his friend had said, “We will be with you for every step. It will be dangerous, but you won’t be alone.”

He certainly felt alone now. After weeks of training and preparation, even Nie Mingjue had begrudgingly pronounced him ready. He had covered every flavour of what the terrifying man called ‘tradecraft’, from coat-tailing, to counter surveillance and methods for sending and receiving coded messages. He had his instructions from Lan Xichen, lists of questions to ask Ghost, lists of approved answers he could give to any questions he received in return.

After a fair bit of soul searching, some with the aid of Yiling Teahouse’s best rice wine, he had finally dredged up the memory of Ghost. He had been a shy boy, earnest and sincere, clustered around a table with several of his friends as they talked art, culture, and revolution. Wei Ying was always a little wary of conversations like that, but he’d had enough vodka to get pulled into a dissertation on the way to change the world. It made him cringe to think back on it now, but at the time it had felt right.

“It isn’t governments who are going to change the world.” He had taken off his jacket, warmed by the liquor even in the cool air of a Russian spring. “It’s not great men or deep thinkers. It’s people like us.” He remembered pointing at the quiet boy, singling him out for a reason he would never understand. “It’s the little people who will decide, every single day, to choose goodness, to choose love.”

There had been a rousing cheer and another round of drinks, but Wei Ying had seen the way the boy’s deep, soulful eyes had stayed on him for the rest of the night. He had cornered him out in the garden courtyard, pouring out his soul in a slow series of halting questions and statements. Had he really been serious, the boy wanted to know, about the fate of the world hanging on the actions of regular people? Did he really believe that friendship and brotherhood between individuals could topple nations?

Wei Ying didn’t remember what he said, then or since, but sitting on the plane, watching it fall slowly to the Russian soil, he wishes he hadn’t said it.

Whatever he’d said, it had gotten him on this plane, ready to meet with the editor who had dropped a manuscript into his brother’s arms and a bloody mess into his lap. They’d shown him photos at the Russia House, made him look through endless shots of this poetic, soulful woman, trying to make him remember. He didn’t remember meeting Wen Qing, but he spots her immediately when he steps out of the airport arrival terminal and sees her standing by a streetlamp, a red scarf wrapped around her neck over her plain black raincoat.

For a moment, his charm deserts him. In the photos, she had seemed soft, even vulnerable, but the woman before him now was as hard as iron. He wasn’t sure what to say, but she saved him by walking briskly toward him, hand held out to shake.

“You must be Wei Wuxian,” she says, each syllable carefully polite. “I am Wen Qing. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

“No, no, the pleasure is all mine,” Wei Ying insists, “My brother told me a lot about you, and I have to say he wasn’t exaggerating in the least.”

This comment drew a little smile from Wen Qing’s stoic face, but she did not reply, only beckoned him to follow her down the street to his hotel.

“I’m pleased that you accepted our company’s invitation to this conference, Wei Wuxian. Hopefully you will find it to the interest of your publishing house. I have heard many good things from writers in our country about Yumeng’s work.”

“Well, I’ve heard a good deal about your company as well. I hope to meet some of your promising authors.” He meant it as a joke, but Wen Qing’s face went still as a frozen pond.

“This is a meeting of editors and publishers, Wei Wuxian,” she said coldly, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Wei Ying cursed himself for an idiot. Of course she’d taken that as a reference to Ghost. Now he looked like a complete fool, bringing up possible clandestine meetings in the middle of a crowded cafe. He brought out his best charming smile, laying it on display as easily as he could.

“Of course, my mistake.”

Over the next several days, he made many such mistakes. He’d been to Russia before, many times, in fact, but this trip was something different entirely. He couldn’t sleep, twitching into wakefulness at every little sound, and he seemed to have completely forgotten his manners. Or how to talk. Anything, really. Wen Qing was such an unstoppable force that he didn’t quite understand, and her caution and paranoia made it almost impossible to get to know her.

“You have to understand, Wei Wuxian,” she said one afternoon as they walked along the bank of the Moskva, “Things are different here than they are in your country.”

“So I’ve seen,” he grumbled, scuffing his shoes against the sidewalk. He was being sulky, he knew it, but he felt like a small child being reprimanded by a strict tutor. It was an unfamiliar feeling, and one he did not care for in the least.

“In Russia,” she continued, “what is said is not truly what is said. We must speak two languages here-the language of words and the language of meaning.”

“You seem to be very skilled at knowing the difference between the two,” Wei Ying replied. It was earnestly meant, and he was pleased to see her smile at the compliment.

“When one is raised in a cage, one learns to speak the language of the captor.”

Wei Ying felt a stab of sympathy at the words. He had never been able to reconcile the suffering of the Russian people to himself. For a man who had grown up frolicking in the meadows and hills of his adopted family’s estate, getting into all sorts of horrendous trouble, he had never had to think like Wen Qing, never had to put up walls behind walls to keep safe the small secret part of himself that felt like humanity.

“You must not feel sorry for me,” Wen Qing said, laying a gloved hand on his arm. “It is neither bad nor good, only what is.”

She would say that little phrase again and again throughout his stay, even on the day she finally took him to meet her brother. They had planned the whole event for days, lining up times that would be easy to get lost in, places they could blend with the crowd, and had settled on a crowded market near the Kremlin. Wen Qing refused to accompany him, for safety’s sake, but she did allow him to kiss her on the cheek before she left him at his hotel, smiling a little as she walked off into the night.

*

Lan Wangji rubbed his eyes, staring through the light of his desk lamp out into the London night. He had been working later than he should, but he didn’t know any other way to manage his nerves. He had always thrown himself into his profession with reckless abandon, from studying for the bar exams to advising the service. He had taken on difficult cases before, but this felt different. This time, he really cared about the result.

The realization shocked him. He had been an advisor on a hundred operations, trained more agents than he could remember, stood waiting by the Berlin wall only to watch agents gunned down before his eyes. This was different, and it had nothing to do with the stakes and everything to do with Wei Wuxian. Guilt curled in his belly at the thought of his...associate. He had used his personal influence to convince Wei Wuxian to agree to this operation, and the knowledge that he might be the cause of some terrible fate befalling the irritating man had been niggling at the back of his mind for days. Every communication that came through from him read like it had been copied out of a textbook, every drop was neat and successful, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d sent a man to his death.

Worse than that, it was a man he liked. Lan Wangji had never been an affectionate man, so it was all the more puzzling to discover that he cared about this case so much. He sat at his desk night after night, turning the facts over and over in his mind, trying to make sense of it, but always came up empty handed. By every count, he shouldn’t care. This reckless, scattered rascal wasn’t his type, but here he was, still sitting up waiting for the night’s update from Lan Xichen, hoping like hell that it would be good news.

His brother’s knock at the door broke him from his contemplation and he jumped. Lan Xichen looked worn, from the dark circles under his eyes to the way he slumped into the creaking office chair across the desk.

“He’s made contact with Ghost,” he murmured, propping himself up by an elbow on the arm of the chair.

Lan Wangji let out a breath he had been holding for days. “Thank god.”

Lan Xichen nodded. “Now comes the really tricky part.”

“You think Ghost won’t cooperate?”

“I don’t even know if Ghost is real.” It was the first time Lan Xichen had admitted the possibility out loud and it sent a shiver down Lan Wangji’s back.

“You really think this is just a trap? A way to lure us in?”

“I don’t know anymore, Lan Zhan. I’ve gone over the angles in my head so many times I don’t even know up from down anymore. Do the Russians know about Ghost? Did they send him? Is it a plant? Is it genuine? If it is, what do we do with the intelligence…I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

“What does Nie Mingjue think?”

Lan Xichen laughed, a hopeless exhausted sound. “Oh, he’s quite certain this is all a line of KGB bullshit, thinks we’re all wasting our time with an amateur like Wei Wuxian.”

“But if it isn’t…”

“That’s the question. What if it isn’t a line of chicken feed? What if it’s the genuine goods and we let it slip through our fingers?” Lan Xichen sighed. “That’s always the question. I just hope Wei Wuxian can find out.”

*

The square is crowded. Wei Ying knows that should comfort him, but he feels like a bug under a microscope, exposed on every side and in danger of being crushed at any moment. As they had agreed, he walked slowly through the market, examining the goods while trying to count how many figures were watching him. He picks up a copy of that day’s paper, tucking it under his arm as he strolls along. It’s the safety signal, the gesture that will tell Ghost all is well. He hopes it’s true.

If it isn’t, then any watcher would have seen a quiet figure detach itself from the crowd and take him by the arm. Wei Ying looked down again into eyes as deep as the ocean.

“Hello, Wei Wuxian,” Wen Ning murmured, a shy smile creeping onto his face, “Walk with me.”

When they’d made a lap or two of the market, Wen Ning led him down a side street toward the riverbank, pointing out various landmarks as they walked, while speaking of entirely different matters.

“I’m glad you came,” he said, gazing up at the painfully blue sky.

“You didn’t give me much choice, did you?” Wei Ying replied. “Rather forced my hand by sending me all that stuff you did.”

“I am sorry for that,” Wen Ning said with a smile, still admiring the scenery around them. “But I was very moved by the conversation we had at Niki’s place. My sister was very angry with me,” he added with a rueful twist of his mouth.

“She cares for you very much.”

“Yes. And she cares for our country. Once I had explained to her why I had done what I did, that you would help us, she worked tirelessly for our cause.” Wen Ning spoke with pride, the admiration of a young child for his older sister. Thinking of the lines of strain and worry on Wen Qing’s face, Wei Ying wondered if they made the right decision.

“I have some things I need to ask you,” he said, thrusting the image of Wen Qing’s sorrowful face from his mind. “Things I need to know in order to prove that the information you gave me was genuine.”

Wen Ning stopped dead in the middle of the street, causing Wei Ying to stumble, and several passers-by to curse loudly at him in Russian. “Genuine?” he repeated in surprise.

“Yes, genuine,” Wei Ying said, pulling his companion forward, “Keep walking.”

“Your government, they think I would risk my life for this only to tell you a lie?” Wen Ning looked like a child with a broken toy and, for a moment, Wei Ying thought he would cry.

“I don’t think that for a moment, Wen Ning,” he said quickly, squeezing the younger man’s arm in reassurance. “I know you did what you did because you believe in freedom for your people, for your family.”

“Why else would I take such a risk?” Wen Ning asked helplessly.

“Well, plenty of people do things like what you did because they KGB threatens to shoot their families if they don’t.”

Wei Ying instantly regretted his words, as Wen Ning begins to come apart at the seams. Tears pool in the corners of his eyes and his hands shake. With a sigh, Wei Ying put an arm around his shoulders and guided him toward a bench overlooking the river.

“Come on,” he said, sitting down beside the boy. “Pull yourself together, now, I didn’t mean to upset you. But you see how that might happen, don’t you?”

Wen Ning nodded, blinking rapidly. “Yes, yes of course.”

“So you understand why I need to ask you questions, get information to verify what you’ve told me?”

Another nod.

“Good.” Wei Ying went out on a limb with a promise he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep. “Now, buck up, alright? I won’t let anything happen to your family.”

“Alright.”

III.

The first operation was a success. Lan Xichen even went so far as to crack a bottle of scotch for the control group that night, when word came in that the results of the first list were back. Lan Wangji felt a surge of pride, hearing the excited chatter in the war room when the details of the information were finally decoded. Even Nie Mingjue grudgingly admitted Wei Wuxian had done a damn fine bit of work. The first hurdle was over, now all they had to do was get a second list for Ghost, to get at everything he knew. The source was genuine, now they had to mine it for all it was worth.

There would have been nothing to spoil his good mood that week, if a communication hadn’t come through from Wei Wuxian the next morning, demanding to meet a representative from London, someone with the power to make decisions. He would be flying out of Russia, since the first conference had ended, and he would meet his contact in Paris. It was a demand, not a request, and none of the directing team took it well.

In an instant, all the good work that had been done by the first operation was forgotten, and Nie Mingjue was claiming once again that Wei Wuxian was an inveterate flake, not reliable, and certainly not steady enough to weather a second operation. Lan Xichen was more sanguine about the whole affair, but Lan Zhan could see the lines of stress and weariness etched into his brother's face when he came into his office.

“Come in, Lan Zhan.” Lan Xichen waved him toward a chair. “I want to talk to you about Wei Wuxian,” he continued once Lan Wangji was settled. “You know him the best of any of us. What’s he thinking? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.” It was the honest answer, but it wasn’t the one his brother wanted, so he kept talking. “Wei Wuxian is...all the things you know he is. He can be reckless, arrogant, even careless, but he has a good heart.”

“Rare thing in this business,” his brother interjected.

Lan Wangji nodded. “Exactly. Wei Wuxian isn’t ruthless, he doesn’t think of people as pawns to be moved. If he has a problem, my guess is that it has to do with the people. He won’t want to hurt them.”

“We’re dealing with the KGB,” Lan Xichen sighed, “hurt isn’t an option, it’s damn near a certainty.”

“I know that,” Lan Wangji said quietly, “Wei Wuxian might even know that. But if there is to be any wrench in the gears here, it will be because he refuses to accept it. Wei Wuxian doesn’t think about the war like we do.”

He isn’t a liar, he isn’t a cheat, he doesn’t manipulate people. He says what he means and lives life with a reckless integrity that leaves no room for second guesses. He fights hard and loves harder. Lan Wangji sighs, thinking of every way in which Wei Wuxian is not cut out to be a spy. It didn’t matter that he’d known it from the start, he hadn’t been able to convince the others, and now here they were, with the same consequences he’d known they would face.

“Do you think you can talk to him?”

Lan Xichen’s question took him by surprise and he looked up, startled. “Me? I don’t know, but it isn’t up to me. He’ll be in Paris, won’t he? Talking to the Paris station head?”

Lan Xichen spoke carefully, with the finality in his voice Lan Wangji remembered from their childhood. “For a variety of reasons, I think it would be better for all of us if he avoided Paris station altogether. You know him. Personally, I mean, not just in a business way. Talk to him, Lan Zhan, make him trust you. Help him to see that we have to keep going on this. That even if we put some lives in danger, we’re doing this for a far greater good.”

“I don’t know that I can change his mind.”

“Then you’ll have to be convincing.”

Convincing. What would it mean to convince someone else of something you weren’t sure you believed yourself? Lan Wangji wrestled with the problem on the long train ride to Paris. He could have flown, but he had elected to take the slower route, one that would give him time to travel the landscape of his own thoughts as trees and meadows flicked by on the other side of the window.

He had never had cause to examine his own intentions. Work had always been so crystal clear. They were working to take down the enemy, by any means necessary. It didn’t matter that they looked at people like things-that’s all they had ever been to him. Honor was to be found in serving one’s country, no matter what it took. He hadn’t even realized there was another way to live until he had met Wei Wuxian.

He was a publisher. He worked with books and words and people. For him, cultural exchange with the East wasn’t just a political move, it came from the heart. The only way to reach people, he’d said once over dinner, was to touch their souls. Governments moved and postured, but it was art that would bring people together. He has spoken with a passion Lan Wangji had never heard before, an utter conviction that could shake mountains. He wondered now if he had ever possessed that kind of strength. Rules were one thing, and integrity quite another.

He did his best to prepare himself for their meeting, but no matter how many times he rehearsed the conversation in his mind, he wasn’t ready for the weight of Wei Wuxian’s presence, or the force of his questioning. They were seated over steak and frites in a little cafe near Montmartre, and Wei Wuxian had fixed him with a stare so intense Lan Wangji thought it might pass right through him.

“I can’t do this, Lan Zhan.”

“Can’t do what?” Lan Wangji replied, stalling for time. He had to think of this like an interrogation. It couldn’t be a conversation between friends- not that he really knew how to have one of those anyway.

“I can’t finish the operation. It isn’t safe for the Wen. Wen Ning is already under surveillance, or I’ll eat my own tie. His sister, their little family...they’re all in danger if he’s caught. You have your information, you know it’s genuine now-why put these people in any further danger?”

Lan Wangji looked down at his plate, focusing on every move of his knife and fork. “We would be leaving very valuable information on the table if we stopped now. It’s Ghost, by the way,” he chided, taking comfort in the details.

“You’re being pedantic,” Wei Wuxian snapped, “What kind of information can he possibly have that’s worth these people’s lives?”

“Well, I can’t very well get into it in the middle of a cafe,” Lan Wangji sidestepped again, in parge part because he wasn’t sure of the answer to the question himself.

Wei Wuxian leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table and looking him dead in the eyes. “I’ve eaten with these people, Lan Zhan. Did you know their grandmother lives with them? Did you know their other brother was killed in the war? That his son lives with them as well? A-Yuan is seven years old and he loves to listen to his grandmother’s stories. Wen Qing has had to fight like hell to keep her family safe. Do you have any idea what they are putting on the line? Haven’t they sacrificed enough?”

Lan Wangji sighed, pushing away his plate. “I don’t know. I don’t know what ‘enough’ of a sacrifice would be. And I’m not asking you to send these people to the slaughter. I’m asking you to go back there and do everything you can to get information out of this lead until it’s dried up.”

For a moment, he was sure Wei Wuxian was going to slap him. Rage rolled off of him in palpable waves, and it was all he could do to keep his composure in the face of it. He wondered if he had pushed too far, had twisted the knife a little too hard, but then the moment was over. Wei Wuxian’s face snapped shut like a book and he stood up.

“I’ll let you catch the dinner bill, then, shall I?”

Lan Wangji sat in the cafe alone for a long time, wondering just how much of his soul he was willing to give up after all.

*

At night, Wei Ying can almost believe he’s back in London. When he looks to the west, the city lights twinkle away as they would in any other city, the air is just as crisp, and the faint smell of tobacco drifts up just as it would at home. Even the chatter inside the house reminds him of home. They’ve been in Russia for generations, but Wen Qing’s family still speaks flawless Mandaring that would have made his mother proud. It’s only when he turns to look east, toward the great cathedral of St. Basil, that he remembers where he is. The smell of rich black bread from Wen Qing’s kitchen mixes with the creak and rattle of ancient pipes, and he remembers that he is alone behind the Iron Curtain.

He was still angry. The memory of his meeting with Lan Zhan sat like a lump of iron on his heart, and it was almost more than he could bear to join A-Yuan on a picnic with his aunt and his grandmother. He did his best, of course, making silly faces and imagining the way the ducks would talk to each other, the kinds of ridiculous bird conversations they would have. A-Yuan had giggled and laughed, and he thought he had even seen Wen Qing smile a little at his antics.

It had only been later, when they were alone on the balcony, that he had told Wen Qing everything. It had been difficult to begin, but then the words flowed out of him like water, and he didn’t care anymore who heard them or what they thought. When he had finished, he looked over to the shape of Wen Qing outlined in the faint streetlight. She was resolute, and he saw at once that he had changed nothing at all by telling her.

“What did you expect me to say, Wei Ying?” she said at last. “That we should give up because there is danger?” She turned to look at him, and he heard the gentle smile in her voice. “There has always been danger. You are only now becoming aware of it, that is all.”

“Wen Qing,” he began, but she put a hand over his, cutting off his reply. “A-Ning set us on this journey. I was angry with him at the start, scared of what would become of us, but we have come too far to stop now. Besides,” she added, tearing out his heart once and for all, “We have you with us, now.”

“Wen Qing, I can’t...I can’t protect you. I’m just...we’re all just pawns in this stupid game.” He feld the hopelessness rise up in his chest and wanted to scream.
“You don’t have to protect us,” she said, her voice full of the same calm certainty it always was when she spoke of the future. “It is enough that you are here. A-Ning called you and you came. You have heard us. That is enough.”

It wasn’t enough. It could never be enough, and the thought that he had gained the trust of these people only to lead them into the lion’s den made her trust in him all the more difficult to bear.

“Try not to be angry with your friend,” Wen Qing added, patting his hand as though she were his mother. “I think he must be a good man, even if you do not always agree with him.”

“You don’t even know him.”

“No, but I know you. Now, let us go and sleep. Tomorrow, we will have plans to make.”

*

Wei Ying had almost convinced himself it would work. Wen Qing’s confidence was so utterly unassailable that he couldn’t really think about failure when he was with her. They had worked out a meeting time with Wen Ning and he had agreed to find out the information they needed. It was in the afternoon, while they were washing up from lunch, that the call came in.

Wen Qing took it calmly, speaking in the same cool, detached voice he remembered from when he had first met her. Then her hand began to tighten on the telephone cord, squeezing tighter and tighter until her knuckles were white. He knew it was over then. Strange how so much could rest on so little.

When she hung up the phone, she looked at him for a long moment. “They have him. They want to meet with you, to exchange information. It will be a trap.”

In a moment, he had his coat on and was headed out the door. “Stay here with the others,” he said in a rush, throwing on his scarf, “Don’t answer the door to anyone but me. If I ask you to open the door in Cantonese, then don’t even open it to me. Pack a bag, be ready to leave.”

He felt like a clown, rushing off into the street like some avenging hero, but he had hardly made it ten steps before he saw his service handler flag him down in the street. It took everything he had in him to stop, but he did, giving the man the update as quickly as he could.

“You’ve been ordered to stay put, sir,” the man said, “to wait for instructions. We have to know if the KGB know about our source. We have to know how much they know.”

“Right,” he said distractedly, “Right, of course. I’m just going for a walk, nothing to worry about there.”

It didn’t worry him, not in the least. He had had a lot of time to think, and he made the bargain and the leap without a second thought.

*

“He’s gone.”

The words hit Lan Wangji like a slap in the face. Gone. The radio operator laid down her set and seemed to collapse into her chair. “He went into the building. The KGB asked to meet him and he just walked in there like a lamb to the slaughter. Jesus, what an idiot.”

Hours passed. Lan Wangji felt as though his blood were slowly freezing over. Darkness fell. The sky grew grey. Dawn broke, and along with it, the news.

“The building’s cleared out. No sign of the Wen, either. They’ve been rolled up.”

There’s an uproar, of course. Questions, accusations, and wildcat schemes about how to clean up the mess. Lan Wangji left it all behind, closing the door behind him, walking down the hall and out into the London morning.

He wondered, not for the first time, if anything had been worth it at all.

Chapter Text

Even in late February, Portugal was warm. The sun bathed the stones and they drank up the heat, saving it up to give as a gift in the cool of the evening. Lan Wangji appreciated the gesture as he walked the streets of Sintra. The bright gaiety of the coloured houses was muted in the dark, the garish shades turned to soft variations in shadows. He wished he knew what he was looking for, wished he could put a name to the compulsion that drove him through the empty streets, but he didn’t. His feet led him on endless journeys, chasing something he hardly understood.

Lan Xichen had given him a look when he had passed in his letter of resignation six months after the Wen affair. It had been a bit of rebellion at first, a statement that had come too late to be any good, and his brother had called him out for it.

“Leaving won’t bring him back, Lan Zhan.”

“No,” he had agreed, “but neither will staying.”

London had become too small for him, a tight place where he couldn’t draw a full breath without feeling the ache of his heart in his chest and he had needed an escape. With the rational majority of himself, he had chosen Portugal because it would be a change of pace, and Sintra in particular because it was a famous historical site with plenty of scholarly work to keep him engaged on his days off. It was only in the small, secret part deep inside his soul that he admitted to choosing it because of a stray defector report.

Notoriously inaccurate, defector reports had rarely figured on his register in all his years working in the Russia House. They tended to be made by folk who were desperate to prove their worth in a declining market and were often complete fabrications. He shouldn’t believe a word of them, but this one had niggled. Some British agent had foxed the KGB, it had said. Brokered a deal and run off with a prized asset. The rumor in the underground channels was that they had been settled near Sintra, in Portugal.

Near Sintra. In Portugal. The words reverberated inside him with every step he took. In the small hours of the morning, with only a neat scotch for company, Lan Wangji could almost admit to himself that he had come here for Wei Ying. Almost. Later, when the hangover inevitably came to catch up with him, he wondered what he would even say. What could you say to someone you had betrayed? Somehow, sorry just didn’t seem to cover it.

Now, walking the seaward walls of the ancient town, he wondered what he had expected to find. How long would he chase a rumour, pretending to himself that he was studying medieval texts in the library? He tempted himself with the thought of just burying himself here forever, like a serpent shovelling itself under the sand. It would be an escape from enemies, but there was no hole deep enough to keep him from his own regrets.

The sea lapped against the shore with a grim finality. There was nothing more to do here but wait until the end of the world. Perhaps it would be a nuclear end-that would be terribly fitting, and it suited the dramatic part of his nature to sip fine wine in a Portuguese manor house while the world burned around him.

“You look like you walked out of a poem.”

Lan Wangji started, turning to search the wide causeway for the source of the voice. A slim figure peeled itself away from the shadows of the shop fronts and walked towards him, a familiar smile flickering to life on its face. It was an older smile, a little more hollow and a lot more restrained, but Lan Wangji would know it anywhere.

“It’s good to see you, Lan Zhan,” said Wei Wuxian.

Lan Wangji had no words. As he had long suspected, there was nothing to say to the ghosts of transgressions past, and so he stood in silence as Wei Wuxian joined him on the balcony.

“You’ve been here for a long time.”

“Yes, Lan Wangji replied, although it was more a statement than a question. Wei Wuxian nodded, looking out at the wobbly reflections of stars in the dark water.

“Wen Qing told me you were walking the streets every night,” he said at last. “I think she was worried about you catching cold.”

A thousand questions burned inside him, but Lan Wangji dismissed them all as petty, insufficient for the moment. There had to be something right to say, some way to lift the heavy guilt that he had been carrying all these long months, but he couldn’t find the words. Wei Wuxian didn’t help, cool and distant as he was. Something had changed him, taken him to a place Lan Wangji didn’t recognize.

“So, did you come to reel me back in?” Wei Wuxian still spoke to the sea, his voice clipped and precise, “Take me back to England and put me to the question?”

Lan Wangji winced. It was a fair question, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. “No.”

Wei Wuxian nodded. “Good.”

“I traded the list to the Russians,” he added after another interminable silence. “Gave them all that precious information about the holes in our intel. Sold it all in a minute in return for the Wens. All of them. I didn’t even hesitate and I don’t regret it for a moment.”

At last, at long last, he turned away from the sea, his dark eyes resting on Lan Wangji. “Do you have anything to say about that?”

Lan Wangji shook his head. “I...uh...I suppose you should know that I resigned. I don’t represent the Russia House at all anymore.”

“Who do you represent, then?” There was a wall of meaning behind the question, one Lan Wangji didn’t really trust himself to scale. So he opted for the truth and hoped it would be enough.

“Myself, I rather think.”

To his surprise, Wei Wuxian’s face released into its old familiar lines of joy and mockery. “Wen Qing will be glad,” was his inexplicable reply. He held out a hand.

Lan Wangji hesitated a moment, aware that he was standing on the edge of a precipice, then took it. With a little cry of surprise, he was pulled forward into an embrace, and Wei Wuxian’s lips were warm on his cheek, Wei Ying’s voice soft in his ear.

“Then you’d better come home for dinner.”