Unity Mission could not take me in, but I may have found a spot at another refugee camp where I’ve offered to do typing in exchange for a bed. It’s best if you don’t write to me at Unity anymore. The refugee camp is so busy and chaotic, your letter would get lost or thrown out. The bulletins list Chengtu as Minghua’s final destination, so I will send my next letter there when I’m settled, care of the university. Hopefully you’ll be safe in Chengtu by then.

She didn’t doubt Mr. Lee had already read the letter. That he read the letters of any student he didn’t trust. Her mother didn’t know about Mr. Lee. Didn’t know that all their years of living under false names had been for nothing. How could she warn her mother that the past had caught up with them?

The whole time they’d lived in Peking Lian had accepted, without quite understanding why, that they were in danger should their true identities be revealed. She understood now that there were people who would trample over another’s life to save themselves. To save their reputations. These were the forces her mother had been helpless to counter. As helpless as Lian herself had been when Lee confronted her.

When they were in Nanking, Professor Kang had promised he’d find a way to get her to Shanghai. But only if her mother sent for her. But now, even if her mother did send for her, Lian couldn’t ask for help from her school anymore. Mr. Lee would know. She couldn’t risk it. He might forbid her to leave. She had to behave normally. She had to plan. She had been saving all her allowance money from the government. She had to buy maps and food for the journey.

Lian paused at the center of the bridge and leaned against its stone parapet. The river currents rippled with starlight. Minghua University would leave Changsha in a few weeks. There would be more stops in more towns, more nights of sleeping on temple floors until they finally reached Chengtu. Every mile they traveled brought them closer to the safety of Chengtu.

Every mile took her farther from Shanghai.

UNSTEADY FROM TOO much drink, Daming took a deep breath and leaned over the bridge’s stone parapet, wondering if he was going to be sick. It was the first night of January and he’d just left his first New Year party. Four more weeks to go until the Lunar New Year, each week more festive than the one before as the calendar closed in on the Year of the Tiger. Despite the threat of air raids, there had been parties all over Changsha. New Year festivities carried on whether or not there was a war.