Even now I have trouble thinking of my time in California. They were some of the worst days of my life, days spent standing, working the customers at the restaurant, Reforging all through the night, collapsing in my attic room. I haven’t been back since—skipped Torou’s conferences, begged Edward not to apply to any schools there, shot down Monica’s vacation suggestions a bit too forcefully. She says there are beautiful forests and thousand-year-old trees. Somehow, I missed all of that.

Within a month of Mr. Gao’s departure, the other pawns started bringing me even more pencils. I replaced the ones they brought with new ones straight from Mother’s factory, shaved down to the same length.

I Reforged the stolen pencils alone in my attic, the blood dripping from my wrist onto loose paper. As I pressed the pencil heart into my skin, I could feel their excitement and optimism.

It was as if they were all in the room with me, hovering above. I remembered them, vaguely, young men who had visited the restaurant before, one who had even tried to court me, his eyes shining.

I pressed my bleeding wrist to my forehead. I was betraying them, as planned, and yet it hurt more than any other time before that.

They were writing to organize protests around the disappearing of people in Taiwan. One was writing flyers, the other a manifesto. It was as incriminating as it could get.

I held up their Reforged words to dry, blowing on them gently even as my breathing turned ragged. I wiped the blood off my forehead.

It is moments like this I cannot bring myself to share with someone like your girl. She and others her age—they’re so hopeful nowadays, so set on what they think is morally right. Preserving stories, raising voices, yes, all that sounds great. Their words so closely echo those I Reforged and systematically betrayed, and maybe that is what makes me recoil now. I would have betrayed her, too, if I had met her then. It helped that there was a rising fervor in America, so staunchly anti-Communist, anti-China. The news was filled with details about that couple they executed for spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. Catch the Communists, save the world. America and Taiwan were both saying the same thing. I could have turned anybody in during that time. I was doing this for you and for Mother. At least that is what I told myself, even as I began to acquire more food, more possessions. My fastidious stamp collecting even won me a toaster. I delighted in these things.

I sealed their Reforged words in an envelope with all the premium postage required to send them overseas, straight into the hands of Mr. Gao.