you eaten? Are you alone? Why didn't you find a way to call me sooner?"
"One question at a time," Aunt Lan said, still trying to sound light.
"I'm alive. That's the most important answer. I have some bruises, and
I'm tired, but I'm alive. I've been having a difficult time keeping a
phone charged, and the network here is not as reliable as they keep
saying it is. I've only managed to get this call through because someone
let me use a working line for a few minutes."
"Where are you?"
There was a pause. "Shanghai. I'm in the Shanghai City Military Safe
Zone."
Mother Yan's grip tightened again. Yan Cijin lowered her gaze, though
her attention had sharpened so suddenly that the room seemed to change
around her. She knew that name. She had known it in nine lives, in
different circumstances, with different warnings arriving too late or
not at all. In some lives Aunt Lan had never reached the camp. In
others, Yan had learned much later what had happened to her mother's
