The letters were still in her hands when he walked in.
She heard the door. She did not turn around immediately. She stood at his desk with her own handwriting in her fingers. Her letter to her mother, her letter to Shen Han, both of them folded and sealed and never sent, and she let him see exactly what she was holding before she turned to face him.
When she did turn, his face told her everything she needed to know before he said a word.
He had gone completely still in the doorway. Not the controlled stillness he usually carried, the kind that was chosen and deliberate. This was different. This was the stillness of a man whose body had stopped cooperating with him, whose composure had simply, for once, failed to arrive on time.
She watched him look at the letters. She watched him look at her. She watched him understand that there was no version of this he could manage his way out of.
Good.
"How long," she said, "have you had these."
