"Maybe. I could also tell them I'll give them mana but they have to let you guys wear the power-sharers."

"That would be a pretty pickle to put them in."

"I'd worry at all about them winding up very confused about what expectations they should be maintaining."

"Sounds like the right attitude. --Another thing we could do with excess mana is bribe indie seniors--do either of you want to send letters to your families--"

Nod.

"Absolutely."

"And Liu will too, I imagine--so we can do that, and probably wildly overpay." 

"Don't go too wild, they'll figure you've discovered a way to poison mana."

"Really? Santa Lucia? Can't say I'm complaining if cutting ties with New York brought me down to human in some people's eyes."

"And associating with me."

"--Okay, that one I'll judge them for thinking less of me for." 

"Do you know a way to poison mana?" Aadhya asks El curiously.

"Only the usual one."

"I assume the usual one is 'malia?'"

"Yep."

With a straight face: "Well, if we want to do that, Aadhya will have to do it, since the two of us are strict mana and I don't think Liu wants to touch it again." 

"I don't cheat constantly or anything, I've just snuck a little when I don't have enough to ward my room at night unless I dip into reserves!"

"Sorry, I wasn't trying to poke at you for it."

Shrug. "Let's not poison people."

"--Agreed! I was joking!"

"Yeah. But just to be perfectly clear on the matter."

"Yeah. No poisoning people. Although, you, uh, should probably be aware, one of the things that tipped me over into really thinking the 'I am part mal' hypothesis was true, was...I also got mana from killing Jack Westing. --Which is related because he was a maleficer but I wasn't poisoned! Not because I think we should kill people for mana." 

"...and you still had the sharer then and it went in the New York pool no problem? What are you, a malia laundromat?"

"I fucking guess??? I mean, I don't know how to do it without killing people, which I really don't want to do again, so it's not that useful." 

"But taken in conjunction with you getting clean mana out of mals themselves when they didn't do jumping jacks for it..."