"- wonder what Clarita's plan is now."

"Good question." 

She managed to dump enough mana overnight, mostly into the remaining space in Liu and Aadhya's mana storage but a little bit into Aadhya's artifice projects, that her luminescence has decreased to a level where you can look at her directly enough to make out her facial features without hurting your eyes. Which means that there is no chance of anyone not seeing when she goes over to talk to Clarita and then returns to her table, but whatever. 

"The rest of the alliance is intact, Clarita still gets the spot, they're scrambling a little bit to fill the Todd-shaped hole in their strategy but apparently the entire rest of New York closed ranks--they want me back very badly." 

"If you wanted to we wouldn't drop you over it. If you get any brighter than you did yesterday you'll blind people."

"I might dump some mana on them to positively reinforce dropping Todd; I'm not going back to them." 

Nod nod.

Near the end of breakfast Lucia sucks it up and goes over to the New York table. 

The conversation isn't entirely audible, but Lucia's posture and tone are more civil than they've been while talking to New York since she left. Chloe is at first hopeful, then disappointed, but she holds her wrist out; Lucia puts her hand on the power-sharer, and her brilliance drops to a dull glow, not totally obvious if you don't notice the fact that she isn't casting any shadows. 

She heads back to their table. 

"I'm not doing that every time."

"Well, I'm sure the rest of Todd's former team would appreciate a dollop if you want to reinforce everyone who dropped Todd."

"I don't know off the top of my head if there was anyone not New York but Clarita. I'll ask her. --Maybe tonight at dinner I should pick a handful of other enclaves to dump mana on so it doesn't look too much like I'm still associated with New York even if I won't wear a power-sharer." 

"You know you can sell mana, right? You can buy maintenance shifts and stuff that way off anybody."

"Yeah, but you see, I have now given New York mana for free. --You're right though, my pride isn't worth the price." 

"To compensate them for the loss of that toerag."

"I don't think I knew that epithet but I like it, it's evocative." 

Lucia asks Clarita about other teammates that afternoon before they start the next killbox. Clarita gives her names. 

And then they get to perform again. 

(A couple of non-Clarita people dare to poke their heads in to briefly gawk, but disappear before either El or Lucia has a chance to notice.) 

Lucy is back up to a (metaphorical) million watts by the time they're through--brighter than the last time, even, because they're completely out of empty crystals. 

"Time to go shopping," she says, looking at her arm. 

"I could probably hold a little more if you want some help with that." Thus telegraphed: tug tug.

Lucia's eyes go wide, and she sways slightly. 

"Did you just--was that--you can--that easily?"

"- I didn't take any but, yeah, that's out of the goodness of my shriveled blackened heart?"

She kisses her. 

El seizes her by the hair and pulls her off. "Have you lost your bloody mind?"

"--Sorry! Sorry, sorry--"

"Your bewildering maleficer kink is possibly not the strangest thing about you but it's up there," El grumbles.

It's a little hard to tell through all the light, but she's looking at El like men sometimes look at El's mother. "It's not a maleficer thing!" she protests. "Jack Westing couldn't have done squat to me even if I hadn't got the drop on him. And it wouldn't be the least bit appealing if he could, because he would. The goodness of your shriveled black heart is the difference between terrible and beautiful."

"I think you're high on excess mana."

"I mean, maybe? I wasn't planning to tell you I liked you until after graduation." 

"Mental," mutters El, and she gets up and stalks back to her own room.

Lucia meets up with her and the others at dinner, no longer glowing and with a bunch of miscellaneous objects in her arms. 

"It turns out that there are--or, rather, were--as many as several seniors at the bottom of the pecking order low on mana, willing to trade part of their mana storage for filling the rest." 

"Oh, good. - oh that one's nice."