Beau started to pace across the room and Sharna could see his tail twitching as he thought. It was black to match his ears, but with a little orange through it, the fur shiny and plush. She wanted to reach out and stroke it but thought that would be extremely disrespectful.

Myra sat on the edge of Gogo’s bed and stared at Quinn, until Quinn flew out of Sharna’s hands and hid in her hair. Sharna was amused, Quinn always seemed so fearless but they had never introduced her to anyone before.

At last, Beau stopped pacing and smiled, “I think I have an idea. You use mana crystals to run the oven right?”

“Yes, and the sauna and hot water, why?”

“Okay good.” Beau closed his eyes, “what if we said that the spike came from Sharna attempting to use image-manifestation on the mana crystals.”

“Why would she do that?” Myra looked confused.

“Sharna needs a project thing to work on, right? The rest of you all do extra stuff. Well, maybe she was trying to use image-manifestation on the crystallised mana and it caused that spike of mana.”

“Does it send off pulses like that?” Myra’s brow creased as she watched Beau.

Beau replied patiently, “no clue, but it doesn’t matter if it does in reality or not.”

Sharna continued, becoming excited as she grasped Beau’s idea, “it doesn’t matter because if someone wanted some kind of proof, I could just pulse out some mana while using image-manifestation on the crystal. That is brilliant! Thanks Beau!”

Beau blushed, “no probs, happy to help,” he replied gruffly.

“Probably no one will have noticed or cared, but I think that will work as an excuse if anyone does ask. And if it accidentally happens again we can just say that Sharna had an idea she wanted to try on the mana crystals and the pulse was the result. Perfect.” Myra smiled at Beau. “And the barrier for Sharna’s normal image-manifestation work? Can we just add that to the house’s wards?”

Beau shook his head, “no, she’ll have to do that herself,” he turned to Sharna, “don’t worry, I can teach you.”

Myra frowned a little, “her specialisation is image-manifestation, do you really think she’ll be able to create barriers, they’re not in the same field.”

Sharna smiled, “if Beau is happy to teach me then it will be fine. Over the years I have realised that magic is all about perception anyway. You need to be careful that you don’t let your perception restrict your magic and I can definitely see how manifesting a barrier could have similarities to manifesting an image.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Over the years,” Myra muttered disdainfully, “you’re all of seventeen.”

“Nearly eighteen,” said Sharna brightly.

Beau chuckled, “well I’m already eighteen, and with the wisdom that’s come with age, I agree with Sharna. If you want to send her over to my parents’ house tomorrow I can have a crack at teaching her to design some wards that will work with what she needs. I think I’ll get mum to give us a hand.” He looked at Sharna with a roguish smile, “it might be a bit distracting with just the two of us.”

Sharna blushed and looked down, smiling.

Myra snorted, “alright, you can go now Beau,” her expression softened, “and thanks for your help, we really appreciate it.”

“Yeah, thanks so much,” Sharna echoed, shyly.

“No worries, any time. See you tomorrow Sharna.” Beau waved his hand and was gone.

“I’m sorry to have caused you all this trouble Myra,” Sharna said earnestly.

Myra snorted again and Sharna idly wondered if she always snorted this much, or if it was just a habit inspired by Sharna. “We always knew, Anna and I, what we were getting into when we first heard from you. Well -” she scratched her nose, and corrected herself, “-not everything, we had no idea of your capabilities. But for better or worse, being the granddaughter of Evelyn Erikson is going to mean that people are always watching you, and now watching us.”

Sharna protested at this, “nobody has ever been particularly interested in me, grandmother and I kept a very low profile.”

Myra tilted her head and looked at Sharna piercingly. “And yet, you had masters in their fields of magic willing to drop everything to tutor you.”

Sharna sputtered, “it was just my grandmother’s friends and no one dropped everything..”

“Yes, they were your grandmother’s friends, but you can’t tell me that you don’t know that your grandmother was a heavily influential politician, as well as being one of the most renowned experts on image-manifestation. Along with Linda Whitlock, who happened to be one of your tutors and who literally wrote THE book on the subject.”

Sharna shook her head and tried to interject, but Myra continued persistently, “Also, Kenji Sato and Amos Smythe both took leaves of absence from their work over the last few years to tutor you. Kenji is the professor of soul magics at Stellarc’s top university, while Amos is employed BY THE PALACE as their expert on precognition. You mentioned all three of them giving you private tuition in your application.”

Sharna was feeling very uncomfortable under Myra’s gaze, and shifted nervously, Quinn darted out from Sharna’s hair and spoke roughly to Myra, “stop it, she never asked for any special treatment!”

Myra shook her head sadly at Quinn’s assertion, “I know she didn’t, but that doesn’t change the fact that she has received special treatment. Important, highly educated people like these don’t just show up for anyone who asks to be taught. I am sorry to force this on you but I really need you to understand that people will be watching you, and most will not be neutral.”

“What do you mean by ‘most will not be neutral’?”

Myra took a deep breath, she stared at Sharna as though determining how to word her response. “You know that your grandmother was a very public figure. She was beloved by many, many people due to her charitable projects, her ground-breaking work in equality and her innovative ideas around manifestation.” Sharna nodded, she was extremely aware of the long shadow that her grandmother had cast.

“Well, not everyone wanted all of those changes. There was value to some very rich and powerful people in continuing inequality.” Myra tried to choose her words very deliberately, and watched Sharna carefully for her response. “For example, some people may have preferred that women not be rescued from trouble or poverty so they could benefit from their desperation.”

Sharna nodded, understanding Myra’s concern, “I have been well-informed about human trafficking.”

Myra was relieved, “okay, you’re still very young and I wasn’t sure what your grandmother had explained to you.”

Sharna didn’t correct Myra’s assumption that it was her grandmother that had taught her about trafficking. Many of the women that she had met on their trips to The Pillars were trafficking victims that had been rescued through the charity’s efforts. In truth, Sharna probably knew a lot more about the sordid situations that these women had been forced into than Myra did.

“So people are watching me, waiting for me to stuff up so they can blame it on my grandmother,” Sharna guessed.

Myra blinked at Sharna’s response, “yes.”

“I’ll try to be more uninteresting for now, I definitely don’t want to cause trouble for you or Anna, but once I am a little older and more settled, they’re not going to know what hit them.” The devilry in Sharna’s smile made Myra wonder how she could have explained the situation differently.