Ana props her head on her hand, watching me with an amused expression. “Do you want to complain, or do you want to just keep throwing things around?”

“Ugh,” I say, slapping down my electrical meter. “Both.” She shifts in her chair, as if settling in for a long story, and stares at me expectantly. “It’s just my mom. She’s being super controlling because she thinks I’m, like, doing too much.”

Ana raises a single eyebrow skeptically. “You are doing too much.”

“I mean, sure, whatever,” I say, throwing my hands in the air exasperatedly. “But let me do too much in peace! And you can’t talk. You do too much too.”

“Well, yeah.” Ana shrugs. “But there are too many of us for my mom to really notice what I’m doing, so I don’t have your problem.”

“Too many of you?”

“I have four sisters.”

“I’m sorry, what?” I say. I had always imagined her as an only child for some reason. Does she share magic with all her siblings?

“Okay, it’s not that crazy,” she says, pushing my arm playfully. I can feel the faint heat of her fingers against my skin for a few seconds after she pulls her hand back. “You’re acting like I said I have nine siblings.”

I laugh, and it sounds too loud in my ears. A sudden wave of self-consciousness hits me, though I can’t figure out why the hell I’m feeling that way.

“I don’t really tell people at school,” Ana adds. “People get really weird about that when you have a higher magic level.” She frowns. “When I share magic with my sisters, it’s always me giving them power anyway. It makes them really tired if we take from them.”

I feel a little awkward, because I immediately wondered if she shared magic with her siblings. Which is a real jerk move, considering that people make all kinds of assumptions about me sharing magic for power too. “I get that. I wouldn’t tell people either,” I say. “We go to school with a lot of assholes.”

“Oh yeah, like that dude who asked you if your family had a magic-sharing pool.” She rolls her eyes. “I wish our school didn’t have such a strict no-fighting policy. I would have loved to watch you electrocute that guy.”

“I wish I was badass enough to do that.”

She grins at me. “You are, though.”

Now I’m just staring at her silently because she apparently thinks I’m much cooler than I am. “Um, my hair,” I say, grasping for a change in topic.

“What?”

“It’s killing me,” I say, gesturing at my unfortunately frizzy bun.

She gives me a faux-serious look. “Literally?”