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FIVE

Lily's legs ached as she dragged herself upstairs to her room, wishing for what had to be at least the hundredth time that she'd still had a room on the same floor as the other students, instead of two storeys up, in the attics where the other staff slept. The small rooms with low ceilings, along with the shared bathrooms at the end of the hall, marked the former servants' quarters for what they were, as opposed to the spacious, ensuited guest quarters that had been converted to house students. Fortunately, the headmistress had thought to install heating in the staff bedrooms, making the Scottish winters bearable, at least when the heating worked, seeing as the systems looked at least half a century old, if not older.

Even with summer approaching, she wouldn't have been able to sit at her desk most nights, like she did now, working on her project as the hours slipped past until bedtime.

There. Done.

Lily sat back, surveying her work. Everything was finished. The village, the utilities systems, even the concept elevations looked ready to go.

She just needed to check all the numbers and...ah. She knew she'd forgotten something. She'd calculated the energy output from the wind, solar and hydro systems, building in plenty of extra capacity for the village's predicted peak energy use, but the energy storage system specifications were missing. No, the entire system was missing. In her plans, it was still a black box, with no details other than the storage capacity it would have to have. Which couldn't be right, because you couldn't possibly fit that many lithium battery cells safely in that space, especially not so close to houses or the community centre.

Lily leafed through her notes. She had to have something on the battery system. Anything...

In the end, she found it in her emails. An email from when her dad was still alive, no less. She'd asked him to check her calculations about the lithium battery system, and he'd said she should think bigger and brighter than lithium. There was new, safer technology that they'd be using for Hea Sanctuary, and he'd send her the specifications as soon as he was allowed to release details about it. All he could tell her was the size and capacity, until Eirwen Energy, the company who made the system, made the details public.

Lily wiped away a tear. Dad hadn't lived long enough to receive or send any such details. She'd been so busy working and studying, she'd probably missed any public announcement Eirwen Energy had made since Dad died.

So she ran a search of the news sites, to see what she'd missed. Nothing about Eirwen Energy, or any breakthrough in battery technology at all. The only newsworthy item on any of the sites that caught her eye was the handsome, grinning face of Leo King, the newly crowned Times Bachelor of the Year.

Even Lily wasn't immune to that gorgeous grin. She'd met him once, too, seeing as he was one of the project managers for Hea Sanctuary, and he'd visited her dad's office when she was there on prac. Of course, Dad had hustled her out of Leo's sight as quickly as possible, as the man's tomcat reputation made him want to keep his daughter far away from the confirmed bachelor. Lily snorted. Evidently Dad hadn't known that was code for the guy being gay. Yeah, a guy that gorgeous and unattached probably was gay, and so full of himself, no one was good enough for him.

Of course, that hadn't stopped her fantasising about him on the odd occasion, at night in her own bed, where no one would never know...

If everything went to plan and she did graduate in time to take over Verre Electrical Engineering in her dad's stead, she'd have to see him regularly, and even work with him. Good thing it had been years since she'd fantasised about him. Otherwise she'd never be able to look him in the eye and talk about all things engineering when her head was full of other long, hard, wet...

Lily stabbed her finger at the X to close the tab on Leo's grinning face. Like he was reading her mind and knew exactly what she'd thought of him as a teenager. She was a grown woman now, and almost a qualified engineer. She'd just have to focus hard on sewage pipes whenever she saw him, and she'd be okay. There was nothing sexy about wastewater systems. The smell alone was enough to put you off sex for days.

Power storage systems, however...

She combed the internet, searching for anything that might hint at Eirwen Energy's battery system, but the company didn't have anything more than the most basic one-page website, which said nothing about possible world-changing battery technology.

Lily sighed, then set up an alert for any news on either the company or breakthroughs in battery tech. She'd have to change her design to incorporate lithium batteries if the announcement didn't happen soon.

Her alarm chimed, telling her it was time to go to the staff dining room for dinner. Lily rose. She couldn't afford to skip a free meal, especially as she'd likely have to redesign her project tonight. It wasn't like she could afford to have food delivered to Mirror Academy to fuel her late night study session. Besides, she could probably cajole a big flask of coffee from the kitchen to keep her awake long enough to finish her project.

Better batteries were nothing but a fairytale, she told herself. She lived in the real world, and her plans needed to reflect that.