"Oh you're a witch, alright. Without a doubt. Just be patient."

I tried a couple more, and to my surprise a tiny spark jumped out of one. "It worked!" I gasped. Had I really just used magic?

"Great. Set that one over here and keep going."

"Seriously?"

"We want to make sure we get the best one."

It took almost an hour to get through all of them. But soon I had a pile of seventeen wands that had made tiny sparks and a bigger pile that hadn't. I was starting to feel incredibly drained.

"That's it for now," Thomas said. "You're tired. Keep those, and tomorrow night, we'll narrow it down more."

"How do we do that?

"Same as tonight," he laughed. "After a few tries, one will be more powerful than the others. It should also start to look a bit different."

"Look different?"

Thomas grinned. "They won't stay sticks. It'll smooth out, straighten up, look polished. Just like the pretty wands you were probably picturing."

I laughed, embarrassed. I realized I hadn't seen his wand yet. In fact, I hadn't seen him do any magic, at all. "What does your wand look like?"

He turned his head away and looked almost sad. "I don't have one anymore."

That didn't make sense. "Why not? Did it break?"

"No. We can make new ones when they break. I..." He hesitated and took a deep, almost shaky, breath. "I can't use magic anymore."

I stopped myself from blurting out another, "Why not?" I wondered in horror if it was permanent.

"You need to get some rest," he said abruptly. "We'll finish this tomorrow night."

He wasn't going to talk about it, that much was clear. I stood and gathered my seventeen wands. "Goodnight, then. And... thanks, for helping me." I didn't add that it must have been really hard for him. It must have been awful watching somebody learn magic when you couldn't.

I hid the wands in the back of one of my drawers and got ready for bed. I had so much to think about, I thought that I'd take forever to fall asleep, but my first time using magic had worn me out, and I fell asleep very quickly.

~~~~~~~

My trip didn't leave until later in the day, so I took my time going up to breakfast. Everything had been transformed with red, white, and blue in honor of the Fourth of July. I was halfway through the buffet line, torn between a donut with festive sprinkles and some sort of tart shaped like a four, when I spotted TS. I watched, while he piled what looked like nothing but bacon and sausage on his plate, and hesitantly followed him to a table and sat down across from him. The last time I saw him, he turned into a giant wolf. It was strange to look at him and know what he could do. Even though I had, sort of, used magic, it still hadn't really sunk in. Plus, I wasn't sure if he'd want to sit with me. After all, it had been less than forty-eight hours since I found out that werewolves existed.

"Morning," he said when I sat down. "Happy Fourth of July."

"Same to you." I glanced at his plate and couldn't help but ask, "Do you only eat meat?"

"Pretty much, right." He looked wistful and softly added, "I wish I could eat it raw when I'm human."

I laughed, but I couldn't quite tell if he was serious. I watched him eat for a moment. I was curious about him. Well, honestly, I was still curious about all of them, but TS was right here.

"So, your name is, uh... Tethys?"

"S'right," he grunted. He swallowed his sausage and smiled sheepishly. "Excuse me. Right. Tethys. I just go by TS usually."

"Tethys…" It sounded familiar.

"It's a goddess," Dani said, dropping his plate down next to me.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

TS glared at him. "It's a moon."

Dani chuckled and yawned. "Goo'mornin', Jen," he said before he finished. He downed an entire cup of coffee and made a face. "This ship coffee is kind of nasty. But... I think I need more."

"Good morning, Dani," I laughed. He got up, in search of more coffee, I assumed. "So, a moon?" I asked TS.

He nodded. "My parents named us all after moons."

"You have siblings?"

"Right. Two sisters, Dione and Rhea, and two brothers, Iapetus and Enceladus."

"Jeez. Who’s oldest?"

TS laughed. "Technically me. Ian’s about two minutes younger than me. Di was five minutes after him, and Rae was less than a minute after her. Ed’s the baby. He was born about four minutes after Rae."

"You’re all… you were born the same day?"

He shrugged. "What can I say? Werewolves have big litters." I nearly choked on my breakfast at the word litter in reference to human babies. Or at least, sort of human. Suddenly his eyes grew wide. "Dani! How can you wear that in public?"

Dani had returned with another cup of coffee. I wasn't sure what TS was referring to. Dani was just wearing a pair of shorts and a blue t-shirt with some sports team logo.

Dani glared at TS. "It's like, eight in the morning. You can't be a dick about my team for at least another two hours."

TS shook his head. "You have been paying attention the past couple of years, right?"

"They just got a bad wind in their sails. This year will be ours."

"Danio," TS groaned. "You've lived in New York for how long now? Forget the Lions and go for the Giants. Hell, you'd do better with the Bills!"

"You don’t even cheer for the Bills! I'm from Michigan! I'm not going to give up on my team just because they've had a couple of bad years."

TS crammed another load of bacon into his mouth, swallowed it almost whole, and laughed. "A couple of bad years? Detroit hasn't won a championship since before I was born!"

"That isn't true!" Dani snapped. "They won in nineteen-fifty..." he hesitated and grumbled, "seven. Fin-rot, you're right."

TS laughed. I couldn't believe the thing he did with his tongue hadn't reminded me of a dog before. He and Dani started arguing about all sorts of football stuff that went way over my head. If anyone asked, I said I cheered for the Ravens, but that was only because I was from Maryland. I didn't know anything about football. Eventually Dani stomped off for his third cup of coffee and had a new defense ready when he got back.

"It's a blue shirt, you know. I'm being festive."

"You're Greek."

Dani rolled his eyes. "I've lived in America longer than you, vlaka. At least I'm wearing the right colors."

"I don't think I own anything red," TS said. "While we're on the subject, are you even wearing any?"

Dani batted his eyelashes at him. "Yes. Care to find out where?"

"In your dreams, Danio."

Since I had been thinking about names earlier, I was struck by an idea. "Is Danio your real name or a nickname?" I asked.

"It's my real name," he said.

Then, I recognized it from my high school gig in a pet store. "Like the fish? Zebra Danios?"

Dani laughed. "Exactly. It's an easy one to swap for a more human name." He frowned. "Although Pike has an irritating habit of calling me Zebra."

"Pike?" I asked.

"My brother."

"Are we talking about Pike?" Charlie arrived and sat down next to TS with a cup of coffee and a plate of pancakes filled with red, white, and blue sprinkles. "He is so hot."

"Excuse me?" Dani cried.

"I'm sorry, Dani, but Pike is gorgeous. If he was gay, I'd-"

Dani reached across the table and smacked him on the head. "That's my brother you're talking about!"

Charlie and TS laughed. "Just saying it like it is," Charlie chuckled, dodging a second hit. "Happy Fourth."

Dani grabbed Charlie's coffee and started drinking it, still glaring at him. His eyes weren't very dark though; I had a feeling he wasn't actually mad. I thought about what Charlie said and wondered if he was joking or not.

"Charlie, are fire elementals gay?" I asked.

I wasn't sure how he'd feel if I just asked if he was gay outright, so I tried to make my question more general. My timing couldn't have been worse. TS laughed so hard he started choking on his bacon and Dani guffawed and spat his stolen coffee everywhere.

"Are humans gay?" Charlie countered.

I blushed. "Sorry."

He shrugged. "Don't be sorry, it was a fair question. If you were wondering about me in particular, yes, I am." He turned to Dani and gestured to his coffee-soaked pancakes. "You, however, should be sorry."

"It's just a little coffee," Dani said innocently.

I decided not to point out that, not only had he been the one to spit it onto Charlie's pancakes, it had been Charlie's coffee to begin with.

"We were discussing names before you got here," I said quickly, changing the subject for Dani's sake. "Is yours really Charlie?"

"It's Char," he said, giving his newly caffeinated pancakes a prod with his fork.

"Oh. Like, burned stuff?"

Charlie laughed. "I prefer to think of it as a verb. You know, to char."

"Sorry," I said, blushing again. "I didn't mean it like that."

"It's fine," he said. "I'm just teasing." He looked at Dani and groaned. "Oh, god, I just noticed. Couldn't you at least wait until pre-season?"

"At least I pick a team and stick with it," Dani grumbled.

"You could've picked a better one," TS laughed. I realized they must have been talking about Dani's shirt again. "It's just sad, mate." He turned to Charlie. "Can't you do anything about this delusional nonsense?"

"You don't think I've tried? You have no idea what I go through. I have to spend every season with this delusional nonsense."

"Hey, I'm right here," Dani said.

Charlie leaned over to TS and said in a loud whisper. "You haven't seen sad until you've watched Thanksgiving Day Football with the entire Pelagos family. Lions fans. Every one of them. I'm pretty sure they've lost every game I've seen."

"That is so depressing," TS said.

"Watch it mutt, I'll spit coffee into your breakfast too," Dani said.

"I actually need to eat this, you know," TS said.

The way he worded it caught my attention. "Need to?" I said. "What do you mean by that?"

"Oh, I don't need food," Charlie said. He glared at Dani. "Not that I didn't want it."

"Yeah, yeah." Dani grabbed Charlie's plate and got up.

"You don't need food?" I asked Charlie. Was that actually possible?