As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized I could probably have phrased the question better.

Thomas’ jaw dropped, and he looked absolutely mortified. Charlie clapped both hands over his mouth. Mariana and TS both started shaking with silent laughter, and Dani threw back his head and laughed hysterically.

"W-what? No!"

"I believe the term they prefer is unde—" Dani began.

"If you finish that sentence, you're going through a wall," Thomas snarled. He turned back to me, still looking a bit shocked. "You didn't actually think I was dead this entire time, did you?"

"I didn't really think about it," I admitted. "I mean... I guess I read too much."

"Yeah." Thomas put both hands on my shoulders and looked me straight in the eye. I put a little too much thought into whether his eyes were more green or more gray, and gave myself a mental kick. "Let me be clear on this. I am not dead." He shot a glare at Dani. "I'm not undead, either."

"And he doesn't sleep in a coffin," Dani added.

Thomas rolled his eyes. "Why did I think being stuck on a boat with you was a good idea?"

"It's a sh—" Dani didn't finish. Thomas lunged at him, and the two scrambled around the room, until Dani made it to the bathroom and slammed the door. "Safe!" he yelled from the bathroom.

"I might kill him someday." I was glad to see that Thomas looked more amused that irritated.

"He'd deserve it," Charlie said.

As I watched Thomas, the idea of just how hard this must have been for him struck me. We were probably just children to him. Being a vampire was obviously hard enough, but I hadn't taken into account what it must be like to be immortal on top of it. Unless he was with other vampires, assuming there were other good vampires, he'd look out of place hanging out with anyone close to his age. He was stuck spending time with college students. It seemed like he was good friends with everyone, but how long could that last? In another ten years, he'd look out of place with us, too. He could probably only really stay friends with other people for a few short years.

"Well, when everyone is ready, we should go enjoy the festivities," Thomas said. He banged a fist on the bathroom door. "Get out here so other people can use the bathroom."

Dani poked his head out. "Truce?"

"Yeah, truce."

When we were all ready, we stepped out into the hall. There were only a couple of people as far as we could see in either direction.

"If it's like this in the dining hall, we're coming back," TS said.

Dani nodded. "Sounds good to me."

But the dining hall was packed. The cooks had gone all out with every sort of breakfast food imaginable. There were balloons tied to every chair, and music filled the air. People who were awake enough to play around were on makeshift bowling lanes, using oranges and saltshakers. Everyone loaded their plates up with food, and we found a table in a corner. I was sure it wasn't an accident that Mariana, TS, and I ended up by the wall with the others between the door and us. Aside from a few nervous glances now and again, breakfast was fun. Everyone around us laughed and talked, and it was easy to almost forget about the vampire. Of course, I couldn't entirely forget, especially when we stood, and I could feel the weight of the stake in my purse. On the way out, we found a stack of programs listing what activities were going on and started flipping through it.

"Bunch of raffles on Five," Mariana said. "It could be fun to enter some."

"Oh, Tom!" Dani cried. "They're playing your favorite movie! If we hurry we can see the sparkly meadow scene!"

Thomas looked so disgusted I was half-worried he'd literally throw up. He tried to smack Dani with his program, but Dani laughed and dodged it. "You. Are. Such. A. Moron!" Thomas growled with each attempted whack.

"I think that was more than three strikes, DiMaggio," Dani said when Thomas stopped trying to hit him.

It seemed like Thomas let Dani dodge, because this time he caught Dani right on the head with a good, hard thwack, before Dani even had time to react.

"Let's go to the raffle." Thomas turned away, leaving Dani rubbing the top of his head and wincing.

"Thomas?" I asked as we walked. "Does anything happen if you go out in the sun?"

I thought I had phrased it in a much better way than I had asked if he was dead, but he looked just as horrified. "This is your fault," he said to Dani. He followed it with another painful sounding whack from the program. "Nothing happens. The bursting into flames and other nonsense is all Hollywood."

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He kept walking, and I hung back a little until I was walking next to Charlie.

"You okay?" he whispered.

I shrugged, painfully aware that I was blushing. "I keep asking really stupid questions."

Charlie shook his head. "They aren't stupid. There's a lot you don't know about magics and... well, you read too much." He smiled, and I could tell he was joking. "There's a lot you have to unlearn, and there's no harm in asking questions."

It wasn't just that. Even if my questions weren't stupid I was starting to feel a little overwhelmed. I'd learned so much, and yet I kept finding that I hardly knew anything. Even if they had stopped keeping secrets, I was constantly finding out things that were supposedly "common knowledge." I voiced my thoughts to Charlie, who put a comforting hand on my shoulder.

"That's part of why you can't let stupid questions worry you. Asking questions is the best way to learn. And I, for one, would rather you ask, no matter how silly you think it is. It's either that or go around believing false information."

Dani dropped his elbow down on my other shoulder. "You know what you're doing, Jen?"

I shook my head.

"I think you're learning another language."

"What?"

"No, Dan," Charlie groaned. "You have awful metaphors."

"No, no, hear me out on this one. Before you met us, you had no idea that magics existed, and now you have to learn about an entirely new world. We're teaching you, right?"

I nodded.

"So, we're like the native speakers! And nobody can learn a new language in a few days. We can teach you, but it's impossible to sit down and just teach somebody an entire language in one go. You have to go slowly, just like you're doing. We can lay out the basics, but you have to learn new vocabulary as the situation calls for it. And I know all this 'common knowledge' stuff is driving you crazy, and I feel bad every time I have say that. But that's like... Hmm... It's like grammatical rules. Nobody ever taught us some of them, we just grew up knowing them, so it doesn't occur to us to teach them to you."

"I really hate to say it, but that makes sense," Charlie said.

It actually did. Learning all about magics, and magic, really was sort of like the Spanish classes I was taking. In fact, sometimes people asked questions that I was sure seemed downright dumb to our professor. And in a way, it was just as daunting.

Dani put his arm around my shoulders and hugged me. "Don't let it get to you, okay? English drove me crazy for ages. I'd have a good conversation or two and then get cocky. I'd go out to a bar, and I wouldn't understand a single word anybody was saying. It got a little disheartening sometimes." He winked. "Overwhelming, in fact. I'll admit, I still fumble for words once in a while and feel like an idiot. You'll get there. Just stick with it, alright?"

"Okay." I smiled at him. "Thanks." I felt a lot better, although I still had one nagging worry. Learning a new language meant starting from scratch, but I had years of misinformation from books and movies. Asking questions, even stupid ones, was one thing, but asking questions that might irritate somebody was another. "Did I make Thomas mad?"

I had whispered it, but to my surprise, Thomas turned immediately. "No!" Vampire hearing, right. I blushed; he must have heard the entire conversation. We had just reached where the raffles were, and we moved out of the hall and into a corner. Thomas leaned against the wall next to me and sighed. "Don't worry, I'm not mad or anything. I'm a little stressed out about this biter and everything, and I'm... Well, I'm a little hungry. It's making me irritable. I'm sorry if I was sort of short with you." He sighed again and lowered his voice. "There are enough misconceptions about my kind in the world as it is. I tend to have a low tolerance when it comes to nonsense like coffins and garlic and bats." He shot a glare at Dani. "It doesn't help when this idiot's favorite hobby is finding ways to annoy me."

Dani chuckled, and Thomas rolled his eyes. I was struck by the thought that Thomas and Dani might not have been as close as I had assumed they were. In fact, I had just assumed they were friends from the start. For all I knew, they were nothing more than co-workers, and it was entirely possible that they didn't even like each other. Dani never seemed to miss a chance to annoy Thomas, and even though Thomas didn't act genuinely mad, it had to get on his nerves. I couldn't imagine being as old as Thomas and not getting fed up with an immature college student constantly teasing me.

"Shall we enter some raffles?" Charlie asked.

"Why not?" replied Thomas. He put a hand on my shoulder. "And hey, like Charlie said, I'd rather if you ask questions than go around assuming things like..." He wrinkled his nose. "Like vampires being undead or something. Okay?"

"Okay."

It took us quite a while to make our way around the different tables with raffle offers. Instead of splitting up to enter different contests, we stayed together in every line. Even though there were a lot of people, I could tell that everyone still kept a wary eye out for the vampire. When we were done, Mariana suggested we go see the slideshow, so we headed up to Deck Seven. Time flew by, as we watched pictures and video clips from the voyage. By the time it was over, we were all surprised to see that it was lunchtime. We went back to the dining hall to find that lunch was just as overwhelming as breakfast had been. We all loaded up our plates and found a strategically placed table. Charlie mentioned something about the Atacama Desert, which was where I was going to be in Chile.

"Are you going to Atacama too, Charlie?"

"Oh, are you? Toasty! We'll have fun."

"Where are you going?" I asked Mariana.

"Easter Island!"

"You sure you don't want me to swim you there, calf?" Dani asked.

"I'm sure," Mariana said.

"Cause it’s no trouble."

Mariana glared at him, and I had a feeling this wasn't the first time they had had this conversation. "Dani! I'm sure! I'll be fine!"

"If you say so."

"God," Mariana groaned, "you're as bad as your mother!"

Dani looked shocked. Charlie reached over and patted his shoulder. "You can get a little overprotective you know, Dan. But don't worry; nobody can possibly be as bad as your mother."

Dani smiled at that. "Except for my grandmother." Charlie made a face.

Thomas laughed. "How is your grandmother?"

"In Greece, thank you. Which is just where I like her." Dani arched an eyebrow at Thomas and smirked. "But I'll be sure to send her your regards and your phone number."

"If I thought you'd actually call her, I'd be worried," Thomas shot back. "But if she does call me, I'll be sure to let her know how much you love surprise visits."

They teased each other throughout lunch, and I wondered if I was wrong about them not being friends. I found it almost hard to remember that Thomas was sixty-two. Out of everything I had learned so far, that was the hardest thing to wrap my head around. Even though I still found it hard to believe sometimes, I really had already accepted the thought of magic and people who weren't human. There was something about the fact that Thomas looked and acted like a normal college student, despite being one of the oldest people on the entire ship, that took more time to sink in. Just before we finished eating, we heard a familiar bing-bing that signaled an announcement.