Sixty. I gaped at Charlie. He was sixty? He didn't look a day older than twenty-one. If he was really sixty...

"Are you immortal, too?" I asked in shock.

"Yes!" He looked surprised and then frowned in confusion. "Thomas said he told you."

I assumed Thomas was immortal because he was a vampire, but I realized he hadn't actually said that. If Charlie was immortal, then all elementals probably were, so Dani was, too. But then... Mariana and TS weren't human either...

"He didn't tell me everyone is!" I cried.

"I'm sorry! When he told me he told you, I assumed that he'd been thorough about it."

I shook my head. The sun had completely set, and all around us, people were standing up and getting ready to hike back down the dune. I glanced around to make sure nobody was watching, and quickly pulled out my wand and cast my night vision spell. This time I was positive that it was stronger. I could see Charlie clearly enough to know that he still looked irritated. I studied him while we waited for people to walk past us. Sixty.

I hadn't been able to figure out exactly what bothered me so much about the fact that Thomas was in his sixties, but now that I knew Charlie was, too, I figured it out. Sixty, in general, wasn't really all that old. I had friends with cool parents in their sixties. A couple of my professors that I considered friends were in their sixties. I had spent hours after work talking with Betty, a sweet woman in her mid-sixties. I thought of her as a friend, too. But those were all different kinds of friends. I was technically an adult, but I still thought of parents as 'grown-up’. They were in a different generation. Granted, Betty and I had some great heart-to-hearts, but as close we were, she wasn't the sort of friend that I'd explore Chile with. People the same age as Charlie and Thomas weren't supposed to look and act like college students. They were for giving advice and providing a different kind of friendship. The fact that Charlie was sixty was strange, because I was starting to think of him as the sort of friend who was my age.

Then, it struck me that if they were all immortal, then I was the odd one out. I had been worried that it must be hard for Thomas to be a good forty years older than everyone else, when I was the one who was apart in age. I thought back to our conversation in the port, as Charlie and I started down the dune.

"Did you mean it when you said age is just a number?"

"Of course I did."

"I'm twenty-one."

"I know. So?"

I looked at him nervously. "Doesn't that make me like... I don't know, a kid to you?"

"No!" He slung an arm around me. "No. You're an adult, Jen. A young one," he added with a laugh, "but you're still an adult. Non-magics tend to mature a little faster than magics. I suppose it's the mortality thing. So, you're pretty mature as far as magics your age go, and that's what matters. It's how you act, not when you were born. You're mature, you're smart, you're good in a crisis. More importantly, I enjoy spending time with you." He smiled at me. "While we're on the subject, I hope you plan on keeping in touch after the voyage. It would be a shame to lose contact."

"I do," I said, slightly surprised. It was nice to know that Charlie wanted to stay friends after the voyage was over.

"Of course," he chuckled, "it's a lot easier to stay in touch now than it was when I was your age."

"Right," I muttered. The fact they were all so much older than me, not to mention immortal, was going to take a lot of getting used to.

I hoped Charlie meant it when he said age didn't matter. Of course, none of them had treated me like I was a lot younger, which was a relief. Dani sometimes had his big brotherly attitude, but it didn't bother me. Although it was sort of weird knowing that it was because he was so much older than me. Then again, he seemed to irritate Mariana when he did that with her. In fact, they all tended to treat Mariana like she was younger. For the first time, the fact that Mariana was an intern with MES, but everyone else was an agent stuck out at me. I had assumed that they were all in their sixties, but Charlie never said that.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"How old is Mariana?" I asked.

"Twenty-seven."

She was younger than them. If it weren't for the fact I had guessed it based on how they treated her, it would have been nice to know she was closer to my age. I sighed.

"I thought you would have liked that," Charlie said. "I know she's thrilled."

"But you treat her like she's a little kid, and I'm even younger than she is."

"Ah. Mariana's different."

"How so?"

"Dani started babysitting Mariana when she was a just a toddler. For a long time, she was a little kid. Dani's always thought of her as a little sister, and when you watch someone grow up, it's sometimes hard to remember that they are an adult. It drives poor Mariana nuts, but Dani can't help it. I think we're all guilty of that, really. And I helped raise my niece. She's almost thirty-one, and I still have to remind myself sometimes that she's not my little girl anymore. Didn't you say you have a little sister?"

I nodded. "Yeah, she's nine."

"And you still sometimes treat her like she's five, right?"

Actually, I did. Charlie laughed before I could even answer out loud.

"See? It's a habit. Everyone does it. Now, you're already an adult. None of us are going to start babying you, because we never knew you as a kid. Granted, we're probably all going to be a bit overprotective, because you're still learning about magic, but other than that..."

"If you say so..." To be fair, that did seem true so far.

"Trust me. You'll just have to get used to age gaps. They're usually pretty large. I mean, the fact that Thomas and I are only two years apart is extremely rare. Most magics don't have friends that close to them in age. I suppose it's odd to someone who isn't used to it, but eventually you won't give it a second thought."

We caught up to the group and fell silent as we boarded the bus. It was so full we weren't able to sit together. I sat quietly, staring out the window. I felt a little overwhelmed again. Magic. I watched the dunes and distant mountains fly by as I thought. The fact they had neglected to mention that they were all immortal was annoying, but I could actually see why they hadn't. For one thing, I was having a bit of a hard time accepting it. This was exactly the sort of thing Thomas had been talking about. Finding out about magics and the fact my friends were immortal all in one night would have been too much. When the world outside began to darken and fade, I remembered that I had cast my night vision spell. Nobody else could even see out of the windows like I could. It was amazing to think that I was already taking magic for granted. That was exactly what they had been trying to tell me. It was possible they had forgotten to tell me they were immortal because they were too used to it. It wasn't something they thought about, and it didn't occur to them that I didn't know. I sighed and stared at the blackness outside the bus, already wishing I could cast my spell again. I almost laughed out loud. It really was amazing just how far I had come since the night I met Jon.

Jon.

I jerked upright in my seat. The guy next to me looked at me in surprise.

"You okay?"

"Y-yeah," I managed. "Just, uh... I'm fine."

But my head was spinning. Thomas said that Jon had taken in him after his parents died. Jon was like his father. But Thomas was sixty-two, and Jon didn't look a day older than I was. Jon was immortal, too. My heart pounded. Jon was a wizard. If he was immortal, then... Then, so was I.

The bus stopped at a small restaurant for dinner. I ended up, much to my dismay, at a different table than Charlie. I hardly tasted the food. I was vaguely aware that it was good, but all I could think of was the possibility that I was immortal, too. By the time dinner was over, I was so convinced that I honestly wasn't sure if I had started making up reasons to support my theory or if the clues had been there all along. Charlie and I walked together back to our room, but there were too many people around us.

"You look like you're about to combust," he commented. "You okay?"

I nodded. He let me into the room first, and the door had barely shut when I whirled to face him. "Am I immortal, too?" I demanded.

Charlie's jaw dropped. For a long moment, he just stared at me. "W-what?"

"Am I?" I repeated uncertainly.

"Thomas... Thomas said he told you."

I shook my head. "He told me that he was. He didn't mention anything about the rest of you or... or me."

Charlie's face turned bright red, and his eyes flared furiously. After a moment, he took a deep breath, and the flickering in his eyes slowed and dimmed from red to orange. "I don't even know what to say," he said with a helpless shrug. "Ashes, I'm sorry. Here I am going on and on about how we're all immortal, and you're sitting there with no idea that I was including you. I'm sorry. This must be... This is probably a pretty big shock."

"So I am?"

"Yeah."