TS dropped to the floor and took up his casual canine, I’ve-been-here-for-hours pose. “For now I think the best course of action is just to make sure she doesn’t talk to anyone else about what she saw. It seems like we’re not going to get out of this without a memory potion. I figure she won’t be talking to anyone tonight. We’ll just need to stay within earshot.”

“That won’t be suspicious at all,” Dani said.

“If the only memory she has of us is what happened tonight, we could trigger it later,” said TS. “We’re on a ship with her all summer. It’s going to be impossible to avoid her.”

I felt my phone buzz. As I reached to pull it out, I heard more vibrations, a chime, and a shout from a video game character. All five of us reached for our cell phones. I had a text message from Jon and assumed he had sent it to everyone.

Make sure no other non-magics get involved. I will make arrangements to meet you in Panama with a strong memory potion. Let me know if the situation escalates before I arrive.

“Well, that works,” Dani said.

Good. With a high quality memory potion from Jon, we could wait a couple of days.

“Right. Who’s going to watch her first?” TS asked.

“I can,” Mariana offered quickly.

“You don’t have to worry yourself,” said TS.

Mariana shook her head. “I see her roommate in the gym in the mornings. She always goes back to her room to shower, then she and Jennifer go up to breakfast. I can leave when she does and catch Jennifer in the dining hall.”

“Is that why you’re always up early?” Dani asked. “I thought you were joking when you said you were going for a morning run.”

“You sleep in so late it’s a miracle you know what a morning run is,” Mariana shot back.

“I hauled myself out of bed every day for a ‘morning run’ at the crack of dawn for fourteen years,” Dani said. “I’ve earned sleeping in.” Before Mariana could argue he added, “Wake me after her roommate goes back to their room. I’ll go up to breakfast with you.”

“Guess we’ll go from there then,” I said through a yawn. Was I really tired already?

As yawns tend to do, mine triggered a chain reaction. Charlie and Mariana both yawned, and I felt TS fight the urge.

“Night then,” TS said. “Don’t beat yourself up, Mariana. It happens.”

We all said our goodnights and TS and I headed toward the stairs to our room.

“You’re tired,” he said, as we walked.

“It’s late.”

He felt irritated, but he didn’t say anything. We got back to our room and he shifted and sprawled out on his bed. I peeled of my shirt and tossed it into my little laundry pile. I sensed a sudden rush of concern and alarm.

I turned to see that TS was sitting up with his head tilted to the side, staring at me.

“Have you always been that skinny, mate?”

I looked down at myself, taken aback. “What? I… I think so. Yeah.” I thought I looked fine. Didn’t I? I tugged on the waistband of my jeans. Okay, so there was a decent amount of room there. Actually, there was quite a bit. I pulled my jeans down and they slid easily over my hips, even though they were still buttoned. That was new. And disconcerting. I ran a hand over my ribs on one side. They were pretty prominent. But they always had been, right?

“You should go to the infirmary and weigh yourself.” TS hesitated and added, “So you can keep track of how much you’re losing.”

I wanted to argue and say that I hadn’t lost anything. It had only been two weeks since I stopped feeding regularly. I couldn’t already be losing weight. And yet, I was standing here with my pants halfway down my hips and it wasn’t even uncomfortable. I pulled them the rest of the way off and kicked them into the corner with my shirt.

Tethys pressed on, “Have you looked in a mirror recently?”

“Yes!”

He looked at me skeptically. I knew I was defeated. I walked over to the bathroom, stepped in, and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked fine. Maybe a bit skinny, but then, I always had been on the slender side. I felt an odd tingle as TS shifted back into a human. He appeared in the mirror behind me a moment later.

“Turn on the light,” he suggested.

I would never say that it was hard to see in the dark, but it was certainly different than looking around with a light on. My ideal level of light was that dim point, where humans are just beginning to squint and consider turning on a lamp. Any brighter than that and I found myself blinking more frequently, up until the light started to burn my eyes. I could handle bright sun, but only for a couple of hours and my eyes usually ached afterward. But, once the ambient lighting started to get darker, everything appeared different. I thought it was like looking at the world through a pair of sunglasses. Colors became less vibrant, and the darker it was, the more monochromatic everything became. I could see just fine even when there was no light at all, but everything was just sort of a dull green-black. And the complete absence of shadows always threw me off a little.

With the light from the bedroom just barely illuminating the bathroom, my reflection was clear enough, but muted. There was no use arguing with TS, so I squeezed my eyes shut and flicked on the light. For a moment, I saw red and my eyes burned, even though they were closed. I waited for the pain to subside and cautiously opened my eyes. I rarely bothered to turn on the light in the bathroom, and I knew TS was on to something when he asked how long it had been since I looked in a mirror. It had been a while since I had really taken a good look at my reflection. Now I wished that I had left the light off.

I stifled a gasp as I finally saw why everyone else had started giving me a hard time. I leaned forward over the sink and stared at my reflection. I looked awful. In spite of the fact I tended to go out more at night, I still got a decent amount of sun and usually had a bit of a tan. In fact, I spent the spring semester playing lacrosse and was even darker than usual. At least I had been a couple of weeks ago. My skin looked pale and just… sickly. I leaned even closer to the mirror and poked at the dark hollows under my eyes. Without the light on they had blended in with the rest of my skin. Now they stood out so much I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed them. I turned my head a little and examined my cheek. Was my cheekbone a little more prominent than it had been? I stepped back and took a good look at myself. I was losing weight. It was much more obvious in the mirror.

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“Well, I look worse than I feel,” I said. I don’t know why I bothered with the excuse. It certainly wouldn’t work on TS.

“No, you don’t,” he said flatly. I took another glance at my reflection and turned the light off. TS followed me back into the bedroom. “How many times did you hit snooze this morning?” he pressed. “You’re spending more and more time sleeping, but you’re still tired, all the bloody time! Don’t think I can’t feel those aches either! Not to mention how hungry you’ve been the past few days.”

I sat down on my bed and fought back the urge to sigh in relief at finally getting off of my feet. He sat down on his bed and watched me for a while. I knew he was holding back something he wanted to say.

I shrugged helplessly. “I knew what I was getting into.”

Not true. I hoped he wouldn’t sense the lie. I had known that I’d feel lousy with the reduced blood intake. However, I never imagined that it would happen so quickly. Had it really only been two weeks? I had done the calculations for how much blood I would need, and how much I could do without before becoming seriously ill, a thousand times. I ran through them again. Had I missed something? Or was this really what I was going to have to deal with all summer?

“You should have fed from me before the sun went down.”

I shook my head. “I fed from two people yesterday.”

His head snapped up and he curled back his upper lip at me. “You said you had three donors lined up!”

Damn, I shouldn’t have said anything. “One couldn’t make it.”

“Tom!”

“It’s just a pint.”

“A pint you could’ve gotten from me!”

I glared at him. “I’m feeding from you tomorrow. I’m not doing it two days in a row.”

“I’ll be fine as soon as the sun sets!

“That’s not the point!”

He had offered, over the years, if donors were sparse or if I was particularly hungry. There had been a couple of times I had gotten injured while working and had needed a bit of blood from him. But those were just a few ounces in an emergency. Until this cruise I had never just sat down and taken a pint or more from him. I hated it. I felt like I was taking advantage of our bond somehow. Would he still be so willing if we weren’t soul-pack bonded? I didn’t sense any regret or anything negative at all when I fed from him, but maybe he was just working extra hard to conceal it.

I reached over to my drawer and pulled out a pair of clean boxers, hoping that he’d take the hint and drop the subject if I changed for bed. Instead of changing right there, I went into the bathroom to make a more dramatic point. I sensed his irritation stir the moment I started walking away. Thanks to our bond, and just living together for decades, we stopped caring about privacy long ago. Of course, I wasn’t entirely sure that werewolves even knew the definition of privacy. As soon as I was in the bathroom, I knew it had been a bad idea. I could feel him just sitting there, seething, and waiting for me to come back out. I was tempted to linger and put off his argument, but he’d know what I was doing. I changed and reluctantly went back into the room.

“You should reconsider a permit,” he said softly.

“Absolutely not.”

I couldn’t get a permit. How could I just grab unsuspecting people and bite them? Not that it wouldn’t be easy. There were plenty of empty rooms and dark corridors. A quick bite, a few ounces, here and there would be no problem at all. But, I just couldn’t. Donors were different. They were magics; they knew what they were doing. They wanted to help me out. I felt like biting someone without permission was no better than physically violating them. Non-magics didn’t even know we existed! I’d feed from them and then be forced to see them day after day on the ship, smiling and talking with them, and acting like I hadn’t dragged them into an empty room and drank their blood. No, thank you.

“Well, you have to do something,” he snarled.

“I’ll feed more in port.” I yanked down my sheets and climbed into bed. It didn’t stop him.

“And what about between ports?”

I heaved a sigh. I knew he was just worried about me. A wave of fatigue hit me as soon as my head was on the pillow. “I’m tired and a little sore,” I conceded. “But, that’s it. In between ports all I’m doing is sitting in class and out on deck. Or sleeping. The only time I’m going to need more blood is when I’m in port actually doing things, which is exactly when I’ll be feeding more.”

“I still don’t like it. And you’re willingly letting yourself be ill. Doesn’t that sound sort of… screwed up to you?”

Well, when he put it that way, it did. I thought it over for a moment. The ship tossed a little in the storm and my stomach went with it. Maybe I should take a seasickness potion too.

“You know,” I said, as the thought struck me, “I’m not the only one making myself sick. You and half of the non-magics are too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

I rolled onto my side and looked at him. He was still in human form and leveling a glare at me.

“You get seasick. You knew that. But here you are, spending a summer on a ship.”

He snorted. “I’m taking a potion and I feel grand. They don’t make potions for vampires who don’t feed.”

“And what about all of the non-magics with their patches and wristbands? I guarantee some of them are sicker than I am.” I reached out and turned off the light. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the sudden blackness. When they did, everything looked the same, just like putting on ski goggles, except the world had turned greenish-black instead of orange. I turned over onto my back. “They’d rather be sick and go on this trip, than not go at all. And I feel the same way.” I could never really bring myself to lie to him. “You know how I feel. And, no, I didn’t think I’d get this… bad, this quickly. But, I’d rather feel this way than not be here.”

He shifted without saying another word and I heard the sheets rustling as he curled up on his bed.

“Tethys,” I called softly.

He grunted in reply.

“I’m okay. You don’t have to worry.” I turned my head and looked at him. “Really.”

He lifted his head and flattened his ears. “Promise me something?”

“You name it.”

“If you get much sicker or you start going downhill faster, you’ll figure out another way to get more blood.”

“Without having to resort to a permit?”

He nodded.

“You got it, Teth.”

He stretched all the way out and I felt a vicarious satisfaction.

“So, something we need to actually be worried about,” I said. “What do we do about this non-magic girl?”

“I guess we hope that she isn’t as curious when she wakes up and that she won’t talk.” He opened his mouth in a huge, gaping wolf yawn. “An’ ‘en,” he said, tongue still lolling out. “’e ‘ave to figure out what other classes she’s in, and make sure she won’t talk to anyone in those either.”

“Char’s got something with her and we’ve all got Latin American History.”

“That leaves Spanish and something else.”

“We’ll figure it out in the morning. Dani can keep an eye on her during breakfast.” I yawned, probably inspired by his.

“What a bloody debacle,” he muttered. Then he chuckled. “On the bright side, though, it’s probably the most exciting thing that’ll happen all summer.”

“I hope not.” I grinned as I sensed curiosity. “I think that all the sightseeing we’re doing will be more exciting than tonight.”

He laughed. “Right. Agreed. You know, Charlie saw a Chupacabra today.”

“Did he? Man, I’d love to see one. Are there any in Panama?”

“Dunno. I don’t think they go that far south. They are in Guatemala though, I believe. I’d like to see one, too. But I’d really like to see a roc once we get down to Chile.”

“They’re pretty common, aren’t they?”

“Right. But I’d still like to see one.”

“Oh, me too,” I agreed.

“You’ve seen a Himalayan Roc, haven’t you?”

I had, but it had been in a zoo in Japan. “Yeah, not in the wild though.”

He yawned again. “We’ve got class in the morning. And you need rest.”

“So do you,” I countered. “Especially if you expect me to feed from you more often.”

The last part made him as happy as I had expected, and relieved too. “Night then, Tom.”

I pulled the blanket up and closed my eyes. “Night, Teth.”

As I started to drift to sleep, I thought of the non-magic girl, fearlessly standing her ground against one of the most dangerous creatures in the world. I chuckled at the memory.

“What’s funny?”

“Nothing,” I said with a smile. “Goodnight.”