Magic was gone by the time Andrew woke me in the morning. Apparently she woke at dawn, teleported to her room in Irminsul, brought paperwork for Mum to sign, and left. Veronica looked barely present as she checked on me shortly after Andrew left. Her hair was a mess, her eyes were a solid red, and she wasn’t nearly as well put together as she normally would be by the time I woke up. 

I didn’t waste time asking what was wrong. She’d been there for me nonstop during this week, I owed her at least this much. “Roni, you okay?” My throat thankfully didn’t feel like I was gargling rusty nails as I spoke, which was excellent. I was afraid I’d be stuck with that pain for days.

Veronica tried straightening herself up after I spoke up, but stopped bothering after a few seconds. She took in a breath before speaking, and I could have sworn she sounded on the brink of tears. “Maggy shuts down when older adults shout at her, and she feels betrayed by me claiming that our parents weren’t like that. I just… Misread the situation, I guess.”

That was an understatement, but I wasn’t about to express that thought out loud. In a reverse situation I might have made the same mistake. Mum rarely raised her voice, and she was usually calm when she did. Mom never raised her voice. No matter what happened, no matter how much you messed up, it simply wasn’t something she did. For both of them to respond to what happened with so much anger would have been unexpected to anyone.

But that only brought up further questions. “But why is Magic so afraid? She’s can do anything, can’t she?” 

Veronica shook her head, and I was not prepared for her incredibly detailed response. “It’s complicated. It’s hard to think about, but it’s like she's got one soul, her soul, and then it’s connected to hundreds of other previous souls. Personally I don’t know how she sleeps with all of those voices in her head.”

It didn’t seem all that difficult to get. She just had multiple lives, and the previous ones were still around. Though it did raise the question of what she could do. Was she just incredibly powerful, or did she have access to a lot of unique information? What was the extent of her power? Questions for later, if I ever saw her again. Speaking of, I had to make sure my sister was alright. She’d been doing the same for me for days, and I worried helping me might have cost her a relationship she seemed happy with. “I’m sorry to bring her up. Are you okay?”

Veronica looked like she was about to shake her head, but seemed to think better of it. “I don’t know. I like her, love her even, and I’m pretty sure the feeling is mutual. But I promised her our mothers were kindhearted and forgiving. The yelling just really shook her up, and she’s barely spoken to me since you fell asleep.” 

I furrowed my brow in response. That was a bit of a shift from the confident and grossly intimate actions she took just after they were left with just me in my room. I wanted to keep discussing this subject, but Veronica’s mood was only deteriorating further the more Magic was brought up. So subject change! “When do you think you’ll be going back to finish your degree?” Good job, Sam! Simple, concise, obviously an attempt to change the subject but still fairly well meaning!

Veronica’s dejected expression told me I must have fucked this up, and the shakiness of her voice confirmed it before she finished speaking. “Not sure. Maggy works as a lab assistant there, so I don’t know if she’ll want to see me. Plus I’ve been gone almost a month now. I’ve missed so many classes, meetings, and deadlines that there’s probably no way to salvage anything this semester.” 

“But you won’t know unless you try, right?” I carefully avoided any mention of Magic, trying not to bring her back to that line of thought.

“I suppose you’re right.” Her voice said she didn’t seem to agree.

I didn’t say anything in response, and for awhile we returned to a comfortable silence. I passed the time by reading a biology textbook Lana gave to me when she began her apprenticeship, and quickly realized: Was most of my interest in transmutation because of my desire for a different body? I wasn’t sure, but biology still seemed interesting. Food for later contemplation.

Speaking of food, someone was cooking downstairs and sending my stomach into a fit. Oh yeah, I must not have eaten since the night of my trials. Goddess, just thinking of how hungry I was supposed to be was making my stomach do pained backflips.

I managed to get up without help, somehow, and Veronica waited outside as I threw on some mismatched clothes. I left my room in some black pajama pants and a pullover hoodie that I was one hundred percent certain wasn’t pink before Veronica got her hands on it. Her growing smile as I left the room was all the confirmation I needed. At least she was smiling again, that was worth wearing a color that I quickly realized didn’t fit me.

Breakfast was buttered cinnamon toast with a variety of delicious and/or (pick one) healthy sides available. Everyone but Veronica and I had already been seated, so we quickly took our seats and made our plates. 

It was quiet, at first. Lana and Rissa were apparently going to go exploring a ruin on Pluto with their mentors for the upcoming week. Well, ‘explore’. It had obviously been discovered centuries earlier after the colonization of the planet, and was thoroughly looted by early colonists. However, it was still a good way for apprentice Xenoarcheologists (yes, that is a mouthful) to learn their way around things. Only Pluto, Venus, and Mars had stable ruins left to explore in our Solar System, and the latter two were basically exclusively tourist attractions. Maybe. I wasn’t the most well versed on space travel or non planets. 

Their preparations and announcement put a bit of an awkward strain on an already stressed table. Veronica was still mad at our parents for obvious reasons, and neither of them seemed to be in the mood to speak with anyone. This left Andrew and I alone to dominate the table conversation, and oh boy was that something. 

“So, school’s tomorrow. How’s, uhhh, your girlfriend..?” It was an incredibly tentative prod, I had no idea how to talk to him anymore. Our last real conversation was a month and a gender revelation ago. I was fairly confident he had a girlfriend. Or was it a boyfriend? Wasn’t sure. Really shouldn’t have started this conversation, wow.

“Macy is good. She gave me a cool charm necklace for my birthday, it lets us talk to each other mentally without a spell.” Oh shit, I slept through my brother’s 17th birthday. What month was it, Virgo? Yeah, had to be. It was at the end of Leo when the coma happened. Goddess, his birthday was right in the middle of my coma. What a shitty birthday that must have been. 

I pushed away the guilt I felt and forced out a smile. “I’m glad Macy is doing alright. Did she make the charm herself?” Probably not, but they were in the upper years. They did all sorts of cool stuff to convince professionals to take them as apprentices.

He shook his head. “No, she’s not trying to impress an artificer. She’s trying to be a healer like Mom.” Andrew passed a meaningful look to our mom after he finished speaking, but if she noticed she didn’t respond. 

I kept up small talk with Andrew until we ran out of things to discuss, and the table became silent save for the sound of silverware tapping the plates. Once we finished Andrew and I excused ourselves, did our dishes, and I followed him to his room. I had a feeling the rest of the family was going to have a conversation as soon as we were out of earshot.

“So, Ma- I mean, Sam. I had something I wanted to ask you but I didn’t know exactly when.” Andrew didn’t even wait for me to shut the door behind us before speaking. I flinched as he began speaking my deadname, but he swapped over quickly. “Who was that woman? I know she was Veronica’s friend, but it’s kind of obvious she’s something else. Also, how were your trials? God, I’m so suspicious but also really excited for you.”

I didn’t know exactly how to answer him. Veronica was obviously keeping their relationship a secret, and nobody seemed to know that Magic was, well, magic. I didn’t want to lie, but avoiding the truth was hard. “She, uh, was just trying to help me out of the closet. She figured the trials would do that just fine. And I passed them, I think? She said I passed, at least.”

“Out of the closet? What do you mean? Didn’t the accident kinda out you? I mean if you were cis it wouldn’t have worked at all.” His question was so simple, made so much sense, and did nothing to help relieve how dense I felt for not figuring things out sooner.

I sat down beside him on his bed and rubbed the back of my neck as a feeling of embarrassment filled me. “Uh. I was kind of stupid and repressing stuff. Definitely thought I was supposed to be a boy because I didn’t realize I was a girl as young as Veronica.” 

“But… Rules are rules. The magic worked. Shouldn’t that have been proof enough?” Andrew only seemed to be getting more confused, and if I was honest with myself he had every right to be. I should have figured things out way sooner, but I was a little slow. Sue me.

I gave a noncommittal shrug as a response. “I convinced myself I was mocking Veronica by being happy in this body. Plus a lot of other misunderstandings. In an ideal world I’d have figured it out myself before the spell hit me, but I wasn’t quite so lucky as all that.” Looking back even to just the previous day I felt like I had been so overly anxious and afraid for no reason. I really let myself get riled up over something that felt so silly. 

“I’ll be honest, Sam. That was impressively stupid of you.” He grinned and ruffled my hair, before turning on his film projector. Before I could even retaliate he changed the subject, earning my complete ire. “Their talk will be a bit, so what’cha want to watch?”

“You can’t just mess with me and call my choices stupid without consequence!” I tried to lean over and mess with his ponytail as revenge, but my he was too quick and my arms were too short. I struggled for a minute before my movements caused a shift, and I rolled out of bed with a loud thud. 

Andrew’s laughter echoed across the room as he leaned down and offered his left hand. I pouted and took his offered hand, defeated. As I was halfway pulled up I thought to make one last effort at getting back at him, but he must have seen a shift in my expression. I saw a clever grin spread across Andrew’s face for a split second before his arm detached itself. I let out a squeak as I fell once more. 

My brother’s already obnoxious laugh became unbearable once I fell for his trick. I glared at him from the ground before one final revenge found its way to my brain. “I think I want to watch the first Harry Potter.” I had to resist the urge to cackle as a look of shock and defeat spread across Andrew’s face. He loudly despised the books for how willy nilly they played with the Three Laws at best, and ignored them at worst. It was silly, of course, but it was supposed to be silly. It was a cute series, and it was kind of sad that the unrealistic take on magic killed the chance for sequel movies before I was even born. At least we had the first movie. 

Reluctantly Andrew stuck his arm back in place and set up his own two hours of torture. I decided not to push my luck in terms of victories and stayed moderately silent through the film. I enjoyed just watching the main characters, anyway. The main protagonist, Harry, was somewhat relatable in that he wore glasses in a world that didn’t necessarily require him to keep them. Though his reasons were keeping poor vision must have been good, as he was breaking his glasses constantly. Maybe he liked looking like his dad? 

As the kids approached the school via boat I cursed under my breath as I remembered what day it was. I had less than a day until I had to go back to school.