“You lied to me,” I accused aunt June, not even realizing that I was standing there with my hands on my hips the same way that mom did when she was angry.

“What are you talking about?” aunt June responded, sitting down at the desk in my study and giving me a curious look.

“You said that I’d learn how to cast transformation spells,” I reminded her with a glare. “You said you’d teach me how to cast that sex change spell someday.” Then I snorted and added, “You forgot to mention that a class four can’t do those spells.”

Aunt June stared at me for a moment before she said, “Oh, that…”

“Yeah, that,” I replied with a snort.

Aunt June rubbed her temples for a moment before saying, “I’m sorry if you feel I lied to you. You’d just suffered several large disappointments and I didn’t want to disappoint you further.” Then she paused and looked me right in the eyes. “And to be honest, I was afraid that if you were any more disappointed with magic at that point, you might change your mind about wanting to learn.”

“I didn’t have a lot of choice,” I told her, feeling almost like I was pouting.

“Of course you had a choice,” aunt June told me with a faint smile. “You always have a choice. Sometimes in life, you might only have bad options to pick from, but you do still have a choice.”

I snorted at that and then admitted, “I really wanted to learn that spell…” I let out a sigh, staring at the floor. “Transformation spells just sound so cool… I mean, being able to change things...”

“They are pretty cool,” aunt June admitted with a grin. “Unfortunately, I can’t really cast any of the best ones myself.”

“Really?” I asked.

“I’m sort of a borderline six seven,” aunt June told me with a shrug. “I register as a high class six or a low class seven, depending on which testing methods are used.”

“A lot higher than me,” I responded, trying to keep the jealousy from my voice.

“I do have a small collection of transformation spells,” she said proudly. “I copied most of them from our family talents. For example, I have a spell to mimic Helen’s talent to make her breasts larger…and I have one based off my mom’s talent of making people fat.” Then she shrugged. “Unfortunately, Dave’s talent of turning himself into a raccoon is too high level for me. In fact, if I was to make a spell off my own talent, I wouldn’t be able to cast that one either.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I pointed out.

“The pattern for my talent is permanently engraved in my being,” aunt June explained. “Because of that, I don’t need to expend magic to build the pattern or maintain it. Talents don’t follow quite the same rules or limitations that a spell based off them would.”

Then aunt June abruptly changed the subject and asked, “How have you been doing here?”

“Fine,” I responded, only to get a slightly skeptical look and a raised eyebrow in response. “Well, I guess everyone knows I’m a Were now.”

“It was only a matter of time,” aunt June responded slowly. She scowled. “I’m guessing that not everyone is okay with it.”

“No,” I told her with a weak smile. “Not everyone.”

Aunt June let out a sigh. “I’m sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, it seems to be human nature to be assholes.” Then she chuckled and gave me a wink. “Though to be honest, I would have expected you to have more trouble for going into the girls locker room.”

“All my friends know I used to be a guy,” I told her with a shrug. “But it isn’t really general knowledge.”

“Well anyway,” aunt June told me, “I brought a few things for you…” She reached into her purse and pulled out a box for a complicated looking jigsaw puzzle. “Your dad thought you might like this.”

“Yeah,” responded with a grin, eager to start putting it together. I’d finished the puzzle in my room and could use a new one.

“This is from your mom,” aunt June told me, pulling a bag full of new girl clothes from her purse. Then she pulled a small box from the purse which was wrapped up with a red bow. “And this one is from me.”

“What’s in it?” I asked as she handed the present to me.

Aunt June just grinned and responded, “You’ll have to open it to find out.”

I snorted at that. “The last time you told me that, an illusion frog jumped out at me.” That had been the last thing I’d expected for my tenth birthday.

“That was pretty entertaining,” aunt June mused with a laugh. “The look on Helen’s face…”

I gave aunt June a skeptical look and then opened her present, being careful to aim it away from me when I removed the top. Fortunately, nothing jumped out or exploded. I looked inside and saw that it contained a silver bracelet. It looked very nice and even had a round pearlescent stone of some sort set into it so that it resembled a full moon.

“Every young lady should have some jewelry,” aunt June told me gently. “Whether she wants to be a lady or not.”

“Um…thank you,” I told her, not quite sure what to think of this present. I wasn’t sure that I liked the idea of aunt June thinking of me as a girl or of wearing something like this. But it was very nice looking.

“It is also a reusable token,” aunt June told me with a gleam in her eyes as she gestured to a similar bracelet on her own wrist. “It only holds a single spell, but it is a good idea to always keep at least one spell with you at all times for self-defense. I’ll show you how to synchronize it to your magic.”

“Thank you,” I told her, staring at the bracelet with a greater appreciation. I gave aunt June a hug and then slipped the bracelet onto my wrist, announcing, “I’m gonna call her Vera.” She gave me a blank look but didn’t say anything. She was used to my making references to movies and TV shows that she didn’t get.

“Now, about that homework I gave you,” aunt June said with an amused look.

I grinned and poured a pouch full of rocks onto the table and watched her expression. It took her several seconds to realize that these were the tokens she’d asked me to make. I’d been trying to come up with something I could use besides paper and decided try small rocks. There was an unlimited supply of rocks I could use on the beach. All I had to do was find some that were the right size and looked fairly nice. And after I’d stored spells in them, I was able to use model paint to mark what the spells were.

After I proved they worked, aunt June told me, “Nicely done. But you may want to use something other than rocks. Carrying these around could get rather heavy, not to mention, they’re not very stylish.”

Then we began discussing the rest of my homework, all the reading that aunt June had asked me to do. Now that I was aware that certain types of magic have similarities in their patterns, I was actually looking for them and had begun to see the patterns within the patterns. After all the studying I’d done last week, I was now seeing the magic patterns in a different light.

“Very impressive,” aunt June told me proudly. “You really are catching onto that quickly. Being able to see what the patterns do is the first step in being able to customize your spells…and eventually being able to create your own.”

“That sounds promising,” I commented, trying not to look smug.

Aunt June looked me over for a moment before saying, “There are a number of spells that are pretty complicated but don’t require a lot of raw magic. They deal more with subtle effects than really big ones. Since you’re a level four, it might be a good idea for you to focus on some of these.”

I spent the next two hours working with the spell aunt June had given me, finding that it was the most complicated spell I’d done so far, yet ironically, had one of the most basic effects. It was a challenge that nearly frustrated me until I began to think of the spell pattern as a puzzle that just needed to be assembled correctly. Once I did that, I was finally able to complete it. Then I performed the spell two more times to make sure that I really had it.

When I was finished, I had another spell that could light a candle. The effect seemed very straightforward at first glance, but it was much more complicated than the first spell I’d ever cast for a reason. The other spell would release the magic in one burst to light the candle. This spell actually enchanted the candle with a persistent effect. Whenever the flame went out, the magic would activate and relight it again. The magic could only relight the candle a limited number of times, but it was still an interesting effect.

I immediately thought of the practical joke applications…until I remembered my twelfth birthday and the fact that all of the candles on my cake kept relighting. I had a feeling that I’d seen this spell before.

“That should do it for tonight,” aunt June told me with a smile. “I do have some more homework for you though. I have a few more spells like this one that I want you to practice with. They may not be very powerful, but they should be good practice at working a complicated spell.”

“Okay,” I said, curious about what these other spells would do.

Aunt June reached into her purse and pulled out a small stack of papers. Then she paused. “Oh yes, I had something else I was asked to give you too.” And with that, she pulled an envelope from her purse and handed it to me.

“What’s this?” I asked

“I’m not sure,” she responded with a look of amusement. “Your dad asked me to give it to you. He said it came from Vivian.”

“Vivian?” I asked in surprise. I hadn’t heard anything from her since right after the last full moon.

There was a letter inside the envelope, and as I read it, my eyes went wide in amazement. When I was finished, I had to read through the whole thing again.

“Well?” aunt June prompted me. “What’s it say?”

“Vivian says,” I started, then paused to take a breath. I looked at aunt June and asked, “You remember how Vivian and her friends found out that a lot of the new mythics share a common ancestor?” When aunt June nodded, I continued, “Well, they confirmed who it is. She says here that he was a Were chimaera named Robert Dupree. He had three kids from two different women and died in eighteen twenty-three.”

“That’s interesting,” aunt June said, though she didn’t really sound all that interested.

“Yeah,” I grinned in response, holding up the invitation card that had also been in the envelope. “But what’s really interesting is that they’re setting up a meeting for all the mythics who are descended from this guy.”

“What?” aunt June asked in surprise.

I nearly jumped up and down from excitement as I exclaimed, “In two weeks…I get to meet some other mythics.”