"I'm not sure this is strong enough," Gemma says faintly, staring at her cocktail. "How many of us are there now?"

The woman to her right does a quick count. "I make it twelve?"

"We need nicknames," someone says. "We all have the same name, or almost."

"Last names? Unless someone else has a married name of Anderson?"

Heads shake around the table, along with murmurs of agreement.

"What's a last name?" Gemma whispers to Emmalina.

Emmalina shrugs, looking just as lost.

"Do you not have first names and last names? Like, um, I'm Emma Matthews, so Emma is my first name and Matthews is my last name."

"I'm Gemma of H- Fort Weyr," Gemma says, stumbling a bit, "but Fort's not part of my name, it's just where I live."

"Same. Princess Emmalina of Griffinmarsh," Emmalina offers, looking rather pained at the last bit. No one asks, but Gemma pats her hand awkwardly.

The others go around and supply their names. Quite a few of them don't overlap - Gemma, Emmalina, Emarila, Emmeline, Emra and Ruth - and none of them bother with nicknames. The rest make it through Mason, Morgan, Lalindar, Matthews and Anderson before running into trouble.

"How do we not overlap except two Millers?" one of them complains.

"Three, if you count my maiden name," Anderson says apologetically.

"This is weird," Emra grumbles. "Just pick names?"

"Um. I don't know what's different... I live outside Jerhattan at the Center for Parapsychic Talent? I'm a polylinguist?"

"I am, uh. None of those," the other one says with a laugh. "I'm a linguopath studying magical engineering at Selevy University."

"Polylinguist can be Polly, and... uh. Linguopath can keep Miller?" Emarila suggests.

Polly shrugs. "Sure? Apparently we're all the same person anyway? Except for how we're not?"

"Yeah... I don't really understand the whole 'being the same person' thing," Lalindar admits.

"Maybe I'm just hallucinating again," Ruth says sadly, in a voice soft enough to be intended for herself more than the others.

Anderson catches it anyway, and narrows her eyes at her. "What do you mean, hallucinating again?"

"I- I got lost in the woods- I got, abducted or something, I don't know, I can't remember, I- I saw things-" she gulps. "It wasn't a pleasant hallucination. No one found me for months. It took a long time for me to get better."

Anderson looks at her in concern. "It took them months to-" she starts, then stops.

And thinks about barbecue forks and gangs on PCP.

"Do you think you were hallucinating?" she asks.

"Hallucinations always feel real to the person experiencing them," Ruth says.

The words sound- learned.

"What did you think happened?" Anderson asks carefully.

"Oh, all sorts of things," Ruth says, looking away. "The doctors said, um, the malnourishment and mistreatment led to a, uh, mental break. I mean... Fairies don't actually exist."

"If it helps... fairies definitely exist where I'm from," Mason puts in. Emmalina, Morgan and Anderson nod in agreement.