She looks right back at him, trying to project "I know you know". They've been standing motionless on this DDR pad for a couple minutes now.

"Hey, get out of the way," says someone who wants to use the DDR pad. Kevin hops off.

Margaret hops off too and heads for a dark corner near the skee-ball consoles, beckoning Kevin to follow.

Kevin follows her. "Look," he says, "I'm not sure what you're - uh -"

"Show me your necklace. If it's really a medical alert necklace, I'll drop the whole thing and we can forget we ever had this conversation."

"If you really can't take yours off, prove it."

"Watch." She faces the wall so nobody except Kevin can see her left hand, then turns it into a clawed foot and back for a moment, just long enough to know you didn't imagine it if you were already expecting it. Then she stares at his face again.

He splutters for a bit.

Then he says, "Dragons are extinct."

"Stop playing dumb and show me your necklace--wait, 'extinct'?"

"Extinct!" he says, nodding rapidly.

"Extinct but not fake, huh. What on Earth is your deal, then, I had you pegged as another one and you're clearly in on whatever's going on."

"I'm a pegasus, we're not extinct."

"Pegasi exist too? I guess that's not actually much weirder than dragons, but can you prove it the same way I did?"

He looks around suspiciously, then produces a hoof for a second.

"Wow, okay. So there are more than one of us. Do you know any others?"

"Yeah. But not dragons, they're supposed to be extinct."

"Alright. Can you introduce me to some of them? I want to learn more about how . . . all of this . . . works, and there's only so much I can figure out experimenting on myself."

"...but you're supposed to be extinct, people'll freak out."

"Can we tell them I'm a normal person who figured you out somehow, or will that freak them out too?"

"I don't want to get in trouble for telling humans."

"Can I pretend to be something that isn't extinct? And what kind of trouble would you get in, is there a secret Pegasus government or do you just mean your friends would be mad at you?"

"I don't know what else would look enough like a dragon. - there's like a secret nonhuman government, it's not just pegasi. I think the lions or some of the lions have their own thing too."

"Lions . . . are people wearing medallions? I thought they were normal animals? Or do you mean some people turn into dragons and pegasi and stuff and other people turn into animals there are real ones of?"

"They're not like regular lions, there's... bohemian and nemean and.... heraldic? And I dunno if griffins count and there's a lot of kinds of those... and there might be lion totems but they probably would live in Africa..."

"See, there's all this stuff I don't know. Can you just tell me where to find more secret magic people and I won't tell anybody you're the one who told me and you won't tell anybody I'm a dragon? Maybe there are secret magic people websites I could lurk on and then nobody would be able to tell."