"Okay, I explained that badly. Parents do a thing where they put you first and that includes changing how they act in some subtle ways to make things better for you. Great for you, but not so great for fidelity of certain things. A sibling doesn't feel the need to do that as much. So, it's easier to notice."

"Ah. Wouldn't know, only child."

Darren nods. "Yeah. It seems so weird to not have Savannah be there."

"Love you too, dork."

"Aww."

"Okay, any more mushy stuff and I will fling myself out of the window. Darren! Pick a topic! Not magic!"

"... Um. Um. ... So I am working on excitement for studying supposedly extinct things?"

"Do you need to work on that? I had the impression you already found us extinct things pretty interesting."

"I do but it has to compete with magic, and that's no small feat."

She laughs. "Well, it wouldn't hurt if you were focusing especially on all that lost magic, huh?"

Darren snickers. "I mean, I kind of want to be able to make more medallions. But to get that far, I need to learn lots of the basics of magic. So... I kind of am focusing especially on the lost magic, but I need a general education before I can do that."

"So you're all set. As long as you've either gotten better at lying recently, or have half-truths carefully lined up."

"Second thing. I'm not going to get better at lying, Bella. Savannah gets to say the part where you're a winged lion."

"And me, I can say it. I'm a winged lion. I think it was my mom's side of the family. Let's check my dad just in case. Nope? Must be my uncheckable mom. Winged lion."

"I don't much want to be checked. It's been sounding like I could be something besides a sphinx, if Renée was a sphinx, and then I'd have to wear the necklace all the time, and it sounds like one doozy of a hassle to me."

"It's not so much of a hassle? It gets annoying sometimes, but I can fly now. I think it's worth it. But then again I am the guy who knew what was going on and made the conscious decision to embrace my critter side, so I suppose I'm biased."

"If the medallion breaks, or something," Bella says, "no, I can totally see his point. If he doesn't want to fly, and there's no guarantee he could."

"Perfectly content to stay on the ground."

"Fair point. Wasn't questioning his choice, just - eh, I like flying and magic. If I and Savannah weren't critters I would have neither."

"If Ch- Dad wants to learn to magic he can do that without crittering, right?"

"Yup. But I wouldn't have known that I could learn it without crittering. He's in a different situation than I was."

"There you go. He doesn't want the cosmetics or the flying or the secret handshake, all the other cool stuff he can get without."

"Fair enough. Does he want to learn magic?"

"Not especially. If we get thoroughly checked and tested Xeroxed scrolls made he might take one or two for emergency situations."

"Aha. Makes sense. I feel like when I start making scrolls I'm just going to make absurd amounts."