“No,” Dad said. “Simon is like your mother and not immortal. And, I’m sorry honey, but you can’t tell him. The Council has decided right now he doesn’t need to know.”
“Aren’t you the Chancellor of the Council?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I can overrule a majority vote.”
“Then what good is being the chancellor?” I asked. My father laughed like I had told a joke. But I was completely serious. The biggest revelation of my life and I wasn’t allowed to tell my twin.
Simon was mortal. I wasn’t. The implications of that began to sink in and I fell silent again. None of my friends were immortal. Was I destined to a life filled with no one I knew except my father?
“What, how do I know you’re not lying to me?”
“I would never lie to you, Sophie?”
“Really, you’ve never used your ‘suggestive magic’ on me?”
“Even if I did, it wouldn’t work now. Dragons can see lies on each other.”
“What if I don't want to be immortal?” I asked. This was all too much. “What if I think it sounds like a really bad gig?”
“I thought so too, at first. But after the first hundred years or so, you get used to it.”
“First hundred years or so,” I repeated. Clearly the ability to come up with words on my own had fled since all I seemed to be capable of right now was repeating my father like some sort of stunned parrot. I stood and paced back-and-forth.
“So, the headmistress,” I mused. “She's immortal too, right? How old is she?”
“Around my age. A little younger,” my father replied.
“How many of you—well, I guess us—are there?” I asked. “How many immortal animages are running around?”
“Overall, immortals account for about 10% of the entire supernatural population. That’s with vampires and gargoyles, who everyone knows are immortal. Immortal animages are extremely rare. And they are only born in the ten or so years before and after a significant event.”
“What’s that event?”
“The birth of a dragon animage.”
Headmistress Adiana walked in. “How's everything going in here? Sophie, it's time for your next class.”
“But—” I started. I still had so many questions.
“Don't worry,” Dad said. “I will be coming once a week to give you lessons about being a dragon.”
“We've tried to get him on as a professor here many times, but he never takes us up on it,” the headmistress said. “Now maybe he will, at least for the next few years.”
“Not this year, Jolene,” my father said. “But we'll talk about next year.”
I was hardly paying attention to what they were saying. Everything my father had just told me was still rocketing around in my brain. I didn't have time to think about it right then. I had class. But did it really matter if I had class? I was going to live forever. I mean I could just fly away and live in a cave for the next 1000 years and come back to class whenever I wanted, right? I was hysterical.
“Happy birthday, honey,” Dad said as I left the room. Yeah, right, happy birthday to me.
My feet led me out of the office, through the administration building and all the way to my next class without my brain paying attention.
“Welcome, Sophie, you’re just in time. Please, have a seat.” It was Professor Vickers’s voice that pulled me back into reality. The bell had already rung by the time I arrived in history. I smiled apologetically and ducked my head to find my usual seat next to Hudson. The whole class was staring at me. Their eyes boring into me made the back of my neck burn. Hudson looked at me with raised eyebrows. Once Professor Vickers began lecturing about the history of gargoyles, he leaned over.
“You missed lunch,” he whispered. “What did the headmistress want?”
I just shook my head at him. My brain was too fried to even make something up. He patted me on the arm and slipped a folder with a piece of paper inside on top of my desk.
“So why do humans believe gargoyles turn to stone during the daytime, Sophie?”
“Oh—” I said, hiding the folder with my arms. “Wasn’t there a witch or something that cursed a bunch of them into stone? After the curse was broken, they just let humans keep believing it. Even before supernaturals went underground, most humans believed gargoyles lived on buildings and were stone by day and guarded them in living gargoyle form by night.” I sounded like I had learned everything I knew about gargoyles from a cartoon or something. What was wrong with me?
One of my wonderful classmates snickered at me from somewhere in the back of the classroom. There were times enhanced hearing wasn’t such a great gift. I barely managed to keep myself from rolling my eyes. Professor Vickers was laid back as far as professors went, but I doubt even he would be agreeable if I started rolling my eyes at him.
“Well, Sophie is correct, mostly,” the professor said, addressing the rest of the class with a smile. I was dying to see what was in the folder Hudson passed me, but I wasn’t about to let the professor catch me off guard again.
For the rest of class, I diligently took notes about the witch who had cursed the gargoyles of a notable clan to becoming stone during the day and how the gargoyles of the other clans banded together for the first time to overcome the curse and set things to right. Gargoyles actually shared the human form of most supernaturals and were able to shift into their gargoyle forms at will. There had never been a gargoyle who was an animage. The magic that governed animages was always a wild card.
When the bell rang, I jumped up, determined to get out of class and look at what Hudson had given me.
“Sophie, hold up,” Professor Vickers said. I barely suppressed a groan. “Hudson, you’re excused.” Hudson sighed and walked towards the door instead of waiting for me like
