They were eating breakfast when an Uber pulled into the driveway. Emerging from it was an Asian girl around their age, maybe a few years older, dragging along a huge suitcase. Sofia stepped out to greet her friend. When they came back into the living room of the beach house, Sofia's friend introduced herself to everyone:
"Thanks for letting me crash here for a bit, guys. I'm Ngọc, Trần Bảo Ngọc. But you all can call me Jade if Ngọc is too hard to pronounce. I'm probably older than all of you — twenty-four — and I, well, I technically work for Sofia's parents. But I'm not here to snitch on you or anything, I really just have a gas leak situation in my building and need a place to stay. Thanks again for having me."
And that was apparently all the drama surrounding Jade's arrival. She introduced herself, got a room, and everyone moved on with breakfast.
As breakfast wrapped up, Alex pulled Magnus aside. They stood near the staircase as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
"So, about your plans for the day," she began casually, "you're going into town with Maya and Sofia."
"What?" He blinked.
"Don't ask how I managed to make that happen. You don't want to know. All you need to know is this is the most natural way you can both get closer to Maya while working to build trust with Sofia, killing two birds with one stone. Just… try to limit the damage of hurricane Maya if you can, okay. Sofia will help you." She rolled her eyes. "When she isn't causing other types of chaos herself. But you'll survive… somehow." She leaned in and quickly pecked him on the lips. "I believe in you!"
As soon as Alex's lips touched his, a System notification blared:
[System Notification: Subject eligible for Power Sharing detected. Would you like to share one of your active powers?]
Magnus blinked.
That'd never happened before!
Then he remembered what happened when he reached level 7 right after last night's little competition, and frowned.
Alex immediately noticed his expression. "What's wrong?"
"Hang on. New System function. Gimme a sec to read what it is first."
He pulled up the Menu and focused on the new tab that appeared in his own Menu titled Power Sharing. After a few minutes, he said:
"Okay, so apparently, I can now share my powers—or, well, weaker versions of them—with other people. The requirement is that the target's Trust value must be 90% or above. And the method of granting and revoking powers is… uh, kissing, I think. The System calls it mouth-to-mouth contact."
She blinked. "So your System just… weaponized making out?"
Then, realization dawned on her about what that actually meant. "Wait, you mean, you can share one of your powers with me."
"Yeah, which one do you want? Telekinesis? Invisibility? Aura Weave?"
Alex thought for a moment. "Hmm, what about that talking-to-animal one?"
"Really? Why would you want that one?"
She shrugged. "I'm just curious to know what Tony says."
"Seriously?" He stared at her. "Okay, if you're sure about that."
He focused on the thought of sharing Animal-Linked Comprehension with Alex, then leaned in to kiss her.
When he pulled back, he asked:
"Well, did it work? Feel any different?"
"I don't know. Where's Tony anyway?"
Before they could even attempt to find the raccoon, however, Sofia and Maya came to drag Magnus away, leaving Alex to round up everyone to start the party preparation.
Valeria had materialized behind Alex at some unknown point, clipboard in hand. Alex had decided to enlist Valeria as her second-in-command for Operation: Belated Birthday Party, on account of her being the most organized person currently in the beach house.
"Okay, I've got everything catalogued and all tasks have been assigned," Valeria reported. "Now we just need to make sure people do what they were told and nothing unexpected happens."
"Did you make sure Camila is—"
"—kept away from the kitchen and balloons?" Valeria finished for her. "Please, do you think I'm an amateur? The first order of business was banning Camila from anywhere with things that could break or explode. Rachel and Katie have already been assigned to keep watch on Camila and make sure she doesn't go anywhere near breakable things."
"Why Rachel and Katie?"
"Rachel's learning to be a doctor. This is good practice for her — it'd be like dealing with… difficult patients later. And Katie can distract Camila with whatever plot for her next novel or essay or whatever."
Alex blinked. "You figured all that out in just a day?"
"I figured all that out within the hour while you were being tried for negligence of girlfriend's proper conduct yesterday. People give away a lot about themselves when they're relaxed."
Alex winced. "Could we maybe not talk about that ever again?"
Valeria smiled and squeezed Alex's arm lightly. "It's nice to see you this happy, Alex. Looks like life away from the Locke family influence is great for you. How's Vanessa these days, by the way? I remember you two used to always hang out together but spend half that time trying to pull each other's hair out. Oh wait, she goes by Jordan now, right?"
"Still a pain in the ass," Alex muttered.
Valeria laughed then turned to walk away.
"Well, it was nice catching up, Alex." She held up her clipboard. "But we should get to work, otherwise we might not have everything ready before your boyfriend comes back."
They split up after that, making their way around the beach house in different directions.
Valeria made her way toward the backyard, where members of the Boyfriends Squad were hanging lights and decorations. Or at least, they were supposed to be. But what was actually happening was Ethan and Aaron arguing about where the lights should be and how they should go about hanging them, while Miguel was hiding his face in his hands, quietly wishing Magnus were here so he wouldn't have to deal with these idiots alone.
Valeria cleared her throat loudly, hugged the clipboard to her chest, and clapped her hands together. "Boys!"
They all stood up straighter. She pointed with her pen. "Lights from here to here. Decorations here, here, here, here, here, and here. Chop, chop! We don't have all day!"
Then she turned around, wrote something down on her clipboard, and left.
Ethan stared after her. "Did she just—"
"Yeah. What did you expect?" Aaron sighed. "We're unpaid manual labor, remember?"
Miguel said nothing. He just quietly did what they were told.
The next people Valeria ran into were Chloe, Jade, Camila, and her two chaperones.
"How did you know where those were, Chloe?" Camila was asking.
"Well, I helped with cleanup last night, so I kinda just noticed, I guess."
Rachel nodded approvingly. "Thanks, you saved us a lot of time looking."
"Hey, I was gonna suggest we look there next!" Camila protested.
"You suggested four different places before the last one, and all five of them were wrong."
"Was there really that many?"
"Yes," Katie said. "I wrote it down."
"Why would you write that down?" Camila asked.
"Research for my future projects?"
Valeria jotted something down on her clipboard before quietly moving on.
Meanwhile, Alex's first stop had been where Nicole and Carmen were discussing the food menu. The discussion itself went well. The real problem was what she heard after the two of them went to get a car to go buy a cake.
"Your menu is inadequate," Tony said from behind her. "You should order more Pizza!"
"We're not ordering more Pizza."
Tony stared at her. "Ah, interesting! You can understand me now."
"Apparently." Alex blinked. "Wait. Am I making raccoon sounds right now?"
Tony was already off to the side batting a coin in the sand.
Alex stared. "Great. Why am I talking to a raccoon?"
She turned around, preparing to move on, and froze. Priya was looking at her, phone in hand. "Am I… interrupting something? I can come back later."
"No. Nothing. What do you need, Priya?"
"You sure? Looked like you were having an… interesting conversation with a raccoon."
"I wasn't talking to the raccoon! Now what do you need?"
"Well, alright. I mean, who—or what—you talk to is none of my business." Priya immediately pivoted when Alex glared at her. "I came to tell you that Tori and Jasmine were wondering if we had any more balloons left."
"Alright, let me look."
After that problem was solved, Priya, Jasmine, Tori, Rachel, and Jade were all hanging balloons, banners, and other decoration in the living room. Camila had been pulled away on cake-shopping duty with Nicole and Carmen. Alex had a moment to herself and went out to the backyard to check on the decoration there. And that was when Tony came looking for her again.
"I've come to negotiate!" he announced.
"Negotiate what?" she asked cautiously.
"If you're not going to order more Pizza, can you at least make those foods you like? You know, the stuff the young wanderer packed for you on the day we went to help the fast stormy one?"
It took Alex a moment to understand what Tony said, then she narrowed her eyes at him. "Wait. You knew Magnus packed that for me?"
Tony froze. Averted his gaze. Then: "Maybe."
"Then why did you eat all of it?"
"He said it was for everyone. I am everyone. Also, that was payback for your and his betrayal the night before — you both assaulted me with soap! It burned, and it erased my cultural heritage!"
"You ate all my food because we gave you a bath?!"
"Is that a no on the food menu changes then?" Tony asked, and then at the death glare Alex was giving him, he bolted.
Alex immediately pulled out her phone and texted Magnus: "Tony is definitely NOT a normal raccoon. He just admitted to knowingly eating all my food that day we went to Jordan's track meet as payback for the bath we gave him."
He didn't text back right away. Whatever adventure he was being dragged into with Sofia and Maya right now probably demanded his attention more. She slipped her phone into her pocket and walked back inside.
***
When Carmen's group came back with the cake, the surprise party preparation was about finished. They had managed to hang all the decorations, despite a small hiccup when Priya hung the "Happy Birthday" banner diagonally because she was busy texting her ex. Tori and Jasmine fixed that while Jade and Katie silently watched from the side — both deep in thought though neither commented on the matter. After that, Camila declared she was going to mix a signature cocktail she'd just thought of on the ride back, despite several people protesting. She disappeared into the kitchen, then emerged twenty minutes later with something that looked and smelled alarming but actually tasted amazing. Alex and Valeria exchanged a look, then reluctantly allowed Camila to make more of it.
Eventually, everything was ready. They wrapped up preparations, and turned off the lights. All that was left was waiting for Maya and Sofia to bring Magnus back to the house.
Alex texted Sofia, no reply. She texted Maya, also no reply. Chloe called Maya; she didn't pick up. Just when everyone was starting to worry, the car pulled into the driveway.
Magnus, Sofia, and Maya all emerged from it looking dazed. They shared a look — some kind of silent agreement seemed to pass between them — and all three nodded.
Then, they walked toward the beach house.