Three pinches of basil, a mint leaf, two cups of salt, a piece of gold, puppy dog tears, and a teaspoon of blood from each participant stirred counter-clockwise for three hours in a cauldron of boiling water beneath a bright sky on February 29th will bind a pair in eternal, loyal friendship with a bond that is impossible to break through any means at all, short of drinking dragon urine. (P.S. Dragon urine = $$$ -Tam)

He stuffed his fists in his sleeves, tightening his nails into his elbows, and blew upwards at the two strands of his brown cowlick that had slipped out from under his hood-like hat. "I thought there would be maracas all over Morocco, and I'm still kinda let down about that, honestly."

There was no answer from the shorter, squatter girl who hurried after him between the sand dunes, one hand pressed to the left horn of her Viking helmet, but that was all right. She wasn't so much for talking, and he wasn't so much for listening, and thus they made a good solid pair that the gods themselves would have struggled to snap apart. In defense of the gods, the two of them had performed an eternal binding spell a year ago in 2012, almost on the precise anniversary of the day he'd offered his hand to lead her out of that locker and he'd officially asked her out.

And of course he'd asked her out- I mean, even he being what he was, he'd played enough D&D to recognize a love interest when she fell quite literally into his lap. If she hadn't been interested, then she could have and would have said no. Their fates were sealed from the instant those bullies tired of picking on Courtney for losing her college scholarships and making friends with Ezekiel Foster, and they'd slammed the metal door on the tall boy in the green wizard robes and the geeky, mousy-haired girl who sometimes in her bolder moments dyed her hair cloudy blonde instead. And now here they were, trekking through the desert just enjoying one another's perfect company. Somewhere in his inventory was an elven-silver-and-amethyst wedding ring he'd… found, but it was a symbol of their future union and not a question. They'd already set the wedding day for the summer solstice of 2020, and were going to honeymoon near the Bay of Fundy with eventual plans to find an apartment in British Columbia- especially if Ella and Scarlett were still attending college in that general area.

After several more minutes of squinting into the setting desert sun, he turned his head. "Can you believe we actually landed ourselves the opportunity to meet TOM and JEN in person? How did I do? I didn't squeal too much, did I? I tried to keep my fanatic Barrier side in check when I heard it was them, but all day long after I met them I was screaming inside my head and bouncing up and down."

She smiled, even though her brown eyes stayed forward. "You did great."

The gap-toothed grin disappeared. "Three whole words in a row when it's just me around? Hey, are you doing all right?"

"Fine."

"Good." He placed his arm around her neck and gave her a brief hug as they trekked on through the sand. "Well, I'm glad you're fine."

Their names were Leonard and Tammy, these two teenagers - Leonard Augustus Randolph Paylor Moore and Tamara Alexis Caudwell if you wanted them to grin and clap their hands - and a year from now those names would be, well… not a whole lot of anything, really, so why one would even bring it up remains a mystery. And today alone, they had already ridden a long flight from Toronto to Morocco, been trapped in an elevator that stank of expired beans and moldy pineapple and burning socks and other such unpleasant things (Leonard knew shrew corpses all too well), been yelled at by a taxi driver in public, bumped through the desert on a camel's back, lost out on one million dollars (He was two for two when it came to reality shows), been humiliated on international TV, and in Leonard's case, also downed a bowl of spicy chili that now, forty-five minutes later, wasn't settling in his stomach very pleasantly at all. All without a word of complaint, thank you very much.

"I think we could've done better," Tammy told the camerawoman who had been tailing them all day. Her name was Johanna (Johanna's name was. Tammy's name was Tammy).

Pursing his lips, Leonard returned his hand to his sleeves. "I got to do a lot of things I never wanted to try, so that's something."

"I…" She paused over the word. "I'm glad we did this together. We can share these memories. Forever."

"I still don't get why we have to walk home."

A puff of wind blew a swirl of sand into their faces. Both teenagers rubbed the grit from their eyes, he with the tips of his middle fingers and she with her pinkie and thumb. Leonard didn't know if Morocco was in the northern or southern hemisphere, but it had been September back in Canada. If this was fall, he didn't want to see this place's summer.

He favored neutrality as a general rule, but he did not care for sand at all. Oh, he didn't mind a few grains hitching a ride so long as it kept on the outside of his clothes, but when it got into his sleeves… That was where he had to draw the line. Sand, dirt, and tiny gritty pebbles were not allowed to snuggle into the black hole of a space between the inner folds of his clothes and his bare skin, because then he might never shake them out again.

Johanna had been gawking at him for the last fifteen minutes. When he next uncovered his face, she finally voiced her thoughts.

"How are you not dead? I've been tailing you for the last like twenty-four hours, so I know for a fact you are wearing two layers of long sleeves and sweatpants, and if you don't mind me saying it (although frankly I'll be ditching you soon so I don't much care if you do), you're black and black absorbs heat, right? Isn't that how it works? Aren't you roasting?"

"Magic," Leonard muttered, "and I've had enough." As he stomped further ahead, he drew his wand from his sleeve. "If I want to summon a majestic purple griffin to carry us across the scorching expanse of these suffocating deserts, then by TOM's computer mouse, I am going to summon a majestic purple griffin. And I'm going to give him yellow spots and name him Sourpuss Benjamin."

Tammy took the corner of his sleeve where it hung loosely over his slender elbow and gave it two tugs. "Len, what did we talk about?"

The wand came down, but only just. "We get what we get and we're grateful I didn't cause our deaths today."

"I was going to say 'Always go for the rainbow-gobbling track star pegacorn', but that works." Tammy slid off her Viking hat, shaking out the fluffy braid that poured down her back. Before she spoke, she spat onto the metal of her helmet and massaged it in with the cloth she always carried in her satchel with the Sunray Pixie Queen's blue crystal ocarina. A little more spit went onto her forehead, where sweat had tugged out stray curls.

Heartbeats passed. Her thumb went into her mouth. Then she said, with words that had been carefully picked (they always were- this was Tammy), "Leonard… The reason we lost out on the million dollars was because we halted just before the finish line to show off with our magic, and it failed us. This isn't even the first time, not for me and especially not for you. Have you considered that maybe we aren't capable of using magic after all?"

"What?" Leonard stopped walking and whirled on his heels in the same movement. "Tammy, have goblins scooped out your mind and replaced it with pumpkin pie jelly? You've been watching too much 'House'. Who are you? Really?"

"Len, I just-"

"What's the secret code word?"

"I was only-"

Leonard flattened his ears to his head with his palms and squeezed his eyelids shut. "You're not mind controlling me, whoever you are, white witch. What's the secret code word?"

He heard Johanna snicker, but when he dared to crack an eyelid to glare at her for mocking what she did not understand, she averted her gaze back behind her video camera. Of course she kept the thing rolling.

"Tortoiseshell cakes."

With a sigh, he folded his larger hands around her smaller ones and drew her closer. "Tammy, do you believe in magic?"

She stared up at him without blinking. "I thought I did, but-"

He tightened his grip. "And do you like the idea of magic?"

"Yes, of course, and I-"

"And do you wish to harness that power for yourself for the good of all woman- and mankind and all the fabulous creatures that dwell upon or in the earth?"

"I've always-"

"Then you're magic, simple as that. Don't let anyone physical or spectral ever tell you otherwise. Don't dwell on your doubts. They have no power of their own, so they have to feed off yours to make themselves grow. Low self-esteem is one of the unbreakable hexes. Unbreakable by magic, I mean. You have to beat it by yourself without any sort of hints or cheat codes."

Tammy looked at their interlaced fingers for a moment. Her shoulders rose a little, then slumped. Leonard half-expected that she might start crying, which would be really weird. He wasn't sure exactly what he'd do if that happened, because he'd known Tammy for all of two years and the only time he'd ever seen her cry was the pancake incident when they were fifteen. But no tears came, and she simply threw her arms around him and nuzzled her face into his chest.

"Thanks, Len. You're the best."

He winced and nudged her backwards. "I must ask that you don't squeeze my stomach too tightly. I don't feel too great. I think the spices in that stew want to spring back up one at a time."

"Can you hold it for another hour?" asked Johanna. "We're almost to the helicopter, and I don't want to have to ride next to you if you're soaked in vomit goo."

Leonard tightened his lips. "Of course, I have mixed potions that tasted far worse than this before, like that guitar string and vole intestine one, but even that pales in comparison to the sickly stuff you have to down for love potions. And then the accursed thing didn't even work. I mean, I knew I was probably going to be immune to its powers anyway, but I was still majorly disappointed. But that was back when I was thirteen and now I don't care anymore. Oh, and I did still get a girl, so that's something."

Instead of answering, Tammy shielded her face from the red sunlight. "Is it that helicopter way over there?"

As it turned out, yes. When 'that helicopter way over there' became 'that helicopter right in front of us', the pair were introduced to their pilot, who didn't speak English and whose name they couldn't quite agree on or manage to shape with their mouths. Tammy placed her fingertips to what had to be a door of blazing metal.

"I've never ridden in a helicopter before."

"Yeah, me neither." As he buckled into his seat, Leonard turned back and said, "Are you going to fly us all the way back to Canada?"

The beads along Johanna's headband and the rings in her ears whipped with a jingle-jing jangle. "Nah, we can't afford to fly you all the way back like this. What do you think this is- the Total Drama budget? We're just dropping you off back at the Moroccan airport where you came in. Where I'll be leaving you," she added, apparently under the impression that they cared.

So they were off. The helicopter crouched and kicked off into the air, blades beating. Leonard leaned back in his seat.

"Ah. This will be a lot more of a relaxing way to reach the post-elimination station than that blasted cannon Chris whipped up for us back on Total Drama."

"What did you say, Len? I can't hear you over the helicopter!"

But Johanna heard, even if Tammy didn't, and so did the pilot; the revelation caused them both to jump some like they'd each had a mind-seize potion dumped down their backs. "You were actually on Total Drama? Both of you?"

"Well, I was part of Season 6. This today was Tammy's first reality show. But I'm not really supposed to talk about Pahkitew Island until the finale's out."

Not that he'd know terribly much about the stuff that would be airing from here on forward. Episode 2 had been released a week ago. "I Love You, Greased Pig". What kind of a title was that, anyway? He would've preferred "Leonard's Glory" or "Leonard's Defiance" or even something less direct such as "The Man Who Can't Be Moved". Today had been Tammy's first choke, but he was two for two now on losing out on a million shiny dollars, and, well… It was okay and he would live, but it wasn't cool.

After that, Leonard fell asleep with his head resting in one hand. He awoke as they were coming down at the airport, but Tammy still nudged him with her knee.

"I'm up," he mumbled. "Don't take all the bananas. I want them on my pancakes. What? Ah. Marvelous- we've arrived."

Shrugging, Johanna passed them two folded white and blue tickets. "That plane of yours leaves tonight. I would highly encourage you not to miss it, but there's an intern fellow who'll meet you in there and so if you don't make it, he knows the procedure to follow and will help you. The flight will take you to Gander, Newfoundland, and then you'll find a ride waiting to pick you up there."

"Thanks, Johanna."

They disembarked from the helicopter, and she tossed them each a last bag of Cheetos and returned to her GameGuy. In the little airport, Tammy groaned.

"Air conditioning is nice?"

"Exactly."

There weren't a lot of people milling about as the evening wore on, and so it didn't take long for Leonard to spot a sweaty little strawberry-blond teen with two tufted spikes at the front of his hair. He was dressed in pale orange and standing stoically beside a suspiciously-familiar sky-pink suitcase. He couldn't have been more than five feet tall (and that might have been pushing it), but he crossed his arms and stared forward, brows drawn, daring anybody to steal it from him. "Hey Tammy, your bag looks just like that," Leonard began, and then said, "Oh. That is your bag. That's the intern we've come to seek."

"Leonard Moore and Tamara Caudwell: dedicated LARPers." It wasn't a question. When they nodded, the intern kid gave Leonard an unapologetic look. "None of the bags were tagged with your name. They might've gotten lost."

"No, we're cool- I didn't bring any bags. I keep most of my stuff with me." He gestured to his robes for emphasis, then included Tammy with a flourish of his hand. "My potion stuff is in Tammy's suitcase. My ingredients, I mean- people don't seem to like it much if you try to slip liquids on a plane."

She offered up a thin smile followed by a couple nods.

"Good," said the intern, disinterested. He pushed the suitcase towards Tammy with his foot. "I'm Everett. Let's not miss your flight home."

"Everett?" The word rang familiar for some reason. "Is that your first name or your last name?"

"Depends."

Okay. "Depends on what?"

"Mostly on who's asking."

Leonard shrugged and let him keep his secrets. Still, it niggled in the back of his mind as he followed the shorter boy through customs, the international clearances, and all the way to their numbered waiting area.

"You're not coming?" Tammy asked when Everett, still expressionless, waved them off while their flight loaded.

"My job is to make sure you get all your bags and seat your bums on that plane. If that's your only suitcase, you won't have to stop at the carousel on the other side and can walk straight out. Look for the white car with the Ridonculous Race logo on the doors. Unless he tricked Keiani into pick-up duty again, that's my little brother; this year he's driving and I'm on meet-and-greet. He'll take you to the hotel where you'll be staying until the season is over. You were on Total Drama, Leonard? I guess you know the drill."

Leonard wondered how little Everett's brother could possibly be. But he said, "I leave you with my utmost gratitude for looking out for us. Might I inquire, where are you headed now, if you will not be accompanying us back to Canada?"

"The next Race location is Paris, and I should get there in plenty of time to do tourist stuff." He fluttered his fingers in farewell, and as he walked off with his shoulders square and hands linked behind his back, the toes of his shoes scraping tile with every step, he reminded Leonard of someone. Maybe one of his foster siblings- there were always dozens flitting in and out of his house over the course of the year.

He and Tammy broke open the Cheeto bags and buckled themselves in. As Tammy paged through some book she'd brought along, Leonard took advantage of the dark cabin to sleep again. He wasn't much for sleeping at the best of times, but being in Morocco for even one day had really screwed up his mental time zone, and since he was from Manitoba, he didn't expect Newfoundland to be a whole lot better.

They chased the ever-setting sun for something like fifteen hours, and Leonard found himself still leaning on Tammy as they picked their way off the plane and outside in search of their ride. Actually, their driver ended up spotting them first.

"Hey, Len!"

Leonard choked on his own sleepy drool. Spinning on his heels, he yanked out his wand and raised it high above his head with his left hand. "Topher? What in TOM's name are you doing here? And what's with the glasses?"

And why was he wearing red?

He leaned back against the trunk of the car, cocked his head to the other side, and scratched at his strawberry-blond cowlicks. "Well, just taking a stab at it, but I probably live here. Me and my big brother Everett."

That's where he'd heard the name. "At… the airport?"

"Good guess; you're not too far off. Could you do me a favor and stick your suitcase in the trunk (Is that all of them)? I meant the Race's post-elimination hotel. Well, I live there most of the time. We always spend spring break and two weeks in the summer with our mom and her husband and kids in Alberta, but yeah, for the most part we get to chill back at the Palace with Dad." He locked his hands behind his back and smiled first left, then right. "When he isn't hosting, anyway. I like Gander, don't you?"

Inwardly, Leonard zapped himself with a face-palming spell. Back at the Pahkitew houseboat, Topher had probably hinted that his dad was a famous reality show host a good sixteen times. This would indeed explain why he had constantly recommended they all audition for future seasons of the Race, and why he'd seemed to take Leonard's very existence as a personal compliment back on Pahkitew Island.

But he couldn't just say anything to Topher's face that would imply he hadn't believed him. Nobody wanted to feel like people didn't believe them. Leonard put away his wand and kept his hands tucked in his sleeves. All right. Since he needed a distraction from the present awkwardness anyway, he'd just go ahead and acknowledge the elephant on the sidewalk sooner rather than later.

"So. Uh, I like your sweater, Toph. Bloody crimson is the color of the taxing trail that winds through the Canyons of Most Endurance, and it… seems to suit you? But whatever happened to your old one? You didn't… change signature codes without explicit otherworldly permission, did you?" As he confessed his concern, he and Tammy exchanged glances and shuffled two steps back up the sidewalk. Now that they'd gotten safely off the show and were supposed to be on their way to a five-star luxury resort, Leonard figured the last thing in the world they wanted to do was catch anything that could make them ill, whether physically or mentally. He didn't handle sickness very well.

His eyebrows pressed together, and he glanced down at the two diagonal stripes of yellow across his shirt from left shoulder to right hip. "Huh? No, of course not. Plus, those Tom and Jen name-alikes were with you guys. This's been my sweater since I was twelve. Red's the dedication signature and yellow is for br- Oh!" Then he seemed to get it. A laugh escaped him, and he snapped his fingers. "I'm wrong, you're right. Good memory, Len. I wore my cousin's to the island. Nearly forgot about that, and it hasn't even been two months. It's like I'm losing my touch or something. No, no, I assure you, I'm perfectly fine. Yeah, no, 'Loyalty Blue' was never my thing. Here, hop in and we'll get going."

"Then… why would you test the waters that way? Isn't that dangerous?" With one hand on the offered door, Leonard used the other to make a motion towards his throat and mime being choked to death by the collar of his robes. "You could offend TOM."

Topher slid off his glasses and polished them on his sleeve. "Yes, it is- you're right on that. But you do realize most everything I pulled on that island was done to flatter Chris, right? I even got a custom angel tattoo on my ankle to match his. Literally the only reason I didn't take it a step further and color my hair black is because the dye doesn't stick with my type. I tried right before I did my audition tape. Polkadots, Leonard." As he shut the door and switched the car on, he shivered. "Stripes do not go with such hideous polkadots, and it's not like I could wear the blue sweater for longer than a couple hours without a break for obvious reasons." The glasses went back on his nose. "I can't exactly call the LARP loophole on the thing like you two and pray for the best as I burn cinnamon sticks and bumblebee wings on the barbecue grill."

"The loophole chant requires an orange silly straw with three loops, all of them cut in half beneath the crescent moon, and that's just for the original set-up and not including the daily boosters," Leonard said. "No one burns bumblebee wings with cinnamon unless they're trying to make a heap of snow and tiny Eskimo people on sleds fall from the sky on the head of someone they hate."

"Right. Next time I swat at a bee, I'll know to bring it to you guys. Plus, if it makes you feel much better, the very first day kinda almost did me in there as it was. That's why I kept running off for bathroom breaks on the zeppelin- couldn't breathe with that thing on. Anywho, then I had to wait three days for all that black dye to wash out of my hair in full. It stained my sink too. So." He waved a 'Thank you' at a car that had paused for him at a turn. "Welcome to your first day of hanging with the real Toph-Man. No more mind games and no more fibs, obviously."

Still, Leonard found a frown tugging at one corner of his mouth. Topher promising to drop his chronic mind games was about as believable as him saying 'Leonard, you can't really do magic'.

"Huh. As long as you're happy and comfortable with yourself, I suppose. But I imagine it will take me a long while to get used to it."

Tammy cocked her head and said, "So I take it the two of you first met back on Pahkitew Island."

"Yes, you're right, sure did. Excellent guess, really. Opposite teams, but we hung out on the houseboat after elimination and I'd call us friends." He adjusted his mirror. "You'd call us friends, right, Len?"

Nod, even if it was a slow one. There were devoted Beardo friends, there were We-actually-have-a-lot-in-common Amy friends, there were epic-LARPing-goddess Scarlett friends, and there were I'm-confused-now-like-were-you-not-just-taunting-me-yesterday Topher friends. Sure, they were friends, but… Topher was one of those Topher-friends.

"So then the lovely lady in my presence must be the famous Tammy. Name's Christopher Cummings, by the way, though I much prefer to be addressed by the last two syllables of that first name just on their own. Please say them as many times as you like 'til it sticks. I get to screen all the audition tapes with my dad, and technically I'm the one responsible for getting you accepted to the Race. It's nice to see you're still tight with my pal Len over here. With all the times he said he'd do it, I expected him to have actually broken up with you by now."

Tammy slid her eyes over to him. Leonard cleared his throat. "Topher, I kind of assumed we discussed that in confidence."

He paused. The right-hand blinker turned on. "Was this not a known thing between you two? From the way you always said it, I thought it was your little joke."

"Aw, Len, c'mon. You were thinking of breaking up with me behind my back again?"

"Ehiyeh, well…" Leonard made his hands look like scales balancing out the weight of different objects. None of which he wanted to touch. He stuffed his sleeves together again, fingers linking.

For a long moment as they drove, Tammy sat there with her eyes shut and her knuckles resting against her forehead, elbow in one hand. Finally she said, "Fortunately for me you do this all the time, and fortunately for you I know you well enough to know you never meant it."

"Yes. That is what happened."

She rolled her eyes. "I should probably be more offended about this than I actually am. I guess that's what happens when you prioritize best friendship above the flirty stuff: you honestly don't really care if that side of the relationship ends, because you know you'll still be best friends forever."

"Oh, indubitably." Leonard leaned over to give her a one-armed hug around the shoulders. "Holding hands is nice, but it's the fact that you're always there for me that I'd miss most of all."

For some reason, this made Topher crack up. "All three of us are such aromantics, aren't we? Beardo would make noises like he was dying of a heart attack if he heard this. Too bad a certain few of our houseboat friends didn't see things quite that way- they'd probably be such great buds still if they had your positive outlooks on life, and I wouldn't have had my ships sunk. Hey Tammy, do me a favor and hand me that water bottle back there? Yeah, the red one."

As she passed it up, Tammy nudged Leonard in the ribs with her elbow and whispered, "Were you seriously thinking of dumping me?"

"Not without calling you via scrying bowl to let you know," he whispered back.

"Who was she?"

"Scarlett. I really like Scarlett."

"Oh."

"But you don't have to worry about that ever happening because-"

"I know why."

He waited, then ticked off on his fingers, "Also Sky, Sammy, and Ella. Possibly Jasmine, except she accidentally stabbed me in the arm and then accidentally tried to feed me to a shark."

She shoved him in the chest and stopped talking.

Sticky noon sun dripped into their eyes like apple cider. Leonard slipped his hands into his sleeves and ran his fingers over his skin and various tucked-away items that lurked therein. After about fifteen more minutes of weaving between traffic and drifting through winding roads and increasingly-narrow side-streets, the car turned off the solid road and onto a dirt path. Leonard squinted past his reflection as spruce trees blurred together with scattered boulders and the occasional cardinal or raccoon. They kept on the trail for a minute and a half before it widened into a circle and Topher pulled the car over.

"This is us," he said, pushing open his door.

"We're here already?"

"Yes, you're right. I mean, this is Newfoundland. There are like, five hundred thousand people on the entire island. How far did you think we were going?"

Saying 'further' seemed stupid. But, Leonard reflected as he grabbed Tammy's suitcase from the trunk, Chris liked to work on islands and had to keep all the dangerous and deadly stuff away from the public. Don skipped across the world and didn't need to tuck his headquarters too far from the cities and towns.

It seemed to be a quaint place. Leonard took a loop around the circle, peering into the surrounding forest of evergreens. Nothing roared at him. Nothing retracted underground or sprang out of a trapdoor. Yes, good. He liked the look of the area already. He liked this show. He liked Don. Camping out here for a couple of weeks while the other twenty-one teams sprinted across the globe and butted heads in unfriendly challenges wouldn't be so bad at all.

Tammy faced a signpost, hands to her hips. "'Loserdom Palace'," she read. "'Private property, please keep out. No snooping paparazzi or I'll uppercut you with a bean bag. -Donahue.'" A smile crept over her thin lips. "The place is ours."

And 'the place' wasn't lacking in beauty any more than Tammy was. Beyond the sign and a couple more trees and shrubs, a stepping-stone path curled away like a seashell. The path melted around a long pool, lined not with tiles but with large decorative stones. It even had a small waterfall spurting into the nearby hot tub. Heaps of pink and purple towels. Long lounge chairs striped with rubber straps. Picnic tables with red paint chipping white sheltered beneath flared, colorful umbrellas. Tucked in the back, a three-floored building like a cozy log cabin loomed against the sky, capped by a sweeping green roof and a swirly chimney.

Leonard offered his elbow. "My lady."

"My wizard."

After she linked arms, Leonard turned around. "My… loyal minstrel and comic relief?"

Topher snorted like a cheery canary and slipped past them. "This is a tricycle. The third wheel rides in front. Come on and I'll hit you with the grand tour." At the top of the rise, he threw out his arms. "This is… the Ridonculous Race. Welcome! To the Loser! -dom! Palace!"

The confetti cannons went off from the sidelines, soaking both of them with a glittering rainbow of streamers. Applause broke out from the bushes, and Leonard looked around in search of human beings or friendly animals, but ran across only black speakers and knotted wires. Just as well.

Topher cleared his throat. "Len?"

"Huh?"

He nodded his head towards the nearest of the picnic tables, and Leonard spotted the cake for the first time. Tammy had already seen it, and perched on the bench with hands and knees, one foot dangling near the pretty stones.

"Did you bake this yourself, Topher?"

"Yes, I did, you're right. The '21' is there because that's your season. And you're in luck- only the first team eliminated ever gets to taste my baking. Do me a favor and eat while we walk? I'm excited to show you around."

"No peanuts?" Tammy checked.

"Nope."

"But I suppose it's too much to hope that it's lactose-free?"

"Actually, it is. I have access to all your files and I made sure I nailed it in the allergy department. It's just the Funfetti flavor with vanilla icing."

"Topher, you're one of my favorite people in the whole world now. That was clever."

"You are absolutely welcome, Tam. It's not always easy, but I try." He snipped off a slice for himself and twirled his red plastic fork until a bite stuck to the tines. Once Leonard and Tammy had theirs, he spun on his toes and started off. He led them around the pool, down to the shed that housed the ATVs, past the little in-ground waterslide sculpted into a small hill, over to the racquetball court, the minigolf course, the canoe pond, and the beginnings of multiple hiking trails.

"Follow that one there for about two and a half miles and you'll come out right by a little strip of private beach. Just… watch your step around the local wildlife. They've gotten kinda used to handouts over the years, and part of your contracts warns you that we can't be held responsible for attacks, damages, or corrupt business deals." He snapped his fingers three times. "Most of the chipmunks are in cahoots with the woodpeckers and will lie through their teeth to rob you blind. Seals are good people, except for the one we nicknamed Lemon. Trust me, you'll know Lemon when you see her. Her card tricks are stunning but she cheats at chess. And definitely don't take anything from the gophers unless you've watched them eat it first. Otherwise we've got foxes, bats, ermines, bunnies, beavers, black bears, seagulls, caribou, otters, lynxes, rodents, ducks, and the occasional moose. That's my family."

Tammy glanced at Leonard, then asked, "So is it just… you here all by yourself a lot, Topher?"

He hesitated over one step in his walk, then forged on. "Not when I have you guys. And I have Keiani who does the cooking and stuff. Jason the gardener. Erica fixes things. And it wasn't like I was alone as a kid either- my dad always used to bring me and Everett to work with him when I was a toddler, and when I got a little older I stayed with babysitters. Now that I'm older again, I can take care of myself, so I'm not needing anyone, if that's what you were trying to imply with your question. I'm not being deprived of anything."

"I see," Leonard said, still squinting at a pretty red leaf he'd picked up from the ground.

Inside they stumbled across soft brown chairs and couches, glass coffee tables, overflowing bookshelves, crocheted afghans, coat racks, lamps shaped like wolves, a flat-screen TV playing "Fairly OddParents" in silence, and a fine set of sweeping stairs that arched up to the second floor. The thin ramp beside it was either for wheelchairs or for sliding down on sheets of cardboard. A great glass… thing dangled from the ceiling- not quite a chandelier, but a sort of multi-faced glass case filled with tiny lightbulbs. The fluffiness of the starry-night carpet still showed around the edges, but it had been trotted down through the years by hundreds of feet. Maps and framed photos coated the walls and most of the available surfaces. While Tammy pursed her lips and Leonard outright gawked, Topher ignored all of it and veered around behind the stairs. Handprints scattered like swarming wasps up and down the back wall, in all different colors, from floor to ceiling and even across the window glass.

"This is the Wall of Losership." Topher stuck his fork between his teeth and nudged a row of paint trays along several sheets of plastic towards them. "Yep- every team that's ever lost has left their mark in here. You guys can start a new column over on that end beneath the fourth window, and since you're the first ones here, you'll be right down at the bottom in this column here. Season 21."

Leonard studied the trays, then set his cake aside and slipped his hand into the green paint. Tammy did the same with the blue. They exchanged smiles. Then, as one, they twisted their hands so their eight total fingers pointed down and pressed their palms against the wall.

"The green lion and the blue palm tree," Leonard explained to Topher, taking the offered towel to wipe the paint away. "In Hikojori-Dwarvish and Northeast-Elventongue, respectively. They're both indications of exquisitely good luck."

"I like it. Great idea, both of you."

Their next stop was the bathroom to rinse their hands clean, and then Topher led them down the right-hand hallway.

"This is the mess hall," he said when they reached the propped double doors, tossing his plastic plate and fork away. "You can always eat in here or outside, but it would be awesome if you didn't spill on the hotel carpet, because a certain someone here is supposed to vacuum each floor every other week, and it's way easier to insist that I did if there's not an obvious mess lying around."

"I getcha."

Another corridor led off behind the mess hall, and after they'd come around the first corner, he raised his hand to stop them.

"That's Everett's with the red and yellow crayon scribbles at the bottom of the door. My room's this one here diagonal." Topher started to open the door, but before he got it more than a few inches, a blur of ginger fur shot out and launched itself, hissing, at Leonard's sleeve. "Hey," he yelped, trying to shake it off, but the cat clung to the fabric with tight claws, tail lashing. It could probably smell the hamster.

Tammy chuckled. "He seems pretty attached to you, Len. What's his name?"

Shrugging, Topher pried the cat from Leonard's robes and cradled it against his neck. "She doesn't care what you call her, just as long as you aren't calling her late to dinner or Saturday cartoons. We mix it up every few weeks to keep her interested. I think right now she's going by Nutmeg."

Nutmeg flattened her ears and hissed again. Leonard pressed his fingers together in his sleeves, trying to ignore the pitter-patter of cold hamster feet across his skin.

"She's still salty because her big brother got to be on TV a couple years back. Aren't you, Nutty-Butty?" Topher made kissy faces at his cat as he eased his door open with his foot. "But you're going to show up big ol' Dander Boy someday, aren't you, pwecious pudding pop? My gift from above? There you go." The cat was set back down in his room, and before she stalked off she snarled something at Leonard that he had the feeling Beardo would have been too embarrassed to translate and Ella would have tried to pass off as a gesture of friendship. The door was shut.

They followed Topher around the hall until they ended up at the first door on the left they would have run into if they'd have taken the main left-hand passage from the main lobby area to begin with.

"She's not much of a talker, is she?" Topher asked after Tammy had slipped inside to stake her claim on one of the two red beds.

"Isn't she?" Leonard stared after her. "You know, I forget that sometimes. But now that you bring it to light, I suppose you're correct. She tends to be more of a listening ear than an inciter of tales."

"Can't imagine why." As he started for the door that would lead him back outside, Topher rolled his eyes like he was making a joke. Leonard wondered what it was.

"Leonard, can you unhook the buckles on my clothes?"

He unfastened them and Tammy went to finish changing and shower in their little bathroom. When she did, Leonard pulled his green robes from his head and sat cross-legged on the bed closest to the window, tracing his knuckles across the fabric. What a day. What days, more accurately. At last, after scratching the fake gray beard that dangled from his ears and always itched, he yanked the robes back over his marble-gray sweatpants and purple sweatshirt. Part of him felt like he ought to sleep after checking into a hotel, but in Newfoundland it was noon and he'd slept for most of the plane ride. No. His time would be put to better use if he went back outside and explored.

Across from him was a TV cabinet and a mirror. His dark face, sprinkled with freckles along his nose and cheeks. Brown hair cowlicked and curled in all directions, entrapping his fingers when he combed them through the nest he never brushed. Again, he listened for Tammy until he heard the water run. And run. And run.

Leonard buried his face as deeply in his palms as was physically possible, and then a little more. "I'm two for two. Two for two. TOM's inking pens and JEN's paint bucket, if she were that kind of person, she would really let me hear it tonight. What is wrong with me? Why can I never get my magic to work when we really need it?"