When I awoke that Sunday morning, a peek outside of my room’s window showed that the storm seemed to be over. It was still snowing lightly, and there was so much on the ground outside that I wanted to run outside to enjoy it and be close to my primary element, but we had weathered the worst of it. Melody, who was dressing so she could go back to her room and shower and get some fresh clothes inquired, “How is it looking out there? My room doesn’t have a window.”

“It looks wonderful,” I replied with a grin. “There’s so much snow out there, and it’s still snowing a little, but it looks like the storm is over.”

“That’s good, that snow and wind last night was intense. I could barely see a couple of feet in front of me when I went to pick up Mallory’s mother,” she said with a smile as she came over to kiss me. “I’ll see you for breakfast, Babe.”

“Are you sure that you don’t want to come shower with me? We could save water and time,” I suggested after kissing her back.

Melody laughed but shook her head. “You know that if we shower together, we’ll get dirty more than we get clean and probably won’t be finished until after breakfast. As delicious as you are, I’m hungry and we have guests, so we should show up for breakfast.”

Sadly, she was right on all counts, and I was hungry too. “Okay, I’ll see you in a bit then.” I took the opportunity for one last kiss and then headed for the shower while Melody left for her own room across the hall to do the same.

While I took a few minutes longer than I probably should have to enjoy the pulse setting on my shower head, I was showered, dressed, and had my hair properly dried and brushed in time for breakfast. I knocked on Selina’s door and then opened it to make sure that the girls inside were awake. I saw Selina giggling and chattering happily with Nova and Phoebe as the latter two were repacking their overnight bags. They all looked tired, probably from not enough sleep, but they were happy, and it looked like Selina had enjoyed her first sleepover immensely.

“We’ll come down for breakfast in a minute, Momma,” the Astrae told me as she turned toward me. And since she looked so happy, I decided not to say anything about how sleepy she looked. Instead, I glanced at her hand, resting on her lap, and said, “Your nails look really nice, Selina. Almost as good as when we got them done at Shear Bliss.”

Selina beamed at the compliment. “Phoebe had her makeup kit and stuff with her, so she gave us makeovers.”

“You did a great job, Phoebe!” I called out to Heather’s youngest daughter, before turning my attention back to Selina. “I’ll see you all in a few minutes then, I just wanted to make sure you were all up.”

Leaving them to finish what they were doing; I made my way to the common room and the elevator. My sister and Mallory were there and waiting for the elevator, so I hurried to catch up before the elevator reached the floor and they left without me. “Good morning, Sis, and good morning to you too, Mallory. How did you sleep?”

My sister hugged me and gave me a good morning in return while Mallory beamed at me and replied, “I slept like a log. Did I get put in some kind of VIP room by mistake? Because that bed was so huge and soft, and the bathroom has a shower and a jacuzzi. I spent like an hour just soaking before going to bed last night.”

“Nope, that wasn’t a VIP room, all the rooms up here are like that,” Jess said with a laugh.

“Yeah, and you should probably get used to it because that room you stayed in will likely be yours from now on,” I told her with a grin. “Your mom got the job, and it comes with benefits, like room and board for both of you. There are still a couple of details that need to be worked out, but it looks like you’ll be joining the family here.”

At that point the elevator dinged, and the doors opened, but Mallory was just standing there looking stunned, like it was taking her a moment to process what I just told her. “What?! Really?!”

“Welcome to the family, Mallory,” Jess offered as she wrapped the Efreeti in a hug and then gently prodded her into the elevator.

“Yeah, I heard it last night before I came upstairs,” I told her as I stepped into the elevator behind them. Once the door was closed behind us and we started down, I stopped the elevator and added in a serious tone, “Just to let you know, you’re probably going to be asked to take a binding oath. Your mom already took one. There are a lot of secrets under this roof and we’re pretty serious about keeping them secret to protect one another. We’ll keep your secrets too, of course, Mom and I both already swore not to speak of any secrets you share with anyone who doesn’t live here.”

“The people living here are family,” Jess added as she placed a hand gently on Mallory’s shoulder. “We trust each other with our lives.”

Mallory considered our words for a moment before nodding. “Well, it’s not like you can lie, Crystal, and I don’t think you would anyway about something like this, even if you could. I don’t mind doing the whole oath thing, and I think all my secrets are Mom’s secrets too.”

“Cool,” I replied after breathing a sigh of relief. “I just thought it was fair to warn you, and I figured it would be best to do it while we had some privacy.” I pressed the button to get the elevator going again, and a moment later, we were downstairs on the club floor. I spotted Melody, already waiting at one of the big booths with Clarice, Alison, Rhissa, and the Dicken sisters. There was just enough space left for the three of us to join them, so I got cozy next to my girlfriend and my sister slid in beside me, followed by Mallory.

Breakfast that morning was an animated affair, with our overnight guests in attendance as well as those of us who lived in the club. Clarice’s dad, Raul, had gotten up early to help Brock and Cindy in the kitchen though and everyone else seemed well-rested and in good spirits. Good food, good friends, and family were pretty good reasons to be in good spirits.

As we ate, Pandora was able to give us all an update on the storm situation. Power was back to most of the areas that had outages the night before, but the streets were still being cleared. The PDA was trying to send snow-clearing teams to Paranormal businesses as quickly as possible, but the amount of snow they would have to clear from other businesses and the condition of the city streets meant that they probably wouldn’t get to the club to clear our parking lot and stuff until noon.

Wait. We were going to have a parking lot full of snow for the whole morning before they could come clear it? I turned to my sister and grinned. She grinned back, giving the barest of nods before we both squealed in unison, ““Snowball fight!”” Sure, the last time I had a snowball fight I ended up turning into a girl and a Nymph shortly after, but it had been fun, and I was already manifested so I wasn’t too worried about anything else life-altering happening.

A possible snowball fight wasn’t the only topic of conversation while we ate breakfast. Stella told me that she had written down the basics of my act last night and the things that she really liked about it and thought would work, and she was ready to start working on a proper choreography for the whole thing this afternoon. She would be keeping much of it the same, but it would be more refined while keeping the sass and sexy strutting that I had put into it last night.

This, of course, got everyone at the table who hadn’t seen my performance last night curious, but nobody pressed too hard after Adora said that I was just keeping a promise to her and taking an opportunity to try something new while the club was closed. Most of us were far too involved in enjoying our breakfast anyway. Mallory especially seemed a little overwhelmed by how good the food was, how much there was, and the variety.

I got the feeling that it wasn’t often that she ate this well, save for the cafeteria at school. She had made no secret that she and her mom were barely getting by and scraping up enough for rent each month. It was one of the reasons that she hung out with Delilah for so long. It was because the clothes and stuff Delilah bought her, and the rides to and from school, saved them money that they needed for other things.

We finished eating by ten o’clock, but unfortunately, Clarice wasn’t able to stay for the snowball fight we were planning on. She and her parents had to go back to the café to make sure that none of the food there had spoiled while the power was out and to open for business for the day. Alison’s mom, Heather, had to open the salon in the mall too, but she said both of her daughters could stay for a while as long as we could get them home later. Nova’s parents wanted to check on things at home, but they too said that their daughter could stay if we could get her home safely later.

Melody was able to take them all back to where she found them or, in Heather’s case, directly to her salon since she had been there with me a couple of times. She was the last of the parents to leave after Melody had a short break, and Alison promised to pick her up at the mall when the salon closed. That just left Mallory’s mother, Calliope, who had the day off after working yesterday and would be sticking around to get to know everyone better and maybe get more lessons from the Dicken sisters.

We had divided into two teams, and I had used Ice magic to build each team an impressive snow fort on either side of the parking lot. Jess was the captain of one team, while I was the captain of the other. Melody was a bit tired from teleporting people home when we came out to play so she wisely decided to stay inside, where it was warm, and she’d be out of harm’s way.

On Jess’s team, she had Lou, Alison, Carmen, and Mallory. On my side (which I was secretly calling the Munchkin Squad), I had Selina, Nova, Phoebe, and little Sorcha. With my teammates being only thirteen or fourteen, and Sorcha only being four years old, poor Jess actually thought they had the advantage here. Now it was time to rain, or rather snow, on her parade.

We were lulling them into a false sense of security and to all appearances, it looked like they were overwhelming us. The girls on my team all looked tired, but that was what we wanted them to think. Poor Sorcha was practically vibrating while pretending to pathetically lob snowballs over the fort wall at our opponents. Okay, so that really was as far as she could throw, but she had enthusiasm, and she wanted to run right at them in a head-on assault. The poor girl was probably going to crash hard and take a long nap after lunch though.

I had convinced the girls to wait before hitting them with a frontal assault though; to let them think they had the advantage. As they assaulted our fort, I focused on building a wall behind them with Ice magic, to cut off their escape. Once that wall was completed, I was able to focus my concentration on other things.

I brazenly stepped out of our fort, deflecting snowy projectiles from their paths and sometimes sending them back at the people who had thrown them. “Hey! No fair using Ice magic, Sis! That’s cheating!” Jess complained.

“It’s not cheating, it’s an evolutionary advantage!” I countered as I sent her snowball back to hit her in the chest.

“Withdraw! We need to regroup!” she commanded her team, and they all turned to make a run for it, only to see the wall preventing that.

“Mwahahaha! Now, my minions! Arise, and make them rue the day they attacked the Ice Queendom of Crystalia!” I called out. Now was the time.

The girls poured from the fort, even little Sorcha, who was having trouble running in this much snow, even with as much as I had cleared to make the fort. They were pelting snowballs at our enemies for all they were worth as they shouted, “For the Queen! For Crystalia!” I made sure the return fire didn’t hit us, since most of us were plastered with snowball hits already, and tried to give Sorcha’s snowballs a little extra oomph so they could reach our opponents.

“She’s gone mad with power,” Carmen exclaimed with a theatrical gasp, only for a snowball to splatter against her face an instant later, leaving her sputtering snow.

“Attack their Queen! Without her, they will falter!” Alison tried. “If we overwhelm her, she can’t stop them all!”

Her words were promptly met by a renewed assault upon her person, led by her little sister who was giggling and grinning as she said to Selina, “Your mom is a riot.”

“Yeah, Momma is the best,” my daughter agreed as she pelted her Aunt Jess with a snowball.

“We gots dem, Queen Crystal, we gots dem!” Sorcha gleefully announced as they closed in and she continued to lob snowballs at our trapped opponents with all the energy her small form could summon. Even her little arms couldn’t miss at that range.

Unfortunately, all good things come to an end and soon it was almost lunchtime, and the snow-clearing team sent by the PDA, consisting of three Ice Mages, showed up to clear the parking lot, walkway, and street access for us. It didn’t matter to them that the place looked like a battlefield now since they would just be shifting it all into big piles at the edges of the parking lot using Ice magic anyway. If anything, they seemed amused, and their team leader even tried to recruit me.

I politely declined the offer, telling him that I already had a job and school taking up much of my time. Then I thanked them for doing their job and headed back inside with the others. I had to pull a lot of snow off Jess’s team though, to make sure they didn’t make a mess in the club. We might have gone a little overboard.

After we were done enjoying the snow outside and had gotten out of our outer layers, we found lunch waiting for us, including some hot chocolate to warm up those of us who were cold. I had some too, of course, but not because I was cold or anything. It was hot chocolate that Cindy made, and it was delicious.

“Next time, we’re setting ground rules about Ice magic, Sis,” my sister said with a pout as we all settled in for lunch and she sipped at her hot beverage. “We would have won if you hadn’t cheated.”

I nommed on a mouthful of fries and then grinned at her. “It wasn’t cheating, it was strategy. If you were thinking strategically, you would have had me promise not to use Ice magic for the fight.”

“Suuuure,” Lou said with a roll of his eyes.

“I had a blast,” Nova piped up. “I’ve never really been in a snowball fight like that before.”

“I’m pretty sure nobody has ever been in a snowball fight like that before,” Alison pointed out with a smile.

We all continued to happily chat and eat lunch and once everyone in the club was pleasantly full, we helped Cindy and Brock take all the dishes, and what little leftovers there were, back to the kitchen. Then Melody took Phoebe, Alison, and Nova to their respective homes. Once all our guests were gone, everyone hung around the club level while Mallory swore a binding oath to guard and protect the secrets of everyone living at the club.

Mallory took the opportunity to ask, “What level of secrets are we talking about here? I mean, we’re Efreeti, Mom is an escaped slave of the Chimera Syndicate, and I was only born because they were trying to breed her. She’s always loved me and tried her best to give me a good life, but that was kind of life-altering when I Manifested, and she told me. I’m sure you don’t have anything much bigger than that, right?”

Everyone in the room exchanged looks before Pandora spoke up. “Maybe we should start off easy, hmm? We have a Wisp and a Salamander in our basement to provide our power and electricity and keep us off the main grid.”

“She’s the Night Princess, though that’s sort of an open secret to almost every Paranormal in town,” Nadia contributed as she jerked a thumb toward Carmilla.

“My daughter is a white Selkie, one of a kind as far as we know. She’s aligned to both Water and the Divine and she has the ability to completely purify water according to Ashe, the Salamander that Pandora mentioned,” Aislinn said as she held Sorcha in her lap.

Isabella looked toward Carmen and then offered, “My daughter and I aren’t Divine Mages, we’re actually Healers.”

“These tattoos,” Carmen said as she gently slapped the Salamander mark on her arm, “aren’t just tattoos. The ones that Selina, Jess, and Lou have are exactly what we’ve been telling the school. Crystal, Sorcha, and I got ours after Ashe clutched some eggs and gave them to us to protect us. Salamanders are symbiotic and need to live inside their hosts until they’re mature. In return they make their hosts impervious to heat and fire, allow us to travel to the Fire Plane, and to telepathically speak with Salamanders or anyone else who is bonded with one.”

“I got mine when Crystal and I were on our first date, and we had to make a stop on the Fire Plane to dispose of the bodies of the trolls who wanted to sell Crystal into slavery. She made friends with a giant lava Kraken who was happy to help. When the Salamanders are old enough, they can manifest outside our bodies and their flames can get even hotter than what you Efreeti can manage,” Melody added.

Mom took the opportunity for her big reveal next. “I’m not truly a River Nymph. I’m actually a Divine Nymph, better known as a Muse.”

“I’m a Muse too, but I’m aligned to both Ice and the Divine,” I said with a sigh. “I also used to be a dude named Seth before Manifesting last month while Jess and I were in hiding. Our dad was killed because Demons put out a hit on him. I was on the same hit list, and there are probably still Paranormal bounty hunters and assassins looking for the old me. They don’t know about Mom though, or that I Manifested, or they would have probably shown up here by now.”

“Oh, and I was one of those Paranormal assassins, but I double-crossed the Demons and faked Seth’s death,” Melody casually added with a grin. “They found out, and now they’re after me too. My paranoia and using a different form and name when I was working back then should keep them from finding me though. Since we all got new identities and have changed our appearances, they shouldn’t be able to track us down though.”

“Paranoia is putting it lightly, Melody,” Jess teased in the brief silence that followed. “You should see the huge gun and the other stuff she carries in her purse. If Krysti hadn’t given us purses of holding for Christmas, she’d still be carrying that huge shoulder bag around. It wasn’t exactly subtle.”

With each secret that was revealed, Mallory’s jaw seemed to drop further, and her mother looked absolutely stunned by the time Jess broke the silence. The first of the two to speak was Mallory as she muttered. “Holy shit. It’s no wonder you wanted us to take binding oaths. Any one of those secrets…” She either couldn’t or didn’t want to follow that train of thought to whatever conclusion it might present, at least, not vocally.

Calliope seemed to be struggling with what to say after everything that had just been revealed to her and her daughter. So, of course, that was when her phone rang. She answered it without thinking. “Hello?”

In the silence, my ears were plenty sharp enough to hear what was being said on the other end. “Calliope, it’s Jack. I can’t make it in today, so you’ll have to come in to work the night shift.” What the hell? The jackass didn’t even ask nicely, he just told her she had to come in, like it was preordained or some shit.

“Jack, I can’t. I’m dealing with some pretty big shit right now and I’m halfway across the city. I’m also supposed to be working the morning shift, and I am not working another double,” the Efreeti replied. She did not look happy at all.

Jack’s response was, “Why the hell not? You’ve always done it before when I ask. Either come in to work or you’re fired. We have plenty of people applying to replace you.”

“Again?” Mallory hissed as she glared at the phone in her mother’s hand, though she probably couldn’t hear what was being said on the other end. I guess it wasn’t the first time something like this happened. It wasn’t all that surprising either, good workers are often taken advantage of and until now, Calliope had been desperate enough for money to take those extra shifts without complaint. This time she didn’t.

“Fuck you, Jack,” Calliope said as the flames on her head flared violently before she took a deep breath and reduced them to embers again. “Cover the damn shift yourself, and you can work a double for once. While you’re at it, you can take my job and shove it up your ass. I quit.” Her calm tone belied the anger in her eyes and once she was finished telling him to go fuck himself, she promptly hung up.

Mallory was staring at her mother in shock as Calliope’s phone rang again. This time, the elder Efreeti ignored it and promptly blocked the number to stop the noise. Then she smiled at Pandora and my mother and said, “Well, I guess I don’t need to give my two weeks’ notice after all.

Pandora grinned at the club’s newest entertainer as she replied, “Good, the girls will be training you hard this week while the club is closed. Now, let’s talk about getting you and Mallory moved in.”