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I parked at the airport, pausing after we unloaded to take a picture of my car to send to Doc, who had promised to come out with Beck to pick it up and drive it back to his back alley for storage while we were gone.

And then we walked across the bridge to the airport from the parking garage, proceeded to stand in line and wait for security, stand in line to wait for coffee and a breakfast pastry, and then sit at the gate to wait to be allowed to stand and wait to get on the fucking plane.

Ihateair travel.

I was trying not to punch any of the shambling, crowding jackasses around me, including the complete waste of space whose mask was completelyunderhis nose, crammed in the aisle of the plane that was far too small to accommodate human size, much less elf or orc size.

There was one of those poor bastards about six people in front of me, and I shared a sympathetic grimace with him over Taavi’s head at one point when a pushy woman shoved her suitcase in his face while trying to stuff it in the overhead bin. I watched the poor guy sigh, then ask her if he could help and then wait while she decided whether or not allowing him to touch her suitcase would transfer some sort of orc cooties to her. Or maybe she thought he was going to steal her luggage and then creep through the aisle at a snail’s pace with it.

Fucking people.

Eventually, the woman nodded, and the polite orc shoved her bag into the bin so that the rest of us could move another six fucking inches.

Even Taavi was tense, and he’s rarely ever on edge.

We were pretty close to the back of the plane, but had somehow managed—despite buying these tickets late last night—to sit together. Thank fucking God for small favors. I hate flying anyway, and now I was exhausted and jacked up about Elliot’s dad, and if I’d had to sit next to some fucking asshat of a stranger, I might have gotten the whole plane grounded by doing or saying something epically stupid.

Taavi scooted into our row, stuffing his duffel under the seat in front of him, and I followed, cramming my bag in the overhead so that I could reclaim a few precious millimeters of legroom. Taavi’s five-four and doesn’t need that space. I’ve got a full foot of height on him, and my long-ass legs need every available scrap.

He looked up at me as I sat down, his eyes wide. “Did you want the window?”

I shook my head. “No. This way I can stick a leg out so they can run into it with the fucking cart.”

“Cart?”

I stared at him. “Have you never been on a plane before?”

He shook his head, and I could see the tension in the muscles around his eyes over the top of his vaguely-Navajo patterned gaiter.

Airlines don’t much care if you can’t actually contract Arcanavirus; the magnitude of their cover-your-ass policy had to covereveryone, human, Arc-human, and Arcanid alike. So even though the whole goddamn world knew that my elven self couldn’t carry, transmit, or contract Arcana, I had to wear a mask just like every normie out there. Mine was a regular over-the-ear number in light blue.

As a shifter, Taavi also couldn’t get Arcana, although I knew some shifters preferred to wear masks rather than out themselves in public. Taavi had several that he reserved for those occasions—like grocery shopping—when he didn’t want to deal with the stares, half of them judgmental for not wearing a mask and the other half judgmental about the assumption that he was a shifter. Right now, he was wearing one for the same reason as the rest of us.

And what I could see of his face was definitely unhappy.

“Shit. Are you okay with this?”

He shrugged, which I knew meant that he didn’t want to make athingof it, but he was clearly stressed.

I reached out and pulled his hand into my lap, threading my fingers with his, trying to figure out what to say.

“I couldn’t ever afford it,” he said softly, and now I felt like an asshole again. Because I’d just dropped a substantial amount of money to get both of us last-minute tickets—your best friend’s dad’s funeral doesnotqualify for bereavement fare discounts—and he’d never been able to afford even a cheap one. Which is probably why he’d taken a bus from Yuma to Raleigh, North Carolina where he’d been abducted last year.

“Taavi—”

He shook his head again, and a stray strand of dark hair fell out of his ponytail. He tucked it nervously behind his ear. “It’s fine,” he said softly. “I just… don’t know what to expect.”

“A lot of sitting on your ass being uncomfortable,” I told him. “Just try not to think about the physics of what you’re actually doing.”

He raised his eyebrows, mismatched eyes curious.

“The whole hurtling-through-the-air-in-a-giant-metal-tube thing,” I clarified.

“Right.” At least he didn’t lookmoreupset.

“I’d say that at least you don’t have to sit next to a screaming toddler, but my giant legs are almost as bad,” I teased, trying to make him laugh.

The corners of his eyes crinkled up for a too-fleeting moment, which was at least better than nothing.