Page 14 of Transfiguration

Con frowned at her assessment and worried about the many things she could see. “But only the one guy is here now?”

She nodded. The last of the people boarding vanished into the back to prepare for takeoff. He held out his hand in front of her, letting the wind rise and easing a bit of static into it. To him it looked like a ball of lightning, though not that intense, small flashes of color and swirling wind. Would she see it like he could? He hoped to distract her from the ghost and all the passing people that made her tense.

She reached out her fingers carefully to touch the swirling mass. The strands of her hair which escaped the braid stood up like she touched one of those electromagnetic things, and her eyes went huge. Con snuffed the ball, tucking his magic back away, and burying it deep as they were going to be in the air soon, and maintaining his control was going to be an act of meditation.

“What kind of magic is that?” She whispered.

“Wind, mostly. It’s a mix, as wind can pull from other elements. I can shape water and even rock, feed or snuff a fire, cool or heat the air, and spark electricity.”

“But you’re a boy.”

“I know a lot of powerful male witches,” Con said. And a handful of female ones who kept themselves hidden from the Dominion and worked for the Fellowship. “I know the Pillar of Earth and the Pillar of Water.”

“I don’t know much about the elements,” she said. “I just talk to dead people.” Her gaze fell to the distance again, near the closed door of the cockpit. “He had a heart attack. They tried to help him, but he died on the plane.”

“He knows he’s dead?” Con wondered if ghosts were stuck where they died? “Can he leave the plane?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes they do the same things over and over, like they are a movie replaying, stuck in that moment until they fade? Sometimes they need something to let them go?” She shrugged and picked up her book. Con took that as a cue from her he could settle in and not worry about some attack from something he couldn’t see. Funny how he’d never worried about it before. Maybe he needed to research the other magics, too.

He sat back in his chair and cracked the book but didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep until a ding roused him. He jolted awake, looking up to find the seatbelt light on, and blinking back bleary eyes. He had been awake for over forty-eight hours and falling asleep had been too easy. When he glanced over, found Bella’s chair empty, and immediately went into panic mode. Her books and her bag still sat beneath the seat, but when he looked down the aisle both ways, he couldn’t see her.

Con unbuckled his seatbelt and got up, scrambling to think where she might have gone. The bathroom maybe? No one couldtakeher while on a plane, not while they were still in the middle of a flight. This wasn’t some dystopian fantasy novel. She had to be here somewhere, right?

The wind around the plane beat at his senses, calling him, his panic making his rock-solid control slip. The plane rocked, wind slamming it around in sudden turbulence. Con sucked in a deep breath and steadied his control, but until he knew where Bella was, the anxiety ate away at his resolve. The turbulence eased, but he could feel the wind waiting to latch onto his power again.

The attendant rushed his way. “We’ll be landing soon, sir. Please take your seat.”

“The little girl…” he said, waving at the empty seat beside him.

The attendant looked at him for a moment and then at the seat. Blank for a minute, and Con wondered if it had all been a dream. But her stuff was there. The books, and the backpack with a white cute-ass kitten on it, wrapped in pink plastic.

“I’ll check the restroom for her,” the attendant finally said. “Please sit.”

It took a lot of willpower for Con to lower himself back into the chair. Surrounding passengers eyed him warily, like he was some sort of thug about to go postal. And he was a thug, but his control was usually better. He sat down and watched the attendant head to the restrooms near the front first. She paused and talked to one of her coworkers, who nodded and darted by Con, patting him on the shoulder as she passed. He hoped that meant she was looking for Bella.

A few long minutes passed. Con gripped the edges of his seat, counting and holding onto his power by a thread. He shouldn’t have fallen asleep. That was a rookie mistake. But he’d never had to look after a kid on a flight before. On the rare occasion he’d interrupted a human trafficker, there had been an extraction team on the ground before he’d been done. None of them had been kids. Usually women, sometimes immigrants, traffickers were monsters, and he might not have controlled himself if he’d come across a heap of kids being sold. Bella already had him twisted into knots.

The wind whipping around them as the plane prepared to land didn’t help at all. It was a siren song of energy. He could rip the plane out of the sky like it was little more than a toy to be flung by a god. A temptation of ultimate power, and his own demise. He breathed deep, cycling a four count in and out and imagining the wind’s will on him easing like a flower opening slowly, or a fist releasing a butterfly uninjured. It helped his focus even while his heart still hammered with apprehension.

A flash of pink interrupted his thoughts, and he jolted out of his seat again when the first attendant appeared with Bella, heading his way. His heart flip-flopped as the racing worry met with elation that she was not only found, but safe. She paused in front of him, gaze looking up as she climbed past him to her seat.

“Thank you,” Con told the attendant and sat back down, carefully snapping his seatbelt back into place, hoping they weren’t trying to find an air marshal or someone to arrest him for terrifying the other passengers.

The attendant nodded and smiled, her expression softening as Bella snapped herself back in. She patted Con on the shoulder before heading off to prepare for landing. Con glanced over at Bella, his heart rate still up a little. The wind’s song snapped away as his control refocused now that she was safe. He’d have to work on that.

“He’s gone now,” she told him.

“Who?” Con asked. Had someone lured her away? Hurt her?

“The ghost. His name was George, and he was trying to find something that got lost on the plane. But it’s not here. It was a gift for his grandson.”

Con blinked at her, taking in the entire story. “Okay? How does he know it’s not here now?”

“I helped look,” Bella said.

Had she been gone that long? He’d slept through the whole thing? “Bella… can you stay by me, please? At least until I know you’re safe.”

“You said I was safe with you,” she argued.