Despite the fact it was a Tuesday morning, JFK was a bona fide mess. New Yorkers and out-of-staters alike crowded the front sidewalk, suitcases dragged behind them like stubborn dogs, cell phones plastered to their ears as they paced in and out of the automatic sliding doors. 

Blaze rubbed his arms through his long-sleeved shirt, smoothing down the hairs that stood on end from a nearby air conditioning vent. He never really had a problem with crowds—he was a born-and-raised New Yorker—and yet there was something about the unbridled chaos in an airport that made his skin crawl.

When he was younger, his family would take a yearly vacation during winter break, but they never dared take an airplane. Instead, his father would scribble transport runes on the floor of their casting room, breathing out puffs of cloud as he moved about the chilly room. Blaze would wait impatiently to the side with his mother, shuffling his feet, rolling his suitcase, gripping his jacket close to his chest. When his father had finished, they would all step into the chalk circle together. Blaze would hold his suitcase in one hand and his mother's leg with the other, listening as his father called out the incantation. Within moments, he'd feel the pull of the spell, and then the three of them would be yanked through time and space, arriving at their tropical destination in mere seconds.

Travel by rune was by no means smooth or enjoyable, but there was something inherently cozy about the whole process. Airports, on the other hand, were nothing but large metal hangars, woefully inefficient, crowded, and cold.

"Are you all right?" Lexi asked, her blue eyes flicking down to his arms.

"It's cold in here," said Blaze.

Lexi shrugged. Unlike Blaze, her arms were completely bare, yet there wasn't even the shadow of a goose bump on her skin. "I guess they do keep the AC a bit high." Her eyes lit up. "Have you ever been in an airport before?"

"Yes, but I'm not particularly fond of them. We usually travel in... other ways."

Her eyebrows nearly touched her hairline. "Such as...?" she whispered.

Blaze stifled a groan. "You know."

"I don't actually." She paused. "So you don't usually fly in airplanes?"

Luckily, Celery came into view right at that moment and Blaze was able to turn away from Lexi to flag him down.

"Hello everyone!" Celery greeted, and then his finger wagged from Kayden to Lexi. "There are two of you...?"

"It's a long story," Blaze explained wearily, "but we need another ticket."

Celery seemed a bit surprised, but he nodded. "No problem. In tough times, potestas need to stick together."

The word "potestas" hung in the air awkwardly for a moment before Kayden turned to Blaze with a glare. He could read her expression immediately: You didn't tell him?

Blaze winced and Celery frowned. "What's going on?" he asked. "My teacher senses are tingling."

"Well..." Blaze struggled to say it. He had purposely not told Celery that Kayden was a non-er, not because he didn't trust him to keep his secret, but because he didn't want Celery to know just how much he had messed up in the past few days. "Kayden and Lexi are not... potestas."

Celery blinked and stared at Blaze, a look of surprise crossing his face. "Wait a minute," he said, and he hesitated only briefly before asking, "are you engaged?"

"What?" Kayden and Lexi both shouted.

"No, no!" Blaze said quickly, feeling his face warm. He could feel everyone's eyes on him and he heard Helio snickering.

"Then I'm a bit confused," Celery admitted. "What's going on here? In the email..."

"Everything I told you in the email was true," Blaze said, "but I left out that Kayden is a non-er. I was worried you wouldn't take us if you knew the truth."

Celery took a deep breath. "Well, it would have been nice to know, but it doesn't change anything. I don't harbor anything against sanspotestas."

Blaze felt his whole body sag with relief. "Thanks Celery."

Celery looked at him with a sly smile. "To be honest, I was a bit suspicious when you mentioned you were sneaking around with a girl."

When Kayden started laughing, Blaze felt his face rouge. "It's not like that!" he tried to explain, but Kayden wouldn't stop laughing. She had to press her hand to her mouth to stifle the noise, and she was still grinning as they waited in line for the security check. It was the happiest Blaze had ever seen her.

* * *

They waited at the gate for some time, talking with Celery about the shift. Blaze was only partly surprised to hear that all potestas schools, including Sir Mallard's, were closed for the time being. He was mainly relieved; at least what had happened to Carlos wouldn't happen to anyone else.

When they boarded the plane, Celery sat up in first class—it was the only extra ticket he could find on the flight—and the rest of them sat in coach. Kayden took the window seat and Blaze sat in the aisle; Lexi and Helio sat in the pair of seats behind them.

Blaze put his messenger bag on the floor and reached for a travel magazine as the plane spiraled upwards into the sky. As much as Blaze hated airports, airplanes themselves weren't that bad.

"Hey, do you have any gum?" Kayden asked as the plane continued its ascent. Her smile from earlier disappeared as she grimaced in pain. "My ears are popping and it's killing me."

"Sorry," Blaze apologized. "Maybe Helio has some?"

Kayden nodded and turned around, leaning over the top of the seat. But immediately she wheeled back towards Blaze.

"What?" Blaze asked, wondering what had brought on the crazed look in her eyes.

"When did that happen?" Kayden hissed.

"When did what happen?"

Kayden jerked her head to the right and Blaze peered through the crack in his seats. Lexi and Helio were giggling to each other, their hands interlocked on their shared armrest.

"They met an hour ago!" Kayden whispered.

Blaze held back a snort. "Kayden," he said slowly, "this is Helio we're talking about."

"And?"

"He's a flirt. And you can't exactly blame him. Wiza—" He stopped himself quickly and lowered his voice. "Potestas don't get too much of an opportunity for dating. There aren't that many girls around."

"So what is he doing with Lexi? She's not a potato-whatever."

"That doesn't matter. Most people end up marrying non-ers, you know. That's what my dad did, and what Helio's dad did too. That's why Celery thought I was engaged when I told him you were a non-er."

"So he wants to marry Lexi?"

"No," Blaze groaned in exasperation. "He's just a flirt."

"Well I don't care if he's the king of England," Kayden murmured. "He should stop trying to get in my cousin's pants." She peered back over the seats and scowled. "And now they're making out!"

Blaze hated feeling like such a creep, but from the way Kayden was glaring at him, he knew he had to check. Reluctantly, he looked through the crack in the seat again. It appeared that they had just selected a movie on their individual TVs; Lexi's head was resting on Helio's shoulder and her eyes were locked on the small screen. But then Helio nudged her with his shoulder, and they exchanged a small kiss.

Blaze settled back into his seat. "I'd hardly call that 'making out,'" he said.

"How are you even friends with him?" Kayden demanded.

"'Friends' is a very loose term," he admitted. "Very, very loose."

Kayden pressed herself against the headrest and closed her eyes. After a few minutes of silence, Blaze thought she had finally dropped it, but then she groaned. "My ears kill."

"Well I'm sorry," Blaze said, not feeling too sympathetic. He flipped a page in his magazine.

Kayden sighed and then bent forward. Blaze stared at her for a second before he realized that she was lifting his carry-on onto her lap.

"Hey! What are you doing with my stuff?"

"I'm bored and I don't find airline magazines all that interesting," she said, lifting the top flap.

"Be careful!" Blaze said, watching her rummage through his undergarments.

"Relax, it's not like I'm going to steal your boxers." She dug in deeper. "You must have something in here that's semi-entertaining." He could hear her fingers brush past glass bottles filled with herbs. Blaze winced; it had been a hassle to bring them through security.

"Here we go!" Kayden said with a triumphant smile. From the depths of the bag she withdrew a small white book: not his father's spell book, but his personal copy.

Blaze immediately felt a surge of relief that she hadn't grabbed something more important. "Have fun with that. There are so many misprints in that thing that I'm surprised I survived my first year at Sir Mallard's. That book has almost killed me more times than I can count."

"Sounds like a smart book."

Blaze held out his hand. "There's no point in reading it. It's just going to have that stupid message from the Congregation on every page."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Kayden said, thumbing through the pages absentmindedly. "Still it..." She slowly trailed off and her eyes grew wide. Without a word, she glanced at her wrist—and frowned.

"What's up?" Blaze asked.

Kayden shook her head, thumbing through a couple more pages. "This spell book hasn't been wiped blank. All the spells are still here."

"Are you serious?" Blaze asked. He took the book from her, but she was right. The pages were filled with incantations, ingredient lists, and rune diagrams, just as they should.

Is everything fixed? he wondered, looking down at his wrist. But the telltale symbol was still glowing as bright as ever, taunting him with its green cast.

After a moment of silently staring at the book and weighing it in each hand, he exhaled. "Well this is odd."

"Odd?" Kayden looked disappointed. "So you don't know what's going on?"

"Not a clue." He rifled through a few more pages. "I mean, it could be a couple of things. It's possible that everything is better now, but that doesn't explain why we're still marked. It's more likely that the Congregation just forgot to wipe this book because it's such a piece of crap."

Kayden groaned, banging her head on the seat in front of her. "I'm getting sick of all this. When will we know what's going on?"

"We're on a plane 35,000 feet in the air. Maybe once we're back on land?"

Kayden's eyes narrowed. "Do you not care about this?"

Blaze looked at her in disbelief. "Are you being serious right now?"

"What? You just act like this isn't a big deal." She gestured at the window. "We're on a plane heading across the country, my mom thinks I'm at my dad's, Lexi just happened to run into us in New York, and I can't even get away from all of this because I'm magically bound to you—"

"This isn't all about you," Blaze interrupted. "I'm stuck in this too. Or do you think you're the only one going through this? I'm just trying to make the best of this by staying calm. You should try to do the same."

"Calm?" she repeated, eyebrows raised. "Really? You want me to be calm? Fine. I can be calm." And with that Kayden turned to face the window, her eyes locking onto the dull metallic airplane wings.

Blaze groaned and tossed the spell book back into his bag on the floor. He tried to focus on his magazine but the print swam before his eyes. He glanced over at Kayden. She was still dressed in her clothes from the day before—a thin white camisole and cotton pajama shorts—with his old Italian loafers on her feet. The jacket he had leant her was missing; he assumed it was hiding somewhere in his messenger bag.

He reached up and adjusted the air conditioning nozzle until the airflow was minimal. Kayden turned to look at him from over her shoulder.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"It's cold. I'm surprised you're not freezing."

She shrugged. "I was a little cold. But I wasn't going to say anything after you told me to be calm."

Blaze groaned. "Look I'm—"

"I'm sorry."

Blaze blinked. "What did you say?"

She glared at him. "Don't make me repeat it." She rubbed her eye. "I shouldn't have flipped out on you like that. I'm just not used to all of this stuff. And lying to my mom... puts me on edge."

"It's fine," Blaze said. "I'm sorry for putting you through all of this."

"There's no point in apologizing for that. What's done is done." She sat up and Blaze noticed that her forehead was red from where she had leaned against the window. "You're right. All we can do is wait until we land." She shook her head. "God, I hate airplanes."

Blaze laughed. "Really? From all the complaining, I had no idea."

"Oh shut up." But her mouth cracked a smile.

Blaze didn't know why, but he suddenly felt the urge to gesture toward the TV screens in front of them. "Want to watch a movie?"

This seemed to catch Kayden off-guard. She looked at him quizzically, but finally asked, "Which one?"

"It depends on what's available... as long as it's not the one they're watching behind us. From what I can overhear, it sounds terrible."

"But you need to watch a terrible movie if you want to make out."

"They're not really making out," Blaze corrected, but Kayden brushed his words away with a wave. He sighed and started flicking through the movies.

"I have a movie requirement," Kayden said suddenly.

Blaze looked at her. "Please don't make me watch a chick flick."

She rolled her eyes. "That's not it."

"Then what is it?"

"Can we watch a movie that has no magic in it whatsoever?" She held up her hand and began counting on her fingers. "No wizards, no vampires, no werewolves, no zombies—"

"Oh please. Every wizard, vampire and werewolf knows that there's no such thing as zombies."

She glared at him. "Just a regular, normal movie."

Blaze stared at her. She looked so serious; it made him miss her smile from earlier. But he nodded. "For once, I totally agree with you. Regular, normal movie it is."