Chapter 15: Felix

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Apparently, Adam has never flown before. I've only been on a plane twice before myself but I'm an old hand compared to Adam.

He's freaking out about pretty much everything in first class, from how much space there is to the complementary blankets and pillows at our seats.
 "Coach has blankets and pillows too," I tell him, but he hardly seems to register anything I say.
 It is pretty nice on this plane. It's a big one, and because the seats are only two to an aisle in first class, they're huge. Plenty of space to sleep comfortably, which is what I plan on trying to do the minute we take off. It's four right now in California, but one in the morning in France, and I want to try to adjust to the time difference as soon as possible during the seventeen hour flight.
 I try to tell this to Adam, but he's currently losing his mind over the headphones that have been provided for him. I just focus on stuffing our bags into the overhead compartment and waiting for take off, which I know is still probably forty minutes away.
 Adam has the window seat, since he's never been in a plane before and all—see, I can be nice—but I keep glancing over at it. There's no reason to think that anybody but Eleanor even knows we're gone yet, but I can't help but imagine one of the flight attendants coming over with an air marshal to tell us that we need to leave the plane immediately, and find Ms. Cross, or worse, someone sent by the Council, waiting for us on the tarmac.
 The waiting and wondering is hard, but finally everyone is boarded and the TV screens in front of us turn on automatically to begin playing the announcement about rules and emergency exits.
 When the plane starts to rumble Adam immediately has his nose pressed up against the window. I don't have the heart to tell him it'll be another ten minutes before we actually start moving.
 When we finally do though, I can see his excitement in the set of his shoulders, even though I can't see his face. I try to get comfortable in my seat, watching him out of the corner of my eye as I scroll through the movie options on the TV.
 We finally take off, and he watches the ground disappearing below us until an announcement comes over the intercom to lower the window screens, which he does reluctantly.
 "Are we going to be served meals? When does that happen?" he asks, looking around.
 I roll my eyes. "In a couple of hours, probably. And don't get too excited, airplane food is a cliche stand-up joke for a reason. Just watch a movie or something for now, and then try to sleep, or you'll end up with jet lag."
I sleep fitfully for a few hours, waking up for good around seven in the morning according to France's time. Adam has been alternating between watching movies and staring out the window for almost that entire time, and only then does exhaustion overtake him and he falls asleep himself. He's going to be a wreck when we land, and I don't have any plans to baby him as he adjusts the hard way to the time difference.
 Finally, more than seventeen hours after take off, the plane comes in for landing in Rennes, France. I turn my phone back on and text Eleanor to let her know we've landed. It's six in the evening here in France, which means it should be about nine in the morning back home. I figure she'll respond soon and probably start blowing up my phone, so I turn it on silent for now so I can focus until we get to the hotel.
 I let Adam sleep, which he somehow does through all the commotion and turbulence, until the last possible moment while I get our bags down from the overhead compartment. It's not until other first class passengers are starting to shuffle down the walkway to exit the plane that I shake him awake.
 "Wha?" he says blearily, sitting up and blinking stupidly. The left side of his face is red and has the imprint of the edge of his seat pressed into it, from the way he was sleeping.
 "We're here," I reply, throwing his duffel bag at him. He catches it, but only barely.
I made him perform some minor spells in the airport in California before we left to burn off as much excess magic as possible, not really thrilled about the idea of being trapped in a metal tube hurtling 35,000 feet above the earth with him and his unpredictable magic, but it's been almost twenty hours since then and he's running hot again.

I can see the thin sheen of sweat on his brow, and standing so close together, I can feel the unnatural heat rolling off his skin. I wonder briefly if he ever casts spells on accident in his sleep, in reaction to his dreams.

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