Chapter 21 #2
Jess put a hand on my knee, squeezing once.
I looked down and realized I’d been bouncing my leg hard enough to make the tray table rattle.
Across the aisle, Wrecker yawned, stretching his arms over his head, then leaned in and muttered something to Parker.
She rolled her eyes, but the tension in her jaw said everything.
Up front, Doc was already on his feet, sliding files back into his briefcase, while Papa ran a palm over his beard and cracked his neck.
I counted the seconds until the seatbelt sign blinked off.
Gwen was the first up, zipping her jacket over a crisp white blouse.
She checked her watch, then reached into her bag and pulled out a small glass vial—something pale green and thick, like melted Jell-O.
She uncorked it, dabbed a drop onto each wrist, then massaged it into her skin with quick, practiced circles.
Her lips moved as she did it, but I couldn’t catch the words.
Not a prayer, exactly. More like a password.
We filed down the aisle, bags slung over our shoulders.
Jess walked ahead, flanked by Papa and Wrecker, all three moving with a confidence that might have fooled anyone who didn’t know what they were up against. Parker trailed behind, hands jammed in her hoodie pocket, head down but eyes flickering everywhere.
I stuck close to Gwen, who barely came up to my chin, but had the presence of a full-grown wolf.
We hit the bottom of the stairs, and the cold smacked me in the teeth.
Paris in spring: I’d imagined some faded movie postcard, but in reality it felt like the kind of wind that cuts straight through clothes and into bone.
I pulled my jacket tighter, grateful I’d thought to pack it on top when I’d changed clothes when we’d gathered our bags.
Black leggings, black turtleneck, the boots Jess bought for me at the Dairyville feed store—nothing fancy, but enough to make me look like I belonged in the city.
Or at least, like I hadn’t just crawled out of a bunker.
FBO handlers in matching gray jackets rolled up with luggage carts.
I watched as they loaded the gear, handling each case with a reverence that bordered on the religious.
Gwen hovered over them, her hands folded, lips moving faster now.
When one of the handlers reached for the heavy weapons case—the one that held enough firepower to flatten a city block—she caught his wrist, fingers barely grazing the latch.
“Allow me,” she said, her accent as smooth as honey but with a hard edge behind it.
The man stepped back, eyes glassy. She pressed her palm to the case, and for a split second, I felt the world stutter.
The air thickened; the rain slowed. Everything in the periphery blurred, like a camera lens knocked out of focus.
I blinked, and when my vision cleared, the handlers were loading what looked like ordinary hard-shell suitcases.
The weapons case had vanished, replaced by a battered Samsonite plastered with airline stickers.
I looked at Jess. “Did you—”
He nodded. “That’s the veil. Only works on humans and shifters allowed to see it. To us, it looks normal. To them, it’s just luggage.”
I stared at the handlers, who went about their work, oblivious to the fact that they were pushing enough armament to start a coup. My skin prickled.
“Does it work on cameras?” I asked.
Parker answered a few steps behind. “If the witch is good, yeah. Even the digital stuff shows what she wants it to show. But it’s not perfect. Stronger magic can break it, and so can the right tech.”
“So we’re not actually invisible.”
Wrecker snorted. “We never are. Best you can hope for is to be overlooked.”
A line of customs officers appeared, waving us toward the VIP entrance.
The lead officer wore a sleek gray suit, his badge gleaming under the fluorescent overhang.
He scanned our group with the disinterest of someone used to high-rollers and celebrities.
Still, my pulse jumped when he locked eyes with Jess, then with Gwen.
“Bienvenue à Paris,” he said. “Your paperwork, please.”
Gwen stepped forward, produced a sheaf of documents, and handed them over. The officer leafed through, pausing to inspect a pair of blue passports, then the stack of letters on Iron Valor letterhead. He lingered on the weapons permits for a beat too long, then looked up.
“Business or pleasure?” he asked in English this time.
“Business,” Jess answered. “We’re here on a private security contract. Clients are already at the hotel.”
The officer grunted, then glanced at Gwen. She flashed a dazzling smile. “My employer is very serious about safety,” she said. “Especially for his American guests.”
He handed back the papers. “You’ll find Paris to be very… interesting these days. I recommend you avoid the Champs-élysées after dark.”
Jess smiled, a wolf baring its teeth. “We’ll keep that in mind.”
The officer waved us through. We moved as a single unit, the way packs do when the world feels hostile. The luggage carts were waiting, each loaded with duffel bags and cases, the witch’s charm holding strong. Jess grabbed the largest and motioned for me to follow.
The SUVs sat idling on the far side of the lot. Three of them, all black, all identical. The drivers wore gloves, faces obscured by the gloom. Jess opened the rear door, then turned to me. “Stay close,” he said. “This is the hard part.”
Inside, the seats were cold leather, and the air smelled of air freshener. Gwen slid in up front, beside the driver. Jess and I took the middle row, with Wrecker, Parker, and Papa crammed in the back. Doc took the shotgun seat in the second vehicle, barking instructions into his phone.
For a minute, no one spoke. The city flashed by outside: streetlights, skeletal trees, a tangle of overpasses painted with graffiti. I saw a kid on a bike, weaving through traffic, and wondered if he had any idea what was rolling past him in the night.
Gwen turned in her seat, looking at me. “You okay?”
I nodded, but she frowned. “You need to breathe. Hyperventilating makes you useless.”
I sucked in a lungful of air, held it, then let it out slow. It helped a little.
The convoy pulled to a stop at the edge of the customs lot. Another set of agents waited, one of them carrying a clipboard. He made a show of counting the cases, then frowned.
“There is an error,” he said, flipping the page. “This crate is not on the manifest.”
He pointed to the big black Samsonite—our magic weapons case. My heart skipped.
“It’s just audio-visual equipment,” Gwen said, voice bored. “For a meeting. The client asked us to bring it last minute.”
The agent considered, then reached for the latch. For a second, my whole body went cold. If he opened it and saw what was inside…
Gwen’s hand moved so fast I barely saw it. She tapped her wrist, just once. The agent blinked, stepped back, and looked at his clipboard again.
“Ah,” he said. “There is a correction. You may proceed.”
Jess exhaled, the tension draining from his shoulders. I glanced at him, and for the first time, I saw real fear in his eyes. Not for himself, but for all of us.
We rolled past the checkpoint, then out into the wet Paris night. The cars merged with the traffic, headlights painting the world in strobes.
Only when we were a mile from the airport did anyone speak.
“That was too close,” Wrecker muttered.
Parker shivered. “Witches. Fucking terrifying.”
Gwen smiled, catching my eye in the rearview. “Magic is just a trick. You get used to it.”
I watched the city flicker past, each building a blur, every street a maze. Even with all the power in this car, I’d never felt smaller.
The rain kept falling, soft and relentless. I wondered how many eyes were already on us, how many traps had been set.
In that moment, I realized: the only thing scarier than being seen was being truly invisible. Because then, nobody would ever come looking for you.
And in this city, that was the easiest way to disappear.
We followed the lead car through the periphery of Paris, headlights cutting ribbons through the rain, every intersection marked by the flicker of yellow streetlamps and the sudden, glimmering eyes of city cats perched on stoops.
The soundproof glass made the world feel far away—a silent movie, all glow and shadow and the streaks of water that mapped every curve in the street.
Gwen’s outline glowed blue whenever we crossed beneath a streetlight.
She’d anchored something magical to the dashboard, a tiny rune-scarred stone wedged behind the coin holder.
Every time we slowed at a checkpoint or roundabout, her fingers brushed it, lips moving in a silent chant, keeping the veil around our convoy tight.
Nobody looked twice, even when we double-parked on the Rue de Rivoli and a city cop walked right past our bumper.
Maybe it was the magic, or maybe it was Paris being Paris—indifferent, eternal, and tired of its own drama.
The city was more beautiful than I’d expected.
Not the cold, touristic grandeur of the postcards, but an intimacy: the way the rain pooled gold beneath the lamps, the way bakery lights burned behind fogged windows, the way each building wore its centuries like a comfortable old coat.
Even the people looked better here—every umbrella a fashion statement, every sidewalk argument a scene from a movie I could never quite translate.
I watched the world slide by and wondered if, in another life, I might have lived here. Danced here.
I thought of Aspen suddenly. “Papa, you need to bring Aspen here when this madness is over. If anyone would love this place, it would be her.”