Inheritor Of Magic: The Magi King

While most of the town was checking out or getting settled into new apartments, Ella took the chance to collect her Guardian and slip out of the town gates, then fly to the forest's edge where they had the smallest of their planes stored.

She had been putting off returning to the city until they had less to do at home, but now it was time.

Arriving in the dark would be more complicated than finding the Academy in the daytime, but as a Rank Three witch, she did have some advantages. She knew the feeling of the forest around the Academy, and she had flown there before. So, she could follow the compass and the feeling of familiarity back to the compound and get the plane landed and tucked away before anyone saw her coming.

Arriving during the day would risk alerting others that she was coming, and since she wasn't just going back to the Academy, but sneaking into the city, it was better for it to be a surprise visit.

She could leave the plane at one of the villages in the forest, but there was a good chance that Headmistress Peach, or even one of the Professors would help smuggle her into the city, where the villagers couldn't.

After a short flight on her trusty staff, which she rarely actually carried with her, Ella met up with the night guard from the visitor station, a young witch with sleep in her eyes and a Pixie for a Familiar.

"Sorry to wake you up. I'm going to take the plane out tonight on a mission. You can go back to bed." She whispered.

"Actually, I'm just getting up. I took an afternoon nap so that I would be up for most of the evening, and then the Familiars will guard for the last bit of the night before sunrise, when we will both be awake again." She explained.

"Alright, I will see you soon." Ella informed her, then used a gust of wind magic to lift the cover off the small pontoon plane and activated the gravity inscriptions that were imbued into it to move it to the river.

She buckled herself into the seat and waved to the shore before pushing the throttles forward and beginning her run down the river. She was just lifting off the water when she saw Little Reaper appear in the passenger seat, seeming to form himself out of the shadows to watch their trip.

"So, you wanted to see what it was like to fly in a plane, did you?" Ella asked her ethereal Familiar.

The ghostly undead nodded happily, and stared out the window at the ground racing by underneath them.

It was still not quite sunset, but by the time that they were in the Morgana Coven territory, it should be fully dark, though with a half moon and clear skies they should be able to see a little bit.

The plane hummed along high above the Frozen Wastes, flying close to their maximum altitude to reduce the chance that anything on the ground would hear them.

Every so often, Reaper would find a monster above Rank One on the ground, and he would disappear from the plane for a few seconds, then come back with a happy glow in his hooded visage.

"Are you having fun?" Ella laughed as Reaper returned after eliminating a Rank Two rattlesnake monster.

The undead creature gave her two thumbs up with his skeletal hands, then returned to happily staring out the window.

Reaper had advanced to a Rank Three undead when Ella had advanced, but he still couldn't or chose not to speak. She suspected that it went against his sense of propriety to make noise when he was a born assassin, so she didn't push him to speak, and just let him answer how he wanted.

It was good to see him out and being active, though. He seemed depressed in the Fae Forest, and spent most of his time sleeping in her shadow. There was nothing to hunt there, no real threats, and no human criminals to catch that were worthy of his attention now that Wolfe had cast the [Kind Intentions] spell over the whole area.

The sky turned completely dark for a half hour before the moon rose above the horizon, giving them a bit more light to work with just before the Academy came into sight.

From the air, it was easy to spot the grounds, with the lights along the outer wall, and so many of the windows shining bright into the night.

[Morgana Academy, this is Forest Grove patrol, requesting entry to the back lawn.] She broadcast on the lowest power setting of her radio, so the signal didn't carry to the city.

[Approved, Forest Grove Patrol. The Headmistress will meet you on the back lawn.]

Cassie slowed the plane as she came close to the wall, and stopped the Propeller to use the Gravity and Air Magic spells imbued on the plane instead, letting the plane glide the last few kilometres to their destination in silence.

They weren't trying to wake up the whole Academy with their arrival, they had studying to do, and she was going to be gone in the morning.

As the radio operator suggested, Peach was out on the lawn to meet them when Ella glided into the compound and set the plane down at the back of the training fields, out of the way of the day-to-day activities of the school.

"Welcome back, Ella. It's good to see you again. I take that there is a good reason for your presence here. We all heard the message from the overseas army, but we haven't gotten much reliable information since then. It seems that long-range radio communications have been blocked. We can't even get a hold of you in the forest, though we could have a few weeks ago." Peach greeted her.

"We should likely have a seat for this. Quite a few important events have happened in the last week." Ella sighed as she got down from the plane, with Reaper disappearing into her shadow again.

Maybe he was just shy.