There is a rhythm to a train that you just don’t get with flying.

Click-clack. Click-clack.

It’s a heartbeat. Iron and timber and gravel singing a song of progress. I love it. Humans, for all their messy, short-lived, chaotic little lives, really nailed it with the train. It’s civilized. It’s tangible.

Flying? Dreadful business. And I’m not just talking about the cramped seats in basic economy or the recycled air that smells of stale pretzels and desperation. I’m talking about the other kind of flying. The kind the storybooks get half-right and half-wrong. Yes, if I really wanted to, I could grab a broom. We actually did that, you know. It wasn’t just a myth. But have you ever straddled a piece of rough-hewn ash wood at three thousand feet in freezing temperatures? It’s miserable. The chafing alone takes a week of healing salves to correct. No, thank you. I prefer a window seat, a glass of Pinot Noir that costs more than the conductor’s annual salary, and the world scrolling by like a tapestry I didn’t have to weave.

I caught my reflection in the darkened window as we rattled through the twilight of the American Midwest. I looked good. Current iteration: early twenties, that sweet spot where the metabolism is a furnace and the knees don't pop. I went with red hair this time—a deep, vibrant copper that falls to my waist. It pairs well with the "innocent university student" vibe I’m curating.

I was wearing an oversized grey hoodie from a college I never attended (and probably founded under a shell corporation in 1892), black leggings, and chunky headphones around my neck. No leather catsuits, no flowing black robes, no femme fatale nonsense. You dress like a villain, you attract heroes. You dress like a girl who’s stressing about a Sociology mid-term, and you become invisible.

Invisibility is the key to a long life. And mine has been very, very long.

A thousand years? Give or take. I stopped counting around the time the plague rats stopped being a daily concern and started being a historical footnote. I’ve been around long enough to know that "power" isn't shooting lightning from your fingertips in the town square. That’s how you get burned, or in modern times, dissected by a government black-site team in Nevada.

Real power is sitting in a quiet train car, sipping wine, knowing that you own the rail line, the land it sits on, and the debt of the senator representing the district we’re passing through.

People always ask—well, they would ask, if I ever told anyone what I was—how I get the money. They assume I conjure it.

Poof, a stack of gold bars.

Amateur hour.

Conjured gold has a magical isotope signature that screams "fraud" to anyone with a mystical sensory array, and worse, it weighs down your purse. No, I did it the human way. I understood compound interest before the Medicis figured out how to balance a ledger. I bought land in London when it was just mud and angry Saxons. I invested heavily in the Dutch East India Company, sold right before the bubble burst, and put it all into steel in Pennsylvania.

I have revenue streams flowing under three dozen aliases. Shell companies owned by trusts, owned by offshore accounts, owned by a nice old lady named "Mildred" who has been dead since 1954 but still signs checks with a very shaky hand. I am, comfortably, the wealthiest woman in the world. Elon and Jeff act like they won the game; I’m the one who owns the board they’re playing on. But I don't hoard it like a dragon. What’s the point of having it if you don’t spend it? I fund art, I buy islands, I tip waitresses ten thousand dollars just to see the look on their faces.

It’s passive income. The best kind of magic.

Speaking of magic, we were hitting a boring stretch of Nebraska. Just corn and flat earth. I felt the ley lines humming beneath the tracks—ancient, sleepy energy. With a thought, just a gentle push of will, I grabbed the concept of "distance" and stretched it like taffy.

The train sped up, but the journey got longer. Physics is a suggestion when you’re me. I wanted another few hours. I wanted to watch the show.

Because while trains are my favorite human invention, changing humans is my favorite pastime.

I shifted in my seat, curling my legs up, and looked two rows ahead.

There was a man there. "Man" is being generous. He was a loud, boisterous creature in a cheap suit that was straining at the buttons. He’d spent the last two hours barking into his phone about "closing the deal" and "crushing the opposition," completely oblivious to the fact that everyone hated him. He was rude to the porter, he manspread so wide he was encroaching on the aisle, and he smelled of cheap musk and arrogance.

But that wasn’t the sin that caught my eye.

Across the aisle from him sat a young woman. Mid-twenties, shy, wearing a cardigan that had seen better days. She was reading a paperback with a crumbling spine—something sapphic and sweet, judging by the cover art. She had been glancing at him with annoyance, which shifted to fear when he started making lewd comments at her every time he hung up the phone.

"Smile, sweetheart," he’d sneered earlier. "You'd be prettier if you smiled."

Oh, the cardinal sin.

I took a sip of my wine. The Council—those stuffy old crows who think they run the magical world—hate when I interfere. "We must remain hidden," they bleat. "The Veil must be maintained!"

Please. I am the Veil.

Do you remember MySpace? Of course you do, vaguely. Do you know why it really went away? It wasn't bad coding. It was a Coven in Portland that got drunk on Beltane and started embedding hexes into their HTML profile codes to make people fall in love with them. It was getting out of hand. People were bleeding from the eyes when they heard a certain Fall Out Boy song.

I had to step in. I wiped the collective memory of the incident, nudged a college kid named Zuckerberg to steal an idea, and poof. Crisis averted. If nobody remembers the blood-magic glitter text, did it really happen? I do a lot of that. Cleaning up the messes of lesser witches who think power is a toy. I’m the Inquisitor who never knocks. I’m the reason we haven’t been hunted to extinction. I’m the Witch John Wick, only with better hair and a lower body count.

But tonight? Tonight isn't work. Tonight is pleasure.

I focused on the loud man. Let’s call him Brad. He looked like a Brad.

I didn't wave a wand. I didn't chant Latin. I just reached out with my mind, found the tangled knot of his DNA, and pulled a specific thread.

Change.

It’s more fun when it’s slow. I can do it instantly—snap, and he’s a toad, or a newt, or a puddle of organic sludge. But where’s the artistry in that? Where’s the savoring?

I prefer the slow burn. The creeping realization.

Brad was currently scratching his chest. He didn't know it yet, but his testosterone production had just hit a brick wall, and his estrogen levels were skyrocketing to levels that would make a teenage girl moody.

I watched, my eyes narrowing with delight. This was the best part.

It started with the skin. The rough, ruddy complexion he had from too much whiskey and yelling was softening. The pores were shrinking. A subtle glow began to radiate from beneath the surface. He rubbed his jaw, frowning. The five o'clock shadow that had been there twenty minutes ago was receding, the follicles giving up the ghost, retreating back into the dermis. He wouldn't need to shave tomorrow. Or ever again.

He shifted in his seat, uncomfortably. I suppressed a giggle.

He was feeling it now. The shrinkage.

This is a particular favorite of mine. Watching the arrogance of a man literally retract. He crossed his legs, a protective instinct kicking in, but it was too late. The biological imperative was rewriting him. The bulge in his trousers was diminishing, the heat fading, the aggressive masculine drive dissolving into something... softer.

I sipped my wine. He looked at his reflection in the darkened window, confused. His jawline, once square and jutting, was shaving itself down, millimeter by millimeter. The bone was reshaping, rounding out. His lips were plumping, turning a natural, rosy shade of pink.

He tried to speak, to bark another order into his phone, but his voice cracked. It didn't boom anymore. It pitched up, lighter, breathier.

"Hello?" he whispered, sounding terrified.

The girl across the aisle, the shy reader, looked up. She didn't see a threat anymore. She saw someone... distressed.

I leaned my head back against the seat, feeling the train vibrate. This is why I travel. To play matchmaker.

The girl reading the book... I could see her aura. It was a soft lavender, lonely and longing. she wanted someone gentle. Someone petite. Someone intelligent and maybe a little nerdy. A "bespectacled dreamgirl," as the modern parlance goes.

Well, Brad was about to become exactly that.

I twisted the magic harder, sculpting him like wet clay.

Brad’s shoulders slumped—literally. The broad bone structure was collapsing inward, narrowing. His jacket, once tight, now hung off him like a tent. He—she, soon—shivered. The mass he was losing in his shoulders was migrating.

I watched with a predator’s grin as his chest began to swell. It’s a painful process if you don’t numb it, but I’m not a monster (usually). I gave him a little endorphin rush to mask the ache. He gasped, hands flying to his chest. The white dress shirt pulled tight against the new, budding mounds. A B-cup. No, let’s go for a C. The shy girl likes curves.

Brad’s hair was growing now. The receding hairline surged forward, thick and lustrous. Not the wiry hair of a man, but soft, silky waves. I decided to make him a brunette. A rich, chocolate brown to contrast with the shy girl’s blonde bob. The hair cascaded down, hitting his shoulders, then his shoulder blades.

He let out a whimper, a distinctly feminine sound. He was shrinking in height, too. The long legs were shortening, the feet becoming dainty inside those oversized dress shoes. He kicked the shoes off, revealing feet that were arching, becoming elegant.

I amplified the sensation for him. I wanted him to feel every inch of the loss. The emptiness between the legs where his "power" used to be, replaced by the sensitive, complex geography of a woman. I could feel his internal panic, the "phantom limb" syndrome kicking in, followed by a rush of overwhelming sensitivity.

He... she... was hyper-aware of the fabric of her trousers rubbing against her new anatomy. It was too much. It was ecstasy and terror wrapped in one.

Two rows ahead, the transformation was entering its final stages. The cheap suit was a ruin. Brad was gone. In his place sat a petite, flustered woman with oversized glasses (I manifested those, a nice touch) and a look of utter bewilderment. She looked down at her hands—slender, manicured, ringless.

She looked across the aisle.

The shy girl put her book down. "Are... are you okay, miss?"

The new girl blinked. Her memories were shuffling. I was doing a quick edit there, too. Brad the Bully was fading like a dream upon waking. Brenda the Bookseller was taking over.

"I..." Her voice was a melodic alto. "I feel... dizzy. I think my clothes are all wrong."

"Here," the shy girl said, standing up. She grabbed her own oversized scarf. "You look cold. Come sit with me?"

I watched as the former homophobe, now a trembling, doe-eyed brunette, shuffled across the aisle and practically collapsed into the shy girl’s safe space. The chemistry was instantaneous. The shy girl blushed. Brenda blushed.

Checkmate.

"Never gets old," I whispered to the empty seat beside me.

I watched them for another hour. The way Brenda leaned into the touch, the way the shy girl became the protector. It was adorable. I adore love. Truly.

My hand drifted to my chest, finding the silver locket hidden beneath my hoodie. The metal was warm against my skin. I didn't open it. I didn't need to. I knew the face inside by heart. It had been three hundred years, and the ache was still there, a dull, throbbing bruise on my soul.

I haven't had that kind of love since. The kind that burns you down and builds you back up.

But physical love? Oh, I’m not a nun. I’m a witch.

I looked away from the budding romance and scanned the rest of the car.

My eyes landed on a young man in the back. A waiter in the dining car, on his break.

Handsome in a rugged, unpolished way. Good bone structure. Nice hands. But he walked with a swagger I didn't care for. A bit too sure of himself.

I felt a familiar heat coil in my belly.

It’s not just about matchmaking for others. Sometimes, I need a plaything.

I’ve turned many a man into not the girl of my dreams, but the girl I want between my thighs. The girl I want to make scream. There’s a specific artistry to it. Taking a man who thinks he knows what pleasure is, and rewriting his nervous system so he realizes he knew nothing.

I remembered a jagged little rock star from the 80s. Cocky little thing. He was a mechanic when I found him. Grease under his fingernails, attitude for days. I spent three days in a hotel room in Berlin changing him. By the time I was done, she was the most stunning creature to ever hold a microphone. I taught her everything. I made her see stars, literally and figuratively.

When I was done with her—when I had exhausted every ounce of fun, when I had made her scream until she lost her voice—I left her with a career and a face that would launch a thousand magazine covers. You’d know her name. She won a Grammy last year.

I looked back at the waiter.

He caught my eye and winked. Winked.

Oh, honey. You have no idea.

I stood up, stretching my limbs. The train rattled on, the night deep and dark outside. The conductor walked by, tipping his hat. He didn't know I owned the railroad. He didn't know the brunette in row 4 used to be a 200-pound man named Brad.

I walked toward the back of the train, swaying with the motion of the cars. As I passed the waiter, I brushed my hand against his shoulder. Just a tap.

A spark of violet energy jumped from my finger to his cheap polyester uniform.

"Hey," he said, turning around. "Can I get you something?"

I stopped and smiled. It was a smile that had toppled empires. "Actually," I purred, "I was thinking you looked a little... tense. Maybe you need to let your hair down. Grow it out a bit."

He looked confused. Then, his eyes widened. He felt the itch on his scalp. He felt the sudden, terrifying shrinking of his trousers.

"Why don't you come to my cabin?" I whispered, leaning in close. "We have a long night ahead of us. And you have so much... changing to do."

I turned and walked away, knowing he would follow. They always follow. The pull of the magic, the pheromones, the sheer curiosity of the transformation beginning to rewrite their reality.

I am the richest woman in the world. I am a witch older than the language I am speaking. I could crush this train into a cube of steel with a thought.

But where is the fun in that?

No, tonight I’ll create a masterpiece. I’ll sculpt a new lover from the clay of a bored waiter. I’ll make her beautiful, and I’ll make her mine for the duration of the trip. And when we arrive in San Francisco? Maybe I’ll leave her as she is, give her a trust fund, and set her loose on the world. Or maybe I’ll change her back and leave him with a memory of a weekend he can never explain, a phantom sensation of curves he no longer possesses.

I touched the door handle of my private cabin.

War is boring. Ruling is tedious.

But this? This is fun.