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Chapter Text

1st of June 2018
1st of Rapada 1000

The quiet calmness of the forest around Gravesfield, Connecticut was a stark contrast from New York City, and something that always made her smile with joy. 

Luz took in a deep breath, savoring the clean air and the sounds of the forest before taking her sling ring off and making her way towards her Mama's house. It was a short walk, but she always loved it as it helped her adjust from the fast pace of the Sanctum and New York to the slow steadiness of Gravesfield. 

She held her bag to her chest, the odd shape of all the books in there comforting as they pressed against her chest. Unfortunately, she wasn’t paying attention to her surroundings and tripped on a tree root, sending her and her backpack stumbling to the ground. By the time she got up she watched a little owl-like creature hop up to her bag, grab the strap, and begin hopping/flying away! 

She sprinted after the little owl-like creature as it dragged her bag behind her, towards one of the many broken down shacks that dotted the edge of Gravesfield. She watched the owl hop through the front door and become bathed in a bright white light before disappearing from her field of view. 

She stopped at the stairs leading up to the shack unable to see past whatever was making the light. She thumbed the sling ring around her neck and debated calling her Maestro. Bright lights and weird animals were usually indicative of something magical going on.

On the other hand, getting help would take time and would draw attention to the fact that she had taken some books that she probably shouldn’t have out of the sanctum. 

She flexed her wrist, fiery sparks and golden light coming together to form the intricate patterns of her Tao mandalas around her forearms and in front of her fists. “No time like the present,” she muttered to herself. 

With a deep breath, she stepped into the light,

And found herself in a massive purple tent filled with odd knick knacks and books. “What the-” she said as she spun in place, trying to take everything in. One part of her brain noted the odd door with a singular reptilian eye on it that was giving off the bright white light, while the rest of it was driven on by her curiosity. 

She walked towards the opening in the tent, seeing the silhouette of a tall woman. A red bandana bound a mane of off-white hair over her ears. Next to this woman was a wooden staff with a figurine that looked oddly similar to the little owl creature that had stolen her bag to begin with. 

She watched as the woman began shifting through her bag, pulling out her possessions and sorting them into piles. She shoved down her anger and nudged her mandalas from a shield spell to a retrieval spell. They wavered and flickered before settling. 

Carefully, she snuck out of the tent and released the spell and everything that she thought of as hers, which in this case was everything in that bag, flying into the bag and back towards her. 

The woman turned around and she caught sight of yellow eyes staring at her in surprise. She couldn’t help herself and gave a little wave and a smile to the startled woman before dashing back into the tent and heading towards the weird door. 

Unfortunately, she watched as the door closed and folded in on itself, the large reptilian eye bulging from the lid of the door turned briefcase and staring her down. 

No matter, she summoned the Winds of Watoomb to lift up some of the fabric and allow her to duck under and avoid the woman who was apparently chasing her. She heard her mutter what sounded like a curse in a language she didn’t know as she got herself unstuck from the tent. 

It gave Luz enough time to dart between some more tents and stalls, noting that it did not seem like she was on Earth anymore. The smell of rot and sulfur, like someone had left a bunch of meat and some eggs outside of a fridge, was really the first thing that gave it away. The other tells where in how the ground pushed back against her feet like she was running on a sponge, or how massive trees that looked unlike anything back on Earth were filled with brilliant red leaves. 

She saw people with multiple eyes or with horns or wings or tails and that wasn’t even including the beings she saw that looked nothing like a human. 

She came to a stop at the edge of a cliff, looking over what seemed to be an entire town nestled in between what looked like giant mountains of white rock. 

“Welcome to the Boiling Isles, kid.” The woman from earlier stood next to her, breathing deeply from the run. A part of her noted her accented English, as if she didn’t speak it often. Her Abuela had had a similar accent when she was a child. 

“I’m not on Earth anymore, am I?”

The other woman snorted, “Not by a long shot.” She placed a hand on her shoulder and steered her back the way she came. “I’ll get you some water and then we can figure out how to get you back to your realm. Humans don’t belong on the Boiling Isles.”

An hour later Luz sat on a small stool, watching the owl thief from earlier - Owlbert - hop around on the table as the woman - who had introduced herself as Eda - sold a small tv to a four eyed humanoid with red skin. 

They began packing up and Luz watched as Eda twirled her finger, a golden light trailing behind her equally golden nails.

The big purple tent seemed to lock itself down and everything out in front of it shrunk down and folded up into a green sack. “Come on kid, we’re gonna head back to my house to drop this off and then I’ll take you back to the Human Realm.”

Eda stopped suddenly and looked at her peculiarly. “You do have somewhere to go right kid?” 

Luz nodded. “I’ve got my Mama and my Maestro that I stay with.”

“Good,” Eda said, tying the green sack to the end of her staff. “Now hop on and hold on tight.” Luz did as she said and muffled a scream as Eda took off at what felt like a hundred miles an hour. She buried her head into Eda’s back as the woman talked but she couldn’t hear anything on account of the wind rushing past her ears. 

After what felt like an hour of traveling, although it was likely a lot shorter, Eda landed on the ground and Luz tumbled off. She clutched her stomach as she dry heaved, working desperately to keep her meal down from earlier. 

“You good, kid? I guess I didn’t realize that you wouldn’t be used to flying on a staff. Sorry about that.”

Luz was about to answer when a horrible grating voice spoke up from near her. “Hoot! Who’s this, Eda? A new friend? Hoot Hoot!” She jumped back on instinct, two small Shields of Seraphim covering her hands as she looked at the giant undulating bird-tube-worm thing. 

This time she wasn’t able to keep her lunch down. 

“Hooty go on look out, I’ve got to get Luz back to her realm, and I don’t need any distractions.”

That grating voice filled the air again. “Eye-Eye Eda! Hooty reporting for duty.” She watched as the thing's body undulated around the house like a living periscope. 

Eda crouched down next to her and put a hand on her shoulders. Luz could feel the other woman’s (honest to god) claws through her shirt. A part of her was in awe with all the peculiarities of this dimension. “Sorry about Hooty, he can be a little disorientating if you’re not used to him.”

Luz nodded as she sat up. “That was some good reflexes though kid, are you a sorcerer?”

“Yea,” Luz said, nodding. She followed Eda towards the giant house. It looked a little misshapen like multiple people had designed it without any sort of cohesion. The chipped gray paint on the house didn’t match the cold stone tower that seemed to grow from behind the place. The blue roof had a few shingles hanging down by some sort of gooey substance that she didn’t want to think about. 

Above the front door was a massive stained-glass window shaped like the eye on Eda’s door briefcase thing. She could’ve sworn that it blinked at her as she stared at it. “My maestro has been teaching me since I was little.”

Eda pushed open the heavy wooden door and walked in. “What's this ‘maestro’ thing kid? I only learned English from your realm.”

The inside of the room was even more chaotic than the exterior of the house suggested. Giant red curtains were secured in each corner of the room. Candles lined a shelf near the ceiling, which seemed to be decorated with glowing lines that looked vaguely reminiscent of constellations. Books and scrolls lined the walls and floors, and she could’ve sworn a few of them looked like they were in Sanskrit. 

In fact, the titles of the books she didn’t recognize also looked like Sanskrit. Curious. 

“Kid, welcome to the Owl House!” 

Luz walked throughout the living room, still taking in as much of the place as possible. It had that feeling of sentience that almost all magical buildings had, although that might’ve been because of the bird-worm-tube thing attached to the front door. 

A loud sound roused her from her thoughts, and she turned to see a furry little creature that was vaguely dog-like - if a dog walked on two legs and had a shiny white skull with one and a half horns - clutching Eda’s stomach. Her green sack-like bag containing everything from the stand was on the ground behind her. 

Eda looked down at the demon with a soft smile. “Hello King, I take it you missed me,” Eda spoke in Isket. Luz just watched the conversation not quite understanding what was being said but she thought the little guy's name was King.

The demon, nodded before sliding down Eda’s body and looking at her. She had to contain a squeal as she got a full look at the little guy.

He was just so freaking adorable! 

“Mom, who's this?” He said in English, his yellow and black eyes looking her up and down. She knew the moment he spotted her ears as he jumped back behind Eda’s legs. “A human?! Where did you find one of those? I thought you only collected their trash?”

Eda laughed as she bent down and picked up the little demon. “She's the one who came through my door. We only came here to drop off the stuff from the stand before I take her back.”

She watched Eda look out the window like the setting sun would solve whatever question she was debating with herself. “I’ll have to make dinner and get King off to bed before I can go out into the Human Realm. It might be better to just wait until tomorrow to get you back.” 

Eda looked back at her, the older woman's yellow eyes piercing her soul. 

“What do you say kid? I can set you up with a room to sleep in for the night if you’ve got a way to contact your family on the other side?” Luz chewed on her lip, thinking about what she could do. She wasn’t confident that she would be able to get enough cell reception in the Demon Realm to contact her Mama, so that was out.

That left astral projection, despite how difficult it was to cross dimensional boundaries as a spirit.

Luz nodded. “I’ll reach out to them later tonight after dinner?”

Eda nodded, “Sounds like a plan. Now come on you two, I’m going to need help with dinner.”

Luz spent much of the time peeling and dicing things that didn't look that dissimilar from foods from Earth. Potatoes with real eyes, leeks with teeth, stuff like that.  

Pretty soon the whole kitchen was filled with the aroma of cooking meat and simmering vegetables, reminding her of nights spent in the kitchen with her Mama as they cooked a bunch of food to take to the nearby homeless shelter.

King spent most of the time talking about his day while she sat on a stool near the mother and son and just watched them work in the kitchen. She used the time to mentally review the process for her astral projection later that night. It shouldn’t require much but she should do it wherever she was sleeping, that way she didn’t have to worry about moving afterwards. 

Dinner itself was a peaceful affair, despite her having to run off to the bathroom a few times after eating manticore meat. Despite it tasting like ground turkey it did not sit well in her stomach, and she spent the rest of the night eating only the potatoes and vegetables on her plate. 

She spent the time after dinner helping King clean up the kitchen while Eda cleaned out one of the spare rooms in the tower for her to use that night. The older woman apologized several times for not having a spare bed, but apparently there was a King approved chair in there that she was kind of curious to check out.

Luz sat on the floor of the little room that Eda had given her. It was small and a little drafty, but it was at the top of the tower attached to Eda’s house and gave her a great view of the surrounding area. Plus, there was a ladder leading up to the top of the tower. She hoped that she would be able to check it out tomorrow morning. 

The room was chock-full of random stuff that told Luz that Eda and King mainly used this area for storage rather than anything else. The ‘King Approved Chair’ turned out to be one of those huge nest-like chairs that was pretty much just a beanbag on legs. It was really soft though, so she didn’t mind.

The chair was already filled with some blankets and pillows that Eda had apparently brought up for her, along with a set of pajamas.  She quickly changed into the pajamas and realized it was clearly some of Eda’s old clothes, as the skirt pooled on the ground around her feet and the shirt felt more like a dress than anything. 

She settled into her bed for the night and closed her eyes. Astral projection was still something she struggled with from time to time, so she wanted to make sure she did everything right.

She focused on herself, the feel of the pajamas on her skin, how the skirt draped across her lap and formed a little depression in the middle. How the shirt was a little scratchy and especially itchy around her neck. She had to resist the sudden urge to scratch there. 

She focused on how the pillows and blankets felt beneath her, how she seemed to sink into their embrace almost like they wanted her to go to sleep. She resisted the urge and took another controlled breath. 

She channeled energy through her, feeling the warm smoky feeling she always got when she did magic envelop her. Instead of directing it towards her hands like she normally would if she was going to form a mandala, she pushed it along her entire body, guiding the smokey feeling from the tips of her fingers to the ends of her toes. 

When she opened her eyes, she saw the same ceiling directly above her. For a second, she thought she had messed up the process somehow before she noticed that she was hovering in the air instead of sitting on the chair. 

She twisted in the air and saw herself below her, enveloped by all the blankets and pillows Eda had put there. 

She grinned as she spun around, getting a feel for controlling her direction before she glided out of the room. She wanted to get a look at the Boiling Isles before she attempted to cross the dimensional barrier. 

She flew out of the tower; the cold stone passing through her and flew up as high as she dared go. Her concentration nearly slipped when she saw the land below her and she cursed herself for not focusing nearly as much on her Astral studies as she should have. 

The Owl House was right smack in the middle of a forest, and in fact Luz couldn’t see anything other than Bonesborough nearby. The city's lights sparkled off of the two bone white mountains it was nestled between.

There was a giant mountain behind the Owl House that towered above everything else. Something about it didn’t feel right to her though. It didn’t look like any mountain that she had seen. It was like two giant pillars of rock that were leaning up against each other like an upside-down V. It made her wonder about the geology of the Boiling Isles.

Despite all the peculiarities she had seen today, this moment right here gave her a sense of home. The mountains weren’t nearly as tall as the ones back on Earth, but it still reminded her of days spent studying at Kamar-Taj under the shadow of the Himalayas.

She shook her head to dispel the thought. Sightseeing time was over and now came the hard part. 

She closed her eyes and reached inwards grasping the sense of home, comfort, and family that was ingrained into her. As she did so, memories sprung to mind of the smell of their living room back home, the sound of rain striking the roof of their little house, of Gravesfield and New York, of ice cream shops and her dad’s homemade pizza, of busy days and quiet nights. 

There was a great wrenching in her gut, and she felt like she was being threaded through a very small hole before being spat out. She tumbled through the air, spectral arms flailing as she desperately righted herself. 

As soon as she was stable, she took a look around her surroundings and smiled at the familiar sights of Gravesfield below her. She quickly spotted her Mama’s house and floated towards it, ignoring the fire in her gut as she got further and further from her body. 

She floated through the house and was unsurprised to hear both Mama and Doctor Strange talking to each other. She had technically gone missing after all. What surprised her was a third child-like voice with them. 

She eventually found everyone in the living room and couldn’t tear her eyes off the long snake-like creature that was curled up around her Mama on the couch. 

She pulled energy into her hands and thrust them forward, breaking the barrier between the Astral Dimension and the dimension her family (and the snake creature) was in. 

The snake creature jumped and curled into her Mama’s side at her ghostly visage appearing out of nowhere. Her mom was more composed, but she could still tell that she had startled her. Doctor Strange on the other hand raised an eyebrow at her as if he had been expecting her sooner. 

Which was fair, she didn’t have to wait until after dinner. 

“Cariño! Where’d you go?! You had me worried sick!” Her Mama rambled off and Luz felt bad. She really should’ve done this before dinner. 

Doctor Strange raised a hand to calm her mother and turned back to her. “Miss Noceda, care to explain where you are?”

Luz gestured towards the snake creature curled into her Mama’s side. “Only if you tell me who that is.” She felt a little jealous at seeing someone else cuddling her mother like that if she was honest. 

Her maestro wasn’t impressed at her attempted misdirection and merely raised an eyebrow again. She hated it when he did that.

“I’m in some place called the Demon Realm, in a place called the Boiling Isles. As far as I can tell I’m the only human in this dimension and can’t spot anything that matches the definition of ‘demon’ that you taught me. I was walking back through the forest when I tripped and lost my bag. It was stolen by a construct maybe? I’m not too sure about that, actually I’ll have to ask Eda tomorrow. But anyway, I was chasing the thing trying to get my bag back and we ended up going into one of those abandoned shacks on the edge of town where I accidentally went through a portal and ended up in the Demon Realm.

After a little bit of confusion on my part, I met a woman named Eda, it was her portal I had gone through actually. She helped me settle in and she answered a few of my questions before taking me back to her house where I met her adopted son, and she made dinner for me! 

Oh, and the magic here is fascinating! I think it's Personal based but I’m not sure about that. Eda compressed an area of space roughly the same space as from the couch to that chair over there into a green sack that she could throw on her back.” Luz pointed from where her Mami and the snake creature were sitting towards one of the chairs next to Doctor Strange. She felt a personal satisfaction when even her teacher looked surprised at that feat. 

“She also has a ton of books and scrolls on magic and I kind of want to come back here at some point and read a few of them. I noticed what I thought was Sanskrit on some of the titles which was weird. Oh! And their language, Isket, when written looks remarkably similar to written Sanskrit so that’s something that I also want to look into.”

“Interesting,” Doctor Strange said. “I assume you’re safe for now?”

Luz nodded, “Unless I’ve read her horribly wrong, Eda won’t hurt me.” 

Her maestro nodded, seemingly deep in thought. “Okay I, Wong, and your Mother will visit the same location you went through the portal yesterday. Make sure Eda is aware that we are coming and has the portal open for us at 18:00 our time. You have a watch on you right?”

Luz nodded again. Doctor Strange stood up, brushing imaginary lint off of his robes. “Good, make sure to watch the time. Now I am going to contact Wong. I’ll give you some time to catch up with your mother.” With that he left the room and more significantly left her to face her Mama's ire. 

“Cariño! You gave me a heart attack when you didn’t come home! You can’t keep running off into whatever problems come up headfirst! This is Hong Kong all over again! You’re going to get yourself hurt! I have half a mind to pull you back to this dimension as soon as I find you and ground you for a year!”

Luz let her Mama’s words wash over her, an uncomfortable feeling twisting in her gut. She pushed that feeling to the side. “¡Pero Mama! ¡No puedes hacer eso!”

“I will do whatever I please in order to keep you safe! I can’t lose you too!” The admission made Luz stop and actually look at her Mama. 

From her red rimmed eyes and shaking hands it was clear that she had been crying for some time.

The last time she had seen her Mama like that was in Hong Kong, was in a sterile room. Her throat swelled as she swallowed the words she was going to say. 

“Lo siento Mama, I didn’t mean to scare you like that.”

Camila walked towards her and rested her hand on Luz’s cheek. Despite being in her astral form, she could feel the spot where her mother touched her fuzz up, as if her soul was trying to pull her body to her so she could actually hug her Mama. 

Luz leaned into the touch and closed her eyes, counting her breaths. When she felt a little better, she gestured towards the snake creature that was on the couch. It occurred to her that they had seen that entire argument between her and her Mama, and it made her feel even worse. 

“Are you going to introduce me,” Luz asked. The look her Mama sent her made it clear that they were not done talking about this, but she accepted the change in topic.

 Her Mama beckoned the creature over and said, “Come here Vee, I want to introduce you to my daughter.” They slithered off the couch until they came up to where Luz was floating through the air. Her form seemed to ripple for a second and Luz floated back in surprise as she suddenly found herself facing… well herself. 

It was like her reflection had come to life. 

“Shapeshifter,” Luz breathed. It was a very rare talent for a sorcerer to have and held by only a few people in Kamar-Taj. Even then they could only alter their looks, whereas it looked like this Vee had changed her entire form. 

“She’s from the Boiling Isles,” her Mama said. “She said she was wandering around the market and found a portal that she went through. I found her not long after trying to look like you, mija, but I caught on pretty quickly when she didn’t know Spanish.” Her mother looked her hard in the eyes and Luz got the feeling that she wasn’t being told the full story. 

“It’s not my place to speak about her past but she’ll be staying with me for the foreseeable future. Tu maestro is helping me file the correct paperwork to give her an identity here and likely adopt her.” 

Luz processed that for a second. She was going to have a sister! Luz squealed and momentarily forgot herself as she sped forward to try and give her doppelganger a hug. 

She instead passed through her body and could feel the shapeshifter shudder as she returned to her snake like form. That must’ve been the form she was born with then.

“I can’t believe I’m going to have a sister! Dios mio I can’t wait until I can actually hug you! I’m going to have so much fun introducing you to the Human Realm you’re going to love it there! Are you coming here tomorrow?”

The other girl? (She really did need to ask) tensed up. Camila placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder and the shapeshifter leaned into the support. The uneasy expression on her face gave away that she wasn’t used to someone giving her unconditional support.

“It’s up to you Vee if you want to go.”

She looked at Luz. “Would we be going anywhere near the Emperor’s coven?”

Luz shook her head, filing that piece of information away. A story was starting to build from the little clues she had gathered, and she did not like what it was telling her. 

“I’ll make sure we don’t go beyond the yard around the Owl House. We’ll be safe at all times.”

Vee took a shuddering breath. “Then I wouldn’t mind visiting again. Green plants just feel weird to me.”

Luz snorted. “That’s how I feel about all the red plants over here!” Her maestro chose that moment to walk back into the living room. Not for the first time she wondered how he timed everything so perfectly. 

“Alright Miss Noceda, a few things. We checked the list of known Near Earth Dimensions and your ‘Demon Realm’ is not there. Until we can figure out why that is so, you are to remain on your guard until Wong and I get there.”

Luz nodded. She flinched as the burning feeling that usually came from being too far apart from her body made itself known again. “I’m going to have to go soon, I’m using up a lot of energy doing this.”

She gave a spectral hug to both her mother and new sister and waved goodbye to her teacher before closing the breach in the Astral dimension and allowing her soul to fall back into her body.

She was out before she even processed the fact that she was back in The Owl House.

Chapter Text

2nd of June 2018
2nd of Rapada 1000

Luz plunged her breakfast dish into the sink where a gaping mouth lined with soap suds actually ate it. She shuddered at how intertwined Hooty was with the house. It was cool sometimes, but she had already forgotten a couple times that that meant the house was technically alive. 

She turned back towards Eda, who was packing a few things into her green sack in preparation. 

“So, tell me again why I can’t just send you through the portal to your family? Why do they have to come here,” the older woman asked. She hadn’t been too thrilled to learn that her mother and teacher wanted to pick her up from here. 

“First my Mama wants to thank you for taking care of me, second, this is a new dimension that was previously unknown and so my Maestro wants to check it out, and third,” she trailed off as she pointed at the books lying around the room. 

“My books?” Luz nodded. 

“More the language that they’re written in. They look like a language that a lot of our sorcery books are in.”

Eda shook her head and threw her green sack over her shoulder. “Aright well if you're going to be here for another day then you might as well come along and make yourself useful.”

Luz did her best to block out the absolutely terrifying flight from the Owl House to the Bonesborough market. Although she did have to admit that the flight was maybe starting to grow on her. 

They landed in front of the same purple tent that Eda’s stand had been set up in front of yesterday and Eda laid her green sack on the ground before forming a spell circle. Luz watched in amazement as everything expanded, the new stuff she had added that morning appearing alongside everything else that had been shoved in there the day before.

“How do you do that?” Luz asked, amazed at the feat.   

“How do you do magic?” Eda asked in return.

Luz conjured up two Tao mandalas in front of her fists. She realized with a start that it was harder and was making her tire faster than she was used to. She quickly dismissed the spell before answering Eda. 

“I draw energy from other dimensions and channel it through my body to form spells.”

Eda looked at her weird as she finished getting everything organized for the day. “Really? Huh, I always figured humans had a bile sac too.

Witches and some bipedal demons have a bile sac attached to their heart. The different phlegm's found in a bile sac allow a witch to cast spells. There used to be a different way of casting spells before we evolved bile sacs, but the Emperor has suppressed all that knowledge and I haven’t been able to find a concrete answer anywhere.” 

Luz was about to ask more questions before they were swamped by a wave of customers. Eda had her sorting the money in the cash register as it came in while she handled the customers themselves. The more Luz listened to Eda speak fluent Isket the more she was positive that it had evolved from Sanskrit. 

She was even able to pick up a few words! 

Soon enough though they got a lull in customers and Luz was able to pick back up their conversation. “Why would your Emperor want to suppress old magic?”

The scowl on Eda’s face reminded her of when she had seen Wong chew out her Maestro for something stupid, he did. It was honestly kind of impressive. 

“Emperor Belos came to power fifty years ago.” Eda’s voice was short and clipped. “Ever since then he has enforced the Coven System which tries to ‘tame’ magic into the nine main covens. Abomination, Healing, Beast Keeping, Potions, Plants, Bard, Illusion, Oracle, and Construction, and then his personal coven, the Emperor's Coven.” Luz didn’t really have any idea what those meant but it was clear that Eda was on a roll, and she wasn’t going to stop her. 

“Since then, he’s suppressed all information on how we used to perform magic, he’s even altered history books, and no one seems to care! Tell me how many times that the people who change history books have our best interests at heart. I’ve made it a goal of mine to collect every piece of knowledge that I could get my hands on that he hasn’t changed or corrupted.”

“How did he get to power if he’s altering that much that quickly?”

Eda rolled her eyes. “He says that he can ‘talk’ to the Titan, but I think that's a load of selki shit if you ask me. It’s enough for everyone else though who have taken to following him.”

“What's the Titan? I don’t think I’ve heard you mention that before?”

Eda looked at her for a second before seeming to curse under her breath in Isket. “I knew I had forgotten something. Come on kid, I’ll explain while we look for some food.” Another spell circle and everything folded back up into that green sack. Eda took it and threw it into the purple tent before heading off in search of food. 

“Long ago, before there were witches and demons there was a race of giants that used to call this planet home. Nowadays they’re extinct but for those that died in the Boiling Sea, well we use their corpses to make our homes.” 

Luz looked around her at the bone white mountains that stretched towards the sky and thought of the weird mountain she had seen last night. Knowing what she knew now she had a horrible feeling as to what they were. 

“I know that there’s a large landmass, similar to what’s in the Human Realm, to the far south, but I’ve never been able to go there.” Eda’s voice was quiet as she talked about this chunk of land that didn’t seem to be made from the corpses of giants.

“Why haven’t you gone to this place?

The older woman stopped and looked out towards the sea with a wistful expression that slowly shifted to something more determined. “Because what the Emperor is doing is wrong. And there’s very few people I know who are doing something about it and all of them are here. So, I am here. Besides I’ve got King, and he was raised here. I wouldn’t want to uproot his entire life just for some childhood fantasy. 

Now come on kid enough with the heavy questions. Let's get some lunch and on the way back I’ll teach you some words in Isket.”

A few hours later Luz was speaking very broken sentences in Isket to Eda’s customers, much to the woman's amusement. It really was similar to Sanskrit, and she was fluent in a couple different dialects of that which made Isket easier to learn. 

Throughout the day she had gotten looks, although as the day went on, they changed from hostile to curious. She didn’t really mind because it gave her an opportunity to practice with her new language and she was pretty sure her mere presence was bringing in customers, so Eda wasn’t complaining. 

She had just wished two green haired twins a good day before turning to her next customer. She was surprised to see two witches seemingly around her age. 

The taller one looked more feminine and had short dark blueish hair, round glasses, light skin, and an orange dress. The shorter one looked more masculine and had short black hair, dark skin, and was wearing a weird fancy looking dress shirt? She wasn’t exactly sure what it was. 

The shorter one was pointing at her and gushing at the taller one. The taller one just looked at her with an apologetic smile on her face. “Hello!” Luz said in Isket, feeling like her accent was off but it obviously wasn’t a problem as both of the other witches looked at her in surprise. 

The taller one said something that she thought was “You speak Isket?” but she wasn’t sure. Eda said something to them that seemed to make sense to them. 

“Hi, my name is Willow.” 

“And I’m Augustus!”

Both of them spoke slowly enough that she could pick up what they were saying, thankfully. That must’ve been what Eda had told them. 

“I’m Luz!”

“I’ve never heard of a human in the Boiling Isles before, let alone one who speaks Isket,” Augustus gushed. He spoke a little too fast for her skills, but she hadn’t learned four other languages without some difficulty. 

Willow looked apologetic again as she muttered something to Augustus before talking. “Sorry, Augustus is the president of the Human Appreciation Society at our school, and he’s always wanted to meet a human.”

“It’s all good! If you guys want to stay and Eda is fine with it, I can answer some questions about the Human Realm. I could use the practice speaking anyway.”

Augustus looked to Eda with eyes that almost seemed to pop out of his head. Eda rolled her eyes, “Sure kids you can stay, just stay back there if you’re taking my apprentice from me.” She gestured towards the purple tent as Luz’s stomach did a flip at being called her apprentice. 

She pushed it to the side and led the other two kids to the back of the stall where they sat with the purple tent to their backs. 

They spent pretty much the rest of the day talking about their respective realms. She nicknamed Augustus ‘Gus’ which caused him to geek out for several minutes about having an actual human nickname. 

Willow and Gus showed her a few of their spells, although Willow seemed to really struggle with her little abomination figure. She admitted that she didn’t like the track but there were better opportunities on it, so her parents were pushing her towards it.

Luz showed them a few of her own spells, which blew their minds as they hadn’t actually believed that humans could do magic. 

Before they knew it the sun was crawling towards the tops of the buildings and Eda interrupted their conversation. “I need you to head to the Bonesborough Library to pick King up. He walked there this morning and usually he walks back, but I want him back home before your mother and teacher show up later.”

Luz nodded and stood up. “Take your friends with you too, they’ll know the way to the library.” Gus and Willow looked excited at the idea of a little trip with her. 

They led her down the winding streets towards a broad staircase in the cliff that Luz had come to trying to outrun Eda yesterday. “Welcome to Lower Bonesborough!” Willow said with a dramatic sweep of her arms.

“The library is that really tall building right there,” Willow pointed towards a towering building that reminded her of some of the grand churches back home. “They run a daycare for little kids, which is likely where King is.”

As they made their way towards the library Willow told her about her two dads and Gus told her about his Dad. She was secretly glad to hear that people here didn’t really care if you dated someone of the same gender. It made her feel a little less out of place here. 

They arrived at the library and Willow scanned her in with her card, before the other two went off to get some books for their classes, promising to meet her at the front of the library in ten minutes. 

She didn’t really mind as it gave her privacy to look over the library and the absolutely massive collection of books within. She was going to have to figure out how to come here again just for the library (and not because Gus and Willow were her first friends since Hong Kong, nope definitely not). 

She trailed her hand along the spines of the books as she walked towards the daycare section. 

There were a few parents already gathered around the entrance, so she stood by with them as they apparently waited for the daycare to end. 

She looked around for King, finding him in a circle around a (rather pretty) witch around her age as she read them all a book. 

She had green hair with her brown roots growing in which only served to make her prettier in Luz’s opinion. She had golden eyes and was wearing the same uniform as the rest of the daycare staff. There was a purple crystal pendant around her neck. 

Luz slowly wandered in as parents began to trickle in to pick up their kids. The girl was finished with her book and was saying goodbye to a few of the kids before asking one little witch for her hair tie back, promising to read her her favorite book next weekend. Watching the girl put her hair up into a ponytail pulled her stomach into knots and so she didn’t realize King was by her feet before he was pulling her over with a devilish smile on his bony face. 

“Miss Amity! Miss Amity! I want you to meet someone!” The girl, Amity apparently, turned to see King and broke into a smile. 

“King!” She said scooping him up into a hug, before she set him down and turned towards her. 

Luz could tell the moment she realized she was human because she froze, her hand half out in a handshake. Luz grinned, starting to enjoy the surprise on people's faces. 

“Take a photo, it’ll last longer.” Luz's grin grew as she watched Amity’s face turn red. 

“Sorry,” the other girl said before offering her hand. “I’m Amity.”

Luz shook her hand. “Luz Noceda.”

“I didn’t realize that the Owl Lady had adopted a human?” 

Luz shrugged. “I ended up here by accident and Eda let me crash with her until my Mama could come get me.” The other girl really was pretty, she thought. She began making her way towards the front of the daycare center and towards the library, talking with Amity the whole time. 

Neither of the girls noticed King had an absolutely shit eating grin on his face the entire time. 

Luz found out that Amity was on the abomination track at her school, which she apparently loved. Luz showed her a few of her own spells, finding it a little easier to show the same ones that she had shown to Gus and Willow earlier in the day. 

Amity was talking about her latest abomination project, waving her arms around as she spoke, and how she was desperately trying to make an abomination that could float but couldn’t seem to get it down for whatever reason. 

“Luz!” 

Luz turned to see Gus waving at her, although Willow was looking at Amity with an expression that she couldn’t quite figure out. She watched as the smiling and energetic girl she had been talking to for the last couple of minutes completely disappeared when she caught sight of Willow. Before Luz could ask if she was okay, she mumbled something Luz couldn’t make out and turned back for the daycare.

Luz chewed on her lip in thought, wondering what had happened caused the sudden shit in Amity’s mood. 

And also, why Amity’s pendent glowed when she saw Willow. 

~-~

To say that Eda Clawthrone was nervous right now would be a massive understatement. 

She could feel the Beast prowling in the back of their shared mindspace, responding to her agitation. She moved a pillow on the couch for the fifth time and was glad that King was outside playing with Luz and her two friends. 

She hadn’t meant to kidnap the little girl, but she knew how it looked. She had put a lot of effort to avoid the attentions of Human Sorcerers whenever she stopped in the human realm and to be forced to meet one now was nerve wracking. 

(She was also a little excited, as unfamiliar magic always caught her attention). 

She had set up the portal door a little past the yard, so they wouldn’t be assaulted by Hooty as soon as they stepped out. That would not make for a good first impression. 

She could hear Luz call out something and another voice joined the kids in their game of tag. 

She winced as Hooty greeted her visitors and crossed the living room to throw open the door. 

In front of her stood three people. One of them, the only woman of the three, was short with the same dark skin and nose as Luz. That must be her mother, Camila then. 

The other two were a little more unique. One was tall with lighter brown skin, a goatee and a red cloak around his shoulders. The other guy was short and had pinched eyes that kind of reminded her of Gilbert Park. He also had dark skin. 

Both him and the other guy wore robes, although the taller guys were blue while the shorter guys were purple with gold accents.

She was a little startled when their forms seemed to shift, and suddenly the taller guy had multiple eyes dotting his face while the shorter one had a second set of arms under his normal set. 

They looked quite demonic honestly which was interesting. She hadn’t realized that Humans were capable of looking like that. The familiarity of it calmed her. She smiled and stood to the side allowing the three of them to enter. 

“Welcome to the Owl House! I’m Eda Clawthorne and you must be Camila, Maestro, and Wong.” Something she said caused the two men to break out into smiles as Camila laughed. 

The taller man, Maestro, shook his head. “My name is not Maestro, although I can understand why you would think that. I’m Doctor Stephen Strange, but you can call me Strange.” 

Eda felt her perception of the man shift. There were soooo many jokes she could make out of a name like Strange.

“Maestro means teacher in Spanish, and is what Luz calls Dr Strange,” Camila said. 

Eda nodded. So that’s what that word meant. The kid never did explain it to her and she just assumed it was a name. She dismissed the thoughts as everyone looked around the room.

“You’re a criminal?!” Eda turned to see Camila standing in front of her wanted poster depicting her and King running. Underneath it was her reward. Her face darkened as she looked at the poster. 

“Depends on whether you think the law here is right. I do not.”

Strange eyed the poster before turning his main eyes towards her. His spare eyes took in the room. Eda got the sense that this Strange wasn’t surprised often as he looked about her living room.

“Why don’t you give us an overview of what’s going on here?” Wong urged Camila to sit off to the side, but Eda could tell she wasn’t comfortable being next to a criminal. This was one reason why she didn’t have people over. 

“Okay,” Eda shrugged. “My name is Edalyn Clawthrone, but you can call me Eda. This is the Boiling Isles, which is built on the corpse of The Titan, one of the members of a race of giants that existed a long time ago. Their bodies are heavily infused with magic and it’s inherently mutative which is what lead to the development of magic. 

50 years ago, by our time, a man who called himself Belos united this corpse with two others and formed his Empire. While he only has direct control over his territory, the Empire’s economic influence extends a lot farther than that.”

“If he is as bad as you say he is, how did he come to power?” Wong asked. Eda thought that his accent seemed different from both Strange and Camila’s. She wondered how many languages the Humans had.

She ground her teeth together as she thought of the best way to explain this. “Okay so 55 years ago there was a series of attacks by so-called ‘Wild Witches’ that targeted the Titanshearts on all three corpses as well as some of the schools.” 

She was glad to see that all three adults looked a little dubious at the timing. “Soon after the attacks Belos enters the stage claiming that he and he alone can speak to the Titans. That the attacks happened because the Titans, who are our gods, were angry with us for using ‘Wild Magic’. Unfortunately, a lot of people were hurt and grieving and so they quickly latched onto this way of thinking. It didn’t take much longer for Belos to rise to power and legalize the Coven System, which had been around in some form for a while before the attack.”

“Coven System,” Strange questioned. 

Eda nodded. “Has Luz told you guys a lot about how magic works here?” All three adults shook their heads. “Okay, so in every witch, and a decent number of bipedal demons, there is something called the bile sac which is attached to the heart. For simplicity's sake every bile sac contains nine separate phlegm's that a witch can use to perform nine basic forms of magic.” 

Eda began ticking the coven types off her fingers, “There’s Abominations, Healing, Oracle, Potions, Illusions, Construction, Bard, Plant, and Beast Keeping.”

“Which Coven are you in?” Camila asked. It looked like she was starting to warm up to her a little more as the conversation went on which Eda counted as a win. 

Eda shook her head. “I’m not. That’s where the wanted poster comes in. Soon after his rise to power, Belos made it illegal to not join a coven. I hated the idea because once you join a coven your ability to perform the other types of magic is cut off, and because our bile sacs are attached to our hearts, it leads to a whole host of health problems that everyone is more than happy to ignore. So, I dropped out of school and ran away from home, working on my skills with all branches of magic. I am also a part of a book smuggling ring that formed after Belos became Emperor.”

“Is my baby even safe here?” Camila asked. The woman's face was distorted with fear and confusion but there was a quiet resolve that Eda could see in her eyes.

“I’m sure you understand our concern about Miss Noceda’s safety here after what you told us, Miss Clawthrone,” Strange said. She got the idea that this formality was how he usually was. Either that or he was a better actor than she could tell.

“There are two things that have stopped Emperor Bonehead from attacking the Owl House. One of them is Hooty, one of the oldest and as such more powerful House Demons I’ve ever seen. He’s a little bit insane but he cares for all of us.”

“A House Demon?” Wong said, confused. 

“A demon that pretty much possesses a house and blends the lines between animate and inanimate.” Eda clarified. “The second reason is my reputation. People respect me because I’m one of the most powerful ‘Wild Witches’ in the Empire, but they also fear me because of my curse.” She could see the question on their lips and decided to head it off. 

“I was cursed to turn into an owl bear hybrid animal thing. I don’t actually know what it is because I haven’t found anything in the Empire that can explain it. But the Owl Beast is well known for crumbling walls and destroying forests. People don’t want to mess with that.”

Before any of the three adults could say open Hooty slammed the door open with an “Incoming!” 

“EEEEDDDDAAAA!” Luz screamed all the way in, her new sister and friends following close behind her with huge grins on their faces. She did a double take when she saw Vee, having forgotten that Luz’s new sister was actually a long extinct predator. 

The sorceress quickly kissed her mom on the cheek and gave a rather sloppy bow to the man in purple robes before turning to her. Eda dismissed the thought from her mind as she focused on Luz.

“I think I can adapt my sorcery to mimic some of your spells! Look! Willow helped me with this one!” She twitched her fingers in that weird way that apparently summoned her magic. She may have just met Luz yesterday, but she prided herself on her memory and thought that this spell looked somewhat similar.

Luz kept her hands up, tongue sticking out of her mouth before she seemed to rip her hands apart. The spell and all of the weird symbols conjured in it twisted and collapsed into a single large ring that flared gold before dissolving. 

In her hands rested a tiny little ball of witchlight.

All thoughts of her guests immediately left her mind as she stared at the impossible witchlight. She took a deep breath and flicked it. It felt real enough to her and so it likely wasn’t an illusion.

But the kid didn’t have a bile sac?

“And you're sure you don’t have a bile sac kid?” She could practically hear the grin on Luz’s face. 

“Yup!”

She sat up and faced the three sorcerers, her eyes wide with hope. Passages from books she read long ago appeared in her mind. “Quickly, how do you perform magic?!?”

“We disconnect the mind from the body and use that disconnect to channel different dimensional energies through our body in order to perform spells.” Strange’s voice hadn’t changed from that formal quality it had but she could tell both he and Wong were interested in her thoughts from the way they leaned forward in their seats.

She ignored them as she spun around and mentally sorted through the bookshelves lining her room. Spotting the book, she needed she did a weird jog walk to cross her living room and pulled it down. 

She was able to quickly flip through her book to find the passage in question. As she read it, she couldn’t help but laugh. 

“Holy shit Tiny Nose was right. Who would’ve guessed.” 

“What was this ‘tiny nose’ right about?” Eda snapped the book shut and looked up at her living room full of people. When was the last time she had even half of this number of people over? Not since Raine and her lived together.

“After Belos became Emperor we pretty much lost all understanding of how witches used to perform magic before the bile sac evolved. The only passages we could find suggested that they drew power from the elements, but it was always a topic of much debate as to what ‘elements’ meant. 

Was it referring to Titan Earth or the Boiling Sea or something internal we could never figure out. 

But Luz draws magic from other dimensions, not from within her. Now let's say that she was able to tap into this dimension meaning she drew on the ambient magic of our Realm. And if there’s enough ambient magic for Luz to draw from in her roundabout way…”

“Then there has to be enough ambient magic for witches and demons to use it to cast spells,” Strange finished for her. 

“There has to be another component that we’re missing. Some focus of sorts.” Eda muttered as she lost herself in thought. She pulled a notepad out of her hair and quickly jotted down her thoughts before looking back up. 

Luz had left apparently, and she could hear her playing outside. Two of her three guests stared at her with unreliable expressions, while Camila stared at Luz’s back, an expression that she couldn’t quite read on her face. 

“As fascinating as this is,” Strange said standing up “We really should take Luz back to our realm. I would like to find a way to keep in touch though, as your form of magic is one I have not yet seen.” 

Eda was about to say something before Camila leaped from her chair and asked her, “She has friends here, correct?” Eda nodded. Camila turned towards the other two sorcerers and spoke rapid fire in that second Human language that Luz knew. 

The three of them went back and forth before Wong stood up and asked for Luz to come in. The girl looked at her curiously, but Eda just shrugged in confusion. 

Again, Camila and Luz spoke in that second language. Eda watched the emotions on both women's faces play out. She really should learn Spanish? She thought that's what Camila had called that language earlier. 

Whatever they were talking about must’ve been important because even Wong and Strange chimed in in Spanish. She felt a little weird being essentially an outsider in her own house as everyone else used a language she couldn’t speak. 

She was glad that the other kids had managed to distract Hooty, because she knew he would be unbearable in this situation. 

Finally, tired of feeling left out in her own home, she waved her hand and said, “Hi, hello. Any time you would like to fill me in on what exactly you all are talking about that would be great.”

Strange sighed and pinched his nose, that red cape of his seemingly coming alive to smack him on the head. “Enough enough,” the man muttered before looking at her. “Frankly Miss Clawthorne your world does not make sense. You have a door that can willingly go between the dimensional barriers, something that has never been harnessed before. You have books on sorcery, our sorcery in Sanskrit while the language you speak is in fact based upon that very same language. And don’t think we didn’t notice your eyes following our Eldritch forms,” Eda mouthed that word, eldritch . She hadn’t heard of it before.

“I would love to work with you to send a Master of the Mystic Arts over here to liaison between this realm and our own, as well as answer some of the questions this place poses. The unfortunate part of this is we do not have anyone to spare.” Wong picked up after Strange. “Miss Noceda here,” Wong gestured to Camila, “Suggests that Luz stay here with you as she has already begun…”

Eda was shaking her head no before the man could even finish. She did her best to ignore the heartbroken expression on Luz’s face. “I’m busy enough as is with my own problems and on top of that I already have a kid to support. I can’t just take in another, especially with my current jobs.”

Camila marched forward and grabbed Eda by the hand. She almost felt like she should let her hand disconnect from her arm but ultimately decided to just let the other woman drag her into her kitchen. The disconnecting body parts thing freaks people out and that’s the last thing she needs right now.

The short human pulled her into her kitchen and took a second to take it all in. It had been years since Eda had been inside a human kitchen, so she didn’t know exactly what stood out to the woman. Whatever had caught her attention though wasn’t interesting enough to hold it, as Camila turned on her. 

Eda suddenly felt a prickle on her arms and the Owl Beast growling in the back of her head as her eyes caught the other woman's eyes. They were pleading, full of unshed tears, hope, and a pain that Eda couldn't quite articulate. 

“You have to let Luz stay with you, please. If money is an issue Mr. Wong and Stephen will be more than willing to pay you whatever you need to support her.” Eda’s head spun. Camila’s voice was desperate, pleading. She leaned against her kitchen table and crossed her arms. 

“What I don’t understand is why you want her here so badly. Do you not love her?” Again, the other woman's face flickered with emotions; hurt, anger, pain, sorrow, and something more, something deeper that Eda didn’t quite know how to put to words but related to all the same. 

“I love that girl more than you could ever understand and I know that I am asking a lot but when she came in the room earlier,” A sob broke through Camila’s lips and a smile crested her face, “That was the happiest I had seen her in years.”

Eda scrunched her face in confusion. “That can’t be right. Even in the little time I’ve known her she seems like a happy kid.”

Camila lifted her glasses and whipped the tears that dripped down her face. “That is proof enough that she needs to be here. My daughter used to be so bright, she shined like a star in the night sky. But she’s faced so much death and so much pain that it’s dimmed her.

Eda could feel her heart twinge as memories rushed through her. It sounded all too familiar to her and memories began running through her head. 

Her father's blood on her hands. 

Running through the woods. 

Finding the Portal Door.

Raine holding her as she cried for the family she was sure she had lost. 

She couldn’t let someone else go through that pain again. Not in the way she had. 

“Fuck it, let's do this.” She pushed back off the table and marched into her living room. The Owl Beast preened at her confidence as she stared down the two sorcerers who had come into her home. 

“If Luz chooses to stay here with me there will be a few stipulations. You will pay me back in whatever odds and ends you can find from your dimension, and glass bottles. I spend a fortune on those for my potions business. You will give her a clear-cut list of things that you want her to do while she is here to answer whatever questions you weirdos have about my home.” 

“She should be enrolled in a school while she’s here,” Strange said but Eda was already shaking her head no. 

“That’s just a place where idiots send their kids to get brainwashed by whatever crap the government is shoving down their throats. She’ll learn from me.”

“You already said that you work multiple jobs to pay for your child, do you really think you can do that, your book smuggling ring, and give Miss Noceda meaningful instruction?” That Wong guy had that ‘born to be a teacher’ tone that Principal Bump had when she still attended Hexside. She didn’t know how to feel about it, especially considering the guy had a point. 

There was no way she could support everyone and teach Luz what she knew. 

“Besides, if we allow Luz Noceda to stay here, we will be doing it because it would allow her to interact with kids her own age. If you were to essentially homeschool her she would be deprived of that opportunity.”

“Titan carve me,” Eda muttered under her breath. “Fine, if she decides to stay here, I will enroll her in school. The current semester is only halfway through if I remember correctly, so that'll give me some time to teach her a few basics.” Wong nodded while Strange just rolled his eyes. 

“Are we really doing this?” Strange asked. Eda was really getting tired of the man. 

“Yes, we are, and you would do good to remember that you do not have custody of my daughter, I do. I will do what is best for my daughter and you can decide to either abandon Luz as your apprentice or work to accommodate my choice. Your call.”

Oh Eda liked this woman. 

She locked eyes with Wong and smirked as Camila stared down Strange until finally the man relented. “Fine. If she chooses to go along with this I will also be requiring her to continue to practice with her sorcery, and will ask that she comes back to the human realm every weekend so I can ensure that she is not falling behind in her studies. With both of your guys’ permission,” Strange stiffly looked at both Wong and Camila. It was clear that he did not approve of this idea. “I would like to teach her how to fight.”

Camila was immediately shaking her head no. Strange did not let her speak though before he turned all his blazing eyes towards the woman. That sort of intensity made Eda’s skin crawl, she couldn’t imagine how it felt for it to be focused on herself. 

“If you want to send your daughter off to an uncharted realm full of dangers that we cannot even comprehend based simply on the fact that she has friends then I will be ensuring that she knows how to protect herself, both with and without magic.”

Wong nodded his assent before all eyes turned to Camila. Eda was glad that the kids were all outside. The older Noceda glared at Strange before stiffly nodding. “Fine, she can learn to protect herself, but don’t you dare judge me for the lengths I will go to help my daughter Stephen Strange. You tell me of another way to help her back in our Realm, and I will do it in a heartbeat.”

Eda glanced nervously between the two humans wondering if she would have to call Hooty in to help her keep them from ripping each other's heads off.

Camila eventually won whatever battle of wills the two had. 

Strange marched out the door, saying, “I am going to go speak to my apprentice.”

Eda turned towards the other two humans in the room, feeling both tired and oddly satisfied with how everything had turned out. 

“Do not worry about Strange, he cares deeply for Miss Noceda and would hate to see something happen to her.”  Eda nodded at Wong as she plopped down next to Camila on her sofa. She was suddenly so very tired and could feel the Owl Beast clawing at her mind.

Because she was sitting so close to the woman she was able to hear her mutter, “what has my life become?” Eda looked at her confusedly but Camila just waved off her concern. 

The three of them sat in silence for several minutes, processing the recent events before Strange came back with Luz in tow. 

The girl had a lot of mixed emotions on her face that Eda could not decipher but she looked at her with something akin to hope. “I’ve described to Luz what we’ve all talked about, but in the interest of fairness if there is anything you would like to say to her now is your chance.” 

Camila got off the couch and brushed a piece of dark hair away from Luz’s forehead. “Mija you know I love you right?” Luz nodded. 

“Do you like the friends you have here?” Again, Luz nodded. 

“Do you want to stay here and learn magic and make more friends and visit your Mami on the weekends?” Eda thought it was a little unfair to describe the Demon Realm like that, especially when compared to all the Human Realm had to offer. Luz took longer to answer this time, her eyes flickering towards her before returning to her mother. Ever so slightly she nodded and Eda could feel Camila smile despite not being able to see her face.

“This is what you want right, mija?” Luz nodded again, more sure of herself. 

Camila gave a little nod before standing up and pulling her into a hug. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”

Chapter Text

3rd of Rapada 1000
3rd of June 2018

With a start Luz threw off her covers and jumped out of her chair bed, startling King in the process. The little demon had come into her room last night and curled up next to her on the chair. “Today’s the day that Eda is going to teach me new magic King! Oh, I can’t wait!” 

She grabbed some clothes and a toothbrush from the bag her mother had packed her yesterday after making a brief stop back at their house.

Luz rushed down the stairs a little bit later to find Eda in the kitchen and King at the table. She pulled out a chair and sat down saying, “Good morning, everyone!”

Eda groaned at the stove like contraption while King’s head hit the table, and he fell back asleep. Eda turned towards her and Luz was hit with the evidence that apparently the Owl House was not composed of morning people. Eda pushed what looked like eggs onto some plates before setting them in front of her and King.

“‘Morning Kid, Morning King.” Eda plopped down in her own chair and drank from a mug, nursing it like her Mami would coffee. 

Luz paid them no mind as she ate the entire plate of eggs. By the time she finished her plate King had awoken and started eating his while Eda looked a little more alive. 

“So, what’s the plan for today?” Luz asked. Eda stared blankly at her before she jumped a little, finally processing what Luz had said. 

“I’ve still got to go into the Market today to set up my stall, but before then I’ll set you up with an instrument to practice on.”

“An instrument?” Luz asked. Was there a field of magic related to music here? She knew there were a few relics in Kamar-Taj that were instruments but there wasn’t much else related to music and sound. 

“Bard magic. If I can get you able to play at least a little bit on an instrument, then you’ll be able to skip most of the introductory bard classes at Hexside. Plus, it allows me to still work on my potions and go into the market while you practice.

Once King is finished eating, I want both of you to go into the living room and spruce it up a little bit.” Luz and King entered into a staring match, Luz silently begging King to hurry up and finish his food so she could learn new magic, while King took the slowest bites he could possibly take. 

Eda sat to the side, sipping her apple blood and watching the two kids who were now in her care. She shook her head at the silent battle between the two of them. 

Eventually King did finish his food and so they made their way into the living room. Again, Luz was faced with trying to get King to move faster as they cleaned. To the amusement of everyone in the Owl House she again failed and so it wasn’t until mid morning that Luz and Eda sat down, two weird instruments between them. 

The instrument Eda picked up had a long neck, not dissimilar to a guitar that met a bell-shaped body with three holes in it. There was a little rain cloud with a lightning bolt over it that burned into one side of the instrument. 

The other instrument had a teardrop shape, a neck that had a lot more strings than she had ever seen on a guitar and a head that seemed to be on backwards, leading to a large wooden body decorated in images of rainclouds all along the edges.

“Okay, it’s been quite a few years since I’ve used my instrument, but I was able to find-” Eda paused, seemingly stumbling over her words, “a friend's old instrument. Hopefully I can remember how to play it.”

Luz soon learned that Eda was a very patient teacher which was good because she did not really have any musical skill to work with. She was really kicking herself for turning down those piano lessons her mom had offered her when she was six. 

The two of them spent the rest of the day practicing and by dinner time Luz was able to play her scales and a few really simple songs. The next few days blurred together like this, she would wake up the entire household, they would have breakfast, they would all fly King over to the library to drop him off for daycare, Eda would give her a few goals for her instrument, which she learned was a lute, before leaving for the Market or heading to her Potions Lab in the basement. 

She would practice for a couple hours before growing tired and working on her sorcery or reading some of the many books that Eda currently had and eventually walking into town to pick up King. She didn’t see Amity more than once or twice though unfortunately. By the time Eda came back home or came out of her Lab it would be dinner time and the three of them would sit on the couch and watch something on the Crystal ball together. 

At first Luz tried to keep her distance when sitting with the Clawthorne family, as she didn’t want to intrude but by the end of that first week King would regularly curl up on her lap while she curled up into Eda’s side. 

The next day Luz stood in front of the portal door, the glowing white light that emanated from it distorting the shadows all around her. King clung to her leg while Eda leaned against the side of the house, apple blood in hand and talking to Hooty.

Luz set down her backpack and crouched down, prying King off of her leg and into her arms. “It’s only for two days King, and then I’ll be right back here.”

“You promise?” King said, his voice muffled by her shirt. 

“I promise.” Luz set King down and gave an awkward wave to Eda. She felt bad about essentially being thrusted on her. With one last look at the Owl House and the family that lived there, Luz stepped through the portal. 

Her field of vision exploded in a brilliant white color before she found herself on the front porch of one of the old run-down shacks in Gravesfield. 

Her mother and Vee stood in the grass in front of the house and with barely a thought to the people she left behind, she dropped her bags and ran forward into her mother's arm. 

“Mija!”

“Mama,” Lus shoved her face into her Mami's shirt, breathing in the smell of wood and salts and seemed to follow her around. After a few moments of just hugging her mom, she broke off and looked at Vee. 

The shapeshifter currently looked like her, although she didn’t think she would ever wear her hair like that. It was all slicked back with two pins holding down the sides. Vee was currently fiddling with the hem of one of her old shirts and was staring at the ground. 

Luz smiled as she stepped forward and hugged the other girl. “It’s good to see you, Vee!” She could feel the basilisk tense up but after a few seconds she felt arms wrap around her in a hug. She stayed like that for a few more seconds before stepping back and grabbing her bag.  

The three of them walked back towards the house, the white light emanating from the portal door slowly dimming as she walked away. She told her Mama and Vee about everything she had seen, about how the Boiling Isles was apparently on the corpse of a giant god, on how Eda had been teaching her how to play the lute (she promised to show Vee later that night), about the cute girl in the library, about Willow and Gus. 

When they got back to the house she took a deep breath, taking in the smells of her Mama’s cooking. She spent the rest of the night playing some card games with Vee and her Mama, the Boiling Isles and everyone she left there far from her mind. 

~-~

4th of Rapada 1000

4th of June 2018

Luz stepped through her portal and waved goodbye to her Mami and Vee. She took a deep breath and let the sounds and smells of her second home waft over her. 

The sharp burning smell of magic, the smell of centuries old books, the polish that her Maestro used to clean the floors. It was everything that made her feel safe, that made her feel in control, especially when her life was being upended. 

She walked up the double stairs of the Sanctum as a smile creeped along her face. It was the weekend, so that meant that there were no classes in session, and as such her old classmates are likely back with their families or out wandering the city. 

That meant that both her and her Maestro pretty much had the place to themselves. She wondered what he wanted to teach her today. The feel of the exercise clothes rubbing against her arms and legs reminded her of the cryptic message she had gotten on her phone earlier this morning. 

Wear clothes you can workout in and bring an empty bag . 

Admittedly it wasn’t the weirdest thing that he had had her bring to one of their lessons. Luz shivered as the feeling of those slimy tentacles crawling over her hands washed over her. 

Summoning was not in her skill set. 

She wandered through the sanctum, passing through the Relic Room, the Library, Maestro’s office, she even checked the Portal Room and couldn’t find him anywhere. 

She eventually just decided to open random doors. Her third attempt got her somewhere as she stepped into what looked like a large gym. She shook her head at the space folding magic her Maestro specialized in, knowing for a fact that no room in the building was this big. She walked through the place, following the sounds of flesh smacking something padded and grunts. 

She found her Maestro in the back, landing solid punches and kicks to a kicking bag that was bolted to the floor and ceiling by fiery chains. He seemed to be practicing the same few moves over and over again. 

Luz set her bag down and sat on one of the benches, watching her teacher work. She knew that the older students were taught how to fight using their body and their magic. She also knew that it wasn’t something that the Order allowed to be taught to the Children of the Sanctums so she wondered what she was doing here. 

She had already completed what physical training under her majority that she could. Unless her Maestro got special permission? That thought excited her. She loved her magic, she truly did, but the idea of learning how to fight thrilled her. She had seen the Sorcerer Supreme and her teacher conjure weapons out of thin air, bolts of lighting that targeted opponents, spells that were used to disarm, restrain, interrogate. 

She and Robin had gotten in trouble years back trying to sneak into the London Library to look for books on combat magic. A spike of pain shot through her as she thought of Robin. She shook her head to dismiss all the memories that brought up and focused on watching her teacher.

She had grown up on stories of her Maestro’s battles against the Dark One after all, how could she not idolize fighting? 

With one more strike against the punching bag, her teacher dispelled the magical chains holding it in place and turned towards her. The bag itself fell to the floor behind him with a loud thump.

He grabbed a towel and a water bottle from a bag that she hadn’t seen and asked her, “So how was your first week in a different realm?”

Luz rocked in place, a grin splitting her face. “It was so cool! Eda’s been teaching me how to play the Lute so I can skip some of the introductory Bard classes! I think she’s getting ready to teach me potions when I get back, she’s been spending the last few days collecting spare ingredients.”

Strange nodded, seemingly appeased. “Well at least she is actually teaching you something.”

Luz pouted, her rocking slowing down. “Why don’t you like her?”

Strange sighed and crouched down to her height, “It’s not that I don’t like her, although I have my reservations about you staying with a criminal, it’s that we finally have access to a stable portal to another dimension, something our Masters have been trying to work on for years, and we are sending only an apprentice into this dimension to learn its secrets. 

I suspect that Wong must’ve seen something in the Eye of Agamotto because he insists that only you go into this Demon Realm.” 

Luz scrunched her eyebrows together, fingers tapping along the bones in her legs. “Did he restrict your use of the Eye?” Her Maestro nodded. It was weird to be reminded that the Eye of Agamotto technically only belonged to the Sorcerer Supreme and not her teacher despite how often she saw him working with it. 

She knew only a few times that the Order's Master of Spacetime had been restricted from using the Eye. It couldn’t have been an easy decision for the Sorcerer Supreme and the Council to make. “I’m sure the Sorcerer Supreme had his reasons.” 

Strange rolled his eyes and stood up. “You have too much faith in Wong. Never forget that it’s okay to question the people in charge of you, and if they get angry that's a pretty damn good sign that they have no business leading something.” 

Luz stood up from the bench, leaving her bag behind. “Is today just going to be more philosophical discussions but this time in exercise clothes?” 

The look her Maestro gave her made her giggle. He rolled his eyes and said, “No, I threw enough of a tantrum about my best apprentice being sent off into an unknown dimension to get permission to teach you combat magic.” 

Luz grinned and rocked back of her heels, her hands flapping by her legs. “Oh my god really?! That’s so cool! What do I get to learn first? Thank you Maestro!” She finished off her questions by slamming into her sweaty teacher. He chuckled, Luz feeling the sound through his chest as he said, “Don’t get too excited yet, I’m going to make you work for such an honor.”

Luz stepped back with an audible gulp. “Have you kept up with your physical training since you were taught it?” Strange was referring to the year she spent learning how to run, lift weights, balance properly, and fall correctly. 

She had gone home a lot those days with bruises on her body and a smile on her face. 

She shook her head no and her Maestro gave her one of his smiles that promised pain.

She went back to her Mami’s house that day, once again covered in bruises and scrapes and lugging her once empty bag, now filled with tomes on combat magic, warding, and a few higher-level astral projection books. She collapsed on the couch across Vee’s lap much to the basilisk's surprise and slept through the evening. 

The next day was much the same although she took Vee out clothes shopping and to get a milkshake afterwards. The day after that? She returned to the Boiling Isles to an ecstatic King and Hoot and an ambivalent Eda. 

She soon fell into a comfortable pattern. 

She would wake up, eat breakfast, follow the Clawthornes into Bonesborough to drop off King, (often with a wave or a quick hello to Amity if she saw her much to the littlest Clawthornes delight.)

Then she and Eda would head back to the house, where they’d spend the morning diving through old tomes filled with the magic of a different era. 

Some days it was Bard magic and Luz cried tears of joy when she got her first bard spell to work (a small echolocation spell), Eda gave her an old oracle focus (the spirit inside was named Chad) and started teaching her a few oracle spells. They were remarkedly similar to her astral projection spells and theory. One day they went over runes and their application within spell casting. Other days it was potions magic (she made a mistake with a Sense Enhancement Potion one afternoon that resulted in her hair turning purple and her skin blue. Eda walked her through her mistake and offered to fix it for her, but she wanted to get King first. That had resulted in quite a few stares as she walked through Bonesborough and a snort from Amity which she considered a win.) 

Usually she’d spend the afternoons napping, as for some reason using her magic here made her much more tired than usual. When she woke up she usually had freedom to do whatever she wanted and had made use of that. She’d take notes on the flora and fauna to send back to her Maestro (the wrinkled trees were really cool), read through Eda’s books (she had an inkling as to where some of them came from), or head into town to visit Willow and Agustus. She would usually do her workout exercises in the evenings after dinner and before bed.

On the weekends she would spend time at the Sanctum with her Maestro learning how to conjure whips, weapons, and shields, as well as know how to attack and defend herself with just her hands and feet. He made sure to not overwork her unlike that first day so she could still have some time with her new family (she's pretty sure her Mami had something to do with that.)

Eventually though it was time for the reason her Maestro agreed to this at all. Hexside School of Magic and Demonics.

It vaguely reminded her of the Sanctums with how grand the building seemed to be. Dark stone lined the edges of the building while even darker wood seemed to make up the actual walls. Statues of demonic beasts stood along the roof, looking down at everyone. Eda and King pulled her into a rough hug. In the corner of her eyes she could see Willow and Gus being hugged by their parents. 

Eda pulled back and looked weirdly nervous. Her Mami took that time to sweep her into her arms and smother her face in kisses. King held onto her leg the entire time. “I’m so proud of you cariño. And your Dad would be too.” She sniffled and dug her face into her mothers side before stepping back and looking at her mentor.

“So, I know you’re not my kid but,” Eda took a deep breath, seeming to hype herself up. Luz was kind of startled to realize that Eda really was nervous. What does she have to be nervous about? “WouldyoubeokayifItookyourphoto? It’skindatradtitiontotakeonebeforeandafteryoujoinyourtrack.” It took Luz a little bit to decipher that Eda wanted to take her photo but when she did, her eyes welled up with tears and she crashed into the older witches' side, King pinned between the two of them. She felt her Mami pull her and the older witch into a bigger hug too.

“I would love it if you could take my photo, Eda.”

She stepped back and pulled King up into her side before posing, making sure that the gray cloth along her arms and legs, which currently showed her as Undecided, was visible in its full glory. She smiled as both her Mami and Eda snapped photos on their respective devices. 

King pulled some funny faces and she ended up laughing, almost dropping the little demon. A scream tore through the air and she jumped, a Shield of Seraphim forming in front of her free hand before she relaxed and realized it was the bell. She watched a few other students (Willow and Gus mainly, although she thought she could see Amity next to a strict looking woman) head inside. She put King down and hugged her Mami and mentor one last time. 

“You have your crossbow and your potions?” Eda asked, wringing her hands nervously. Luz rolled her eyes and patted the pouch on her backpack that contained her magical crossbow, which Eda had gifted Luz this morning. She was touched by it, and understood the significance of giving a child a weapon when you lived in a place where everything wanted to eat you.

Her Mami was a little less enthused by it. 

“You know I can conjure shields and weapons at the drop of a hat right Eda?” 

“Yes but you’re still learning how to use them effectively, and they drain your energy pretty fast. This way you have a way to protect yourself that won’t cause you to sleep for ten hours.”

Luz shrugged as another scream tore through the air. “Okay I’ve got to go! I love you guys! I’ll see you tonight!”

Chapter Text

29th of June 2018 

1st of Soltiana 1000

Camila rubbed her hands over and over, watching her daughter, her Light, head off to high school. In a different dimension. In a land that was so dangerous it was tradition to give kids weapons! 

What on Earth was she doing? 

A soft hand rested on her shoulder, and she looked over at Eda. The other woman was so much taller than she, and a small part of her mind whispered, cooler too . 

“You’re not a bad parent.” She looked at the witch, startled. Was she that easy to read? 

“Both you and Luz tend to wear your emotions on your face.” 

Apparently so. 

“While I have my concerns about sending your daughter to Hexside, I know she’s too smart to fall for the propaganda bullshit that they’ll peddle.”

Camila looked back at the school, waving back at Luz one last time before she ducked into the halls. “Is it really that bad here?”

Eda shrugged and made a so-so motion with her hands. “It’s definitely still present but I know the principal and he’s been arguing for years to at least allow mixing of multiple tracks, so that people who want to go into the Emperors Coven can still study multiple things. Now come on, I’ve got you all day. Do you want to see what I’ve been teaching Luz?”

She nodded. “Yea, I’d like that.”

She followed Eda and her son over towards a grassy area, her owl pet forming a staff thingy. After a month of knowing this world, it still felt so different from her own. 

“It’s Luz,” King said, climbing in front of Eda, “How much trouble could she really get into?”

She and Eda winced and looked at each other, worry filling both of their eyes. 

She really hoped this wasn’t going to be a mistake. 

~-~

Luz followed Willow and Gus into a giant auditorium. All around her were hundreds of students in the same gray uniform as them. “There’s supposed to be some sort of presentation and then a small test to tell us what track is best for us,” Willow whispered.

Luz nodded as the three of them found some seats up in the bleachers. She wondered what kind of track she was going to be in. All of them sounded really cool, and they had a lot of applications for the real world. 

Eda had kind of been teaching her a little bit of all of them, saying that she should choose what track to go into once she got to Hexside.

Luz looked up from her thoughts as the auditorium fell silent. An older man with what looked to be a purple demon on top of his head walked out onto the middle of the auditorium, flanked by two coven scouts. An old lady with a clipboard was off to the side, hungrily watching everyone in the room. 

“Welcome students of Hexside! I am Principal Bump, and I am proud to be here to help guide a new generation of Hexolians as you guys embark on what can be one of the greatest journeys of your life!” Luz tuned out the principal's speech as she watched Gus fiddle with an illusion of the man in the palm of his hand. She and Willow laughed as he made the principal illusion do a handstand and run in place. 

“I will now turn the floor over to my fellow Emperors Coven Scouts who have come here on this day to help us!” Luz perked up at the principal's words. That was an interesting word choice. Almost like he was insinuating that we couldn’t help ourselves without the Scouts here? 

She shook the thoughts from her head as one of the scouts stepped up. 

“Good morning future Hexolians! Now before you can embark on this journey, we will be hosting an aptitude test to best help you figure out which track is the best option for you!” The scout cast spell circles and the auditorium bleachers shifted in an impressive display of construction magic to reform into small desks and chairs scattered about the room. 

The old woman on the side of the room stared unblinkingly at the Coven Scout. 

The other scout began passing around papers and a pencil. “Now I hope you understand that this test is not graded, nor are there any right or wrong answers. It’s all supposed to help you become the best version of yourself so that you can serve the Titan. You may begin.”

Luz looked down at her papers. 

They were filled with a bunch of questions like, 'What are your hobbies?' and 'Do you like to study?' 

She shook her head and began filling them out as quickly as she could. 

She just wanted to study magic; she didn’t understand why it had to be segregated like this.  The whole system felt like it was trying to keep magic out of the hands of those who could perform it. 

Around her a few papers popped up in the air, forming a coven sigil. That student's cloth coverings would then change to match the color of the coven. As time went on more students seemed to finish and the din of the auditorium grew louder. 

Luz answered the last question and set her pencil down, watching her paper dissolve into smoke and curl in front of her. It flashed between nine different colors and shapes, each one barely recognizable. It kept doing this until the spell fizzled out and the smoke dissipated. 

Almost immediately Principal Bump and the Coven Scouts descended on her. 

“Well well well, looks like we have our first Undecided.” The talkative scout said. She hadn’t really heard the other one speak at all yet. 

“This is why we should have an additional track made for students like her,” The Principal said but the scouts were already shaking their heads. 

“You know the Titan does not like the commoners mixing magic. What you’re suggesting is borderline blasphemous.” The scout and Principal glared at each other and Luz just tried to sink further into her seat. 

“Little Miss,” the Coven Scout looked away first, turning towards her. Her skin rippled at the tone he used. She may be young, but she hated being treated like a child. 

“What track do you want to choose?”

“Can’t I do all of them?” She asked, playing confused. She really just wanted to see how the scout would react. 

Already he was tsking and shaking his head. “You know the Titan doesn’t like it when we combine magic. You know it hurts him. To ask for such a thing… it's blasphemous.”

As Principal Bump's hand on her shoulder tightened, she felt more eyes turn towards her, as more and more students finished their tests. 

“But you practice multiple magics? How come you get to do it, but we can’t?” The principal's grip tightened.

“Sweetie even the Emperor's Coven tries to refrain from mixing magic unless absolutely necessary. Besides, the Titan knows we have to mix our magic in order to make sure people understand.” That sounded suspiciously like religious rhetoric and again her skin rolled as memories flashed through her mind. 

“In the end though, this is not about us, it’s about you .” He poked his finger into her chest hard enough to push her back into Principal Bump, who did thankfully steady her. She heard whispers race throughout the room. 

“I see you have an Oracle pendent already.” A snap of his fingers and her gray coverings changed to a dark purple. Her eyes flashed and she stepped forward, and she suppressed the urge to summon her mandalas. There was no telling what the scout would do if he realized she was actually a human and not a witch with round ears.

“But I want to study all the tracks! Why would we be born with the ability to mix magic if it was wrong?"  The scout growled and stepped closer to her. 

“Blood and Bone, I already told you kid! Now get over there before I throw you in the Conformatorium!” More gasps. She would have to ask Eda about that later. 

“Luz!” She glanced over to find Willow and Gus standing off to the side next to the group of students who’d finished (which was everyone by now she noted.) Gus was wearing Illusion Blue while Willow was decked out in dark green. A part of Luz’s mind felt proud of her friend for choosing what she actually wanted. 

“Yes child, run along now.”

She growled and clenched her hands. She marched over to her friends and spent the rest of whatever this was glaring daggers into the Coven Scouts skull. 

Everyone disbanded soon after and Luz found herself clumped together with a random group of people that she didn’t know, all of whom were wearing the same Oracle purple. 

She could practically feel all of her courage drain out of her as she was faced with the prospect of meeting new people. She found herself standing next to a girl with pale yellow skin and large horns that made it look like her head was a crescent moon. She had one lavender eye on the right side of her head. 

She gave Luz a tiny wave, “Hello.”

“Hi,” Luz bit out before cringing. “Sorry,” she said, “I’m a bit frustrated and I kind of aimed that at you.”

The other girl seemed to relax a little more. “It’s alright”

Luz followed the group of students to an oracle classroom, watching Willow and Gus split off to their respective halls. When they got to a classroom, she sat in the back with a few of the other oracle students, although she didn't really talk to anyone. She was still mad at that Coven Scout, and she knew that she shouldn’t let it ruin her day, but it just made her so mad to be both belittled and forced to pick only one track of magic!

Her Maestro didn’t even do that! He specialized in his Spacetime research and spells, but he also worked alongside the Orders healers a lot! 

She quieted her thoughts as the teacher walked in. 

She had been on the Boiling Isles for almost a month now and the presence of demons still sent a thrill of wonder through her body. 

This teacher was large with pale green skin, two sets of arms, and large silver-y wings sprouting from their back. Their eyes were a pale yellow that seemed to glow in the classroom, despite how well lit it was. 

‘Hello Students, my name is Mx. Ikika and you are to be the next generation of Oracle students!’ 

Luz jumped at the voice that rang in her head although she did her best (and failed) to not draw attention to herself. 

‘Oracle magic has a grand tradition of the sacred art of divination, but the reality is that our skills go a lot farther than that.’ They drew a spell circle and conjured a set of stairs made out of transparent purple light. They seemed to hold well as the teacher walked up to them and gazed over the class. Her classmates oohed and awed and even Luz felt impressed. She didn’t know of any sorcery that could conjure solid light constructs!

The teacher drew another spell circle and each one of their hands erupted into purple fire (Luz was spotting a theme with these colors.) 

The teacher dismissed both the fire and stairs, a smile on their face as excited chattering filled the room. ‘Now, you will each find a book called Psionic Energy: Power from the Other Side within your desks. This is your textbook for this class, and I suggest you treat it well or else you’ll have to pay to replace it. 

Now please open your books to Chapter 18…’  

When Luz walked out of the classroom her mood was slightly improved until she realized that she had no idea what class she had next. She smothered her brief flare of panic as she watched her classmates pull out slips of paper from their pockets. 

Luz reached into her own and found a slip of brown paper marked with each of her classes on it. She gave it a quick glance through and noted that there was a surprising amount of math, history, and science classes scattered amongst all of her oracle focused classes. 

It was nice to see that that part of her education was also prioritized instead of the school pretending that magic was all there was to life. She was really interested in what Demon Realm science would look like though. With a smile she made her way through the throng of students and towards her next class. 

Maybe today was looking up!

~-~

Luz stumbled through the door as her history teacher, a stern looking witch by the name of Mr. Stix shoved her into the detention classroom. “What you are suggesting is blasphemy Human , and I recommend that you think about your words if you want to stay here.” He closed the door with a huff. 

She muttered a few choice words in Spanish as she turned around to look at the detention classroom.

A demon leaned back in a chair, all six of their eyes glaring at her. Sitting at a table, looking bored out of their mind were three students who all looked a little older than her. One of them was a girl with big brown hair and a fishhook earring, on the far side of the table was a tall boy with big eyes. He had a bit of dirt smudged on his face. Sitting in between them was a dog? Luz didn’t honestly know but they were wearing glasses and were giving small barks to the other two at the table. 

Is there another language used by demons on the Isles? If so, she would love to learn that. 

The teacher upfront spoke, “Please take a seat and do not talk, unless you would like to clean.”

Luz, who was still angry at getting thrown in detention for asking questions , saw an easy target. “Oh really? What are you going to have me do, scrub the floors with a toothbrush?!?” 

Six eyes glared back at her, and she met their gaze evenly. This demon had nothing on her Maestro when he was mad. Six eyes were a pittance. Finally, they relented and formed a spell circle, a toothbrush and a bottle of something appearing in her hands. She rolled her eyes and dropped them to the floor. 

Aware that she had an audience, she bent and twisted her hands, fiery orange light marking the air. Part of her noticed that there seemed to be black light mixed in with the orange. She would have to ask her Maestro about that next time she saw him. 

As soon as she released the spell the smell of smoke filled the air and made the room look as if it had been recently cleaned. 

It didn’t seem like it was possible, but the demon was now even more mad at her as they stood up and marched towards her. She stood her ground and glared right back. 

“Principal Bump told us about you,” they said. “The Human Sorceress who wants to be a witch. I don’t care about where you came from or what the rules are there, but here when you’re told to do something you do it. That means no mixing magic, no using human-y magic, and no talking back. Now. Sit.”

She felt something stiffen in her body as it was forced to sit. Panic spread through her body until she spotted a pink stone ring adorning their hands. The same stone that sat in her ring, and now, she realized, the same stone that made up Amity's necklace. 

Why did an Abomination witch have an oracle focus?

Also did that teacher take control of her body?!

Panic burned away to anger, leaving behind nothing but the ashes of her control. She made to get up, mandalas twitching and forming around her arms, when she was pulled back down by the girl.

The other girl shook her head and motioned to wait. Luz, already feeling tired from the idiocy she'd faced today, relented and sat down. She took out a piece of paper and doodled for a little bit, apparently getting sucked into her drawing of Willow because she jumped when the other girl tapped her shoulder again. 

She was pointing towards the teacher, who was apparently passed out cold and leaning against the chalkboard. A few feet to the left of the teacher was a little doorway in the middle of the board. She could already see the two students walking through what looked like a hallway and into a bigger room. 

The girl motioned for her to follow her and climbed through. Luz shrugged and grabbed her stuff, climbing through the hole. 

“What is this place,” She asked. 

“The last place you’ll ever see alive.” Luz immediately brought her hands up, mandalas sparking into existence as she prepared to fight the girl only to see her rapidly backing up and looking guilty. 

“Woah woah woah, I’m not actually going to hurt you! I don’t even know what kind of magic you’re using!” Luz glared at her and dismissed her mandolas. 

“You shouldn’t joke about that.” The other girl awkwardly laughed and rubbed the back of her head. 

“Yea, you’re right.” She stuck her hand out and said, “Let me make it up to you, I’m Viney!”

“Luz,” she said, shaking her hand. She followed Viney through the hall and into the much larger room. 

It was very tall and cylindrical, with one large ramp rising throughout the space. Every single surface was covered in doors in multiple different orientations. It reminded her of an MC Esher painting she had seen once. 

“Woah,” she said, spinning around to take everything in. She could hear the smile in Viney’s voice as she spoke. “Welcome to the Secret Room of Shortcuts!” 

“Where do the doors lead?” 

“Everywhere around campus, even to the Beast Keeping Classes held outside.” 

“What do you guys use it for?”

 This time it was the guy who spoke, “Mainly to study multiple magic tracks but Viney here also uses it to spy on her crush sometimes.”

The other girl glared at the guy. “Shut it Jerbo, it’s not like you don’t do the same!”

The two seemed to get into a glaring match with each other and Luz just made eye contact with the dog demon student. They both waved at each other. The motion seemed to startle Viney and Jerbo out of their staring competition. 

Viney cleared her throat while Jerbo rolled his eyes. She got the sense that this was a common occurrence between the two of them. “We mainly use it to study multiple tracks because that’s why Bump put us in detention. I know a few students, including its creator Lord Calamity, used it for playing pranks.”

Viney pointed to one wall that was decorated with multiple names written in graffiti like paint. Underneath all of it Luz could make out a portrait of this Lord Calamity but not who the actual person was. 

“It’s somewhat of a tradition for everyone who comes through here to write their name on the wall,” Jerbo said, holding out what looked like a sharpie. Without hesitation Luz snatched it and wrote in large letters ‘LUZ NOCEDA’. 

She stepped back and admired her name amongst everyone else's. She could make out Viney's and Jerbo's names next to a third one that read Barcus. She hazarded a guess that that was the dog demon's name. 

It was kind of emotional to see her name up there amongst all the others. The Sorcerer Supreme had one day told her that he found honor in being a Master of the Mystic Arts because it meant that he was a part of something bigger than himself. At the time she didn’t know what he had meant but now she thought she had an idea. 

“So, is someone going to show me which doors lead to where?” The three previous detention students all smiled at her. “Let me show you,” Viney said as she gestured to a door on the floor. 

Her and Viney spent the next couple of hours going through all the doors. Jerbo and Barcus would occasionally pitch in, with Jerbo translating for the dog demon. They also shared a little bit about themselves, like how Jerbo loved plants and abominations, Viney beast keeping and healing, and Barcus mainly sat in on oracle and potions classes. 

They spent several minutes gawking over the fact that she was Human, which they must’ve overheard when Mr. Stix brought her to detention. Apparently, most of the demons and witches couldn’t recognize a human on sight.

After lunch she went off on her own and sat in on a Plant track class, her little door opening in the top of the greenhouse. She could see Willow below her and resisted the urge to call out to her friend. 

She couldn’t wait until she could show Willow and Gus the room. She was sure they would love it.

She was broken from her thoughts by a knock on the door to the greenhouse. She watched a student get up and open the door only to be plowed over by a large snake looking thing. 

Students began screaming and running towards the opposite side of the classroom while the teacher attempted to use their magic against the beast. Luz watched in mounting horror as it seemed to slurp up the spell circle and the teacher collapsed to the ground, their skin pale and gray.

Without thinking, Luz lept from the door and fell to the ground mandalas flickering with orange and black bits of light. “Run!” She yelled behind her as the snake thing tried to suck in her magic. 

She stumbled forward and the mandolas wavered a little bit but held. She could hear windows breaking as students ran out of the greenhouse and smiled. “My turn.”

Her mandolas dissolved and reformed into a whip of bright light. She snapped the whip, striking the snake's side. It yowled in pain and promptly backed up, plowing through the side of the greenhouse. 

She watched it turn tail and run back towards the main part of the school. She dismissed the whip and shrugged to herself. “I was not expecting it to work that well.” 

Almost immediately after she felt something crash into her side. Panic flared in her chest before she calmed and realized it was Willow. The Plant witch had her in a crushing bear hug. 

“I thought you were going to get hurt,” her friend practically shouted at her. Luz wiggled her way free from Willow's grip and gave her a little turn. 

“I’m fine for now but if that thing is heading towards the main campus, then we need to warn the teachers.” Willow nodded and made for the giant hole where the door used to be. 

“I’ve got a shortcut actually,” Luz said, enjoying the confused look on Willow's face. 

A quick vine ladder later brought the two girls into the Secret Room of Shortcuts. Viney, Jerbo, and Barcus stared a little distrustfully at Willow, but Luz dismissed it to deal with it later. 

“Do you guys know where Principal Bump is?” 

Jerbo shook his head, “We tried to go get him as soon as you hopped into the greenhouse but he’s out cold in the theater with Amity Blight.” Luz didn’t miss the way Willow stiffened at Amity’s name, but now wasn’t the time to ask more questions. 

“Mierda. Who else can we find? And do we know what that thing even was?”

“I think it was a Greater Basilisk,” Viney shrugged. "I’ve read about them, but they’re supposed to have gone extinct ages ago.” 

“I remember hearing about how everyone found at Glandus was found comatose and without magic. Maybe this basilisk is what caused it.” Willow said. 

“Lovely, so it's been going from school to school feeding on witches and demons. Is there any other teacher that we can get?”

Barcus barked. “Let’s check,” Jerbo translated. The five of them spent the next several minutes checking all the doors. To their mounting horror all the teachers they came across were out cold with chalky gray skin.

They met back up in the middle of the room and it was clear that each of them was shaken. They all shook their heads as an answer to the silent question. Luz took a deep breath. “What about the upperclassmen? Surely, they might be able to deal with this?!” Her voice rose in a panic before she could center herself. 

Jerbo shook his head. “My older siblings in the Junior class, and both them and the Senior class have taken a trip to the Titansheart for a few days.”

“On the first day?!” Jerbo just shrugged. 

“Okay so let me get this straight, the upperclassmen are gone, all of the professors are down for the count, giving this basilisk free range to actively hunt our classmates, and the only thing stopping Hexside from ending up like Glandus is four detention students and a plant witch.”

Barcus gave a long wine. “Pretty much,” Jerbo translated. 

“Dios mío this feels like a poorly written YA novel.”

“Huh?” Willow asked.

Luz just waved her off. She took another look around her, this time trying to look at it like how her Maestro or even Eda would look at the situation. 

Slowly an idea began to form in her head.

Luz wished she could go back and smack herself upside the head for her horrible idea. Of course it wasn’t all her fault, Barcus had done some Oracle foretelling to help tweak the plan a little bit, but this part was still definitely her idea. 

She cursed at herself as she slipped across the ground. Behind her the basilisk screeched and continued running towards her. She picked herself back up and ran down the hall and past her classmates who seemed to be trying to become one with the lockers and walls around them. 

She paid them no mind as she sprinted towards the door in the wall. She knew that Jerbo's plant abomination would be just behind the door waiting to catch her, but it didn’t make her feel any more confident as she sent another bolt from her crossbow at the basilisk before diving into the door. 

Her perspective shifted as down became sideways and she closed her eyes. She felt a soft thud as the dirt abomination caught her and opened her eyes just in time to watch the basilisk flail through the Shortcut room. 

Viney’s griffin Puddles tackled the beast into another one of the bigger doors leading to the theater. Luz leapt towards the beast as she saw it get stuck and landed at the same time as Viney who apparently had the same thought. 

Between the weight of an adolescent griffin and two teenage girls they were able to shove the basilisk through the door. Puddles caught them as both her and Viney fell through. 

Luz watched Willow and Jerbo wrap the Basilisk in vines as Barcus cut the lines to the collection of sandbags that they had shifted to center stage. 

She gave a whoop of joy as the sandbags fell, crushing the basilisk. As soon as it hit her that her actions led to the death of another living being she seized on those thoughts and shoved them to the side. 

Hopefully she’d get to processing it later. 

For now, Puddles set her on the ground, and she gave Willow and Barcus a quick once over before rushing towards Amity and Principal Bump. 

Some blushish spectral thing that had left the basilisk after it had been crushed (killed) had reentered the two of them. 

She crouched and started looking for a pulse on Amity as Viney joined her and began casting spell circles over Bump. She seemed to be satisfied by whatever her magic was telling her and began to cast the same circles over Amity. 

Luz scooched off to the side and she realized with a start that she had never let go of Amity’s hand from when she looked for a pulse. Viney seemed to be satisfied and said, “They should both be fine, maybe just a little dazed when they get up.”

Luz sat by Amity’s side until she awoke and was met with a raised eyebrow and soft smile. “Are you going soft on me Human?” Luz rolled her eyes. 

“Never, but King would kill me if I didn’t make sure his favorite storyteller was okay.”

The soft smile stayed on Amity’s face as she sat up. At least until she spotted Willow talking with Principal Bump off to the side. Luz watched as what she was sure was an oracle stone around her neck flared with a pinkish color. 

All at once, Amity let go of her hand and sat straight up. A sinking feeling began to form in her gut as she watched Amity put on a mask in real time. Principal Bump made his way over to them, oblivious to the turmoil Luz was going through, although it did almost seem like he glared at the pendent too. 

“Miss Blight, Miss Claw- Miss Noceda, my apologies. Are you both okay?” Both of them nodded. 

“Miss Blight I know that Miss Gale checked us both over, but I would like to visit the Healers Halls to make sure that everyone who was attacked gets checked out. If you’ll please come with me.” Amity nodded and stood up. She looked back at Luz, an expressionless look on her face, before turning from the room. 

Willow stared at her back, a mix of emotions that she couldn’t place on her face. “Miss Noceda, I understand that you played a critical part in organizing this plan, is there anything I can do to repay you for what you’ve done for the school?”

There was a brief moment where she felt like one of her favorite book characters standing before a divine council and then she pulled her head out of the clouds. “We should be able to study multiple tracks of magic. None of this would’ve been possible without their skill in multiple tracks.” Luz pointed at Jerbo, Viney, and Barcus who were suddenly looking everywhere but at her. 

Bump smiled and she got the impression that he was proud of her. “I should’ve guessed that that is what you would ask for, especially considering who your mentor is.” She perked up at the mention of Eda and maybe the chance to glean some more information about her mentor's mysterious past. “Luckily for you I have been trying to enact a program to allow students to study multiple tracks and I believe that I can leverage this to my advantage.”

It was a few hours later that Luz found herself on the steps of the school, surrounded by Gus, Willow, Viney, Jerbo, and Barcus as well as several of her classmates. Jerbo was currently translating for Barcus as he retold the day's events. 

Luz eyed the coven guard with a flat, golden mask talking to Bump. They seemed to be disagreeing about something, but Luz shrugged and ignored it. She was sure that whatever it was the principal could handle it. 

Luz was just waiting for Eda, King, and her Mami to arrive. She couldn’t wait to show off her new umber uniform! 

As if summoned by her thoughts she spotted the trio over the treetops. She leapt up, startling several people and gave her goodbyes before running towards her Mami who scooped her into a hug. 

“Oh, mija it’s good to see you again.” 

Luz laughed and leaned back, “Mama, I was only gone for a day!” Her mother let her go and kneeled down, a gleam in her eyes. 

“Sí but you left me with her,” she pointed towards Eda who was standing off to the side, King perched in her hair, a Burger Queen crown adorning his head.

The older witch rolled her eyes, “Hey! We had a great time today!” 

Apparently, King couldn’t wait any more as he leapt from Eda’s shoulder with a shout of “Luz!” and into her arms. His crown fell to the ground as he did so. She was sucked into wrestling with the little demon and as such she didn’t notice Bump had made his way over. 

“The kid did what?!!” Eda’s shout broke her and King's concentration. She looked up at her Mama and mentor to find them staring down at her. 

Her Mama looked at her with a weird mixture of fear and pride while Eda looked at her like she was impressed with her. Eda knelt down, her gray mane blocking out the sun. 

“You did good today kiddo. You did on your first day what I couldn’t do in four years. I’ll teach you how to lockpick as a reward.” Eda ruffled Luz’s hair. 

Instead of batting her hand away like she used to do, Luz just leaned into the touch. 

“Now let's get you kids home.” As soon as Eda had said that she was hit with a wave of exhaustion as the adrenaline from the day finally left her. 

She had been worried how her mother would react to her being in danger, and how Eda would react to her being the first student to join the Emperor's track. 

Apparently, she shouldn’t have worried. 

Eda picked her and King up and held them against her chest. She was surprised the woman could carry them both, but she was apparently stronger than she looked. 

She closed her eyes and felt her wind in her hair as Owlbert began the flight home. 

Chapter Text

30th of June 2018

2nd of Soltiana 1000

“Buenos Días Mija, you’re excited today.” Camila said as Luz jumped into her chair at the table, vibrating with energy. Vee glared at her from her spot, nursing a cup of coffee. She was not a morning person, unlike Luz. 

The girl in question grinned, “Maestro is doing something for the Sorcerer Supreme, so I have the weekend off so long as I keep up with my workouts.” Camila pursed her lips as she loaded up three plates with the eggs and toast, she had been making. 

She wasn’t super thrilled at the idea of her Light learning how to fight, although she could understand why Stephen was so adamant about her learning how to defend herself. 

She set the plates before the girls and joined them at the table. 

“Seeing as you have the weekend off is there anything that you would like to do?” Vee was starting to look a little more awake with some food in her stomach. 

“I need some more toothpaste,” the basilisk said. Luz nodded. 

“And I need some more pads, I ran out when I had my period last week.” 

Camila nodded as she chewed her last bite. “So, we’ll make a trip to the store at some point. Anything else?” 

A smile that usually foretold chaos and trouble appeared on Luz’s face. “Has Vee been to New York yet?” Camila shook her head, already knowing where this was going. 

“Day trip!” Luz jumped up and shouted before running back up to her and Vee’s shared bedroom to do something. Camila hopped it was to brush her teeth. 

“New York?” Vee asked. 

“It’s the large city where Luz studies her sorcery. It’s also got a lot of things to do and explore there.” Vee got steadily more excited as Camila described the city. 

“When can we leave?” Vee bounced in her chair in a way that was similar to Luz. The similarities between the two girls caught her by surprise sometimes but it still made her smile.

She never expected to be a mother of two, but she wouldn't change it for the world.

“I’ll do the shopping while you guys go to the city, there’s a few things I’ve got to get at the store anyway.” Vee bounced out of her chair and gave her a tight hug. 

“Thank you, Mom!” She turned to head upstairs before Camila stopped her. “I need you to write down everything you need me to get you before you guys leave. And please tell your sister the same thing!” Vee nodded and dashed upstairs. 

She sat back at the table, staring at the spots that Vee and Luz had vacated. She remembered how despondent her daughter had been after her father died and the Hong Kong incident. 

She knew Stephen judged her for pushing to have her study in the Isles thinking that she was pushing her away. But in her opinion, he didn’t understand. 

He didn’t understand how much brighter and visibly happier she was after just a month in that place. 

She had seriously thought that she wouldn’t make another friend for years after Hong Kong but now whenever she came home, she was bombarded with stories about her friends, about Eda and King who Camila could easily see that Luz was coming to view them as a second family. She might go visit Eda today to talk about that.

Luz and Vee placed two lists down in front of her. She gave them a quick once over and nodded. “Alright, have fun and be safe you two!” She watched Luz open a portal to the sanctum, orange light illuminating her living room. Her two girls gave one last wave before stepping through, clearly excited about the day ahead of them. 

Yes, sending her to learn at the Boiling Isles was quite possibly the best decision she could’ve made in those circumstances. 

~-~

2nd of July 2018 

4th of Soltiana 1000

Luz hopped through the portal and waved goodbye to her Mami and Vee. She smiled as she watched the door close and fold up before turning towards the residents of the Owl House. 

King tackled her with a hug, and she fell to the ground laughing. “I missed you too King! But I was only gone for two days.” She could feel his small body shudder in her hands. 

“Those were the worst two days of my life.”

Hooty began crying and rolling in the mud. “I’m sorry King! I failed you!” 

Eda rolled her eyes, “Shut it Hooty!”

“What happened while I was gone?” Luz said standing up and still holding tight to King. The little demon seemed to be trying to weld himself to her side. 

“King left his crown behind at the library and when we went back to get it, we saw a Coven Scout hand the crown over to Wrath.” 

Luz stepped into the house, candles and lights flickering on as she desperately tried to ignore a crying Hooty. Even with her experiences with unsettling things, something was off with that demon.

“Who’s Wrath?” She set her bag on the ground and sat down on the couch; arms still wrapped around King. Eda plopped herself on the other side of the couch and rolled her eyes. 

“A demon with some minor fleshbending skill, but the Dumbass in Bronze employs him as the warden for his Conformatorium.”

“Cheery name,” Luz deadpanned. “Also, what’s fleshbending?” She stroked King's fur and felt him relax into the touch.

Eda shook her head. “Despite how long you’ve been here I still forget that you weren't born here.” 

“I’ve only been here for a month and a half really.” Eda just waved off her comment. 

“Okay so fleshbending is a combination of Healing and Abomination magics, and basically allows you to manipulate either your own body or other organic fleshy things. I’ve read a few old books that say really powerful fleshbenders could even manipulate the body of the Titan although whether or not that is true is up for debate.

It doesn't matter really because with most of the hybrid magics it was outlawed when Bonehead conned his way into power, EXCEPT for a few select demons who have an innate ability to do. I’ve got some skill in it,” Eda demonstrated by unscrewing her hand from her wrist, showing Luz the pearly bone sticking out from her arm, “As does ‘Warden Wrath’.”

“But I thought you were a witch though, not a demon.” Eda suddenly looked very uncomfortable as she made a so-so gesture. Luz felt bad for asking. 

“I blur the lines a bit, I’ll tell you why some other day.” Eda leapt from the couch, that same nervous expression still on her face. 

“I broke into the Conformatorium over the weekend while you were gone to try and find it, and good news is I found it! Bad news is they must’ve gotten a new warder because I couldn’t get past those shields quick enough. Other good news is that I’m pretty sure that you’ll be able to get pass them because you’re human and the Emperor's Coven is too stupid to think about warding against you guys.” Eda spun and looked back at her with her arms spread out as if she was proposing a hug and not a plan to break into prison to steal a paper crown. 

Also, Eda has broken into there before?!

“Why don’t we just get King a new crown? They’re fairly easy to get?!” She looked down at King whose eyes were filling up with tears. He started bawling as he jumped off her and ran up the stairs. 

Eda stared at her with that same disappointed look that her Mami often gave her whenever she hurt someone's feelings. She sat down on the couch, looking much more serious. 

“Luz, I know that for you a Burger Queen crown is really easy to get but for King they’re a rare treat. And to be honest with you, money was tight for a while before you showed up, most of it went into my potions business in order to get enough to pay for essentials. 

That crown is and was one of the few things that he has and it’s important to him. Which means it’s important to me and I’d hope that’d mean it’s important to you too.” 

Luz suddenly felt very bad about her off hand comment. “I’m sorry Eda,” she tried apologizing, but the older woman shook her head. 

“It’s not me you need to apologize to, it’s King.” Luz got up and made to go upstairs when she turned around. 

“Eda?” The witch turned to look at her. “You guys are both important to me. No matter what.”

The woman smiled, her gold fang reflecting some of the candlelight. “I’m glad to hear it kid, us weirdos gotta stick together.” Luz smiled and as she made her way upstairs, she wasn’t able to hear Eda say, “You’re important to me too kiddo.”

She did hear Hooty screech, “You’re important to me too Eda!” followed by the witch jumping and screaming at the demonic bird worm in fright. 

Luz knocked on the door to Eda’s bedroom. Despite having his own little room nearby, she knew that King spent most of his nights in either hers or Eda’s bedroom. Considering the situation Luz was willing to bet that he had gone to Eda’s room. 

As she approached the door, she could hear sniffling from within the room. She knocked and cracked it open a little, just enough for King to be able to hear her. 

“Hey King, can I come in?” The sniffles just continued before being broken by a quiet “mhm hmm.”

She opened the door fully and looked about Eda’s room. This was the first time she had been in her mentor's room and honestly it surprised her. She knew that people called her ‘The Owl Lady’ but the nest in place of a bed was leaning a little too much into it if she was honest. 

There was a vanity against the wall to her left, an open-air area that led to a balcony just beyond that that she didn’t even know the Owl House had. The large stained-glass window of a reptilian eye that sat above the front door was in the far wall and bookshelves covered the rest of the walls.

Her curiosity was peaked when she saw that quite a few books were chained shut. She shook the thoughts from her head. She could ask Eda about them later, right now she needed to make it up to King. 

She walked up to the nest where she found him curled up against a corner cradling a frayed bunny plushie. “Can I join you?” She gestured to the spot next to him and got a tiny nod. 

Luz lowered herself into the nest, careful of the branches and golden candlesticks. She decided that the less she knew about why Eda had a nest the better.

“King, you know I didn’t mean to hurt you when I said that comment, right?” King just stared down at the bunny plushie. It was a light pink color with only one button for an eye. He was rubbing circles around the button with his claw. 

Luz sighed and looked up towards the ceiling. Absently she thought that there had to be some sort of space warping magic going on in the Owl House because she was pretty sure the house's roofs were not that tall. 

Focus Noceda, she thought to herself. She was interrupted from her thoughts by King. 

“She got me this plushie on the fifth anniversary of her finding me.” Luz had so many questions. “For so long we struggled to get by, and Mom did her best to hide it from me, but it wasn’t that hard to figure out when she would leave me with Rose for a few days. 

I later found out that she was bounty hunting to make some extra snails. I didn’t expect her to get me anything that year, Titan I didn’t even ask her for anything. But that year for my birthday she got me Burger Queen and Francois. That was when I got my first crown which Hooty later ate. I’ll never forgive him for that.” King pulled Francois closer to his chest and looked at Luz. 

“If my mother is the most powerful witch in the entire Boiling Empire, then why was it so hard for us to get by?”

Luz honestly didn’t know how to respond to King's question. She truly didn’t know the answer and it made her heart break because she couldn’t imagine how confused he must be. 

“That is why I want my crown back, even if it’s just from Burger Queen, Luz. Because when I retake my throne as the King of Demons, I'll make sure Mom never has to work again. She’ll have everything she’ll ever want.” Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, and she reached out to pull King into a hug before stopping. 

“Is it okay if I hug you King?” The little demon looked at her warily before nodding. Luz scooped him into a hug and the two stayed there for several minutes. 

“You know I’m sorry right?” She felt King's horns hitch on her shirt as he nodded. “Then let me make it up to you and help you get your crown back, okay?” King sniffled and pulled out of the hug. His bright yellow eyes, so similar to Eda’s own and yet so different, were full of tears. 

“Okay,” he said.

~-~

“How long is it until we get to the Conformitorium?” Luz shouted above the wind whipping past their heads. 

“At this speed? At least an hour!” 

Luz and King occupied themselves by playing a game of I Spy. By the time Eda landed Luz's and King's relationship appeared no different to what it had been that morning. 

As soon as the three of them had hopped off the staff Owlbert fluttered up to Eda’s shoulder. “Alright listen up kiddos. I need you to understand something before we actually go through with this. 

This isn’t a game. It’s not like the cartoons you’d watch on the crystal ball during the weekends. If these people catch you, they will hurt you, if not worse. Do you understand?” 

King nodded; his attention focused completely on Eda while Luz was a little more doubtful.

Surely, she would be able to defend herself? She was shocked when she saw Eda kneeled in front of her (her bones audibly cracking as she did so) and place a hand on her shoulder. 

“That goes for you to kid. I know you’ve been training with Strange but the people who work in this prison won’t go easy on you, they won’t hold back. If they catch you, the best-case scenario is they lock you up or kill you. Worst case scenario…” Eda trailed off and Luz flinched.

She remembered her mother's stories from when she immigrated from the Dominican Republic. She knew what could happen to a person.

 She looked Eda in the eye and nodded. She would be careful and look out for King.

Eda seemed to relax all at once as soon as she did so. She stood back up and pointed at the dark stone tower that seemed to rise above the trees like an Emperor before his subjects.

“The ‘contraband’ room is all the way up there. I’ll float you guys up to that windowsill before going in through the bottom and causing a distraction.”

Luz looked at Eda worryingly. “Are you sure that’s safe? What if you get hurt?” Eda just shrugged it off. 

“It’s not my first time breaking into this place, kid,” Eda just said nonchalantly. King and Luz looked at each other, both equally unsettled by the admittance. Luz remembered that Eda had said the same thing earlier in the day back at the House. Just who was her mentor?

“You guys ready?” Eda stood off to the side, Owlbert on his staff and held at the ready. They nodded and Eda spun her staff, brilliant gold light following behind it. 

Luz and King slowly floated off the ground, supported by a platform made of purple light. The two of them held on to each other as the platform wobbled and rose through the air. 

Luz watched the walls and guards below her pass by as Eda floated them through some clouds. She would’ve thought that this place would have protections from people going over the walls, especially if people have the ability to fly at will. 

She shook her head, sometimes things just didn’t make sense here. 

“We’re almost there,” King whispered. He crawled up her leg and perched on her shoulder. As soon as they were close enough to the window, she jumped and missed the windowsill. 

She could hear King’s shrill screaming as the two of them fell towards the ground below them. Luz rolled her eyes and conjured several ropes of orange and black speckled energy. They easily wrapped around the windowsill above them and began pulling the two of them back up. 

“King, you can stop screaming now.” She was pretty sure the demon's claws had torn through her robes. She’d have to ask her Maestro to get her a new set. 

“I knew you could do it,” King said, his voice falsely positive. Luz rolled her eyes. Seeing as the obscenities that he’d been screaming at her a second ago would’ve gotten her mouth washed out with soap if she’d said them, she was very doubtful of King’s faith in her. 

The ropes pulled them up to the windowsill and she directed them to dissipate as the two of them crawled over and into the tower. She unfortunately tripped as she climbed in and landed flat on her face. 

King laughed at her as she pulled herself up. He was quickly quieted though as the two of them looked around. 

The inside of the tower they were in was dark, only just illuminated by the torches scattered around the walls. Cells that were filled with all manner of demon and witch lined the walls. The amount of people here was truly staggering. 

“How’d you guys get out of your cell?” Luz looked towards the cell closest to her and saw a witch, her skin as dark as hers. She had black hair and was wearing what looked like a blue jumpsuit. 

Where prison suits blue in the Boiling Empire? 

She shook the thought from her mind and approached the witch. She really hoped she wasn’t a serial killer or something. 

“We were never in a cell to begin with. What’s your name?” Hope filled the other girl's face and Luz suddenly felt bad. She hoped she could actually help her. 

“I’m Katya, did Raine send you?” 

Luz shared a confused look with King. The little demon just shrugged. “Rain? How would the rain send me?” That hope that had filled the witch seemed to disappear within a second. “What are you in here for?” King asked. 

Katya scoffed. “Resisting. Refusing to obey the Emperor's wishes, being a free witch. You name it. There’s several of us from the resistance locked up in here.” 

Luz chewed on her lip debating her next action. It could either be really helpful or really hinder their entire plan here. Oh well, Papa would hate it if I just left these people here when I could’ve helped them, Luz thought to herself. 

Her mind made up, she walked over to the lever next to Katya’s cells and slowly lifted it up. Thank the Vishanti for Maestros training. Otherwise she doubted she would be able to lift this lever. 

“What are you doing?” Katya asked. Luz ignored her and channeled just a little magic through her body to push the lever the final distance. 

It clicked in place and the cell wall rose, allowing the witch to step out. “Thank you,” she said before engulfing Luz and King in a hug. The two of them let out a little squeak, not expecting the hug nor how strong the witch would be. 

Luz just nodded her head as Katya stepped back. “I hope to see you guys again!” With a grin she summoned a tambourine and ran off down the halls, music and magic following in her wake. 

She felt a blush creep across her face as the witch sprinted down the halls. “Ooooo Luz has a cruuuush.” She glared down at King who was looking up at her with a wide grin on his face. 

“If you want your crown you’ll mention this to no one. Deal?” King seemed to ponder this for a second before saying, “And I get your desert tonight!” 

She rolled her eyes, “Fine. Now can we get going? I still have homework I need to do before class tomorrow.”

They walked through the halls, passing by cell after cell as they walked aimlessly. Eda hadn’t really told them how exactly to get to the contraband room, just that it was in this tower somewhere. They spent the time wondering and dodging guards and looking for the room. 

“Why didn’t you do your homework beforehand?” Luz rolled her eyes. 

“I’m taking nine tracks and some general classes at Hexside, plus whatever Eda decides to teach me, plus all the stuff Maestro wants me to do while I’m here. My life is a never-ending series of homework.”

King shook his head. “This is why I’m not going to go to school. I’ll just have Mom teach me everything she knows!” Luz shook her head as she opened a door. The room was filled with witches and demons dressed in the Emperor's Coven uniform. Bird-like masks hung along one of the walls. It looked like everyone might’ve been getting ready for work or something.

As soon as the door opened everyone inside turned towards her. There was a split second where no one did or said anything and then one of the taller, cat-like demons pointed at her and said, “Get her!” 

Luz slammed the door shut and picked King up, who gave a startled “weh!” as she sprinted down the hall. 

She turned a corner to try and lose them and nearly ran face first into Eda. “Kid what are you doing?” Luz didn’t get a moment to answer or even catch her breath before the group of Coven scouts came around the corner, screaming for her, King, and now Eda to “Get back here” and “Stop breaking the law.”

A few of them had spell circles and giant pointy spears and looked like they were willing to use both. “RUN!” Eda shouted and pushed her forward down the hall and Luz didn’t need any more direction. She could hear spells clashing together before Eda appeared next to her, easily keeping pace. 

“Left!” the older woman shouted in English. Luz ducked down that hallway and straight into a dead end. She turned back towards Eda only to find a gray hand covering her mouth as Eda shushed her. 

She pointed ahead and Luz spotted illusions of the three of them yelling and running down the other hallway. The Coven scouts took the bait and ran down there, leaving the three of them in the clear. 

They waited for a little longer, her and Eda breathing heavily while King was attached to her shoulder. Finally they felt they were in the clear and relaxed. Or well as much as you can relax when you’re fourteen years old and in a supermax prison. 

What in the Vishanti was she doing here? 

“Kid I was supposed to be the one to cause a diversion, not you. Now come on, we need to get King’s crown.” The demon in question lept from her shoulder and into Eda’s hair. She awed at how adorable he looked within Eda's mane of hair.

With Eda it took only a few more minutes for them to find the room containing all the contraband. 

Honestly she wasn’t sure how they hadn’t come across the door sooner seeing as it was several feet tall and had the word ‘CONTRABAND’ in bold letters carved across its face. 

“My crown!” King said, leaping from Eda’s hair and running up to the door. “I can feel my power returning!” He pushed and shoved against the door until it opened up enough for him to slide through. 

Luz looked at Eda. “He’s really committed to this ‘King of Demons’ bit, isn’t he?” A brief guilty look flashed across the older woman's face before she covered it up with a smile. Luz wondered what that was about. 

“He really is. Now let's get inside before he hurts himself.” Eda led the way in and Luz followed her. 

She stopped as soon as she entered the room. It truly was massive, probably around the size of a football field. In the center of the room was a massive cylindrical field that gave off a soft green light. 

King was sitting on the ground as Eda blew on his paws and admonished him for trying to get through the force field. She watched Eda pull some bandaids out of her hair and place them on King's paws. 

Luz smiled as she watched the interaction between mother and son. 

“Luz you ready for this?” Eda’s question broke her out of her thoughts. She nodded as she walked up to the duo. 

“You’re sure I can get through this force field?” Eda made a so-so gesture with her hand. She made a few interconnecting spell circles. The golden light of Eda’s magic washed over the force field and reformed into several runes. 

Luz watched Eda look at the runes. The older woman whistled. “That’s ingenious.”

“What?” King asked. 

Eda kept her eyes on the runes as she turned towards King. “Whoever did this was a genius. The ward essentially searches for a bile sac. If it’s got a bile sac then it can’t get in.”

“Does everything on the Isles have a bile sac?” 

“Most things do,” Eda said. “There's only a few beast demons that don’t have a bile sac and they don’t have enough self-awareness to get past all those guards and get into this room.”

“So, I’ll be able to bypass the ward pretty easily?”

Eda looked down at her, “You're sure Humans don't have bile sacs, right?” Luz shook her head. “Then you should be able to simply walk right through it.” 

Luz looked down at King, who was latching onto her robes. The little demon was looking up at her with watery eyes and she remembered their conversation from earlier. 

She knelt down next to the little demon and smiled. “Wait here for me, I’ll be right back!” King nodded.

She stood up and took a deep breath before walking towards the force field. With one more second to hype herself up she stepped through it. 

It was weird, like trying to walk underneath a cold shower of honey. There was a little resistance in the force field, but she pushed through and was greeted with the feeling of cool air washing over her as she made it to the other side.

In front of her was a giant pile of just random stuff. She saw stuffed animals, books, a few weapons and up at the very top of the pile was King’s crown. She climbed up the pile slipping and sliding at some points. Finally, she grabbed the crown and slid down and exited the force field. 

That same feeling of cold honey washed over her before disappearing. 

She was greeted on the other side by a hyperactive King being held back by Eda. 

“My power! I can feel it returning!” King clawed at her pants, and she laughed as she placed the crown upon his skull, careful to avoid his horns. His first act as King of the Demons was to start ordering around a few of the random rocks around the room, calling them “Soldiers in my Armies of Doom.” 

Eda gave a little sniffle at the sight. 

Luz rolled her eyes at the older woman, “Come on you two we should get going before the guards realize-” 

She was interrupted by a low growl of “Too late,” as several coven scouts swarmed the room. 

Eda cursed as she spun to face the door and Luz summoned her mandalas. 

Walking in through the large double doors was a huge demon with purple leathery skin that seemed to swirl together to form patterns and symbols that she didn’t recognize. 

He was wearing the typical coven scout uniform but had his bird mask clipped to a belt. She almost wished that he was wearing it instead. 

Multiple black beady eyes rested above a mouth filled with needle-like teeth that reminded her of some sort of deep-sea creature back on Earth. 

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the Cawthorne's and a special guest. We’ve heard a lot about you Luz the Human.” Her skin rolled with disgust at the way he said her name. “Yes, the Golden Guard won’t shut up about you. He hasn’t stopped talking about the first student in his ‘Emperors Track’.” 

Huh. She thought Principal Bump had been the one to come up with the Emperors Track idea, not some other guard. 

She heard a growl rip from one of her friends' throats and looking over she honestly didn’t know who she wanted it to be from. 

King was crouched on all fours, his crown mysteriously gone. His fur, which usually was smooth and glossy, stood up on its end making him look all spiky. She wouldn’t have thought that the little demon could pull off intimidating but in that instant she would’ve understood if the big purple demon who was possibly Wrath, tucked and ran. There was something else about King when he was like this, a weight or intensity to his actions that wasn’t usually there. 

Eda was hands down worse though. Her fingers seemed to be boarding more on claws and she could’ve sworn she could see a small layer of what looked like feathers covering her entire body. Her face seemed to stretch at the edges as if there was another thing within her that pushed and pleaded to be let out. 

She shook out the weird transformations of her friends. There would be time to ask what the hell was going on with them later. Right now they have to get out of this situation. 

“Warden Wrath,” Eda growled out, the sound seemingly filling the room. “Keep her name out of your mouth traitor,” Eda spat out. She tightened her grip on Owlbert. Luz felt a part of her warm at how Eda came to her defense. Luz crouched down, ready to spring at one of the nearby guards. She shifted one of her mandalas from a shield spell to a whip spell and held it at the ready. She’d wait for either the guards, King, or Eda to make the first move. 

Wrath shrugged and fully faced Eda. “I am not here for the Human, at least not yet. I’m here for you Owl Lady.” Wrath began to walk around the room, forcing the three of them to shift stances in order to keep him in front of them. This unfortunately had the consequence of putting the guards to their back but King turned to face them, growling and snapping at anyone who even looked like they were moving towards them.

“The way I see it is you’ve finally run out of luck. You’re completely surrounded and at the mercy of my guards. Now I can turn you into the Emperor and collect the bounty on yours and the demon's head or…” Wrath trailed off, grinning as he looked Eda up and down. The look in his many eyes reminded Luz of the many times she had been catcalled in New York.

Another growl ripped from Eda’s throat, sounding more bestial than the last one. Wrath just chuckled. “So feisty. See as much as I would love to have that bounty, you would have far more use at my side. Imagine what we could accomplish, Edalyn! The two most feared fleshbenders of the Empire. Our children would be the rightful rulers of this land!"

“I hope you freeze Wrath,” Eda spat out. The large demon shrugged and snapped his fingers. The room lit up with multiple colors as all the guards conjured spell circles. They seemed to hold them though right before the spell would trigger as if waiting for something. 

Luz suddenly felt very inadequate with the little combat magic she had gotten the hang of. She twitched her hands rewriting the mandala for the whip spell to the Winds of Watoomb. Hopefully she could cause a little confusion on the guards end and give Eda and King enough time to attack. 

“Last chance” Wrath said. Eda just spat at his feet. He tsked and snapped his fingers once more and suddenly the room exploded with activity. 

She released the wind spell, knocking several guards off their feet but only just raised her shield spell in time to block a pair of daggers that had been thrown at her. 

She couldn’t see what Eda or King were doing but she could hear screams coming from behind her and could feel the ground move beneath her. She ducked under a bolt of lightning and nearly tripped over the uneven ground as she stood back up. 

Orange light with hints of black danced in front of her fingers as she conjured another mandala and sent a fiery whip at another pair of guards. She didn’t stay still long enough to see if it had actually done anything as she ducked and dogged and weaved out from all of the guards' attacks. 

She caught glimpses of Eda fighting Wrath, his purple flesh rippling with spikes as the two dueled. She appeared next to King at some point, launching him with a well timed gust of wind into a clump of guards. She ignored the blood that decorated his muzzle and skull like a sick finger painting. 

She fought purely on instinct, casting every spell she knew how to cast just to stay alive and still she knew it wasn’t enough. 

She had just started learning how to fight and these guards were in a league of their own. For every one of her whips that knocked a guard down, three more were blocked and destroyed. 

She could feel her skin shift and crawl over her body as she opened herself up and channeled more energy through herself. Her spells became sloppy as she quickly grew tired. She cursed herself for using up her energy too soon. 

Unfortunately pacing was something she was still working on with her Maestro and it was showing.

She stumbled over a lump in the stone and fell to the ground, exhaustion bolting her limbs to the floor. She watched through half lidded eyes as a guard stood over her, a white spell circle shining in her eyes as vines wrapped around her body. There was a sick ripping feeling in her chest and the sound of something squishy moving. She could feel cold air pass over her bare chest and the thing that was now there. She could feel the thing snapping at the vines trying to hold her down.

She briefly closed her eyes, hoping to conjure up a tiny morsel of energy that she could use to do something, anything because she was not supposed to die, she was only fourteen she couldn’t go through thisagainwhywassheevenhere- 

She was broken from her thoughts as a wave of music crashed through the room. She opened her eyes in time to watch as the guard above her was knocked out by a pale red wave of magic. The vines around her body wilted and disappeared as soon as the guard's spell circle was broken. 

Mint hair and matching green eyes filled her vision and were followed by a soft voice that said “Sleep young one, you’re safe now.”

She didn’t have to be told twice. 

~-~

Eda knew she shouldn’t have taken King and Luz to the Conformitorium but in her defense it was not supposed to go like this. It was supposed to be just a quick in and out mission, something Eda had done hundreds of times before. She didn’t know where she had gone wrong this time!

She looked out across the room as the Resistance worked. A few of the warders on hand had managed to open a hole in the ward surrounding the contraband and a few stone abominations were carting everything out. 

A few witches and demons were working on the guards around the room, wiping memories of the day and healing what injuries they could.

She knew in the corner of the room Luz lay on a few cushions with King curled into her side and Tiny Nose standing over her. Multiple illusions hovered over the trio, each one showing a different map of Luz's body.

Eda carefully averted her eyes from that side, not able to bear seeing her apprentice. Humans should not look like that, and she hopped on the Stars above and the Titan below that it was a sorcery thing and that she hadn’t hurt Luz with this stunt.

She took another swig of her elixir, her head mate calming as the potion washed over them. 

She could practically feel the moment Raine walked over and sat down next to her. She tried to ignore them by repeating "She hated them she hated them she hated themshehatedthem shehatedthem,"

The Beast chirped in her head; Trilling Mate Safe?

She broke down and buried her face into their shoulder. Quiet sobs wracked her body as the events of the past few hours came crashing down around her. 

“I thought they were gonna die Rainstorm. I thought I was going to die.” She could feel their hand slip under her hair and rub circles into her back, just like they used to do-

She cut the thought off as she took deep breaths and steadied herself. She sat up, part of her wanting nothing more than to grab Raine and never let go. 

“I don’t believe this to be your fault Calamity,” Raine whispered. Eda blinked back tears at the sound of Raine using the childhood nickname they gave her. How long has it been? 

“Wrath was too prepared for this, something must have tipped him off,” Raine said, clueless to her inner dilemma. 

She startled and looked over at them. Mint green hair and darker green eyes filled her vision. She couldn’t help but smile as she noticed they still wore the old earring their grandma gave them at graduation. 

She shook her head to clear the memory away, unknowingly mirroring Luz when she did that. “Are you saying we have a mole?” She wanted to scream and curse. She had put too much into this resistance for them to have another mole to deal with. 

Raine shook their head, chewing on their bottom lip in thought. “I don’t know about another mole. We’ve been pretty good with our checks and nothing has come up. No, Belos and Osran have been meeting pretty regularly recently and I can’t help but wonder if they’ve managed to scry us despite our wards.”

Eda leaned back as she took in the implications of that. If that was the case, if the Bastard had figured out a way to see through their wards with Oracle magic then none of them was safe. 

Unwittingly she turned towards where Tiny Nose was standing over Luz. 

Her son and apprentice would be in even more danger than they would’ve been. 

She finished off her elixir and tucked the bottle back into her hair. She stood up, towering over Raine. She could feel the Beast twitch and prowl around their mind at her thoughts. 

“You’ll talk to Drama Queen and Beast?” Raine rolled their eyes at her nicknames for their co-conspirators and nodded. 

“I talked to them yesterday; they were going to try and get into Osran’s rooms at the palace and see if they can’t find anything.” Eda nodded. 

“I’ll do some more research into scrying and warding against it. Maybe there’s something in my collection that I can use to beef up our wards.”

“If not, Malaphas should have something in the Stacks. I’ll ask him to take a look too,” Raine said. Eda didn’t say anything as she looked over at Luz and King. She stiffened when Raine set their hand on their shoulder, trying to provide comfort. She couldn’t bring herself to shrug away the offer, not today, not after everything that had happened. 

“They’ll be okay Eda. I promise.” She turned to look at them, gazing into dark green eyes that she hadn’t gotten to see in years, even with both of their roles within the Resistance. She did her best to burn every detail into her memory, like how there was a lighter shade of green in the corner of their right eye. How the light reflected off of their hair. The way their eyes scrunched up in concern as they stared right back at her. 

“You don't know that Raine.” She looked back at the two children in her care. “No one does.”

Chapter Text

12th of July 2018

14th of Soltiana 1000

Eda didn’t usually wake up in the middle of the night. Her curse meant that she needed every morsel of energy that she could get. It was why she wasn’t a morning person because if her body could have its way, she would sleep through most of the day. 

This night was different though. 

Sharp claws pushed and tapped on her arm, and eventually her son’s voice worriedly saying her name brought her out of the dreaming and into the waking. 

She sat up and tried to rub the sleep from her eyes. King stood before her nest, his tail swishing back and forth in the way it always did when he was upset. She reached forward to pick him up, but he stepped back and looked at her bedroom door. 

“What’s wrong King? Did you have a nightmare?” Her little pup had long since grown out of sleeping in her nest with her and usually preferred to either sleep in his little pile of stuffed animals, blankets, and pillows in the living room or these days curled up with Luz on that chair in her room. 

She really needed to get the girl a mattress. 

King shook his head, “It’s Luz,” he shuffled his feet back and forth. Instantly the sleep cleared from her mind as the Beast awoke in their mindscape. 

“Is she alright,” Eda asked as she sat up and looked around for her slippers. She could’ve sworn she’d left them around her somewhere. 

King shook his head, “I think she’s having a nightmare.” That made her pause. 

Luz? Having a nightmare? She had never considered the fact that Humans could have nightmares too. She knew the girl had been sleeping every possible chance she could get since the Conformitorium though so maybe that was why? Living with a human under her roof was making her question a lot that she had thought she’d known about their species. 

“Alright, I’ll go check on her, you wait here, okay?” King nodded and scampered into her nest. She briefly smiled at the sight before exiting her room. 

Luz’s room was at the top of the tower, and she cursed herself for putting the kid up there as she huffed and puffed her way up the stairs. Maybe she should join the girl in her evening exercise, she wasn’t getting younger after all. 

All thoughts of her poor exercising habits left her mind as she approached Luz’s room. What sounded like whimpers floated down the stairwell to her and Eda suddenly found herself beside the girl, golden light filling the space she once was in. 

Luz’s hair was plastered to her forehead and the blanket on her was damp with sweat. The girl was curled into a ball and seemed to be protecting her stomach and head. A smoky smell filled the room. Eda’s heart broke as she looked down at her apprentice. 

She flicked her hand and opened the windows in the room. The temperature noticeably dropped by a few degrees as she did so. Interestingly enough the smoky smell didn’t leave even as a breeze came through the room. 

Eda crouched down and took a deep breath, the scent filling her mind. The Beast chittered at the smell. It must be the kids' magic, she thought to herself. 

Now that she was closer to her, she could hear her say something over and over again. It sounded like a name. Robin maybe? Eda leaned closer.

“Robin no please, Robin don’t leave me, Robin, Robin I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’msorrysorrysorry Robin I’m sorry Robin.” Eda’s heart broke as she listened to the girl. 

She placed a hand on the girl's arm to try and wake her and was immediately tossed to the other side of the room. 

The good news was that Luz was awake now. 

The bad news was that she looked like a cornered dying animal. Her mandalas hovered in front of her hands, and Eda recognized one of them as the shielding spell the girl often used. 

The other one was unrecognizable, but the Beast growled in her mind. It obviously thought that she was a threat. Eda mentally pushed the Beast back before slowly standing up and raising her palms in front of her. 

“Luz it’s okay, it’s just me. It’s Eda. You’re in your room, in the Owl House, on the Boiling Isles. You’re safe. I promise you; you are safe.” She kept repeating this as she slowly inched towards the girl and was relieved to see that she seemed to be getting through. 

Her mandalas slowly dissolved as Eda got closer before they disappeared completely, taking the smoky smell with it. Eda knelt down in front of the bean bag chair Luz was on. The other girl stared off into space, her eyes filled with tears. 

“Is it alright if I touch you?” She didn’t get a response so holding back a grimace she carefully picked the girl up, waiting for another outburst of magic. Thankfully nothing happened and she instead curled into Eda’s chest, burying her face into her arms as sobs wracked her body.

Eda stood frozen for several minutes unsure of what to do. It wasn’t her first time dealing with nightmares, King had them for a while after he first saw Hooty skinless. But this seemed like something else. Something more than just childhood terrors. 

Eda did the only thing she knew how to and brought Luz back to her room. It was interesting navigating the tight stairwell with the human in her arms, but she managed. 

King looked up as she walked in, concern evident on his face. “Is she okay?” 

Eda didn’t dare shrug, not with Luz in her arms. “Truthfully? I don’t know kiddo. But whatever’s going on she’ll have us by her side. Now move over.” King moved to another side of the nest and Eda carefully lowered herself into it, doing her best to not jostle Luz. As soon as she was settled King wiggled his way in between her and Luz. 

“Good night, Mom,” her pup said. Her heart warmed at the phrase. She had never wanted to become a mother but here she was with her adopted son and a human she was quickly coming to consider her own. 

“Good night pup,” She pressed a kiss to his skull and then pressed a kiss to Luz’s forehead. 

“Good night witchlet.”

~-~

Usually when Luz woke up it happened all at once as reality crashed into her and drove the sleep from her mind. 

This day was different. 

This time she woke up slowly, the sound of voices filling her ears and the feeling of someone tracing something on her back with their hand. There was a warmth beneath her and a second one at her back, where the feeling of tracing was coming from. 

She groaned and pulled herself closer to the warmth beneath her, trying to burrow into whatever it was. Someone chuckled and she could feel the vibrations beneath her. 

Only then did she realize that she was on top of someone and opened her eyes. She found herself staring up into Eda’s yellow orbs. 

“Good morning witchlet,” Eda’s voice was soft and calm and reminded her of her Mama’s after she had a-

Terror hitched in her throat as she took stock of herself. Her sleepiness had made it harder to recognize but her eyes felt puffy, and her throat was slightly scratched in the way it always was after a nightmare. 

Oh, by the Vishanti she had a nightmare. Panic began to build in her chest and tried to pull away from Eda, but the other woman's arms wrapped around her and held her down to her chest. She had to get away she couldn’t let Eda and King see her like this not after a nightmare-

Her thought process was interrupted for the second time that morning, this time by Eda placing a kiss on her forehead. 

“You’re safe witchlet. You’re with me and King and there is no way we’re going to judge you.” She twisted over to her other side so she could see King looking at her. 

He grinned when he saw her and wrapped his arms around her neck. His cool claws on the base of her neck sent a tingling feeling throughout her body and worked to drive the rest of the sleep from her mind. 

She wrapped an arm around King and sat up, looking around the room. 

They were currently in Eda's nest, composed of a mixture of pillows, blankets, twigs, a few bones, and a multitude of shiny things. She must've added a few new things since Luz had last been in here.

She just hugged King tighter and looked at Eda. The woman had nothing but concern in her eyes and she felt slightly sick to her stomach. She didn’t deserve her concern, not after what she-

This time she stopped her thought process and practiced her breathing exercises that her therapist taught her. Finally, when she was a little more collected, she looked back at Eda. “I had a nightmare last night, didn’t I?”

Eda nodded. “Do you want to talk about it?” The thought of Eda learning what she did two years ago nearly sent her into another spiral, so she just shook her head no. 

Eda nodded and held her arms up, inviting Luz to lay back down. “Alright, that’s okay. You don’t have to tell us if you don’t feel up to it. You have school off today so we can lay here as long as we like.”

Luz searched through her mind, trying to figure out why school was canceled today before it hit her. 

“But it’s the Day of Light?! I know you and King were looking forward to the festival!”

Eda shook her head. “We’ve been to the festival countless times, witchlet, we were looking forward to it because it would be your first festival.” Tears began to fall down Luz’s face as she dug into the nest next to Eda. King shifted until he was curled between them and Eda wrapped her arms around her and just let her cry. 

After a while her tears ran dry, and she whipped her eyes on her pajama top. “Do you still want to go to the festival today? It’s okay if you don’t want to, we can spend today as a lazy day and just do nothing.”

Luz thought about it. Eda had told her last week about the Day of Light. A festival to celebrate the longest day of the year, it was one of the days when magic itself was at its most powerful. Luz knew that Eda was planning on brewing some potions on this day, apparently there were quite a few things specific to this day that she could do. She didn’t want Eda to miss out, so she shook her head yes. 

“Alright,” Eda said. “We should get up so we can get ready then. It’s already nine o’clock and I want to get to the festival before Noon but there’s a few things I need to do beforehand. Are you guys ready?”

King gave an affirmative, but Luz just nodded before Eda sat up. “I’ll get breakfast ready while you guys get ready. I’ll meet you downstairs to draw the runes alright?” Luz gave another shake of her head and left for her own room changing into her red sleeveless apprentice tunic and putting on one of her black jeans. 

She wrapped her arms despite not having sleeves, the familiar feeling of the linen grounding her. She didn’t have the energy to brush her teeth or wash her face this morning, so she just headed down the stairs and to the kitchen.

She didn’t know how because it hadn’t taken long for her to change, but Eda stood in the middle of the kitchen with two golden yellow spell circles around her wrists. 

A golden glow covered most of the appliances in the kitchen as Eda apparently telekinetically prepped some spider eggs (a favorite of hers) and seared toast (it was similar to French toast, but covered in charred and seared fruit, again another favorite of hers). She smiled at the effort Eda was putting into this and gave her a hug from behind. 

Eda turned to look at her, humming appreciatively at something. “Good choice going sleeveless. It’ll give me a good amount of space for the runes.”

Luz sat at the table, “What’s so special about those runes anyway?” Eda shrugged as she plated everyone's breakfast and King came down the stairs, clearly having combed his fur. 

Eda sat down and took a bite and smiled. Luz also took a bite of the eggs and nearly melted into contentment. The food seemed to chase away the last vestiges of her nightmare from the night before. 

“There’s nothing really special about the runic language, besides the fact that a lot of diagnostic spells will use it for their results. No one knows where it came from really, although there’s some theories that it was the language the Isles used before Isket evolved. The runes I’ll paint on you today is a blessing. It used to be practice to cover yourself in them on days like this, but these days the only people who do that are wild witches.”

Luz rolled her eyes as she took a bite of the seared toast. “Freaking Belos,” she said after swallowing.

Eda pointed her fork at her like it was a pointer stick in a classroom. “Actually, it fell out of practice ten years before Belos came to power. Wild witches these days revived the practice to be closer to how we used to practice magic.” There was something wistful about how Eda talked about how witches used to do magic. Like she would give anything to live in a time where magic was truly free and wild. 

Luz shoveled her last bite of spider eggs into her mouth before dropping her dishes into the soapy mouth in the sink. 

She turned back towards Eda and King and put a semi-fake smile on her face. “So, what do we have to do for this blessing?” 

Eda cocked an eyebrow as she finished off her plate. “Someone's clearly excited.”

Luz shrugged as she fiddled with the hem of her tunic. “It’s my first witches' holiday! I’ve been looking forward to this since I first learned of it!” 

Eda nodded and shared a look with King that she couldn’t quite make out. “I’ll need to brew the potion for the runes but it’s relatively simple and shouldn’t take too long. Why don’t you two see what you can spruce up in the living room.”

Her and King groaned before heading into the room and Eda left towards her lab. No matter how much they cleaned this place it always managed to get dirty again. King spent most of the time organizing his pile of things in the corner of the room and sprucing up the floor, so she spent her time dusting the shelves around the room. 

She paused when she got to the wanted poster in the place of honor on one of the walls. It showed her, Eda, and King in a weird blocky art. Eda had been the first to spot her wanted poster after she ran from the Coven Scouts one day. (She had asked why nothing had shown up after the Conformitorium but Eda had kind of brushed it off.) As soon as the older witch saw it, she had a large one of all three of them commissioned and hung it up as soon as it was done. 

Every time she saw it a warmth filled her and today was no different. She gave a real as she wiped the shelf in front of it of dust just as Eda came back up the stairs, a jar of golden liquid and what looked like a quill in her hand. 

“Alright I’m going to need you guys to sit on the couch.” King dropped the stuffed animals he was stacking and leapt onto the couch, obviously excited. Luz joined him. 

“Is that a quill?” She asked. 

Eda nodded. “Can you grab a pillow and put it down in front of King on the floor? And yes, it’s a quill from a feathered drakon, a beast demon that’s often used to represent today.”

Luz tossed the pillow down on the ground and watched as Eda knelt and dipped the quill into the potion. It seemed to give off its own light as Eda began drawing on Kings’ skull. She recognized the runes for health, prosperity, light, hearth and warmth as Eda drew them on. Eda connected each one of them together until King’s skull was covered in glowing symbols. He bounced in his seat and gave Eda a hug. “Thanks Mom!” he said before hopping off the couch so Luz could sit in front of Eda. 

“Don’t touch it! You have to wait for it to dry, King,” Eda said. The little demon sheepishly lowered his claw and watched as Eda painted the same runes along Luz’s arms.

Along with the same runes she did on King, Luz recognized the ones for foresight, strength, love, the body, and the mind. Luz stared at her arms, admiring the way the potion seemed to shimmer and glow in the light. 

“What do they mean?” She asked. Eda was carefully drawing the runes over her own skin, the gold a stark contrast to her gray skin. 

“Kings are asking for good health and prosperity, and that he always remembers where his home is.” It was apparently too much for the little guy as he slammed into Eda’s side bawling. 

After a little bit he collected himself and stepped back, “When I ascend to my throne as King of Demons you’ll have a place in my court Mom.” 

Eda laughed and said, “I look forward to it, pup.” After seeing what King’s meant Luz was a little hesitant to learn what hers meant. She didn’t think she could stop herself from crying. 

“Yours Luz, ask for that same health in both mind and body, and prosperity in love. That you always have the strength and foresight to handle whatever gets thrown your way, and that you know you always have a home here.”

Luz was right, she wasn’t able to stop herself from crying. She found herself clutching Eda’s side and hoped that she hadn’t just messed up Eda’s runes.

After she collected herself and Eda finished her runes, the three of them piled onto Owlbert and took off for Bonesbourogh. She spent the time with King playing a game of I Spy. 

Boonesborough itself was massively different from what she remembered. Most of the houses had a flag with a stylized sun on them and she saw a few people carving what she assumed were runes around their door. 

Stalls lined most of the streets, with the marketplace seemingly overtaken by the festivities. She saw kids running around with golden streamers and banners behind them, others with their faces painted to look like the sun. She saw others eating food off of sticks and napkins wherever they could eek out some space. 

Where there weren't stalls there were stages and people were performing different acts. She saw one that was covered in Bards who pretended to fight each other. Another was blanketed by an impressive illusion although she couldn’t grasp its purpose. 

A demon on their own palisman staff directed them towards a safe place to land a little ways off from the festivities. 

“Alright,” Eda laid a hand on each of their shoulders and knelt on the ground. “A few ground rules to lay down. All three of us are wanted by the law so be wary around any Coven Scouts and guards. We should be fine but caution never hurts. As such we’re going to do the buddy system, if one person goes somewhere we all go somewhere. And most importantly, have fun.” Eda grinned at her and King, and it combined with all the sights and sounds around her was so infectious she couldn’t help but return it. 

“This is a day of celebration, of joy. Let’s enjoy it.” Eda stood up and looked out at the festival. “Now where should we go first?”

They spent the rest of the morning together bouncing from stall to stage to stall. She ate charred cockatrice (which quickly became one of her favorite dishes), sugary bread called fairy cake (it tasted like a churro just sweeter), and had something called a Snowie that tasted like an Icee from Earth. 

They saw bands and orchestras battle each other (she cheered for the band while King rooted for the orchestra), a demonstration from the Abomination coven (Eda called them flashy showoffs), and watched a couple witches and demons go through an obstacle course of moving pillars and traps. All of them loved that last one. 

Eda got her a little sun necklace that had the rune for love scratched into the surface while King got a shooting star charm for his collar. 

At one point they ran into Willow and Gus, and she introduced Eda to both of their parents. It was clear they were nervous to be around a wild witch, but she thought they hid it well. 

The entire morning Luz hid how tired she was. 

All her issues became so much worse after a nightmare, and she honestly wished that she could just curl up in a corner. But every time she reached out to Eda to ask her to go somewhere quiet, she saw the look of joy on hers and King’s face and she couldn’t bring herself to interrupt them for her problems. 

It got worse though as the day went and after the obstacle course she had to find somewhere to go. She could feel the panic and paranoia clawing up her throat no matter how much she suppressed them.

So, when neither King nor Eda were looking, she slipped away. As soon as she couldn’t see them anymore, she sprinted towards the library, tears falling down her face. She had to get somewhere quiet and cold and why was it so hot and so bright everythingwasinherface- 

She took a deep breath as she found herself in the maze of alleys behind the library. She took fistfuls of the dirt in her hands and relished the cold feeling, but it wasn’t enough. Sobs tore through her body, and she didn’t hold them back, not when there was no one near her. 

She fell back against the wall of the library, the feeling of the cool stone bleeding through her tunic. She dug her hands into her hair and pulled. The sensation of pain sort of grounded her so she did it again and focused on the feeling trying to drown out everything else that was causing her to spiral. 

Warm hands and fur wrapped themselves around her. Someone grabbed her hands and held them on their own so she couldn’t pull on her hair. Her sobs got worse, to the point where they began to hurt before everything got quiet and cold. 

She gasped as the feeling washed over her and opened her tear-filled eyes. She saw a blurry King and Eda looking at her with concern. She felt her face alight with shame as she realized that she’d had a meltdown. And on today of all days. 

“I’m sorry I’m sorry Imsorry ImsorryImsorryImsorry,” She kept repeating until Eda hushed her. 

“There’s nothing to be sorry about owlet.”

“Yea, it’s okay Luz. You’re safe with us. I’ll scare off anyone who dares come near you!” He tried to look his fiercest, his claws sharp and teeth visible and Luz had to admit that if he was a little older it would probably be a truly freighting sight. But right now, she scooped him up in her arms and held him tight. She could hear a muffled, “What’s wrong Luz?” coming from her shoulder. 

She took a few breaths before answering him. “It was too loud and bright and too much . I get overstimulated sometimes and I can’t help it.”

Eda cupped her hands around her face and tilted her head, so Luz looked up at her. “My sister would get like that sometimes. Can I show you a spell that she often used?” Luz nodded. 

Her hands moved to cup Luz’s ears, and she quietly whistled into her face. She could feel whatever magic Eda had cast settle around her head. She blinked and looked around her. 

She could still hear and see everything, but it was less . She cried again as the feeling of calm washed over her as she looked at her surroundings. 

Eda stood up and held out a hand to her. She took it and allowed the witch to pull her up. King stood up on her shoulders, his claws moving through her hair and dealing with knots and tangles she didn’t even realize she had. 

“How is that?” Eda asked. Luz nodded as she broke out smiling.

“So much better! Thank you, Eda!” She hugged the older woman and smiled into her chest. She could feel the vibrations from Eda’s laughter in her head as she held her tight. 

“Of course, kid. I’ll always be here to help you, you just gotta let me know what's going on alright.” Luz nodded into her side before saying “I love you, Eda.”

Everything around her seemed to freeze and she was concerned that she had ruined her relationship with Eda when the woman's arms wrapped around her even tighter. “I love you too Luz.”

Above her she heard King say, “I love you, Luz.” She pulled back from Eda to look up at the little demon. At some point he had moved from her shoulder to Eda’s. 

“I love you more King.”

That weekend when she left for the Human Realm, she couldn’t get a certain wild witch and her son out of her mind. 

Chapter Text

22nd of August 2018

27th of Ashwin 1000

“Hoot! Luz! I ate a bug today! It was really crunchy and juicy!” She didn’t respond to Hooty as she entered the Owl House and dropped her bag on the floor before face planting onto the couch. 

Eda looked up from the corner of the room, where she was surrounded by books, a glass mirror and a frothing purple potion. “Rough day at school?” She asked. 

Luz groaned into the couch again and lifted herself up. She looked at Eda and was about to respond before she noticed everything that was around the older woman. Curious, she got up from the couch and walked over, glancing at the text in the books as she did so. 

“Scrying? What’s that?” Eda cocked an eyebrow at her. 

“Aren’t you on the Oracle Track? What do you think it is?” 

Luz rolled her eyes and plopped herself down next to her mentor and pulled one of the books into her lap. She quickly scanned the text, Isket having become familiar to her in the time she’s been here. 

“It looks like it’s a way to view someone or something without actually being there. It sounds somewhat like an astral projection?” She set the book down and looked up at Eda. The older witch was looking back at her expectantly, “Was that a question or a statement?”

Luz suppressed the urge to groan as she looked back at the materials scattered around her. Don’t get her wrong Eda was a great teacher when she managed to carve out the time to show her something, but she was a very hands off minimal guidance kind of teacher which was admittedly frustrating at times. 

She shook her head, ”It was a question and the wrong one.” She picked up another book next to Eda and skimmed through the pages. She nodded as she read more. 

“There’s some similarities between the two practices from what I can tell but it basically stops at ‘being able to see things without physically being there.’” Eda nodded. 

“Quick question for you and then I’ll answer your questions, do you sorcerers have something similar to scrying?” 

Luz shrugged as she set the book back on the ground. “Honestly? I wouldn’t know, I mainly study Portal and Spacetime magic, If we did have scrying it would likely fall under the more Spiritual or Mental sects of our Order.”

Eda grunted before continuing to talk. "Oracle magic is all about connections. Using a reflective surface someone who’s skilled at oracle magic can see anything that the light also touches. We pour this potion over the surface,” Eda said, doing exactly that. She was clearly careful to avoid spilling the purple potion on Hooty's flooring. “This potion makes a connection between the surface and light.”

“Can you scry without the potion?” Luz asked. 

Eda made a so-so motion with her hands. “It’s possible but generally not recommended. It makes scrying harder and easier to deflect with wards.” Luz nodded and held her breath as a hush seemed to fall over the living room. 

Hooty adjusted the blinds on the window to allow the sunlight to flood the room and strike the mirror. As soon as it did so it darkened, the purple smoke she was used to seeing with Oracle magic filling the mirror. Eda leaned over the mirror and whispered, “Show me Raine Whispers, The Singing Storm.” When Eda spoke the smoke rippled away from her and across the mirror like ripples in a pond. 

The smoke seemed to curl in on itself before expanding back out. Eda swore as she sat back up. She picked up a little notebook Luz hadn’t seen before and crossed something out. 

“What were you trying to do?” Luz questioned. She scrunched her eyebrows up in confusion. 

Eda sat back and stared at the mirror with equal parts frustration and hope shining in her eyes. “There are wards that can block scrying spells, this House is covered in the as is every other location important to the Resistance. There isn’t any known way to scry past those wards.” 

“But?” Luz said. 

“But Wrath shouldn’t have known we were coming. There shouldn’t have been that many guards on hand, at all.”

Luz sucked in a breath as the implication hit her. “You think that they’ve figured out a way to scry past the wards.”

Eda nodded and chewed her lip, obviously deep in thought. “The head of the Oracle Coven has been meeting with the Emperor regularly for the past couple months. It’s the only thing that we can think of for how Wrath knew we were going to be in the Conformitorium that day.”

“How do you think they’re doing it?”

Eda shrugged, “We’ve been able to narrow it down to either the reflective surface they’re using or the potion. And as the Resistances’ best Potioneer it's fallen to me to try and see if I can’t prove it was a different potion and then the best way to block these new scrying attacks.”

Luz looked up to the ceiling worriedly as if she could see someone scrying them. “Are we safe here? Can they see us?”

Eda snorted and stood up, cracking her back. “Hooty’s presence protects us from any attempts to see into here. It’s much harder to scry into something animate rather than inanimate. Now come on kid, I’ll show you how to make this potion and maybe you can spot something these old eyes cannot.”

Luz followed her mentor down into the basement where Eda’s lab was. “What was that second name you said earlier?”

“Hmm?” Eda grunted before she shook her head in understanding. “Ahh you mean the True Name. Yeah you weren’t supposed to hear that so I would appreciate it if you never mentioned it again.” 

Luz nodded as they entered the lab. There was a large table in the back, which was lined with cauldrons. A shimmer-y glow surrounded several of them, each one containing different potions that Eda was working on. 

The walls were surrounded with shelves and racks containing various ingredients and supplies. She could see the runes that Eda had shown her a while back, marking out which shelves were spelled to be cold and hot and at what temperatures. At the top of the walls were tiny windows letting in small rays of light. Runes were carved in the blue stone around each window. 

She knew from experience that those runes helped funnel the fumes from their potions outside. She walked over to her little corner of the long table, checking to make sure her potioneering tools were all clean and ready to use.

Eda checked on each cauldron, sometimes stirring or removing it from the heating runes beneath it or adding additional ingredients. Finally when she was done with her check she turned back towards Luz. 

Luz had learned that within this room she had to be extremely patient. The first time Eda had taken her down here to set up a little corner for her potions studies she had been filled with questions and had followed Eda around the room trying to ask them. She had ended up in the older witch's way and caused her to miss an important step in one of her potions that caused it to explode.

She spent the rest of that afternoon scrubbing the room from top to bottom while Eda lectured her on potions safety. 

Now when they were down there Luz stood off to the side and waited for Eda to be finished so she could ask her questions. 

Finally the older woman finished what she was doing and turned towards Luz. “A True Name is kind of like a magical fingerprint. There are tons of common names that people have, Alistor and its variations like Alador, Alistair, Allstar and such were really common when I was growing up. A True Name is a way to distinguish between people when you’re performing a spell or ritual. It’s mainly used for Oracle spells these days but there are a few rituals that I’ll show you when you’re older that use someone's True Name.”

Luz rocked back and forth on her heels, a wide grin splitting her face. “That's so cool! Can I ask what your True Name is? How do you know what your True Name is? Does it ever change?” Eda held up her hand as she chuckled and Luz instantly stopped, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

“You actually already know my True Name, but I would not ask someone for theirs. To share your True Name with someone is the highest level of trust, love, devotion, or whatever else you want to call it in our culture.” 

Luz stared at her Converse, her face flushed with embarrassment. After a moment a gray finger tipped with a golden nail lifted her chin. She looked up into Eda’s yellow eyes. They were full of warmth as the two looked at eachother. 

“It’s okay witchlet. I don’t mind you asking me questions, in fact I love it. I just want to caution you that not everyone is going to be as receptive, so you have to choose your questions wisely.”

Luz nodded, rolling Eda’s words around in her head. “You said I already know your True Name?” The older witch nodded. “Is it The Owl Lady?”

Eda smiled at a sight that made Luz feel warm in her chest. “Good job witchlet!! Now as for your other questions, a witch or demon often learns of their first True Name around the time that they get their Palismen. And yes someone's True Name can change, usually after major or other life altering events in their life.”

“What happens if your True Name becomes public like yours?”

“Well, there’s a couple options. If you're not a criminal, then there are some departments that can monitor any spells done under or to your True Name with your permission. If you’re a Wild Witch, then there are a few spells and rituals you can do to protect yourself from someone trying to use your Name against you. Of course, lying is always a good option too. Make people think it’s a title rather than a True Name. Hopefully you never have to learn how to do all that.”

The two of them were silent for a moment before Eda spoke up again. “Okay enough on that! We’ve got a potion to brew!” Luz rocked back and forth on her heels as Eda began explaining the steps for creating the Oracle Scrying potion and then what she had altered and more importantly why she had altered it. 

Luz was not ashamed to admit that she started taking notes as Eda was talking. It earned her an eye roll and a muttered “teachers pet,” but Luz did not want to forget anything Eda told her right now. 

They spent the next hour or so debating on what could be changed with the potion to allow someone to scry past anti-scrying wards. Everything was going alright right up until the point that the potion began to bubble and pop. It sent a stream of the potion onto her school uniform and the hoodie she had been wearing over her cowl. 

At the same moment Luz watched as her stir rod and cauldron began to lose shape and dissolve. She didn’t have time to process what was happening before Eda was shouting at her and ripping her clothes off of her body. 

Once her brain caught up to what was happening around her she noticed that her entire station and everything that she had had around her area (including her impromptu notes) had dissolved into a puddle of acidic sludge that was currently trying to burn its way through the ground.

Eda was in the center of her room watching as her clothes dissolved into puddles of goo that also tried to eat at the floor. It was also at this moment that she realized that she was standing in just her colored cloth and her undergarments.

She flushed with embarrassment as she struggled to find something to cover herself up with. She felt a wave of magic wash over her and suddenly she was wearing a nondescript tunic not dissimilar from her uniforms. She poked where the shirt was and only felt her skin. An illusion then. 

“It’s not the real thing but I need to get Hooty in here to handle this stuff and I didn’t want you feeling uncomfortable.” Before Luz could express her gratitude or melt into the ground in embarrassment (she wasn’t sure which yet) Eda shouted for Hooty to come in. 

Luz jumped back in freight as the House Demon busted through the floor and looked up at Eda. “Hooty reporting for duty!”

The older witch pointed at the two piles of acidic sludge and said, “Do you think you can eat these?”

Hooty moved closer to the pile that used to be her clothes and sniffed it. Instead of responding he just opened his mouth and seemed to hover up the sludge. He did the same for the pile that used to be her potions station. “Mhmm spicy,” he said before retreating into the hole in the ground. Luz watched as it closed up without leaving so much as a mark in the ground. 

Luz watched as Eda marched over to the shelves next to her old potions station, a determined expression on her face. She listened as the older witch muttered what sounded like dates and times for the various ingredients before a loud, “FUCK,” cut through the air. 

Eda moved away from the shelves with a jar filled with what looked like a weird cross between a dandelion and a mushroom. The stalk of the plants had what looked like fragments of bone on it while the top of the plant was a little ball of quivering needles. Over half of them were gone. 

Eda placed the plant in the center of the room and promptly burned it with a fire spell. With another flick of her wrist the runes scrawled around the windows up top glowed, and Luz could feel the air in the room move out of them. 

“Come on,” She said leaving the potions lab in a hurry. 

Luz swiftly followed her out of the room and as soon as she stepped clear Eda snapped the big door shut with a loud bang. Runes she didn’t realize were there to begin with glowed a brilliant yellow, the same color as Eda’s spell circles, before dimming.

“Okay,” Eda said, turning towards her. “Is it okay if I dispel the tunic illusion? I need to check to make sure that you didn’t get burned from that acid.” Luz chewed on her bottom lip as she nodded. 

There was no difference that she could feel between having the shirt illusion there one second and gone the next but something in the back of her mind let her know the illusion was gone. 

She stared at Eda’s hair as the older woman quickly looked her over before sighing and restoring the shirt illusion. Eda sat down at the base of the wall and after a second Luz joined her. 

“I’m so sorry witchlet, I should’ve been keeping more of an eye on my stores.”

Luz rested her head on the older witch's shoulder. “What even happened?” she spoke softly.

“A Boneshroom plant sprouted. They’re pretty easy to find on any of the bone mountains on the Titan but I just didn’t have time to go out and gather them. So I decided to get a few ingredients from some hack that gathered a sprouting Boneshroom. The spores are extremely volatile and usually result in something exploding or melting, but the stalks themselves are really good for a few higher level healing potions.”

“It’s not your fault Eda.” Luz tried to say after a moment of silence but she knew as soon as she said the words that Eda wouldn’t believe them. 

“No matter, I can use this to teach you how to forage and hunt for your own supplies.” Eda stood up, careful to not jar her head which Luz was thankful for. 

“You know how to hunt?” Luz asked as she also stood up. She wiped some of the dust from the floor off of her umber leggings. 

“It looks like we'll have to take a trip to the store to get you some new clothes.” Luz tilted her head in confusion. 

“I have a couple other uniform outfits, and none of my casual stuff got destroyed?”

Eda cocked an eyebrow at her, “So are you saying that you don’t want to get some new witch clothes?”

Luz laughed and headed up the stairs towards the main floor of the house. “I never said that Eda!”

“Good,” The older woman said as she followed her up the stairs. “We can pick up King too while we're in town, he’s probably going to go bananas if he stays there any longer.”

Luz ran up to her bedroom, quickly throwing on one of her other outfits before meeting Eda on the front lawn. She was talking to Hooty but as soon as Eda saw her she summoned Owlbert as a staff. 

“Ready to go kid?” Luz nodded and climbed on. 

The flight into Bonesborough was pretty quick all things considered and before long they landed in an alley next to the library. “Are you good to go get King? I’ll meet you right here.”

Luz tilted her head as she looked up at the woman, “Why can’t you go in to get him?” Eda huffed and rolled her eyes. 

“I’ve got several outstanding books from this library and they will do their best to keep me in there unless I give them the books back and I really don’t want to destroy part of the library trying to escape. Plus it would make it weird next time King showed up for daycare.”

Luz shook her head and headed into the library. She made a point of waving to the staff behind the front desk, especially if they had to deal with Eda pretty much stealing their books. 

The daycare had already let out by the time she got there so she had to go looking for King. She was going to ask for help and could’ve sworn she spotted Amity’s green hair ducking into the romance section but when she looked, she didn’t see her classmate. 

Shrugging she kept looking and eventually found him hanging from the rafters of the first floor above the cooking section. “King!” She whispered yelled. “It’s time to go!” The little demon looked down at her and yelled out “CATCH ME!” before letting go of the beam and dropping towards the floor. 

Her mandalas sprung to life in front of her hands, a shell of orange (and definitely black) light forming around King like a giant hamster ball. He hit the ground and Luz winced as she watched him smack his snout on the roof of the ball. On the second bounce of the ball, it shattered leaving King sprawling on the floor. 

He was clutching his snout, and she could see tears spilling from his eyes. She rushed forward and scooped him into her arms. The sound of rushed footsteps and curious voices filled this part of the library. “Are you okay King?” 

She was concerned for a moment before he said, “That was awesome! Let’s do it again! Although maybe you can make the ball softer this time?” His voice was watery from tears and she suspected pain. She shook her head as she stood up. 

“Another time, maybe,” She said standing up. 

“HEY YOU!” Luz spun around and found one of the staff members from the front desk pointing at her. Around him stood several witches and demons, only a few in the uniform of the library. One of them was Amity and she raised King up to her shoulder before giving a wave to the other girl. 

“See you in class, Amity!” She turned and sprinted through the rows of books, laughing as the library staff gave chase. 

Unfortunately, she didn’t get to see the slight blush that grew on the other girl's face. 

Luz rammed her shoulder against the library door and jumped down the steps. “Kid?! What’d you do?” Eda shouted as she joined her in running away from the library. Luz could hear one of the staff shout something but she couldn’t make out what it was. 

“It’s not my fault! Blame King!” The little demon on her shoulder gave a small “weh!” before jumping from her shoulder to Eda’s hair. 

“It’s not my fault you guys were late to pick me up! I was forced to entertain myself!” 

The library staff must’ve altered the guards because she could hear multiple “Stop in the name of the Emperor!” and “Clawthornes you are under arrest!” Luz glanced behind her and saw a few Coven Scouts running behind them. 

“He was hanging from the rafters of the second floor and as soon as he saw me he dropped to the ground,” Luz said. She formed her mandalas and could feel the ripping sensation in her gut as they formed and then broke apart and reformed into spell circles. Massive amounts of fog spilled from them, filling up the streets they were in. 

“KING!” Eda yelled. She turned a corner and formed a little spell circle, vines pulling up a manhole cover ahead of them. She jumped into the ground and Luz followed after a moment's hesitation. With a twist of her wrist and another ripping feeling in her gut a witchlight hung in front of her. 

Eda was kneeling on the ground, which Luz was surprised to see was dry. “You have to be more careful than that King. You can’t endanger yourself just for the sake of having fun, nor can you expect other people to pull you out of any messes you might create.” King nodded, shame and embarrassment clear on his face. “Good, now apologize to Luz.”

Luz didn’t really know what to do as King apologized to her, so she just stood there and nodded. Desperate to rid herself and King of the embarrassment of this situation she turned toward Eda and asked, “So where are we? Because these don’t look like sewers.” 

The look Eda gave her made it clear she knew she was changing the conversation but she answered her question anyway. “These are storm drains, they help funnel the Boiling Rain away from buildings and either towards the sea or some place out of town. Now Rose’s place should be down that way.”

Eda pointed behind Luz and started walking in that direction. King stepped up and ran up Luz’s legs before sitting on her shoulder. “You know I didn’t mean to cause trouble right Luz?” She nodded and ran her hands through his fur, scratching the one spot he always had trouble itching under his horns. He gave a little “weh!” of relief and leaned into her scratching. 

Luz quickly caught up to Eda and fell into step behind her. “What’s Boiling Rain?” 

Eda gave another huff of her breath and Luz wondered how she could be so expressive by just breathing. “It is the dry season so I guess you wouldn’t know. We don’t have the same weather patterns that you do on Earth. We have Boiling Rain, where the rain is so hot it burns everything it touches, then there's our gorenados, the shale hail, and painbows.”

“If you look at them, you get turned inside out!” King said happily from her shoulder. She thought it was a bit disturbing but it was on track with the rest of this dimension. She’d have to check out some books from the library on the weather patterns so she could let her Maestro know. He was having her do weekly essays on everything she had learned while she was away so he could then report it to the rest of the Order.

“Okay here we go.” Eda stood at the base of a ladder that led all the way up to another manhole cover.  “Up above is Rose's shop and she’ll be able to get Luz some new clothes.”

“Luz needs new clothes? I thought she brought most of her stuff over from the Human Realm?” King asked. 

“Yea but I burned my school outfit in a potions mishap today so Eda want’s to make it up to me.” The older witch rolled her eyes and formed another spell circle and this time the manhole cover seemed to liquify into the road around it.

“After you Kid.” Luz climbed up the ladder and found herself in yet another alley. Knowing that she knew what the covers lead to she could tell that the ground was carefully sloped so anything would fall into the drains. Eda patted her on the back and Luz almost jumped as she hadn't heard her climb up the ladder. 

“You good?” Luz nodded and Eda knocked on a side door that was a deep blue color. It opened a second later to reveal a blonde-haired witch with a little green monkey palisman on her shoulder. Her face lit up when she saw Eda and quickly pulled the older woman into a hug. 

“Woah okay I forgot you’re very huggy. You and Luz would probably get along well.” Eda pulled back from the hug and began signing. Luz watched trying to pick out different signs. 

She was not successful. 

Eda nodded and signed something back before she stepped aside and pointed towards Luz. “Meet my Apprentice, Luz Noceda. She’s a Human Sorceress.” The other woman's eyes widened as she looked over at her. 

Luz gave an awkward wave before she was enveloped into a hug and then dragged into the shop. 

The inside of the shop was exactly what she expected a magical clothes store to be like. The walls were painted a dark blue with stars and planets she didn’t recognize. The ceiling tapered up to a large skylight and below that hung a massive chandelier. Starlight bounced off of the crystals hanging from it, illuminating the shop. 

The floor was covered in racks and displays of clothes. She saw several dresses with large poofy skirts that looked like they would be perfect for a high society ball. In another area was a rack containing cloaks and capes. Each one shimmered and glowed in the star light.

Rose dragged her back towards a counter in the front of the shop. She quickly signed back and forth to Eda and then happily bounced around, collecting spare bits of cloth and yarn and something that looked like leather. The witch motioned for her to hold her hands out to her side and snapped her fingers. 

An army of different measuring tools descended on her like flies on a carcass. “Uh, Eda what’s going on?”

Eda snickered as she said, “She’s taking your measurements for you silly. How else is she supposed to pick out what works for you?” 

“Really Eda you don’t have to do this, I have plenty of clothes already and that's not even factoring in my robes from the Order.” She heard the click clack of Eda’s heels as she walked around to where she could see her and knelt in front of her. 

“Luz, you are my apprentice and that is something that I take seriously. While you are here, under my roof and learning from me, you will be fed, watered, and clothed. You will be safe. I was planning on taking you here at some point anyway, the potions mishap just caused it to happen sooner. Alright?” 

Luz looked into the other woman's eyes and saw nothing but adoration shining through. She cleared her throat to try and get rid of the thick feeling clogging her throat. She definitely was not going to cry. “Alright,” she said. 

Eda nodded and stood up, “Good, now I’m going to leave you here with Rose, I need to go find King before he knocks over a stand.” The sound of breaking glass filled the air, and even Rose stopped what she was doing behind the counter. 

Eda groaned and said “Add it to my tab Rose!” before taking off into the store. Luz did not envy King right now. Rose gave a thumbs up that she knew Eda did not see before returning to her work. 

The measuring had finally stopped and so she took the chance to step away from the cloud of tools and watch what the other witch was doing. 

Multiple pairs of clothes were laid out on the counter. There were shirts in gold, black, and purple scattered around as well as a couple pairs of pants that were covered in pockets. One was a dark green and the other was a bone white color. A pair of boots that appeared to be made of some sort of leather sat next to the pile. Rose was currently threading something into the green pants and shooed her away after a while so she could work. 

Luz took the cue and spent the time wandering the store, looking at all the different outfits. She usually wore the same thing every day, either her robes, school uniform, or her hoodie and jeans. Seeing this much variety was a little overwhelming for her. She did make a note to make sure to wrap her sleeve when she got her new clothes so the material would not get in the way of her spell casting. 

Eventually Eda found her near the dresses. “Come on kid, we’re ready to go!” She held up a large bag that seemed to be woven from plants. It kind of reminded her of a woven basket crossed with a grocery bag. She could see bits of the clothes that Rose was working on earlier peeking out of the bag. 

“Where’s King?” She asked. 

Eda gestured towards her hair. “He’s grounded for the time being so he’s currently sulking.” Luz nodded and made her way towards the front of the store. 

“Bye Rose!” She waved. The other witch waved back. 

Eda pushed open the door and they were hit with a wave of warm, humid air. Luz took a deep breath as she let it wash over her. It was starting to feel like home just as much as the cold air of Gravesfield and New York did. 

“I’ll send in a mail order to the Apothecary tomorrow to get some new potioneering supplies for you, for now let's just go home.” 

Luz looked up at the stars above her. They were unfamiliar and familiar at the same time and she could pick out a few of the constellations she had learned during her time here so far. “Yeah, home,” she said with a smile on her face. 

Chapter Text

25th of October 2018

6th of Pausa 1000

When Luz woke up that morning it was to something that she hadn’t heard in a while. The soft pitter patter of raindrops on the roof. That was the only thing that felt familiar about the whole situation though.

As she sat up, she realized that the room was hot . Like extremely hot and humid. Her Mama and Papa had taken her to New Orleans one year to visit some of her Papa’s family and this felt similar to that. She had spent that entire trip with her hair standing straight up on its ends from the humidity. 

It was what made her decide to cut it and keep it short. 

She kicked off the covers and stood up, holding her arms out to her side to avoid the sticky feeling coating her arms. She really forgot how much she hated humidity and the way it made her skin feel. 

She left her room and walked down the tower until she reached the main part of the house. She opened the door right as Eda stood ready to knock on it and the two of them stared at each other for several seconds, Eda with her hair plastered to one side of her face and Luz holding her arms out at her side. 

“What on earth is going on Eda?!?”

The woman cleared her throat and rubbed her face. Luz knew that she wasn’t a morning person but was really hoping that today she would be able to get some answers out of her faster than usual. 

“It’s raining Kid. I was coming to get you and check to make sure the humidity wards included your room.”

“I can assure you that they do not,” Luz shrugged her shoulders to indicate her arms still held away from her body. Eda rolled her eyes. 

“So dramatic. I’ll modify the wards to include your room after breakfast.” With that Eda turned away from the door that led to the tower and made her way downstairs. 

“How am I supposed to get to school like this though? I can’t wait until after breakfast!” Eda stopped in the hallway and looked back at her. 

“You know for someone so smart you can be oblivious at times. Do you remember what I told you about rain in this world? It was when we went to Rose’s to get you some new clothes.”

Luz ignored the dig against her and cast her mind back, trying to remember that night. It had been a long day, and her memory was fuzzy, but she did remember Eda talking about the weather of the Boiling Isles. No wait, not weather, she thought. 

Plagues. 

“Boiling Rain,” she realized. That would explain the humidity.

Apparently, her comment was loud enough for Eda to hear. The older woman smiled and tapped her nose before turning around and actually making her way downstairs.

Luz followed behind her and realized that the further she got into the house the cooler it got until it didn’t feel any different from any other day. 

The front door snapped open as Luz passed by the living room. “Good morning, Luz! Hoot Hoot!” She stopped and stared at the house demon before bringing herself to awkwardly wave at him. 

She did not want to deal with whatever hijinks Hooty wanted to discuss with her, and so she made her escape into the kitchen. 

Eda stood in front of the cold storage, grabbing some bread and jams. There was already a jar of dark popping sugar, a jug of spiderbull milk, and a plate of leftover drakon jerky from last night on the table. Luz looked around. “Where’s King?” The little demon was usually the first one to the kitchen.

Eda waved her off as she grabbed some hayberry jam and some of her apple blood. “The little squirt likes to sleep away rainy days.” She set the bread, jams, and apple blood on the table. “It'll likely be just the two of us today. You got anything you wanna do?” 

Luz poured herself a glass of milk and spread some hayberry jam on her pieces of bread and snagged a few pieces of jerky. She shrugged. “If I’ve got the day off then I’ll probably use the time to catch up on some of my homework. I’ll let you know if I have any potions homework.”

Eda raised an eyebrow at her as she nibbled on a piece of jerky. “You know I can do more than just potions, right?” She cast a spell circle and one of the many jars that littered the kitchen fell over and dropped abomination goo all over the floor. The goo quickly took a rough shape of Luz, standing at the same height as her and holding itself similarly but with several eyes scattered across its body. 

“Show off. I still haven’t figured out the correct spell to use for Abominations.” Eda looked at her all confused and flicked her finger. The abomination mirror of her dissolved and flew back into the jar. Luz made a mental note to herself to not go opening random jars in the kitchen without Eda there. She didn't want to think about what some of the other jars and boxes could contain.

“If you can’t conjure abominations then how are you doing the abomination track?” Luz stared down at her plate of food. 

“I’m doing the best I can. I’m really good at a lot of the theoretical aspects of abominations and Abomo Chem is my favorite class. But casting? Usually, one of my table mates or the professor has to do it for me. Especially in the Abomo Chem lab.” 

“How about I help you find something later today? I was able to snag a few new books on your sorcery so maybe there's something in there about some sort of animation magic you guys used to use?”

Luz nodded and stuffed some jerky in her mouth so she wouldn’t have to respond right away. It was unlikely that any of Eda’s books on sorcery had anything on animation magic that she could use to imitate a spell circle here. It was just never really something that had to be done back on earth. 

She remembered in her history class at the sanctum they had talked about a few of the larger Jewish covens and how they had some knowledge of animation, but they had always guarded their secrets so she doubted Eda had anything that could help. Still though she appreciated it for the thought alone. 

“Later today? Why not after breakfast?” She asked.  

Eda shook her head and took a large drink of her apple blood. “Hooty woke me up at 2 when it started raining and I’ve been up since then working on the wards to cover our house. I’m exhausted and need some more rest, especially if I’m going to be digging through some old books with you.”

Luz nodded as she finished off her plate and dropped it into the sink where the soapy mouth swallowed it whole. “Alright I guess I’ll start on some of my other homework while you’re resting.”

Eda nodded as she stood up. “I’ve gotta go put the humidity ward over your bedroom so you can grab your homework.” She finished off her apple blood and grabbed a few pieces of jerky before calling Hooty in. 

The House Demon sped through the house and vacuumed up all the leftovers on the table. Luz watched him as he sped through the kitchen and then back to his door, hooting the entire way.

“You know I’m used to people and animals that defy reality and are unnatural but there is something seriously wrong with Hooty.” Eda snorted as she headed towards the stairs. 

“Just wait until he takes his skin off, he gets weirder.” Luz stood there in shocked silence as Eda headed towards the tower in the back of the house. 

She sprinted up the stairs after the other witch, “What do you mean ‘take his skin off’??? Actually, you know what I don’t want to know.”

“Definitely smart kiddo,” Eda stepped into the tower and began walking up the spiral staircase, passing all the rooms filled with random junk. Luz ignored them as usual and watched as Eda conjured a ball of light in her hand and pulled Owlbert’s staff out of her hair. 

The witch spun spell circles around the ball of light, connecting different sections of different spell circles together like a giant Venn diagram. As soon as it seemed Eda was done, she slammed the butt of her staff off the floor and Luz could feel the temperature cooling. 

“Thank you, Eda!” Luz wrapped her in a hug only to practically knock the woman over. Her gray skin was bordering on pale white, and Luz could feel the woman's body shaking in her arms. 

“Eda! Are you okay?” Luz asked worriedly. She wasn't used to seeing her mentor look under the weather. Drunk, yes. But sick? That was new.

“I’m fine kid just feeling a little under the weather.” Eda tried standing on her own only to topple into the wall next to her. 

“Alright that’s it I’m taking you to your room and you’re going to rest.” Luz focused and directed her magic across her body, leaving large chunks of it in her arms, shoulders and legs. Eda was not going to be able to walk to her bedroom and with the boiling rain she didn’t feel comfortable asking Hooty to come grab her. 

“Luz I’m going to be fi-” She was interrupted as Luz picked her up in a bridal carry. Even with her magically augmented strength Eda was still heavy. She opened herself up to more magic and felt her grip tighten on her mentor. 

“Luz this really isn’t necessary and is actually quite demeaning,” Eda deadpanned from Luz’s arms. 

The younger witch just rolled her eyes as she began the trek down the tower. “From my position you had difficulty standing on your own so unless you want Hooty to drag you through the rain this is how we’re getting you to your nest.”

That seemed to silence Eda and gave Luz the quiet she needed to focus on carrying her. Eda thankfully opened the door to the main part of the house and her own bedroom. Luz carefully lowered Eda into the nest and collapsed on the ground right next to her. 

“Thanks for that kid. I’m not as young as I used to be, and I forget that sometimes.”

Luz picked herself up off the floor and looked at Eda. “Promise me you’ll take care of yourself more?”

Eda smiled and ruffled Luz’s hair. “I promise witchlet. Now can you hand me that bottle? It’ll help with the exhaustion.” Eda pointed to a small nightstand on the opposite side of the nest. On it was a golden potion, it’s soft light illuminating the room. She had seen Eda take a few sips from the bottle before.

She got up, passed it to Eda and watched as she finished off the last half of the bottle. “I’m gonna get some sleep, I’ll be down to help you with your abomination issue later.” Luz was about to say something before she realized that Eda had immediately fallen asleep after speaking. 

She rolled her eyes and went back to her room to grab her homework. Unfortunately, a few of her textbooks and sheet music was crinkled on the sides from the humidity but it was all still usable. 

Luz made her way down to the living room and spread all of her stuff out. She spent a couple hours working through her scales and some of the songs she was supposed to learn. She had gotten really good at the echolocation spell but still struggled to conjure even a bit of fog with this weather spell. 

Luz slammed her lute onto the couch, being careful to not actually damage the instrument. She hadn’t forgotten it had once belonged to one of Eda’s friends. “Hmm, maybe I need to try another instrument? I’ll have to talk to Ms. Shee tomorrow about maybe switching.”

As she was talking the front door slammed open and Hooty looked at her. “What was that, Luz?”

She waved him off as she sat back down and looked at the stacks of homework she had to do. “I was just talking to myself Hooty sorry for bothering you.”

With a weird up and down motion that she had learned was his version of a shrug, he went back outside. Luz slammed her head down on the coffee table and groaned. She really did not want to do any of her homework. Why on earth did she think taking nine courses would be smart? 

She hadn’t even touched her math stuff recently, being far too focused on the magic half of her homework. 

She groaned again and grabbed the folder that contained all of her math stuff and spread it out. She looked at it with extreme distaste and then looked at the books lining the walls of the living room. 

“I’d still be productive if I started working on my abomination stuff now, right? There’ll always be time later to do the other homework I’m just doing this first.” She smacked her palm against her forehead. “You’re talking to yourself again, Noceda, get it together.”

With a shake of her head, she went towards the bookshelves and spent her time picking out some books for her to use. She grabbed Abomination Applications and From Humors to Goo: How abominations can be made , as well as a few books she recognized from her realm; Spell Design: How to bend Reality volume 1, (She had volume 7 in her room back at her mom's) and Magic Mimics Life.

She grabbed the books and plopped down on the ground. She skimmed through the table of contents and all the relevant sections and using one of her old notebooks to write her ideas in. It was getting pretty beat up and not to mention she was running out of space, so she made a mental note to get a new one soon. 

Eda came down a couple hours later to Luz casting in the living room, orange fire with black accents dangling in front of her. She really needs to ask her Maestro about her magic changing color. She kept forgetting about that. 

For now, though she put that out of her mind and drew another fiery line. “What’re you up to, witchlet?” 

Luz didn’t turn towards Eda, too busy looking back and forth from her mandala and her little notebook with her spell designs. “Well currently I think I’m creating a new spell just so I can rip it apart later.” 

The little jar of abomination goo from breakfast earlier today sat on the coffee table, the lid wide open. 

She cast another line and gave a little “Yesss!” as she realized she had completed it. Quickly getting over her excitement she centered herself and allowed the mandala to connect with the magic burning through her body. 

It flared with light and then ripped apart to collapse into a pink spell circle. Below her on the coffee table a small abomination figure rose from out of the jar. 

Luz dropped the spell and jumped, her cheers echoing throughout the house. Without looking she crashed into Eda and wrapped her mentor in a strong hug. She felt Eda nearly double over and quickly stepped back and actually looked at her mentor. 

Eda was hunched over and looked extremely sick. Her skin was wrinkled and had a slight yellow sheen like she had aged several decades. Her usually bright yellow eyes had a dull color to them and didn’t quite focus on Luz. 

She grabbed Eda’s hand and pulled her towards the couch. “Eda what’s wrong you look horrible!”

She waved her off and Luz felt a spike of annoyance go through her. “I’m fine kid, I’m just a little under the weather.”

Luz shoved her into the couch. “Luz I’m okay. I promise.” She ignored Eda and looked around the room for the golden glow of the potion that she had given Eda before her nap. There was usually a few of them hanging around in each room of the house.

She was stopped from her search when Eda grabbed her hand and pulled her down into the couch with her. “I promise I’m fine kiddo.” 

“Are you sure Eda? What about your potion?” Eda shook her head. 

“I ran out. I’ll be fine, maybe under the weather for a few days but I’m picking some up at the end of the week.”

Luz nodded. She didn’t like it but there wasn’t much she could do if Eda had run out of her meds. “You’re keeping better track of your meds from now on. I don’t like seeing you like this.” 

Eda rolled her eyes and pushed her off of her with a snort. “Yes Mom , now show me the spell you created.”

Luz smiled and rocked in her seat. She drew the lines and symbols by hand, having to correct one or two things. She’d have to make sure she practiced this spell so she could cast it by memory and not have to draw it every single time. 

Just like before the spell collapsed into a pink circle and a little abomination rose from the jar. It wasn’t perfect and there weren't nearly enough eyes for it to navigate but she had cast it! 

“Good job kid!” Eda pulled her into a hug and messed with her hair. Luz grinned, feeling like her smile was going to rip her face apart if it got any bigger. “How’d you do it?”

She pointed to the books she had gathered earlier. “My Maestro has created a few spells before, and he walked me through the process so I’m familiar enough with it. I did have to do quite a bit of reading on abominations though, but it wasn’t that bad. Did you know that the current standard abomination formula has only been used for 40 years but the actual abomination coven itself has been around for 150 years?! I wonder if there was a standard formula during the entire time.”

Eda made a so-so gesture that distracted Luz from her rant. She would never admit it, but she had started to forget that the other woman was there. “I don’t think there was a standard formula. The early covens were very disorganized before Emperor Butthead came to power. There’re probably some books at the library on it if you really want to find out.”

Luz stared at Eda for a second processing everything that the woman said. “We’ve got to get a library card.” Eda shrugged. 

“You know my situation with the library Luz, I can’t go there without being forced to cough up books I don’t have any more and after the incident with King I doubt you’ll be allowed back any time soon.”

Luz groaned and leaned against the back of the couch. “Ugh why do you guys have such a bad relationship with the library? I wish I had my own card so I wouldn’t have to use either of yours.” Eda rolled her eyes.

“So, is that what you want for your birthday? A library card?” Luz started and looked up at Eda in surprise. The older woman scoffed, “What? Did you think that I didn’t know my apprentice's birthday?”

“Huh,” Luz said as she burrowed into Eda’s side. “I guess I just never thought about it.”

“Silly witchlet.” Eda ran her hands through Luz’s hair as she leaned into the older woman's side. With her head pressed against Eda’s chest Luz could hear each raspy breath the woman took. Fear gripped her heart at the thought of Eda being sick.

Was it something that she could recover from? Is there something that Luz could or needed to do? She didn’t think she could lose someone else like that again.

“Eda, are you sure you’re, okay?” She could feel the older woman tense up from the question. She quickly pulled her hand out of Luz’s hair and looked away. Luz sat up and stared at Eda’s back, silently begging her to please be okay because she couldn’t lose her too. Eda glanced her way and froze, seemingly unable to look away from her. 

Emotions flew across the woman's face faster than Luz could recognize them. After a couple seconds of this one emotion dominated her mentor's face. 

Resignation. 

“Do you want the truth, Luz?” She nodded. “It’s not pretty.” Luz didn’t care. She had seen things that still gave her nightmares to this day. Whatever was going on with Eda had to pale in comparison to watching her Papa waste away in a hospital bed. 

“I’m not fond of talking about it when it’s like this so I’ll give you the bare bones and you’ll have to ask again when I’m feeling better. Okay?” Luz again nodded. “When I was 20, I was cursed. I don’t know with what and I don’t know by who but sometimes when I run out of my meds, it acts up. It makes my whole body hurt.” Eda coughed and quickly wiped her hand on her pajamas. Luz desperately hoped that she hadn’t coughed up blood. 

“Is there anything I can do to help you?” Luz asked. She remembered that her Papi needed help with a lot of things on his bad days. Eda looked like she was about to turn her down before she suppressed another cough. 

“Can you get me a glass of water actually?” Just happy to help, Luz jumped from the couch and sped walked towards the kitchen. She could hear Eda begin to violently cough in the living room. Biting her lip, she decided to check on her mentor one more time before getting the water. 

She poked her head through the doorway between the living room and the kitchen and nearly jumped back in horror. Eda was violently coughing up blood, teeth, and some sort of slimy pink substance. 

“EDA!” She ran towards her, but the other woman threw up her hand. Luz got to watch in real time as some sort of cross between feathers and fur pushed itself through the skin on Eda’s arm. Her long golden nails were pushed out only to be replaced with talons. That same feather fur combo coated the rest of Eda’s body. Luz saw that the gold gem that Eda always wore was darkening to a dark black blue. 

“GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN” Eda growled out, her voice taking on a deep gravelly quality like she had gurgled a handful of Boiling seawater and some shale. Luz watched in horror as Eda’s bones began to crack and bend into new shapes. Her shirt was torn to pieces as three sets of what looked like wings jutted out from her back, chunks of flesh and blood flying across the living room.

“HOOTY” Eda shouted in a twisted imitation of her normal voice. Before Luz could do anything Hooty slammed into her stomach, and she fell through the doorway to the kitchen. 

With a sense of maturity that she didn’t even know Hooty possessed, the house demon looked between her and the twisted bestial form that was once Eda. Growls of pain flew through the house, and she could hear King’s claws against the floorboards upstairs. 

“Find King!” Hooty shouted at her before turning towards what used to be Eda. With a mighty “HOOT” he flew towards the Beast. 

The last thing she saw before the doorway to the living room disappeared was Hooty fighting the thing that used to be her mentor. She sat on the ground for a couple seconds, trying to process everything that happened. 

She slowly got up and conjured a Shield of Seraphim and held it by her side. She pressed her empty hand to the wood and could feel the vibrations through the house as Hooty and the Beast fought. 

The sound of claws woke her from her stupor, and she turned to see King standing on the stairs and clutching Francios. “Luz? What’s going on? Why did Hooty block off the living room?”

That answered her question as to how the doorway had simply disappeared but now, she was faced with a tougher question to answer. How much did King know about his mother's curse? 

 “ Luz, ” King said forcefully. She was reminded of the few times at the Conformitorium that she had caught sight of King and the blood on his skull and claws. “What’s going on?” King wasn’t someone who would appreciate being coddled, she decided. He was Edalyn Clawthornes son, he’d want to know everything that was going on. 

She knelt down beside King, feeling his eyes warily track her movements. “King- your mom transform-” 

Before she could even finish her sentence, King had shoved her aside and was banging on what used to be a doorway. “Hooty! Let me in! I need to see her! I can help!” Getting no response, he spun to her, his eyes almost burning with pain, fear, and worry. 

“How far had she transformed?!”

Everything that had happened recently had left her disoriented and King shoving her aside was the last straw; she stuttered as she tried to answer the little demon. “Uhm- A- she-” She was again interrupted by King as he jumped on her shirt and stared into her eyes. 

There was a weight behind his stare that seemed to physically push her into the ground. That same weight sharpened to a point until there were pinpricks behind her eyes. She tried to shut her eyes and found that she couldn’t. Her mind jumped to the moment that the teacher at Hexside had possessed her body.

She hadn’t felt much beyond anger when he did that, but now that weight broke through her walls, and she started sobbing. Emotions and thoughts that she had suppressed for a while came bursting to the forefront of her mind. 

How she actually felt afraid of King as he tore through her mental defenses.

How she had killed another person again even if it was hunting her friends.

How helpless and terrified she had felt when that teacher had possessed her body. 

How terrified she felt standing next to Robin and looking in-

As soon as her thoughts landed on Robin and Hong Kong her mental training took over and wiped her mind. She could feel her body automatically unwind and get an approximation of relaxed. 

Her mind now thankfully clear from her previous breakdown she was able to take in slow, deep breaths. She could feel King shaking her arm and saying her name, but she didn’t want to talk to or even look at him right now.

She pulled her arm away from the demon and sat up, pressing her palms flat onto the kitchen floor and focusing only on the cool wood beneath her. As soon as she was able to ground herself, she stood up and glared at King. 

He was clutching Francios and looked at her with fear, regret, and worry. She almost felt bad for him before another wave of the fear she felt washed over her. She stumbled towards the wall and regrounded herself. 

Finally, once she felt like she was good she turned back towards King. “Luz I’m-”

“Stop it.” She commanded. King’s mouth instantly snapped shut. “We will talk about how you invaded my mind WITHOUT MY CONSENT." Luz took a deep breath to calm herself. “-later. Right now, I need to know how to help Hooty.”

King stared at her for a minute, clearly doing his best to not cry in front of her. She still couldn't find it in her to feel sorry. Finally, King collected himself and looked back at the uninterrupted wall. 

“She’s never transformed that far before. At least not that I’ve seen. Usually when her curse gets bad, she’ll stay in her room and Hooty will bolt down the doors. But again, I’ve never seen her that transformed, and I don’t know if Hooty can hold her off forever.”

Just as King said that a loud crash and bang rang through the house and a few things happened. The lights in the house shut off, the doorway to the living room reappeared, and all the windows blew open, letting in warm humid air.

Luz stared out at the living room in horror. The couches, chairs, and coffee table were in bits and pieces. Claw marks marred the ceiling and walls. In a couple places the marks had broken through the walls and she could see dark brown fleshy bits peaking through. The bookshelves appeared to have turned into solid chunks of wood and all of the stuff she had been working on before all of this seemed to be missing. 

She desperately hopped her little notebook with all her notes and thoughts about this realm and its magic and her experiments hadn’t gotten destroyed in the chaos. 

The part that worried her the most though was the fact that the front door had been torn off of the wall. Hooty was stiller than she had ever seen, his long neck draped around the room and sporting its own claw marks from his fight with the Beast.  

She rushed over and bent to take a pulse before pausing. She didn’t know if Hooty even had a pulse let alone how to check it or what it was supposed to look like. She suppressed a groan as she turned towards King. “How do I check if Hooty is alive or unconscious?” 

King was standing in the middle of the living room, staring intently at the walls. Whatever he saw satisfied him because he nodded and said, “He’s just unconscious. We should head upstairs.” 

“How do you know?” Luz demanded. She had to make sure Hooty was okay. She couldn’t think about what would happen to the house if he died. King pointed to the walls.

“They’re still moving so that means he’s still breathing. He’ll be fine in a little bit and will just need some rest. We really should get upstairs though.” Now that King had pointed it out, she could in fact see that the walls were moving. How had she never noticed that before? 

Luz stood up and moved some cushions under Hooty’s head.

“Why do you want to go upstairs,” She asked. As much as she was glad that the Beast wasn’t in here, mainly because she had no clue how to stop it, the fact that it wasn’t in here meant that it was somewhere else in the house. And she didn’t feel comfortable moving about without at least knowing where it was. 

“Mom’s room has more spells than I can name. She told me that if she ever transformed outside of her room to lock myself in there until everything was quiet or Hooty came and got me.” King was now pacing back and forth and looking nervously at every shadow and weird noise. Despite her best efforts she couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for him. 

“Alright fine, Eda’s room it is.” Luz made for the stairs in the kitchen but was stopped by King’s claws tugging on her shoes. 

“Wait Luz! I- uhm I wanted to say I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have broken into your mind like that, I was just scared and acted out. Can you forgive me?” Tears welled up in King’s eyes and he clutched Francios tighter. 

Luz took a deep breath, “No.” King looked like he was going to break down sobbing right there. “What you did to me was an absolute violation of my privacy and my mind. I can’t forgive you for that, not right now. But the apology is a good start. Okay?” King nodded his understanding, and she gave him an awkward pat on the head before she just lifted him up and placed him on her shoulder before recasting a Shield of Seraphim.

“Now let's go up to Eda’s room.” It was a relatively short trip from the living room to Eda’s room but with her and King’s frayed nerves it took twice as long to get there. Luz breathed a sigh of relief as they made it into the Demon Realm equivalent of a master bedroom. 

The last time she had been in Eda’s room was when she had to apologize to King. She still felt a little ashamed of her comments then and resisted the urge to fidget to try and take her mind off it. 

She instead looked around the room and breathed a sigh of relief when she didn’t see the Beast anywhere. “I don’t see it; I think we’re safe.”

“Her, not it.” King was tracing something over the door to seemingly lock it. It kind of reminded her of trailing her own fingers through water and watching the ripples move out over the whole pond. 

Luz watched the ripples flow over the walls and ceiling and-

Luz froze as she locked eyes with the Beast sitting up in the rafters of Eda’s room. Oh, she was so stupid! Her Maestro always told her to look up!

She enlarged her Shield of Seraphim to cover both her and King just as the Beast leapt from the rafters and onto her shield. 

The force and weight of the landing shoved her to the floor, and she felt her head crack against the wood. Immediately her control over her magic wavered. 

“King!” She shouted, the sound seeming to echo throughout her own head. It felt like someone was hitting her skull with a hammer over and over again. Still, she compartmentalized as best she could and summoned some Winds of Watoomb to blow the Beast into the wall. 

Small claws dragged her into the hallway and towards one of the closets. She could hear the Beast still in Eda’s room thrashing about. She hoped her mentor wasn’t too injured. 

A pop sound struck her ears, and she winced before feeling cold glass being pressed to her lips followed quickly afterwards by a thick, bitter liquid. 

She nearly spit it out before she realized that with each swallow her headache got easier to manage. She finished the entire bottle King offered to her before sitting up just in time to watch the Beast break down the wall to Eda’s room. 

Luz was finally able to get a good look at it- no, her.

The Beast was massive, about as tall as Eda was from her paws to her shoulder. The front half of her body was covered in feathers the same color as Eda’s hair while the back half was covered in a weird combo of fur and feathers. Three large pairs of gray wings rested against her back. A long whip like tail smashed into the walls and ceiling behind her. 

The worst part was her face. She could make out Eda’s features here and there, but they were twisted and stretched and deformed into something inherently Owl-like.

The Beast growled and crouched low to the ground before making its way towards them. Her mind was still a little foggy from what she assumed was a concussion and was having trouble conjuring any sort of magic. 

“Luz!” King whispered. “Her eyes! She’s sensitive to light! Use something!” She desperately tried to conjure the mandala for simple light but couldn’t remember it well enough to actually do so. She huffed and tried manually drawing it out knowing it wouldn’t work with a concussion. 

Finally, she patted her pockets and found her phone. Just before the Beast got far too close to them for comfort, she whipped out her phone flashlight and shined it into the Beast's eyes. 

The Beast collapsed to the ground and screamed in pain, one of the smaller set of wings coming forward to shield its eyes from the light as it turned tail and ran back towards the safety of the darkness. 

Unfortunately, Luz had a similar issue, her eyes burning at the presence of the light. She dropped her phone to the ground and covered her eyes and mouth, desperately trying to suppress the urge to vomit. 

She blindly searched for her phone and was thankfully able to turn it off with King's help.

She slowly opened her eyes and looked around. The hallway was thankfully still dark with Hooty unconscious and the storm outside. She took a moment to catch her breath before looking at her phone. 

“Well crap.” She said, the screen was covered in a spiderweb of cracks, likely from when she had dropped it. She carefully turned on her phone. She wanted to avoid a similar reaction to the flashlight camera, but she also had to see the extent of the damage and she couldn’t do that without her phone being on. 

Two things happened as soon as she turned on her phone. One was that she noticed the damage was not as severe as she had initially thought it was. She could still clearly see her home screen, a photo of her and Vee in Central Park posing with corn dog sticks in their mouth to look like walruses.  

The other thing that happened was that she noticed an afterimage that appeared to float in between herself and her phone. Something about it was different. She could feel the humming sound she usually heard around fridges and fluorescent light bulbs seemingly coming from whatever this was. 

“Luz, are you alright? She’ll be back soon. We should get somewhere safe.” Luz barely acknowledged what he said and reached out for one of the splinters of wood that littered the hallway. 

She closed her eyes and focused not on extra dimensional energy but instead the warmth within her body. She pulled it, instantly finding herself freezing despite the boiling rain outside, and channeled it towards her finger. When she opened her eyes there was a tiny but powerful flame hovering in front of her finger like a little blowtorch. 

She could make out the after image better now with the added light. Taking the flame and the piece of wood, she carefully carved the symbol into it so she could remember it for later. 

Once she had done so she dismissed the flame and King instantly rushed towards her and hugged her, his little body giving off very little but still welcome warmth.

She absently hugged him back and looked at the symbol. No matter how often she looked at it, it didn’t tell her anything useful. Sighing and chalking it up to a concussion hallucination she threw the wood against the floor and watched with surprise as it folded up on itself and morphed into a little ball of witchlight. 

Similar to the same ball of witchlight she had summoned when her Mami, Maestro and the Sorcerer Supreme were over. That means that that after image had to be the focus Eda had mentioned back then for channeling wild magic! 

She grinned and hugged King tighter. “King, I think I know how we’re going to get Eda back.”

~-~

The first thing Eda felt was the urge to throw up, something that was so typical that she knew exactly where to lean so she made it into the trash can she always had next to her nest. 

She kept her eyes closed as she felt the serrated edges of the Beast's teeth, the ones that used to line her throat and stomach, cut up her cheeks and tongue on their way out. She kept her eyes closed hoping that there wasn’t anything else in her stomach for her to throw up before she finally relaxed and leaned back into her nest. 

Slowly she opened her eyes to see Strange and Camilia kneeling over her, glowing mandalas hovering around Strange’s surprisingly shaky hands. 

She closed her eyes again, “Fuck. Are the kids okay?”

“Physically they are both fine although Miss Noceda has a concussion and is still somewhat rattled by an unwanted mind probe your son initiated.” She didn’t miss the way the Sorcerer said your but at the moment she didn’t care.

Her eyes flew open with fury that lasted a second as she sat up in her nest before bile and teeth climbed its way back out of her throat. Camilia thankfully placed the trash can in between her legs so she didn’t have to do much but separate herself from the sensations and feelings until there wasn’t anything else to throw up. She spat into the trash can one last time and nodded her thanks before setting it to the side. 

“Note to self, talk to the kids.” She didn’t see whatever happened between Camilia and Strange as she had covered her eyes with her hands to block out the light coming through her window. At least the rainstorm was over. 

“I’ll go check on the kids now, ensure that there is nothing that needs to be taken care of,” Strange said before walking away. Eda heard her door open and close and then it was just her and Camilia in her room alone. 

Usually, she would be thrilled to have another woman here, (very few people wanted to get romantically involved with a high-profile criminal unfortunately,) but right now all she wished for was to dim the lights and sleep for a day or two. 

“Edalyn what happened?” Ugh not her full name. She had done everything in her power on Luz’s first day at Hexside to get Camilia to call her by Eda and now they were back to full name basis. 

She had really fucked up, hadn’t she? 

Eda groaned and tried to sit up before another wave of nausea washed over her. Thankfully nothing came up, but it did stop her from sitting up all the way. She kept her eyes covered so she didn’t have to look at the other woman's undoubtedly disappointed face. 

“Eda, what’s going on? I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s happening.” This time Camila spoke with such more feeling and sincerity that Eda couldn’t stop the tears from spilling free. 

She spent the next several minutes just crying, crying for a future she would never get to have, of a past that was derailed and arguably ruined, of family and relationships lost because she was always so scared to open up.

So scared of the pity or worse the understanding that most people tried to view her with. Because they didn’t understand. There was no way they could understand her pain. She was the only one in the entire Empire who had a condition like this, she had checked multiple times over.

She was all alone. 

But when the tears did stop and she finally did open her eyes and looked up at Camilia, all she saw was worry and compassion looking back down at her and she broke down all over again. She told her everything, how she had been cursed, the first time she had transformed, what it felt like to have every bone in your body break at the same time. To look in the mirror and not recognize the person looking back. The knowledge that her body wasn’t truly hers. 

Most importantly she told her about how her curse was getting worse. How she used to only go through a bottle of potion once a month but now she had to take half a bottle everyday just to be able to manage her pain and how after this she was undoubtedly going to have to take a full potion every day and that wasn’t cheap at all.

Finally, after a while she just sat there, her head in Camilia’s lap. It had felt admittedly good to spill everything to Camilia, who just sat there coming her fingers through her hair.

“Do you want to see the kids?” Camilia asked. Eda froze and gripped the other woman's leg. She didn’t quite remember when Camilia had joined her in her nest. “They were both worried for you. It might do them some good to see that you’re awake.”

Eda slowly nodded. She was right. She should at least tell Luz and King what was going on. She could feel Camilia pull out her phone and listened to the whoosh sound as she sent a message to Luz. 

Moments later her door opened again, and she saw Luz standing in the doorway, King perched on her shoulder and clutching the little stuffed bunny that she had gotten him for his fifth birthday. She was glad that their relationship didn’t appear too damaged although she would have to talk to King later about his mental probe. 

For now, she slowly sat up, Camilia helping to support her. A cough tore through her body and would’ve sent her back to the bottom of her nest if Camilia hadn’t wrapped an arm around her shoulders. 

Eda looked back up at the kids in her charge. Luz’s entire face was a careful mask, but she was familiar enough with the girls fidgeting to recognize how worried she was. King was a lot easier to read as he looked at her with those bright, wide eyes of his. 

She patted a spot in her nest. “Come sit down. I owe you guys an explanation.” When the two kids sat down, King crawled onto her shoulder and nuzzled the side of her face, his warm skull pressing against her cheek. Luz wrapped her arms around Eda’s side mirroring the way her mother held her. 

They were all silent for a while, clearly giving Eda the time she needed to gather her thoughts. “I don’t even know where to start,” she said as she hung her head. 

“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” Camilia suggested. Eda nodded, her thoughts slowly coming together. 

“I can do that. I was 20 years old when someone cursed me. I don’t know who and I don’t know how. All I know is that out of everyone on my street and my family in my house I was the only one who got cursed. I didn’t even know it until a few days later when I was trying out for-” She stopped, the memory of her first transformation too painful for her to talk about. 

“Take your time,” Luz said. Eda nodded her thanks and recollected herself. 

“The curse gave me a passenger and head mate if you will. Something I call The Beast. I don’t know what the Beast is. I think it might be one of the Old Demons, the first demons that rose from the Titan, but that wouldn’t make sense because how would it get trapped in the curse?” She was rambling now, but it felt so good to finally get this off her chest. 

“Being cursed with this being it’s mutated and transformed my magic. It feeds off my bile sac, limiting how frequently I can cast spells because if I push myself too far then The Beast takes over. It’s been slowly eating away at my body since I was cursed.” She snorted and could feel the three people around her shift as she threw her head back. “I’m 42 years old and I already have a full head of gray hair.” She unscrewed her hand from her wrist. “It did make me a fleshbender though, which does have its uses. Although these days it's just another tool people use to label me as an outcast."

The three where silent for a little bit while they processed everything. “What’s a fleshbender Eda?” Camilia asked. She guessed the question made sense as she had only told Luz what it was this morning. 

She screwed her hand back on and wiped her face. “Someone who can manipulate fleshy organic bodies. Usually, their own or others but the most skilled where able to manipulate the body of the Titan itself.

Before the Empire fleshbenders were considered sacred or holy. They were closer to the Titan than the rest of us, and the few who had innate skill in it were heralded above all. They were our equivalent of your priests. When Bronze butt,” the insult got a little chuckle out of King and Luz which she felt proud for, “came into power, Fleshbending was deemed wild magic and outlawed with the rest. Only demons and witches who were born with the ability could still practice it, and every single one of them was offered positions of power.”

“Surely not all of the natural born fleshbenders supported this?” Eda shook her head. 

“It didn’t matter because Belos had the support of the oldest family with Fleshbending skills. The Fanes backed his rise to power.”

“The Fanes?” Luz asked. King was the one to respond.

“Warden Wraths family. They’ve been Fleshbenders for countless generations. His son Braxas goes to daycare with me.”

“We’re getting off track here.” Camilia said. “How does you being a fleshbender make you an outcast, the way you described it I’d think you’d be anything but?”

“Because under the law I technically ‘learned’ how to fleshbend. It doesn’t matter that it’s a byproduct of the curse, I wasn’t born with it. It’s one of the first crimes I was charged with. ‘Learning’ wild magic.” She snorted. “I’ve been on the run since then, taking odd jobs and working for the Resistance against Belos.”

“I promise I’ll try and help you with your curse Eda.” Luz’s voice was small and quiet and so unlike how she usually was. She remembered how worried Luz was for her this morning. “You won’t have to go through this alone.”

King and Camilia said similar things, but she didn’t hear them. All she could do was focus on Luz, on the girls' bright eyes looking up at her full of hope and optimism. She found that she believed her. 

For the first time in years, she didn’t feel alone anymore.

Chapter Text

29th of October 2018

10th of Pausa 1000

Eda closed her book and looked around the room. 

Luz was sitting on the floor working on some of her homework while King slept in his little corner of stuffed animals and toys. 

She wasn’t oblivious to the tension between the two, nor did she forget about what Strange said a few days ago. She just didn’t know how she should handle this. 

How was one supposed to talk to kids about this? She wasn’t even sure how she had become responsible for these two, both of whom were amazing but that didn’t change the fact that King had done something absolutely horrific.

Something that she had talked to him about before. 

She rubbed her hands against her face and groaned. How was she supposed to do this? 

“Eda? Are you okay?” Luz’s voice replaced the silence in the room. Eda looked up. Both Luz and King were staring at her. Her son looked at her with concern while Luz looked at her with apprehension. 

It hurt to see just how much her transformation had scared Luz, and she kicked herself for not telling her apprentice about her condition sooner.

“Mom? You’re okay right?” She waved away King’s concerns. 

“I’m fine now King, but all of us need to talk.” A carefully constructed blank look filled Luz’s face while she could practically feel the guilt and shame rolling off of King. 

“Firstly, I would like to apologize to you both for what happened. I won’t lie, my curse has been worsening recently, and I didn’t account for that when I took my potions that day. I’m sorry to both of you for scaring you.”

“It’s okay Mom,” King said at the same time Luz said, “We just want you to be safe.” 

She smiled at both of her kids before gesturing for King to come over to her. He climbed down his little tower of blankets and stuffed animals before climbing up her lap. She smiled as she ran her fingers through his fur, undoing any knots that had formed since King had last brushed himself. 

Something he clearly needed to do more often given how many knots she found.

“I did want to talk to you guys about what happened while I was transformed though.” King stiffened beneath her fingers, guilt pouring off of him in waves. Luz looked at the wall over her shoulder, taking great care to not look at both King and Eda. 

“Luz,” she said while still combing King’s fur. “Can you tell me what happened that day?” 

“We-” she interrupted her son with a tap on his horns. “I just want Luz to speak right now okay buddy?” King nodded before curling into a ball on her lap. 

Luz sat staring at the wall in silence for several minutes. Eda was willing to let her wait as long as she needed before talking. It was the least she could do for the sorceress after the kindness the girl had shown her after her transformation. 

After several minutes of silence Luz spoke, “Hooty sealed the kitchen off from the living room when you transformed. I couldn’t hear anything except for the Beast and Hooty fighting. That’s when King came downstairs.”

Whimpers rose from King, and she scratched underneath his horns to calm him. 

“He was so scared when I told him you had transformed. He asked me what was going on and what had happened to you, and I couldn’t answer him.” Luz’s voice was flat and monotone although the girl was rocking on her spot on the ground. “Instead of waiting for me to answer he shoved his way through my mind.”

The smell of smoke filled her nose as Luz's voice cracked. “Everything I had been taught about protecting my mind was nothing against King. How did he do that? What is King?” Eda remembered the night she had found Luz in the middle of her nightmare. How her room had seemed charged and smoky. 

The living room felt similar, if not quite as strong. She gently scooped King off of her lap and sat down next to Luz on the floor. She wrapped her arms around the girl and gently ran her fingers through her hair. She could feel her apprentice relax in her arms as her hands wove through her hair. 

The smoky smell dissipated as Luz calmed down. 

“King,” she made sure to keep her voice low and calm. “Can you explain what happened?”

King nodded from his spot on the couch. She didn’t remember him having Francios when he was on her lap, but he was now clutching his toy. “I had been sleeping and was woken up by your transformation. I came down to see what was happening, but I panicked when I saw the living room blocked off. I had never seen Hooty do that before! I hadn’t meant to invade Luz’s mind like that, but I had to know what was going on. I had to make sure you were okay.”

Eda shifted so that Luz was leaning against her side and opened up one of her arms for King to crawl into her other side. She sat on the ground for a while, holding her two kids in her arms and consoling both of them. 

“I’m so sorry Luz,” King whispered. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I did. If I could take it back, I would. You’re like a sister to me, I would never want to hurt you.”

The room was quiet after King’s apology and was only broken several minutes later by Luz. Eda thanked the Titan that Hooty had enough tack to stay away from the living room right now. 

“What are you, King?” Luz’s voice was hard and cold, but she could see the way her eyes crinkled when she invested in something. King shrugged into her side. 

“No one knows what I am. I don’t really fit any of the demon categories. And Mom was never able to find someone who has abilities similar to mine. As far as we know I’m the only demon like me. I’m like Mom in that way.” Eda’s heart throbbed for her son. 

She really wished she had been able to find answers to the question. The first time King had invaded someone's mind it had taken her several favors and threats in order to keep the situation quiet. She didn’t need the Empire getting curious about her son. But she did do some research and found absolutely nothing on what kind of demon King was. Every test and spell that she did came back inconclusive.

She lightly scratched his skull as the silence wound between the three of them. It was finally broken by Luz. 

“What other abilities do you have?”

She met King’s eyes. It was up to him if he wanted to tell her or not. 

King sighed and said, “There's the mind scans, I can take on a beastal form-”

“Like beast keeping spells?” Luz interrupted. King nodded, “except I can do it without a spell circle. I also have some fleshbending skills too.”

That certainly got Luz’s attention. She sat up and looked at King. “You’re a fleshbender?!?” King nodded, “Yeah, Mom suggested I not tell anyone when we found out. She didn’t want me to face the Coven Guards for this.” 

Eda nodded. “The less you have to deal with them the better.”

“I guess that's fair, but you’re showing me some fleshbending stuff at some point!”

King nodded, “I’ll do that when you talk to Eda.” Eda wanted to groan as Luz’s face shut down. They had been doing so good! Why’d King have to jeopardize it? 

When it became clear that Luz wasn’t going to speak, she looked at King. “King, what’d you mean by that?”

He shook his head, “It’s not my place to say. But Luz needs help.”

Luz jumped up from her side and paced around the living room. Eda could taste campfire smoke on her tongue, and she knew that everything in the living room was going to reek of smoke after this. 

“I don’t need help!” Luz bit out. Eda moved King and stood up.

“Luz, talk to me. I’m here for you.” She slowly approached her apprentice who stood in the middle of the room. Luz’s eyes seemed to be locked on her little notebook in her hands. Eda recognized it as the one that she had been using to create her abomination spell. 

Luz flipped to a few pages and folded the corners before shoving the book into her chest. “Don’t you ever do something because you think it’s best for me,” she spat at King. “You don’t know me!”

“Luz.” She had to put a stop to this now. She was not gonna tolerate her kids fighting like this. Eda scooped her apprentice into her arms and threw herself down on the couch. Luz squeaked as she was picked up.

“Eda what are you doing?!” Luz tried to squirm out of her grip, but Eda was stronger and knew how to get her to relax. She ran her fingers through her hair and felt Luz melt into her arms. King came up next to them and slipped Francios into her arms. Luz’s fingers went white from clutching the bunny. 

“Luz we’re not leaving this couch until you tell me what’s going on.” 

“You’re not going to let me get out of this are you?” Eda went to answer but was beaten to it by King. 

“No. You're family Luz. We just want to help.”

Luz lifted her head up from where it was resting on her shoulder and looked at King. “I can’t forgive you. Not yet. Not for what you did.” Eda could practically feel King’s heart break, but she could only deal with one kid falling apart so she just inched closer to her son. He immediately cuddled into her side underneath Luz. 

“Luz tell me what’s going on. We’re here for you, no matter what.”

Despite Luz’s response to King, she could feel the girl slightly shift to the side to make it easier for King to curl up next to them. “It was on my first day at Hexside.

I got in trouble in History for asking why witches and demons never faced consequences for mixing magic before Belos.” Both Eda and King winced. Luz nodded. “Yeah, I was quickly sent to detention for that question. And I was just so mad at the hypocrisy of everything, at how everyone just seemed to be willing to ignore how obviously corrupt this government is! I got into an argument with the detention teacher that day and he… possessed me, I guess? In order to get me to sit down and be quiet.”

Everything stilled within Eda’s mind. She could feel the Beast prowling back and forth begging to be released in order to attack the ones that hurt its owlet. She had half a mind to let it. 

Eda thumbed the little sun charm that hung around Luz’s neck. “I’ll brew up a potion and apply it to your necklace, Witchlet. Nothing like that will ever happen again, I swear it on the Humors.” Luz seemed to try and get closer to Eda and the witch let her. She would have to talk to Bump about this. Especially because it might not be the first time this teacher has done that. 

“I promise everything will be okay again my Witchlet. I promise.” The three of them sat in semi-comfortable silence as they processed everything that happened. Eda needed a distraction from the heavy topics, and she knew just the thing. 

"What's this about you finding some sort of Glyph Luz?" The girl immediately sat up and grabbed her notebook, her eyes shining with familiar curiosity.

Chapter Text

15th of November 2018 

27th of Pausa 1000

Willow knew she was late when she heard Gus knock on her front door. She stuck her head out her window and looked down at her friend. 

His dad stood next to him wearing his usual work outfit. She guessed he was going into his office after dropping Gus off at the Owl House. Her friend was wearing his “Luz Approved Human Clothes” (and that had been a day) with his familiar overnight bag slung over his shoulder. “I’ll be down in a second Augustus!” He flashed her a smile and some thumbs up before she ducked back into her room. 

She was supposed to have packed the night before but had instead spent it worried about Luz. The human witch hadn’t shown up to school in the past couple days and Hooty seemed to have moved the house since she was last there. Usually when that happened Luz just let her, and Gus know where it was now but without her having a scroll or being at school they were more or less in the dark. 

So now she was left to hurriedly pack her overnight bag before jumping down the stairs. Her dads were sitting at the table, reading the newspaper and drinking some bitter bean juice. 

“Ready to go Flower,” Her dad asked, setting down the newspaper and looking up at her. She nodded and smiled. 

“Come on, I don't want to be late! It’s going to take us long enough to find where the Owl House moved too!” Her papa set down his cup and stood up. 

“I can’t believe I’m taking you to the Owl Ladies home.” She rolled her eyes. 

“Eda isn’t dangerous Papa! She’s actually a bit of a nerd.” 

Her Papa shrugged as they all headed towards the front door. “She’s still a covenless witch, Flower, and that means she’s dangerous.” 

Willow threw open the door, eager to end this conversation. Her friendship with the Owl Ladies apprentice had been a point of contention between her and her parents. They believed wholeheartedly in the coven system while she was admittedly having some doubts after meeting Eda, Luz, and King.

“You too Harvey?” Mr. Porter asked. Gus threw his head back and groaned. 

“Dad, we’ve talked about this, Luz isn’t going to hurt us, and Eda is more likely to teach you a new spell or steal your wallet than she is to hex you.” They both knew better than to think of Luz as harmless especially after what happened on the first day of school and what she had told them of her Conformitorium raid. 

Her dad shut and locked the front door. “You kids don’t get it yet and that’s okay. Just be careful around Eda alright?” Willow and Gus shared a look and decided to let their parents have the last word. They knew that they couldn’t change their minds about the notorious wild witch that had taken in their best friend. Plus, it would probably be good to leave it at that, so they didn’t find out that they were going to a completely different dimension. 

“Dad,” Gus said, tugging on Mr. Porter's shirt. “The spell?”

“Oh right!” Mr. Porter drew a spell circle that homed in on the little chip that Luz had. She had said Eda made it in order to let Willow and Gus find them in case something happened, and they needed the Owl House. Apparently, she had enough faith in Hooty to protect the House in case the Emperor's Coven figured about the chip.

A translucent purple arrow appeared above Mr. Porter's sigil and pointed off towards Upper Bonesborough. Willow sighed, “It looks like it’s going to be a walk to get there. I hope we aren’t late.”

Gus shrugged, “Knowing Luz she’s probably nose deep in some textbooks right now.”

The walk to the Owl House was tense and quiet, all three of the parents obviously not happy about this. The atmosphere was not improved when the ground in front of them caved in and Hooty’s head rose from the dirt like some sort of brainworm. 

“Hoot! Hoot! Am I glad you guys are here!” Willow was immediately concerned. Hooty usually talked to them about what kind of bug he saw or the most recent attack from the Emperor's Coven. Not exclaim at how excited he was to see them. 

“What’s wrong Hooty?” 

“Eda and Luz haven’t left the living room in days! Hoot! King and I have barely been able to get them to eat!”

That was all Willow and Gus needed to hear before they took off towards the direction of the Owl House. Luz got like that sometimes where she got so focused on one thing that she didn’t take care of herself. Usually, Eda was able to get her to relax and eat something but if Eda was also obsessing over something-

Willow just hoped that Luz hadn’t fallen asleep on her books again. 

The door was already open by the time she and Gus had arrived at the Owl House. 

Willow stopped in surprise as she entered her friend's house. She could hear Gus and their parents behind her but paid no attention to the other adults. 

The walls of the living room were lined with papers filled with Luz’s tight script and Eda’s scribbles. From what she could tell each piece of paper focused on some sort of symbol that she saw repeated over and over again. 

It was circular, with a line bisecting the middle. Before the line reached the top of the larger circle it hit a smaller circle topped with a triangle. Coming down from the circle was a larger triangle that touched the sides of the larger circle and inside this triangle was two short diagonal lines bisecting the much larger one. 

The symbol was everywhere and practically on everything. She saw chunks of stone and metal with it carved on. There was a large wooden sign that had several versions of that symbol connected by a giant rectangle. A half-formed image of the Owl Ladies face flashed over it. 

King sat on the armrest of the couch, which was also covered in books and loose-leaf papers covered in notes. The little demon was staring at the chalkboard that took front and center in the living room. 

Luz and Eda were standing around it. Willow was about to say something before the smoky smell she associated with her best friend washed over her. She watched as Luz traced out that same symbol in the air using her magic. 

Black bespeckled orange light illuminated the room and cast distorted shadows across everything, making the room seem to come straight from some sort of horror novel. 

Luz stuck her tongue out in concentration and likely exhaustion. “What’s going on?” Mr. Porter said just as Luz completed her improvised mandala. 

It immediately condensed down to a ball to form a bright orb of witchlight. 

“No way,” Willow breathed. 

“She didn’t rip her mandala apart right? Not like she usually does at least,” Gus asked from beside her. Willow didn’t get the chance to respond as Luz shrieked and threw herself into her mentor's arms. 

“Eda! Eda! Eda! We did it! Oh my Titan we did it! And it was the missing piece!” Eda twirled Luz around the room, laughing with joy. 

“Only you could do it kiddo! I’m so proud of you!”

Willow cleared her throat before she felt any more awkward about intruding on the situation. 

Luz turned and looked at them in surprise. “Willow? Gus? What are you guys doing here?” Willow’s stomach sank to the bottom of her feet as her friend stared at her in confusion. 

She knew that sometimes Luz could get sucked into her projects, and it certainly wouldn’t be the first time she had skipped school to conduct some sort of experiment on the plants or magic or whatever had captured her interest that day. But usually, she was pretty good about keeping track of time. 

She hadn’t wanted to believe it when Hooty had said days. 

“Luz, we’re supposed to come over today for your birthday?” Gus worriedly asked.

Both Eda and Luz froze and stared at the mass of people that had gathered in the living room. “It’s Saturday already?” and “Shit they’ve brought their parents with them,” filled the living room. 

Both of them tried to comb their hair with their fingers and smooth out the wrinkles on their clothes in a surprisingly similar way. Luz then ran up to her and Gus and pulled the two of them into a hug. Eda approached their parents and pulled them aside to talk. Willow hoped it went well, as she didn’t want to be forbidden from going over to her friend's house. 

“Oh, I’m so happy to see you two! You’ll never believe what I discovered!” Luz grabbed Willow and Gus’ hand and pulled them towards the chalkboard. 

“We ran into a little bit of an issue last month, but we discovered something big! Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to really sit down and run some experiments until Thursday, so I couldn't tell you before now.” Luz took a look around the room and gave a brief shrug. “We might’ve gotten a little carried away in the process.”

Willow snickered as King shouted, “YOU THINK?!” from the couch. 

“Okay so what did you guys discover?” Gus asked. He was practically vibrating where he was standing now that he knew Luz was okay. Willow had to admit that she was curious too. 

The grin Luz gave them was a little crazed, “Eda’s old books mention that witches and demons used to be able to utilize the elements in their spell casting. We think that this,” she pointed towards the symbol that seemed to be dominating every piece of paper and conversation, “is one of them.” Luz tapped a paper with the symbol on it and Willow and Gus watched as the paper folded in on itself and formed a ball of witchlight. 

“I’ve never seen a light spell cast like that before,” Gus said as he leaned down to look at the ball. He grabbed a spare piece of paper and traced out the symbol before tapping it. The same thing happened as it seemed to be consumed by the spell to form a little ball of witchlight. 

“Eda thinks there might be four main elements that the wild witches of old used to use in their spells and that this light glyph was the most common!” 

“Why only four main elements though,” Gus asked. 

“The Isles are part of a Near Planar World and Earth has four main elements.” Willow and Gus shared a look. It admittedly wasn’t uncommon for Luz to say something that neither of them had the context for, but she had gotten better at explaining what she meant. 

Willow knew though that that wasn’t a battle she wanted to fight right now. “Are we still going to your Mom’s for your birthday Luz?” She whispered. 

Gus and King laughed as Luz’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. “Eda, I'm going to take a shower really quick. Do you know where my energy potions are?!” Her voice got quieter as she ran upstairs and left Willow, Gus, and their parents alone with Eda. 

“Uhhhhh check the hall closet! I think I put a few there!” Eda shouted up after her apprentice. 

Willow and Gus turned to look at their parents. They were standing in a clump near the door, looking around at the living room. “I promise your kids will be safe with me guys. Not a hair on their head will be harmed.”

At that moment Hooty chose to throw open the door and say, “Hoot! Hoot! No Coven Guard gets past me!”

Willow's dads looked at each other, “Coven Guard?” She chose that moment to grab them both by their hands and lead them outside. Gus did the same. 

She pulled them into a tight hug and said, “I’ll be fine guys, I promise.” Her dads shared a look before kneeling down to her level. 

“Message us if you want us to come pick you up. We’ll be here in no time.” Willow giggled. Eda would likely move the house after they left for the human realm so there was no way they would even find the portal to the human realm quickly enough to do anything. 

She didn’t tell them all that though, “I will, okay? But I promise I will be safe here. Eda and Luz are some of the strongest witches I know. We’ll be safe.”

“If you say so,” Her Papa said. 

Willow nodded. “I do, now go home. Get some rest! Enjoy having the house all to yourself for once.” Her dads nodded and gave her one last hug before walking off with Mr. Porter. 

“Whew, that was a close one.” Gus said. “Dad was starting to get curious as to what we were going to do, and I didn’t know what to say.”

Willow grinned. “I would have no clue either. Now let's go inside and find out what we're actually going to be doing this weekend.”

When they got back inside, Eda was taking down all the papers and placing them in a folder as Luz came tromping down the stairs. Willow expected her to be carrying some sort of bag but was a bit startled by the giant briefcase with a glowing demonic eye in the middle of it.

“What’s that?” Gus asked. 

Luz grinned and set it on the ground before snapping her fingers. Immediately the briefcase folded open and popped up, forming an intricate door with the demonic eye at the top. “This is the portal to the Human Realm! Are you guys ready to explore a new land with me?”

Gus laughed, “Luz you were born in the human realm. It isn’t a new land for you.”

Luz pouted. “Don’t spoil the fun Gus! Now, are you guys ready?”

Willow nodded and saw Gus do the same out of the corner of her eye. With a dramatic flourish Luz opened the door to reveal a bright white light. She could make out a few shapes in it but not much else. 

“In we go! See you Sunday guys!” Luz waved to Eda and King before walking through the light. Willow felt Gus sneak his hand into hers. 

“Are you okay?” She asked. She could feel her friend nod. 

“I’m finally doing it though. I’m finally going to the Human Realm!” Gus dragged her through the light by her hand and caused her to nearly stumble down a set of steps. 

Strong arms caught her before she could fall though and she found herself looking at someone who was very much Luz’s mother. She had the same dark skin and brown eyes as Luz.

She quickly said something in English that Willow had a hard time making out beyond “Oh!” and both hers and Gus’s names. Judging by the expression on Gus’s face he seemed to have caught just as much.

“Mami, you have to speak slowly, they’re still working on their English skills.” Ms. Noceda nodded and spoke again. 

“I'm sorry about that guys I’m just so happy to officially meet you!” Ms. Noceda gave both of them a crushing hug before letting go of them. “I believe you guys have met Vee,” she said pointing at the basilisk in her human form. 

Vee waved at them and said in Isket, “High guys! It’s good to see you again.”

Ms. Noceda stepped back and wrapped Luz in a tight hug. “Alright, let’s get you kids home.”

The walk to Luz’s childhood house was quick but Willow spent the time talking with Vee and Gus about all the differences between the Isles and Earth. Luz walked a little further ahead and filled her mother in on everything that had happened since they last saw each other. 

The Noceda house itself reminded her of her own house. 

The place was lived in, with a small table next to the front door that was piled high with random objects and assorted slips of paper. The entrance area split off and to the right was a large room with a wide black pane of glass and a bunch of couches while to the left Willow could see what looked like a dining room. Straight ahead of her was a long staircase leading up to another level. 

The house itself looked lived in, and she could see photos of Ms. Noceda, Vee, and Luz scattered throughout the house. Before she could say anything, Luz took off for the stairs, shouting, “Follow me guys!” 

Willow had to pull Gus away from the table of random things and towards Luz.

Willow and Gus struggled to keep up, constantly slowing down to take in all the photos of Luz and a few of Vee on the walls. 

There was one with a much younger Luz with her hair in a braid holding some sort of long thin scaly animal. There was another of her later on dressed in her sorcerer robes and looking up with a huge smile on her towards another sorcerer in a red cape. One of them had another man in them that looked similar to Luz at some sort of birthday party. The last photo they saw on the wall was one of Luz, Vee and Ms. Noceda at some sort of park. 

“Come on you guys, I’m sure Mama will show you all the photos of Baby Me that you want to see.” Luz was leaning against the wall next to a door. “You can drop your guys' stuff off in here,” she pointed to the room behind her. 

“I want to make sure I have enough time to show you guys around today!”

Willow was about to reply when she heard Ms. Noceda shout up the stairs for Luz. Her friend sighed and pushed herself off of the wall. “You guys can throw your bags in my room and meet me downstairs.” 

Before she or Gus could respond Luz took off yelling back in Spanish. Luz had taught them some English but very little Spanish. Shrugging they went into Luz’s room and set their bags down. 

Luz’s room was cluttered for a lack of a better word. There was a bunk bed in the corner, with the sheets and pillows on the top bunk all bundled up. Where the bottom bed was supposed to be was instead a desk that was covered in notebooks and papers. There was a stack of books balancing precariously on the corner of the desk, all of them in languages Willow didn’t recognize. 

The walls were covered in posters most of which she couldn’t read or didn’t recognize. There were a few that she realized were from The Good Witch Azura, something that Luz had mentioned several times over. The title itself was familiar, almost like she had heard it before, but she couldn’t remember where. 

Two mirrors on the opposite wall showed the bunk beds but she could see clothes where the mirror wasn’t flush with the wall. Lights hanging from some sort of cord crisscrossed the ceiling and Willow could see even more stacks of books along with some drawings of what looked like her friend's mandalas scattered around the room. 

She could see a few things from the Owl House and the Boiling Empire though. There was a small brown eye flower sitting on a pot on the windowsill, several surfaces had potion bottles on them, and there was even a little storage container that was labeled with all the parts needed for an abomination mixture. 

A soft thump broke Willow out of her thoughts and she turned to see that Gus had set his bags down and was looking around the room. “I don’t know what I pictured Luz’s bedroom looking like but this is it.” 

Gus formed a spell circle and a small illusion of one of the characters from Luz’s posters appeared in his hand. “Gus! Don’t use magic here, we don’t know how our bile sacs will react to being in the human realm!”

She was glad to see the illusion disappear but was not glad to see that her best friend visibly looked more tired than he should. She dropped her bag on the ground and rushed over to her friend. “Gus are you all right?” He nodded as she wrapped her arms around his shoulder and guided him out of the room. 

“Come on, let's go see Luz. Maybe she knows what’s going on.”

She knew that Gus hated being babied so she let go of his shoulders and walked behind him on the stairs. He was already looking better but that rapid switch from his usual energetic self to how subdued and tired he seemed worried her. 

They found Luz sitting with Ms. Noceda running a brush through her hair. Both Luz, Ms. Noceda, and Vee were talking in Spanish. Although it was easier for her to follow along with what Vee was saying as she wasn’t speaking nearly as fast as Luz and her Mom. 

Luz switched to Isket though as soon as she saw Willow’s worried face. “What’s going on?”

Gus plopped down in a chair and closed his eyes. “Gus here thought it would be a smart idea to cast an illusion. He got really tired pretty quickly. It reminded me of when you use too much sorcery back home.”

Luz nodded and stood up. She started drawing in the air, the orange and black light that she associated with her friend floating behind her fingers. Instead of releasing the spell like she usually did, Luz stuck her arm through it. 

Willow watched in fascination as the mandala seemed to bend around Luz’s arm. She was about to do something before Ms. Noceda spoke. Luz responded and then looked towards her. 

“Sorry I forgot to tell you what I was doing.” Willow shrugged in dismissal. “This is a diagnostic spell that mi Maestro taught me a few weeks ago. I’m going to use it on you Gus but in reality, there likely isn’t anything wrong beyond some simple exhaustion. Remember biology like four days ago?”

Both of them nodded. They had started their unit on witch and demonic biology. The day that Luz was referencing was when they had started their stuff on the bile sac and the heart. 

“Ms. Frizz said that bile sacs produce phlegm from the things that you guys eat and drink. I had debated asking if the bile sac also drew on ambient magic.” Luz nodded towards Gus as she passed her hand over him. “Gus’s reaction answers that question. I think there is a part of your phlegm that is produced from ambient magic. When Gus created that illusion his bile sac reached out for that magic and didn’t find it. The question is what it did to make up for the lack of ambient magic.”

Luz finished passing her hand over Gus and the mandala wrapped around her arm shifted and condensed to form a few symbols that looked similar to written Isket. Before Willow could ask what they were, Luz groaned. 

“Sorry I forgot what this means. I’ll be right back.” 

Luz took off leaving her and Gus with Ms. Noceda and Vee. Willow stared awkwardly at the two of them for a second before speaking. “How’re you doing Vee?”

The basilisk smiled and nodded. “I’ve been doing good! Mami’s been really nice and Dr. Strange, Luz’s teacher, has helped a lot with getting settled too. I’m supposed to go to high school next semester! I’m looking forward to it.”

Willow was saved from having to respond by Luz coming back downstairs, flipping through one of the books that had been on her desk (Willow had no idea what a high school was.) It took Luz only a few minutes to find what she had been looking for before she stepped back in confusion. 

“What’s wrong?” Gus asked. The worry in his voice was audible. 

“Nothing besides you being hypoglycemic. Mami, can you grab something sugary from the pantry?”

Ms. Noceda stood up and said nothing, but Willow could tell that she was proud of Luz. It was the same look Mr. Porter got when Gus did some high-level illusion. 

Luz sat back down and looked at her and Gus. “Alright so good news and bad news, good news is that you’re fine Gus, bad news is that neither of you should do magic until we can talk to mi Maestro and figure out why your magic is dropping your glucose levels.” Ms. Noceda set down a glass of golden liquid. 

“Careful with this, it can be especially sweet if you’ve never had it before.”

Willow watched with exasperation as Gus emptied the cup as soon as the liquid touched his lip. He looked at her with a brilliant expression on his face. “Willow, I just had apple blood!”

Luz laughed before she stood up. “Gus that wasn’t apple blood, it was apple juice although I can see why you would confuse the two. I am glad that you’re already feeling a little better though, because I really want to get you two over to see my Maestro.”

Willow furrowed her face in confusion. “I thought your Maestro worked on Spacetime spells? Not healing spells?” 

Guss nodded alongside her as they both stood up. The sounds of the chairs scraping against the flooring was the only thing audible in the room. “You’re always talking about the kind of research he does and about the time you accidentally got stuck in a time loop.”

At that Ms. Noceda’s head snapped up and away from Vee, her entire attention focused on Luz. Color bloomed across her cheeks and Willow watched her friend try and find something to distract her mother with. 

Failing that Luz shoved her fingers into her sling ring and conjured a portal that led to somewhere with a stone floor and dark wood walls. Willow had seen Luz make these portals to get between the Owl House and Hexside so she wasn’t surprised by the light and space that billowed from nothing. 

She was surprised by the way Luz grabbed both her’s and Gus’s wrists and dragged them through the portal. Her stomach flipped like it did every time she walked through one of these. 

She heard Ms. Noceda shout “Stephen!!!” at the same time Luz shouted, “Love you Mami bye!!!” and collapsed her portal. 

Willow paid little attention to the exchange between her friend and her mom as both her and Gus were enraptured by the room they were in. 

Warm colored and cold feeling stones covered the ground. Willow could see lines and circles that seemed to form specific designs and shapes. The walls were covered in dark wood similar to friar wood. There were a couple of couches and tables lining the walls with a few people in clothing that seemed to be both similar to Luz’s casual stuff and her official sorceress robes. 

Standing in front of a cluster of these people was a tall man with light brown skin and a lot of facial hair dotted with streaks of white. There was a bright red cape that seemed to hover off of the man’s back as if gravity were only a suggestion. He seemed vaguely familiar to her. 

He was looking at them with an exasperated expression, something that was mirrored by a few of the older people in official looking robes. Willow got the feeling that they had interrupted something important. 

A feeling that Gus apparently shared as he tugged on Luz’s sleeve to get their friend to turn around. 

Willow had to hide her face behind her hands as her friend lit up like a glow bush when she saw the cluster of people in the room with them. Luz quickly dropped into a bow at her waist. After a brief second Gus and Willow copied her. 

“Masters, apprentices. I did not know you would be here. I apologize for my intrusion.”

Willow heard a few snorts from the people in front of her. She sneaked a peak in time to catch a tall woman with eyes shaped like hers and her Papas elbow the man with the red cape.

“Are sure apprentice Stepfen? She’s much too polite.” The woman, despite looking similar to her, spoke with a much different accent than Willow could grasp and so she could only make out every other word she said. 

Luz responded in yet another language to the woman that set the rest of the people in fancy robes laughing. Willow stood up and shared a look with Gus. How many different languages did the human realm need???

The man with the red cape rolled his eyes and waved off the comments the other members of his group were making. “Ms. Noceda, what is it that you need?”

“Just some non-immediate medical attention and a few questions to ask.” The man nodded and gestured his hand up the stairs. 

“Head up to my office, I’ll be there shortly.” Luz nodded and spun back around to her and Gus. A wide grin carved her face in two and showed off her teeth. 

“Come on guys! I can’t wait to show you around!”

“Wait, was that was your Maestro?!” Gus said as he followed behind Luz as she led them up a series of stairs from the large room they were in and down a hallway.  

“Yup! That’s my Maestro, Stephen Strange! He’s head of the New York Sanctum. Usually, he’s in his office or the library doing some research or what not but apparently, he had a meeting today with the other heads and their apprentices.” Willow absently listened to her friends talk, (thankfully in Isket, English was hard to learn), as she looked around all the rooms. 

Luz had taken them through a room filled with glass cabinets encasing various objects. There was another hallway that ended in three doors to really beautiful places that she didn’t know how to describe. They even passed through a massive library that she was sure was taller than the building allowed for. 

That must’ve been why she felt so let down by how drab Mr. Strange's office looks. There was a large desk in the back of the room that was covered in neat stacks of papers, books, and office supplies. A few frames hung on the wall, a couple of them had bits of paper that she couldn’t read while others showed pictures of Mr. Strange and some pretty women. A younger Luz showed up in a few of those photos too. 

In front of the large desk was a set of two cushioned chairs. “Who’s that?” Gus pointed to the woman in some of the photos behind the desk. Willow meanwhile took the opportunity to snag one of the empty chairs. Let her friends fight over who could sit in the other chair. She was sure that Mr. Strange could find another chair if it was necessary.

“That’s Christine! She’s Maestro's girlfriend. She’s really awesome. You guys would like her!” Luz looked pensive for a moment. “You guys might get to meet her tomorrow when we have my birthday dinner. Maestro usually tries to bring her whenever he has to come over to our house.”

“Why’s that,” Willow asked in confusion. 

Luz opened her mouth to answer but the response came from someone with a much deeper voice. “That is because Camilia Noceda is a terrifying woman who has never forgiven me for teaching her daughter magic.”

The man from earlier, the one with the light brown skin and red cape strode into the room with a soft smile on his face. He twisted his hand, and a mandala seemed to grow from the center of his palm. Willow noted the difference between Luz and her Maestro. 

Luz’s Mandalas always seemed to appear out of thin air, like they were always sitting there in the corner of your eye just waiting to be called on. 

A chair seemed to materialize between the two pre-existing chairs in response to the mandala. Luz and Gus each sat in a chair as Mr. Strange made his way around his desk. His red cape floated off his shoulders as he did so and hovered in a corner. 

“So, what kind of medical anomaly happened?” Luz quickly explained what had happened that morning and Mr. Strange nodded along as if what Luz was talking about was more than the intelligible words that Willow was hearing. 

Once Luz finished explaining, Mr. Strange turned to her and Gus. “Are you both comfortable if I cast a few spells to confirm what Ms. Noceda here talked about?”

Gus was ready to nod, eager to see another bit of Sorcery for him to take back to his Human Appreciation Club but Willow was a little more cautious. “What makes you qualified to cast such spells,” she said to Luz in Isket who repeated it back to Mr. Strange in English.

Back on the isles you needed special training to be able to cast high level healing spells. She hoped that the Human Realm had something similar, and that Luz’s Maestro knew what he was doing when it came to healing. 

“I like her,” Mr. Strange said. Luz nodded and grinned in the seat next to Gus. “I thought you would,” she said.

Willow just stared Mr. Strange in the eyes while he talked with Luz. “Before I was a Sorcerer, I was a medical doctor.” The man stepped aside and pointed to a few of the slips of paper hanging on the wall. “I got certificates and degrees from multiple institutions proving my knowledge and skills when it comes to medicine. In all honesty I became a Master of Spacetime by accident, I dedicate most of my projects and research towards medicine and cellular biology. Are you satisfied?” 

Willow would be the first to admit that she did not know what many of those words meant but Luz did trust the man so why the frost not? She nodded. 

Immediately a mandala grew from the center of his hand, the lines and circles seemingly growing into place before he released the spell over both Gus and her. A bunch of symbols formed around his arms, and he carefully looked them over.

After a while he nodded. “You were right Luz. Augustus’ magic did draw quite a bit from his body when it didn’t have a compatible source of magic to draw from.”

Willow was busy trying to process that sentence when Luz said, “Compatible? Like it could be possible for them to draw on a little of the ambient magic on our plane?” This definitely caught Willow's attention. She nearly spoke before she remembered the language barrier between her and most of the humans. 

Stupid humans and their stupid languages. 

Mr. Strange nodded. “I’ll do some digging and ask a few other masters, but it could be possible. As for what you originally came here for, both of you should be fine. I would recommend avoiding casting magic for the duration of your stay in the Human realm, but if you have to, you should eat something sweet afterwards.”

Luz nodded as she stood up from her chair and said in Isket, “Alright we should get going then if Gus is alright. Did you guys catch everything we said?”

Gus made a so-so gesture as they followed Luz out of the office. “Don’t use magic yet but there may be a way to use it in the future. Did I miss anything?”

Luz smiled and shook her head. “Nope! You guys are getting better at listening to English! I am proud of you both, it’s not easy to learn a new language!”

Willow smiled and wrapped her arm around her friend. “Anything for our friends Luz, you know that.”

She watched as a light blush crept over her face and was quickly followed by a happy expression. “I love you guys,” Luz said, wrapping her arms around both Gus and Willow. 

“Now let's go explore New York!” Luz grabbed their hands and ran through the rest of the building, laughing the entire way as she led them outside. 

The rest of the day was spent with her and Gus trying to keep up with Luz as she dragged them all across New York City. They marveled at the towering forest of metal, which reminded both of them of the bone mountains that always dotted the horizon back home, except these were a lot closer and crammed full of people. 

They took something called the subway to a massive park that seemed so out of place in the towering city. Willow really liked all the different plants that were there, although she still wasn’t used to the fact that the trees were green. That was something that disturbed both Gus and her. 

Truthfully, they spent a lot of time on the subway and Luz showed them how it was like a giant maze under the ground connecting different parts of the city together. Luz took them to something called the “Rooosovelt Mall” which was like a giant market but all the stalls where permanent.

Gus didn’t like it because there was no opportunity to hunt for the store that you like. Willow loved it though. The place was crammed full of people and food and the sounds of life, and it did remind her of the market back home, of spending days wandering the place with her father's looking for groceries or random curios. 

Eventually they all got tired and returned to Ms. Noceda’s house only to end up in a pile of limbs on the couch in Luz’s living room. 

Ms. Noceda showed up after a while with a thick binder filled with pictures of baby Luz (much to her embarrassment.) Willow loved hearing all about her friend growing up.

When Willow fell asleep later that night it was in a pile of her friends and with a smile on her face.

~-~

When Gus woke up it wasn’t to the soft sounds of his Dad’s crystal ball echoing throughout the house, or the pitter patter of his dad’s palisman against the hardwood floors. 

It was to loud music bouncing off the walls and punctuated by what sounded like metal striking both metal and wood at different times. He looked around Luz’s room, where he and Willow had set up their sleeping bags like a giant nest last night, and found that both of the girls had already woken up. 

He shrugged as he pulled himself out of his sleeping bag and got ready before heading downstairs. 

He was greeted with the sight of Willow drinking a cup of dark water at the kitchen table and watching Ms. Noceda, Luz, and Vee dance through the kitchen as they sang some sort of song in one of Luz’s languages. 

Why did the human realm have so many languages? 

Shaking his head he sat down next to Willow and leaned his head on her shoulder, watching his friend's family make something from the army of pots and pans that covered the kitchen. 

He was eventually greeted by a plate full of human food, piled high with strips of meat, a pile of yellow stuff, and little cubes of something he couldn’t name. He didn’t bother learning all of the names for the food and spent most of his time shoveling it into his mouth. 

He wasn’t always the most awake in the morning but the plate full of food and a cup of the dark water (which Luz called ‘tea’) made him feel a lot more alert. 

“Good morning guys!” He said in English. He was really wishing that he had opted to practice more with Luz like Willow had. She didn’t seem to be struggling with the language as nearly as bad as he was. He made himself promise that he’d put in more practice once they got back home. 

“Morning Gus! Howdya sleep?” It took him a second to work out what she actually said but gave her a thumbs up once he did. 

“I slept pretty good actually!”

“Good!” Luz said around a mouthful of food. Ms. Noceda gave her a look and swatted her with a cloth. Willow giggled while Luz embarrassingly swallowed the food in her mouth. 

“Sorry Mami,” She said. She looked back at him and Willow. “I want to take you guys around town today so make sure you eat a lot. We’ll be doing a lot of walking.” Luz looked him dead in the eyes and said “English only today Gus. You need to practice.”

He choked on his tea and nearly spilled the hot liquid down his front. “But why,” he said. “Learning another language so is haaaaard,” he winned. He hit his head on the table and missed Willow flicking his shoulder. 

He jumped up in surprise and glared at Willow. His friend only focused on her plate, grabbing one of the delicious strips of meat on it and pretending to ignore him. He was about to cast an illusion to make everything more dramatic when a balled up napkin hit him on the head. 

He looked up and saw Vee shaking her head at him. “It’s ‘is so hard’ and no using magic, remember? Not until Mr. Strange can figure out a workaround.” 

He rolled his eyes and spent the rest of the breakfast practicing his English in between bites of his food. 

Once they were done they did the dishes and went out into Gravesfield. 

“First stop is Robin’s Roost!” Luz said before walking away. 

Vee rolled her eyes, “You just want their chocolate danish don’t you.”

“That’s classified,” Luz responded with a grin.

Willow and Gus walked behind the two sisters, both equally confused at what ‘Robin’s Roost’ and ‘chocolate danish’ were. 

Vee and Luz lead them to a small little shop that was filled with tables and people. The back wall was taken up by the long counter and display case holding what Gus assumed where ‘chocolate danishes’.

Luz turned to him and Willow, “Did you guys like the tea you had this morning?”

Gus made a so-so gesture with his hand. “It wasn’t bad but I wish it was a little sweeter.”

“I thought it was good,” Willow shrugged. 

Luz nodded and looked at the large counter. They were getting closer to ordering. “Alright, Willow, how does a green tea sound?” She nodded. 

“Gus, you and I are going to get Peppermint tea. I think you’ll like it!” Vee wrinkled her nose in disgust. 

“I don’t know how you like that stuff.”

Luz rolled her eyes and stepped forward. “And I don’t know how we’re related.”

Gus, Willow, and Vee all stared at Luz for a couple seconds before their friend began to blush. “Oh hush,” she said, stepping up to the counter and quickly paying. 

Gus had to grab Willow’s hand to stop from laughing out loud. How on Titan had Luz forgotten she and Vee weren’t biologically related? From the looks of it the other two girls were having an equally hard time containing their laughter. 

Luz and Vee grabbed all their stuff and led him and Willow over to a table in the corner. Before they could all continue to poke fun at Luz she shoved a drink into his hands. “Take a sip and let me know what you think!”

Gus took a sip and spat out his drink. “Sorry Vee,” she sheepishly said while handing her some napkins. 

“It’s okay, I blame Luz for not telling you your drink is hot.” Luz laughed. 

“You have to admit that it was a little funny!” Vee rolled her eyes and continued wiping herself down. 

Gus blew on his cup and took another sip, savering the cold spicy flavor of the tea. “Mhmmm! That’s really good!”

“Ha! I told you he would like it!” Vee rolled her eyes and took a sip of her drink. 

“Yeah yeah yeah you have another person addicted to your peppermint tea now.” Luz tore off a piece of her danish and threw it at Vee which resulted in a small food war between the four of them that resulted in them being kicked out. 

Gus sat on the curb outside of the cafe, his shirt soaked with Willow’s green tea, and laughed at Vee’s expression as she tried to pick out Luz’s danish from her hair. 

They returned to the Noceda household real quick to change before Luz dragged them to something called a ‘dog park’ which was filled with furry, four legged creatures that kind of reminded him of baby slitherbeasts. 

He and Willow spent the time running around chasing the dogs before Luz called them back over. 

“We should head back home soon but there’s one more stop that I want to make before we do so!”

“What is it,” Willow asked. 

“The Historical Society! They’ve got a cool little museum of a bunch of witchy stuff that I want to show you guys.”

Vee looked a little apprehensive, “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“Why would it be a bad idea,” Gus asked.

Luz didn’t meet his eyes, “Gravesfield has a lot of misconceptions with witches and they’ve treated human witches pretty awful in the past. But we’re not going to go through all that right now, I just want to show you guys some cool artifacts!”

Luz didn’t wait for them to respond to that and began walking towards the Historical Society. Vee shared a look with him and Willow and led them after Luz. Once they caught up Willow asked, “I didn’t realize humans could also be witches.”

Luz made a so-so gesture with her hand. “It’s more just a difference in naming. The Order of the Mystic Arts is the order I belong to, and we all refer to ourselves as Sorcerers, although I know a few people that prefer to be called witches instead. My Order is just one of many, although we’re recognized as the largest and oldest order of magic users in the world!” 

“Huh,” Gus said. “I thought it was only you guys who could practice magic?”

Luz shook her head no. “I’ll have to see if I can’t find some history books on different uses of magic for you guys to read. It’ll be good English practice too!”

Gus groaned at that. He was not looking forward to reading an entire book in English. 

Before he could respond Luz led them into a large building with the words ‘GRAVESFIELD HISTORICAL SOCIETY ’ written above the door. 

Straight inside was a front desk with someone sitting behind it. Their name tag read ‘Masha (They/Them)’ and they were currently scrolling through their phone.  Without looking up they said, “Hello Luz.”

“High Masha! I want to introduce you to some friends of mine!” They set down their phone and looked Gus, Willow, and Vee over. 

“These are my best friends Gus and Willow! And this is my sister Vee!” Masha visibly looked Vee up and down, causing the basilisk to blush. 

“I didn’t realize you had a sister?” They still hadn’t taken their eyes off of Vee. 

“Mami’s getting the adoption paperwork all finalized. I was hoping I could take them to see some of the Order’s relics that you guys have on hand?”

“Yeah go on through, you know where they are.” Luz smiled and waved goodbye to Masha before leading them to the back of the building. 

“Someone’s got a cruuuush,” Willow teased, grinning. 

Vee rolled her eyes and swatted the plant witch's shoulder, although it was lessened by the fact that she still hadn’t stopped blushing.

Gus left the two to their teasing and walked ahead with Luz. “What are relics?”

“There are some spells that put too much strain on our body when we try to use them and so we instead enchant objects so they take on the brunt of the magic. After a while if the relic isn’t made out of alchemical materials the magic can fade after a while. The Order donates these non usable relics to little areas like this, so people can learn more about magic!”

“Huh, they kind of sound like Foci! Do you have one?” He slipped into Isket mainly because he didn’t know how to say foci in English.

For a second he was worried that he had said something wrong before Luz responded. “I don’t have a relic. Supposedly the relic is supposed to choose the Sorceress, at least that's how mi Maestro found his cloak.” Gus remembered Mr. Strange wearing some sort of big cloak when they were at the Sanctum yesterday. That must be what Luz is referring to. 

They spent the next half hour with Luz showing them around the relic museum, explaining the history behind certain relics, how they were used in battles long ago, and what some of them could do. 

They soon returned to Noceda's house, with Masha getting Vee’s phone number before they left. 

This only prompted more teasing, this time from all three of them. 

“Hola Mami! We’re back!” Luz said as they stepped into the house. She led them to the back towards the kitchen. There, Mr. Strange, a girl that Gus recognized from the photos in his office, and Ms. Noceda were all standing in the kitchen. 

“Christine!” Luz said running and giving the woman, apparently Christine, a hug. 

“Gus,” Ms. Noceda said, handing him a stack of plates. “Can you set up the table real quick?”

Gus nodded and took the plates into the kitchen, letting Luz catch up with Mr. Strange and Christine while Willow helped with the final preparations with Luz’s birthday dinner. At some point Eda and King came over. 

Pretty soon they were all sitting around the table and eating. Gus spent several minutes of his meal talking to Christine about the differences between the Human realm and his home. It was a convenient excuse to practice his English, in which he thankfully only made a few mistakes. Eda, King, and Ms. Noceda spent the dinner huddled together talking about something or other and Luz, Mr. Strange, and Willow were all sucked into their own conversation about plant life on the Isles. 

Eventually though the dinner was finished and Ms. Noceda brought out something called a cake. 

Luz had sat him and Willow down a day or so before she started her research on the light glyph and told them about all the different traditions humans do on their birthday. 

Gus watched as Luz lit the candles with a flick of her wrist, fire sprouting from her hand and leaping from candle to candle. 

Ms. Noceda nodded and Gus began to sing. “Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday dear Luz, Happy Birthday to you!”

No one was exactly on time with each other, so he and Willow were the first to finish the song and Christine was the last, but he still enjoyed watching Luz’s expression as she looked around the table at everyone. 

Finally, she blew out the candles and Gus cheered, “Happy birthday Luz!” He said as he hugged her. Willow and Vee quickly joined in on the hug. 

They stayed there for a second before Ms. Noceda said, “Presents!” Mr. Strange left the room with her and came back with some boxes, some of which he recognized as Willow and he had gotten Luz’s presentes together.

The small pile was set down in front of the birthday girl and Ms. Noceda went right back to recording the party. 

Willow got her a little Vengus Light plant and the silver leaves were already unfurled. Willow had said that Luz had commented on how pretty it was when she had been over to her house a while back. 

She loved the concealment stone that he had gotten her thankfully. Although he’d probably have to help her program it for now. 

Gus couldn’t see whatever Vee had written in her card to Luz but the two sisters spent several minutes hugging after Luz read it, and she was teary eyed the entire night afterwards. 

Ms. Noceda got her some new books on warding, and Luz promised to show Willow and him some of the spells in there at some point. Mr. Strange did caution her against using some of the higher level spells though, something about how it might force some sort of transition process along faster. Luz wouldn’t meet anyone's eyes after that and Ms. Noceda glared at Mr. Strange. 

Thankfully Christine cut the tension and gave Luz her gift from her and Mr. Strange. 

“Here you go Luz! I hope you like this one, I helped Stephen pick it out.”

Luz grinned and tore into the wrapping paper to reveal another book. This one was older and more worn than the warding books Ms. Noceda had gotten her. The writing on the cover was vaguely familiar too.  

“We figured that if you are going to be exploring this entirely new dimension then you might as well experiment with Alchemy.”

“Alchemy? That sounds interesting!” King said. 

Luz nodded. “It’s definitely interesting.” Gus could see Luz’s mind begin to work on whatever problem this ‘Alchemy’ posed. He looked over at Willow and nodded. They’d have to make sure their friend actually attended classes instead of getting sucked into this new project. 

“What’s it about Witchlet?” Eda asked. 

“Alchemy is how we make our relics. Normal materials aren’t strong enough to host complex spells so the Orders Alchemists design and create different kinds of materials that we can use to fashion relics.”

“It’s a practice that’s existed since before the Order was founded. The book we gave Luz is an in depth manuel on how to identify different materials in order to create cloth or wood or metal,” Mr. Strange said. 

“I can’t believe I never thought about that before! We have a whole new dimension to explore! Think of the relics we could make!” Luz’s eyes lit up again and a smile split her face. “I wonder how the Humors would react to some of these alchemical processes! Eda, could you imagine what we could do!”

Eda grinned, the wild witches enthusiasm rising to match her apprentices. “Once I get back home I’ll reach out to some people to see if we can’t get some samples of the Humors. Although we might have to steal some of the Blood from someone, I don’t know if I know anyone with steady access to it.”

Ms. Noceda sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Can we not talk about my daughter stealing the blood of a dead god please?” 

“Sorry Camila,” Eda said, actually looking sorry. Gus still thought it was weird to be so familiar with The Owl Lady after everything he had heard growing up. She wasn’t really all that bad.

Ms. Noceda waved off her apology. “It’s okay, just give her your present.”

Everyone looked to Eda who seemed to freeze from the attention for a second and then spoke, “I actually couldn’t bring it, it’s back at the house. I know you’ve been working out after dinner but with the rainy season picking up I wanted to give you a dedicated space to do so. So King, Hooty, and I cleared out the bottom floor of the tower and turned it into a gym for you!”

King shuddered. “You don’t want to know what was in there.” Eda rolled her eyes. 

“There was nothing bad in there, just some old human junk from my travels. King helped decorate the walls and such too so it’s a pretty nice space now.”

Eda didn’t get to say much more than that as Luz got up and immediately squished her and King into a hug. 

After a second Eda managed to say, “I got you an actual bed too.” Which caused the whole table to descend into laughter.

Chapter Text

3rd of December 2018

5th of Maha 1000

Luz started packing away her Foci notebook and the concealment stone Gus got her for her birthday in her backpack before leaving the classroom and meeting Gus outside. 

They both had Illusions at the same time, although her friend was in a class or two above her, so they often met up after class and walked over to the plant wing to pick up Willow. 

Today though Gus had a flyer in his hands. “What’s that?” she said as they began making their way through the cluttered hallway. Several groups of upperclassmen were huddled next to their lockers and shooting nasty glares at each other. 

“It’s a flyer for the Covention! One of my teachers is giving extra credit if we go!”

They finally broke free of the Illusions Hall and found themselves in the center of the school. Luz and Gus kept walking towards the Plant Hall, only taking a brief detour to drop some of her heavier books off in her locker. 

Gus still had to help her get the blasted thing open. 

“What’s a Covention?” Luz asked as they entered the Plant Hall. Unlike the Illusions Hall which was filled with strange and impossible animals that didn’t even exist on the Isles or space defying corridors that reminded her of the stories her Maestro had told her about The Ancient One and her skills at warping space. 

The Plant Hall felt like a massive greenhouse, with the ceiling being replaced with glass tiles that let the sunlight filter in. Large, thorny vines climbed up the walls of the hall, and the floor was lined with different potted flowers and bushes and even small trees. 

They found Willow talking with a few of her classmates near one of flowers. As they waited for her to be done Gus answered her question. 

“The Covention is an annual event where a representative from one of the covens comes out and sets up a booth. I remember going to them with my Dad when I was younger, it’s how I knew I wanted to be in the Illusions coven! There’s usually some sort of demonstration by the Emperors Coven done at them but this year they're going to have a special guest!” 

Gus showed her the flyer with the words SPECIAL GUEST written at the bottom. At that moment that Willow caught up with them, the smell of fresh fertilizer and pollen seemingly stuck to her clothes. Luz wondered what her friend was always getting up to because she never managed to smell like the plants after her classes. 

“What are you guys talking about?”

Gus showed her the flyer. “I was just telling Luz about the Covention! My Architectural Illusions class is giving extra credit if we go, do you want to come?”

Willow shrugged, “Sure but I’d have to probably leave early, I’ve got some homework I still need to do. Luz, are you coming?”

She shrugged, “Why not, I’m always looking to learn more about this world.”

Gus jumped up and down and shouted “Yay!” The reaction took her by surprise as she was used to the illusionist being much more serious.  Sometimes she forgot that for all of Gus’s smarts he was still just a twelve-year-old boy. It was no wonder he and King were getting along well. 

“Come on, we can drop our stuff off at my place and then head over there.” She slipped her fingers into her sling ring, careful to not pull off the sun necklace Eda had given her. She had done that a few times when she first got it and was tired of replacing the chain. 

A moment later a portal to the living room at the Owl House appeared directly in front of her and the three of them stepped through. Thankfully she didn’t get too many stares anymore. People were starting to get used to her and her strange magic, although she was pretty sure most hadn’t realized she was human yet which she found funny. 

When she had asked Gus and Willow about that once all they said was that it was well known she lived with the Owl Lady and that that seemed to be all the explanation most people needed. 

“Hey Eda!” She shouted. She heard something crash in the kitchen and went through there to find King dangling from the cabinet with all the sweet treats in there and a tupperware of sour frisk eyes on the ground. 

“Hey Luz! I’ll be up in a second!” She could hear Eda shout up from her lab.

A look of panic crossed King’s face. “Luz help! Please!” She stood there for a moment longer before she rolled her eyes. She grabbed the container of frisk eyes and put them back in the cabinet before grabbing King just in time for Eda to come into the kitchen.

Gus and Willow were smothering their laughter from the exchange and tried to look as innocent as they could when Eda stared at them suspiciously. 

Eda hiked her thumb at the two of them, “As much as I love having Goops and Greenie over what’s going on?” She narrowed her eyes at Luz and King. 

Luz just smiled sweetly and set King down on the ground. “Gus, Willow, and I are going to go to the Covention in town, so we came here to drop off some of our stuff.” 

Eda groaned and sat down at the kitchen table. “Do you guys really have to go?”

Gus shrugged. “I get extra credit if I go so I’m a done deal.”

“Why don’t you like the Covention Eda?” Luz asked. She dropped her bag to the ground and joined her teacher at the table. Gus and Willow reluctantly did the same. It was clear that they wanted to head over to the Covention already. She knew her friends were more or less used to her mentor being a known criminal but there were still times when they were hesitant to be around her. Luz blamed the Emperor's Coven.

“Because they’re breeding grounds for the Empire's propaganda. Because they target kids especially and force them to choose early on in their lives. Because when you choose to join one coven you can never perform magic besides the one that's associated with your coven.” 

Luz nodded, but she had heard this conversation before. Eda had a habit of going off on the downfalls of the Boiling Empire when she had a little too much apple blood. 

“I understand all that, but I’m still going. There’s got to be things I can learn at an event like this.”

Eda nodded. “That’s fair, but if you’re going then I’m going with. Your mother would kill me if anything happened to you.”

Gus and Willow laughed while Luz just shook her head. She knew how protective her Mami was of her and while she understood she did wish that she would trust her to keep herself safe more. But that was not a conversation for now, so Luz just nodded. 

“As funny as it would be to see Ms. Noceda fight The Owl Lady, won’t you be recognized? I mean you are kind of well known around here,” Willow asked. 

Eda just waved off her concern. “I’ll just grab one of my concealment stones and we’ll be good to go. King, do you want to go too?”

The little demon proudly nodded. “If Luz can handle it then so can I!” Eda nodded and bent over, casting a quick little Notice-Me-Not charm on King’s collar before running upstairs to grab one of her concealment stones. 

“What was that spell she cast on you King? I’ve never seen it before," Willow asked.

“It was a Notice-Me-Not! Mom usually does one on my collar before I go to daycare, so the Coven Guards don’t get too suspicious.”

“They won’t get suspicious so long as King doesn’t act out,” Luz said, rolling her eyes and remembering the time her little brother had dropped from the second floor. “So, you can imagine that it doesn’t work half the time. Eda has to keep coming up with stronger variants to use on him.”

King pouted and hit her on the arm with his tail. “It’s not my fault that trouble finds me!” Luz rolled her eyes again and flicked him on his horns. Before he could retaliate Eda came down the stairs. 

Well, she knew it was Eda but the person walking downstairs looked nothing like her gray skinned mentor. 

This person had dark brown skin with green marbling across her face. Her hair was in a collection of tight braids that were all combined into a much larger one. She knew from experience that Eda usually programmed all her disguises to have a lot of hair to hide her own poofy mane. Besides that, she just had on some nondescript clothing, a pair of jeans like material and a t-shirt from a Bard band called Stormfall.

The light mint hair of one of the people on the shirt looked vaguely familiar but she couldn’t place where from. 

“You kids ready to go?” Eda asked. King, Luz, and Willow all nodded but Gus immediately started asking Eda questions about her concealment stone, so it took a little longer than planned for Luz to conjure a portal to downtown.  

Finally, though they found themselves in the center of Bonesburrough and immediately Luz took notice of how many more Coven Guards there were than usual. 

She silently cast another Notice-Me-Not, this time on herself, Gus, and Willow much to Eda’s approval if judging by her nod. 

“Alright kids, if I remember correctly the Covention center is usually set up over here.” Eda pointed down an alley that ran through a few of the other busy streets in town. Luz could see a large gray stone building in the distance. King scampered up Gus’s shoulder, and they took off towards the center. 

When they got there, it took a moment for her to catch her bearings. The layout was similar to the Azura convention that Christine and her Mami took her too once. 

Booths filled the area with different banners and tablecloths advertising different covens. She saw a few that she thought made sense as offshoots of the larger nine, like the Divination or the Woodwind Covens and others that made no sense like the Grumpy Coven or the Bakers Coven. 

Immediately King tried to take off for the free treats displayed on some of the booths, but Luz thankfully caught him by his collar. “Okay, no one goes off alone alright. We’re gonna do the buddy system so no one gets lost or worse. What do you need to do to get that extra credit Goops?”

Gus closed his eyes for a second as he tried to recall what he needed. “I need to stop at four different booths, one of them being the Illusion covens but I also really want to see who the special guest is.”

Eda sighed. “Alright, an hour and a half should be more than enough time to do all that, so we’ll meet back here at,” Eda cast a quick time spell. “Four thirty. Got it?” 

Everyone nodded. King pulled at her hand to try and get free. “Okay good. Now get!” Eda shouted the last part, attracting some looks but they all took off. 

Gus and Willow went down one of the other pathways while Luz followed King to the Bakers Coven table. 

“Hello there missy! Can we interest you in joining the Bakers Coven!” The demon behind the booth was short, with only one eye and a chef's hat balanced on top of their head. 

“Are the cupcakes free?” She saw the demon deflate a little at a question they were obviously tired of hearing. They nodded and gestured, “Take as many as you want.” She nodded and lowered one down to King, who contented himself with tearing off the wrapping paper and stuffing his face. 

“I did have a few questions for you though.” The demon clearly perked up at that. 

“Ask away then and I’ll see if I can answer!”

Luz nodded her thanks and said, “What kind of magic do you guys' practice?”

A look of pride crossed the demon's face. “Most people don’t realize this but we’re actually under the Construction Coven! Construction magic can be used to build more than buildings you know!”

Luz thanked the demon and tugged King away from the booth as he reached for another cupcake. That set the pattern for the next hour as they went from booth to booth. 

King collected free samples and trinkets like they were going out of style. She thought she heard him mutter something about offerings and made herself promise not to give him any more sugar. It was clearly getting to him. 

Luz spent her time asking her questions. It seemed that all of the covens were somewhere under the main nine, although many times she was surprised by which main coven they were under. 

The Astronomy Coven (which was under the Potions Coven) did give her some cool pamphlets about the Wailing Star, which was some sort of astronomical event that the person behind the booth wouldn’t tell her much about.

Finally a clock rang somewhere and most of the people in the building began walking towards the back. “Come on King, It's time for the special guest! We should probably find everyone else there if we can.” 

“Onwards!” King shouted before running into the crowd. Luz sighed and reminded herself that he was eight years old and that it wasn’t right to punt a little kid no matter how annoying they were being. 

Luz eventually caught up to King, who had somehow found Eda, Gus, and Willow before she did. They had some pretty decent seats halfway down the large auditorium.

As the rush of people coming in started to slow down, she sat down to see Principal Bump walk onto the stage. 

“Welcome citizens of Bonesborough! It is my honor as Hexsides principal that I get to introduce this event today! As an educator I know the importance of the next generation and making sure that you all have the tools you need to succeed! It is why I am proud to announce, a former student of Hexside herself! You know her! You love her! It's the Head of the Emperors Coven! High Priestess Lilith Clawthorne!!!" The auditorium erupted into cheers as a spectral raven descended from the ceiling, forming a woman clad in white as it got closer to the stage.  

Luz’s head snapped up to look at Eda’s who was glaring down at the stage with burning intensity that she could feel even through the illusion. Before Luz, Gus, Willow, or King could say anything Eda stood up and matched out of the room.

Luz got a sinking feeling in her stomach as she watched Lilith's eyes follow Eda out of the auditorium. She said something that led to a wave of clapping around the area. Luz joined in just to not stand out. 

“Did you know about that?” Gus asked.

Luz shook her head. “No. King?”

King tried to shrug but struggled to do so under all of his hats, shirts, and scarfs. “Mom doesn’t like talking about her family a lot. I’ve heard Grandma mention something about Eda having a sister though. She just never mentioned what she did.”

Luz groaned and stood up. “I’m going to try and find her.”

Willow nodded, “Do you want us to come with?” Luz shook her head. 

“Stay here and save our seats, King and I will go look for her.”

The two of them made it out of the auditorium and began walking through the Covention center looking for Eda. It was slow going, as they couldn’t go shouting the name of a renowned criminal without attracting undue attention. 

King tripped several times while they were searching and Luz was about to snap at him and tell him to take off all of those ridiculous layers when he tripped again, only this time it was into Amity. 

Before she could do anything the other witch was already picking up King. “Oh! Hello there King! I’m sorry I didn’t see you.”

“Ms. Amity!” King threw his arms around Amity’s neck and nuzzled into her shoulder in a way she had only seen him do with Eda. It caused her frustration to dissipate like smoke on the wind. 

“Hey Amity!” She waved to the witch. They didn’t have any classes so far, but she had been helpful with giving her tips for some of her Abomo Chem homework the few times she had gone to pick up King. 

“Hey Luz!” Amity said, her face flushing. “What’re you doing here?” 

“Willow, King, Eda, and I came here with Gus. He got some extra credit in one of his classes if he came. We kind of got separated from them though, someone wanted to collect all the free stuff he could,” she said, nodding to King who was now perched on Amity’s shoulder. Most of his hats had fallen off when he tripped into her, but he was still wearing a scarf and three shirts. 

Amity laughed, causing Luz’s stomach to flip flop. She rubbed it in concern. “What’s wrong?” Amity asked. 

Luz shrugged, “I think I’m just hungry. My stomach feels weird.” Amity rolled her eyes and grabbed her hand, sending her stomach into another series of backflips. 

“Come on, let’s get you some food and then I’ll help you find Eda.” Amity pulled her off towards a booth in the corner that was selling some sort of white pastry encrusted with fairy dust. 

It tasted a bit like a cross between a churro and rock candy, and Luz had a fun time making exaggerated faces and causing Amity to laugh as they looked around for Eda. King sat quietly on her shoulder, looking for all the world like a heavily clothed gargoyle. 

Eventually they heard a commotion near the doors and made their way there only to find Eda in a shouting match with Lilith. They both had their staff out and a circle of guards surrounded them. Luz could see Willow and Gus on the other side, clearly wondering what they could do to separate the two sisters. Gus looked like he was about to jump in between them any second now. 

Luz shoved the last bite of her food in her mouth and formed a mandala. She released the spell, and a thunderous clap filled the room, causing everyone, including thankfully the two sisters, to look at her. 

She saw a few of the Coven Guards move to surround her and adjusted herself to keep them in her line of sight. She summoned a Shield of Seraphim as a precaution and said, “What is going on here?!”

Instead of answering Lilith said, “I had heard about your new pet Edalyn, but I hadn’t thought you would bring her here of all places. Surely you must know that the Emperor and the Golden Guard have been asking after her.”

Eda growled, her concealment stone having long since turned off. Luz could see the thin sheen of furry feathers that covered Eda’s arms and the claws that tipped her hands. “If you lay one hand on either of my children, I will gut you like a sniveling vek.” Luz could see that that had had an effect on the crowd of people that had formed. She made a mental note to look up what a Vek was. 

Luz expanded her shield to cover herself and Amity and King. “No one’s doing anything until someone tells me what's going on.” 

“Oh look, it's cute that she thinks she can stop me.” Before Luz could reply, Lilith's eyes lit up as she looked at Amity behind her. 

“Ah Ms. Blight, I thought I saw you in the auditorium earlier. Do come forward.” The Amity that Luz saw walk forward was not the same one she had spent the last half hour with. 

This Amity was tense, her posture picture perfect and her face kept carefully blank of any expressions. 

It hurt to see her expressive friend change so quickly. “I propose a challenge, Edalyn. My apprentice versus your pet. When Ms. Blight wins, you will turn yourself over to the Emperors Coven and cease this childish foolishness.” Luz could feel King walk up and tug on her pant leg but she ignored it. She had to stay focused on what was going on so hopefully they could get out of here without being arrested. 

“When Luz win’s you let us walk out of here free.” Eda growled out. Luz was starting to become a little worried about how animalistic her mentor was appearing. They did not need a surprise visit from the Beast right here.

Lilith rolled her eyes. “Fine Edalyn.” Lilith rested her hand on Amity’s shoulder and Luz thought she could see the girl flinch before she regained her composure. King again tugged on her pant leg, but Luz ignored it. 

“See you in an hour then Lilith.” Lilith didn’t respond, instead choosing to wave away the Coven Guards and lead Amity away towards some corner of the center. Luz hoped that she would be okay, but she had greater things to worry about right now. 

She dismissed her shield and picked up King, lightly jogging up and meeting Willow and Gus with Eda. Thankfully Eda had a spare potion on her as Luz watched her take a few sips. Slowly the furry feathers fell off her body and her hands returned to normal. "What on Earth just happened?!”

Eda grimaced, “I’m sorry kids, Lilith found me, and we got into an argument. By the time I realized what she was doing I was already surrounded.” 

King tapped her shoulder, but she whispered, “In a second King” and said “And I’m supposed to fight Amity now?! I don’t want to fight one of my friends!”

“I don’t think you have much of a choice Luz.” Willow pointed to a nearby wall, where a line of Coven Guards was watching them like hawks. It was clear that despite giving them space, the guards weren’t going to let them out of their sight until the match started. 

“I just want to know how and when Amity became Lilith’s apprentice. I feel like that’s something she’d tell people,” Gus said. 

Willow shook her head, “She’s a private person, I can believe that she wouldn’t say anything about it.”

“Plus, the two of us knew Odalia growing up, she’s probably the one who set that up,” Eda said. 

King tugged on her shirt this time and Luz snapped, “What King?!?” 

The little demon seemed to sink back into her arms, clearly trying to create some space between her and him. Luz immediately regretted it and pulled him in for a hug. “I’m sorry King, I was frustrated and took it out on you. I shouldn’t have done that.” 

King wrapped his paws around her neck and said, “It’s alright Luz. I know you're frustrated. I just wanted to ask, to please not hurt Amity. She doesn’t deserve this.” 

Luz took a couple of deep breaths. “I really do not like what that suggests about Amity's home life, but I promise I won’t hurt her.”

“Kid I’m sorry but I don’t know how you could win this without hurting the little Blight.” Eda said. 

Luz shrugged, “I can tire her out, right?” 

“But then it would be a race to see who gets exhausted first. And Luz, you’ve told us yourself your combat spells are draining,” Willow said, wringing her hands in concern.

“Can you bring some of your energy potions?” Gus asked but Eda was already shaking her head. 

“That’ll be seen as cheating. Luz can only go in with her magic and nothing else. Are you sure about this kid?” 

She met each of her friends' eyes and nodded. “Yeah, I have to do it this way. I refuse to hurt Amity.”

~-~

Luz stood at the entrance of the auditorium. Word of the duel between her and Amity had quickly spread throughout the center and now the stands were packed with people. She fiddled with her sun and sling ring necklaces before taking them off and giving them to Eda. 

“You got this kid, I believe in you,” her mentor said, pressing her into a tight hug. 

“I’d hope so, you’re the one who got me into this mess.” She could feel Eda’s body flinch at the retort and sighed. “It’s okay Eda, I don’t hold it against you. You did the best you could in the situation.”

“Thanks, Witchlet.” Eda pressed a soft kiss to her head and then pushed her out into the arena. 

The entire floor was covered in sand, likely a byproduct from when the Emperors Coven had constructed the center. Her feet shifted and slid so she cast a small spell to help her keep her balance. 

She saw Amity step down from the stage that Principal Bump had been on earlier. 

“Citizens of Bonesborough! The Titan welcomes you to our impromptu match today. The contestants are Ms. Amity Blight, my apprentice,” cheers rose from the stands and Luz could have sworn she saw some people with foam fingers with Amity’s name on it. “Her opponent will be Luz the Human, the Owl Ladies pet .” 

Luz balled her fists. She was getting sick and tired of being called someone's pet. 

“They will be operating under standing Dueling Rules! Nothing except for their own magical ability. Contestants, you may begin!”

As soon as Lilith spoke Amity conjured a large circle and an abomination rose from the sand. 

It was a golden purple, with eyes scattered over its body. Thankfully that meant that it had just been conjured with ambient magic and not from a specialty solution, so the abomination wouldn't be able to do anything too crazy. 

Luz drew in the air, her magic coming together to form a giant gear like saw that she let loose at the abomination. Immediately as she did that, she also conjured some of the Winds of Watoomb which scattered the mounds of loose sand into the air. 

She could hear Amity begin to cough and took the opportunity to dart through the dust cloud to get behind her. She didn’t quite make it as the dust was blown away from Amity. 

Luz found that her saw spell had worked and had cut the abomination down to a little bit of a smaller size. Unfortunately, that meant that there were now two abominations and both of them had propellers for hands and were blowing the dust away from Amity. 

She cursed and dodged under a slime shot from the larger abomination. “You going easy on me Human?”

Luz grinned and drew out the mandala for hellfire. “In your dreams Witch!” Bestial faces appeared within the fire, snarling and growling as she released it towards the smaller abomination. 

Amity moved it but underestimated the hellfire spell as the fire altered its course on its own to strike the abomination. After a second Luz dismissed the flames, showing nothing but purple speckled glass where the smaller abomination used to be. 

Amity growled and snapped her hand shut and something heavy hit Luz in the back. She tumbled to the sand and barely dodged a second blow from a new abomination. 

She really had to pay more attention to those things. She conjured the saw spell again, splitting the original abomination in half at the waist this time. 

Instead of the slime reforming Amity directed it to create a third abomination. Luz dodged another ball of slime that had been thrown at her as she pictured her personal spell for abominations. 

The mandala seemed to snap into existence and promptly rip, causing her and Amity’s battle to become one of wills as they both wrestled for control of the new abomination.  

She conjured a shield around her as the remaining two slime monsters bore down on her. She could feel herself slowing down and growing tired, so she abandoned the third abomination and converted her shield into a mass of spiked energy, launching the projectiles at them and promptly ripping them to shreds. 

She watched Amity stumble back as the attack traveled along her connection and grinned. She conjured a spear of energy and stabbed one of the abominations causing its arm to fall off as the last connection to the torso was severed. 

She repeated this process several more times, tearing the two nearest abominations into an army of smaller abominations as Amity sent yet another full size one to her. Luz was starting to worry that she had underestimated Amity's skill with abominations. 

“The more you tear them apart, the easier it gets for me to surround you!” Amity shouted. Luz didn’t rise to the bait and batted one of the smaller abominations away from her. The more abominations there were the more Amity had to focus on controlling them, which left her unprotected. 

She jumped back from the last full-sized abomination and began drawing a mandala she had only used once, and that had been under her Maestros supervision. She pulled more energy into herself and nearly dropped the spell from the pain in her head that blossomed. She ignored it and continued working on the mandala, dodging sand and abomination goo that was thrown at her. 

Once she was finished, she held the mandala back, waiting for the right moment to release the Bolts of Balthakk at the hoard of abominations that were bearing down on her. 

Just as they were about to touch her, she released the spell, and bolts of lightning jumped from each abomination and struck the ground and walls. 

The smaller abominations crystallized while others exploded into goop. Both Amity and Luz were launched backwards into the sand as a consequence. Luz struggled to breathe for a second before Eda came running up to her. King, Willow, and Gus were right behind her. 

She could see Coven Guards bearing down on them from the corner of her eye. Eda shoved her sling ring into her hands. “Good job Witchlet! I’m proud of you! Now it’s time to go!” she said right as Gus said, “Come on Luz!” 

Luz pushed the pain in her head out of her mind and called up just a touch of dimensional energy, enough to open a portal to the Owl House that deposited them and a crap load of sand into the living room. 

The last thing she heard before passing out was Eda shouting at Hooty to get ready to move the house. 

Chapter Text

13th of December 2018

15th of Maha 1000

“You have your energy potions, right?” King’s voice bounced off the walls of the Owl House as he poked his head into the living room. Luz suppressed a groan and turned around to look at the little demon. 

“For the last time, yes King! They’re in my bag!” She winced at the crestfallen look on his face. She dropped her bag to the ground and crossed the room so she could scoop him up. 

“I know you’re just looking out for me King, but I can take care of myself.” She purposely ignored the throbbing pain in her head that hadn’t gone away since the battle between Amity and her. No one needed to know about that just yet. 

King’s arms dug into her neck, his fur both tickling and scratching her face as he tried to pull her closer. “I know Luz, but it was still scary to watch you pass out like that. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”  His boney skull slid across her cheek as he tucked his head into her neck. 

“I promise I'm a fine King. I swear it on Titan.” King leaned back and looked her in the eye, his yellow eyes faintly glowing even in the illuminated room. 

“Is that why you’re sneaking out of the house?” Luz shhed King. If the little demon had been worried since her collapse, then Eda had been absolutely coddling her. Her mentor had been watching her like an owl ever since then and Luz was itching to escape her gaze and get a breath of fresh air. 

“Can you keep her distracted for me? I’m going to the library, and I don’t really want her coming with me.” King slowly nodded. 

“I can do that.”

She pressed a little kiss to his skull. “Thanks King. I owe you one.” She set him down on the ground and watched him run off into the kitchen shouting “Mom!”

Luz used the distraction to sneak out of the house and open a portal to one of the alleys behind the library. She quickly jumped through and closed the portal, savoring the warm air that blew by. 

She made her way into the library, taking time to enjoy the scents of all the books. Books in the Boiling Isles didn’t quite have the same small as books back home, it was more leather-y, reminding her of an old couch more than anything. 

She made her way to the third floor where a lot of the more advanced tomes were kept. She had to sneak past a couple of librarians, but it wasn’t that hard when she used a few illusions. 

While she hadn’t been completely lying to King about her reasons for coming here, she also hadn’t been completely truthful. 

She had an idea as to why so many things on the Isles seemed directly related to human culture. It went beyond the point of being able to explain it away with an understanding of Planar Worlds and how they reflect each other. No, it was more like the culture of the isles had a direct, almost traceable connection to human cultures. 

She flipped open her notebook, the one Eda had gotten her for her birthday, and looked over the list of similarities she had been able to find. 

First there was Isket which was so clearly derived from Sanskrit. Then there were the months. This took her a little longer to figure out, because the Sanskrit calendars that the Order used to use had twelve months while the Isles had thirteen. But each month seemed to be some sort of abbreviation of the names for the months in Sanskrit. Then there were the stories of how witches and demons came to be. 

Demons were known as the Children of the Titan in some of the books she had been able to find, and there was a multitude of books covering how demons evolved from the Titans flesh. 

Witches, though, were known as the Children of the Stars. She had read multiple books that said the first witches came in falling stars. Most of this she had found in children's books, but she couldn’t find any official sources discussing how Witches evolved on the Isles.

But those stories reminded her about what was known about the Library of Cagliostro. No one knows what caused it, but there were several eyewitness accounts of people describing the library as breaking apart in chunks as it was pulled into what was assumed to be a faulty portal. 

Now she wondered if the portal was faulty at all.

She had gotten a catalog of the known books in the Library of Cagliostro at the point of its destruction from Kamar-Taj. Now all she had to do was search the library and history books for those same titles. If she found them, then she knew that witches were descended from the sorcerers in the library when it was pulled through the portal. 

If she didn’t, she’d have to go back to the drawing board. 

With her plan in mind, Luz casted a Notice-Me-Not spell on herself and then a robust ward around the table she commandeered before slipping away into the library.

Time passed her by, and she barely noticed it as she worked her way through every promising book she saw. She scribbled notes and thoughts in her notebook each time she thought she found something. Every time it appeared to be a dead end, although the farther back in the Isles history she went the more she started seeing sorcery influences in some of the textbooks. 

It was little things, like an offhand mention of grimwalkers or the theory behind teleportation magic. She didn’t know much beyond what she had been able to glean in the libraries growing up, but she did know a lot about teleportation and the foundation behind the sling rings. 

There was also one mention of planar realities, which made her want to jump up and down when she read that section because she was so close! She didn’t want to count that as proof, although she was tempted too.

While it wouldn’t be impossible for demons to have learned about planar realities on their own, it was definitely a lot sooner than some of the other cases the Order had documented.

It was at this point a hand fell on her shoulder, causing her to scream and jump, her mandalas snapping into being around her hands. She turned to see who it was that snuck up on her. 

“Damn it Amity, you scared me!” The witch stood behind her chair with her hands up and an equally startled expression on her face. 

“I’m sorry Luz, I thought you heard me! I said your name several times!”

Luz sighed and dismissed her mandalas before sitting back down in her chair. “It’s not your fault I just got distracted with my work.” Her Notice-Me-Not spell and ward must have worn off while she was working. 

Amity peaked over her shoulder to look at the table scattered with books and pens. There was somehow a little bit of ink on the table. Seeing this Luz groaned and licked her fingers before wiping it away. How did the ink even get on the table? She hadn’t broken any of her pens. 

“What’s up Amity?” She asked after wiping the smudged ink off on her pants. The other witch was patiently standing behind her and looked a lot more relaxed now that she wasn’t pointing her mandalas at her. 

“I just wanted to say congratulations at the Covention, you did really well. Oh, and that the library’s closed.”

“Thanks- Wait what?! There’s no way it's past 8 already!” She cast a quick time spell and stared dumbfounded and the shining 9 that stared back at her. 

“Shit! I was supposed to be back at the Owl House before 8!” She conjured a mandala and watched as all of her books and papers and pens organized themselves and put them into her backpack. 

She was about to throw the bag over her shoulder when Amity stopped her. “Stay. Please. There’s something I want to show you.”

Luz set her bag back down and looked at the witch in confusion. “What’s going on Amity?”

The girl just held up her finger and looked at her watch. She silently counted the seconds and then pointed towards the stained-glass window that was above the front doors. Luz could barely make it out but that became moot as a brilliant sea green light bathed the library. 

All around her, books began to grow with that same light. Wisps of smoke rose off of a few of them and she could hear faint drumming in the background. Luz looked at Amity to find her staring back at her. 

She looked away as her cheeks began to feel warm. “What was that?”

“The Wailing Star!” Luz gasped and remembered the pamphlet that she had picked up at the convention. 

It talked about the myth of the Wailing Star, how it was supposedly a lost piece of a meteor shower. That it had missed the planet and now spent its time crying for the people it missed, and the opportunities lost. 

The pamphlet didn’t talk about it having any sort of magical effect though! 

“It gets better,” Amity said with a grin, revealing a pair of sharp canines. Her eyes sparkled with delight although Luz did notice the bags underneath her eyes. She didn’t think that she had seen Amity smile that widely before. Amity picked up a book of prehistoric beast demons off of the shelf.

She flipped it open to a random page and Luz watched as a giant serpent with brilliant green and purple scales flew out of the pages of the book. Luz stared at the serpent as it seemed to swim through the air before morphing into a vaguely bird shaped creature and flapping up towards the ceiling. 

Luz spun in place and craned her neck upwards, trying to get a better view of the beast. As she was watching the beast morphed again, becoming a massive selkidomus that dived towards them. Just before the beast demon hit the table it disappeared into tiny balls of green light. 

Luz spun towards Amity to see that the witch had closed the book. It seemed that opening the book conjured something from the pages and closing it made whatever was conjured disappear. 

“That was so cool!” Luz looked at the tiny balls of green light that the illusion left behind after being dismissed. Was it an illusion? Or was it a conjuration? She wasn’t exactly sure of the difference though, so she shook the thought from her mind as she watched tiny orbs of green light rise from the floors below her. 

There must be people down there also playing through the books. “What was that?”

Amity’s voice stood out against the silence of the third floor. “That was a snake shifter! Or at least the best approximation of one, it’s kind of hard to identify a creature that changes shape only through fossils and old stories.”

The two of them stood there for a few minutes watching the tiny balls of light rise towards the ceiling. The green glow of the books gave everything in the library a weird tint. Luz was going to write about this in her next essay to her Maestro and the Council. 

“Grab your bag, I want to show you something.” Luz followed Amity down the stairs and through the stacks of books. They were careful to avoid the families and small kids at the front of the library playing with some of the books. Luz could hear them laughing all the way from the romance section. 

She watched as Amity looked around and pulled at a random book on a random shelf. A section of the shelving silently moved out of the way to reveal a small room. 

String lights hung from the ceiling and illuminated a cozy little reading space. The walls were filled with books, although many of them appeared to be old library books judging by the wear and tear and the faded library stickers on the spine. 

In the back corner was a large bean bag filled with a few pillows sitting next to a desk covered in she assumed Amity’s abomination homework. 

Standing in the middle of the room were two green haired twins, one obviously feminine and the other masculine. Their green hair was expertly done and there wasn’t a speck of dust or a wrinkle on their clothes. They also held themselves with an air of superiority as if they were better than you and knew it. 

The two of them were holding a thin book, with some sort of drawing on the cover. A miniature if translucent Amity stood from the pages and was speaking. “I saw the human again today-”

“What are you doing here?!?” Amity’s face was a bright red and her eyes were filled with tears. 

The twins shut the book and looked up, their faces devolving into matching cheshire grins as soon as they saw her.

“Aw, is whittle Mittens here with her girlfriend?” Luz blushed at the word girlfriend because wow that made her feel things. She expected Amity to get redder at the twin's comment but instead the witch snarled and lunged forward. 

She moved fast, dodging the spell that the feminine twin sent towards her and leaping at the masculine twin and dragging him down to the ground. 

Luz quickly conjured a Shield of Seraphim and felt the spell slam into her and push her back. The strength behind it caught her by surprise. She let a little more energy flow into the shield and collapsed as her headache coalesced into two points of pure pain. 

She dropped the shield and fell to the floor screaming as it felt like something shoved its way through her skull. She heard someone shout “Luz!” but couldn’t tell who through the pain. 

Strong arms lifted her up and laid her on something cushy. Luz cracked her eyes to find Amity staring down at her, concern filling her eyes. Behind her the two twins looked down with equal amounts of concern. 

The feminine twin crouched down and grabbed Amity. “Amity let me see her, maybe I can help a little?” She didn’t sound too sure of herself. 

Luz again closed her eyes as another wave of pain hit her, this time all throughout her body. Her entire body was extremely itchy and painful, and it felt like a thousand needles had slid into her every pore.

A cold, thick feeling washed over her body and the pain began to slowly ebb away. She gulped in a great mouthful of air and opened her eyes. 

The feminine twin was crouched over her, a look of intense concentration on her face as she drew a small array of spell circles that Luz recognized from her healing classes. She let her head collapse back down on what she now realized was the bean bag as another bout of healing magic washed over her. 

The needle sensation that plagued her skin finally disappeared with the second round of healing magic washed over her.

She relaxed as the intense pain faded away and slowly opened her eyes again. This time Amity was staring down over her, the twin standing off to the side.

“Luz, are you okay?” Amity asked. 

Luz quickly checked over her body. There seemed to be no visible differences to her body. She sighed in relief and extended her hand for Amity to grab. The witch pulled her up from the bean bag with a strong tug, causing the feminine twin to jump in alarm. 

“Amity, you have to be careful! I don’t know what’s going on, but you can’t just yank her up like that!” Luz waved away the twins' concern. 

“I’m fine, I promise.” The twin looked at her. 

“People don’t just collapse out of nowhere Luz,” the twin said skeptically. 

Instead of answering Luz simply smiled, “You seem to have me at a disadvantage! You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

Amity started when Luz spoke and said, “Sorry Luz, this is Edric and Emira.” Edric waved from his side of the room. 

“It’s nice to meet you! We’ve heard a lot about you,” Edric said, grinning. Luz glared at both him and Emira. 

“It wasn’t nice to meet you both.” The twins averted their gaze, clearly embarrassed at their actions when Amity and she had come into the room. 

Amity was about to say something when the entire library shook.

~-~

Elsewhere a Coven Guard raised five fingers. When their watch started beeping, they clenched their hand shut and was rewarded with a large booming sound. 

A part of the library wall in front of it collapsed. The spatial magics holding the interior and exterior of the library began to act up but thankfully the warders got in and stabilized the spells. 

“I always hate the few seconds before the warders get in and stabilize things, that shits always creepy.” The coven guard next to them muttered. They were a transfer from the Toes and as such unused to the challenges the guards on the Torso faced. 

They ignored their fellow guard and pointed forward. Immediately a team of guards, all wearing selki-scale armor, rushed into the library. 

Beside him, his communications mirror went off and the face of High Priestess Clawthrone stared back at him. 

“Captain Tholomule, how is the operation going?” The sounds of spell fire began to creep out of the library. A few citizens ran screaming out of the front doors in response. He signaled to his men to ignore them and turned back to the High Priestess. 

“Operation is going successful so far, they didn’t know we were coming, but the target has started fighting back.” At this a roar filled the air and a spectral Stonesleeper ran out of the library and through his men. 

A couple jumped back at the feeling of the specter passing through them, but most stood their ground. He felt a swell of pride at that. 

“We’re facing some complications apparently, ma’am. The Wailing Star has given the target a small advantage, as predicted.”

“You’re clear to use any and all force necessary to capture the target, Captain.” He saluted. 

“Understood High Priestess!” The mirror fuzzed and his superior's face disappeared. He snapped the mirror closed and pointed towards the team of guards holding the leashes for the amphitheaters. The beasts were pulling at their leashes, and as soon as the guards let them go, they bolted into the library. 

~-~

Luz ran through the library, shoving past families trying to make it out of the building. The entire thing shook with the force of spell fire, and she could see a bunch of Coven Guards clumped around one of the wings of the library through the windows. 

“Wait guys wait up! We don’t know what’s going on!” Emira shouted at her and Amity. 

The witch was doing a surprisingly good job of keeping pace with her, seeing as Luz was augmenting her speed with a little dimensional energy. Both of them ignored the twins shouting at them to come back. 

“There!” Amity pointed towards a pair of double doors easily twice her height with the words FORBIDDEN STACKS written across them in bold letters. 

Luz drew out an explosion spell before releasing it and jumping through the splintered remains of the doors. She immediately came to a stop and fell to the ground; Amity having run right into her. 

“Luz what’s going on? Why did you stop?” Luz did nothing but just point at the chaos before them. 

A massive winged bipedal demon flew around the room, his blue skin reflecting the light from every spell he cast. A bunch of Coven Guards were clustered on the ground, with a few flapping in the air. 

Amphiptere’s, an animal that she recognized from her beast keeping class, also filled the air and occasionally dive bombed the winged demon. 

The rest of the space was filled with spectral beasts of all different varieties.  

All together the room was a blur of colors and sounds as the Coven Guards desperately tried to capture the winged demon. 

Luz pulled a few energy potions out of her pockets and chugged all of them. Before Amity could ask a question Luz shot up and conjured a simple metal staff. She immediately launched herself into the foray of coven guards smashing legs and hitting heads. 

She only got through a few guards before she was blown back by a spell. She did her best to reflexively call upon a shield to protect her but it did little to help as her skin was torn off and her clothes were shredded. 

“LUZ!” Amity shouted from wherever she was. 

Luz closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Time around her slowed as her perception sped up. She took stock of her injuries and grinned as she realized her shield had prevented her from breaking any bones. 

She cast a quick spell to fix her clothes and launched herself to her feet. Time sped up around her as her breath left her lips. 

“I’m fine Amity!” She shouted while staring down the four coven guards that had split off to deal with her. 

She couldn’t see Amity anywhere near her but she did see a massive abomination fighting the amphipteres so she assumed her friend was nearby.

Luz drew in a little more dimensional energy and felt the pain blossom across her body as she did so. She fell to her knees as a weak whimper left her lips and her Maestro’s voice filled her mind. 

To fight the transformation would only bring more pain upon yourself. Accept the changes. Accept the magic. Accept the costs. 

Luz took in another deep breath and her perception sped up again. She couldn’t let her fears hold her back. No matter what she looked like she was still Luz Noceda. She was still her Mama’s daughter. 

Something settled within her, and a warm feeling washed over her body. The headache that had been plaguing her since the Covention disappeared. The warm feeling washed away her itchy skin and left her with a greater awareness of the air currents within the room. 

She could feel each wingbeat of the amphipteres and demons, she could feel how the air swirled around her body and through her own hair. 

She opened her eyes and grinned, finding that the four coven guards were now closer to her. She raised her hand, and an explosive mandala forced itself into existence, knocking the four coven guards on their back. 

Before they could get back up, she leapt over them and ran towards the crowd of Coven guards that were fighting with the winged demon. The demon was raining down literal fire that the Coven Guards were able to block with a few simple shields. 

The demon wasn’t going to have any luck getting away with all the guards that clumped together. Luz spun her hands, black and orange firey light trailing her fingers to form the mandala for the Bolts of Balthakk. 

Lightning sprung from her hands and struck the Coven Guards, easily bouncing from one person to another. “Get out of here!” She shouted to the demon. 

They seemed to pause for a second before nodding and flying out of a window in the back. 

With the demon thankfully gone and most of the coven guards trying to recover from her lighting spell, she spun around to look for Amity. If they could get out of here now, they might be able to avoid an all-out confrontation with the guards. 

Unfortunately, she found Amity battered and bruised with golden ropes around her wrists and ankles. The witch had clearly put up a good fight judging by the wounds on the guards around her. 

Luz summoned the Winds of Watoomb and created a small tornado filled with debris and books. She released the tornado in the direction of the guards and conjured a portal underneath Amity. 

She pulled the girl through the portal and into a new one, leading right to the living room of the Owl House. Without another look she stepped through and closed the portal. 

“Luz!” Eda sprung off of the couch, clearly having been reading a moment ago. The witch rushed to her and helped her bring Amity over to the couch. Her friend was conscious but wasn’t moving. 

Eda quickly cut the ropes binding her and thankfully color began to return to her face. Amity smiled and closed her eyes, practically sinking into the couch. Her breathing slowed as she fell asleep. 

Eda turned to her, “Tell me what happened.”

Once Luz started, she didn’t stop. She told Eda everything, her theories about the origin of witches, seeing Amity at the library, and the fight with the Coven Guards. When she got to the part about the winged demon flying off Eda cursed and ran to grab one of her mirrors. 

Luz settled down on the couch next to Amity and closed her eyes. She wouldn’t fall asleep, as she still had to make sure Amity got home okay, but it wouldn’t hurt to just shut her eyes for a little bit.

~-~

“Show me Rain Whispers,” Eda said to her mirror. The surface rippled to show the haggard face of her past love. 

Immediately she knew that they already had heard about the raid. “Is Malaphas okay?” 

Raine nodded. “He’s hold up in one of our safehouses at the Toes. He’s going to be there for a while before this all blows over unfortunately. But Eda, Malaphas was able to hear a few things about Luz.” Raines' face was full of concern. 

“You have to tell her to keep a low profile. She’s starting to draw the wrong kind of attention.” Eda closed her eyes and steadied her breathing. 

“I’ll tell her.” With that Raine nodded and closed the connection. Even if she did tell Luz she doubted that the girl would listen. 

Maybe she could still help her though. Eda left to grab a few books from the basement, books that she thought might help Luz defend herself. 

Chapter Text

19th of December, 2018

21st of Maha, 1000

Luz stared at the ceiling above her, mentally going over everything her alchemy book had said she’d need for some starter transmutations. Eda was still waiting to hear back from a few of her contacts about Blood and Bile, but the other three humors were locked up in the gym. 

She had slowly begun converting part of the gym into a little alchemy lab for her to practice in after she nearly melted the floor of her room with a failed transmutation. Turns out Titan Earth was extremely volatile when combined with sorcery.

Luz was broken from her thoughts by a strange tapping on the window. She sat up and recognized the crow phone. Eda used one every now and then, but she didn’t know who this one belonged to. 

Luz got up and opened the window, letting the crow phone hop into her room. 

“Luz?” Amity’s voice followed the crow as it hopped around her room. “Hi Amity! Give me a second!” She said as she lunged for the little animal. 

After two failed attempts she finally caught the bird. “Hey Amity, how’re you doing?” 

She could hear the witch giggling through the other end and rolled her eyes. “Sorry,” Amity said after a second. “I’ve just never heard of someone having that much difficulty with a crow phone.”

Luz snorted and sat back down on her bed. “What’s up? Everything okay?” Ever since the incident at the library Luz had checked in on her friend a couple of times since to make sure that no one had recognized her or followed her back to her parents' place.

“Yeah, I was actually calling you because Ed and Em are taking me up to the Knee and I do not want to go alone with them. Do you want to come along?” 

“How long will we be there?” She didn’t want Eda to come home to find her gone. 

“Probably two days, they're taking me up there to help me practice some spells. Apparently, the Knee is really magically attuned.” 

Amity didn’t finish her sentence before Luz was nodding along and gathering some of the stuff in her room. 

“You had me at ‘magically attuned’, I’ll throw together some stuff and let Eda know where I’m at. Where do you want to meet?”

“We can pick you up from Hexside in about an hour if that's good with you?”

“Yup! See you soon!” Luz let the crow go and watched as it hopped out of her window and flew away. 

She spent the next hour throwing all of her stuff together in her bag. Luckily Eda had some coats laying around that she could borrow, as she had yet to bring any of her own snow gear to the Isles. 

She raced down the stairs and left a note in the kitchen for Eda. Saying goodbye to Hooty and King, she portaled to Hexside where she found Amity standing next to two green haired witches. 

“Hello cutie,” Em said with a wink. Luz blushed and glanced away, focusing her attention on Amity. Her friend was bundled up in several layers of coats and jackets. Luz raised an eyebrow at the collection but didn’t say anything. 

“Alright so how are we going to get there?” 

Ed and Em held out their hands as their palismen materialized. Edric’s was vaguely bat-like with one large eye while Emira’s was snake-like a creature also with one eye. 

“We’re gonna fly there of course!” Edric said, twirling his staff and promptly hitting himself on the head. 

Emira rolled her eyes. “Come on Luz, you can fly with me.” Luz hopped on the staff behind the older witch and held tight as they took off. 

It was different compared to flying with Eda. Her mentor was all about daring moves and speed whilst Emira’s moves were much more controlled. She looked over at Edric and Amity and watched her friend go green in the face as he did a fast roll. 

She shuddered to think as to what would happen if Edric and Eda met each other. 

The flight to the Knee itself was relatively uneventful, with the exception of Emira yelling at her brother to stop messing around. 

When they finally landed at the Knee, Amity collapsed to the ground, fisting the snow. Luz sat beside her and combed through her hair, hoping the motion helped settle her friend’s stomach. 

Emira had dragged her brother to go set up the tent for them and by the time they had finished Amity was sitting up and looking a lot better. 

“Sorry about that,” her friend said. “Flying with Ed always makes me feel sick.” 

“You don’t need to apologize for that, Amity.” The witch shrugged and picked up her bags.  Luz pursed her lips and promised herself she’d talk to her friend later about that. 

“Come on,” Amity said, “let's go unpack.” 

By the time they had finished unpacking the sun was already starting to set. Amity was shivering so Edric set about making a fire while Emira set up a stove like contraption. 

Luz set about helping Emira when she noticed some carvings in the bottom of the stove top. “What’re these?” she asked, pointing them out. 

Emira looked at her incredulously before a flash of realization crossed her features. “I forgot you’re a human. That's a loading point for an enchantment!” At her continued confused look Emira rolled her eyes. 

“I really need to talk to Amity to make sure she explains all this to you,” She muttered under her breath. Luz pretended she didn’t hear that.

“When you enchant something, the spell will eventually degrade after a while and either act up or simply stop working. So, enchanters attach a spell to a carving like this to act as a load point. This way you can visibly see how the spell is degrading before it gets too bad.”

“Huh, what coven do enchanters belong to?” Emira went silent, clearly trying to think of the answer while she finished setting up the stove.

“I know there's a couple of specific enchanter covens, but I think it falls under Oracle magic? I’m not confident about that though so don’t go quoting me about that.” Luz nodded and went back to helping set up the kitchen. 

She briefly wondered where the twins had stored all this stuff, as she didn’t see anything on them when they were flying here. She resolved to ask Eda later about how common spatial magic was here.  

Edric made his way over here with enough wood to keep a fire going for hours. He and Amity quickly constructed it as Emira got food out of a cooler that Luz swore wasn’t there a minute ago. 

She joined Amity and Edric around the fire as Emira started grilling something on the stove. Luz could see the loading point under the stove top was glowing bright red. 

“So, what kind of magic are you trying to practice up here?” 

“I’m having some trouble with some of my elemental spells so Ed and Em thought it would be a good idea to come up here to practice,” Amity said. Despite the fact that she was the closest to the fire and bundled in the most coats, her friend was still shivering. 

Before she knew what she was doing her hands were tracing out a heating spell, glowing black and orange light trailing behind her fingertips. She was conscious about the fact that all the Blight siblings stopped what they were doing to watch her. 

After she finished drawing out the mandala, she carefully guided it over to Amity. “Here hold still.” Her friend did so as Luz guided the spell around Amity’s shoulders. As soon as it touched her clothes it dissipated, showering her in orange light. 

“There,” Luz said as she sat back down. “That should help keep you warm for a little bit.” 

Amity did look better now. Some color that Luz didn’t even realize had left, returned and she stopped shivering as violently. 

“So, Amity wasn’t lying when she said you have human magic.” Edric said. It was the most serious she had seen the Blight brother as he seemed to dissect her with his eyes. An almost primal gleam came over his features before Amity cleared her throat.

In a second Edric was back to his normal energetic brother persona that she had mainly seen so far. 

“Why did you choose here to practice elemental magic? Why not in your backyard?” Luz purposefully changed the conversation, eyeing the twins. 

“It’s not really known why the Knee is so magically powerful,” Amity said. “During the Savage Ages witches would make a pilgrimage to study and practice magic here, thinking that it brought them closer to the Titan.” 

“Because of our heritage we have a slightly more difficult time with casting certain spells, so Ed and I started coming up here to practice,” Emira said. 

“Your heritage?” Luz asked. Both of the older Blight siblings glanced at Amity. Her friend gave a tiny nod and seemed to sink further into her mound of coats despite the heating spell and the fire. 

“Our Mother is a Vampire,” Edric said. The campsite was silent save for the sound of the fire crackling.

“A vampire is a type of demon. Back in the Savage Ages they used to hunt witches and bipedal demons to harvest their phlegm because they can’t produce their own.” Amity’s voice was tight and clipped, each syllable a sharp sound as her friend spit them out. 

“Em and I are dhampirs, a cross between a witch and vampire. We can produce our own phlegm, although not in the same quantities of a pure blood witch. Amity is the only one of us who is a full-blown vampire.” 

Luz looked towards her friend who was currently trying to bury herself in her collection of coats. “That’s why you’re so cold isn’t it?” 

Amity slowly nodded. “Usually it’s not a problem because of Bonesborough’s proximity to the Boiling Sea. But up here it’s so cold.” Luz scooted closer to Amity and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. 

Amity looked up in surprise. “You aren’t afraid? Most people would run screaming if they found out what we are.”

Luz shrugged. “You forget that I’m a human, not a witch. I didn’t grow up with the same beliefs our classmates did. All I see is a friend in need of a hug.” Amity stared at her, clearly searching for any hint of deceit. 

After she found none, Amity smiled and leaned her head on her shoulder. Luz pushed some magic throughout her body to raise her core temperature. She couldn’t push it too high without triggering a fever but hopefully it was enough to make it a little better for Amity.

Tension she hadn’t realized had been there evaporated as Emira returned to cooking and Edric added some more wood to the fire. 

Clearly, they had been nervous to tell her the truth. She was glad that they trusted her enough to tell her. 

“We’ll get up early tomorrow, Amity needs to work on her fire magic and that’s easiest done with the sunrise,” Edric said before his face split into a grin. “Little Sis has trouble making even a small flame.” 

Emira snorted as Amity blushed. “Ed, I remember when you couldn’t conjure even a small ball of water.” Edric pretended to be offended. 

“Wow just call me out, why don’t you!” Edric said with clearly fake indignation. Amity snorted into her shoulder as the two Blight siblings descended into a bickering match. 

She was glad to see that all three of them we’re getting along better since the library incident. 

~-~

Luz leaned against a rock while she watched Emira coach Amity in a fire spell. Her friend waved her training wand, forming a spell circle in the early morning air. 

Unfortunately nothing but a hot stream of air came from it, the same thing that Amity had been getting all morning. 

She stomped her feet in frustration and threw her training wand into the snow. “I can’t do it!” 

“Amity!” Emira barked out. The forcefulness surprised her. “You know better than to say that.” Emira seemed to be genuinely angry at what Amity had said. 

Edric shook his head when she looked at him. They were sitting on the same rock, watching Emira try and coach Amity. Edric had tried doing the same thing an hour earlier before deferring to his twin sister. 

“Your belief about whether or not you can cast a spell can often be the deciding factor in if you can cast it,” Edric told her. 

Amity shook her head. “It’s not that! I know I can do it, I just can’t envision how it’s supposed to feel! I can never get it hot enough!”

“You think it’s because you can’t feel heat?” Luz asked. Amity nodded and ignored the look the Blight twins gave each other. It was clear that they thought that was the root of the problem too. 

“What about the fire last night? Is that not enough?” 

Amity shook her head and picked up the training wand. “I’ve been trying to use that feeling all morning! It’s what got me to hot air,” Amity laid on the snowy ground, clearly not caring if water soaked into her coat collection. 

“What if I tried something?” She asked. Amity shrugged, digging herself further into the snow. “I don’t see what you can do.”

Luz pushed herself off the rock and grinned. “You forget, I’m a sorceress, not a witch.”

Amity actually sat up and looked at her curiously. “Okay,” she finally said, getting up from the ground. Emira mindlessly brushed the snow off of her. 

“I’ll need to practice conjuring it first.” Amity nodded and took her place on the rock, Emira also joining her siblings.

Luz stood in the middle of the clearing they’d chosen. Usually when she used fire spells she just drew on her own body heat. She didn’t think that would work for this situation without freezing her first. 

There was a dedicated dimension that most combat sorcerers drew on for fire though. She wasn’t very practiced in drawing from there but she thought it might do the trick. 

She felt across the dimensions she usually drew on, before finding the one she needed. The smell of smoke, the byproduct of her using magic, began to fill the entire clearing. 

She breathed in, drawing in energy and crafting it into a spell. She could feel it burning through her arms towards her fingers. She opened her eyes, trying to remember what the mandala for sustained, peaceful fire was. 

Her fingers began glowing from the force of the magic she was using. The glow quickly spread up her arms as the burning feeling began to be painful. The smell of blood joined the smell of smoke that permeated the clearing. 

“Luz!” She could hear Amity shouting. 

“STOP!” She threw up a golden hand, the fingers tipped with claws. Her eldritch form. The magic was burning away herself to reveal the form underneath. She had to end this now. 

She closed herself off to that dimension and slowly pushed most of the magic out of her. The snow around her melted and the grass burned as her body radiated heat. 

Finally when most of it was gone she was able to hold it and craft it into a mandala.

She pushed the mandala towards Amity, heat and fire washing over the witch. 

Luz didn’t get to watch it as she collapsed to the ground but she could hear Amity laugh. She glanced up and found tendrils of fire dancing along her friend's body, her face flush with color and joy. 

Slowly the heat dissipated, and the fire went out. Emira and Edric were already by her side trying to pick her up. 

She waved them off as she didn’t want them to get burned if she was still radiating heat. 

“What was that? What happened?!” Edric asked. Amity looked over at her in barely concealed concern. 

Luz waved them off. “I’m okay, I just drew on too much energy for that spell. I’m also not the greatest with fire spells.” 

Emira rolled her eyes and pointed at the scorch marks under her feet, “We can tell.”

Edric snorted and Luz rolled her eyes. She turned towards her friend and gestured for her to pick up her training wand. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Amity asked. 

Luz waved her off, “I promise you I’m fine! Now try the spell!”

Amity looked her over once more before grabbing her training wand and concentrating. She drew the spell circle again and released it. 

Hot air came rushing out, melting some of the snow in the clearing. “Try again,” Luz said. “Focus on how the fire danced over your skin, how energetic it was. How much it wanted to be free. ” That fact is the reason why she usually drew on her body heat for fire instead of conjuring it. She couldn't bring herself to keep something that longed to be free chained up.

Amity nodded and drew out the spell circle again. This time she took a deep breath and breathed out, a tiny flame emitting from the spell circle when she released it. 

Amity screamed and jumped in joy, the flame going out almost immediately as she did so. It was clear her friend didn’t care though as she picked her up and spun her around. 

Luz couldn’t help but join in the celebration. “You did it!” she shouted gleefully. 

Amity stopped for a second before smothering her in a hug, “I couldn’t have done it without you Luz.” 

She smiled into her friend's shoulder. “It’s the least I could do.”

Amity pulled her in tighter, clearly not ready to go. Luz wasn’t complaining as the smell of Amity’s shampoo filled her nose. 

Finally one of the Blight twins cleared their throat and Amity jumped out of the hug, her face a bright red. 

Emira and Edric looked at Amity with a knowing grin on their face that Luz couldn’t decipher. 

“We’re going to head back to camp to charge your wand and get started on cooking breakfast,” Emira said. 

“Can you two gather some firewood for us?” Edric asked with a wink at Amity. The witch only blushed more. 

Before either of them could respond both the Blight twins had hopped on their palisman and were flying back to camp, leaving her and Amity alone in the clearing. 

“What was that all about?” Luz asked. Amity grew more red as she turned towards the forest. 

“Come on, let's just go get some firewood,” Amity said before speed walking into the forest. Luz had to jog to catch up to her.

“Amity! Slow down! Amity! Are you okay?” Her friend turned towards her, some emotion that Luz didn’t quite know how to read filling her eyes. 

“Luz I-” She never got to finish her sentence as the snow beneath them collapsed inward dropping them into some sort of cave. On more instinct than rational thought Luz conjured the Winds of Watoomb in order to slow their fall.

The landing was still hard, as a loud CRACK rang through wherever they were. Luz quickly scanned herself over for any pressing injuries, and finding none, went over to where Amity was lying in a heap.

“Amity, are you okay?!” 

Her friend nodded as she slowly extracted herself from the pile of snow she had landed in. It seemed that that had thankfully cushioned her fall. 

“Where are we?” Luz asked, summoning a ball of witchlight in her hand. It didn’t do much but reveal the smooth walls of the cave. 

Amity looked around, her own witchlight appearing above her hand. “It looks like we’re in an old vein.” 

The hair on the back of Luz’s neck stood straight up at the reminder that the land she walked on used to be alive. 

“I don’t feel too good though,” Amity said, her breath shuddering. Amity really didn’t look good, her skin was all pale and she looked like a second away from throwing up. A low dronning sound emanated from one side of the cave, but Luz was stopped from investigating when Amity threw up. 

She rushed to her side and grabbed as much of her hair as quickly as she could. “It’s okay Amity, it’s okay. Just get it out.” She rubbed her hand up and down her back in what she hoped was a soothing gesture. 

Amity was soon reduced to gagging and eventually stopped. When she stood back up she looked a little better, some color having returned to her face. 

“Do you think you hit your head on the way down?” Luz asked, concerned. 

Amity shook her head. “No, I only landed in the snow.”

A feeling of dread settled in her stomach as the dronning sound grew louder. 

Luz orientated her witchlight to shine down the cave as best as she could and immediately wished she hadn’t. 

The thing that stood down there was clearly the origin of the dronning sound but everything about it was wrong . 

Parts of its body shook and seemed to jump to the sides, giving the appearance of movement even though she was positive it was standing still. Claws and teeth and eyes stared out of the body in a way that seemed alien even for the Boiling Isles. 

All around its feet, the floor of the cave seemed to undulate and move in a way that reminded her of grasping hands.

One of these hands reached a protruding rock, immediately compressing and shrinking it onto the floor of the cave. 

“Run,” She whispered to Amity, who had frozen in horror when she saw the thing. The beast bent down, pressing part of its body to the ground. The dronning sound got briefly louder before it snapped back up, its eyes converging on them and flashing with something she recognized from Hong Kong.

Hunger. 

“RUN!!!” Luz screamed this time, pushing her friend ahead of her. They both took off at a reckless sprint, their way barely being lit by their witchlight. 

They didn’t dare look behind them, for the sounds that they heard would haunt both of the girls' dreams for years to come. Instead they focused on running. 

Luz was desperately running through a list of warding spells that she knew, but the downside with every single one was that they took time to set up. Luz saw those grasping hands beside her in her peripheral vision. 

She cursed before pumping as much magical energy through her body as she felt she could risk. The sound of her claws striking the floor became audible, but she pushed it out of her mind and scooped up her friend. 

Amity let out a shriek in surprise but Luz didn’t let her make any objections as she took off at a dead sprint through the tunnel. There were several close calls that she just barely avoided, both with rocks in her way and those painted hands that emanated from the creature. 

She knew she couldn’t keep this speed up for long, as augmenting her body for this long at this rate would have severe consequences if she wasn’t careful. 

She needed to think of something and fast if she wanted any hope of her and Amity getting out of here alive. 

Her decision was made for her though as she rounded a corner and slammed into a pile of rocks. She shielded Amity with her body as best she could at the last second. She wasn’t too concerned about her injuries as the amount of magic within her would heal almost anything in minutes.

She turned to see the monstrosity rounding the same corner they did, grasping hands and pale eyes reaching towards her. 

She couldn’t look at the thing any longer without wanting to throw up, so she channeled as much magic as she physically could from the world around her before slamming her hands into the ground and pouring it all out. 

She poured as much of her magic and herself into the rock around her until she could feel something within her mutate and warp. She didn’t have time to think about it though as a wall caved in on the creature. It was thankfully thick enough that they couldn’t hear whatever sounds it was undoubtedly making. 

She conjured another ball of witchlight, illuminating the now sealed room in the cave. The light revealed a surprising amount of frost creeping down the walls of the room. 

“Weird.” She said, getting closer to the walls in order to inspect the frost. As soon as she got near, the frost in her section melted. She stepped back and watched it regrow. She moved in several different directions, watching how the frost responded to her movements. 

She was broken out of her experiments by a weak, “Luzzz.” She spun around to see where her friend was shivering in the middle of the room, clearly trying to stay away from the frost. 

Luz bit back a curse before pulling Amity into a hug, her claws pressing deep into her friend's side. 

Amity’s shivering slowly stopped as she was warmed by the magic radiating off of her body, although her face stayed red. 

“Hey are you okay?” Luz whispered. All Amity did was nod and bury her head into Luz’s shoulder. Luz focused on keeping her friend warm.

The frost eventually crept down the wall and across the floor, only stopping a few paces away from them where it kept melting from the heat radiating off of her. 

“What was that?” Luz asked, more to herself than to Amity. 

Regardless, her friend answered, “It’s called the Flesh. The story says that there was once a gleaming city made of crystal at the top of the Knee.” Luz recalled the ruins that she had seen dotted around their campsite and wondered if they were from this crystal city. 

“The people who lived there were supposed to have the strongest magic across the land, and that they were ruled by a King, a powerful demon who could Fleshbend the Titan itself. The city was under constant peril though, as a strange beast had begun to attack them in the night, slowly killing off the King’s subjects. 

One day an Old Man came upon the city and claimed that he alone could defeat the beast that was plaguing them. 

A lot of the myths diverge here, with some saying that the King, blinded by his own arrogance, turned the Old Man away and doomed his city to destruction. Other stories say that the Old Man demanded that the King bow before him and declare him the rightful ruler of the Titan. Another version says that the King could sense a darkness in the Old Man’s bile, and tried to kill the Old Man on the spot. 

All the stories end with the Old Man being the one to release the Flesh on the Kingdom though, which leads to its eventual destruction.”

The two of them sat in silence with Luz’s arms wrapped around Amity in an attempt to provide her friend some comfort and warmth. The story left her with more questions than answers but she resolved to get to the library as soon as she could to do some research. Just thinking about that made her feel queasy. She couldn’t quite remember what it looked like anymore. 

“Can I ask you a question, Amity?” She could feel her friend tense under her arms but she thankfully didn’t move away. A small nod was all that Amity gave. 

“I’ve never seen you care about how others think of you, at least in the same way Boscha does. So why do you really hide your vampirism?” Silence followed her question for so long Luz was beginning to worry that she had destroyed what friendship the two of them had. 

“Because it reminds me of my Mother.” Amity’s voice was small and quiet as if she were trying to hide herself in the silence of the cave. Or maybe she was trying to pretend that 

“I’m the only full blood vampire in my family besides her, so she always spent her time training me and pushing me and trying to mold me into the daughter she wants. Vampires aren’t the most accepted demon class in the Empire, largely because our ancestors used to hunt witches and other demons for their spell phlegm. We’re feared and pushed away because of what we represent and what we do.” Silence followed her answer as Luz tried to process what her friend told her. 

No matter how much she learned about her new home, there was always something she didn’t quite understand in a way her friends did. 

“And you’re not able to produce your own?” Amity shook her head, somehow burying herself even deeper into Luz’s robes and her own coats. 

“The hunting and attacking of witches and demons is also illegal,” Amity said. Luz doubted that stopped most vampires, especially one like Amity’s Mother. 

“So if you can’t hunt, how do you get enough phlegm to cast spells?”

“There are phlegm banks where witches and demons can donate some of their phlegm. It’s not a very popular thing to do though. Most vampires aren’t able to afford visiting these banks though.” 

And as such they have to resort to hunting witches and demons , Luz thought to herself. She added these phlegm banks to her running list of things to research. Maybe there was something that the Order could do to help out in that area. 

“Tell me about yourself,” Amity asked in a quiet voice. Luz was more than happy to change the conversation if it made her feel better. 

Luz filled the time by explaining geography and the areas she grew up in. She didn’t say anything about her Dad though, hoping to skip that uncomfortable conversation. She did talk about her training with her Maestro, of all the places she’s been to her world and the funny pranks she and Robin used to play on the other Children of the Sanctums.

“Does every human practice magic?” Amity asked. She seemed to be doing a lot better now that they had some time to decompress and for her to warm back up. 

Luz shook her head, “Most people avoid it as much as possible for different reasons. The kind of magic that humans can do is extremely mutative.” Amity cocked her head in confusion in an animal-like way that Luz found a enduring. Even so, she wanted to avoid this conversation. She may have accepted the transformation but that didn’t mean she was ready to talk about it. 

“I’ll explain another time,” She said. She stood up and brushed some of the dust off of her robes. “Right now we should probably think of a way out of here.” She could feel herself getting more and more tired from a combination of the fire spell, the chase, and her attempts to keep the two of them warm deep within the Knee. 

She held her hand out for Amity to grab and pulled her up. The two looked around the room they were in. It was illuminated by their witchlight and formed a D shape, with the structure she had conjured forming the back of the letter. 

They hadn’t run out of air yet, she thought to herself, which meant that there were some cracks in the rock that ran to the surface outside. “We might be close to the surface,” she said, running her hand across the curved wall. 

It was smooth, meaning it was likely made from magic instead of a natural cave in, although she wasn’t thinking the geology of the Boiling Isles operated like anything back home. Yet another thing to add to her research list.

“Do you think Ed and Em could hear us if we shouted?” 

Luz shook her head, “They’d have to be in the right place at the right time for that to work. There’s just too much up to chance with that.”

“So what do you suggest?” Amity snarkily replied. Luz cocked an eyebrow at her friend, causing her to blush. 

“Sorry,” Amity said. 

“It’s alright,” Luz said as she sat crisscrossed on the ground. “I know of a way to contact Eda and maybe your siblings, but it’s going to take a lot of energy out of me and I won’t be able to keep us warm.”

Amity looked apprehensive but nodded and sat down next to her. “I’ll be fine for a little bit, the cold doesn’t do much but slow me down.” Luz doubted that was completely true but she didn’t want to waste any more time. 

“Alright,” she said, “Here goes nothing.” Luz closed her eyes and ran through her breathing exercises. 

She focused on the cold ground beneath her, Amity’s hand resting on her shoulder, how the witchlight felt on her face. She guided her magic along her body, feeling the temperature drop as she did so. She pushed through it though and felt herself disconnect from her body. 

Her Maestro had made her rigorously practice astral projection after her first night here. That practice was coming in handy now. She willed herself to float up and turn around so she could look at Amity and her body. 

Her friend was crouched next to her, holding her now slumped body in her arms. The sight of it sent a small thrill through her stomach. She was about to fly away when she noticed something else about the room. 

It was the frost that had been trying to fill the room this whole time. The frost made a pattern in the rock around her. She must not have noticed it while trying to keep them both warm earlier, but it looked similar to the light glyph that she had rediscovered a few weeks back. She wished she could spend more time looking at it and maybe actually try using it, but she had a job to do. So instead she memorized it as best as she could and took off through the rock. 

She surfaced not too far from their campsite actually which was a surprise. She floated towards camp where both of the Blight siblings were throwing things together into a backpack. She noticed food and water, some rope, and a couple things that looked similar to the crossbow Eda had given her on her first day of school. They must’ve realized that they were missing. 

She split the barrier of the Astral Dimension and stuck her head out causing Edric to scream in surprise. Emira came running at the noise and skidded to a stop when she saw her. 

“Luz what’s going on?! What are you doing?” Emira asked. Edric was busy trying to slow his breathing down. She did feel a little bad for scaring the dude. 

“I don’t have much time to explain, but Amity and I fell down into an old vein.”

Edric, now recomposed, nodded. “We found the entrance, we were just getting some stuff together before going in after you guys.”

Luz was already shaking her head. “Don’t. There’s something else down here with us. Amity thinks it's the Flesh.”

Edric and Emira scoffed. “The Flesh is just an old myth,” Emira said. 

“Well we didn’t just run from nothing!” Luz said. She was starting to get frustrated as she was going to crash soon. “Listen, I’m going to get Eda and then you guys can come down here to get us. Until then don’t go anywhere!”

She didn’t wait for their answer as she closed the break and sped off towards Bonesburrough. Thankfully there was no upper speed limit to how fast you can travel while astral projecting, so she got to Eda’s stand within minutes. 

She slipped into the familiar purple tent and broke through the dimensional barrier again. “Eda!” She whisper-yelled. She had seen the witch haggling with a customer but hopefully she could grab her attention. 

“Eda!” She said, this time much louder. After a few grueling seconds her mentor lifted the flap of the tent and nearly walked right into her. 

“Luz!” She said in surprise. “What’s going on?!”

“I don’t have much time to explain! Amity and I ended up falling into an old vein on the Knee! There’s something in here with us too. It chased us for a little while before I was able to block off a section of the vein for us to hide in. Amity thinks it's the Flesh! The twins are trying to come down here to find us though! I need you to go with them. This thing is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.” That wasn’t technically true but now was absolutely not the time to get into it.

Eda nodded, immediately casting a spell circle to lock everything up. “I’m on my way kiddo, just hang tight, okay?” 

Luz nodded. She could really feel the drain on her energy now. “I’ve got to go, I can’t keep this up much longer. Hurry!” Her mentor allerted, Luz closed the barrier and let herself be dragged back into her body. 

She landed back in the cave with a start. Amity’s face appeared over her own. She remembered that her friend had been holding her body before she left. “Did you do it?” 

Luz nodded as she struggled to keep her eyes open any longer. Her fur itched as her soul settled back into her body. 

She wrapped her arms around Amity’s waist and closed her eyes, finally letting herself fall asleep.

Chapter Text

25th of December, 2018

27th of Maha, 1000

Luz awoke to the soft sounds of beeping, the bright lights above her forcing her to close her eyes again. 

“Mija, are you awake?” Her Mama’s voice came from somewhere above her. She gave a small nod, before regretting that as a spike of pain shot through her head. She opened her mouth to say something but felt her Mama’s finger on her lips. 

“Don’t say anything cariño, Mr. Strange will be here shortly.” Luz stopped herself from nodding just in time and instead resolved to try to figure out where she was. 

Juding from the consistent beeping above her and the bright lights in the room, she was in some sort of hospitals. It was probably one of the Order’s hospitals if her Maestro was here. Standard hospitals new better than to let him in. 

It wasn’t long before she felt the lights turn off and a “Hello Ms. Noceda.” Luz weakly waved hello. 

She could hear her Maestro huff in amusement before stepping closer to her. “Try not to do much. You were severely starved and dehydrated by the time Ms. Clawthorne was able to remove the wall you conjured. We’ve had you on an IV drip this whole time.”

“How long?” She croaked out. Her throat was so dry that the act of breathing was painful let alone speaking.

“Seven days,” Maestro said. She could hear him fidgeting with the machines above her. 

She counted the days out in her head and felt her stomach drop when she realized what today was. She cracked her eyes open, thankfully to darkness, and looked towards her Mama.  “Feliz Navidad,” she mouthed. Her Mom had tears in her eyes as she reached forward and cupped her face. 

“Feliz Navidad cariño.” She pressed a soft kiss to her face and looked at her Maestro. Luz followed her gaze and smiled as she watched him continue to mess with the machines above her. She knew that a lot of people considered him cold, especially in the Order, but he really wasn’t. He just cared about people in his own way. Even if he didn’t know how to appropriately express it. She was like that sometimes when overwhelmed. 

“When can she come home?” Her Mama asked. 

Pretending to be satisfied with what he had been doing, he looked to her Mama. “I’d like to keep her here overnight to keep an eye on her vitals and then discharge her tomorrow.” Her Mama nodded, seemingly satisfied. 

“Are you okay if I run home really quick cariño?” She wanted to tell her Mama not to worry about her, that she’ll be fine but all she could do was nod. 

“Okay,” her Mama said standing up. “I’ll grab some fresh clothes for you for tomorrow and gather all the things your friends sent. Eda and King have been staying at our place, so I’ll let them know that you’re coming home tomorrow.” Her Mama was more talking to herself than she was Luz, so she just sat back and watched her Mama dart around the hospital room. 

Luz recognized a few of the things scattered about; Eda's favorite blanket, some of King’s drawings, there was a stack of ‘Get Well Soon’ cards sitting on the table next to her. She recognized Willow’s handwriting on the card on top. 

“I’ll be back real soon okay Mija?” Luz nodded as her Mama pressed a kiss to her forehead and practically ran out of the room. 

It was silent save for continuous beeping of the machines. “I wish to ask you a few questions about what happened, do you feel up to writing?” Luz nodded. Her Maestro nodded and popped out to grab some writing supplies. 

He came back and handed her the clipboard with some paper and a pencil and sat in the chair her Mama just left.

Question for a question? Luz wrote on the paper. Her Maestro nodded. “Usual rules?” Luz gave a thumbs up. 

“Tell me about this creature.” 

It was unnatural, like it was missing certain dimensions. It reminded me of Hong Kong.  

“Elaborate please.”

Its proportions were always in flux, and it seemed to have some sort of appendage that I couldn’t completely comprehend. I don’t remember it very well; Luz wrote with a frown. I think my memory of it is degrading.  

“If you remember, the same thing happened after Hong Kong. Such degradation is common when dealing with these kinds of beasts, so I’m not overly concerned. How did you stop it?”

Amity and I were chased into a dead end, and I have to wonder if it was herding us towards there. I was able to conjure a wall between us and it.  

“How’d you do that?” 

Luz shrugged. I had a lot of energy in me at the time and all I remember is reaching towards the rock and willing it shut. Why?

“Mrs. Clawthorne returned to the site a few days ago and had some peculiar reactions to your chosen mode of defense. I was just curious as to what you did.” She apologetically shrugged. 

Her Maestro waved it off. “It’s not a big deal right now but I would like you to follow up with her when you get the chance. Is there anything else you’d like to say?”

A new glyph. She drew it out really quick. Might not be completely correct but the frost in the cave formed this symbol. It feels and looks similar to the light glyph from before.  

Her Maestro nodded and stood up. “Follow up with Ms. Clawthrone about that too, I expect a detailed essay on everything you find about it, understood?” Luz nodded. 

“Good. I’ll leave you to get some rest for now before your mother comes.” He was out of the room before she could fully wave goodbye to him. 

The next few days were a blur. King hadn’t left her alone since she got back from the hospital, constantly curling up on her lap whenever she sat down. Eda was no better as she’d usually pull both her and King onto her lap and comb her fingers through her hair. 

Her Mama and Vee were a bit better, although they both constantly checked up on her. She did catch her Mama taking a few photos every now and then when the occupants of the Owl House forced her to cuddle with them. 

She didn’t want to think of how clingy Hooty was going to be. 

Her Maestro wanted her to stay on Earth for about another week before returning to the Boiling Isles. The few times he had come by, he always brought Christine to act as a buffer to all the people that we're in their house. 

It was nice to see everyone, and a little weird to see her Mama and Eda acting so familiar with each other, but by day three of this she was going mad from all the attention and coddling and was ready to blow up. 

Thankfully she was able to slip away a few times as her Mama started catching on to her frustrations and began distracting Eda and King. 

It gave her a few quiet moments to read the cards her friends had sent her. Both Willow and Gus had sent something, both demanding to see her again as soon as she was back on their side of the portal. 

She was surprised but touched to see something from each of the Blight siblings. She picked up the card with Amity's handwriting and-

She jumped when she heard a knock on the door. “Who is it?” 

“It’s me, Witchlet. Can I come in?” Luz took a deep breath and prepared herself to be smothered in hugs. “Yeah sure!” Luz called back.

Eda opened the door and slipped in, careful not to make too much sound. She was holding a little brown bag in her hands. She walked over and held out the bag to her. 

“Camilla explained to me what Christ-mas was. And also, that you had missed it while recovering.” That wasn’t technically true, and Eda knew that. A day or two after she had come home, her, her Mama, and Vee all had a little celebration and exchanged some gifts. Eda had been busy distracting King so they could all have their time together. 

Luz was just glad she didn’t wait for the last moment to get her presents like she did last year.

Pushing her thoughts to the side she reached into the bag and pulled out a book. It was like nothing she’d ever seen before. The cover was black with the mandala for her shield spell embossed on the front in orange. The texture of the cover felt like something between leather and scales. 

Luz opened the pages to find all but the back few one's blank. The ones that did have stuff on it had so many interconnecting symbols, all softly glowing with their own unique colors that she couldn’t make heads or tails of them. 

“I made it myself for you. I’ve seen you carrying around and taking notes in your journal and I figured it’s probably starting to get full.” She had actually already had to replace her journal twice with how many notes she was taking but she wasn’t going to tell Eda that. 

Her mentor pointed towards some of the symbols, “These will allow you to take as many notes as you want without losing room.” Luz scrunched her eyes in confusion, and she caught Eda rolling hers with a smile on her face. “You can write as much as you want in there and the pages will never run out. It’s a tricky enchantment though so let me know when this start degrading so I can touch them up for you.”

Luz dove forward off of her chair and wrapped Eda in a hug. “Thank you,” she whispered. Any louder and she was afraid her mentor would realize she was crying. 

Happy tears of course. 

“Merry Christ-mas Witchlet.” Luz snorted at Eda’s attempt to pronounce Christmas. The two of them made no move to let go of the other. 

~-~

23rd of January, 2019 

28th of Laguna, 1000

Luz followed behind Eda at the market; a stand filled with old books catching her eye. “Come on Witchlet,” Eda's hand weighed on her shoulder as she tried to steer her away from the stand. Reluctantly she let herself be dragged away from the stand, all to the disappointment of the demon behind the counter. 

“What exactly are we here for again?” She asked. 

“Tomorrow’s the Feast of Renewal, and I need to get some seeds.” Edas explanation devolved into mutterings as she looked at the stands around them. 

Luz looked to King for an answer. “It’s the only day that’s not on the Calendar,” he said, jumping from Eda’s hair to her shoulder. “We have all the stuff for the actual feast tomorrow, but Mom always likes to plant some seeds on this day.” 

“Why?” She asked but King just shrugged. She’d have to ask Willow about it at some point and just contented herself to follow behind her mentor. 

She had spent the last month recovering from her adventures on the Knee. Her Maestro hadn’t let her return to the Boiling Isles until after the New Years, so she had spent a lot of time reassuring her friends that she actually was okay. 

Her and Eda had also spent a significant amount of time working on the new glyph she had found. It was some sort of ice glyph and functioned much the same way as the light glyph had. They had been able to add some more symbols to it though to create different structures, such as pillars and platforms, but she was starting to think that had more to do with the intent behind the glyph than the actual symbol itself.  

She had been wondering for the past few days if it was possible to combine the two glyphs to make an additional effect. So far, she hadn’t had any results but-  “Hey kid you good?” Eda’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts as she looked up. They were in a completely different part of the market, and Eda was getting ready to hop on Owlbert. 

“Yeah! Sorry, I was just thinking about the new glyph.” She said as she got on behind her mentor. Eda pushed off the ground and began the flight back home. 

“You need to think of something else; we’ve been working on that glyph for the past week.” Luz rolled her eyes and stayed silent. 

The flight back was peaceful, the most peaceful it had ever been since she had first come to the Isles. 

She remembered how she felt on that first flight. How terrified she was of falling, of the strange animals and plants that whipped by below her. Now when she looked around all she felt was a sense of home.

They landed in front of Hooty, King immediately running off, so he didn’t have to help Eda with the chores. Luz herself tried to book it for her gym so she could work on her alchemy before Eda grabbed her shoulder. 

“Hey Witchlet, can we talk?” Luz sighed and nodded. Eda fidgeted with her hands, picking at the ends of her dress before taking a deep breath and committing to what she wanted to say.

“Are you okay? You’ve just been a little off since what happened on the Knee.” This wasn’t the first time Eda had asked her this since she got back to the Isles. Usually, Luz just made up some excuse to get out of answering but she couldn’t bring herself to do so again. 

Luz slowly nodded, “I think I am. It’s just-” Eda crouched down on the grass, her knees cratering the red blades.

“Just what Witchlet?” 

The memories that she had been trying to ignore ran through her mind. Memories of her and Robin standing in the Hong Kong Sanctum. Her pleading for Robin to stay awake, to not leave her like her Dad did. The pool of blood that sunk into the dark wood around them gave her her answer she just didn't want to listen to it.

She remembered looking up, covered in her friend's blood and meeting Its eyes. The hunger that had been within had been the same hunger she had seen in the Flesh. The same hunger that had plagued her nightmares for years afterwards.

“I was so scared,” she whispered. Tears marched down her face as her knees buckled and collapsed. Eda easily caught her and pulled her into her lap. 

“I was so scared it would happen again, that I wouldn’t be enough.” She clutched her mentor's dress. 

“But you were enough,” Eda softly cooed. “Do you want to talk about what happened?” Luz thought for a second before shaking her head. She wasn't ready. She didn't know if she'd ever be ready to talk about it. 

“Okay,” Eda said. She could feel her shifting her legs under her body. She ran her fingers through Luz’s hair. “It’ll be okay my little Witchlet. I’m here for you if you ever want to talk, or scream, or punch something. And hey, look at me.”

Luz shifted and looked up at her mentor, at the woman who had been caring for her for months now. The woman who had become like a second mom to her. All she saw in Eda’s eyes was love and support. She felt Eda’s strong arms wrap around her just a little bit tighter. 

“You are one of the strongest people I’ve had the joy of knowing Luz Noceda. I love you.” The sincerity with which Eda said that caused Luz to burst out into tears. She pulled herself up so she could give Eda a proper hug. 

“Thank you.”

Chapter Text

1st of February, 2019

8th of Hatria, 1001

“Amity!” The witch in question turned to see Luz sprinting to catch up to her. She rolled her eyes. 

“You’re going to actually be late one of these days,” She said. Her abomination grabbed Luz’s books and added it to her own pile. 

“Nah,” Luz said, sporting the grin that made Amity’s stomach tie itself into knots. “I’ve got my sling ring, I’ll just portal to class if I’m late.” Amity glanced at the ring hanging from her friend's neck. She had had to get a new one after their trip to the Knee, something she still felt bad about. 

“Why were you almost late this time?” Amity said. Her abomination shrunk, a third arm sprouting from its midriff in order to hold both of their books and the door open for the two girls. She was really proud of how well her abominations were responding to her mental commands recently. 

They both sat at their desks in the back of the room, Luz sorting through her books and notes while Amity recalled her abomination and made sure her storage flask was sealed. 

“I wasn’t feeling too good earlier, so I stopped back at home to grab some meds.” Amity had heard about the last time Luz had gone to the school's healing witch. Rumor around the school said that Luz had done something that nearly made the nurse want to quit, and it was only Principal Bump that talked them down from doing so. From then on, she had never heard of Luz going back to the schools nurse's office. 

Amity pulled herself out of her thoughts. They had a few minutes before Mr. Butler, the teacher for AbomoChem II started class. 

Now that Luz had said something she did look a little off. Her movements were slightly jerky and her usually dark skin was a couple shades lighter and beaded with sweat in certain spots. 

“You don’t have first period photography right?” Amity asked. There had been an announcement over the speakers that everyone from that class had to report to the nurses office. 

Luz scrunched up her face, “Yeah, I have it with Willow, why do you ask?” Panic filled Amity’s chest like an overfilled cauldron. She shot out of her seat, “Mr. Butler I'll be back! I have to take Luz to the nurse's office!”

She ignored the indignant “Hey!” from her friend and said, “She was in first period photography.” 

“Go, I’ll phone ahead,” Mr. Butler said, reaching for the crow phone mounted against the wall. 

Amity grabbed Luz arm and forcefully pulled her friend outside of the classroom. “Amity what’s going on?!” Luz said. It was clear that she was trying to slow them down but didn’t quite expect how strong Amity was. Amity just hoped her friend didn’t try anything to do with her sorcery as she wasn’t sure how she would stop that. 

“Honestly, I’ve got no clue but the I heard that the ventilation runes in the potions classroom under the photo room failed. All I do know is that Bump asked for everyone in that class to go to the nurses.” Amity looked back. Luz’s skin was now off white, and her hand felt clammy like she was burning up. 

“You’re not looking so good Luz,” Her voice cracked at the thought of something happening to her friend. Luz was silent the rest of the way to the nurse's office. Amity was just thankful that there weren’t too many people walking about now that classes had actually started. 

She pushed her way into the nurse's office and froze. It was chaotic. Coven officials were mixed with panicked parents and sick students. She spotted Willow off to the side in between her dads. 

Her Mother's pendant hummed against her skin as she thought about her old friend. 

“Ms. Blight. Ms. Noceda. Please come with me.” Principal Bump appeared by her side and directed the two of them out of the nurses office. 

Willow must’ve seen them right before they left because she heard a loud “Luz!” before the door shut.

Bump led them down a few more halls until they were in his own office. “Due to Ms. Noceda’s living situation, I feel it’s best to treat her here, away from Coven officials. Ms. Blight thank you for bringing her in, but you can return to class now.”

Amity chewed her lip as she looked at her friend. Luz was swaying in place, her grip on her arm almost painful. Her face was vacant and empty and her eyes stared straight ahead. Just as she was about to say something the door burst open; both Willow and the Owl Lady came into the room. Amity could see Willow’s parents right behind them before the Owl Lady shut the door. 

The Owl Lady dashed to Luz’s side, orange light filling the space where she used to be. 

Golden spell circles spun from her hands, enveloping Luz like a blanket. After a second they dissolved, leaving behind a series of runes that Amity had no idea how to read. 

The Owl Lady pinched her nose and looked at Bump. “Tell me what happened,” she said in a deathly low voice. Amity slowly moved out of her way, ending up next to Willow. She did her best not to look at or think about her old friend but her Mothers pendant was vibrating like crazy. 

Bump glanced at her necklace, his face pinching in annoyance and frustration. It wouldn’t have been the first time she had caught the principal staring at her necklace like that. The Owl Lady pointed her staff at her. She felt the weight of the necklace come off of her shoulders as a spike of panic shot through her. 

“Wait! She knows when I take it off,” Amity's voice was thick with fear and worry. 

All the Owl Lady said was, “I have forgotten more about magic than Odalia has ever learned.” The necklace ended up in the Owl Lady’s hands, encased in a soft lattice of golden spell circles. 

Despite what the necklace was for, she felt naked without it on her. She still couldn’t bring herself to look at Willow.

During all this Luz just stood there, swaying in a nonexistent breeze. 

“The ventilation wards in the potions room below the photo classroom were tampered with. The fumes interacted with the memory photos that the class was doing that day. It’s caused some alteration to many of the students but we’ve been able to reverse pretty much all of the damages caused. I don’t know why Ms. Noceda is having as severe a reaction as she is.” Principal Bump's voice was strong and even, almost like he rehearsed for a situation like this everyday.

The Owl Lady turned to them. “Which one of you had photo class with her?” Willow raised her hand. “What kind of memories was she using for this?”

Amity could feel Willow shrug right next to her. She hadn’t been this close to her friend in years.  “There was a few memory photos about her Mom and Vee, some about her teacher-”

“Was there one about Hong Kong?” The Owl Lady cracked. Panic was written over the woman's face.  It was clear to Amity that she was searching for some sort of information. 

Amity glanced at Willow and couldn’t help but smile. It had been so long since she had been able to just look at her friend without her Mothers influence. Willow must’ve caught her looking because she gave her a weird look, like she had smelled something nasty. 

“I think so? There was one photo she was really secretive about and didn’t want to show me.”

“Fuck!” The Owl Lady swore as she swooped back to Luz. The sorceress was just standing there, although her shaking had gotten a lot more violent. 

“What happened in Hong Kong?” Amity asked. 

“I don’t know. She’s never been able to tell me.”

“Do you think that could be contributing to her elevated reaction?” Professor Bump said. He had gotten up from behind his desk and was casting his own spells on Luz. His abomination coven sigil shimmered in the purple light of his healing spells. 

“I know it is,” The Owl Lady said, her staff drawing out a larger circle around Luz. “I’m going to need your office for a highly illegal spell Bumpy,” The Owl Lady said, her voice tight despite how cheerful she tried to seem. 

Bump nodded. “I will ensure that the Coven officials stay far from here.” He wasted no time in locking up the room, leaving her and Willow alone with one of the most notorious criminals in the entire empire. 

Willow wasted no time, “What can I do to help?” 

“You and Bossy Boots will have to go into her mind to try and put her back in control. She’s probably caught in the midst of a nightmare while her memories are being smoked out one by one so she can’t do it herself.”

“What?!?” Willow practically yelled. “I’m not bringing her into Luz’s mind!” While the attack hurt it did little to deter Amity. 

“I’ll do it,” she said, stepping forward. She owed that much to Luz for saving her on the Knee. 

“Then stay still!” The Owl Lady said, pushing her and Willow back where they were standing. The ground was covered in golden spell circles, connecting her and Willow to Luz with a large spell circle on the opposite side of her friend. 

The Owl Lady sat in that circle, her staff drawn across her lap. “In you guys go,” She said. She struck the butt of her staff on the floor and the sound of bells and gongs reverberated through the office.

Her surroundings warped and twisted, the stonework of Principal Bump's office literally melting away to reveal dark wood floors and walls. 

They were in some sort of atrium, with a large set of stars directly in front of her. 

“Come on,” Willow bit out, stomping off up the stairs. Amity instead spun in place, trying to get a sense of where they were.

Failing to do so she asked, “Where are we?” She nearly ran right into Willow who was stopped in front of Luz. Or at least some version of her friend. 

This Luz was covered in coarse black fur and had sharp talons along her hands and feet. Her eyes were pure black except for the gold irises shining in the center. Tiny ivory horns peaked out of her curls. 

“Luz? Are you okay?” As Amity asked that, the building they were in shook and twisted, sections of it evaporating away into smoke. She did her best to avoid looking through the holes or at the tiny eyes that looked back at them.

Luz shrugged. “I'm not doing okay.” The place shook again but this time Luz’s form twisted and bent, bones and fur snapping and twisting. Her mouth opened in a silent scream, showing rows upon rows of needle-like teeth leading down her throat. 

Amity and Willow backed up in horror as they watched their friend’s body be pulled apart. Then the shaking stopped like it had never been there. The holes in the walls were gone and Luz looked normal. Well normal-ish, Amity thought to herself. She didn’t know when her friend got fur, claws, and horns, but she certainly wasn’t complaining. 

“Luz, what’s going on?!?” Willow asked. 

Their friend looked around. “Honestly? I think I’m dying. My memories are being corrupted. Unfortunately this means a lot of my psychic protections are being corrupted too so I can’t offer much help. It’s taking everything I have to appear before you both.”

“What do we have to do?” Amity said, stepping forward. Luz smiled at her, sending her stomach into a series of summer salts. 

“There’s my girl.” Amity couldn’t help but blush at being called Luz’s girl. “See what you can do about repairing the memories you come across and I’ll do my best to direct you to my psychic defenses so we can all work on that.”

“How do we fix your memories?” Willow asked. It was a fair question, as it’s not like either of them had any experience doing something like this. Without Luz saying anything though the hallway they were in twisted and expanded until they found themselves in the middle of a massive library. 

Most of the books looked fine, but some were bound in glowing green thread. A few of those books were billowing smoke. “Most of my memories are fine, but those books with the glowing thread represent my psychic defenses. You have to fix those.” 

Amity turned to say something to Luz but couldn’t find her. “Willow! Where’d she go?!?” They both spun around looking for their friend with no luck. After several minutes, and the entire building shaking again, they finally walked up to the bookshelves. 

Amity found herself among an area labeled with CHILDHOOD in big bold letters. There were a few books smoking in this area. She was about to reach for one just as Willow called her over. 

She found her former friend standing in front of a much larger bookshelf labeled BOILING ISLES . A few of the books in here were bound in that green thread. One of them was smoking. 

“Did she say anything about how we’re supposed to fix her memories?” Willow asked. Her voice was tight and her fists were balled at her side.

“No,” Amity said, shaking her head. “I don’t think she was able to hold on long enough to tell us how.” 

Willow raised her hand and reached for the book. She stopped. “Here goes nothing,” she said, grabbing the book off the shelf. 

Both Willow and her waited, expecting some loud crash or maybe some bells to sound. Instead nothing happened. 

“Maybe we have to open it?” Amity suggested. Willow did just that and their surroundings warped and changed again. 

Instead of the library that contained Luz’s memories, they were on the Knee. Amity recognized their campsite from a month or so ago. “Hey! This is when Luz and I went to the Knee!”

Willow shot her a look, “When’d you guys do that?” 

“Back during break,” Amity walked forward. Smoke billowed out of all their supplies; the tent had practically collapsed in on itself and the grill was slowly dissolving away. She quickly set the grill back up, Willow’s eyes on her the whole time. 

As soon as the grill looked how it should it stopped dissolving into smoke. “I think we just have to put everything back as it should be,” Amity said. 

She was making her way to the tent to work on that when Willow blurted out, “Why?”

Amity froze. 

“Why did you throw me aside?”

“You know why Willow.” Amity’s voice shook with unshed tears. She turned back to look at Willow. The Plant Witch was standing in the snow, vines somehow creeping out of the fluff and climbing up her legs. 

“Mother didn’t like the fact that I had my own friend instead of the ones she gave me. I had to be her perfect daughter.”

“Couldn’t you have tried?” Tears struck the snow like stars falling from the sky. “I had no one after you pushed me away. I hated you for so long, Amity. I hated you for not trying harder.”

A twisted laugh burst out of Amity, closely followed by her own barrage of tears. “I tried so hard, Willow. I hate myself for what I did to you, for how I let my Mother control me.”

Amity struggled to breath, emotions warring within her. A soft breeze filled with the scent of campfire smoke curled past her, as if encouraging her. “I tried to run away.” Amity admitted. 

Willow stepped back in shock. 

“It didn’t matter, because I wasn’t able to make it to your house before Mothers spirit found me. After that she ‘gave’ me my necklace. It allowed her to always read my thoughts, to know where I was,” at this point Amity couldn’t stop. Everything her Mother had done to her came tumbling out, encouraged by the wind. 

“As long as I wore that necklace, she could control every part of my life. She made sure we could never be friends again so long as I have that necklace.”

Silence filled the grove. 

“I’m sorry Amity. I didn’t know.” Amity wiped the tears from her eyes. 

“It’s okay, really,” She tried to reassure Willow, although it wasn’t very successful judging by the emotions at war on her friend's face. 

The wind picked up, blowing snow around them both. Amity snorted. “I think that’s Luz’s way of telling us to get back to work. Come on.” She turned and got started on the tent, not waiting for Willow’s response. 

It took a few minutes but eventually she was right next to her helping her put things back together. They worked in a companionable silence but Amity didn’t let that fool her. She had a lot of work to do before Willow could forgive her. 

As soon as the two girls finished putting the campsite together the world warped and twisted. Amity nearly ran into a version of herself, who was running from Luz. 

She remembered the snowball fight they’d had after dinner their first night. She smiled as she watched Luz laugh and throw a snowball at her. The twins then dropped from the tree and began pelting the human. 

Luz was covered head to toe in snow and all of them burst out laughing. 

The world shifted again, and then they were back in the library. The book they were just in was no longer smoking. 

Amity looked at Willow and held her hand out. “Help me help Luz?” Amity was worried for a second that Willow wouldn’t grab her hand, her blank face revealing nothing of her emotions. 

Then Willow grinned and grasped her hand and Amity was all at once reminded of the forts they’d built on the beach, or running through the forest together looking at all the plants and animals. 

“For Luz.” Willow said. It wasn’t forgiveness, Amity doubted Willow would ever be able to forgive her, as she knew she’d never forgive herself. But it was a step in the right direction. 

The two spent the next hour, hopping from memory to memory, watching their friend’s life happen before their eyes.

Finally they stood before the last smoking book, in the darkest corner of Luz's mental library. As they had worked their way here, they had come across more and more of those books bound in glowing green thread. The ones Luz said were her psychic defenses, whatever that meant. 

“What do you think it is?” Amity asked. Neither girl had moved since they spotted the book sitting innocently on the shelves. 

“Only one way to find out,” Willow said, grabbing and opening the book. The library melted away to reveal similar dark wood floors and walls. Fancy tapestries and paintings hung on the walls here. 

“Robin!” They heard a younger version of Luz shout. 

“Shhh Luz! You’re going to wake up one of the Masters!” A brown-haired kid, roughly around this version of Luz’s age, peaked out from behind a tapestry. 

“I wouldn’t have to shout if you’d slow down and wait for me!” Luz fisted the tapestry and pulled herself into what looked like a secret passage. Amity and Willow followed along. 

“Then maybe you should spend more time exercising,” Robin said. They were dressed in the same red robes the girls had seen throughout Luz's memories.

Luz rolled her eyes and lightly punched the other kid in the shoulder. “Ow!” Robin said, rubbing the area.

Luz walked down the hall, clearly proud of her ‘retort’. “How's that for exercising?” Robin just rolled their eyes and fell beside Luz. 

“What do you think it’s going to be like?” Luz asked. Robin shrugged. 

“No clue! All I know is we're going to be the first people to go through a portal!” Matching grins spread across Robin and Luz’s face. 

The two of them started jogging down the hall, forcing Amity and Willow to do the same. Finally, the two sorcerers to-be pushed through another tapestry and into a large room. 

Amity spun around trying to take it all in. It looked like a cross between her parents' company labs and her Dad’s private lab. She could tell that it had just been recently used too. 

“Woah,” Robin and Luz said at the same time. They giggled and walked towards some contraption in the middle of the room. 

It looked like a giant half circle, with symbols etched across every available surface. A few of them she recognized from her time studying with Luz but she didn’t know what any of them did. There were several machines and hoses connected to the half circle too. 

“How do we turn it on?” Robin asked. They had a stunned look on their face as they looked up at the half circle contraption as if they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Luz walked forward and just started flipping switches. 

“Wait Luz! What are you doing?” Worry filled Robin’s voice. 

“Relax!” Luz said, still turning thing’s on. An oppressive hum began to fill the space. “Dr. Strange talked about this recently in one of our classes!”

Light began dripping down from the edges of the half circle before falling towards the center. “Is it supposed to do that?” Robin pointed at the light. 

“Do you know what’s going to happen?” Amity whispered to Willow. 

The other witch shook her head. “Not a clue.”

Luz looked up from her switches and scrunched her face up. “I don’t know.” The light began dripping faster, swirling towards the center of the space. 

“Luz maybe we shouldn’t do this,” Robin backed up from the half circle fear clearly written on their face. 

“I’m sure it’s fine!” Luz walked over to where Robin was standing. Despite her attempts to reassure her friend, she looked uncertain herself. Before either kid could do anything the light solidified, forming a glowing portal. 

“Woah,” Both Luz and Robin whispered. Like wackrats to a light they found themselves pulled forward. 

Willow's arm gripped Amitys and she realized that she had also been walking forward, entranced by the portal. 

It was then that everything went wrong. 

The lab filled with the sound of alarms and sensors going off just as something crawled through the portal. 

Pale limbs grasped the edges of the half circle and pulled out something that Amity knew would visit her in her nightmares for a long time. Its proportions were all wrong, too symmetrical despite the chaotic nature of the it’s body. All the light in the room seemed to be pulled towards it as if it was slurping all the light through a straw.

Whatever it was, it opened its mouth and screamed, revealing long rows of needle-like teeth going down its throat. Amity could hear someone pounding against a door but couldn’t bring herself to look away. 

It moved forward with lurching steps, the sound of bone striking the ground reverberating through the room. Both Robin and Luz had screamed and dived out of the way of the thing. 

Luz was able to conjure a small shield spell, but it was clearly unstable from how much it was flickering. The thing ignored her though and lumbered towards Robin, who was desperately trying to conjure some spell and failing. 

Amity and Willow were rooted to the ground as they watched the thing touch Robin. Instantly it disappeared, almost as if it had never been there. 

The only evidence it had existed at all was Robin, who was thrashing on the ground screaming. The sound of bones cracking followed their screams. As soon as Luz recovered she dashed forward, appearing by her friend's side in a heartbeat. 

Amity covered her mouth to stop herself from puking as she watched the kids skin split and tear, eyes and mouths bursting forth from within Robin's body. Luz held her hands to one of those spots, fruitlessly trying to stop the bleeding. 

Blood and scratch marks covered Luz’s face and arms as an oppressiveness Amity hadn’t realized was there disappeared. 

The door burst open and several sorcerers ran into the room, one went to shut down the machine while another grabbed Luz and dragged her kicking and screaming away from Robin. 

Her friend was no more, their body turned into a poorly fitting outfit for whatever thing crawled out of the portal. Several sorcerers surrounded it, furiously casting spells. 

The memory cut off as Luz was dragged out of the room, and they found themselves back in the library. 

Amity collapsed to the floor, tears streaming down her face. She couldn’t bring herself to look away from the book in question, innocently sitting on the shelf as if it didn’t contain the worst memory she could imagine. 

Willow grabbed her shoulders, steadying her as the library melted away and returned to Principal Bumps office. 

As soon as the trip back was over Amity dropped to the ground and threw up. She could hear Willow next to her crying. 

Strong hands pulled her up by her shoulders when she finished puking. She looked up at the Owl Lady’s face and saw only compassion and concern looking back at her. Without thinking she lunged forward and wrapped her arms around the Owl Lady. She felt Willow move forward to do the same before they were dragged over to Luz. 

She was repositioned to make room for her crush and without thinking she immediately wrapped her arms around Luz, pulling her sleeping friend as close to her as possible. She could feel Willow on the other side of Luz, also curling up into their friend's side. 

The last thing Amity saw was massive wings wrapping around them all before she was hit with a sleep spell.