AN: I fell in love with the Owl House fandom almost as soon as I found it. I fell in love with the concept of the Cursed Luz AU soon after. Writing something like this was essentially inevitable.

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Camila was becoming unpleasantly accustomed to being greeted by a dark and empty house. As exasperating as her daughter could be, Luz had never failed to keep their home filled with life, especially when welcoming her mother home. Camila had lost count of how many times Luz had rub to meet her at the door, chattering happily about her latest wild idea, and somehow she hadn't realized how much she had been looking forward to it every night…

Until it was gone.

And now, as she found herself staring down the depths of a dark hallway after yet another long night, Camila found herself wishing, just a little, that she'd listened to that second thought about sending Luz to camp

'Don't go there, girl,' she told herself as she dropped her keys in the bowl, and wandered over to the kitchen. 'This'll be good for Luz, good for both of us. It'll teach her how to fit in, and stop making messes for everyone. Even if you miss her so very, very much…'

With no one else in the house, she was too tired to keep things neat, and settled for simply dropping her purse on the table, and kicking her shoes off against the wall. Dinner was just going to have to be leftovers again, because she was way too worn out to cook, and she had an early morning shift to look forward to-

The clatter of wood against wood might have passed unnoticed, if it hadn't also been accompanied by the tinkle of broken glass, and Camila found herself sighing in dismay.

This was a good neighborhood, so she wasn't worried about a break-in, but her daughter had always been an animal lover. Even when Camila had forbidden her from bringing back any more 'pets', the local critters had figured out very quickly that Luz was an endless source of snacks.

This wouldn't be the first time that one of them had come looking for her, so Camila sighed and grabbed a broom, before trudging over to shoo the intruder back outside. "Hola? Is anyone there?" she called as she walked through the hallway, before rolling her eyes at her own foolishness.

"What, were you expecting an answer?" she asked herself, only to flinch when she heard a muffled clatter from the living room. "That's…" a lot larger than she was expecting, she finished silently, as she began to wonder if she had made a mistake. She had been expecting a raccoon, or maybe a particularly irate fox, but that was too much noise for such a small animal.

*THUMP*

Camila jerked herself against the wall, heart racing in the darkness, weapon clenched in both hands. 'Just look around the corner,' she told herself as she reached the doorway. 'See what's making that noise, then grab a phone and call the police…' She held her breath as she peered inside, eyes hurriedly scanning the darkness, lit only by the light of the moon streaming in through the windows to gleam brightly off of the eyes staring right back at her.

It took her a long moment to register what she was seeing, her gaze locked onto those gleaming orbs as they stared straight back at her, peering into her soul…

It wasn't until she heard it launch itself towards her, claws scraping wetly across the wood floor, that the spell was broken and she turned to run.

"Oh god, oh god," Camila gasped as she fled, her socks threatening to lose traction with every step, forcing her to fight to keep her balance. She could see the kitchen door just ahead, salvation almost within reach, but she was barely halfway there and she couldn't go any faster…

Then she heard the creature leap, and felt it's paws catch her across the shoulders, bringing her down to the floor with a painful thump. She could feel it's breath across her back as it loomed over her, could almost hear its jaws panting wetly as it prepared to bite down and rip.

She fought, flailing wildly with panicked strength as she guarded her neck with one hand, and lashed out with the other. "Get off, get off!" She managed to struggle her way to one knee, still thrashing wildly, but that only lasted until it pinned her back to the ground with one massive claw.

The beast's quiet growls filled Camila's ears as it loomed closer, until she could feel the heat of its breath against her skin as it started snuffling her cheek. After a brief moment, she felt it's chest beginning to rumble as it leaned towards her, fangs glinting in the moonlight as it's mouth opened…

And it proceeded to croon at her, like a lonely puppy looking to be let in for the night.

It was such an unexpected sound that Camila found herself completely dumbstruck, especially when it was followed by the beast attempting to nuzzle her, its short muzzle shoving itself into the space between her shoulder and her neck. She certainly wasn't prepared for it to collapse on top of her, a body almost as big as she was smothering her beneath it's fuzzy bulk.

For a long moment, Camila was dumbstruck, her thoughts skipping like a broken record. Then she started giggling in relief, as she reached up to stroke the creature across its short and rather bristly mane. "Okay, okay, alright," she chuckled as the critter cuddled closer, trying to shove itself into her arms, for all that they were almost the same size.

She felt a little silly for being frightened now. Obviously, her daughter had befriended someone's pet, who had decided to come over and see how his pal Luz was doing. Nothing to be worried about, just an overly eager dog that had probably escaped from someone's yard.

Big dog, too. It was obviously some sort of Great Dane, considering how tall it was; or maybe a husky, judging by the thick ruff of fur across the back… Then she felt her fingers brush across some feathers, and pulled away in surprise. 'Okay, so maybe Fido here escaped from someone's costume party instead,' she told herself. Sure, halloween was four months away, but maybe they were getting started early?

Which meant that someone was probably getting awfully worried by now. She tried to get up, only to be thwarted by the two-hundred plus pounds of fuzzy canine that had planted itself onto her chest. She rolled her eyes, and gave it a firm shove. "Sorry furball, but I need to get up."

She heard it grumble in complaint, before reluctantly relinquishing its perch, begrudgingly allowing her to sit upright before cuddling closer. "Hey, I said off," she retorted, nudging her guest to one side as she clambered to her feet, one hand resting on it's back. "Dios Mio, you certainly are a big one," she added, enjoying the happy rumble when she started rubbing. Camila wasn't an especially tall woman, but she still wasn't used to pets that came up to her chest.

"I bet you go through food like a fuzzy garbage disposal," she declared as she started rubbing with both hands. "Well, I'm sure I've got something to suit you in the kitchen." It might be nice to have company for dinner, before she let their owners know about her surprise guest…

Camila doubted she would have noticed the tinkle of yet another breaking window if her guest hadn't reacted, cocking their head to bring those gigantic ears to bear. She definitely wouldn't have missed the clatter of tumbling furniture, though, and the muffled cursing which followed was unmistakable. "Oh, what now?" she demanded as she groped for her fallen broom.

She was utterly unprepared for the way in which her fuzzy guest perked up, before immediately bounding off down the hall, yipping in excitement. Startled, Camila couldn't think to do anything but run after them, even if she quickly fell behind.

The uninvited hound rounded the corner with the skidding of claws on laminated wood, and was immediately greeted by a triumphant cry. "Look, there she is! Don't let her get away!" "

"I've got her! I've got her!" *Crash*. "I don't got her!"

"Just don't her get out of the-" *CRASH* "House! Gah! Who puts a table in a place like that?!" *Crash**Tinkle*. "Oof, hope I'm not gonna have to pay for that."

*Thud*

"Someone save meeeeee!"

"I'm coming King, just hold on!"

Camila reached the doorway just in time to watch all three of her intruders collide in the middle of the room, collapsing into a thrashing heap of fur and feathers. Her first guest was obviously having the time of their life, yipping in excitement as they sprung back up to their feet. The smaller, equally fuzzy shape currently attached to their mane did not seem to feel the same way, judging by the quiet groans of complaint.

"Oh god, whyyyyy!" they wailed, their face shining palely in the moonlight.

Except no, that wasn't a face, Camila realized a second later. That was a skull. Obviously another costume, though she had to wonder how they'd found one for somebody that short…

"Okay, that's enough!" said the other stranger in her house, as they fended off yet another attempt to bury them in fuzzy cuddles. Unsurprisingly, this merely resulted in Camila's fuzzy guest prancing around like an out of control top, still yipping up a storm. "One of these days, kid, I'm gonna have to hook you up to one of those human dynamo thingies. We'd probably corner the market in bottled lightning…"

Before she could think better of it, Camila reached out to flip on the light switch, blinking hard from the flare of the lamps. She shielded her eyes from the glare, waiting until the spots had finished clearing before she took her first good look at all three of her intruders.

Somewhat incongruently, her initial thought was, in fact, 'Those aren't fake wings at all.' The words, 'That's not a dog', were almost an afterthought as she boggled at the true appearance of her fuzzy houseguest.

There was definitely a certain amount of resemblance in the body shape, the streamlined torso and the slender hindpaws, even if the astonishingly thick fur coat had obscured most of the former. The forelimbs, however, were far too articulate, much closer to hands than paws, though they were covered in tawny feathers rather than skin.

Then, of course, there were the wings. There were two of them, great feathery limbs practically as big as the torso and covered in a brindle pattern that stood out against the dark fur. They were held close to the body, but Camila could still see them moving wildly to help the not-a-dog keep their balance as they bounded around the room.

"Gah! My eyes!" The furry shape that had previously been clinging to the not-a-dog's mane lost its grip, too busy shielding its eyes to hold on instead of tumbling to the floor. "Why did we even come to this stupid world in the first place!" it moaned as it curled up into a ball.

Now that she was seeing it clearly, Camila questioned her initial assumption of a tiny person in a costume, not least because they really were *very* tiny. She doubted that anyone other than an actual toddler would have fit in there, and the tiny, high-pitched complaints coming from the skull-faced...thing had no place in a child's mouth. Then, of course, there was the fur, which was smooth and seamless, the tail, which whipped back and forth in furious frustration, and the eyes, which were big, and yellow, and shining with tears…

And now Camila found herself wondering if she had taken one double shift too many, because if that wasn't a kid wearing a costume, then there was a skull-faced dog creature in her room that knew how to talk…

"Oh, hey there!" said the third intruder, shading her eyes from the light as she clambered to her feet. "You must be Luz's mom! Pleasure to meet you!"

"Um...likewise?" The others were bizarre, but this woman was disarming, in a rather worrying way. The dress was...okay, Camila had seen worse, especially during her late shifts, when all the weirdos came out, but it still certainly wasn't the sort of thing that people wore around town. The hair was a little stranger, if only because it's wild voluminousness was completely at odds with the woman's apparent age.

Now the staff, the staff was definitely a tad bizarre, particularly the miniature owl that somebody had carved onto the top, and it made Camila a little leery of the way the woman bounded over, holding out a hand in greeting. "Who are you, exactly?" she asked as she accepted the handshake. "And what are you doing in my house?"

"Oh, me?" The strange woman took a deep breath, setting her feet and planting her free hand on her hip as she posed. "I am Eda, the-"

A pointed cough cut her off, and both women turned in unison to see the little skull-dog thing glaring at them both. "A-hem," it said again, folding its tiny arms across its chest.

"...Nobody of importance," Eda finally concluded, glaring at the little dog thing. "And that's King, my roommate, and a perpetual pain in my-"

"Okay, but why are you in my house?" Camila interjected, doing her best to ignore the talking dog-thing. She was close enough to gibbering already, no need to tempt fate. Then her memory twigged onto what the other woman had said. "Wait, 'Luz's mom'? You know my daughter?"

"Oh definitely, we're totally pals," Eda said, gesturing aimlessly as she talked, though her eyes had drifted away to focus on Camila's original intruder, which was currently investigating the bookcase. "Why, I've spent the last couple of weeks teaching her everything I know!"

"Oh, so you work at the camp?" Camila said, relaxing slightly, before 'Eda's' next words hit her like a lightning bolt to the spine.

"Huh?"

If it had just been the words, Camila might have looked past it; lord knows, she'd said some strange things after a busy day. But the tone, the expression, the way the other woman cocked her head to one side in confusion…

Whoever this Eda was, she had no idea what Camila was talking about, and Camila found a cold heart clutching at her heart. "The Camp," she said again, with a brightness she didn't feel. "Camp Reality Check. The camp where I sent Luz. The camp where you've been teaching my daughter everything you know."

"Right, right, that camp!" Eda hurriedly corrected. "I've been teaching Luz all my best tricks back at this human camp where your daughter has been the whole time, and where I totally work." Her wide smile faded slowly when she saw the expression on Camila's face. "You're not buying this at all, are you?"

"Nope." Camila felt like a glass figurine that had been filled with nitroglycerine, only one spark away from exploding into a million pieces as she stalked up to this woman, this stranger, who had invaded her life. The nurse didn't know what her own expression was like, but judging by the reaction of this 'Eda', it was a perfect match for what she was feeling on the inside.

"I'm only going to ask this once," she said with a calm she didn't feel as she jabbed a wrathful finger into Eda's chest. "Where is my daughter?"

"Well now, that's a long story," Eda said, cringing away from Camila with a nervous smile and upraised hands. "But don't worry, I can explain everything if you'll just give me a-" Her smile dropped as she flung out a hand. "Luz, don't-!"

Camila didn't realize what was happening until almost two hundred pounds of fur and feathers collided with her from behind, heralded by the excited yipping that had dopplered towards her. She found herself spinning across the floor, swept up in a pile of pillows set to tumble dry, until she eventually ended up flat on her back, pinned in place by the paws planted on her shoulders.

As she looked up into that cheerfully smiling face, and saw it for real for the first time tonight, the only thought that could seem to echo in her head was the words, 'Luz, don't~ Luz, don't~ Luz, don't…'

She could feel herself starting to tremble as she reached up to cup a fuzzy cheek, flinching when the beast cuddled up against her touch, chirping in happiness through jagged fangs. The eyes were slitted, the pupils almost lost to view in pools of honey, and the ears were enormous, stretching up above her head like slender horns, but even so…

Camila stared up into her daughter's face, perched atop such a monstrous body, and felt her heart crack in two. "Luz?" she said, softly, weakly, before the darkness swept across her vision and swept consciousness away.

Camila flinched away from the wet snuffling at her cheek, grumbling lethargically as she reached out to brush it away. "G'away," she moaned, only to whine when her tormentor merely redoubled its efforts.

"G'away!" she said again, louder, as she tried to burrow deeper into the couch cushions. "Stupid dog...wait." She frowned as she dragged up the memory through the thick fog of too little sleep. "I don't have a dog. Whuzzit then?"

Camila pried her eyes open, wincing as the overhead lights jabbed little blades of hate into her face. Blinking away the worst of her tears, she forced herself to raise her head, one hand fending off the cuddle monster in her lap until her sight could clear. "Luz?" she finally asked, when she saw her daughter's face peering down at her.

Then she felt her heart stop when the girl's face was split by a needle-toothed grin that wouldn't have been out of place on a sawtoothed trap. "Oh god," Camila gasped, jerking upright. "Luz!"

The creature her daughter had become crooned softly, flopping over onto her mother's legs with a huff. Camila almost couldn't bring herself to touch her, hands trembling harshly as she reached to brush her fingers through bristly curls, only to flinch when the ears twitched beneath her touch. "What happened to you?" she said.

"Well now, that's a long story." The words were strangely ordinary, considering how bizarre the day had become. The calm, conversational tone made for a good match with the steaming mugs that Eda was carrying as she stepped out of the kitchen, and walked over to where Camila was lying.

When the strange woman bent over to offer one of the mugs, Camila noticed for the first time the pointed ears poking their way out of that gray mane, like the plastic elf ears that her daughter liked to wear. Except that she had a sneaking suspicion that these ones weren't fake…

"You're still in my house," was all she said as she wrapped her fingers around the warm ceramic, and took an appreciative sniff. It was a rich, earthy sort of fragrance, certainly nothing that she would have kept in her kitchen. She took a sip anyway, and hummed happily at the flavor.

"Yeah, well, I was all prepared to pull a runner, but the kid was worried about you, and I figured that if you knew this much, well, not much point in hiding the rest, right?" Eda said. She raised her cup to her lips, but instead of sipping it like Camila had expected, she drained it in a single gulp.

"Ahh," she sighed, letting out a faint wisp of steam as she set her cup to one side. "Sorry about letting her wake you up, by the way. I tried keeping her penned up in the living room, but obviously our little escape artist managed to get out. Think she took out one of the windows on the way out, too."

Camila let the comment about the window go. Either the insurance would cover it, or it wouldn't; either way, it wasn't half as important as her daughter. "You said that there was a long story behind this?" she asked with a calm she didn't really feel. She was a trained professional, after all, even if this was desperately out of her usual bailiwick. "It's as good a time as any to share it."

Eda was technically smiling, even if the expression didn't really reach her eyes, her fingers tapping together in thought. "So," she finally said. "The short answer is that this whole thing is my fault, but I'm pretty sure I can fix it."

Camila stamped down on the resulting flare of anger with the ease of long practice. She was a nurse, dammit, she knew how triage worked! Focusing on fixing her daughter came first; she'd just have to save the vengeful murder for later. "The whole story, please," was all she said.

"In it for the long haul, eh?" Eda leaned back with her arms behind her head, the very picture of ease, but Camila had worked with wily patients before. Eda was acting careless, but she was also making sure to keep an eye on Camila the whole time. The question was, how much of this was an act…

"Well, to start with, remember how you tried to send your daughter to that 'summer camp' to try and make her normal?" the other woman finally began. "Well, it didn't quite work out like that. You see, after you had left, Luz happened to notice that something had stolen her book out of the garbage and-"

Camila's tea went cold and her legs went numb as she listened to the story with a quiet sort of horror. How her daughter had ended up in an entirely different world, and had decided to stay. How this Eda woman was teaching Luz how to do magic, and had sent her some deadly perversion of Hogwarts at the girl's own insistence. How her daughter had been gallivanting in some bizarre, deadly hellscape, putting herself at risk, endangering others, and lying to her mother the whole time…

It was a horrifying tale, and it took concerted effort to keep herself from leaping off the couch, ranting in whatever language seemed most hurtful as she broke this stupid, interfering witch over her knee like a rotten branch-!

And the only thing keeping her calm was the girl currently purring in her lap, and the calculating light in Eda's eyes. This...probably wasn't a lie, Camilia thought, but it was obvious the whole story was a test. A chance to see how Camillia would react...or a way to make her react as expected.

It didn't matter. The only thing which mattered was fixing her daughter, everything else, the lies, the secrets, this whole Owl House situation, it all came second to helping her daughter. "You're still not answering my question," Camellia snapped. "Why does my daughter have fur?!"

"I was getting to that, geez," Eda said, rolling her eyes. She reached up to rummage through her hair, before eventually pulling out a phone. Luz's phone, in fact, which did nothing to improve Camila's mood. "You know, it took the kid forever to teach me how to work this thing," the witch continued as she fiddled with the screen, before letting out a sound of satisfaction.

"Here we are," Eda as she handed the phone over. "Luz took that one about a week ago, when I got so blitzed on whiskey pig that I forgot to take my elixir in time. Apparently, the video is even better."

It took a few tries for Camillia to make sense of the twisted bundle of fur and feathers squeezed into the screen, but then she spotted a wing, and the picture resolved into a grotesque, pale-faced monster that was currently lolling on its back like an intoxicated cat.

"This...is you?" she asked, looking between the beast, and the lady currently sitting across from her.

"In a certain manner of speaking, sure," Eda said with a shrug. "That pretty face right there is why folks back home call me the Owl Lady." She was still smiling, but the edges had wilted a little, to go with the subtle fidgeting. "Way back when I was a kid, someone or something went and hit me with a real whammy of a curse, which went and turned me into that thing."

"Then Luz…?" Camilia said, turning down to look at her daughter. At some point, Luz had fallen asleep, little snores whistling out between her teeth.

"Got hit with the same curse, yeah," Eda sighed. "At least, I'm pretty sure that's what happened. As I'm sure you can tell, she hasn't exactly reacted to this the same way I did."

"She looks different," Camilia agreed, running her eyes down her daughter's transformed body. There were plenty of similarities in the body shape, the wings, the fur, but that only made the differences stand out more. Eda's transformation made her look like a monster; Luz mostly looked like a dog that had picked up styling tips from the local birds.

"Hah! Looks are the least of it!" Eda shot her a curious look, before seemingly coming to a decision. "Don't let the drunken good mood fool you," she said, with a nod at the picture on the phone. "The owl-beast is as vicious as they come. I- They-..." For the first time, the witch hesitated, warring with herself over whether to continue. "Well, let's just say that Luz's introduction to the curse was a lot less pleasant than yours was."

She shrugged, but there was a certain emptiness in her expression as she slumped in her seat. "Anyway, I can't figure out how I ended up as a ravening monster, while she turned into even more of a giant puppy than before. My best guess is that it's because she's human. I doubt the curse was designed to work on someone with no magic of her own."

"Maybe," Camilia said, though her mind was focused on other things. "On the other hand, immature animals are often more friendly than the adults. Maybe that's why." She sighed, and forced herself to stop petting her daughter. If nothing else, her fingers were getting rather tired. "You said you had a way to fix this?"

Luz let out a snort, her eyes drifting open to shoot Camilia a disgruntled look, before she rolled over onto her front for a cat-like stretch.

"Well, that's the hope," Eda said, her casual shrug at odds with her strained expression. "Honestly, I was halfway hoping that bringing her back to the human world would take care of the whole problem, what with this whole place being non-magical, and Luz having no magic of her own."

She reached up to start digging through her mane with a distracted expression. "Obviously, that didn't work," she added, her expression clearing as she found whatever she was looking for. "So plan B is to try giving her this." She thrust out a small glass vial, which was mostly full of a golden, glowing liquid, held in by a cork stopper.

Eda's triumphant expression dropped away when the two of them heard an unhappy hiss, and Camilia glanced to the side just in time to see her daughter glaring at the vial, back arched in obvious unhappiness. A moment later Luz was leaping away hard enough to send the couch tumbling over, the crash of more breakables heralding her escape through the house.

Camilia was still lying there, completely nonplussed, when Eda's face popped into view with a sheepish expression. "Sorry about that," she muttered, holding out a hand to help Camilia up. "I probably should have seen that coming."

"I'll take your word for that," Camilia sighed, brushing herself. "Care to explain what that was all about?"

Eda shrugged. "The elixir was the first thing I tried, back on the Boiling Isles. Unfortunately, it didn't work, and seeing as how it also tastes like the wrong end of a trash slug…"

"But if it didn't work before…"

"Yeah, but that was over in my realm, where magic's everywhere," Eda interjected. "I don't know if using it in a low magic environment will help, but it's definitely worth a shot." She glanced back at Camilia, and slumped when she saw the other woman's openly skeptical expression. "Listen, I know it's a long shot, but at the very least it won't hurt her any, I promise. I mean, not that my promise is probably worth much to you right now…"

Camila… wasn't always the best with people, as evidenced by her chronic inability to reign in her daughter, but that didn't change the fact that she tended to spend a lot of time working with them, on them, or around them. If nothing else, she liked to think that she had gotten good at when people were acting out to try and hide how scared they were. Behind that careless, arrogant facade was a frightened woman, pulling out her hair over how to help Luz.

"I don't like you," Camila finally said. "I'm not sure I trust you. I'm certainly not happy that you helped my daughter lie to me. For weeks, no less! But…" She licked her lips, and made the choice. "I believe you want what's best for Luz. I believe you are trying to help her. So if you say that this is going to help her…"

Camilia took a deep breath. This was going to be a bit of a gamble, but not much of one. Curse or no curse, some things never changed. "LUZ NOCEDENA, YOU GET BACK HERE THIS INSTANT!"

The sound of her daughter's distant panic came to a distinct halt, before it was replaced by the sound of her talons scrambling back this way, no doubt doing horrible things to the floor. A few moments later, Luz crept in through the door, cringing so badly that Camilia was tugged between the urge to laugh or wince.

She did neither, too busy focusing on maintaining that voice, the one that had been born in the depths of an emergency room in the midst of a panic, before being further perfected by a rambunctious daughter that could never seem to stay still. "You know better than that Mija," she declared as sternly as she could. "When the doctor tells you to take your medicine, then you take it. No backtalk, and no running away to hide in the kitchen."

Eda goggled at her, barely blinking as she handed over the vial of elixir. "Okay, you have got to teach me how to pull that off."
"Sorry, Eda," Camellia said, grunting as she pulled out the stopper, and knelt down to pour it into Luz's grumpy, rebellious but ultimately cooperative mouth. "Trade secret."

Luz grimaced as soon as the treatment was done, her new fangs making the expression especially grotesque as she grumbled a wordless complaint. Camellia couldn't quite hold back a quiet giggle at her daughter acting like a disgruntled cat, and she wished she had thought to grab a camera or something.

'She really is cute like this,' she thought to herself. 'Maybe, if I knew it would wear off over time, I'd be able to enjoy it more…'
"How long is it supposed to take?" was all she actually asked, reaching down to ease her daughters bad mood with a few ear rubs.

"Honestly, it should already have taken effect," Eda said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Looks like this was a dud too."

"Then...then she's stuck like this?" Camilia demanded, shooting to her feet. "There has to be *something* that you can do!"

"There is one thing," Eda grumbled. "But it's gonna mean making another trip to the Night Market, back at Bonesborough." She let out a long, loud groan, which would not have sounded out of place back at the hospital.

Camilia found herself less than reassured. "What's this 'night market'?"

"It's only the dingiest, most disreputable market on the whole isles, where none save the lowliest, most gruesome specters come to ply their wares," Eda explained in an extremely dramatic sort of voice, before throwing up her hands in exasperation. "Unfortunately, it's also my best chance of finding something that'll fix this, even if it does mean dealing with Tibbles again."

"Tibbles?" Camilia asked, nonplussed.

"He's more dangerous than he sounds, trust me," Eda countered. "Mostly because he's almost as cunning as I am. He also has a bit of a grudge against me, on account of me being the one to put him out of business, twice. Still, if there's anyone who'll have a way to help Luz, it'll be him."

"Then that's where we'll go," Camilia said, giving Luz one last scratch before rising to her full height. "Just let me change clothes, and then-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, what's this we?" Eda interjected with an upraised hand. "I'm sure as hell not taking you with me. The night market is too dangerous for me to be dragging some hapless human along!"

"Didn't stop you from dragging my daughter along," Camilia snapped back.

"Not to the Night Market!" Eda retorted. "Sure, the Boiling Isles will eat you alive and spit you back out if you give it the chance, but most of the folk there are just trying to get along. The Night Market brings out the worst of the worst, and even I have to be careful there. I can't afford to babysit someone who doesn't know what they're doing."

Camilia folded her arms across her chest with an unhappy frown, before letting out a resigned sigh and grudgingly holding out a hand. Eda, always happy to accept an unconditional surrender, reached out to grab it, and was entirely unprepared for the way the nurse twisted out of her grip, surprisingly strong hands reaching out and pulling-

By the time the room had stopped spinning, Eda was lying breathlessly on her back, Luz yipping across the room as Camilia planted a sock-clad foot on her chest. "I can take care of myself," she said with the certainty of a nurse, a mother, and a purple belt in brazilian jiu-jitsu. "And if you think I'm going to let you wander off on my own with my daughter's fate in your hands-!"

Eda raised up her hands in surrender with a helpless laugh. "Alright, alright," she said. "Doubt I could stop you anyway, not if you're half as stubborn as Luz is. But if you're going to come along, I don't know who's going to watch Luz for us."

"What about your little...friend?" Camilia asked, with a quick glance around the room at the appropriate height. Her memories were a little fuzzy, but she distinctly remembered seeing and hearing someone else in the room.

"What, King?" Eda said, obviously surprised. "I already sent him back, figured you were having a bad enough day already without that little rapscallion trying to make off with your silverware." Camilia took a step back as the witch levered herself upright, taking a quick moment to brush herself off. "Besides, he's a little lightly equipped for handling someone in Luz's...state," she added, as the two of them watched Luz collide with the couch hard enough to make it bounce across the floor.

"Well, she can't stay here," Camilia said. "There's nobody I'd trust her with around here, and if she was spotted in town…"

"And we definitely can't bring her along," Eda said, digging around her mane until she managed to pull out a curious looking key with an eye in the handle. "I dunno, maybe those friends of her can keep her distracted until we get back…"

'Friends?' Camilia wondered, though she quickly set the thought aside in favor of watching Eda walk over to a strange flat box that had been left in the corner of the room. She heard a brief beep from the key in the other woman's hand, before the box started to unfold itself like a puzzle box, shooting up until it had become a sizable door with that same staring eye set into the top.

"Coming?" Eda asked as she pulled the door open.

Camilia rolled her eyes. "Sure, after I go get changed. I am not going on a mystical adventure in a nurse's outfit."

"I dunno, it's a good look for you…"

Camilia rolled her eyes again as she trotted over to the stairs. "Just keep Luz from eating the house plants or something until I'm done, alright?"

"Alright, alright, jeez," Eda muttered, the words which followed just barely loud enough for Camilia to hear. "Looks like we know where you got your pushy personality from, k- Hey! Don't put that in your mouth!"