Part 2: Chapter 4 - Opening Doors

Amity sighed and let her forehead rest on the edge of her desk, staring at the wooden floor of her bedroom with eyes that were so strained it hurt to blink. Several textbooks lay strewn about the desk, half-finished worksheets on applied magical theory and future gazing left on top of the open pages.

Finally gathering enough energy to lean back and rub at her eyes, she glanced down at the book open between all of the work she had neglected in pursuit of one enticing subject.

Sourcing Magic: Esotericists and Wild Witches.

Nothing about blood fueling magic lay in its pages. Nothing about it was in anything she could find in the library or her school books. Even ones that covered spells that carried some layer of danger, she should have been able to find something, even if it was just a vague warning. This though? There wasn't a scrap anywhere. Not even the Owl Lady knew of any sources of magic besides a bile sack and the four different glyphs, and she was the wildest witch since the Emperor came to power!

Not that Amity had asked directly. She wasn't stupid, she knew that if this was a source of magic, she was not the first. That meant it was buried. But by who? And if it was so powerful, why? There weren't any answers to be found.

A year since Luz was sent back to the Human Realm, a year of Amity failing.

She groaned, sinking into the chair. No answers to be found outside had meant some experimentation on her own. She started with pricking a finger, finding that it made her abominations a little larger, made controlling more of them a little easier. Since then, she had.. Progressed in her study. And in how much of her own blood she spilled to do so.

Other tracks of magic. Other types of magic, had been Amity's passion lately. Mixing magic wasn't allowed, but a bit of Illusion, a bit of Healing, what could it hurt so long as she hid it? What could it hurt if she had found to way to empower it?

Blood Magic.

That was the title she had given it, in the journal that lay under an invisibility spell inside her desk drawers. It made sense, it was her blood, her lifeforce that she could channel into a spell. A few drops of it made a spell easier, took less energy to focus it. More than a few? It made the spell into something so much more. And just like every other bit of magic she had ever studied, it had rules.

For one, the small cuts she practiced with proved that she could not heal a wound she had drawn from. At least, not without drawing more and empowering a healing spell.

For two, an empowered healing spell hurt. Edric had come running after hearing her scream when she first tried, and Amity was still surprised he had bought her story of accidentally smacking the back of her elbow on the edge of her desk. But he had just laughed it off.

"Didn't know you were so clumsy, Mittens!"

She smirked at the memory. Since that incident, she had taken to wrapping her hand in a bandage instead. A simple illusion spell made it appear as though there was nothing there, a small price to pay. And it made it easier than cutting open a palm every time she wanted to try something new.

Rule number three? The blood had to be fresh.

Amity stared at the unbroken skin of her left hand, flexing her fingers closed into a fist, and feeling the scab beneath the invisible bandage crack and begin to bleed. She traced a circle in the air, drawing on the fresh droplets of blood as a blue-violet hued circle flared angry red. Energy rushed through her, and the two days she had been awake so far was washed away as if she had just woken up from a deep and restful sleep.

A pleased sigh was drawn from her as energy pulsed through her veins, the simple rejuvenation spell refreshing her for a few more hours at least, enough to tide her over through dinner time.

Two vials of truesight potion lay beside that journal in her drawer. She'd told Eda the mixture had helped, and the Owl Lady had made more whenever she could. Amity wanted to feel bad about lying, but if she just said it couldn't work, they'd think she had given up! She had just found a better way, an easier way, to contact Luz. She just needed the right spell to break through the interference. Her palm throbbed. No, this was much easier.

Amity sniffed as her hand ached. It was familiar, now. It was welcome.

She would have to change that bandage later, though. She had learned the hard way that letting it slip her mind for too long left it blackened and with the foul odor of old blood. It hadn't really bothered her, but one of the new multi-track students had a griffin that kept whining and sniffing her hand. The girl had explained that Puddles-not such a fitting name for a massive creature nipping its beak at her seemingly uninjured hand-thought she was hurt.

And of course she would attend a school where one of the healers studied Beastkeeping and had taught their griffin to sniff out wounds. Her lips twitched into a smirk at the chances, and she-

Angry screams filtered into her room from somewhere downstairs, making her roll her eyes as she closed the useless book. That was also familiar these days. What had begun as hushed arguments and snide comments back and forth between the twins and her mother had escalated lately. Edric and Emira barely talked to her anymore, spending all the time they could outside of the house. And every time they were here.. She heard more screaming and what had to be her father's voice pleading for them to settle down.

Her mother wanted the twins to join the Emperor's Coven. To follow in her footsteps. Both her siblings wanted to join the Illusion Coven, and all Amity could think of that was that of course the twins didn't want to join the coven focused on enforcing rules. But then again, Odalia Blight always seemed to get what she wanted.

She leaned over her various notes to look at her unfinished schoolwork, and the scroll that lay in the corner of the desk. A mental reminder told her that she had several texts to answer. Skara had asked for her help for a Grom proposal, to Willow of all witches. Boscha reminding her that she owed her for a growth potion that Amity had used to.. Well, she wouldn't call it cheating. She just hadn't had enough time to complete an abomination mixture for their Massive Abominations test a few weeks ago.

Three texts from Willow asking if she was okay. Letting her know that she was available if Amity needed to talk. Telling her that she still looked like she hadn't slept, even though she promised she was going to.

Things that could wait, her research into the scrying spell was more important. Her research into portals was more important.

Getting Luz back was what mattered.

Willow didn't seem to understand that.

Not like Amity did.

"You aren't listening!"

She flinched out of her thoughts as her sister's voice cut through the halls louder than she expected. The argument must have moved out of the study this time. That was new.

Amity tentatively stood up, opening the door a crack and pressing her ear to the open space to the hallways of Blight Manor. "I am your mother, Emira, you will listen to me!"

"The Emperor throws people into the Conformatorium just for being weird!" Edric's voice was frantic, and there was a sudden spike of guilt that Amity felt in her chest for being so dismissive earlier. The arguments had gotten so common she had been bored of them, bored of the passive aggressive comments directed her way by their mother to insult the twins. Bored of how much it hurt to just be around her mother these days. Every bit of pride was lavished on her with the intention of highlighting disappointment with Edric or with Emira.

It was never about her with Odalia Blight. And Amity received the praise she had always craved delivered in the worst of ways. Half the time her mother didn't even look at her, only sneered at the twins. It wore on her after the first week of it, the pettiness of it all.

This argument was.. Different. Worse. Amity could tell now as Edric continued. "We're weird, our friends are weird! We aren't going to go be his lackeys just because you said so!"

"What you want doesn't matter!"

Silence fell over the house, and even so far removed from where it had been screamed, Amity felt a chill run through her spine. Their mother had always acted that way, but to say it so viciously? This was so much worse. Odalia Blight's voice filtered up, the anger replaced by a firm tone, cold and commanding. "The family matters. Our name matters, and I will not have my children joining a second rate coven for jumped up pranksters!"

"Maybe we just won't be your children, then!" Emira's voice was still raised, and Amity could hear that her sister had been crying. "We'd hate to be such a disappointment to your name!"

Blood rushed to Amity's ears, filling her hearing with her own pulse so loudly that it drowned out the indistinct angry voices that fought for the last word. She didn't remember leaving her room, didn't know why she was moving towards the argument. It didn't involve her. Involving herself in it would only bring her mother's wrath.

It was stupid. It was reckless. The twins didn't need her to-

She heard the front doors slam shut just as she rounded the corner to look down the balcony staircase, finding only her father staring at the closed doors and hearing her mothers heels click down one of the lower hallways.

True to Blight fashion, her parents didn't even acknowledge the fact that the twins weren't at the dinner table that night. Amity stirred her soup awkwardly with her spoon, trying not to stare right at the empty chairs across from her. Trying to answer the seemingly innocuous questions about her schoolwork from her mother with the right answers. Whatever she wanted to hear.

"-and keep up on your practical applications of spirit summoning, your last test grade was far too low in that field."

"Yes, mother."

It was monotone, automatic.

She had scored a 92. Top of the class.

Far too low.

She glared at the empty chairs across the table, then looked directly at her mother, who was busy gathering a pile of beetleleaves together before stabbing it with her fork. Amity hoped she wasn't still glaring when she spoke up, as she tried to don a neutral voice and expression. "Are they coming back?" There was a bite to the words that came out, dripping in anger at her mother.

Okay, hopefully she had more success with her expression.

The fork slowly lowered onto her mother's plate, and blue eyes slid their way up to coldly regard her. There was no attempts to flatter her now, no attempts to lavish praise and pride upon her. No reason to, now that she couldn't use the backhand compliments against someone else. Just the icy gaze of contempt for her daring to question the great Odalia Blight. "No. And you are not to contact Edric or Emira, nor associate with them at all." Amity's frayed nerves made her nod obediently out of pure habit, a vice closing about her heart as she stared across the table in disbelief. "They are no longer part of this family, is that understood?"

This time habit failed her, as she sputtered and looked at her father, looking for someone to be a voice of reason. They couldn't just suddenly act like her brother and sister were strangers, somehow unfit to even speak to them, could they?

Alador Blight's gold eyes focused on her, the dark circles under them indicating he had been sleeping as well as she had, as usual. But he had always been tired and lively, excited by a new breakthrough in his work, or some other oddity he had discovered. Now he just looked.. Wearied. His shoulders were slumped as he gave the barest shake of his head, his gaze boring into her so she would understand the intent.

'Don't fight your mother on this.'

Amity gulped as she looked back at her mother, whose eyes had narrowed and were studying her. Judging her, as if she too could be so easily declared unfit for the family and 'association'. "I.. I understand."

She couldn't sleep that night. For the first time in a long time, it wasn't because she was busy studying or working through formula adjustments. Amity couldn't sleep because a deep ache had reached into her heart.

The Blight family had never been particularly warm with one another, by any measure. Her father was distant, always focused more on his work. Her mother was overbearing, never caring about what her children felt, only what standard they presented and how well they represented the family name. The twins had always teased her, always gotten her in trouble when they could. And she had done the same right back to them, telling on them whenever the opportunity presented itself, all to win some modicum of favor with their mother.

But they'd at least stuck up for her, helped her out when she had trouble with magic, looked out for her. At least they would apologize if they went too far, like they had in the library that night.

Her family had never been warm with one another, but she had believed there was at least love between them. Her mother micro-managed their lives because she cared, her father's brief words of encouragement when they were alone were enough, and the twins caring about her in their own odd way.. It had all been the Blight way of showing love, right?

It didn't feel like this is what love was supposed to be.

Something shifted and there was a soft thud from outside her room, causing the pointed ear that wasn't currently smushed against her pillow to twitch and draw her eyes to the door. Sliding out of bed, Amity slowly approached the door and opened it. There was nothing in the hallway, but the door just down from hers on the opposite side was ajar. The twin's room.

She took a breath before creeping over to it, looking in and listening.

"-trying to get caught?"

"Hey! I didn't remember putting it right inside the closet, okay?"

Two voices that she was relieved to hear, two voices she had told her mother she would no longer associate with. Pushing the door open and stepping inside, she wasn't quite surprised to find that there was a mess of small delivery boxes scattered across the floor originating from the closet that had been her brother's. What did surprise her is that she couldn't see anyone inside the room.

"Ed? Em?" Her voice cut through the silence that settled as soon as she had opened the door, and she was sure she had caught them off guard. "It's me."

There were two sighs as blue shimmers appeared and both of her siblings stepped out near their beds on opposite ends of the room, a sight that tugged at that ache on her heart as she looked back and forth at them. "Hey, Mittens."

She looked away from Edric as he used her nickname, folding her arms around herself and holding tightly. "..You're really leaving?"

The twins approached her slowly, her brother letting out a soft sigh before speaking again, his voice hushed and quiet. "Yeah. We're tired of her controlling everything. How we look, how we dress.."

Emira gently laid a hand on her shoulder, bringing her eyes up to look at her sister. "It'll be okay, you'll still see us at school.. Probably." Amity felt the tears welling up as the older Blight tried to play it off as no big deal, and with those blinding droplets came the anger.

She shoved her sister's hand away, scowling at both of them as she took a step back. Her voice was low, shouting in a whisper to not give them away. "You're just leaving me here, with her!" Both of the twins shared a shocked look at her outburst, and the hurt her accusation had caused dawning on both of their faces proved too much for her to hold onto the anger. Without that to hold back the grief, she felt it grip her heart harder than before. "P-please don't leave me.."

Why did everyone keep leaving?

Both of her siblings were by her side in an instant, pulling her into a tight hug that left her unable to squirm away this time, and she heard her sister's soft voice in her ear. "Hey, hey, we're always a scroll call away for you." Emira pulled away then, looking her right in the eyes while holding onto her shoulder. She could see her tears reflected in her sister's eyes, which only made them flow faster for Amity. "We never stuck together before, I know, and I'm.. I'm sorry for my part in that. But I'm gonna be there if you need me, whatever it is. Okay?"

Edric drew her gaze then, letting out a half-chuckle, half-sob. "Y-yeah, we'll both be there for you." Wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, he tried on a more confident smile for her. "Plus, it's only a couple of years until you graduate Hexside, too. If you need to get away from here before then, just let us know and we'll help you out."

It was supposed to be encouraging, but to Amity it just all felt so hopeless. "Mother said not to even talk to you ever again, how am I supposed to.." She sighed and looked down, still holding herself as tightly as she could as she sniffled and finally worked up a scrap of courage to look up at her siblings. "Where will you go?"

Edric glanced over at Em before he spoke up, her sister nodding at him in confirmation. "We have a.. Uh, a friend we can stay with for the time being, and we'll figure it out from there?"

Emira nodded with a small, sad smile. "Yeah, we'll be okay. And even if we can't talk, you'll always be our little sister, Mittens. We won't be far if you need us."

The twins pulled her into a hug again, and this time Amity returned it, holding onto them as tightly as she could. The warmth of it, the kindness of their words, it almost made her believe it would be as easy as they said. It almost made that crushing pressure on her heart go away. She didn't notice they had pulled away until Edric softly touched her shoulder as he stepped past her holding a bag in his other hand. Emira pulled her close and hugged her from the side, saying a soft goodbye into her ear before moving for the door.

She had long questioned why they endlessly teased her, why they took every opportunity to tear her down. Anger and pain had a way of clarifying things for her, and all she could see was her mother setting them against each other. Amity wanted to scream at them, to demand that they stay. That they didn't leave her alone to endure Odalia Blight.

But they were getting out from under their mother's iron grip, and she did love them. Even if they hadn't always shared the best relationship, she loved them dearly in ways she wished she had realized earlier. Beneath all the pettiness and the influence of their mother, this night proved that with her siblings at least, it had been love as it was supposed to be.

She didn't realize when she had made it back to her own bed, but Amity pulled one of her pillows to her chest, burying her face into it to quiet the sobs that wracked through her body.

Amity wasn't sure if she had slept at all. When she finally stepped out of her room in the morning, half-ready to go to school, she saw her father standing down by the door that led into the twin's room. A steady procession of house servants were moving in and out of the room carrying what remained of her sibling's belongings.

Stepping up closer than she had intended to watch in disbelief, she started when her father looked back at her, looking like he had gotten roughly the same amount of sleep she had. "Your brother an- ..They apparently snuck in last night, your mother watched them using one of her spells."

Amity nodded automatically, her mind preoccupied enough that what her father was saying took several seconds to process. One of her mother's spells. An Oracle spell. Her mother had been watching them take their belongings.

Her mother had seen her talking to them. She paled and found sudden interest in the floor, taking the first step down the hall to get away from this realization and situation when a hand softly closed on her shoulder. It pulled away immediately when she flinched away and looked up at her father, whose golden eyes were filled with a sympathy she did not expect to see. "It.. Would be wise not to break your word to not speak to them again."

Amity went to nod, as automatic as the first, but stopped herself. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, maybe it was the fact he was gently reminding her that her mother knew she had already broken her word by spying on her, as if that were a normal thing for a mother to do! No matter the reason, she felt a deep anger swell inside her and glared up at the man before her. "You don't agree with her, either! You never do when she does things like this, I can tell!"

His eyes widened, but his expression remained locked into that passive state, and she grit her teeth before continuing. "You always do this. You always let her get away with what she wants, you let her walk over all of us!"

"I.."

Amity stared at her father, who struggled to form a word before looking away, shame written on his features. With an angry scoff, she turned and began to march away, only to be paused when his voice reached her.

"It's better that your mother gets what she wants, Amity." She glanced back at him, watching as he shifted his weight and hung his head. "It's not worth fighting her. You'll understand when you're older.."

She already understood. Odalia Blight always got what she wanted, because no one was willing to stand up and tell her she was wrong. Because her own husband bent over backwards to appease her. Amity seethed with anger, and opened her mouth to tell her father exactly what she thought of him, but when his eyes met hers that anger bled away into pity. So she sighed, shaking her head slowly before walking away.

School went by in a daze.

Amity remembered Willow asking if she was alright, and she was pretty sure she lied in response. At least, she thought she remembered lying that she was okay.

Did it matter?

She didn't see the twins at all. Not that she was looking, there didn't seem to be much point if her mother could be watching at any time anyway.

The day went by quickly, and Amity found herself back in her room in an empty house before long. It wasn't the first time she would be the only person in the manor, but it was the first time she felt so utterly alone. It was a crushing, painful loneliness that wormed its way into her bones, and made her want to do nothing but sit on her bed and cry.

Her jumbled thoughts raced and meandered, but every road in her mind led to the goal that had consumed so much of her waking hours for the last year. There was a new feeling too. A hunger for success in this goal that fed off that loneliness.

She gave an angry breath and ripped open her desk drawer to pull the illusioned journal from it. Casting a quick spell to bring it back into sight, Amity flipped to the page filled with her latest notes and modifications to the scrying spell, reading over them before stepping into the center of the room.

The knife in her hand brought her pause when she could not recall when exactly she had picked it up, but the thought only lasted for a moment before she placed the blade to her left palm and cut through the bandage and the existing wound below. Thick crimson liquid dripped from the edges of her hand as Amity grit her teeth in pain and completed the spell circle, letting her blood fuel the intent and will of her magic.

Just as before, her perception was pulled from her body with a force that left her breathless, slamming into the Human Realm hard enough that it set an ache in her tethered body, one that she could feel deep in her joints. She instinctively reached up and hugged her arms around her chest as she whined in pain.

The touch of her hands at her arms and the ethereal echo of the noise she made startled her.

That was new.

Amity let out a gasp as she looked down, finding her own hands and arms, her chest and her legs in view. Not entirely, just a glowing purple outline, but it was so much more than she had ever experienced before.

She was not just a disembodied presence like the scrying spell usually produced, she could walk and almost feel the soft carpet beneath her feet. Or at least, the spell was able to approximate what she should be feeling as she bounced on the balls of her feet excitedly.

This was progress!

Amity paused, glancing around. It wasn't anywhere in the Human Realm she had ever seen before. This was a new room, small and with pale white walls that had no decoration on them. A small bed was pushed against one wall, and there was clothes strewn across the floor with various brown boxes stacked near the door.

She spotted the target of her spell easily enough, hunched over a desk pressed into the opposite corner as the bed and writing something, still as out of focus as she had always been. So that hadn't changed. Amity sighed softly, approaching the human girl to see if she could make anything new out. Then the sound hit her, distorted echoes that were reverberating around this tiny room, the beginning of each ripple starting with a shake of Luz's shoulders.

She was crying.

Amity noticed the frantic way the girl's pen was moving, and she could see dozens of discarded papers scattered about the desk and the floor, each filled with a round glyph that she had seen the human use time and time again to cast her own version of magic. It hurt to see her so frustrated, bordering on manic as she scratched out rough versions of glyph after glyph, throwing the paper the side after tapping it didn't work.

"Luz.."

Her voice rang out in the same distortion as the sobs, and the girl started, looking around for a long moment. Amity's breath caught. Could she..?

Luz stood up suddenly, moving right past her and towards the door. Amity's hopes of being heard were dashed when the girl sniffed hard before calling out into the hallway. "Mami?"

She had heard something when Amity had spoke. It was progress.

It was frustratingly little progress.

Amity sighed and looked away as Luz moved out of the room to search for whoever had said her name, her eyes settling on the stack of ripped papers laying on the desk. She reached down to trace one of the light glyphs, her thoughts filled the memory of the first time she had begun to look at the human less as an obstacle and more as an interest. The first time she had seen the hard work Luz was willing to put into becoming a witch, after their duel at the Covention.

Her hand was drawn to press down on the paper, the glyph beginning to light up as her eyes widened, feeling it draw upon her power as she tried to pull back. With a cry she managed to tear her hand back, watching the glow of magic upon the glyph begin to burn away, just as the edges of her vision began to slip into blackness.

The door to the room slowly opened, and the blurred human stepped in just as Amity fought to stay in control of her spell. There was a distorted gasp, and she could tell that Luz had seen the glyph lighting up for a moment, but as she moved to say something to the other girl with the hope that she could maybe be heard, the girl stepped right through her ethereal body.

There was a pulsing ring in her ears as she felt her spell get ripped into pieces by some sort of conflicting energy, and her senses were ripped from the Human Realm.

Slamming back into her own body, a cry left her lips as pain seared across every inch of her skin, concentrated within her chest like a small fire had been lit behind her heart. Amity felt herself slipping into that darkness that had been encroaching on the edges of her vision, threatening to envelop her completely.

The burning in her chest, the pain, it all slipped away off the edge of consciousness. She was weightless, and she was tired.

She was so very tired.

Exhaustion won out over her will, the stress of the last day catching up to her as her eyes slipped closed and she fell into a deep, dreaming sleep.

Her body fell to its knees, almost crumbling to the side before it caught itself, slowly rising into a kneeling position.

A small smile crawled across Amity Blight's lips as her eyes reopened.

Author's Note: This was a.. Darker than expected chapter. I know a lot of others take the homophobia route with the Blights, and they tell great stories of overcoming it, but I wanted a different take.(and I don't imagine the Isles as a place where homophobia is a thing?) So it's Odalia Blight's expectations that cause her children to chafe under her will. Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed this last few quick updates, I'll likely move to weekly updates to give me time to polish up the story ahead and in Part 3. Thank you for your kind reviews(I was able to translate that one in Spanish, don't worry 3) and lemme know what you thought of this chapter! 'Til next time! -Fox