Part 2: Chapter 7 - A Window, An Ache
Amity stepped up to the mirror in her room, using the reflection to smooth out a couple of wrinkles in the tunic of her school uniform. Even trying as she was to focus, her eyes were drawn to the cluttered desk that now lay pushed up just beneath her wide window, books either opened or stacked haphazardly across it. Everything she could find on projection and portals, from a dozen different libraries of the Isles. All of her formulas, all of her modifications. Three years, and what did she have to show for it?
She looked at herself in the mirror. Where her friends had grown in dramatic spurts over the last few years, she had gained only a few inches in height. Her cheeks were gaunt, her eyes either sunken in or sporting dark enough circles beneath them that made it look that way, and her golden irises faded to a dull yellow. Amity couldn't remember the last time she had slept soundly and woke up feeling rested. Her nights were plagued with nightmares, and her days with keeping up the appearance of having it all under control.
Sighing, she knew the answer to the question she had posed herself. What did she have to show for the last three years of work? Next to zero progress on talking to the girl who had occupied enough of her thoughts these days that she worried she had passed the marker of trying to bring a friend back and into the realm of being wholly obsessed. Willow seemed to think the latter, and didn't seem to shy away from telling her at the slightest provocation.
Amity knew she had run herself ragged, but it was for a good cause. No one else saw what she saw, heard the snippets of Luz's affirmations of the Boiling Isles not being real, saw the way the girl wore her grief on her shoulders like the weight of the world. She tangled fingers into her rough mane of hair, smoothing it down as much as she could. Her auburn roots had grown out several inches, showing on the sides more prominently, the rest of its length still that same mint green it was supposed to be. Her mother should have asked her to change it by now, but the woman was hardly a presence to be found in Blight Manor these days.
And no one could see what Amity saw in the mirror. A spell circle blazed to life above her palm, purple with a blue edge to it, and the illusion shifted into place. Her cheeks full, pink instead of pale, the space beneath her eyes lacking the signs of getting next to no restful sleep. The uniform looked like it fit her frame better, filled out and healthier. Her eyes almost glowed their normal golden in her reflection, and she forced a smile to her face at that.
That was better.
Even if she couldn't feel like herself anymore, she could at least look the part.
Besides, she could pretend everything was okay, that the constant ache in the back of her head didn't hurt. Because today was going to be a good day. Today was a day for answers, to try something she'd been too afraid to try again since her mother had almost caught her last time.
The spirit might not be willing to part with the answers to the questions she would ask, but Amity was sure she could force it. And she needed those answers. Nothing else in her studies had shown a way forward. The formulas were as perfect as they could be, and testing it on others had proven it would work. She could see and talk to them, and they could see and talk to her. But not Luz.
She grit her teeth, catching herself glaring at her reflection as she resisted the urge to clench her left fist closed and reopen the cut under the illusioned bandage. She couldn't waste a drop on trivial things today.
Instead she reached out, towards her bed, willing a sliver of her power to draw itself to her. "C'mon, Artemis."
The black staff leaning against her bedpost flew to her hand, its grip meeting her fingers easily as she smiled and scratched fondly at the base of the palisman's ears. The cat twirled off of its interlock and purred into Amity's hand, the slit pupils of amethyst gemstone eyes boring into her, and carrying a look of.. It felt like worry in her heart.
"Please don't worry. This is the day, and there's so much to do." The cat meowed in response, jumping from the staff to her shoulder, where it nuzzled into the wild hair against her neck. Amity giggled as she reached up and let Artemis' tail curl around her wrist and palm, the fur feeling real and nothing like the wood the palisman became when it was on her staff. "I've got to go my first class, we have a duel exam today, but after that.."
Amity breathed in, catching her illusioned appearance in the mirror again and staring back at the golden eyes she found. She steeled herself, feeling more sure of her choices. "After that I get answers."
A spinning firework whistled over Amity's back as she dived to the side, barely managing to get her hands under her to avoid a mouthful of grass in the Hexside duel training field. A surprised yelp and a roll away later, the area she had been occupying erupted in an explosion of dirt as a sonic blast took out a chunk of the ground.
Her staff spun from where it had fallen earlier in the battle, as Amity's outstretched hand caught it and she dashed back to her feet. Through the rising dust and smell of singed hair, she could see her opponent standing triumphantly on the other end of the field.
Her gray hair pulled back into a long ponytail and the translucent red butterflies of her palisman settling back onto her gnarled staff, Skara grinned as Amity smirked and began to run, dodging another ear-splitting blast from a floating, ethereal violin.
Bard magic wasn't necessarily made for dueling, but Skara? She knew how to leverage it just right. She also had a tendency to get distracted. Like now, she was enjoying putting Amity back on her heels, and thought she had the advantage. The large circle Amity had gouged in the ground with the end of her staff went unnoticed.
Amity let out a victorious laugh as she spun the staff in her hand, planting its end into the earth in the center of the circle she had drawn. Artemis' eyes flared, and the growl of a much large feline than her palisman was rumbled out of the carved cat. It was a kindred spirit, after all, and Amity enjoyed showing off too. "Abomination, rise!"
The entire circle lit up the area in a purple glow as energy pulsed around it, coalescing into the middle as the goo Amity had spent the last week perfecting the mixture for rose from the earth with her magic. Skara's eyes widened as she took a step back, the abomination rising up to its full height, towering thirty feet above the witch before it groaned out. Amity didn't waste a moment of her friend's surprise, pointing at the other witch, the spell circle around her wrist flashing with light. "Abomination, strike!"
A gooey, thick arm swung down in an arc, smashing summoned instruments into mist and forcing Skara to be the one diving for the ground now. Amity spun a circle into her free hand, the abomination's other arm glowing in response. She swung down with its massive fist, aiming for the scrambling witch with the possibility of victory filling her thoughts.
But the Bard was hard to pin down, sliding across the dirt and coming up, staff in hand. There was little flourish to Skara's movements, but the crystal that topped her staff glowed crimson, and a dozen red butterflies fluttered off of it, each as translucent as the orchestra of instruments they formed around the witch. The abomination's hulk was impressive, but it was slow and could not get out of the way of the sonic blasts that smashed into it, throwing goo in every direction as each of the instruments played discordant and disruptive notes.
As Amity's creation fell to its knees, trying to hold its now gaping chest together with one hand, she quickly released her direct control of it. The spell circles faded, and she knew Skara would be busy for a few more moments finishing it off. A paler violet spell leap into being as she traced her finger through the air, then thrust her other palm through the circle.
In that hand fell a crystal ball, its interior space swirling a light pinkish-white smoke. She willed the spirit to rise, and it answered her call, swirling up to tower over her, burning in her magic as she pointed at Skara with her free hand. Oracle magic came as easy as breathing to her, and no verbal commands were needed as the spirit let out an eerie chuckle and sank into the ground.
Not that Amity had let her work with Abominations slip at all. She was the daughter of Alador Blight, and her father had taught her to perfect the basics years ago. A perfectly balanced mixture could make so much more than a single creature once it was properly enchanted.
As the glow of her magic surrounded her disintegrating abomination once again, it split apart in the middle, becoming two smaller creatures that rushed at Skara. The other witch was caught off guard, but grinned as two red circles were drawn in front of her hands, pointing at the incomining targets.
That is, until the ghost rose from the ground behind her, it's long wrapped arms reaching out to Amity's opponent. Outlined in fiery purple, the hands that should have passed through Skara's arms instead pulled the witch back, breaking her concentration on her spells and buying just the moment the smaller abominations needed to smash onto her arms and become gooey anchors that weighed her down to the ground.
The spirit dissipated into smoke as Amity dismissed her crystal ball, and she brought her staff to bear again, pointing it away from Skara. She surged her magic into Artemis and directed the top of her palisman in a large arc above her head. The leftover goo of her abomination that covered the field, all of it that wasn't currently holding her opponent down, congealed into a single mass that followed her movement.
It coalesced into a fist just as Skara looked up at the arc of abomination goo rocketing for her, managing only to say a few words as it approached. "Oh, not again!"
The gooey fist smashed into the witch, rushing over her with just enough force to keep her down as a whistle sounded from a nearby judge, calling the match in Amity's favor.
With a sigh, she released her hold on the magic, and the goo holding her friend became nothing but a splattering mess. She tried to hold back laughter as she approached the witch, and failed when she saw Skara blinking and sputtering in an attempt to get the goo out of her vision. Amity offered her hand. "Sorry, you had me worried when you dealt with my abomination so quickly."
The witch laughed as she accepted the help, rising up to her feet and looking down at herself. "Oh man, and I had just been thinking how nice it would be to not end this test covered in goo.." With a wave of Skara's hand, the remaining floating instruments turned back into butterflies, fluttering over to take up a perch on her staff, their energy being absorbed back into the single form of her palisman as it took its place beside the pulsating crimson crystal that topped the grey wood of the staff. Skara gently ran a finger over its wings, a fond smile on her lips. "It's so cool that you can control a spirit at the same time as your abomination, that's new!"
Amity rubbed the back of her head sheepishly, shrugging. "Just takes focus, really." Artemis mewled for her attention, jumping off her staff and onto her shoulder. She chuckled and reached up to scratch under the cat's chin. "Plus, I've never seen you play so many instruments. That was.. Very impressive."
"Aw, shucks, a compliment from Amity Blight. I'll have to tell Willow that the sea will stop boiling now!" Skara's words rang with a genuine teasing tone, and Amity shared the following laugh as they both moved to hang between the other dueling fields and watch other students.
There were about a dozen students finished already, including a very excited Gus surrounded by three illusory duplicates of himself all cheering for Willow, who was mid-match against a boy that Amity.. Was pretty sure she knew the name of. Jeromy. Yup, that had to be it. He was dual-track, like her, and she was pretty sure he was in some of her abominations classes.
"So.." The trailing word drew her attention back to Skara, who was busying herself with pulling bits of abomination goo away from her clothes, shaking her fingers to dislodge a particularly clingy bunch of the material. "Who are you taking to Grom? You've only got a month, if there's, I don't know.. Someone you'd like to ask?"
Grey eyes continually flicked in a direction as her friend spoke, drawing Amity's attention to where a certain three-eyed witch was coming up from a roll on the ground to throw a bottle in the direction of her opponent. Oh. "Is she gonna ask me?" There was a flash of an explosion as Boscha's potion seemed to erupt half of the practice field in flames, accompanied with a manical laugh that almost made Amity feel sorry for her opponent.
"If you don't, you know she will try." Skara's voice was strained for a moment before the girl sighed and shrugged. "I'm just supposed to be doing recon for her, but I think you should consider it. She really has changed! She's.. Well I don't want to say softer, did you see how hard she tackled Amelia during the Glandus scrimmage? That girl can hold a grudge!"
The witch trailed off, stammering a few times as Amity stared at her. "I mean, if there's anything there for you, might as well explore it?"
Amity felt suddenly uncomfortable even entertaining the idea. Boscha had grown into a much better person, even Willow had accepted the very touching, very awkward apology in the middle of the halls between three different classes. But she couldn't. And she didn't understand why.
Boscha was cute, she supposed.
A work in progress with disasters for parental figures, but who was she to judge on either of those points?
The more the thought spun in her head, the more Amity became convinced that the lack of being able to entertain the idea was just the simple truth; even Boscha deserved better than her. A witch wearing herself out in pursuit of a girl who had been gone for three years now.
Not that she could really explain all those thoughts to her friends. So she deflected, a mischievous smile directed at Skara now. "Oh, like you and Willow were 'exploring' in the Plant home room yesterday?"
She laughed as dark red spread over her friend's brown cheeks, her grey eyes snapping over to Amity. "Why exactly were you even practicing that spell on Willow?"
"Hey, she said I could, and it's better if I test on her and not.." She caught herself, swallowing the words as her smile faltered just for a moment before she giggled again. "I just didn't think I'd see that."
A few more grumbles, and Amity had successfully derailed the conversation away from something as close to heart as why she couldn't seem to get close to anyone.
Skara didn't need to know how broken she had become.
Blight Manor was as cold and silent as ever as Amity stalked its lower halls. Her father was home, in his lab, and wouldn't likely emerge from it until several hours after dinner. Her mother? She hadn't been home all week.
Perfect time to get her answers.
She set Artemis against the wall leading down to her mother's study, the cat's gemstone eyes blinking to life as she did so. "Let me know if anyone is coming, yeah?" A slow nod as she rubbed over the soft chin of her palisman with a smile. "That's my girl."
Free reign of a mostly empty house, and a scout to let her know if there was a chance of detection. Even sleep deprived as she was, she knew this was a golden opportunity.
The pedestal was as hidden as the first time she had found it in her mother's study, the orb sitting on it roiling angrily with purplish-black smoke that dripped and coiled on itself like it was halfway to becoming a liquid. It flinched away as her hand neared, slowing and working itself opposite of her motions as if it were watching her.
Good, it remembered.
That made this easier.
Some part of Amity shook her head, her eyes closing and her hand retracting. This.. Didn't feel right. She didn't want to think such vicious things.
And then she thrust those thoughts to the back of her mind as the pounding of her seemingly ever present ache pulsed through her head. This needed to be done.
She was a Blight, being weak just stood in front of her goals.
Taking the orb from its place, she turned and summoned her magic into the crystalline structure of the ball, holding it towards the runic circle in the center of the room. This time, it did not try to fight her will, flowing out in heavy smoke into the protective barrier that would contain it.
The rotted visage rose from the smoke, its long wrapping-covered arms across its chest as its eyes flashed open, that pale blue that looked so much like her mother's. "Little Blight, you've come running back to me again. I'm honored you value my counsel so much to grace me with so many visits."
Amity narrowed her eyes at the spirit, knowing full well this was only their second meeting. Spirits liked to play games, she reminded herself, its best to not engage. With a deep breath, she pushed her anger back. It knew what happened last time, knew what she could do, it would work with her. She kept her voice as neutral as she could. "Why can't she see me, or hear me?"
It's distorted face, one that had once been a witch, she was sure, tilted to the side to regard her with an amused smile. It looked at her like she was looking at a child trying to pass something mundane off as exciting and impressive. "I thought you would have figured that out, from my other answers.. But very well: Your human girl is refusing the connection, pushing back against the magic with her own willpower."
Amity blinked at how easy it had been, she had honestly expected this to be drawn out. But something about the answer.. "That doesn't make sense, Luz doesn't have magic in her world, and she doesn't have innate magic. How can she block a spell?" The spirit grinned at her, its head turning until it was almost looking at her upside down. Of course it wouldn't make this easy, she had to ask the right question. Amity swept a hand around the study, turning away to look at the many grimoires stacked neatly in shelves against the walls. "Will any of these help me figure out how she's doing it?"
"Oh, several of them." Turning back to the face the spirit slowly, something in the mocking tone caught her up, and that knowing smirk made it all the worse.
She didn't mean to bare her fangs, but her ears laid flat against her head and she let out a low growl at the ancient Blight. "Tell me what you know!"
An echoing, ethereal chuckle filled the room as the spirit shook as if still drawing the breath needed to laugh. "What would you like to know? The past?" It swirled around the barrier, igniting the sharp blue runic field where it touched, before it stopped, looking down at her. "No, you want the future. Always shifting, always settling, but a glimpse can change it all, can't it? And I see your future so easily. You will taste power that no Blight has ever attained before, and it will cost you everything!"
Amity glared up at the spirit, the knuckles of her fingers wrapped around the crystal ball turning white as a heavy breath escaped through her nose. "Stop playing games with me, spirit. You know what I want."
The ache in the back of her head had returned, pulsating slowly.
Again, it just laughed at her, nodding enthusiastically. "I do know what you want, and I see it! It's so delicious, the irony of it all. Don't worry, little Blight, you will return your precious Human to the Isles, you will succeed." A wave of reassurance was held back by the way the spirit leaned in to the barrier, its glowing pools where its eyes had once been flashing menacingly. "And it will lead to her death."
The words pierced through her heart like an arrow, causing her fangs to appear again as she bit back the growl in her throat to yell at the spirit. "You're lying!"
"Am I, Amity? You know what happened when you touched her." Her mind reeled back to nearly a year ago, to scrying on Luz after she had pulled a girl down by a backpack strap for being mean to her friend. She had felt Luz's shoulder beneath her hand, and then.. Searing pain. "Every bit of resistance burned away because you couldn't stop yourself. Nothing left to shield her from the claws that seek her."
Pulsing waves of pain began from the back of her head, building pressure just behind her eyes.
"What claws?!" The spirit laughed again, its mocking grin growing wider as her desperation shone through so clearly now, advancing to stand with her toes just at the edge of the runes on the floor. "You have to tell me!"
"Ha! Why reveal the game so early, when there's so much left to watch you stumble and flail after?"
Titan, why did her head hurt so much? Why couldn't she bring her hands up to clutch at it?
"No more riddles, tell me now!" Fury ripped through Amity, directly from the center point of all that ache, a cold anger that lacked any sense of compassion or mercy. With it came her magic, waves of it coursing into the crystal ball that served as this spirit's prison.
She didn't mean to crack the healing scab over her palm. At least, she didn't think she had meant to.
The spirit began to laugh inside the barrier, the purple glow of her magic empowered by her blood cutting into it, burning its ghostly form. Its dismissal of her power only drove her anger forward, causing her to clutch the orb higher, holding it out in front of her chest now, inside the circle.
Titan, her head hurt so much. Why couldn't she stop?
She slapped her left palm to the orb, spattering it in her blood.
Crimson droplets over smooth crystal.
Amity's fangs bared in a rage-filled scream as she channeled more and more of her power into the crystal, and the spirit it was bound to. Mocking, victorious laughs became shrieks of terror and pain that fed back into her anger, sating it as she pushed more and more into the channel. Fear and realization spread through its inhuman and eyeless sockets, the glow burning from its pale blue into the sharp violet of her magic.
Good.
It knows the end is near.
Her voice rattled in her mind, as if batted about by the waves of pain inside her skull.
Agony and fear gave way to desperation on its features, and its clawed fingers reached back before shooting towards her, and Amity tried to stop it by drawing more on her lifeforce and forcing that power down the channel.
But it was too late, the claws broke through the barrier, shattering the protective circle and sundering a crack into the runes on the floor. A thought told her to duck, that it was going to kill her before it would be destroyed. But it was too late, and even the glaring, blinding pain that had taken over her mind felt fear as her eyes widened.
Instead of the claws sinking into skin, the fingers wrapped around her head, holding her in place as her golden eyes met the last sparks of blue among the purple of her magic within the spirit's eyeless sockets. A brief moment passed as her power stopped flowing into the crystal, and then her mind was overwhelmed with a vision.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
Tap. Tap.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
The deep, bassy beat of a massive heart was the first thing that caught Amity's attention as her awareness came into being, light and color filtering in slowly as her eyes fluttered open.
Before her was the organ she heard, the one whose beat felt like it rattled her rib cage with its strength and proximity.
The Heart of the Titan.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
She saw the exposed fleshy organ and the metal pipes that fed into it, and the metal plates bolted to it that held it up between the two pillars. There were stories that the Emperor's throne sat just beneath the Heart of the Titan, but she had never had the opportunity to see it.
Oh, how she had wanted to see it when she was young and eager to join His coven.
But to the side of the throne, ascending a marble staircase to a large winged ring of white and gold, stood the Emperor himself. He was pointing his staff at.. A door? It became wreathed in red as he struggled to wrench it open.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
After a long moment of trying, the cloaked Emperor let out a displeased noise and lowered his staff, turning and walking down the marble steps. If Amity had been physically there, she would have gasped as she saw the large yellow eye in the center of the door he had been trying to open. Even if the Owl Lady hadn't explained what it was years ago, she had seen it referenced in a few of her books on portals.
But it had been destroyed.
Luz had destroyed it, that was what Eda and Lilith had told her.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
The Emperor wasn't alone, she realized. There was a small demon that she recognized from the brochures the Emperor's Coven had handed out at the last Covention, Kikimora, the Emperor's right hand. Another figure in long white and gold robes with a beaked mask stood nearby, watching the Emperor descend towards his throne.
That figure spoke up, and Amity's blood ran cold as she heard a familiar voice, her mother's voice, from beneath that mask. "Perhaps, what we need is-"
A hand emerging from beneath the Emperor's robes silenced her immediately. "I know what we need, Odalia."
The diminutive woman beside her mother chirped up in a prim and controlled voice. "The book was very clear; 'The blood of one not of our realm, but has been touched by our magic before'." Amity tried not enjoy watching her mother deflate as Kikimora glared up at her. "Emperor, I have scoured your Archives and found no sign of visitors from another realm to the Boiling Isles in the last three centuries except for-"
"-that Human girl who helped the Owl Lady." Odalia cut in on the demon, her mask fixed on the man who was taking a seat on his throne. From the tone, Amity could hear the barely contained fury in her mother's voice.
Especially in front of the Emperor, her mother would never be relegated to second place.
"My daughter seemed to have some familiarity with the girl-"
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
Her mother's voice was filtered out from her thoughts as Amity realized that the heavy breathing coming from the Emperor was in time with the beating of the Heart, and noted the way he was leaning his masked head down in a hand. She willed the vision to take her closer, her senses approaching him and filling her vision until she could see the labored way he breathed.
The crack in his mask that Eda had sworn Luz had caused.
"-we can take her blood forcefully if the portal could connect to the Human Realm." Amity wished she could pay attention to what her mother was saying, but she couldn't.
Because of a bright blue eye that was suddenly looking in her direction.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
Emperor Belos looked at her, but his eyes searched as if he could not really see her. Amity held breath she didn't have in this vision, her mind racing and trying to tell herself that it was impossible, that there was no way to see back through a scry.
His hand raised, and the background bickering of Odalia and Kikimora ceased immediately as his staff emerged from beneath his robes. Amity backed her senses away instinctively, trying to end her attachment to the spell like she had done with her own.
But this wasn't her spell.
Wasn't her vision.
"Curious."
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
His voice echoed, and then the end of his staff clanged down against the stone floor of the throne room. A wave of red crackling magic overtook Amity, filling her vision with static and pain as she fell back.
She stumbled off the edge of the runic circle in her mother's study, the crystal ball she had been holding falling from her grip and shattering on the stone floor as she landed on her butt. A groan escaped her as she brought both hands, not realizing that her left was still bleeding profusely, to her head to try and hold the pounding ache back.
Her eyes struggled open, and before her the spirit was close to the ground. Its body shuddered as if it were breathing heavily with lungs that had become dust centuries ago, and wisps of smoke trailed off of its wrapped and rotting form as if it had been scalded. It was watching her with eyes whose glow sputtered in and out of the pale blue of the Blight family.
Amity had no time to confront her actions, her voice shaky as she tried to process all she had been shown. "Are.. Are those the claws that seek her?"
It laughed ruefully, its form still bearing veins of pulsing violet magic through it. "They are inconsequential. Your actions will cause her the most harm, before this over." It began to disintegrate around those lines that Amity's attack had left, the pain in its expression vanishing as she watched it begin to disappear piece by piece, destroyed by her magic. "She will return to you, and your only reward for this obsession will be to watch her die in your arms.."
The blue light in its eyes flared once more, before its face fell into swirling smoke that dissipated into nothingness. A last, final gasp of its breath filled the room.
And then it was gone.
A shuddering breath escaped Amity as she felt the words ring with a prophetic and damning truth, cutting her to the bone in a way that the ache in the back of her head couldn't hope to match.
Author's Note: That's me, saying oh it'll probably be a week and then posting three weeks later! Sorry about the delay, I ended up with a dozen little projects that took a lot longer to finish than I thought they would. Thank you all for your support and lovely messages, I hope you all enjoy this chapter. 'Til next time! -Fox