Author's note: Had a fine Halloween, enjoyed Pizza and some of the snacks my sister and I bought for the occasion while binge watching Are you afraid of the Dark – both the old version and the miniseries for fun. Worth it!
Panda39: Oh you can most certainly count on that.
KG: You don't know the half of it. And Luz is about to learn that the dates on Sophie's diaries weren't codes, but Hebrew calendar.
Now onto the next part!
Eda returned to the Owl house with King, Oziel, Munchkin and Flapjack. She then ordered Hooty to lock down the house, instructed King to grab all the textbooks he can find. To keep Oziel calm she told the little boy to help him while she prepares to make the return spell to save Luz and Hunter. Hooty then proceeded to barricade all the windows, summon spiky plants, and latch the main door.
Outside, Raine, Darius, and Eberwolf observed in the bushes. Without speaking, Raine intended to go into the house, but is stopped by Darius. At that moment, they heard Hooty chatting with Flapjack. When he mentions Hunter, Darius pushed Raine aside to listen intently. More so when he heard Oziel was inside the house with Eda.
Raine then proceeded to write on the ground to communicate with Darius and Eberwolf, telling them that they knew how to get past Hooty.
Back in the linked mindscape, they saw another memory this one of Aurelie speaking to someone.
Strange, it was what appeared to be a human man in grey robes who kept the hood of the long cloak he wore up. His face was barely noticeable at first. When they got a glimpse it was a forlorn face with a Roman nose, black mustache and beard, and doleful brown eyes. He spoke to the Empress as a concerned parent would to his child going through a rough patch.
Luz looked at Hunter, who was as confused as she was. They didn't know that this was the being Aurelie dubbed Malak, and she was voicing her concerns for Hunter and Oziel's well-being.
"If it comes to that, I may have not of a choice but to take him and Oziel out of the castle." Aurelie was saying.
"Leave?!" Hunter is outraged. Child Belos visibly tensed up looking at the memory. Luz looked back at Hunter.
This time he stormed right out of the memory with Luz, Inner Sophie and Child Belos right behind him
"But m-maybe she has a pretty good reason or something." Luz said, she couldn't imagine what she'd do if a similar situation were to arise.
"She's doing it again!" Hunter retorted. "She thinks I'm still too young, she doesn't think I can handle this!"
The sound of Inner Belos screeching is then heard from behind Hunter, prompting him to turn around. Luz turned around and saw a creature approaching her and Hunter. A tall deformed, skeletal creature with disproportionately long limbs that constantly dripped sludge, accompanied by various blue eyes covering the body, and two horns that resembled Belos' mask.
It then screeched at the duo, causing them to scream in fear and immediately start running away before it can catch them. The child Aurelie pulls at their hands towards Child Belos to another painting, but Hunter suddenly hesitates and stops. He turns around to look at the creature, who is growling and slowly approaching, causing him to retreat in fear.
"Hunter!" Luz extended her hand towards him, and after hesitating for a bit, he grabbed her hand.
Luz then dragged him into another memory of Belos'. Luz, Hunter and the two inner selves had huddled together waiting for it to leave. Part of the being's skull came through the painting, sniffing around, then walked away. The teenagers let out a sigh of relief. Child Belos pushes Luz's arm away, then runs forward to pick up empty glass bottles from the ground and put them into his sack while still laughing. Not far away, Luz is shocked to see the portal she destroyed before has been restored.
"He's got the portal?!" Luz gasped. "Did you know about this?"
"Of course. I helped rebuild it. " Hunter said nonchalantly.
"I can hear you." A full grown Belos suddenly spoke.
Not far away, he walks towards the portal, but then stops and glanced back. Luz and Hunter froze on the spot, did he know they were there?
However, from somewhere behind them, someone starts laughing maniacally, prompting them to turn around and look up at a tree behind them. A pair of glowing eyes then appear from the darkness within the branches of a strange tree.
"You caught me." A childish voice declared. A strange shadow in an abstract form emerges from behind a tree branch. "To you who strayed so far from home. To me who's trapped beneath these bones. We'll play forever, me and you, when you paint the land in nine bright hues!"
As it spoke, the shadow moves around the room and transforms into multiple abstract picture forms. Eventually, after reaching the portal, the shadow transforms to depict 9 person lifting up their hands in a worshipping position. They then transform again to depict a screaming Titan and people being shattered into pieces. After that, they revert to their original form and started cackling. The Inner Sophie raised her eyebrows, who or what was this?
"What can I do for you, Collector?" Belos inquired with a crooked smile.
The Collector moves towards a statue and lies down between its arms. "I'm bored! Is the Draining Spell ready yet? I wanna play and see everything go all..." The Collector transformed to wrap around the statue and then screams, eventually shattering into multiple pieces.
"You'll have your fun on the Day of Unity." Belos turned around and walks away from the portal.
The Collector appears on the door. "Betrayed, beguiled, alone, deceived! We'll have our revenge on... Ugh, 'unity' is so hard to rhyme."
Luz and Hunter are bewildered by everything they have witnessed. Luz looks back and Hunter, and he can only shrug. Suddenly, a projection of Hunter from the past ran right through Hunter, much to the duo's surprise. Hunter then clutches his chest in shock. Scene cuts to past Hunter going up stairs towards Belos, who is standing in front of the portal.
"I- I know you didn't want me going to Eclipse Lake. But if I hadn't," He took out the portal key, "I wouldn't have found this!
Belos immediately snatches the key away from Hunter's hand. He then holds up the key to take a closer look, and sees some Titan's Blood leaking out of it, his eyes glowing.
"Some... of the Titan blood did spill, but- but if you let me explain then-"
"Leave. Now." Belos ordered him sternly.
Past Hunter looks up at Belos sadly. As Past Hunter's footsteps becomes further away. Eventually, the sound of door closing can be heard.
The Collector then emerged from behind the portal. "Ooh, you were maaaaad. I thought you were gonna go all..." The Collector transforms into an image depicting Belos with multiple tentacles, then scream and wave the tentacles around. "...on that kid."
"Not as long as he stays in the right path. I say, 'The Titan has big plans for you,' and he does what he's told. Unlike the previous attempts."
"I'm starting to think you make those things just to destroy them. You have fun with it. Admit it!"
Inner Sophie scowled. "Make those things? Previous attempts?"
Luz has a sad expression on her face while Hunter was shocked. Luz then turned around to look at Hunter.
"Of course I don't, Collector. It hurts every time he chooses to betray me." Belos replied. "As for my wife and child, well that's tragic. They'll just have to go on without him if he strays."
"Hey speaking of which, When am I gonna get to play with your little boy – what do you call him, Oziel? "
Inner Sophie gasped sharply, Luz and Hunter briefly look alarmed.
"You're no fun!"
Not that they knew Belos refused to let The Collector anywhere near his only son, "Patience, you'll get your play date after the Day of Unity."
Inner Sophie growls and crushes a small bottle in her hands. At once, Luz and Hunter uneasily leave for the exit.
Outside the memory, Child Belos jumped out from the painting and ran off. Inner Sophie storms out, Luz came out, then helps Hunter out of the painting, discussing what they'd just uncovered.
As she spoke, Hunter walked away with a pained expression on his face while she follows him behind. Not far away from them, Kid Belos puts down some objects on the ground.
"Hunter, um, listen. You don't need to return to the castle." Luz offered. "You can stay at the Owl House if you want. I'm sure Eda would be cool with it once we... tell her what we... heard." Luz had noticed Hunter was looking at something else up ahead in one corner of Belos' mindscape. Something that horrified her.
At the same time, Inner Sophie stopped to see what they were looking at. It was another part of Belos' memories, except this one had multiple broken Golden Guard masks on the ground. There are also some paintings on the trees depicting the deaths of the previous Golden Guards, although they varied each had the exact same motive: Cold-blooded murder.
The sight of his caused the area where Sophie memories are located to shake, nearly throwing Hunter and Luz off balance.
"Wehe allen, die durch seine Hand umgekommen sind!"
"We need to find cover!" Luz cried.
Without warning the teenagers this time fell through a portrait. This was no better the last ones they'd visited. Child Belos followed out of curiosity, he even admired the landscapes and architecture of this particular place.
As they stood up, they noticed it was nighttime but something else was horrifically wrong. The starry sky was reddish, covered with clouds of smoke coming from several different buildings that were on fire! People were screaming and shouting different things.
Hunter looked left and right frantically, "Where did you take us?!"
Luz looked around trying to recognize any landmarks. "Dang, all the signs are in German!"
But as they approached the city, she stopped and stopped Hunter in his place too.
It looked like a scene right out of a nightmare: people were attacking people be they young or old. Some were running some were being spat on, dragged out of their homes or worse. Some random people were vandalizing shops and houses with bricks and/or paints. She didn't need to read German to know the word they're putting on the doors or other areas: Juden. The German word for Jew.
Large numbers of ordinary people, including women, were involved in looting and plundering, picking up goods thrown out onto the street and benefiting from the expropriation of Jewish property. One too many had come out to humiliate Jews, to gawk at smoldering synagogues and join the jeering crowds.
But what made everything worse was the reaction—or lack of reaction—of local bystanders. The citizens were just walking along staring straight ahead, with neither a worry nor care.
Luz, Hunter and Child Belos then saw a moving vehicle rounding the corner at their left. It too was of ancient vintage, and its side door bore the emblem of a swastika against a circular background. The car screeched to a halt at the curb a little away. The rear door swung open and two men emerged quickly. Both were wearing uniforms—uniforms that Luz had seen many times before, but only in old news-photos, movies of World War Two or history books. She felt a chill—these guys were Nazi officers!
"Oh no…" Luz whispered, blanching. This just confirmed a foreboding hunch she had earlier.
"There's that girl- Sophie!" Hunter suddenly pointed.
The curly haired teenager had ran out holding a menorahs close to her chest and stopped to catch her breath, watch as some of those horrible people were destroying the Synagogue.
A group of brown-shirted boys had taken the prayer books, the prayer shawls, the Torah scrolls, everything they could get their hands on. They'd dumped them in a pile on the street and, laughing madly, trampling on them. . . . "Burn the Jews!" they kept chanting. "Burn the Jews!"
Then they spotted Past Sophie and then they said, "There's another Jew! Let's throw her into the flames too!"
"No!" both Luz and Hunter yelled.
Horrified, the teenage girl shrieked and ran in the direction of the forest with a couple of the thugs giving chase.
Wehe meinem Volk! Arme unglückliche Juden! The German words once utterly foreign to them, now started to become recognizable. "Woe to my people! Poor unfortunate Jews!"
Before, Inner Sophie, who had been walking throughout it all as if in a trance, began to weep. Then the adolescent's weeping became the loud bitter wails of a woman in mourning throwing dust and ashes on her head.
It was such an eerie sight that Luz hugged herself, shivering. Hunter took a step back. "But what does it mean?!"
The girl kept wailing and ran out of the painting. Luz and Hunter followed, deeply affected by the memory. Child Belos did the same, not letting go of the sack he had with him.
"Empress Aurelie is Jewish… but then…" Luz whispered to herself, then looked to Hunter, her face was full of shocked understanding. "This means she must've escaped from one of the most horrible events in history!" She then grabbed her head, "When I kept bugging her about Earth—Ugh, I must've sounded so stupid to her!"
Hunter was utterly confused. "What horrible event?"
As Luz rapidly explained Kristallnacht and the Holocaust, Child Belos is still collecting things, but listening intently. With each fact, Hunter's initial anger at his Aunt started to fade away into sorrow and a shocked understanding.
Hunter sank to his knees as the severity of such a dismal past registered. He isn't just disturbed that so many humans were murdered, but also the fact that the woman who raised him could have just as easily been one of these countless victims. Luz could only touch his shoulder in quiet support. Then suddenly something cracking startles her and she gasps, turning towards the source of sound.
Behind her, Child Belos was standing in a circle made out of rope and surrounded by multiple arrows and bottles of liquids. He broke a Golden Guard mask in half and threw it into the fire.
"Hey! Stop that!" Luz dragged the little boy figure away from the fire.
Hunter then proceeds to stomp out the fire.
"Why would he do that?" Luz wondered.
Something then floated past Hunter's foot, and he got into a defensive posture. Multiple strands of this unknown substance floated towards the rope circle, then formed into the creature they'd seen earlier, which let out a piercing scream.
Luz and Hunter look at it as it stomps on the ground. Upon its body appeared to be made of dozens of small, animal-like figures their voices sounding like desperately screaming children.
"Get away from him!"
"Danger! Danger!"
"Run!"
Luz is utterly horrified. "Are those... Palismen...?!" she turned to Hunter.
What..?! Inner Sophie backed up a little. This monster was made up of all the sentient little animals Belos had consumed over the years?
Hunter shared Luz's fear as the pieces fell into place, "We weren't running from the Inner Belos. He was with us, the whole time."
They looked back at the Child Belos. Behind them, the young Belos is facing away from them and crying, but the sobbing turns into maniacal laughter as he took out a wooden sword and strikes the rope on the ground, transferring some sort of energy into the circle where the Palismen figure stood in. This activated it and launched the bottles onto the figure. The rope then tightened around the moaning figure, causing it to crash to the ground. Luz and Hunter turned around to look at Child Belos, who proceeded to transform himself into a full grown Inner Belos.
"Hello, Hunter. Hello, Luz." He said with a bone-chilling smile. "Sophie…"
Inner Sophie jumps out before twisting and twitching to become a full grown Aurelie that stood protectively in front of Hunter and Luz.
"Husband." Inner Aurelie glowered.
Luz and Hunter looking at Inner Belos angrily.
"Ah. I was finally able to catch it." The Inner Belos walked towards the figure. "This thing's been a thorn in my side for years. All these weepy Palismen souls..." Inner Belos puts his hand on the figure, causing the figure to start turning into dust. "Their voices constantly nagging me." He then tok a bird Palisman from the pile. "Vile. But without them, I wouldn't be able to do THIS."
He transformed his left arm into some sort of goo and squeezed the Palisman. Hunter's face is filled with shock and horror as Inner Belos proceeds to destroy the Palisman right in front of him, causing him to wince.
"Ah... I'm feeling better already." Inner Belos then turned to face them, mainly Hunter. "Thank you for distracting it."
Poor Hunter was on the verge of tears. "What did you do to the other guards...? To our family?! It wasn't wild magic, was it?"
"I could ask the exact same question." Aurelie snapped, her hands on her hips. "What happened and I want the truth!"
Inner Belos' face turns cold, he flicks Hunter's hair strand. "What a shame." He said crisply. "Out of all the Grimwalkers, you looked the most like him."
Hunter was tearful, hurt by everything. "What...?"
Suddenly the ground under Hunter's feet starts glowing red, and he starts to rapidly sink into it as if it were quicksand.
"Hunter!" A horrified Aurelie runs to him and tries to pull him out. The look in the boy's eyes haunted her. 'Please help me.'
"Hunter!" Luz takes off her jacket and tosses it towards Hunter for him to grab on, but he still gets dragged downwards. "No, no, no! Luz grabs onto her jacket trying to pull Hunter out, but she gets dragged towards him instead. "You're gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay. Just... hang on! Just..."
Hunter sinks down into the sand up to his neck, looking completely and utterly terrified. She pulls with all her might, but he sinks inexorably down, down with Luz's jacket. Inner Aurelie desperately tries to dig the smothering earth away, but it was no use.
"I was really expecting him to last longer than the others." Inner Belos remarked snippily.
"But what kind of monster are you?!" Inner Aurelie growled, tears filling her eyes.
Luz turned towards Inner Belos angrily, with tears forming in her eyes. "I'm gonna tell EVERYONE about the Day of Unity, that you've been lying about the Titan for YEARS!"
"Yes, this has gone on longer than I'd have liked." Inner Belos admitted tediously then he smiled darkly. "But... no one ever said being a witch hunter was easy."
Inner Aurelie gasped, covering her mouth with her hands, her eyes wide. "I married a witch-finder from the 1600's?"
Luz almost couldn't believe her own ears. "Witch... hunter? So all this time, people have been mindlessly helping a WITCH HUNTER?!"
Inner Aurelie then remembered what her friend Mrs. Stenson had told her and Betty once decades ago. "If you're as old as you say you are, then I wager you're the one present during the Connecticut witch trials."
"Sadly I wasn't long for the more prestigious cases." Inner Belos said with a dismissive shrug.
"They weren't even true witches let alone wicked ones! Those people who perished were either the victims of greed, envy, jealousy from other horrible people like you!"
Inner Belos scoffed. "You're one to talk. You're the only human seen in these infernal Isles for decades, I gave you the life of a queen but that wasn't enough, you had to have my secrets as well."
"You didn't give me everything, you denied me, my son and even Hunter freedom!"
"Our son." Belos corrected. "After all we're still legally married."
"How could people here be tricked so easily?" Luz was aghast. The fact that he also somehow ensnared an innocent woman into marrying him and giving him a child, it all sounded like some scandalous mess you see on those weird talk shows.
"I wouldn't be so judgmental, if I were you." Inner Belos replied. He proceeded to summon a picture frame from the ground behind Luz, and showing her some scenes from when she met Philip Wittebane.
"I know you want to get home, but nothing is worth hurting people!"
The images in the frame changed to show Philip summoning the Collector after wiping his hand on the mirror he found in the cave. "I just need to live long enough to see this through."
Luz is in complete denial about this. "No, no, no! You're Belos! You're just Belos!" As she speaks, Luz breaks down in tears and grabs onto her hair, then drops to her knees.
"You met him in the past?!" Inner Aurelie looked at her in shock.
"Sophie, I'm sorry I didn't know!" Luz rambled. "Or about your past with those awful people-"
Inner Aurelie touched her shoulder kindly. A while back, this girl had been pestering her young self with questions about Earth not knowing what it meant for Sophie back then. At least she and her companions stayed long enough to calm Sophie down from her state and assume some form of responsibility. But Belos torturing the teenager with memories what Luz assumed was another human focused on going home only to see he was an intolerant beast was reprehensible.
"It's not your fault, there's a reason the Gentiles claimed the Prince of Lies would be charming…" she glared at Inner Belos.
Back in the Owl House, the crew was hard at work. King, Oziel and Munchkin had plenty of books open.
Eda was using a dropper to put a drop of liquid into another liquid inside a flask, but the reaction causes an eruption of gas.
"Bones, dirt, and muck! I don't have time to fail!" Eda snapped, throwing the flask onto the ground and breaks it, then knocks over her book stand.
Someone suddenly knocks on the door, grabbing everyone's attention.
"Inopportune interruption, eh? I'll handle this." Hooty retracts outside.
Eda picks up the book stand she just knocked over.
King looked up hesitantly at her, "Eda? Tell me it's... gonna be okay."
Munchkin chittered anxiously, Oziel was also concerned. Eda doesn't reply and only looks at them with a worried expression.
"Eda!" Eda looks up.
Hooty barged in through the window with a bouquet of flowers inside his mouth. "Special delivery from a secret admirer!" Hooty then put the flowers inside a glass vase.
"Hooty, that thing could be booby-trapped. Get it outta here."
The flowers suddenly start floating and glowing, surprising Hooty. The flowers then wilt, causing the petals to drop and the contents wrapped inside it to dissolve in the vase and create a yellow liquid. Eda picks up the note that comes with the flowers and reads it. "It's the teleportation potion into the mindscape! But who would..."
Eda walked over to the window and looks outside, in time to see someone disappear behind a rock.
"Figure it out later. Now we can save Luz. "
"Hold up. It says it still needs a power source. And a big one."
"Like what?" Oziel questioned.
King thinks for a bit, then runs to grab Amity's glove and offers it to Eda. "Use this!"
"But... that's the last of Luz's Titan Blood. She needs it to get back home!"
"She'll never get home if she doesn't get back here!"
Eda took the glove from King's hand and stared at it hesitantly.
Back in the mindscape, both Inner Aurelie and Luz back up from Inner Belos. Luz trips over, not knowing that she has dropped her walkie-talkie. Just then, Eda's voice rings out from the walkie-talkie. "Kid, you there? We're getting you two out."
Luz looked up in agony, distress written upon her face.
"It does feel good to hear another human say that name," Inner Belos taunted. "I had to change it when Philip was run out of too many towns."
As he spoke, he slowly walks towards the two females who backs up with a frightened expression on her face. Luz then accidentally falls backwards and rolls down a slope. Inner Aurelie helped her up, putting herself between her and Inner Belos.
"I told you once before... Luzura."
Luz stands up as Inner Belos approached. "Perhaps..." he briefly morphed into Philip Wittebane, "...we were destined to meet."
"And what about Hunter? What's a Grimwalker?" Luz demanded. Inner Aurelie glowered at Inner Belos wondering the same thing.
Philip morphed back into Inner Belos. "He's... a better version of an old friend. But, thanks to you, I'll have to make another one."
"She's not answering! Luz? Luz!"
"Hunter, can you still hear me?" Oziel's voice cried.
"But... why? Why go through all this?"
Inner Belos took a Golden Guard mask and holds it triumphantly. "I'll do anything to save humanity from evil."
Luz slowly shook her head. "No."
"Luz, we're gonna start the countdown. Are you ready?" Eda's voice called from the walkie talkie.
"You're evil."
"Are you even human?" Inner Aurelie suddenly challenged, standing right in front of Luz. "Are you still a human? Or are you more warlock, Witch Hunter? You were so busy protecting the humans from the witches that you never realized you became the very thing you despise!"
"I am nothing of the sort!" Belos shouted.
"How many years was it, devouring innocent palismen and you really think there'd be no repercussions for it?" Inner Aurelie growled. "Look around! Better yet, look in the mirror! You speak of protecting humans from Evil, yet you continuously fail to follow the true golden rule!"
"And yet you lied to me and so many more for decades." Inner Belos sneered, "Although I should thank you, you gave me a child I thought would be impossible in my lifetime."
"When did I lie to you? You only assumed yet never asked." Inner Aurelie spat back. "And as it turns out, I kept my past hidden for good reason! The memories of what I went through do not belong only to me; they also belong to young people all over the Universe and all Jewish people… It is my duty, and the duty of all those who went through the horrors of the Shoah, to make sure what happened to my people will be remembered for generations. I meant it when I said I'll do anything to keep another Holocaust from repeating!"
Belos shrugged, "Well it shouldn't be hard to keep you locked away. But don't worry, I'll take good care of Oziel. A boy does need his father."
"You touch my son, and I'll kill you myself!" Inner Aurelie shrieked, she dove forward and began hitting him with her own fists.
Inner Belos merely roughly shoved Aurelie aside, threw his arm, which has morphed into a pickaxe, towards Luz. She covers herself with her arms and screamed in fright, when suddenly, a barricade of vines and an ice pillar shield her and blocked Inner Belos's attack. When Luz opened her eyes, she is shocked to find the barricade, and the arm-pickaxe has barely passed above her head.
"Luz! Aurelie!" Hunter, is revealed to have summoned the vines and ice pillars and is grabbing onto a thorn.
Hunter turned around with one hand grabbing onto the thorn along with Eda's letterman jacket, and the other one holding onto some glyphs, with a few of them falling to the ground.
"Five..."
Luz grabs a fire glyph from the floor as she and Hunter run towards the walkie-talkie.
"Four..."
Luz summoned a whirlwind of fire from the fire glyph to create a hole in the barricade which she and Hunter pass through.
"Three..."
The whirlwind of fire damages and destroys Inner Belos's arm-pickaxe as he retracts his arm in pain. Luz and Hunter run past him.
"Run! Run, children!" Aurelie cried, throwing herself upon Belos.
"Two..."
Hunter and Inner Belos stare at each other for the last time as Hunter is pulled away by Luz.
"One!"
Luz and Hunter reach the walkie-talkie as Luz dove for it. "EDA, NOW, PLEASE, NOW!"
A burst of light enveloped Luz and Hunter.
In the Owl house, the ground rumbles and multiple beams of light flashes through the gaps of the barricaded windows. Luz and Hunter emerged in a puff of smoke. King, Eda, Oziel, Munchkin, Flapjack and Hooty looked down at them as King and Hooty attempt to approach the duo.
Eda stops them, "Don't crowd them." Then she addressed the teenagers, "Are you two okay?"
Luz sits up and gives the gang a blank stare. As Hunter sits up, Flapjack immediately flies to him, pecks his head and chirps repeatedly. Oziel immediately rushed to hug his cousin, "Are you hurt, Hunter?"
Munchkin pops up from Oziel's hair, chittering questioningly.
Hunter suddenly paled. "He knows... he... he knows we were in there..." he starts hyperventilating. "I can't... I can't go back!"
"Kid, breathe." Eda tried to calm him.
"Hunter?"
Hunter then looks to a nervous Oziel with an equally anxious Munchkin staring, and the teenage boy looks more frightened. "Oziel… Aurelie, what'll he do?!"
Eda offers her hand to Hunter, but he fearfully backs rips his cloak off in horror, now that he knew what it meant. He then scooped up his little cousin into his arms, blindly running off into the woods. It was all Munchkin could do to hold on, Flapjack chirps and flies after him.
Luz attempted to chase after but then stopped. "Hunter! Oziel!"
King, Eda and Hooty then come out of the house, looking worried.
"What the heck happened in there?" King asked.
"Luz, what did you see?" Eda questioned warily.
Luz could only look back towards the others regretfully, tears forming in her eyes.
The mind link had broken. Aurelie is close to having a panic attack of her own. She never imagined that she'd need her escape bag to flee from her own husband. She hurried to her child's room, his blankets were all pushed aside.
Oziel was not in his bed, for a moment, she feared Belos may have taken him, but she notices Munchkin was not there either. Her son and his little pet had become thick as thieves for the past few days save for when Oziel was speaking to his father. And some of his little snacks she made for him weren't there either, he only did this whenever he attempted to sneak out.
This could only mean Oziel must've followed Hunter. Again. For once, she was greatly relieved the child didn't do as he was told.
'Got to get out! Got to get away!'
Aurelie, clearly terrified, deliberately avoids her spouse's chambers. She passes through a door which leads to the stairways. This is what Malak had been trying to tell her, although some limits to his curse prevented him from telling her fully.
She had to face the dreadful facts: She never truly knew the man she married nor his crimes. She knew Belos had eyes and ears everywhere. He knows she was in there too, and no number of years of marriage was going to protect her from his wrath. No, she mustn't be tricked again. She had to find Hunter, fetch him, Oziel and get out. Run and never look back.
She hears scouts approaching; she ducks into the hallway leading to the gates, somehow the guards weren't there – she had to open the bridge. But there was no time to wait, Aurelie ran to the tip just as it was five feet from the other side.
"My Lady? He only wants to talk to you!"
A spell whistles past her ear, she was just two feet away from the other side.
Don't waste spells, stop the bridge and we'll bring her in!
Aurelie's heart nearly stopped. She looked to the other side, it was time for a leap of faith. She backed up then began running to the edge and jumped!
There was a shocked uproar from behind. But all her focus was on surviving to find Oziel and Hunter, make sure they're safe. Aurelie made it to the ledge, she threw her sack on to it then pulls herself up.
Quickly, she picked up her escape bag – containing her diary and the family menorah. Around her neck she wore the same Star of David necklace, Mrs. Stenson had gifted her. Now it was time to escape again.
'Zeyt mit mir, got fun ishral,' she prayed, and ran off into the woods.
To be continued…
Author's note: And there goes our heroine, running off into the wilderness to hide, hoping to find her loved ones to be safe and sound.
Might take my time on the next one so pace yourselves, I've got a pretty good idea for labyrinthe runners. After all the second Owl House special won't be out by 2023.