Chapter Six

The second day of the weekend passed with relative calm. Willow was confined to bed rest by her dads, to the point of basically being medically grounded. Luz and Amity had a small date by the Grom tree that they kept to themselves. And Gus spent the day on a flying trip with his dad, Perry.

Luckily, as Viney had predicted, Willow was feeling much better by the time school came on Monday. Her soreness was gone besides a dull throb in her chest that was easy to ignore and, though not at one-hundred percent, her magic bile stores were nearly replenished. A lot of that she credited to her papa's delicious vigoare cap soup. Though her papa's eyes had glittered with something like an inside joke when he'd served it to her, which was … odd.

When she made it to school for the first day of the week, she collected her books from her locker before making her way to Luz's locker to meet her and Gus, while Amity had some extra credit tutoring before school. Willow waved happily upon sighting her respective best and oldest friends.

"Willow!" Luz shouted as she crashed into her for a hug. "How's my favorite green-thumb gal?" she asked with finger guns.

"Not quite back to normal, but getting there," Willow admitted.

"Especially since we survived a Scarbury attack," Gus said, his tone a bit dazed. "I still can't believe it. I mean, we've beaten crazy odds before, but that?" He held a hand to his head. "That may take the snake."

"Don't you mean 'cake'?" Luz asked.

"No, why would something take a cake?" Gus asked.

Luz grinned and shrugged before turning back to Willow. "Well, I'm glad Hunter got you home in one piece," she commented slyly.

At the name of said witchling, Willow's cheeks began to burn at the memory of what had almost happened on that afternoon and she drew into herself. Or, at least, she thought it had almost happened.

"Willow?" Luz asked, noting her friend's sudden change in demeanor. "Are you alri-?" Her eyes widened as something occurred to her, and she grit her teeth. "Willow," she gently took her friend's shoulders, "what did Hunter do?" Did he confront her about her wild magic, threaten to turn her into the Emperor's Coven, force her to join a coven? … Force other things? "If he hurt you, lo juro por todas las cosas santas-!" Luz said quietly, dangerously.

"What?!" Willow asked in genuine shock. "No! Luz, he was a perfect gentleman!" She took Luz's hands and removed them from her shoulders before clasping her hands before her chest. "It's just, we um, uhah …" Her blush came back in full force.

Luz's eyes ballooned as she was suddenly reminded of every sappy romantic young adult novel she'd ever read and every even sappier romance she'd ever written. She gasped with a wide smile and let out a strangled squeak as her breath caught from sheer urge to squeal with joy.

"Uh, Luz?" Gus asked. "What's with the shipping trance?"

Luz coughed as her lungs burned with need for oxygen before grabbing Willow's shoulders and drawing her as close to her face as possible. "You like Hunter!" she said gleefully. … Back, she added silently.

"Whoa, what?!" Gus asked. "When did this happen?"

"Wha- I, um, well I-" Willow stammered and had a few false starts before she took a deep breath and let it out, adjusting her glasses and taking a step back out of Luz's grasp before answering with some semblance of calm. "I'm not sure. I mean, he's really smart, and he's sweet underneath his kind of cocky exterior, and he's cute, too …" She turned red again after admitting so much. "But I don't know when it happened."

"So what happened when he dropped you off?" Gus asked with crossed arms. New friend or not, Willow was Gus's oldest friend right back and he wanted to make sure nothing untoward had happened.

"We might have …. almost …" She paused. "... Kissed?"

Luz squealed and vibrated her fists in front of her, as if physically restraining her excitement. "Ooh, I love the almost kiss trope!" she said. "Let me guess, your dads opened the door right before you sealed the deal?"

"... How did you know?" Willow asked. "You don't have an Oracle sphere."

"Oh, it's not magic," Luz boasted with a laugh. "Just an overabundance of romance novels back home." She sobered up and fixed Willow with a wry look. "So how are you gonna handle this?"

"I don't know," she admitted, returning her clasped hands to her chest. "I just realized I like Hunter like that, and I don't want to ruin our friendship. It's too new, and a rejection will make things even more awkward."

"Whoa, hold up," Luz said, waving her palms in front of her, "what do you mean 'rejection'?"

"Well, it's not like he could like me back, right?" Willow said, dejected. "We just met, and he'd be better with someone who's not half-a-witch Willow."

"Hey! What'd we say about that stupid and totally wrong label?" Luz scolded lightly, pointing at Willow and wagging her finger. "You're Willow Park, plant prodigy of Hexside — title pending. Not 'half' of anything!" … except a soulmate bond with Hunter, she gleefully thought, shipping urges already working overtime to plan ship names.

"And who said he couldn't like you back?" Gus asked seriously. "If I heard right, he almost kissed you."

"Well, that was probably just hormones," she said, though without conviction.

"And maybe it wasn't," Gus said. "I mean, besides Oracle magic, which is crazy unreliable in stuff like this, all you can do is ask."

"Plus, you'll have to confront this sooner rather than later," Luz added, glancing briefly behind Willow. "Don't you guys have almost all your classes together?"

"My ears are burning," a familiar voice said, causing Willow to squeak and whirl around. Hunter was smiling smugly at them all. "Talking about me behind my back? You should be ashamed."

"Oh yeah, totally ashamed," Gus shot back with a smile. "Not like you weren't getting up to anything suspicious over the weekend."

Hunter raised an eyebrow in confusion, then held back a groan at the thought of his actual day before. After an intense healing session to fully restore his arm by the Emperor's Coven's personal Healers, he'd spent the rest of that day and most of both nights catching up on paperwork and/or reporting in with Belos. That had … not been a fun experience. While his uncle had accepted his explanation that he still needed to earn his target's trust, he was clearly less than patient for this mission to end. Especially as it was a personal favor only barely sanctioned.

"Hi, Hunter," Willow greeted shyly.

"Hey, Willow," he said back, his smug grin fading into a mix of awkwardness and longing. Neither witchling moved as a subtle tension seemed to grow between them, like the charge before a lightning strike or the unsteady calm before a boiling rainstorm.

"Well, Gus and I had better get to class," Luz said, grabbing the younger boy and hauling him away by the elbow. "Bye, Willow! Bye, Hunter!"

"See ya, Willow! And Hunter?" Gus called. Both witchlings dragged themselves from their bubble to look at the illusionist. He narrowed his eyes and pointed two fingers at them before turning them back at Hunter. Then he yelped as Luz dragged him even harder and they disappeared behind a corner.

"What was that about?" Hunter asked.

"Um, well," Willow started, until the bell screaming interrupted her, "maybe we should discuss that later."

"Uh, yeah, sure," Hunter said, twiddling his thumbs. "We can talk about it in class, huh?"

"Yeah, class," she agreed, brushing some hair behind her ear. Then she yelped. "Which we're going to be late for!"

Hunter laughed as Lil Rascal expanded into his staff form for him to take up. "No we're not," he promised, snaking a hand around her waist and drawing her to his side. "Promise." With that, they vanished in a flash of yellow light.

As it turned out, they didn't get as much of a chance to talk in class as they'd expected or hoped. With Hunter adjusting to the Plant Track classes and his grades almost as high as Willow's, Mrs. Kissiae had decided to have them partner with others from now on. After all, she'd reasoned, how fair was it to have her two best students working together all the time?

As it turned out, Willow had been paired with Amelia and Hunter with Jerbo.

"So, how's Hunter adjusting to Hexside?" Amelia asked as they carefully worked with a blazing bush. The goal was to, without using magic, agitate it enough to produce its flammable oil from its leaves to wick away and collect, but not so much as to make it ignite and attack them.

"He seems to be doing fine," Willow replied levelly, her voice tight as she struggled to hide a blush.

Amelia noticed, though, and she smiled wickedly. "So … you've spent a lot of time with him. Would you say he's, I dunno ... dateable?"

Willow's eyes shot open as she drained the specialized sponge she was using to collect the oil. "W-Why do you ask?" she wondered aloud.

"Well, Boscha thinks he's kind of cute," she said offhandedly. "And I gotta admit, he is easy on the eyes in a rough sort of way. And since he told her off to her face, she thinks maybe she should snatch him up as a toy." Amelia's teasing grin faded at the sound of creaking wood and rustling leaves, as well as the faintest oppressing sense of powerful magic.

"Over my dead body," Willow growled quietly, her eyes glowing green and all the flora in the greenhouse trembling in their boxes and containers.

"Willow, stop!" Amelia said fearfully. Willow blinked and shook her head, the green glow fading and the plants settling back down. She grunted and winced as the ache in her chest intensified for a few moments before settling again. She brushed a few drops of sweat from her brow and looked at them in concern.

'What's happening to me?' she wondered.

"Hey, everything okay?" Hunter asked, suddenly appearing beside them.

"Yeah, perfectly fine," Willow replied cheerily. She glanced behind him. "Uh oh, Mrs. Kissiae is looking," she turned him around by his shoulders and pushed him along, "better get back to Jerbo!"

"Okay, okay," Hunter chuckled as he moved away from her grasp. "But be careful, alright?" he asked, looking back over his shoulder with the faintest pink tinge to his cheeks. "I don't want you getting hurt again …" He seemed to realize what he said as he winced and stiffly power-walked back to his station. Willow giggled, covering her lips with her fingertips, as she returned to Amelia.

"Sorry you had to see that, Amelia," Willow said, her eyes downcast as she continued their work.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," Amelia replied. "I'm the one who should be sorry. That was totally a joke, by the way. Boscha hates the guy's guts."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" Willow asked sardonically, though a faint smile showed it was in good fun. "Whoa, ease up; it's smoking there!"

On the other side of the greenhouse, the boys were having less progress. Without Willow's gentle guidance, Hunter was floundering a little bit — though for a prodigy like him, that meant he was still doing fairly well for a novice plant witch. The real trick was in his partner's attitude.

Hunter had met the Troublemakers a few times in the last week when they crossed paths with Luz's friend group, hence his vague familiarity with Viney a few days before. The girl herself had been friendly, especially with Luz's voucher. Barcus had sniffed him and stared at him through his glasses before huffing that his aura was strong, but conflicted and decided to tentatively trust him.

Jerbo, though … he very clearly didn't care for Hunter. He tried to hide it, but something about the new student seemed to really rub him the wrong way. He was never unfriendly, really … just distant and usually faintly scowling, refusing to speak to Hunter unless necessary and with as few terse words as possible. Not helping was Hunter's general disinterest in getting to know Jerbo.

This dynamic, predictably, did not lead to a strong project partnership.

"She's alright," Hunter reported, knowing full-well that Jerbo was Willow's friend and therefore would want an update. "She just lost her temper a bit."

"Glad she's okay," Jerbo said, his tone just a hint softer than usual when speaking to Hunter and sunk up to his elbows beneath their blazing bush to squeeze and prod the central stem. Then he scowled, as if remembering who he was talking to. "Now would you please start harvesting? These things have a limited capacity, you know."

"I do, actually," Hunter bit back, taking his sponge and gently soaking up the oil before squeezing it into a ceramic bowl. "Willow warned me." Jerbo grumbled a few unintelligible, and probably unflattering, words under his breath as he continued his work. Hunter narrowed his eyes as he wrung out the sponge again. "You know, normally I don't care what people think, but you've had a problem with me since before we even met. What's your deal?"

Jerbo jerked his arms from underneath the bush and glowered at Hunter. "None of your business," he spat, before taking their sealed bowl and heading off to hand it in to the teacher. Hunter scowled as his back, more from confusion and curiosity at the dual-tracker's hostility than actual anger.

"Man, you are a blind," a voice said from behind him. Hunter turned to find another student shaking his head with a bemused smile. He was of grey-blue skin and had green eyes, with a prominent rounded chin, but his most striking feature was his scalp. Instead of bald skin, the top of his head was formed of protrusions resembling fingers that had a large gap between them to reveal his brain, the entire arrangement looking like two hands actively holding his brain inside his head.

"Thanks," Hunter groused, "always nice to be insulted by a complete stranger."

"Yeah, sorry," the demon said, scratching his neck, "I kinda call it like I see it." He held out a hand to shake. "Name's Ium," he said, "Ium Crane."

"Hunter Strong," Hunter replied, accepting the shake. "So, what'd you mean I'm blind?"

Ium shrugged. "I dunno if it's my place to say, honestly," he said. "I don't really know Jerbo or Willow that well," he glanced over at the bespectacled girl with a faint darker tinge to his cheeks, the protrusions on his scalp absently scratching his brain like anyone else would scratch their head. "But, uh, I will tell you that pretty much every member of the plant track has had a crush on Willow at some point," he revealed.

Hunter's eyes twitched. "Every one?" he asked hoarsely.

"Okay, not every one," Ium backtracked, waving his palms from side to side. "Just most of the guys …" he blushed a little harder, "... and I think a few of the girls …?" Hunter swallowed thickly at that revelation. He'd never been comfortable with competition, even in the Emperor's Coven. And it looked like Willow wasn't exactly lacking in potential suitors.

Any number of witches and demons who could actually use magic.

Ium grimaced in sympathy. One of the quirks of his type of demon, the Headholds, was a strong innate sense for the emotions of others. It was believed that the openness of their brains was what led to that, and it was usually used as a defense mechanism to avoid confrontation. And right now, that sensitivity was screaming at him that Hunter was crushing hard on Willow and feeling out of his depth.

"Hey, if it makes you feel better," Ium said with a smile, "Willow seems a lot closer with you than anyone outside her little friend group. Even with the other dual-trackers." He shrugged. "I mean, who knows? Maybe you have a real chance." Ium gave a saluting wave and returned to his station with Bram, letting Hunter mull over his words. Could it be true?

Could he really have a chance?

Despite what many believed, ruling any large territory was not easy. And it involved paperwork for every facet of the government. In even a semi-functioning state, even the ruling body — in the case of the Boiling Isles, Emperor Belos — was not above the mind-numbing and tedious fact.

Belos, an epitome of self-control when not in the throes of one of his "episodes", kept himself from grumbling as he meticulously went over a request by Cernunnos, the Healing Coven Head, to establish a free clinic in Latissa. The entire document, which he decided to authorize for good publicity, reminded him of Hunter's failure in that city.

"My liege," came Kikimora's high-pitched voice as she placed another stack of forms on his desk and took a different stack to deliver.

"What is it, Kiki?" Belos asked as he moved on to a report on lumber supplies between the Plant and Construction Covens.

"This little mission the Golden Guard has been sent on, ferreting out the scum teaching wild magic to children," she said, "are you really so certain that he can accomplish it?" When Belos didn't comment, Kiki assumed it was permission to continue. "He is young, after all, and his hormones flow through him. Are we certain that he will resist the charms of this girl he had targeted?"

"Kikimora," Belos growled, using her name and not the pet name he typically reserved for her. The small demon stepped back in sudden fear at that. "Do you have so little faith in my judgement?"

"Of course not, Emperor Belos!" she said quickly. "I merely-!"

"Then worry about your own assignments," he cut in, his tone quiet and all-the-more menacing. "While I worry about my right hand."

Kikimora could only bow meekly as she scurried away with her stack of forms.

Belos sighed and lifted his mask to brush the pocks in his face and neck. Despite his words, part of him was worried about Hunter. Yes, he was aware that infiltration missions took time to pay off, especially with Luz Noceda recognizing him and likely watching his every move. And he did have confidence in Hunter's charms and intellect to search out the witch who would dare to teach wild magic to the next generation.

But Kikimora had something of a point. Hunter was at an age where the urge to mate, to find union in romance, would be as powerful as any time in his life. And he had spent the last several years, ever since Belos had taken him in, around people twice or even thrice his age. His craving for relationships in his age group — both romantic and platonic — and his resistance to such temptations, would be difficult to circumvent.

In the end, it all boiled down to his faith in the Titan's plan. Hunter had his role, and Belos knew that he would fulfill it. And so he put this conundrum out of his mind for the time being and refocused on his work.

If push came to shove, he would assign an agent to "check in" on his nephew.

"Easy, gentlemen, easy," Mrs. Kissiae said levelly as two burkly members of the Construction Coven, identical except for one having a beard and the other clean shaven and both dressed in hard hats and brown cover-alls, handled a large plant box containinging an even larger plant.

"We heard ya the first time, Miss," the bearded one said, his tone gruff but his volume low. Both of the constructionists, heavily-muscled and -proportioned and bearing strength-enhancing power glyphs, maneuvered the box with surprising grace as they settled it onto the ground right in the corner of the greenhouse with hardly a sound, perfectly aligned with the walls to make sliding it into place unnecessary.

With that done, all of the adult witches took a moment to admire the plant in the light of the sunset that peeked into the greenhouse. It was a massive pink stem — two feet wide at the base and three times that at the top, and its height nearly brushing the greenhouse ceiling — shaped like a narrow heart, with a crown of beautiful, snow-white flowers topping it. And spider-webbing the stem were veins of purple that centered around structures that resembled blisters, lending a sense of macabre to the plant's towering beauty.

"And now for the tricky part," the shaven constructionist said. He and his partner traded a quick glance before flipping open a box they had brought in before the plant. They each traced a circle in the air that carved shallow furrows into the wall level with the box. Then they coordinated a larger circle that melted down the contents of the box, shards of broken glass, that flowed like liquid silver and spread out to form a thick, airtight screen. A single door was fashioned into the glass with a padlock.

"There," the bearded builder said, wiping the sweat from his brow. "That'll stand up to anything."

"Anything you'll find in a greenhouse," the shaven one said in agreement.

"Oh thank you so much, gentlemen," Mrs. Kissiae said, clapping delightedly. "This specimen is so rare, and Hexside is honored to house it for the Emperor's Coven."

"Yeah, honored," the shaven one whispered.

"Wonder what the Emperor could want with this … accident waiting to happen."

Chapter six! Hope you all liked it.

*The Spanish is from Google Translate and is supposed to mean: "I swear to all things holy-"

*For those of you who might think Willow's self-depreciating is out of character, remember that she spent many years with low self-esteem. That kind of thing doesn't go away over a few months, even with a huge confidence boost. Trust me on that. *Jealous!Willow was also really fun to write.

*If you're wondering about Ium's name, try saying it last-then-first. I really liked coming up with that!

*Ium's comment about "every" plant track student having a crush on Willow at some point is largely drawn from "Wing It Like Witches" where Willow has gotten much more popular. Or, in Luz's words, "everyone's got Willow-fever"." Call me crazy, but I doubt that none of that attention was romantic in a HIGH SCHOOL.

This is some of the most fun I've had writing in quite a while. Hope you all are still enjoying it!