Amity growled, trying to form a spell circle in the air outside of Blight Manor, but once again the small ring fizzled out and shattered into fragments of light. She had been trying to learn the fire spell that her siblings had promised to teach her, growing impatient after her disappointing adventure in Acetabela and her encounter with Bria Bradbury. She felt like a coward, and she wasn't even sure she could pass the exam that was quickly approaching, let alone attain the kind of grade she was used to. While her abomination magic was unmatched in Hexside, she had come to rely on it too much. She had managed to master the barrier spell that she had learned from the Owl Lady, but just protecting herself wasn't enough. With no offensive skills, any attack against her would eventually wear down her defences through attrition.
"You ready to go, Mittens?" Edric called from the door, his twin sister beside her. They had tried to be helpful ever since she had to spend all night in the Library with Luz, cleaning up their pranks during the Wailing Star, and when they had heard what had happened at the carnival grounds, and then during the Grudgby game the other day, they had insisted on accompanying her nearly everywhere.
"I have to meet Luz at the market in a half hour first." Amity replied, trying to concentrate on another spell circle. It was already late afternoon, and she wanted to get as much practice as she could before her exam.
"We'll join you!" Edric answered back. "We need to pick up a teleportation scroll for our trip to the Knee anyway.
"Yeah! Plus, we like Luz!" Emira added, then whispered something to her brother that made him chuckle.
Amity's spell fizzled out again and she glared menacingly at her siblings. "Fine." she said, picking up her bag and throwing it over her shoulder as she approached them. "But no pranks this time, alright?"
Edric looked shocked that she would even assume such a thing before flashing a playful grin and putting an arm around his younger sister's shoulder. "Don't worry, sis. We'll be on our best behavior."
"I make no such promises." Emira admitted, drawing a spell circle that gathered up all of their tents and other camping supplies into a convenient satchel that she hung on one shoulder for their walk to the market. "So what changed your mind about the human, Mittens? The last we saw you two at the library, you were trying to tell us she wasn't your friend."
"You mean when you tricked her into finding my diary and threatened to post it all on penstagram for everyone to see?" Amity asked, resulting in the twins flashing a grimace. "Well, while we were cleaning up the mess you left, we managed to talk a bit and I found out she's… that humans, maybe aren't as bad as I thought." she explained, catching herself. "She was also willing to lend me the next volume in the book series I've been reading for awhile."
"We get it, and we apologize." Edric said, pulling her close in a tight squeeze that he knew would make her uncomfortable.
Emira lifted an eyebrow as she trailed behind, magically opening Amity's bag and extracting the book in question. "Hmm… Give her some of your hair dye and Luz would look just like this Azura character, wouldn't she?" she giggled.
Amity stopped and turned, pulling the book from her sister again with a renewed glare. "I hadn't noticed." she lied, returning her book to her bag and holding it closed as they continued their walk through town. "Anyway, I'm not sure if we're friends. I've tried talking to her again since the library, but we seem to keep missing each other. I guess I kinda realized I hadn't really given her a chance before…"
"Yeah, you were kind of a jerk, huh?" Edric replied. Amity could tell when her brother and sister were joking most of the time, and she could hear the sarcasm in his voice, but the comment still bit at her.
"Well, to be fair, she did help Willow cheat at her presentation, and…"
"Okay, Mittens. We know. Forget I mentioned it." Edric said, clearly having heard the story of Luz too many times already. "Just don't forget what mom will do if she finds out you're friends with someone that can't do magic."
Amity frowned for a moment, thinking about her brother's words. "Well it's not like Luz goes to Hexside, right? I don't see what mom has to threaten her with."
"Mom can always find something to manipulate someone with. Just be careful, sis." Edric added, tracing a spell circle to summon his coin purse, approaching the Teleport Scroll booth. "We should get some supplies from Grimgrub's too."
Emira sighed, walking across the street. "I'll see what I can find."
As her siblings split to either side of the street, Amity wandered past the Teeth Emporium and Mr. Elixir's booth to look at the Bounty Board. The Owl Lady's wanted poster was still displayed prominently, as well as Lilith's recruitment poster off to the side. Various other wanted posters were pinned and overlapped on the board, all relating to different individuals or specific types of demons. Charles, the Animated Doll was worth ten thousand snails, a Selkidomus bounty for a million, and even a babysitting job for the Bat Queen could be seen behind several other notices. Amity couldn't help but wonder if she'd ever be the kind of individual that could be a bounty hunter; challenging powerful individuals to combat.
"We're done here!" Edric called, holding two parchment scrolls in one hand. Amity looked up at his call and returned to the middle of the street to meet him and their sister.
"I got us a bottle of Apple Blood that should do us for the weekend, as well as some extra snacks." Emira said. "I think that makes us ready to go?"
"Okay. Just let me meet Luz. She asked to meet in Rot Alley, between the Cursed Paintings and the Blessed Rocks booths. Apparently she's familiar with that area the most." she explained, leading the way. Rot Alley wasn't far, and she found the appropriate booths to wait at. She curiously started to inspect the Blessed Rocks with her brother, certain that they had very little magical properties of their own until she heard a familiar voice shout from deeper into the market.
"Hey Amity!" Luz shouted from down the street, waving a hand. "Luz is finally here!" she continued, running toward her.
Emira, who had been browsing the cursed paintings and snapping penstagram pics with her scroll, and Edric stepped out into the street to jokingly block her path, sending the human girl sprawling in surprise. The twins couldn't help but chuckle at the display, and Amity offered her hand. "Edric, Emira! Stop bothering her!" she ordered, pulling Luz to her feet again. "Sorry, Luz. They insisted on coming for some reason."
Emira pressed her hands against Amity's face, squishing her cheeks in annoying affection. "Because we love you, baby sister!"
Amity pushed her sister away and fixed her tousled hair. "They've been extra protective and nice towards me to make up for the library incident." she explained, casting a sideways glance at her brother that was trying to look adorable.
"And we still apologize every day." he said, letting out a grunt as she pushed him away as well.
Amity opened her bag and pulled out the Azura book, handing it over to Luz. "In any case, here's your book."
Luz grinned, taking the book from Amity and flipping through it. "So, what'd you think?"
Amity crossed her arms uncomfortably and looked away, trying to retain her composure in front of her brother and sister. "It was… fine." she said. She had waited so long to have someone to talk to about her interest in The Good Witch Azura, but as nice and helpful as Edric and Emira had been lately, she knew they would take the opportunity to expose her to all of Hexside.
Pulling a sheet of lined paper from near the end of the book, Luz grinned. "So fine you drew yourself with Malingale the Mysterious Soothsayer?" she asked, holding up the art that Amity had forgotten between the pages that she had sketched during her trip to Acetabela. Amity stood in shock for a moment, feeling her face blush in embarrassment. She immediately circled a finger in the air, causing the page to fall apart into small scraps in Luz's hand that blew away in the breeze. Luz didn't skip a beat however, completing her flip through her book. "This is great! Maybe we could even start an Azura club at school when we're classmates!"
Amity couldn't help but be confused. "When we're what?" she asked, clearly having misunderstood.
Luz opened her arms in an exaggerated gesture as she made her proud announcement. "Surprise!" Luz sang, pulling out the familiar Hexside brochure. "I'm enrolling at Hexside!"
"Oh, uh… sorry." Amity said, speaking carefully as she took the pamphlet from Luz. "To be in my class, you need to take a placement exam to prove that you've mastered two spells." she continued, turning the pamphlet over to show Luz. "I know you have your light thing. Uh, do you know anything else?"
Luz frowned, staring at the pamphlet in Amity's hand. "Placement exam? Spells?" she asked nervously.
Amity looked up as Emira stepped into the conversation again. "Quit giving her a hard time, Mittens."
Amity turned to her brother on her other side as he spoke up as well. "Yeah. Of course she knows two spells." he added, continuing off of his twin's comment before flashing a smile at the human. "Right, Luz?"
Luz laughed, her voice reaching an unusually higher octave. "Pff! Yeah." she said, blushing. "Of course I know two spells!" she laughed.
"Because if you don't…" Amity said, opening up the pamphlet to a page featuring an image of a witchling chewing on a wooden block decorated with coven symbols. "They'll put you in the baby class."
Edric rose up under Amity as Emira leaned on her from behind, sandwiching their annoyed sister between them. "Oh! Brain idea!" Edric exclaimed.
"What if we all trained together?!" Emira added. "We could show off what we know!"
Their brother turned his attention back to the human girl. "What do you say, Luz?"
Luz was sweating, and still trying to address each of the Blight siblings while letting out a nervous laugh. "Uh, actually, I have other plans." she said, her smile turning more awkward the longer she stood there. "In a far away place that I have to go to right now." She pumped her arms as though she was running before seemingly realizing that she hadn't yet left. "Bye!" she added, suddenly bolting back down the street that she had come from.
"Humans are weird." Emira noted, standing straight again.
Amity wrestled herself out of her place between her brother and sister and stepped aside, asserting her personal space again. She was admittedly a little disappointed that Luz didn't want to train with her, but after seeing the kind of magic that the Owl Lady was able to perform at school a few weeks ago, she understood that under her tutelage, maybe Luz was a little more advanced than she realized. It was likely for the best that Amity only had Edric and Emira around just so she didn't embarrass herself too much. "Well, we'd best get started." Amity said, summoning a small pack of folded clothing with a spell circle. "Teleporting in is going to be cold."
Emira and Edric did the same, summoning up their warm coats and ear muffs before Edric pulled the teleportation scroll from his pocket. "Who's ready for two nights at the Knee with nothing but fresh powder and learning new magic?"
And no parents, or fake friends, or rivals, or pressures of the future, Amity thought with a smile. As annoying as her siblings could be, they were making the effort to help, and she appreciated it. After pulling on her gloves, she reached out for her sister's and brother's hands as Edric unrolled one of the scrolls and began to read it aloud. Teleportations could be expensive, which made them rare, though that wasn't much of a deterrent for the wealthiest families on the Boiling Isles, who often preferred the method of transport over flying. Time was money, after all. Dressed in winter gear in the middle of the Bonesborough market earned them the odd onlooker, but within moments they were gone, disappearing in an orb of electrical light before appearing in a snowy crater on the top of the Knee of the Titan.
The cold wind that blew across the peak was a sharp contrast to the warm weather of Bonesborough, and each of the teens shivered. "Okay." Emira said. "Let's get the tents set up. We'll camp for the night while you study for the evening…" she said, nodding at Amity, "And we'll start practice in the morning." Emira tossed her shoulder bag to the ground and triggered its magic with a wave of her finger, causing it to expand into a tent for each of them, already filled with their supplies for the weekend. Each tent was as spacious as most small houses, towering high enough to provide a chimney effect for the small continuous fire inside that warmed the area to comfortable levels. A comfortable bed big enough for three was already set up and made for each Blight, as well as all the materials they would need for their stay in the wild.
"Well, that was rough." Edric noted. "What did mom pack us for dinner, anyway?" he asked, leaping into his tent and rolling over on his four post bed.
Emira scrounged around in her own tent situated between her brother and sister's, finding a sizable package labelled for the current evening and opened it, finding a silver serving tray. She removed the lid and groaned in disappointment before returning the lid and lifting the tray out of the container. "Just some gross camping food." she announced, rolling her eyes and exiting her tent with the tray.
Edric summoned an illusion of an exquisite table large enough for six, complete with high backed chairs and silverware. Emira placed the tray in its center, lifting the lid to reveal a large, perfectly browned, cooked bird. "Only one sprig of garnish?" Edric frowned. "We're really roughing it."
"Amity, can you bring out the sides?" Emira shouted, looking about for her little sister. "Where'd she go?"
Amity was listening to her siblings, but had found a large rock to sit down on with her Magic 101 textbook, watching the sun slowly lower behind the Titan's ribs. From the height of the Knee, she could see the entire island, from Acetabela to the Mandible, and feel the magic that was rumored to exist here. It was permeating, and Amity breathed it in. It didn't feel like the power glyph that felt like it had squeezed more energy out of her own magic, or the swell of emotion she had experienced at the Glandus game. This was like soaking in it, like she had slid into a warm bath of light. She looked across the field at an ancient framework of ruins that had been built an immeasurable time ago, now nearly crumbled into dust. Entrances to old mines could be seen further away, likely constructed by early witches searching for treasures of power that had long faded.
She pulled her knees up to her chest as a cold breeze picked up, and wrapped her arms around them. Other than her brother and sister talking to each other below, there was utter silence here and Amity revelled in it, taking several minutes to just breath in the crisp calm of the sunset. There was a part of her that was wishing that Luz had decided to take Edric up on his offer of joining them, but she couldn't let a new friendship get in the way of the studying she needed to do here. It was best to just focus on what she needed to do.
"Amity! Dinner's getting cold!" Emira called again, and Amity let out a lonely sigh. She stood up, taking her text as she hopped off of the rock and made her way down to the dinner table.
The sound of whispering woke Amity, and the sunlight, tinting green by the walls of her tent, told her it was already late in the morning. She had settled down to study after dinner, and fell asleep with her textbook on her chest; the pages now crinkled with her movement in the night. She rubbed her eyes, took a breath, and despite wanting to pull her covers up over her head for the weekend, she sat up with renewed determination. She was going to learn that fire spell, even if it took all weekend.
She got changed, pulled her hair back in its usual tail style, and put on her coat and ear muffs. She found her training wand, checked that it was fully charged, and pulled her text book out of the covers of her bed. "Okay." she said, exiting her tent and wincing against the sun that was glaring off of the undisturbed snow. "Let's get this… wah?!" she exclaimed as Emira grabbed her arm.
"First things first, little sister." she said, pushing the sleeve of Amity's coat up to expose her forearm. "You won't learn anything new if you keep relying on the old." she said, placing the palm of her hand on Amity's wrist as she tried pulling away. "This will temporarily lock out your abomination magic, kinda like a coven brand."
"What?!" Amity asked in a panic. "How is that supposed to help?"
"You're never going to learn new magic if you keep relying on your old techniques. Trust me, it's for your own good."
"Remember, Mittens. Temporary. We're not inducting you into anything, don't worry." Edric added, walking over. "Think of it like learning to walk without a crutch."
The brand glowed for a moment; a symbol of a purple abomination with a red prohibit symbol locking it away, and Amity wrestled her arm away from her sister and looked at it with a frown. "You could have just told me. You didn't need to ambush me this early in the morning."
"Morning?" Emira asked. "You slept for twelve hours! It's almost noon already!" she explained as Amity tested her abomination magic. The spell circle formed, but faded quickly with a sad hum before anything materialized.
Amity's expression changed from annoyed, to surprised, and back again. "Why did you let me sleep so late?!"
"We didn't." Edric said, a concerned look suddenly appearing on his face. "We tried to wake you up twice. You must have really needed it."
She hugged her textbook and wand to her chest, feeling like she had wasted both her time and her sibling's so far. She took a step away for a moment before raising her head again. "I guess I did. Now I need your help figuring this out."
"Okay, okay. Calm down, Mittens. Lunch first." Emira said. "We just got it ready."
Amity was going to argue until her stomach growled at her, siding with her sister. "Fine. But afterward, we get started." After a meal of tiny sandwiches, demon wings, and fresh carniberries that were just as willing to eat their consumers as vice versa, Amity was ready to get started. She brandished her training wand and opened her book to a page she had marked, studying the motions required to focus her magic into the spell circle.
"Now remember. Fire isn't solid like your abominations. It requires adaptability to control properly, and constant concentration or it'll spread everywhere." Edric advised. He placed one hand on his sister's shoulder, and his other on her wand hand, directing her motion.
"It also requires faster movements, otherwise it'll just go out before you release it." Emira added.
As expected, Amity's cautious use of the wand led to her spell circle beginning to fade before she finished it. She tried again, faster this time, and a small spark shot out from the center of the circle, aimed at a rock that now had a small scorch mark where the spell had landed. "I did it!" she said excitedly. It wouldn't dissuade an attacker, but it was a start. The training wand siphoned magical energy from the surroundings to help with focusing one's own magic. The stronger the individual, the less magic the wand had to use to draw in the surrounding magic, so Amity was confident the wand's charge would last through the weekend.
"Yeah." Emira said, though clearly unimpressed. "Let's try amping it up a bit this time. A little faster with a little more focus. Just make sure to keep the circle small for now. We don't need to burn down the whole forest."
Amity nodded, forcing her excitement away until she was actually able to do something remarkable. Edric and Emira stood to the side as she held the wand out in front of her, tracing the spell circle in the air and focusing on her stone target. As her eyes narrowed, she caught sight of stray movement to the side, and her focus faltered. The bright purple bolt of fire careened off of the rock she had aimed at, launching itself up into the ruins nearby where an individual in a shaggy brown coat narrowly ducked out of the way. "Sorry, whoever's over there!" she shouted, lowering her wand. She squinted against the midday sun and recognized the staff and owl palisman of the Owl Lady, as well as the sillouhette of another figure. "Luz?"