Seriously, King's Tide (2x21) spoilers. Also, if theres any botched Spanish here, blame Google translate.


Camila tried her best to calm herself, and take in the scene in front of her.

Luz was there - finally, after all this time, she was back. She wore an old sports jacket and baggy trousers. Her hair was longer, tied into a small ponytail, she had a scratch on her cheek, and a cut on her eyebrow that looked deep enough to scar.

To the left was two girls. One of them had pale skin and pink hair, and the other had navy pigtails. To the right were two boys. One was a short, dark skinned boy wearing a blue tunic. The other one looked older than the rest of them, but not by much. He had ash blond hair, a scar on his cheek, a notch in his ear, and dressed like he'd just come out of medieval Britain. He was holding his arm around the other boy's shoulder like a protective sibling.

All of them had pointy ears like elves, and they were all as beat up as Luz. A small flock of animals appeared from around the corner. They included a bee-like creature, some sort of weird blue gecko, a white cat, and a red cardinal.

She stood in stunned silence for far too long, but as soon as she had processed it all she rushed forward and hugged Luz.

"Don't ever do that again, mija… I was so worried."

Luz pulled away from the hug and smiled shakily. "I know, I'm sorry."

After a brief pause, Camila finally registered that everyone had clearly just been in a fight, because they all looked injured.

"Luz, what happened? Are you hurt? Come in, let me try and stop the bleeding." She led Luz in, but turned around at the last second. The other kids were standing around awkwardly at the door. "You guys too."

Camila led everyone into the living room and sat them down, grabbing five ice packs from the fridge.

"Luz tends to hurt herself a lot," she said. "I keep them for emergencies."

"Mrs Noceda, how are bags of ice supposed to heal wounds?" said short boy.

Camila quickly made mental nicknames for all of them: Pink, Blondie, Navy, Short.

"They don't heal the wounds," she chuckled. "They just help numb the pain is all."

"Do humans not have a way to heal wounds?" Blondie asked.

Camila smiled nervously. "The body has to heal itself, we just have to give it a little push." Did witches have healing magic? She thought. They're gonna be disappointed if they do.

Pink sighed. "I wish I'd listened to Emira when she'd offered to teach me basic healing spells, but no. Apparently rereading Azura was more important."

"Does anyone want any hot chocolate?" Camila asked, trying to change the subject as her suspicions were confirmed. "You all look freezing."

Pink nodded and whispered to the other kids. "Yes, please. Uh, Hunter?"

He looks like a Hunter, Camila thought.

"Could I just have some tea, please?"

Luz faltered for a second. "I didn't even know you had tea back in the Isles."

"Belos used to make it for me," Hunter said nervously. "He never told me it came from here, but I figured it out after all… that."

Belos. Camila had heard Vee say that name before. She'd never pried, but it was clear neither of them was very fond of this 'Belos' character.

"I'll go make that," Camila said. "You guys just go settle down on the couch in the living room, okay?"

The five kids sat in the living room in silence for a long time, but they were all too stressed to even register the awkward silence. Then, all at once, they let out a heavy sigh.

"What the hell just happened?" Luz said suddenly. "That Collector kid just came in and killed Belos with no effort!"

"What even is he?" Willow asked. "Why did King work with him?"

Amity ran a hand through her hair. "That was… I don't even know where my family are. Even Mom… I don't know why I still care about her."

"You think you've got it bad?" Hunter snapped. "I just watched my uncle get splatted onto the wall like a fly and I hate myself for still caring, even after all he did."

"What about Eda…" Luz muttered. "And King, Lilith, Hooty, Raine… everybody."

Gus' eyes were wide. "It was supposed to be us versus Belos. How did we both manage to lose?"

"We can't keep doing this," Luz said. "But we also need to get back and fix everything."

Amity patted her on the shoulder. "Luz, we won't be able to fix anything until we've calmed down. We need a day or two to just relax."

"How can we relax when we know the Collector is destroying our home?" Willow asked.

"Because we can't get back," Hunter responded. "Belos spent years trying to build a portal before he found out that it was only possible with titan's blood. If he couldn't figure out how to make it without the stuff in that time, we sure as hell can't."

"So what, we just have to hope that the Owl Lady is able to find more blood?" Gus asked.

"There is no more blood!" Hunter snapped, slamming his hand down on the coffee table and wincing in pain. "It's over, we failed. And now, we're trapped here."

"We're not trapped."

Everyone turned to look at Luz.

Luz smiled. "There is more titan's blood… because King is a titan."

"And you never thought to mention that?" Willow asked.

"Wait, so Eclipse Lake was for nothing?" Amity and Hunter said simultaneously.

Gus sighed again. "Does Eda know?"

"Yeah." Luz tapped her fingers on the table. "If she can rescue King, she'll come for us. If she's even still alive, that is."

The awkward silence returned again, and everyone seemed to be in a different mental state. Willow was mostly calm, Luz was conflicted, Amity and Gus were worried, and Hunter seemed to be quite calm too, but he was panicking just as much as everyone else.

"So what do we do now?"

Luz had never heard Hunter's voice sound so broken, not even when they were in Philip's mind. "I guess we have to wind down a bit, get our bearings, then I suppose we should train for whatever we find when we get back."

"I hope Eda can come through," Amity muttered.

"I hope I'm not interrupting."

All five of them froze and looked back to Camila.

"How much did you hear?" Luz asked.

Camila shook her head. "Enough." She placed four hot chocolates and one cup of tea down on the coffee table. "I'll go get you guys something to eat, you all look starving." She turned to walk away, but paused. "I'm sorry, I didn't introduce myself. My name is Camila. I never caught your names?"

Luz mustered together some misplaced confidence and smiled. "Mom, this is Amity - my awesome girlfriend, my friends from Hexside Gus and Willow, and Hunter."

It didn't go unnoticed that Luz never explained how she knew Hunter. But Camila didn't care, she'd find out later.

"I hope you've been taking good care of my Luz all this time," Camila smiled. "I'm glad she's made so many friends."

As Camila left, Luz looked at her friends. "Sorry we don't have any spare clothes for you guys. We can go buy some tomorrow."

Gus finally perked up. "Shopping? In the human realm?"

Luz smiled. Gus was the youngest of them, so she was glad they'd found something to take his mind off of everything. "Yeah. We can go get some human food as well that'll hopefully be better than whatever Mamí ends up making tonight, considering that it'll probably be quite… last minute."

"I just hope we can eat it," Willow said. "Didn't you say that there was a lot of Isles food you couldn't eat?"

"Yeah," Luz responded. "But it seems that witches and humans are pretty biologically similar aside from the obvious, so you guys should be fine."

It was at that moment that Camila walked in, holding a tray loaded with five bowls of pot noodles.

"It's really basic, but it was the best I could get in such short notice," she said.

"It can't be worse than what we got in the Coven," Hunter laughed, clenching his hand and wincing again.

"Caleb, what's wrong?" Willow asked.

"Nothing… it's nothing."

Willow immediately grabbed Hunter's hand and pulled his glove off. His Coven Sigil was distorted, and the area around it was covered in lined scars from the Draining Spell.

"I didn't want to worry you," he muttered. "I'll be fine though, it just stings a lot. Nothing serious."

"Nothing serious?" Camila said, rushing over. "That looks painful, I'll go get you a bandage."

"I said it's fine. It's already scarred over anyways."

"But the Draining Spell happened like fifteen minutes ago," Gus said. "How could it have healed up that quickly?"

Hunter shrugged. "It's magic. You're a witch, figure it out."

As Hunter and Gus bickered like siblings in the background, Camila brought them all sleeping bags.

"It won't be very comfy, but it's the best I can do for now," she said. "I'll try to get some camp beds at the shops tomorrow."


Luz knew she would be allowed to sleep in the bottom bunk of her bed if she wanted to, but right now, she just wanted to be with her friends. She looked over at them. Gus had fallen asleep as soon as he'd laid down, and his sleeping bag was nestled close to Hunter's. Amity was staring at the ceiling blankly, and Willow and Hunter seemed to be asleep too.

Luz poked her girlfriend in the shoulder. "You okay?"

"No," Amity deadpanned. "Even with everything that's happened, I'm not worried about getting back home. I'm worried that there might not be a home to return to."

Luz knew that however much she cared about the Isles, her friends cared about it ten times as much. So, her words of comfort were probably lacking, but they were the best she could do.

"Well, you guys will always be welcome here, no matter how bad things get," she said. "We're going to fix this, okay?"

Amity smiled. "Okay."


Luz rubbed her eyes and leaned over to check the clock. It was only ten past eight.

Amity, Willow, and Gus were still fast asleep, but Hunter was missing. Luz sighed. She should probably try figure out where he was, but she needed to have some breakfast first, she was still starving. She blearily stumbled into the kitchen to make some cereal, but was stopped by a familiar face.

"Vee," she said. "I… where were you last night?"

Vee smiled softly. "I realised that your friends were from the Demon Realm, and I… I was going to talk to you guys, but then I heard his voice."

Luz tilted her head in confusion.

"The blond one," Vee explained. "I'd recognise that annoying voice anywhere. I knew he was in the Coven, so I thought Belos had finally caught up to me. But, I was listening to you guys talk to Ca – Mom, and… you trusted him. That helped a bit."

"I'm so sorry," Luz said. "I never even thought about it. Out of curiosity, did Hunter know about what Belos did to you?"

Vee shrugged. "I asked him a few minutes ago, he said that he didn't. He never came down to our cells, I only heard his voice when I escaped. He led the patrols that were searching for me."

"I doubt he knew, even when he was pursuing you," Luz said. "Hunter's been through a lot, but it's perfectly reasonable for you to not trust him."

Vee smiled. "Thanks. I, uh, would love to stay and chat, but it's a school day today, and I'm going to be late."

Luz found Hunter sitting on the front porch a few minutes later.

"What time did you wake up?" she joked, noticing that the bags under his eyes were darker than usual.

"Half six," he muttered. "First time I've slept in in ages."

Luz chuckled lightly and sat down next to him. "I heard you had a conversation with Vee."

"Yeah…" Hunter said. "I wish I'd known."

"If you had, would you have tried to stop it?"

Hunter's eyes were wide as he fiddled with his hair. "That's the scary part. I… I don't know." He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Luz wrapped an arm around him tightly. "It wasn't your fault. And for what it's worth, just remember that there's been loads of you's that had to deal with the exact same thing."

Hunter smiled. That was weirdly comforting as long as he didn't think about the existential implications of it. "Come on, let's go inside. It's getting cold."

When they got back inside, everyone else had woken up and was sitting at the kitchen table. They all looked half dead, and Luz couldn't help but think she probably looked like that too.

Camila walked into the holding a cup of coffee (unlike everyone else, she only looked dead on the inside). "Has Vee already left?" she asked blearily. Luz nodded in response. "Right," Camila muttered. "In that case, could you maybe start explaining what happened?"

Luz looked at her friends again and sighed. "Well… it all started when a weird little owl stole my Azura book."