Hunter had felt uncomfortable when they were watching the last movie, but this time it was more due to the movie itself rather than existential dread. That Emperor character behaved shockingly similarly to Belos, and by the end of the movie, he couldn't help but see a bit of himself in Vader.

The only difference was that Vader redeemed himself by giving his life to kill the Emperor. What had Hunter done? When his friends were fighting Belos he had been getting weaker by the moment until he could barely stand, the thick golden veins reaching up to his forehead.

He kept trying to tell himself it was only a movie, but it was hard to not make the comparison when Willow, Gus, and Amity cheered as the Emperor plummeted to his death, exploding in an uncomfortably familiar fashion.

He thought he could never hate Belos more, but after learning about what he did to Vee and the other basilisks, he had been lost for words. He wanted to know more, but he knew it wasn't exactly a nice subject, so he didn't push.

The knowledge that if he had found out, he'd probably have just went along with it absolutely terrified him. It terrified him because despite how many times he told himself that he would've done the right thing, he knew he wouldn't have.

He remembered back to the night he and Luz broke into the historical society. He'd been petrified as Camila yelled at both of them, and in disbelief when she sent them away with the only punishment being getting grounded for a week. It didn't make any sense to him, but everybody else seemed to think it was normal, so he didn't want to say anything. But still, an adult punishing him in a way that didn't involve anything physical? It was unheard of.

He had lain awake that night, as everybody else fell asleep, until he saw Flapjack wake up.

"Hey," he said, letting the bird perch onto his finger. "You're full of secrets, aren't you?"

'Keep secret,' Flapjack chirped. 'Would hurt you.'

"Hiding the truth never helped anyone," Hunter responded. "You should know that by now."

'Sorry,' Flapjack tweeted. 'Never again.'

Hunter smiled, setting his palisman down onto the floor. "Right." Flapjack flew over to the other palismen and snuggled up next to Ghost. "Never again."

He was startled out of his flashback by a hand waving in front of his face.

"We're about to go," Willow said. "Don't want to get left behind."

They were supposed to be going into one of the big human cities today, and Luz sort of wished she'd primed them for what they would see by making them watch Avengers first, but it was too late now. Luz could tell that Camila knew about how much she and Hunter had been flaunting the rules of their punishment, but she hadn't made any effort to stop them.

Luz wasn't exactly sure why. Maybe it was regret for giving it to them in the first place, or maybe she was just too busy to deal with it. Hunter had been sure it was a trick though, which was both concerning and humorous.

They were going into New York because Camila needed to go and buy some stuff she couldn't get back home, and the plan was to let Luz and her friends go do some tourist stuff whilst she went to the shops.

None of the witches had ever been in a car before, and they were all curious about how it worked. Luz had told them that they powered it with the corpses of dead animals, but it wasn't quite clear whether she was joking or not.

Amity flinched when the car started up. "I thought you said it wasn't alive!" she said.

"It's not."

"Then why is it growling?"

Camila looked back at Amity from the front seat. "That's just the engine, niña. If anything, I'd be more worried if it didn't make that noise."

The drive to New York took nearly two hours, and both Hunter and Amity dozed off pretty quickly. They were both woken by horns beeping, and Camila loudly shouting at something.

"¡Cuidado, bastarda!" She ran a hand through her hair and sighed. "So inconsiderate. The traffic here is beyond a joke - fuera de mi camino, idiota!"

"Y'know, I think I'm actually glad we don't have to deal with this on the Isles," Gus said as he looked at the gridlock traffic jam. "This is insane."

"It could be worse," Vee said from the passenger's seat. "Last time we came into the city she got into a bar fight."

Amity blearily looked over to Luz - she was wearing headphones and blasting the music at max volume just to be able to hear it over the traffic and swearing.

"What are you wearing?" Amity asked.

"Oh, these? They're headphones. They let you listen to music without other people hearing, wanna try?"

"… okay?"

Luz pulled the headphones off and placed them over Amity's ears, letting their pointed tips poke out the back.

"Oh, that reminds me. Gus, can you do the illusion thing?"

Gus nodded and cast a quick spell; Amity and Hunter's eyes changed to a bright blue, Hunter's scar and ear notch disappeared, and all four witch's ears became round.

"Right, we're here," Camila said. "This is Central Park. You can wander around here, but don't go too far away and meet back up here by two pm sharp, okay? Call me if anything goes wrong."

Luz flashed her mother a quick thumbs up. "Come on, guys - Amity?" She reached over to pull one side of the headphones back, only to have her hand slapped away.

"I'm never taking these off…" Amity whispered.

After Luz had managed to confiscate the headphones from her girlfriend and stuff them in her rucksack, the four witches, Luz, and Vee stepped out onto the pavement and watched Camila drive away.

Amity and Hunter looked up in astonishment. They weren't sure what they were expecting from a human city, but it certainly wasn't this. Large, reflective obelisks towered over them high into the clouds. The tallest object in the Isles was the Titan's head, but that didn't even come close to this. Belos' castle was the tallest building, but it was absolutely minuscule in comparison to the monoliths that stood next to them. If you were too look at it from above, it would seem as if the buildings were standing atop the clouds.

"So this is New York," Amity muttered. "It's very… geometric."

"What do they even use those buildings for? Why do they need to be so big?" Hunter asked.

"It's mostly just offices and apartments," Luz responded. "Like eight million people live here, so they've gotta work and live somewhere."

"Eight million?" Gus said. "There's only like 1.6 million on the titan. This city must house a huge percentage of the human population."

"Yeah… no," Luz laughed. "There's eight billion people on Earth, I'd be surprised if the people here even made up 0.1% percent of the total population." She began to walk away, but looked back when she realised no one was following her. "What?"

"Eight… billion?" Willow asked. "Are you sure that's right?"

Vee chuckled. "That was basically my reaction when I found out too. Come on, there's a place that sells ice cream not too far from here!"