Amity was surprised when she discover that 'ice cream' was actually very similar to the Eye Scream they had back in the Isles - only sans the eyes. Humans seemed to have a strange aversion to eating living things, but were apparently just fine eating dead things, which seemed inconsistent.

Gus had tried to bite into his when he first got it, which prompted Luz to clarify that they were meant to lick it. Gus had also ended up getting a 'brain freeze,' which Hunter thought was a kind of poison before Luz clarified that it was normal when you ate really cold stuff.

They didn't really eat cold food in the Isles. It was never hot enough to warrant it. Even Eye Scream wasn't cold, it was just cream with eyes in it.

Amity looked up past the trees at the massive buildings. Luz had called them 'skyscrapers,' which seemed like an apt name. Amity couldn't imagine looking down from one of the thousands of windows. She couldn't even imagine being that high up (Belos had introduced a height limit that staves weren't allowed to go above for 'safety reasons').

"Hey Luz," she said. "Is there any chance we could go up one of those 'skyscrapers?'"

"I think you can go into the Empire State Building," Luz said. "Which is the only one people actually want to go to because it's so iconic, but I'm pretty sure they're expensive to get into. I can ask Mom when she gets back."

"Are there any other cool things to see in this place?"

Luz smiled. "I mean, there's the Statue of Liberty."

Amity frowned. "What's that?"

"It's a 300ft tall statue the French gave us like two hundred years ago." Luz quickly grabbed a small slab of stone from the ground and held it to her chest. "Pretend this is a book," she said as she raised her ice cream cone like a torch. "It's kinda like this?"

Luz dropped the stone onto the grass unceremoniously and took a lick of her ice cream. "I'll ask Mom if we can drive past it on the way home."

Amity smiled. "Do they sell food here? I'm starving."

"There's a place a little up ahead," Luz replied. "Guys, come on! We're gonna get something to eat!"

Willow ran over to them, but Gus and Hunter stayed behind.

"You coming?" Luz asked.

Gus nodded. "In a minute, we'll catch up!"

As Luz, Amity, and Willow arrived at the food cart, Luz decided that a basic sandwich would be the best choice. Now was not the time to be experimenting with new foods. She bought five of them and turned away, but was stopped by Willow.

"Luz, I've been meaning to ask you… why do humans pay with paper?"

Luz smiled. "We used to have pennies that were made exclusively of copper, because copper's valuable, but then the pennies started getting made out of other metals instead but everyone just kind of ended up agreeing that pennies just had value, even if they didn't really.

"Then, it started getting annoying carrying them around, so they introduced notes, which is basically just a paper snail. And the credit cards happened but I can't be bothered to explain that."

"Huh," Amity mumbled. "Snails are still made out of valuable metals, but there was talk of making them out of more common materials. The idea was opposed because people didn't think that a money system that didn't have inherent value would work."

"Well, you can go and tell them that it does work," Willow said. "Then again, I haven't actually seen any of the pennies you talk about, Luz."

"Well, they're really annoying to carry around, and there's been people who want the government to stop making them because it costs more to make a coin than the coin is worth," Luz said. "But we've really moved onto credit cards at this point."

"Is that the weird card Camila uses to pay for stuff?" Amity asked.

Luz nodded. "It's basically a card that lets you access a bank account that has a digital representation of how much money you have. The money quite literally has no value because it's just a number on a screen, but it works because we all agree that it has value."

"Earth is weird," Willow muttered.


Gus and Hunter looked up at the skyscrapers once again as their friends walked away.

"This is not what I imagined human cities looking like at all," Gus mumbled.

"Yeah," Hunter sighed. "It's all so… imposing." They looked up for a little longer, before he spoke again. "What was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Right, yeah…" Gus muttered. "Look, back when we were in the Titan's skull, I saw into Belos - Philip's mind."

"Oh titan," Hunter said. "I've been in there, it's not a nice place." He shivered as he remembered.

"Yeah well, I saw Philip…" Gus choked on his words. "I saw Philip stabbing someone… someone who looked just like you, only older."

Hunter gasped. He didn't quite realise that he and Gus had reached two different conclusions from this.

"Hunter.. I'm sorry he killed your Dad."

Oh, that made sense. It was totally incorrect, but it was obvious how Gus had reached that conclusion.

"Gus, that wasn't my father." In all honesty, he felt a bit like Luke in that moment.

"What do you mean?" Gus asked. "Belos is your uncle, and the guy looks exactly like you, and there was a woman there, and—"

"Kids don't usually look that similar to one of their parents though, do they?" Hunter asked. "No seriously, do they?"

"More like a mix of both," Gus replied starting to see where Hunter was going.

"That guy's name was Caleb Wittebane. I'm just… a copy. I'm a Grimwalker."

Gus' mind was going into overdrive trying to put all the pieces together. "So why did you choose Caleb as a cover name?"

"Flapjack gave me it. Flapjack was his palisman," Hunter sighed. "Look I understand if you want to keep your distance now. No hard feelings."

His train of thought was cut short by Gus jumping onto him and hugging him tightly.

"I don't care, dude. Come on, let's go catch up with the others."

Hunter wasn't quite sure how to react to that, so he just smiled and hugged his friend back.


I forgot to update this story lmao, next chapter should be up within the week.