Luz walked alongside Amity through the streets with her gaze aimed upwards. The main tower of the Conformatorium loomed off to their right, sending an eerie, orange glow up from behind its kettle-shaped outer wall. The streets were grim and gray compared to the rest of Bonesborough, and shop walls were plastered and replastered with layers of wanted posters. Luz could still pick out the odd poster for Eda, even though her bounty had been rescinded. She shivered and walked closer to Amity, holding her shoulder bag's strap tight. "This part of town gives me the creeps."

"I don't blame you." Amity hugged herself around the middle as she walked. "There's a reason nobody really lives around here, who wants to always be right next to the Conformatorium?"

"Where is this printing place, anyway? Is it far?" Luz muttered, "Should've gone for ice scream," under her breath.

"That would've been better, yeah," Amity said, casting Luz a sideways smirk. "Going to need to be quieter when you talk to yourself if you're going to walk that close. Anyway, it's not too far, just a couple blocks."

Luz picked up her pace to follow Amity. Amity turned at an intersection and they made their way closer to the Conformatorium. They passed the occasional witch or demon going with the same haste through the neighborhood, and only slowed once they got to a stretch of shop faces. Amity squinted at the plaques as they passed, then stopped and smiled. "Here we are."

Luz read over the brass plaque above the bare, unpainted door. "Bonesborough Publishing Services. That was the name of it, right?"

"Yeah, it … hold on." Amity spun a finger, caught her scroll, and looked through it. "Yeah, Bonesborough Publishing Services, that's what I searched for. They really need a better name." She poofed her scroll back to her pocketspace and stepped up to the door.

Luz walked next to her and raised her hand toward the doorknob, hesitating just before grabbing it. "And we just … go in?" She glanced up and down the block, lined with dozens of other shops with closed doors and minimal signs. Nobody came in or out from any of them. "This isn't just, like, a place where you make an appointment ahead, right?"

"Their penstagram said it's open to the public."

Luz shrugged and opened the door. Amity passed in front of her, and she walked in off the street. The cobblestones continued across the threshold, as if the shop had been built on top of the road, but turned from gray to immaculate white with just as bright grouting. The walls and counters were the same color and Luz squinted against the brightness of the room. The rest of the décor matched the starkness, with just a few sleek worktables toward the back and a desk facing the door. The walls were lined with framed example prints, broken up by identical lamps. Luz had been very few places on the Isles that reminded her all that much of the human realm, but the sterile cleanliness of the shop had the same feeling as the ICU where her mom worked.

A demon sitting at the desk looked up as the bell over the door tinkled. He was big and boxy, taking up most of the desk's width, with gray skin, ram horns, and a pig nose. He wore a heavy leather apron over his cloak, lined with tools but just as clean as the rest of the room. The demon raised his brows up above his horn-rimmed glasses as he looked at them. "Can I … help you … school-aged children?" He glanced from one to the other, his frown deepening to one of confusion.

Amity looked at Luz briefly, then smiled and stepped forward. "Maybe? We don't mean to take up your time, sir, we're just curious if this is the same company that printed our school's newspaper fifty years ago."

Luz took her cue and stepped forward, opening her shoulder bag. She took the protective folder out, and set it on the desk, holding it open.

Amity approached and carefully removed the single page of the boring Hexside Herald from the folder, then flipped it around to show the back of it to the demon. "It has a different address listed, but the company name is the same."

"I'm afraid we … company name? It has a company name printed on it?" Amity nodded and pointed at the ad space with the printer's information. The demon's frown turned thoughtful, and he took a small, brass magnifying glass out of the breast pocket of his apron. He examined the paper for a moment. "Interesting. May I?" Amity took her hands off the page, and the demon carefully turned it over, enlarging different details on the page. "I do believe you've come to the right place. The address was our old location, and I can recognize the font, we still use that same enchanted quill from time to time." He tapped the magnifying glass against the polished wood of the desk. "This is an older issue compared to what I assume you girls are looking for, however. We had no affiliation with the printing of the collector's version of the Hexside Herald, our contract was organized by the school board while the newspaper was still official."

Luz shook her head. "Oh, uh, we weren't asking about the, uh, collector's version, really. We know you didn't print them."

Amity nodded. "We were pretty sure you didn't from the start, but it's really obvious when you compare the two." She returned to the protective folder and took out the other issue. "The size and type of paper's different, and they don't look the same at all. And there isn't any printing information on it." She spread it out in front of the demon.

"Mm, yes," he muttered, looking over the front page of the issue briefly. "This is what I was expecting when you mentioned … hrm." His frown deepened and he pushed away from the desk, slipping the glass back into his apron. He steepled his fingers and leaned back in the chair. "I'm afraid I don't know how much I'd be able to tell you about the paper we did print, but I can try to answer any questions you have."

Luz exchanged a look with Amity, then shrugged. "We were mostly just trying to figure out what happened with everything. So, like, you said you had a contract with the school board, printed the paper for a while, and then stopped. Do you know why you stopped?"

The demon shook his head. "Not particularly. I was a shop apprentice at the time we were in the old location. There's a good chance that I cast the spell on the quill that wrote that page you have, but I wasn't involved in the negotiations with the school. I don't know if there was a specific reason why."

Amity frowned. "Do you remember when you stopped?"

He rubbed his chin and leaned back over the desk, sliding the rogue paper aside. Amity slipped it out of his way and loaded it back in the folder. "Let's see, our contract lasted for twelve years, to my recollection …" He opened a drawer in the desk and rifled through a densely packed file cabinet. After a few minutes, he pulled a thick, yellowed stack of cards free. "… Here it is. Two hundred and sixty-four jobs printed on a semi-monthly basis, between Samhain, nine sixty-seven and Beltane, nine seventy-nine." He flipped through the cards and squinted at one, then pulled out his magnifying glass again. "Co-signatories Hieronymus Bump and Cobus Bakker."

Luz raised an eyebrow. "… Cobus?"

The demon glanced up. "My uncle, he was in charge of handling contracts at the time." He returned to sifting through the cards. "Beltane sets it at the end of a school semester, and there was a spot left open for continuing the contract." He nodded and slid the cards back into the drawer. "It appears that we were simply not contracted for more jobs at the start of the following semester."

Amity nodded slowly. "About a decade before the rogue paper started. Could the school have maybe gone with a different printing company, Mr. Bakker?"

He shrugged. "Call me Rhett. And it's possible, but most institutions like Hexside have a bidding period, where they ask for quotes before selecting a printing house, and my uncle would have left notes of the bid. He was very meticulous." Rhett flicked a bit of lint off the sleeve of his robe.

Luz pursed her lips. "We were thinking it might be because the students who ran the paper all graduated and nobody was around to start it up again, or something."

He gave her a noncommittal shrug. "You'd understand that better than me, I can just tell you about printing. In this case, it was a routine job through my apprenticeship " His gaze moved between the two of them as Amity returned the boring newspaper to the folder and Luz closed her bag back up. "However, you young ladies have piqued my curiosity. It isn't uncommon for collectors of the unofficial Hexside Herald to ask around at printing shops for information on who provided the printing services for that version of the paper, as the prevailing theory is that a shop was in on it and provided their services in a clandestine fashion. Most collectors have little to no interest in the official version, though."

Amity shifted her weight from one foot to another and rubbed her shoulder. "Well, err, we're not collectors, really. We're more interested in just figuring out what happened. We knew looking into the newspaper from before was going to be a long-shot, but it was worth seeing."

A small smile broke his serious expression for a fleeting moment, and he nodded. "Ah, I understand. I must admit, it is a peculiar story, one that would be perfect to tell when reviving a school newspaper." He pulled out a card identical to the ones filling the drawer, save for being blank and as white as the shop walls. "Let us know when you've reached the bidding stage for printers, our prices are very competitive." He wrote something on the top of the page, then took a business card out of a little holder on the surface of the desk, copied a string of runes down from the paper, and handed it toward Amity.

Amity raised her eyebrows. "Oh, um … thank you, Rhett, but we're not restarting the newspaper, we're … um …" She glanced at Luz.

"Working on a school project." Luz forced a smile. "About the history of the school newspaper."

Rhett shrugged, still holding out the card. "Be that as it may. Maybe something will come up, you never know."

Amity took the card from him slowly. "Well … thank you, we appreciate your time."

Luz followed her out of the shop and paused just across the threshold, letting her vision adjust to the dreary gloom of the neighborhood compared to the ICU interior. She rubbed her eyes. "That was … not super helpful."

"Not really, no." Amity sighed, looking at the business card. "Here, stand still." She opened Luz's bag and slipped it in with the folder. They set off together, retracing their steps down the street. "I suppose we more just confirmed what we were already thinking."

"Yeah, pretty much. They ran the normal newspaper until one year they stopped, probably because who the heck wants to run a newspaper, and then nobody thought about it for years. Then the new students came along and started up their version, took the name of the old, and got to work. The big question now is, did they start the newspaper because they found the printing press, or did they find the printing press because they started the newspaper?"

Amity hugged herself around the middle again. "I don't know for sure, but … it really doesn't seem likely that they found it afterwards. They were starting a paper to expose the faculty, they'd only feel confident doing that if they had a way to print it without getting caught. And … I suppose that the theory that they started out with a contracted service could be at least partially right, with the big difference being that when things got more serious, they switched to the press instead of working with a clandestine printer, but …"

"Yeah, that doesn't seem like it's true, it makes a lot more sense that they'd only start doing it because they thought they could get away with it. Which they did."

Amity nodded. They walked in silence for a while, twisting and turning through Bonesborough. The cobblestones underfoot grew more and more sparse and the streets turned to mud the further they got from the Conformatorium, the entire mood of the town brightening with each passing block. "… We knew it probably wouldn't help us figure it out at all, but it really just underlines the big question here."

Luz nodded. "Yeah. Where the heck did the printing press come from?"

Amity's expression grew cloudy with worry. "… I'm not sure we're gonna be able to find the answer to that question."

"I'm not sure, either." They slowed as the street traffic grew, filling up with witches and demons milling about the less formal bazaar district. "I guess it doesn't really matter? So long as everything works, we should be fine, and we're not doing anything sneaky or mean, we're just publishing people's writing."

"Yeah. Hopefully we won't ever really need to know." Amity's frown deepened. "I think I'm gonna still keep looking."

"Me too. We still have a while before we need to start printing stuff, maybe we'll find something else out." Luz glanced around the street. Bonesborough bustled with activity as the adults got out of work, and the sky grew hazy as the sun started setting. "Anyway, I'm gonna try and stop thinking about it for now, my head feels stuffed."

Amity's frown vanished and she giggled. "That sounds like a good idea. There isn't a lot we can do about it right now." She sighed. "Maybe if I stop thinking about this, I might actually be able to finish writing something."

"Yeah, you're gonna want to get on that," Luz teased, then dropped her tone to a more serious one. "Still not sure what to write? You've still got a ton of time, we just announced it today."

"I know," she said, sighing again. "You're just already done with something, and I'm worried I'm going to be the last to submit anything, if I manage to finish something at all."

"I get it. Don't put too much pressure on yourself, that's just gonna make writing anything harder." They started slowing down as they approached the intersection where their paths home split off from each other. Luz offered her an encouraging smile. "Good luck, and see you tomorrow? Maybe we can actually get that ice scream."

"Yeah, that sounds good. See you tomorrow, Luz." Amity headed off in one direction, and Luz went in the other. Luz tried to focus on the prospect of the coming weeks, waiting for submissions, ice scream with Amity, and assembling a team of judges. They'd be able to keep each other busy, even without needing to hammer out the details on how the press worked or where it came from. Try as she might to focus, however, the big question kept sneaking back into her thoughts, gnawing at her.

Where did the printing press come from?

After Skara passed her, Boscha closed her bedroom door with a kick, spinning the Grudgby ball on her finger. She tossed her school bag onto her desk and unzipped her letterman jacket. She crossed the room, then let the ball fall off her finger and into her palm. As she flopped down on her busted-up armchair, she shot the ball one-handed at the hoop mounted to her wall. It swished through the net, hit the angled block propped beneath it, and bounced back into her hands. She smirked and cranked herself sideways into the chair, wedging her back into the corner between the armrest and what was left of the cushion and slinging one leg over the splintered remains of the opposite armrest. She shot another basket and caught the ball as it bounced back.

Skara dropped her bag to the floor, then swung her lute off her back and around to her chest. She sat on the old, legless loveseat and started tuning the strings. She smiled at Boscha. "New chair?"

Boscha shrugged. "New for me. Found it in an alley. Mom was pissed, asked me why I always brought trash home, blah blah blah, what would the neighbors think, it was funny."

"Nice." Skara ran her fingers over the strings, then cast a spell circle, clamped down a chord, and started playing for real. The lute growled with reverb, making Boscha headbang as she tossed baskets. "So you gonna enter anything in that magazine thing, Boscha?"

She caught the ball and let it balance on a fingertip for a moment, then raised an eyebrow at Skara. "Ugh, did you see who's running it? That lame round ear-loving freak and her pet human. As if I'd have anything to do with those losers."

"All right, I guess," Skara said, changing chords and picking up the beat.

"… Why, are you entering?"

"I mean, yeah, why not?"

Boscha's frown deepened. She tossed the Grudgby ball up in the air and caught it a few times in silence. "… Okay, so why not, but really why though, don't you think Blight'd toss whatever you enter out?"

"Not really, Amity and I are still cool."

"Wait, what?"

Skara faltered and dropped a chord. She cast a wary look at Bosha, then shrugged. "I mean, I don't really hang out with her anymore, she mostly hangs out with Willow, Augustus, and the human these days, but there isn't any bad blood between us. The bad blood's between you two."

Boscha's eyes narrowed.

"Hey, look, Bosh, I'm over here hanging out with you, not with them, don't act like I picked her side or something. If she wants to spend her time with the nerds and the human, she can spend her time with the nerds and the human. She always was a nerd, anyway, she just acted tough."

Boscha cracked a smile, then tossed another basket. "Heh, yeah, she was always a nerd."

"Anyway, whether or not she and I are still cool doesn't matter much, they'll probably not even know who wrote what when they're reading stuff, they'll just read it and put it in if they like it. And if Amity does hold a grudge and tosses my poems out, then I won't get in, no big deal. If I get in, that means I'll be published, and if I don't, then I won't be published. So, like, what's the harm, you know?"

"Poems?"

She cast a confused look at Boscha. "Well, yeah, I write songs all the time, what else would I write?"

Boscha caught the ball and held it to her chest, resting her chin on top. She could feel one of the ball's eyes blink against her shirt. "… Huh. I used to write poems all the time. Haven't done that in years."

The purr of the lute vanished as Skara put her hand over the strings. "You wrote poems?"

Her eyes shot wide and she felt heat rise in her face. "Yeah, what of it?" she snapped.

"Do you have any around still? I'd die to read one, that's so not like you, they've gotta be just, like, amazing!"

Boscha studied Skara's face for several moments, looking for a sign of mockery. With some reluctance, Boscha's expression softened and she tossed the ball through the hoop, making it glance off the block so it rebounded away into the corner of the room. She stood up from the chair. "Nah, I tossed 'em out."

The lute strummed to life again. "Aww."

"… But … maybe I could write something new for the loser club's stupid magazine." She crossed over to her desk and pushed her bag out of the way. "If they don't know it's me writing it, and vote it in, it'd probably piss them off, that'd be hilarious."

"Ooh! If you write one, will you let me read it?"

"Yeah, sure, why not?" She pulled a scrap of paper and a pencil to the front of the desk as she sat down. She tapped the pencil against her lip and glared at the paper. As the grungy metal lute music washed over her, she let the words flow.

Shall I compare thee to a Grudgby ball?
Thou art more hardcore and more badass.

"All right, haven't lost my touch." Boscha smiled, thumped her foot to the music, and wrote.