"Hello, best friends!" Luz says brightly, wrapping her arms around Willow and Gus before realizing that she really can't fit them both in a hug without dislocating her shoulder.
"Hi, Luz," Willow says, visibly shrinking away.
"Oh no. Willow, what's wrong?" Luz asks automatically.
Willow flinches, turns scarlet, and runs.
"I'm late for class!" she calls over her shoulder.
"She's been distracted all morning," Gus says. "I mean, I saw her talking to Amity's siblings outside earlier, and since then she's been looking around like she's going to get ambushed. I mean, not like that isn't likely no matter what. But it just seems off."
"I'll talk to Amity," Luz says. "We have our first class together, and she might know if Edric and Emira are planning something. We'll talk to Willow at lunch. If my bestie is worried about something, Luz Noceda will be their fearless champion!"
"You know what happened last time you tried to be someone's champion," Gus points out.
"Yeah, I saved the school from Grom!"
"No, the last time."
"Oh, right. But the Yeti turned out okay with some healing magic and hush money, and barely any of the forest burned down!" Luz protests.
"What about the Skype, and the Internet of the Skypes? You let a wild Skype loose in Hexside!"
"That's still not how Skype works. Anyway, I have class. Bye!" Luz chirps.
She slides into her seat next to Amity, who flinches away, face red. Great. Now Amity's mad at her too. Nothing to worry about. Luz will solve all of her besties' problems. Possibly. And hopefully not destroy too much in the process.
"Hey, Amity!" she says, grinning.
"Hi Luz," Amity says, still scarlet. At least Amity is willing to talk to her, which is a step in the right direction.
"Do you know if your siblings have any schemes going on?" Luz asks.
Amity gulps and turns a shade of purple that's honestly quite impressive.
"Um, no, of course not. I don't know anything about any schemes. Obviously. None of this has anything to do with me."
"That sounds kinda suspicious," Luz comments, trying to pry Amity's hands away from her face. "Willow was talking to them earlier, and now she seems really nervous about everything. Any ideas why?"
…
Luz is holding her hands. Why is this happening. Why. She's supposed to present her work on abomination speech to the class, and now she's going to be a nervous wreck.
And of course Luz had to ask her about Edric and Emira's schemes, and knowing them they already have some exotic trap set up to reveal her feelings and humiliate her. But this presumably isn't one of those schemes. Willow can't keep a secret to save her life, so they'd never involve her in a scheme like that. Maybe.
She's overanalyzing this. Nothing to panic about. Absolutely nothing. Everything is going great.
"Ed and Em probably just told her some tall tale to mess with her," Amity says. "Don't worry about it."
There's a shout of "silence!" from the front of the classroom and they both turn to face forward.
Amity does her best to look in any direction besides at Luz. Maybe out the window.
Edric and Emira evidently thought it was funny to set up a catapult outside the school. Pointed at her window. There's a flash of green hair as one of them hides, then a blue glow surrounding a projectile.
A projectile that appears to be a Valentine on steroids. A rock bigger than her head, painted pink, with scraps of lace glued onto it and some complicated magical mechanism attached.
Not good.
"Miss Blight, care to present your work to the class?"
Okay. Not a problem. Her trial abomination, about the size of a squirrel, hops onto her hand as she makes her way to the front of the class.
"As you know, abominations tend to be lacking in vocal capabilities. While they are capable of noise, and sometimes rudimentary communication, what simulacrum can create rhetoric, or poetry or music?"
She's practiced her speech for days in the mirror. Melodrama is key.
"No abomination had a true voice. Until now!" she proclaims, flourishing the arm with the abomination dramatically. Right on cue, the abomination opens its mouth and sings a few measures, as sweetly as a frightningale. Except with fewer pointy teeth.
"It's a simple enough exercise to make an abomination sing," she says. "All it requires is blood!"
She snaps her fingers, causing a clap of thunder and briefly switching off the lights.
"Adding the blood of anyone to an abomination will give it a voice," she says, grinning at the smattering of applause. "However, the abomination also gains some of the memories of the original, which can be problematic."
"I'm not guilty," the abomination groans, and she smiles at the class. They look more worried than anything else. Not a great sign.
"It was Steve," the abomination repeats, and she scowls at it.
"You've said that ten times already," she mutters. "Care to sing again?"
As the abomination begins to sing again, the class begins gasping and pointing at something behind her.
Amity ducks to the floor of the classroom instinctively, turning to face a mess of greenish tentacles. Some kind of plant, probably. Not a problem. Just an escapee from the plant track's labs.
The rest of the class has backed into a corner. Trying to bludgeon an enormous plant like this with abominations won't do much. Amity traces a magenta circle in the air and sends a jet of fire toward the plant. She knows the horticulturists won't take kindly to the murder of their precious darling plants, but she can't let it hurt Luz.
Or anyone else, obviously. It's not like Luz is the only person she cares about. After all, Luz is such an idiot that nobody except another idiot would care too much about her. She couldn't even walk in without tripping over her own feet.
Not the issue here. The fire hits the plant, which responds by expanding, new vines sprouting from the spot where the spell hit.
Not good.
"Don't worry, Amity! I'll save you!" Luz shouts. Amity ducks out of the way of a spear of ice that Luz creates and flings at the plant. It screams, curling around the cold and shrinking. The second hit makes it wither away.
"We win! Abominations one, plants zero!" Luz shouts. The other students are filing back to their seats, congratulating Luz as they go.
Amity glances out the window. The catapult is armed and ready.
Not good.
Not good.
Not good.
Luz is in the middle of singing "We are the Champions" when the rock/Valentine crashes through the window.
"Ooh, pink rock!" Luz exclaims. She's such an idiot. Now she's going to go poke the rock, because that's what she does, even though she's been here for weeks and should be used to how dangerous everything is here.
Luz pokes the rock.
It explodes into confetti.
Okay. Not a problem. Just some weird prank. Nothing that would expose her secret.
An enormous banner begins to unfold.
Never mind. Problem.
Amity torches the banner before it can unfold. She's not going to take any chances.
"Aww, why'd you burn it?" Luz whines.
"Um, it could have been a trap. I was still on edge after the plant. I don't have to justify anything to you!"
Luz spends the rest of class looking hurt, which makes Amity's heart freeze up. She looks so cute when she's sad.
…
"Well, defending each other didn't work, and throwing rocks at them didn't work. What do we do now?" Edric says, looking dispirited.
"It's just step one that failed," Emira says, dismantling the catapult with a few flicks of her fingers. They'll return the pieces to various houses. Eventually. "Step two is probably going fine. Besides, Eda let us borrow some good paperweights."
"She said they were food," Edric points out.
"And I know you nearly lost a tooth on one of them, Edric. The important thing is that they're some kind of human artifact. If that doesn't work, we need the vat of noodles and the hedgehog set up and ready to go, so let's go."
Edric nods reluctantly and follows her into the building.