Amity is fairly sure she's never been happier in her life. All of them, even Hooty, are crowded into the living room of the Owl House, sitting on motheaten overstuffed chairs and laughing. The soup is much better than she expected; she suspects Eda discreetly set up a few spells. King is trying to talk about the powerful demons he'll eventually rule over, but nobody's really listening because Eda's laughing at her own joke, and Luz is trying to prevent Hooty from knocking over the soup and her leg is brushing Amity's.
Luz's leg is touching her. There are two layers of cloth between them, but she can still feel how warm Luz is. And for all she cares the Emperor could burst in and start a duel with Eda, and she wouldn't even notice, because Luz is so close to her. Nothing can ruin this.
"So, Amity, who'd you want to ask to Grom?" Luz drawls, raising one eyebrow.
Never mind. This is terrible.
Amity shoves a spoonful of soup into her mouth to give herself a second to think.
Okay. Just name someone completely different from Luz. A popular witch, maybe a guy for good measure, anything to keep Luz from the truth.
"Well?" Luz asks, and now she's leaning in closer, smirking, and now her brain isn't working and just try to think of someone –
"Willow!" she blurts out.
Quite possibly the worst person she could have named. Now Luz is going to want to get them together. And Willow will be all confused and actually kind of sweet but not Luz, and Willow probably knows all of it, because Willow is not as dumb as Luz and has eyes, and this is going to be terrible.
"Really?" Luz says. "Wow, it must have been terrible for you to have to reject Willow, and then to nearly get killed by her Inner Willow that time."
Luz is hugging her. Why. She probably looks like a tomato now, and might be about to pass out, and fainting into someone's arms is kind of romantic but also humiliating.
"I'll leave you two to the whole 'feelings' thing," Eda says, giving Amity another really obvious wink and leaving, dragging King behind her.
Does anyone not know about this? How is it physically possible to be that obvious about being in love?
"Let's call Willow and talk to her!" Luz says enthusiastically, prodding the crystal ball sitting on the coffee table.
Luz is really invested in her friends' happiness, at least. She's so sweet –
And such an idiot.
Just think. What would the Good Witch Azura do?
"You've told your crush that you have a crush on your crush's best friend, and now your crush is calling her best friend who she thinks you have a crush on, and you think your crush's best friend knows about your crush, but your crush doesn't? Good luck with that," Hecateda snarks.
"Ignore her," Luzura says firmly. "Follow your heart, Amity, and speak words of truth, and all will work out in the end."
"Right, because that's helpful," is Hecateda's response. "This is complicated, Luzura, a little more complicated than can be solved by joining hands and singing a song or whatever you do to solve your problems."
"I am not some type of pacifist dolt!" Luzura sputters.
Not even Azura can help her now.
The fog inside the crystal ball resolves into Willow's face.
"Hi!" Willow says brightly. She doesn't sound all that sick.
"Hi!" Luz says cheerfully. "Amity wanted to talk to you about – something." She smirks again and pokes Amity's ribcage.
There are three solutions here. Solution one is to awkwardly fake-confess to Willow and deal with all that. Solution two, running for the hills, is impractical since they're already in the hills. Running away from the hills is solution 2.5. Solution three is to get angry. Which works. Anger is safe.
"Luz, why are you doing this?" she demands. "You can't manipulate your friends like this and force them together. I am not ready for this."
Luz turns off the crystal ball and starts apologizing, and how can she be this adorable in this state? Amity wants to forgive her instantly when she sees the girl's lips quiver, but that would make everything too obvious.
"I'm so sorry," Luz sniffles.
"It's – okay," Amity says, pulling Luz into a hug impulsively because she cannot look at her miserable face any longer.
…
"I know she wasn't talking about us, but I feel terrible about it," Willow says.
"Don't worry about it! All of this is for her own good," Emira insists. "She never has to know."
"Wouldn't she notice the alpacas?" Edric points out.
"The alpacas were a last-ditch solution when all other efforts have failed," Emira says, turning back to the telescope. They've lost their plan, but that doesn't mean they can't at least check on their baby sister.
That girl she sees hanging around Amity – Boscha or something – is sitting on the roof of the Owl House, protected by a shield and surrounded by contraptions.
"Minor problem," she comments, then tilts the crystal ball towards the eyepiece so Willow can see. The girl goes pale.
"Boscha – well – isn't all that nice, and she's – not really a fan of Luz and Amity," Willow says, frowning.
"So, she's been bullying our baby sister and now she wants to sabotage things?" Edric asks.
"Technically, yes," Willow says, "but she's pretty good at magic and stuff, and she hates me already, so I can't intervene even though I'm much closer."
"Not a problem," Emira says, grinning. "We'll take her down. Let's go."
"But it's much nicer inside, out of the rain!" Edric protests. "Why don't we just stay here and let the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles deal with a home invasion herself?"
"Because by the time Eda knows about Boscha, she'll have disrupted everything. This is for Amity."
"I'm inclined to agree with Edric, despite his tendency to be wrong," Willow says. "It just seems like overkill."
"Stay at home if you value your comfort over your own safety, coward," Edric snaps. "Emira, let's go. We have a little sister's date to save, without the square."
"All right, Ed, you should go find the spare roof tiles," Emira says. When he's gone, she leans a bit closer to the crystal ball.
"Nice job. Classic reverse psychology."
"I actually agreed with him," Willow responds.
"Well, nice job accidentally using reverse psychology. We'll see you later, cutie!"
"Wait! All of this is a bad idea!"
Emira ends the connection and rushes downstairs, because she honestly wouldn't put it past Edric to forget about the rain and go racing out anyway. The quickest way to get him to do something is to say it would be sensible not to.
…
The Owl House is rocked on its foundations by a clap of thunder. Luz yelps and somehow ends up clinging to Amity's arm for dear life. Eda rolls her eyes and stays sprawled across the couch.
The lightning striking around the house is now multicolored, and quite possibly going to fry them all, but Luz is basically sitting in Amity's lap at this point, so she really doesn't mind. This is worth all the awkward chats with Willow and the infuriating way Eda keeps winking at her.
"All right, I'm going to bed," Eda says eventually. "You kids are too much for me. Have fun."
She winks at Amity again as she leaves. Amity tries, and fails, to stop blushing. At this point she could just disguise herself as a tomato every time Luz is near her. Might actually work
…
Boscha grins from beneath her protective canopy and sticks her tongue out at the Blights. Emira hurls another lightning bolt at her, scowling.
"Can't hold out forever!" she shouts, fully aware that Boscha can potentially hold the shield for hours, especially since she's currently tinkering with what looks like a small circus tent rather than fighting back.
"This isn't working," Edric says, frowning at both of them. "We could try –"
Boscha walks away, still enclosed in the shield, and off the edge of the roof, leaving her plan behind. She smirks at them and waves mockingly over her shoulder.
"Of course her plan is weatherproof," Emira mutters, then releases the flight spell on herself and Edric, landing gracefully on the rooftop.
"Next time warn me," Edric grouses from his position upside-down on the side of the shielding bubble. Emira ignores him and stalks over to Boscha's creation.
She has genuinely no idea what this was supposed to do. It appears to be the unholy spawn of a Grudgby ball and one of Eda's human novelties, that little box with the numbers on it. Obviously, it is a complicated magical and alchemical ritual designed to activate a slew of extremely dangerous effects at any moment, which should be handled with utmost care and concern for the fact that anything might set it off.
She pokes it with a stick.
Explosions occur.
Their shield holds, but is blown over the edge of the roof and into the ground.
"You didn't warn me," Edric whines.
"Shut up. Mittens could be dead."
"Pretty sure she's alive," Edric says, now looking past her towards the house.
Oh. That might be a problem.
Emira follows Edric's gaze to Amity, who's standing in the shelter of the porch, shouting at them. Most of it is unintelligible thanks to the two shield walls and the thunder, but her face is redder than it was when they found her sneaking an old stuffed animal out of the trash after she said she didn't need it since she was thirteen now and old enough to take care of herself.
"Wait, does she think we caused the explosion?" Edric asks.
"Well, we did," Emira points out.
"You did, Em. I wouldn't have poked it with a stick."
"No, you would have stuck your face two inches away from it and then poked it with your finger."
Amity summons an abomination that proceeds to shove their shield. It begins rolling down the hill.
…
Amity would happily stay outside and watch Edric trying to run up the hill as the shield rolls, like a person-sized hamster wheel, but Luz is inside.
She returns and continues listening to Luz talk about magic and beg Amity to perform a spell or two so she can try to work out its glyph. Her siblings will not ruin this night.