Camila was honestly quite mortified to learn she'd been affected by the giraffes' spell and been forced to space out through the entire battle. She had absolutely no memory of that time, and the idea that she didn't possess the necessary willpower to overcome the spell and stand beside her daughters as they fought against a terrifying evil was galling. The fact that no one had ended up possessing that much willpower and that she was one of only a small number of adults who had even partially resisted the spell was only a small consolation.

Naturally, she'd also been horrified to learn Eda had allowed her children to fight at all. True, sending Luz back to the Human Realm had been an unfortunate necessity while the giraffes held her family hostage, but the moment they were safe, Eda should have evacuated the children to the Demon Realm. And, yes, Luz probably would have sneaked back and fought anyway, but that would have been on her, not Eda.

But despite all this, Camila was proud of Luz, especially when she learned how she'd resisted the disgusting words of the imposter Antonio. Luz had heard what appeared to be her own dead father say some of the worst things Camila could even think of to her, and she'd possessed the strength necessary to rebut them, even though they reverberated in her head constantly. Maybe because of that.

(Luz had felt absolutely terrible to learn that the golem had been made using Antonio's actual bones and that she'd had her own father's corpse eaten by her palisman. Camila had immediately set her straight. Not only was it a matter of self-defense, Antonio would have preferred having his corpse devoured by a dinosaur to rotting in the ground any day of the week.)

Though Luz's recklessness continued to bother Camila – especially when combined with the theory it derived from a lack of faith in her own personal worth – Camila was in awe that Luz was ready and willing to ride a dinosaur into battle, trick a bona fide god into dooming himself, and defend a town full of people who were indifferent to her at best with her very life. Camila had to admit she probably wouldn't have been able to accomplish very much in her place.

But then again, Luz had always been extraordinary.

The coming days were quieter than Camila had expected them to be. The witches had done an extraordinarily good job of repairing the damage done to the town. Were it not for the 31 dead humans and the time they'd had to make the people of Gravesfield forget, no one would have suspected that anything at all occurred during the battle. The odd conspiracy theorist or three notwithstanding – all of whom suspected false flag operations or some other mundane coverup – everyone had accepted the story of a chemical leak causing the deaths and amnesia.

Despite all the casualties his company had supposedly caused, it was starting to look like Lionel – as Clara's real father had insisted Camila and her associates call him – would get away with nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Under ordinary circumstances, this would infuriate her in the extreme, but since he was actually innocent, she wasn't especially bothered. Especially since Lionel had gone out of his way to try to make up for all the damage Sutekh had been causing. He'd been especially adamant about making things up to Camila for Sutekh forcing her to commit murder.

At first, Camila hadn't thought there was anything she possibly wanted from him. After all, she didn't need any more wealth and she was very content with her life. But then, she'd realized there was, in fact, one thing that Lionel could do for her.

And that was why she, her daughters, and their friends were gathered in the grounds of MacKinnon Manor, with sledgehammers in their hands, looking over at a very familiar statue. Lionel had purchased the statues ostensibly for his private collection. It turned out the historical society's objections to getting rid of a statue of a criminal warmonger evaporated in the face of a huge pile of cash. Luz had advocated they smash the statues in public, but Camila had shot that idea down. That would just get Philip publicity. It was far better to do it in private so he could just fade away from memory.

They'd already separated the statue of Charlotte from Philip's statue and brought it to the Demon Realm. The only person who had a possible interest in smashing that statue was Diana and she wasn't even sure she wanted to do that. They would deal with that later. For now, Camila only had one priority and that was vengeance. True, this was just a statue, but there was something fitting about that. Philip had tried to turn Luz into a statue. Now the biggest piece of his legacy in his beloved Human Realm was just a statue, which would soon be powder.

"Diana, I think we can all agree you deserve to go first," Camila told her.

Diana held her sledgehammer into the air, her arms trembling. She just stood there for a few seconds, and then she dropped the sledgehammer on the ground. "I…I can't. I'm so sorry."

"You have nothing to apologize for," Camila assured her. "I understand completely. You're a good niece, Diana, far better than that hijo de puta deserved."

Willow, on the other hand, had absolutely no compunctions about laying into the statue with her sledgehammer with vicious abandon, snarling animalistically and ranting incoherently the whole time. "HOW DARE YOU NOT LOVE HER?!" were the only coherent words Camila could catch from the whole monologue. Diana, on the other hand, seemed to understand every word and looked like she was going to faint from sheer joy.

"Hey, Willow, save some for the rest of us," Luz called out. Willow gave a sheepish laugh and lowered her sledgehammer.

Gus raised his own sledgehammer next, but then lowered it. "You don't even deserve my hatred. I hope your god is teaching you what hell is really like."

Vee similarly refrained from smashing the statue. It was beneath her dignity, she had said, but Camila suspected the real reason was her conflicted feelings towards Philip. Without him, after all, she never would have been born in the first place. But neither would she have suffered either.

Amity gave a frightening snarl at the statue when it came her turn to smash it. "You tried to kill my Luz. You turned my mother into…into a monster as bad as you." She sighed. "I know she made her own choices, but what would she have been if she had been born into the world we should have had before you interfered? I guess we'll never know." She smirked. "But I do know what'll make me feel better," she added, and in one powerful blow, she knocked Philip's head off the statue and proceeded to smash it into powder.

Luz walked up to the statue. "You know, there are some similarities between us," she said. Camila frowned. She hardly thought there were any similarities between her lucecita and a genocidal maniac. "We both thought we had a destiny in the Isles. We both thought we were the Chosen Ones. The difference between us was that I figured out that was bullshit right away with the help of my family. But every time your family tried to save you from yourself, you responded with murder."

She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a block of what looked like clay. With a flash of horror, Camila realized that Luz had not been bluffing: she really had been able to buy C4 off the dark web. Now that was a scary thought. "So it's time to say goodbye to you once and for all."

Luz placed the C4 at the base of the statue and handed the detonator over to Camila. After following the others inside the house out of the blast radius, Camila hesitated for a few seconds. But at the end of the day, she was just blowing up a statue. It was just an act of symbolism. It wasn't as if she was really killing anyone.

So she pressed the button and when what was left of the statue was reduced to powder, Camila was left with an immense sense of satisfaction.

It was a satisfaction that stayed with her for quite some time, and she was still feeling it when she went to the Demon Realm for her first real stay there. The time she'd spent after the battle didn't really count, since she didn't plan for it, and also because she spent most of it keeping her charges calm and happy. Still, it had warmed her heart to finally get Gus, Amity, and Willow reunited with their families, as well as to see with her own eyes Diana would be well taken care of by Mr. Porter.

But now, she was in the Demon Realm for quite a different reason. Well, actually a couple, but the primary one was to give her wonderful girlfriend the date of her dreams. She'd worried Marcia would be put off by the sometimes disgusting nature of Luz's adoptive homeland, but Marcia seemed to love it almost as much as Luz did. She was constantly full of questions about how things worked that Camila couldn't answer in the slightest as she was just as bewildered as Marcia was about that stuff.

"You sure you don't mind going along while I meet with Luz's teachers?" Camila asked. Marcia had already told her she didn't mind, but Camila was a bit nervous she had just been saying that. "I really should have done one of these things first, but I couldn't decide!"

Marcia gave her a warm smile and a kiss on the cheek. "Camila, it's fine. I understand completely. And, you know what, I'm kind of excited to see what a real life magic school is like. And when we're done, Eda recommended this great ice scream parlor near Hexside."

"You mean ice cream, right?" Camila said, knowing the answer was otherwise. Sure enough, Marcia shook her head, a huge grin on her face. Spectacular.

Hexside turned out to be surprisingly similar to Luz's school back on Earth. There were, of course, quite a few differences – the bell screamed (and, worryingly, appeared to be possibly sapient), the lockers kept Luz's school supplies in their stomachs, and, of course, there were creatures straight out of folklore regularly wandering the hallways. But not all of the differences were bad. When Camila interrogated Luz's teachers to see what needed to be done about disability accommodations, she was shocked to find that not only were they willing to honor them all, but the idea that they wouldn't was quite befuddling to them.

Luz had also left one important thing out of her account of her time at Hexside: the fact that she was actually acing all her classes! Well, relative to the inherent difficulties her inability to use magic conventionally had posed, at any rate. Luz was not one to brag about her academic achievements, but Camila had assumed that the reason why she hadn't mentioned her grades was because they were not very impressive. Not because Luz was stupid or anything like that, of course! No, Camila had just thought it would have been because she was overextending herself. But, nope, Luz was actually doing amazingly.

More than that, she got along amazingly with just about everyone. Some pink-haired girl with three eyes appeared to be the only exception, but everyone said she was a bully anyway and one couldn't please everyone all the time, after all. None of Luz's peers were fazed by her quirks in the slightest. And it wasn't hard to tell why after spending just a little time shadowing her classes. It was because in the Boiling Isles, Luz was normal.

Luz had pursued that dream all her life, even if she didn't admit it to herself. How could Camila have even thought about taking it away from her? Even the memory of making Luz promise to stay on Earth made her deeply ashamed of herself now.

Camila was a ridiculously stubborn woman, but she was not unreasonable and she could be persuaded, with great difficulty, to change her mind. She had to do what was best for her daughter, and now she knew what that was.

Luz practically tackled her with a hug when she got back to the Owl House after finishing her date with Marcia. "Well? What do you think? Did you like Hexside? It wasn't too scary, was it? Did you jump when the bell screamed?"

"I would have appreciated some advanced warning, yes," Camila said. "Luz, you never told me you were doing so well in school here! I am extremely proud of you." Luz beamed. This was a memory she'd cherish for a long time, Camila knew. "Even spending a little bit of time here has taught me why it matters so much to you. And that is why I have decided to renegotiate our deal."

Luz looked worried, as if she was expecting some sort of trap. "I will allow you to go to school here and live here." Luz let out an excited squeaking sound. "On two conditions!" Camila added hastily, and Luz's face fell. "First of all, you will stay with me on weekends. And second and most importantly, you will start seeing a therapist."

Luz laughed caustically. "Right, right. How long before they put me in a rubber room? One minute? Two minutes?"

"A therapist here in the Demon Realm," Camila clarified. Luz still looked a little worried. "Luz, I'm going to be blunt. You need help. Your past issues, your guilt complex, your recklessness, it all worries me immensely. What I am offering here is a big ask on my part, and it requires a similar level of sacrifice on yours. I think it is a fair deal I am offering."

Luz was silent for a few minutes. "I don't think it'll be easy to find me one, though. There's a lot of demand."

Camila had thought of that, but she wasn't especially worried. As the crown princess of the Boiling Isles, Camila had a feeling Luz would jump to the front of any waiting lists quite quickly. "We'll do our best. And even if you're on a waiting list, that's good enough for the moment for the purposes of our deal. All right, Luz? Do we have an agreement?"

After yet another long period of silence, Luz nodded. "Okay. Thank you, mami. Thank you so much."

"Te quiero, Luz," Camila said, planting a kiss on Luz's forehead. "Never forget that."

Diana had never faced an enemy like the one she was facing right now. It was an enemy whose malevolence far outstripped that of the giraffes, the Collector, and Belos combined. It was an enemy, if not defeated, that would destroy everything they'd ever known and loved and leave a black and completely irremovable stain upon their honor.

"Don't you think you're being a little melodramatic, Diana?" Viney said after Diana had told her flyer derby team this. "We're just playing flyer derby against Glandus."

"Diana takes school spirit very seriously," Gus said with a grin.

It was a relief Gus was talking to her again. Getting the silent treatment from her brother had been a very unpleasant experience. Gus had been very angry, to say the least, when they reunited again. It wasn't that she had removed him from the battle that bothered him. It was the fact she'd done it without giving him a choice in the matter. It had also been utterly unnecessary, as it turned out. Gus would have withdrawn from the battle in exchange for Diana doing the same, a price she would have gladly paid.

But eventually, Gus had come around, and fairly quickly too. He understood that Diana moving into a new environment was a very stressful experience and having her own brother furious at her would just make things worse. That wasn't to say Gus had entirely let the issue go. Diana found herself the victim of quite a few illusion based pranks over the next few weeks. She strongly suspected Gus had recruited the Blight twins in getting his vengeance. But none of them had actually hurt her and she'd accepted them in the spirit they had been meant.

It had been quite awkward living with Mr. Porter at first, and even after a good deal of time, the awkwardness hadn't entirely abated. But Mr. Porter was kind and understanding, a good father who clearly cared about his son, and now, Diana supposed, his daughter as well. He never pressed Diana for details about her unpleasant past (though he'd insisted she start getting therapy to recover from it) and was very understanding of Diana's paranoia and distrust. It was a slow and laborious process, but Diana was getting more and more comfortable at talking to Mr. Porter and confiding in him by the day.

It hadn't been as much of an adjustment to leading a normal life in the Demon Realm as Diana had feared it would be. Life in the Human Realm, as strange as the idea was, had been good preparation. Though the details were often quite different, the basic principles were the same. She went to classes, she hung out with her friends, and she went on dates with her awesome and beautiful girlfriend.

Something else that made it all better? The transition potions. They had worked extremely quickly, quicker than they would on the average witch, actually. Diana's body was now completely indistinguishable externally from someone who had been assigned female at birth. It would take more time to finish off her transition internally – it would take a few more months before she started having periods, for example – but most of that stuff was pretty academic to Diana. There were days when it was easy to forget Diana had ever thought of herself as a man. And, of course, there were days when it was not, but on those days, her family and friends were there to help her, and that made it better.

"Diana is right to take this seriously," Willow assured the team, bringing Diana's thoughts back to the present. "I mean, probably not that seriously, but still. We are Hexolios. We have our school's honor at stake." She blew a kiss at Diana. "And, on a more personal note, my awesome girlfriend promised me a long make out session if we win."

Viney coughed a word that sounded like "simp." Willow, as she always did when her teammates teased her for her relationship with Diana, ignored her. "Now let's get out there and win ourselves a game!"

They all hopped onto their palismen and went out onto the field. Skara sneaked a glance over at the stands where her boyfriend Eddie was cheering for her enthusiastically. Eddie had, at his request, forgotten the battle with the rest of Gravesfield (probably to spare himself the memory of his abysmal flirting attempts with Skara), but when he went to the Demon Realm for the first time, he'd been just as taken with Skara as he had the first time. Without blood loss being a concern, Eddie's flirting attempts had been much more successful and Skara had enthusiastically started up the third known witch/human relationship in all of history.

"Let's do this thing," Gus said. He looked particularly psyched to see that Bria was among the flyer derby players Glandus had fielded, because it meant he finally had a chance to get revenge on her for her betrayal at the illusionists' graveyard.

And Diana would do everything she could to help him do that. Because that was what family did. They helped each other. They didn't cut each other down or make it only about them or murder copy after copy of their sibling like Philip had. Philip had never truly been Diana's family, and life was a lot better now that she knew that.

As she flew through the air, she saw the statue of Charlotte in the courtyard of Hexside. The Construction Guild had changed it so it was reflective of her true self. Everyone else thought it was a statue of Diana herself, to honor her defense of Hexside during the Emperor's Coven raid. Only Diana, her friends, and Principal Bump knew the truth. Diana still didn't know how she felt, truly, about Charlotte. She most likely never would. There were a host of emotions Diana felt, many of them contradictory. Resentment at not being the original. Grief for never knowing the woman who was more or less her mother. Existential confusion. So many other things.

But as for how Charlotte felt about her if there was still a her somewhere to think about things? That one was easy. Diana knew Charlotte felt proud of her.

And she knew it because Diana finally, after so long of waiting, felt the same way about herself.

"This was a mistake!" Mom shouted. "A horrible mistake!" Luz couldn't help but roll her eyes. She was also a little irritated. Self-deprecating panicking was her brand. Mom was encroaching on it, and Luz had a lot more experience at it too. "Oh, Titan, Luz, what if I'm just not good enough for them?"

King poked his head into the dressing room. "You rang?"

"King, you're not supposed to be here, silly," Luz said, mock sternly. In truth, it was probably a good thing he was there. Mom needed both her children to support her now.

"I was summoned! What's the point of being a god if you can't answer prayers?"

King's grandiosity notwithstanding, he'd actually mellowed out a lot in deed, though not necessarily word, over the previous few months. He took his responsibilities as emperor very seriously, even if Steve was doing most of the actual work. The empire was slowly transitioning to democracy. It wasn't easy, bringing in completely foreign ideas like due process and rights to the Isles, but it was nonetheless occurring, albeit in fits and starts. When the transition process was over, the country's government would resemble a constitutional monarchy like Britain, with Steve functioning as the country's prime minister. King was totally behind this 100%; he found himself very bored with statesmanship at times, and was happy to hoist the hard work on someone else.

"Yeah, Mom," Luz said. "You literally have the blessing of the Titan. How can this possibly go wrong? I mean, look, I'm no stranger to thinking badly of myself." She gave a wry grin. Therapy had taught her a lot of things, especially with regards to her self-worth. The lessons were taking a while to sink in, but she knew them now at the very least. "But you have nothing to worry about. Right now, there is a bard out there who is beside themself with worry that you won't want to marry them!"

Mom gasped. "How could they think that? I need to see them right now!"

Luz and King both grabbed their mother before she could flee the room and sat her firmly back down on her chair. "Don't you dare," Luz said. "You're not supposed to see Raine before the ceremony, or you're just asking for bad luck! My point was, you not wanting to marry Raine is as ludicrous an idea as them not wanting to marry you."

Mom gave a nervous laugh. "Yeah, I…I guess I was acting a little silly. I mean, it's not like this is the first time I've done this."

"Yeah, I don't think a Vegas wedding so you can steal Stan's car counts," Luz said. She'd been so excited to learn that she was, if only extremely indirectly, related to the Pines family with Stan as her technical stepfather. That was, of course, until Stan formally divorced Mom a few weeks after the battle against the giraffes. But still, it counted enough for Luz.

"Hey, we don't mind, Mom, you know that," King said soothingly. "You know that, right? I mean, we're not jealous of them. We know you love them and us, and that's cool!"

Mom exhaled slightly. As silly as it sounded, Luz could tell this was indeed a worry she had had. Luz was an expert in silly-sounding worries. Well, in having them, anyway. Getting rid of them…not necessarily so much. "Okay. Okay, you're right! Yeah. Let's go!"

Luz and King shared a high five and then followed their mother out of the dressing room and into the ballroom of the imperial palace. Luz had thought it was weird they were having the wedding where Belos once ruled from and where King now ruled from, but then she realized it was really the ultimate revenge on Belos. If there was one thing that would have pissed him off, it was having two witches – the ultimate wild witch and one of his coven heads – get married in his own ballroom.

"There you are!" Amity said, practically pouncing on Luz with a hug. "I thought you'd never get her out of there."

"Ah, the patented Luz Noceda charm can get anyone to do anything," Luz bragged.

"Yeah," Amity said wistfully and then gave Luz a kiss. As always, Luz's brain practically short-circuited whenever her girlfriend kissed her, though she had thankfully gotten out of the habit of saying incredibly dorky things when it happened. "Crikey level?"

"Yowza-wowza level, Am!" Luz said as she wrapped Amity up in a hug.

Life had been great for Amity since her return to the Demon Realm. Mr. Blight had sold the manor and moved to a more modest house not too far from the Owl House, so Luz and Amity were able to see each other on a regular basis. It had been tough for Amity to rebuild her relationship with her father – the two of them had provided much work for a therapist of their own – but slowly but surely, it was happening. Amity had complicated feelings about that, but the majority of those feelings were positive ones.

"I wonder how our own wedding will compare to this one," Amity said.

"Uh…wedding? Ours? Uh…" Luz could feel her face heating up and her mind overloading. Amity watched with a smirk on her face. She knew exactly what she was doing to her, the devious little witch. "I don't think I can process that right now!"

Amity gave a smirk and a wink. "Oh, well. Perhaps another day." This was just too much for Luz's Blightsexual – er, bisexual heart. Having a heart attack on the day of her adoptive mother's wedding would be a serious faux pas, most likely, wouldn't it?

Mami cleared her throat. "I think your other mother has been waiting long enough for this, don't you, Luz?"

Luz laughed nervously and quickly found her seat next to Mami. Marcia was on Mami's other side. Luz felt a little jealous sometimes that Marcia was taking the role Papi had once taken, but her happiness that Mami had someone who loved her in her life the way that Luz loved Amity always overtook that jealous part of her. In any event, it would be a lot longer before Luz's biological mother walked down the aisle.

"I've had a lot of regrets in my life," Mom said when it was time for her and Raine to give their vows. "Not recognizing my children for far too long, hiding in the woods while good people were suffering under Belos's reign, not kicking Odalia's face in when I had the chance. But the biggest one I ever had was letting go of you, Rainestorm. Not being honest with you. Letting my fear get the better of me."

She leaned in and gave Raine a passionate kiss. "But no longer. I'm not afraid anymore! Not of telling you I'm cursed, not of what the future might hold, and certainly not of telling you how much I love you. I love you so much, Raine. I always have since the moment I saw you. I was really dumb to give that up. But even an old bird can learn new tricks. I'd really like to be your wife. So can we get to that part?"

Raine laughed gently. "You're perfect, you know. Every part of you. The Owl Beast, your inside, your outside. You're Eda and I love you. So…" They paled as their stage fright took ahold of them. Frankly, Luz was shocked it hadn't happened sooner. "Yes! Yes, marry you! I'll…uh, marry you. Right now!"

Luz led the audience in a round of applause before Raine could embarrass themself further. "Yeah! That's my parent over there!" she shouted. "You go, mom!"

Raine and Mom were a flustered mess by the time it actually came time to kiss and formalize their marriage. But it didn't matter. Luz was pretty sure they wouldn't have it any other way. Finally, the time came for the moment Luz had been waiting for during the whole ceremony: the throwing of the bouquet. Luz was determine to catch it and bless her and Amity with a happy marriage. When the time came to propose, of course. Even one could do that when one was sixteen, Mami had been very firm Luz was not to do so until she was eighteen.

Luz held her hands into the air eagerly and the bouquet sailed towards her, and there was no way she could avoid catching it. And then Willow made a spell circle and summoned the bouquet to her own waiting hands. "Willow," Luz sulked. "You knew I wanted to catch the bouquet."

"Sorry, Luz," Diana said, smugly wrapping her arm around Willow's shoulder. "But all's fair in love and war."