Magic was real now, and Fiona Chambers couldn't give a damn. Sure, there were other universes that may or may not be hell (but Fiona was definitely leaning towards not) and witches and demons, but unless they could magically make her student loans disappear, it had absolutely no relevance towards her life. She would stay grounded in the real world, where she had bills to pay, a way too long commute, and a string of bad relationships that had left her despairing that she'd ever find a woman who she could make a life with. At least her job as a librarian at the Seattle Central Library wasn't too bad, even if she was sick of answering questions that people could figure out on their own in two seconds on Google.

At least she had thought these new developments wouldn't have any effect on her life. Then Odalia Blight walked into the library. Of course, Fiona recognized her instantly. She wasn't making the slightest effort to hide herself. She carried herself with the regal air of a queen. Or of a Karen. Not that Karens thought there was much of a difference.

"Tell me, servitor," Odalia said, her voice as cold as ice, "where I can find books about how to cure the scourge of homosexuality." It was all Fiona could do to refrain from spitting in this woman's face. That Amity girl deserved a medal for having put up with this woman's bullshit for all those years.

"You can't cure homosexuality, because it's not a disease," Fiona explained as if she was speaking to a five year old. She'd get fired if she punched this asshole in the face. Fiona just had to keep telling herself that. She had student loans to pay. "It's completely natural. You're just born that way."

Odalia's eyes narrowed, and Fiona shivered. This was a highly dangerous woman, she suddenly realized. Fiona never liked Shakespeare, but she could easily see Odalia being the type of witch to lead kings like Macbeth to their doom. "Such a scourge would not be passed down through my bloodline. And Alador's bloodline, while obviously less worthy, was pure enough to preclude that being the cause."

"Sure you didn't have a thing with the milkman, then?" Fiona joked. Welp, that was it. She was about to get fired. Or turned into a newt. Fiona wasn't sure which she was dreading more. Probably the fired one. Newts didn't have to pay student loans.

Instead of turning her into a newt or asking to speak to her manager, Odalia made a circle with her finger and a ring of blue light appeared in the air. It was magic, Fiona realized. A witch was doing magic in front of her. She was doing it on her! Oh, sweet Thoth, she was doing it on her! She was

Wait, what was she thinking about again? It had been something important. Her brain felt so fuzzy all of a sudden. "Um, can I help you?" she asked Odalia. Please don't let her have asked that question already.

"You will tell me how to remove the scourge of homosexuality from my children. You are a purveyor of knowledge. You must know."

Something about what Odalia said sounded wrong to Fiona, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Nothing appeared wrong. She was having a conversation with a perfectly ordinary patron, who had just asked her an entirely normal question. She was, after all, a librarian. It was her duty to give people whatever knowledge they requested.

"Well, I'm really not sure how to answer that, ma'am," Fiona said humbly. Something about Odalia just seemed to command obedience and respect. "We do have books about the human nervous system on the eighth floor. Perhaps you'll find some answers there? But, honestly, it might be a wild goose chase. People have been trying to 'cure the gay' for a long time, and no one's ever come close yet. They certainly didn't with me!"

Odalia let out a contemptuous snort. "Those people were slackers and amateurs. They were not anywhere close to the raw brilliance of I, Odalia Blight." Fiona nodded eagerly. If Odalia said she was brilliant, then Fiona obviously believed her, because she was completely trustworthy and wouldn't lie. "I shall find a cure for their deviancy or I shall make one. For with magic, all is possible. Good day to you, servitor. Oh, and one last command: Find a decent man, would you?"

Fiona watched her walk away, feeling as if something was wrong, but for the life of her, she couldn't place it. Then she went into the staff room and found Tom Barrett, one of her colleagues. Tom was a nice fellow. If she liked men, she'd probably have asked him out, but she didn't. "Fiona, what's up? Are you okay? You're looking a bit confused. Did you hit your head or something?"

"I…was supposed to find you?" Fiona said, sounding just as confused as Tom thought she was. "But I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do next." She shook her head. "Oh, well. It can't be that important." She would have to take some Tylenol when she got home. She had a splitting headache, and it wouldn't do to be distracted on her date with the girl her friends had set her up with that evening.

"You really thought you'd escaped, didn't you?" a voice said next to Luz's ear, and Luz turned her head to see Zoe, Queen of the Seelie Fae, staring at her with those impossibly beautiful facial features that elided all description. "No, my dear girl. I just let you think escaped. Once you make a deal with the fae…you are bound."

Luz tried to walk backwards, but her feet wouldn't move. Everything was black. There was only her and Zoe. "This isn't…real. You're dead! Lilith killed you! I saw it!"

"Did you?" Zoe said as she stroked Luz's cheek like a lover. Her fingers were almost burning hot. "Or did you see what I wanted you to see? Think what I wanted you to think? Feel what I wanted you to feel?"

And then Luz was in the hallway of her middle school again, with the roses in her hands, ready to confess to Clara once more. She was certain that Clara would say yes this time. She had no idea why. She just was. So she walked up to Clara, and it wasn't her. It was Amity. "Amity, would you go with me to homecoming?! Because I really think we have a connection and you're so smart and nice and pretty, and I really like you, and I think you like me too, and –"

And just as before, Amity knocked the roses out of her hand and smacked her across the face. "Eww. You really think I'd go to homecoming with a filthy human? Get real, Nonsensa."

"But…but you said you loved me! We kissed! We danced at Grom! I sacrificed so much for you!"

Amity sneered at her. "Oh, yeah, cheating on me was a huge sacrifice." That wasn't how it was, Luz wanted to say. She had no choice but to try to seduce the other Amity in order to wake up this Amity from an enchanted sleep. And they'd just kissed, that's all! It wasn't like they'd had sex or something! But Luz couldn't make her lips move. "Face it, Luz. You're a stupid, worthless human. Broken. Weak. Nothing."

"That's…not true," Luz weakly protested.

Amity walked up to her so that their faces were almost touching. There was nothing but pure unadulterated spite in her face. "You were just a tool to me, that's all. A means for me to defy my parents, nothing more. What, did you actually buy any of that crap? You're so easy to trick. Zoe did it. So did I."

Luz tried to move away from Amity, but it was like her feet were stuck in quicksand. She couldn't move, and then she was standing in front of her mother. "I just can't take this anymore, Luz," Camila said, her voice near tears. "This…madness. The insanity! It's too much! I've humored your delusions for long enough, but I can't keep indulging them anymore."

"What?" Luz said frantically. "What are you talking about?"

"Luz, you were never in the Boiling Isles, because it doesn't exist. Now…it's okay, sweetie. It's not your fault. I'm going to send you somewhere where you'll get the treatment you need…"

"NO!" Luz screamed and there was an ice glyph in her hand and it was activated and a spear of ice went through Camila's neck and out the other side. "No, no, no, no…"

She looked around her frantically for someone, anyone who could help her. And then she spotted the man she'd been missing for almost a full decade. Eduardo Noceda, her father – her real father, not the variant of him she'd run into in the alternate dimension. She ran towards him. "Luz, I can't tell you how disappointed I am in you," he said calmly, and it was like Luz had speared herself through the heart. "I thought I raised you better. You're a failure. A failure of a daughter, a girlfriend, a friend, a human being. In every way, you have comprehensively failed me. I don't love you anymore. I never should have loved you in the first place."

"Luz?"

Luz sank to her knees. "NO! Please don't, Papi! I can make it all right again! I'll be good! I won't live in fantasy…I'll stop reading the Good Witch Azura series…I'll let go of the Boiling Isles. Just don't leave me again…"

"LUZ, WAKE UP!"

And then Luz opened her eyes and her mother was standing over her. Alive. Intact. Luz hadn't killed her. It had all been a nightmare. "Dios mío, that must have been one hell of a nightmare you were having."

"A…a nightmare," Luz stammered. "That's all it was? You're okay? I didn't hurt you? And Papi still loves me?"

"Of course he still loves you, mija," Camila said, sounding extremely concerned. And no wonder. Luz was shaking and trembling and crying and she must have looked an absolute mess. "Luz, how long have you been having these nightmares?"

Luz bit her lip. She had been having them for a while. But she didn't want to tell Camila. She didn't want her to worry. "Since I got back from the alternate universe," she admitted. "They're usually the same. Zoe tells me everything since then has been a dream, and then everyone I love gets a chance to tell me how much they hate me."

Camila stroked Luz's hair. "Oh, dear God. That's horrible! Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want you to worry," Luz said. Camila frowned. "I mean, you lost your job because of me. So many people hate us…want us dead. I didn't want to burden you further."

"You are not a burden, Luz Noceda!" Camila shouted. "You're not. You never have been and you never will be! Luz…these nightmares you've been having, do you think that maybe Zoe is responsible for them? Like it's some revenge she's had from beyond the grave?"

Luz shook her head. "I don't think so. I think they're just average, run of the mill nightmares."

"You're probably right," Camila conceded. "Still, I'll bring it up to Eda, just in case. Luz, I was not fired because of you. I was fired because my boss is an intolerant asshole. He hated my guts, and probably would have fired me eventually for something equally ridiculous."

Camila pulled up a chair and sat down next to Luz. "I know…you have difficulties with self-worth, Luz. I blame myself for not seeing those issues sooner. But think of all the extraordinary things you've done! And all the extraordinary people who love you! Without you, Amity would have been stuck in an enchanted sleep forever. Without you, she'd still be a tool of her parents. Without you, the Isles wouldn't be free."

She squeezed Luz's hand. "I don't blame you for deciding to expose your magic. Was it the decision I would have made in your shoes? No, it was not. But that's not to say it was the wrong one." She took a deep breath. "Luz, I've been thinking about this for a while, and I think you should see a therapist about your time in the alternate universe."

"I'm not crazy!" Luz instinctively shouted. "It's real! It happened!"

"Of course it's real," Camila said, looking confused. And then light appeared to dawn within her. "Ah. Yes, I can see why you might have leaped to the wrong conclusion there. What I meant was, you seem to have difficulty processing the things you had to go through there. Talking to someone unbiased may help."

Luz shook her head frantically. "No! I'm not going to get locked up! They'll think I'm crazy! They'll put me in a mental hospital and they'll medicate me, and I'll never, ever see Amity again!"

"That will not happen, Luz. For starters, anything even vaguely approaching such an outcome would only occur with parental consent, and they will never have it." Luz hadn't thought about that. "Secondly, I think I can find you someone who will believe you. Steve mentioned to me that one of his friends is a therapist. He had his own run-ins with the supernatural, so he'll surely believe yours."

Luz had gone to therapy before, back before she had gone to the Boiling Isles, but it hadn't really done her any good. She'd been unable or unwilling to talk about her issues, petrified that the wrong word would cause her to get locked up in a rubber room. It had, in retrospect, been a ridiculous fear, but these days, it didn't seem all that ridiculous given how insane her life was, even if it probably was just as ridiculous as it had been back then. "You promise you won't let them take me away?" she asked, hating how small and young her voice was.

"I swear upon your father's grave, Luz," Camila promised, and Luz knew she was telling the truth then. Camila never broke a promise sworn upon Eduardo's grave. She never even thought about doing so.

"It might help me to talk about some of this stuff," Luz conceded. "About dad. About having to deceive so many people. About my feelings towards Amity Serrano versus Amity Blight. It…haunts me sometimes. I like to pretend everything's all right, but…it's not. You're right, Mami. I do need this."

Camila gave her a fond smile. "I'm proud of you, Luz. That's not an easy thing to admit. And listen to me. Whatever your nightmares tell you…they're wrong."

As Camila started to walk out of the room, Luz called out, "It's not your fault, you know." Camila turned around and tilted her head inquisitively. "For not seeing my issues sooner. I hid them really well from you."

Camila sighed. "I know, Luz. I just blame myself for making you think you had to. All right, well, rise and shine. I'm making waffles for breakfast! Another fun school day awaits!" She winked, and Luz couldn't help but let out a giggle. Maybe everything was going to be fine.

It was a beautiful day at Blight Manor. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. The weather was a pleasant, warm temperature that practically just begged to be experienced. Yet Emira wasn't enjoying any of it. How could she? Odalia was loose in the Human Realm, riling up Luz's fellow humans against the Demon Realm in general and Luz specifically. If Odalia had her way, she'd start a war between the Human and Demon Realms, just to get her hands on her children. And Emira knew they'd lose that war. Human technology was just ridiculously superior. Blight Industries' R&D department had been working overtime to try to bridge that gap, but it would take ages, if ever, before they could do so.

Since Odalia's escape, Emira and her siblings had been handling it in different ways. Edric had become even more hedonistic than average, cavorting with every boy in sight, drinking alarmingly large amounts of alcohol, and staying up all night partying. Jerbo had broken up with him, unwilling to follow Edric down the path he was walking.

Emira had, by contrast, absolutely buried herself in the work of running the company and doing her schoolwork. She was micromanaging absolutely everything, working on projects that her employees really should be working on, and yelling at everyone who even looked at her funny. Viney had done her best – and it was a good job – keeping Emira from going too deep down the rabbit hole, but even Viney wasn't enough to stop Emira from pushing herself beyond her limits.

Amity had been doing fairly well when she was in the Human Realm, Emira heard, but ever since she got back, she'd almost completely shut down. She wouldn't talk to anyone except when necessary. Other than doing her homework, her favorite activities seemed to be staring at the ceiling and brooding. There was no emotion in her whatsoever. It was as if she'd been replaced with an abomination herself. (She hadn't been; Emira had checked.)

All of this notwithstanding, they were doing much better in the mental health department than they were under Odalia's thumb, so that was good news. Still, they could do a lot better, in Emira's opinion. But knowing that and doing something about that were two very different concepts. She'd tried to get Amity to show emotion and Edric to cool it, but none of her tactics worked. And it was just making her angrier and angrier. When she encountered Odalia again, she'd rip her eyes out of her sockets and juggle them, she vowed, half-seriously.

Emira's afternoon routine of going over legal documents for the company was abruptly disrupted when some hideous creature ran past her window. This was nowhere close to being abnormal for the Boiling Isles, so the first time it happened, Emira just ignored it. But then more hideous creatures ran past her window, and she decided to give it some attention. If there was a stampede of something, they could be in danger.

So she went outside only to be faced with yet another hideous creature. Upon further examination, Emira realized that it was no creature, but rather an abomination. And what a horrifying one it was too! All jagged angles and misshapen, deformed facial features. Most abominations were supposed to be vaguely witchoid, but this one looked like a slitherbeast and a manticore had babies and this was the ugly one they didn't want.

A sound of hysterical laughter erupted, and Emira crested a hill on the vast grounds of the estate to find Amity swaying and laughing, her face spasmodically twitching and high pitched giggling erupting from her. There was a bottle of really strong apple blood in her hand, and she was making those abominable abominations with the other. Oh, great. Now she had two drunks to deal with.

"Amity, sweetie, what are you doing?" Emira said carefully as she grabbed the bottle from Amity's unresisting hand and used a spell to send it back to the wine cellar.

"I am living my best life," Amity slurred. Actually, she sounded shockingly coherent for how absurdly drunk she must have been. If one had to judge from her voice alone, one would only assume she was slightly drunk. "BEST! 'twas Edric, you know. 'twas he who did this. He told me I should stop moping. And he was…left? Right! He was right!"

Spectacular. The one tactic that worked to break Amity out of her funk, and it was one that'd make things even worse for her. "Getting drunk is not an answer to your problems, Amity," Emira lectured.

Amity pointed a very unsteady finger at Emira's face. "Hippopotamus," she said sternly. Emira blinked. "No…no…critical? Hypocrite! Forsooth! Verily, thou art a hypocrite, dearest sister mine." This was a harsh yet fair attack. Emira had gotten blackout drunk a couple times in her life in response to the immense amount of pressure Odalia had placed upon her. And, though she was horribly ashamed to admit it, her first time doing so had been younger than Amity was now.

"Amity, I made some mistakes, I know. But that's why I'm so keen on not you not repeating them." Hang on, why was Emira even having this conversation now? It wasn't as if Amity was likely to remember any of this later. It was a waste of her time.

"Thou said 'twas okay!" Amity warbled. Under ordinary circumstances, Emira would have laughed up a storm at how old fashioned Amity's speech became when drunk, but this was definitely not one of them. "Yeah! After I got that B."

Emira just sighed. She had allowed Amity a single glass of apple blood to calm herself down after nearly suffering a nervous breakdown, and she had watered down that bottle in preparation for that moment anyway. In a way, Emira realized, her decision to do so may actually have indirectly contributed to Amity's state by giving her a skewed viewpoint of how intoxicating apple blood could be. But that wasn't the point at hand.

"All right, I said it was okay, Amy," Emira humored her. "Now let's get you to bed."

"I don't have to go to bed if I don't want to," Amity said, stamping her foot on the ground. "I'm free! I'm not her slave yet! When I'm her slave, I shalt go to bed when she tells me to, but not thee!"

Amity staggered and Emira caught her before she could fall. When Amity was Odalia's slave. Not if. When. Amity really believed it was that hopeless, that her enslavement was inevitable. No wonder she'd gotten stinking drunk. "Of course you don't have to do anything you don't want to do," Emira said softly. "But doesn't a warm, soft bed sound great right now? Hmm? I can dig out your Otabin plush. You've always loved that. He's so fluffy and cuddly."

Amity nodded, seeming like Emira's monologue had practically sent her halfway to sleep already. "Want Ota," she mumbled, and let Emira drag her towards the house. A good thing too. She could have seriously hurt herself doing magic while intoxicated.

"Know what I like about Luz the most?" Amity slurred just as they were about to reach the bedroom.

"Her kisses?" Emira guessed.

"No, silly!" Amity said and poked Emira's nose. "She doesn't love Amity Blight."

Emira blinked and squeezed Amity tightly. "Oh, I know that's not true, Amity. She loves you a lot. There's no one else for her. She looks at you like you're her whole universe."

"Yeah!" Amity agreed. "She doesn't love Amity Blight! You get it?"

It took a few moments, but then Emira got it. Luz didn't love Amity Blight. She loved Amity. There was a profound difference. Luz had been the first person Amity had met since Willow who didn't know what it meant to be a Blight. To see Amity, not the façade Odalia had forced her to put on for everyone. "I get it, Amy," Emira whispered. "I get it more than you know." That was one of the things she loved the most about Viney, after all.

Emira put Amity into bed like she did when she was a kid. She warmed up Amity's blanket with a spell, then placed her Otabin plush in her arms. Amity practically fell asleep almost instantaneously thereafter, cradling the plush like she had when she was younger. It was super cute. She took a picture with her scroll for blackmail purposes (which she wouldn't normally do these days, but Emira was willing to resort to dirty tactics if it kept Amity away from the bottle), then called Viney to come over and look after Amity. She also wanted Viney to make sure she hadn't drunk so much that she needed to go to a healing center.

Once Viney pronounced Amity not needing of immediate medical attention (but probably the future victim of a truly epic hangover), Emira left her to look after Amity and went straight to the Owl House. Things were getting out of hand. She needed to get Amity back to the Human Realm by hook or by crook. Amity had mentioned a future possibility of a cultural exchange, but that wasn't likely to happen for quite some time, because of the legal and logistical challenges in making it happen.

Well, Emira didn't give a shit about laws, and neither, she suspected, would her handpicked partner in crime. She gave Hooty a cheerful smile when she saw him. She hated him with just as much passion as Amity did, but she had found that pretending as if she liked Hooty ultimately yielded more advantages than not.

"Oh, hi, Emira!" Hooty called out. "Eda's not here! She and Lilith are busy at the palace! Gee, I hope I can visit the Human Realm one day too!" Even the thought of Hooty in the Human Realm filled Emira with horror.

But Emira was nothing if not an accomplished actress, so she kept all traces of that off her face and gave him a winning smile. "Actually, I was hoping to talk to King!"

"Oh, sure," Hooty said and swung his door open. He started going on a monologue about some lizard he'd seen recently, but Emira ignored him. Hooty, well used to people ignoring him on the rare occasions he even noticed it, just kept on rambling.

King poked his head out of a door. "Luz? Is that you?"

"No, it's Emira Blight," Emira said. King walked over to her, disappointed. Actually, now that Emira thought about it, this was the first time the two of them had spoken. "But…how would you feel about seeing Luz again?"

King's eyes lit up. "I'd love that! But…Eda said I'm supposed to stay here and not go to the Human Realm until they say it's okay."

"Oh, yeah? I kind of thought you were the King of the Boiling Isles. You should assert your authority like a real king! You're seriously going to let her boss you around?"

"Yes," King responded, and Emira blinked. She had not expected that response. "Look, I'm trying to be a good king, Emira. I swore an oath to only use my power according to the constitution, and I'm not going to let myself down by falling for your reverse psychology!"

Drat. Emira had not planned for King having integrity. In her defense, people having integrity was so staggeringly rare that it was only natural that she wouldn't have planned for it. "King, Amity's in trouble. She's out of control. She got so drunk today…what would have happened if I hadn't found her? She could have wandered off into the forest, gotten eaten by something! Luz would have been devastated!"

"How does us going to the Human Realm help Amity?" King wondered.

Well, at least she hadn't lost him completely. Emira would take that as a win. "I was hoping we could set up a cultural exchange," Emira said. King looked completely bewildered. "Amity and some other students would go to Luz's school in the Human Realm for a while to see what it's like there," she explained, "and some human students would go to Hexside to do the same. That way, Amity would have Luz close at hand and she wouldn't be so upset."

"Oh," King said. He didn't fully understand what Emira had meant by a cultural exchange, she knew, but he understood enough to know that it would help Luz too. "Well, that sounds like a good idea. Let's run it by Eda!"

"Oh, I already did that," Emira lied brazenly. She knew that Eda would approve of her plan if her legal obligations hadn't forbidden her from giving the okay right now. Once Emira had set things up, Eda might be upset (but more likely, she'd be impressed), but she'd still let the thing go ahead.

King blinked. "So…why are you here?"

Emira gave him a roguish smile. "Well, she can't officially agree to the plan right now, but she's unofficially behind it, know what I mean? So we're going on a little rogue operation to the Human Realm to lay the groundwork. Then she'll just be 'going along with her king's will' when it all comes out."

King rubbed his fingers together. "Chicanery! Skullduggery! I like it!"

"Is it just me or do you have a big vocabulary now?"

"I've been reading dictionaries in search of swear words!" King explained. Yeah. That sounded like something he'd do.

"Well, don't use any swear words when we're in the Human Realm," Emira advised him. "And try not to act too intimidating, please? Remember, we're going to be on a diplomatic mission of goodwill."

King pouted, but nodded. "But if they run in fear or prostrate themselves before me in awe of my unending glory, I can't be held responsible for that!" This sounded fair, in Emira's opinion. The former option was sadly likely, though not for the reasons King thought, and if anyone was weird enough to do the latter, well, King indeed couldn't be held responsible for such a bizarre circumstance.

The two of them left the Owl House, promising to bring Hooty back chocolate from the Human Realm to make sure he didn't rat on them to Eda (he'd likely forget they had even been there in a few minutes, so Emira wasn't really worried about that happening). They went to the royal palace, specifically towards the part of the dungeons where the most dangerous magical artifacts were stored and now, the portal door too. It was heavily guarded, but as Emira suspected, King's royal authority got them through all of the security. It was taking a while for the citizenry of the Isles to get used to the idea of having a constitutional monarchy, and the guards appeared to assume that King had supreme authority in addition to Eda having it.

And then, before Emira knew it, she was in the Human Realm. She had only been there once, to celebrate with Camila the human holiday known as Thanksgiving, and the Nocedas' witch guests went there in the dead of night, just to be safe, so Emira hadn't seen much of the Human Realm on her first visit.

She had been listening to Amity rave about the Human Realm incessantly for the better part of a year, so she had high expectations. It did not match them. The Human Realm was staggeringly boring. Its flora wasn't poisonous. Its fauna barely noticed them. Its trees were a ridiculously dull shade of brown. Its grass was a uniform shade of green. Even its rain wasn't interesting. Instead of burning a person, it was just cool and wet. Really wet. She wished she'd brought a raincoat.

Emira emerged from the forest and into the streets of Luz's hometown. It was also not all that impressive. Amity had told Emira incredible stories of how magnificent and glorious the human cities of Seattle and, more recently, New York were, but Luz's hometown was a pale shadow of those places. It was average. Emira had never understood very well why Luz had been so desperate to run away from her life in the Human Realm, but now she realized that it was because she had been bored. She could commiserate with that. If there was one thing she hated almost as much as Odalia, it was boredom.

King directed her to the town's "Citadel of Power." Emira confidently approached the man who appeared to be in charge at the counter with her most charming grin. He didn't seem all that surprised to see a witch and a demon in his place of business. Emira had refrained from disguising herself or King; since they were here to negotiate directly with powerful individuals, making their presence known was rather the whole point.

"My name is Emira Blight, envoy for His Majesty, the all powerful King of Demons and of the Boiling Isles, and have I got an offer for you," Emira announced, without giving the man a chance to respond. "It's going to knock your socks off! If you humans wear socks. I mean, Luz does, but I don't want to overgeneralize."

The man just blinked at her, so Emira decided to take that as permission to go on. She had been trained in the art of business presentations by Odalia, and she put all her various skills in that field to her advantage as she told the man all the many benefits his town would gain from participating in an experimental pilot cultural exchange program. They'd be world famous, for one. And other towns would be asking for their expertise in setting up their own cultural exchanges with the Demon Realm – and paying them correspondingly.

"It's a win-win for everyone!" Emira said with a winsome smile after she'd spent the better part of an hour selling the program, not letting the man get a word in edgewise. "So what do you say? If you're the boss, then let's sign those documents right here. If you're not, let's talk to your boss and get this thing off the ground!"

"That was a very inspiring speech," the man said slowly, sounding shellshocked. "Unfortunately for you, this is a Burger Queen." Emira looked around her and noted that, now that she was examining the place in any way whatsoever, it did look more like a fast food restaurant than a civic building. "You want the city hall. I don't know where it is, but I know where it's not, and it's not here. Also, you've scared away most of my customers, so you might want to leave before I call the cops."

King leapt onto the counter and the man let out a shriek of fear. He must not have seen King before, since he was so much smaller than Emira and standing right next to her. "Liar! This is the source of my crown of power!"

"I'm serious, dudes," the man said, gesturing at a device for emphasis, presumably one of those phones Amity mentioned. "Out."

Emira dragged King out of the restaurant, glaring at him the whole time. "Seriously? Your crown of power?"

"It was a logical assumption," King defended himself. "Never mind! It was a good speech! He said so! All you have to do is give it to the right people!"

King was right. Emira had done an excellent job with her speech, and she felt even more confident that it would work since she'd gotten a chance to practice it now. Maybe everything would work out for the best.

Everything did not work for the best. As soon as the two of them entered the city hall, an unimpressive looking office building (seriously, what was it with this neck of the woods and being boring?), security was on them like a pack of slitherbeasts. It wasn't as if Emira and King had even done anything. Okay, true, King had growled at them, and promised to "make flutes out of their bones," but, come on, he looked so cute while doing it. How could they think he was a threat?

They'd gotten kicked out unceremoniously, so Emira had to climb up the wall of the building with King on her back and sneak in that way. This time, she used illusions to disguise herself and King as normal looking humans. No one gave them a second glance. She supposed that they just assumed they were office drones like themselves. Well, metaphorical office drones, she hoped. Real office drones went out of style fifteen years prior. Metaphorical ones just were cheaper, what with the price of necromantic bonding ritual equipment skyrocketing.

At any rate, Emira had absolutely no idea who the person in charge was or what they looked like or any idea what their title was. She was completely lost for ideas, a rarity towards her. That's when King suggested a simple yet brilliant idea: they should just look for the person with the fanciest office and/or the most security. This led them to the office of someone with the title of mayor. Dispelling the illusions, Emira and King walked in, bold as brass.

The mayor was having a meeting with several people, but as soon as he saw Emira and King, he went very pale and dismissed them all. Emira started up with her spiel, almost giving it word for word to him like she did with the man at the Burger Queen.

"And if you refuse us," King finished up, "our wrath will be –"

"Nonexistent!" Emira said with a weak laugh and her fiercest glare directed at King. "It will not exist, because for the last time, King, we're on a diplomatic mission of goodwill that is totally and completely authorized!"

The mayor put a hand on his forehead and rubbed it slowly. It looked like he had a headache. Emira had no idea why. She was pretty sure she didn't talk too loud. If anything, she probably talked too quiet; witch hearing was superior to human hearing and thus witches tend to speak softer than humans did, as Emira's ears found out much to their repeated dismay from spending too much time with Luz. "Let me get this straight. You're here to set up a cultural exchange. You want me to send several of the students of my town to a realm that quite a few of my constituents literally believe is hell."

"That's a lie," Emira said sternly. "It's not hell."

"Hell is other people," King mused philosophically, sounding extremely serious about it. "We're all each other's worst enemies. So, like, I guess you could say we're all living in our own personal hells?" Emira just stared at him. Where had that even come from?

The mayor took a few deep breaths. "And in return…I'll get…recognition? I mean, you're not even going to pay the city to help facilitate this?"

Emira blinked a couple of times. Oh. Right. The mayor wanted a bribe. Well, that would make things a lot easier. Emira liked people who wanted bribes. They were quite easy to deal with. It was the people who had integrity that always caused problems for her. She cast a simple transmutation spell – seriously, it was so easy that she could have done it when she was a five year old – and turned his entire desk into gold.

The mayor's jaw dropped. "I…you…" Emira wondered why the man was so flabbergasted. Sure, gold was pretty, but it didn't really have any useful functions. Oh, well. Humans were odd. There was no denying it. Luz was strange for a human, no doubt, but the whole species was just bizarre. "Okay, then. I will get to work right away."

"Make this your highest priority," Emira suggested. "If you do, maybe I'll turn your car gold. How would you like that?" The mayor whistled. By the looks of it, he liked it very much.

Bribery turned out to be the correct way to go forward for the rest of the process. The school board, the superintendent, and the principal of Luz's school had all raised objections, but it was amazing just how fast those objections disappeared when faced with so much gold they could all pretty much instantly retire. Apparently, it was worth a hell of a lot more than she thought. Emira hoped she wasn't going to crash the human economy with all the gold she was throwing around, but if she had to choose between that and Amity's welfare, she'd choose Amity's welfare every single time.

"So," Luz started, and then she found that she didn't know what to say. She'd spent so much time worrying about her therapy session going wrong that she hadn't made any contingency plans for it actually going right.

Dustin Henderson, her new therapist, just gave her a sympathetic smile. Dustin, as he insisted Luz call her, was good at that. He had a casual, positive attitude, absolutely none of it feigned. He was not what Luz had expected from a therapist. Instead of wearing a fancy suit and tie, he wore a Mariners T-shirt and jeans. He didn't press her for details, he just waited for her to talk. He didn't overanalyze everything she said; he just seemed like he was making pleasant conversation with her.

"I think I know what's troubling you," Dustin said. Well, that was a useful trait in a therapist, especially since Luz wasn't all that sure herself. "Take out your phone. I'd like you to record something."

Luz had absolutely no idea what was happening, but she gamely took out her phone anyway. After discovering that her phone was bugged in New York, Luz had destroyed it and only recently bought a new one, which according to Grunkle Stan's absurdly shady contact, was guaranteed to be shielded from all forms of surveillance. The downside was that it couldn't do much more than text, make phone calls, take photos, and make recordings.

"See, I think what's making you hesitant to open up is the paranormal nature of your problems," Dustin went on. "You're not the first person to come to me with supernatural issues. In fact, I don't mean to brag, but I'm kind of the go to guy for that stuff in this neck of the woods. Actually, probably the entire Pacific Northwest. I think there's a woman down in San Francisco who does this kind of stuff?"

Luz cleared her throat. "Right, right, rambling," Dustin said. "The point is, you're worried I'm going to cart you off to the loony bin. Am I getting warmer?" Luz gave a sheepish grin and a nod. "Yeah, no worries. I've been there. You know why I became a therapist? Because I got exposed to some intense shit back in the eighties," Luz couldn't help but giggle at her therapist using profanity, "and I needed therapy! So since no one else could help me, I became one from scratch and gave it to myself. Start recording, please."

Luz pressed the record button. "This is Dr. Dustin Henderson. I hereby state that the facts listed herein are true and accurate, given of my own free will. In 1983, one of my best friends got kidnapped by a monster known as a Demogorgon. It came from an alternate dimension, a hellscape known as the Upside Down. Oh, we also encountered a girl with psychic powers who escaped from a government lab, where she was experimented on."

If this was a story, it was a pretty damn good one, in Luz's opinion. She could see it being the subject of an award winning Netflix TV series. But she knew Dustin was telling the truth; it matched up with what Steve had told her in both the main timeline and the alternate one.

"Anyway, Eleven – that's the psychic girl – killed the Demogorgon, and we rescued my friend Will. That's enough for you, Luz, or would you like to hear about how we got chased by this giant crab monster?"

"I…that's definitely enough for me," Luz said and stopped recording. She could tell that despite the cavalier attitude he'd been displaying the whole time, it was upsetting him to tell this story, which made it all the more remarkable that he was doing it anyway just to put her at ease. "Sorry about not trusting you, Dustin."

Dustin waved a hand. "Hey, if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't trust me either. But now we have a mutually assured destruction thing going on – I try to send you to the loony bin, which won't and can't happen, you send me there too. So where do you want to start?"

That was a good question, Luz had to admit. She hadn't given it too much thought – seriously, she'd been given more thought to parkour moves she could do to get away from government agents he was secretly in league with than to what she'd actually say. "I just…that was all kind of wacky, and I believe you, but I don't know how much of my story you'd believe."

"I believe in everything," Dustin promised. "There is no end to the things I believe these days."

"Really?" Luz challenged. "Even if I tell you I spent three months in an alternate dimension in the past, where my father was still alive? How about if I tell you about Lucia, the manifestation of my id who I have spoken to on multiple occasions, and once possessed me to save me from a psychic assault? Or about how I fell in love with a parallel universe version of Amity and might still love her?"

Dustin blinked a couple of times. "You've spoken to a manifestation of your id? That…" Luz braced herself and started idly wondering just how much it would hurt if she threw herself out of the second story window of Dustin's office. "…is just awesome! How'd you do that? Can you teach me how to do that? We could be looking at a revolutionization of therapy as we know it!"

Luz crossed her arms. "I've been asked to not say anything about how my magic works. Both times it happened, it was the result of a rather advanced spell, so no, I can't teach you how to do it. Wait, you believe me?"

Dustin grinned at her. "Of course I do! Why wouldn't I? What's your id like then?"

"I don't want to talk about Lucia," Luz said. She still wasn't comfortable talking about Lucia with anyone. She was the element of her journey that most directly screamed crazy, which was particularly ironic given how Lucia had thought Luz was crazy and hallucinating the Boiling Isles for a very long time.

"Sounds good," Dustin said immediately. "What do you want to talk about, then?"

"I don't know," Luz admitted. "There's…so much."

Dustin nodded. "When your mom talked to me, she mentioned there's a lot about this alternate universe that's bothering you. How's about you give me the skinny on that?"

So Luz went into great detail about her time in the alternate universe. She talked about how she had been forced to lie to everyone, only to find her lies unravel at the absolute worst moment, breaking Amity Serrano's heart and leaving Luz fearing she'd never return home or wake up Amity Blight. She talked about how, despite the fact she thought she had been able to let go of Eduardo thanks to spending all that time with an alternate universe version of him, his absence seemed to hurt more than ever. And she talked about the psychic assault she'd undergone just before leaving the alternate universe, and how she was afraid it had still left its hooks within her mind.

It was shockingly easy talking to Dustin. It was like she'd known him for ages. Of course, the fact that Steve trusted him helped a lot. Steve had been immensely helpful to her in both timelines, and she trusted his judgment about who was trustworthy (even if he had demonstrably made an epic fail in trusting his ex-wife). But Luz chattered on about her time in the alternate universe in a way she hadn't felt comfortable doing with anyone else. She'd tried to do it with Camila, but at the end of the day, Luz just felt awkward talking about the whole thing, especially about her experiences with Eduardo. It kind of felt like she was just rubbing it in that she'd had more time with him and Camila had not.

"So you think these nightmares I've been having are the result of a psychic attack?" Luz asked Dustin.

Dustin looked lost for words for a few moments. "I'm…pretty sure I'm not the right person to ask about that, Luz. That sounds more like something you're going to want to ask someone in the Demon Realm. What I can tell you is that they seem pretty darn normal, especially for someone of your age."

"How can I get rid of them?" Luz asked, hating how much she sounded like she was begging.

"Yeah, there's not some prescription or anything I can give you that'll solve the problem just like that," Dustin said, a trifle apologetically. "Maybe you could consult with Lucia again?" Luz shook her head fervently. Lucia was violent and paranoid, and Luz was very keen on avoiding contact with her whenever possible. "Look, I'm going to be honest with you. The brain is ridiculously confusing. I feel like a lot of what I do here is guesswork. But here's my best guess. Your brain just needs some time to adjust to change.

"I mean, you went to this parallel universe, and all this crap happened to you. Then psycho green-haired lady escapes from jail…sorry, I forgot her name."

Luz laughed. "I like that name better for her actually! I'm gonna call her Psycho Green-Haired Lady when I see her next!"

"Anyway, the point is, you've had so much going on that you haven't had any time to adjust or cool down. Your brain has been forced to work overtime, and so has the part of it that conjures nightmares. My advice is to try to establish a normal routine and stick to it. Eventually, it'll cool down."

Luz looked at the clock on the wall and was startled to find that they were at least fifteen minutes past the allotted time for their session. By the looks of it, Dustin was just as surprised as she was. "Thank you so much for this, Dustin," Luz said genuinely. "It's really nice just talking to someone about this without being afraid of how they'd react."

"No problem, Luz!" Dustin said cheerfully. "Honestly, it's kind of cool hearing about this stuff. I'm no paranormal researcher like Steve, but I like learning new things about how the universe – multiverse, I guess – really ticks." The two of them shook hands. "See you next week!"

Luz walked out of the building, whistling cheerily. She felt lighter than she had in ages. It had hurt talking about her time in the alternate universe, sure. She still wasn't quite over Amity Serrano and her time with Eduardo was still extremely bittersweet, but it was more of a sweet than bitter now. Camila had, once more, been right. The therapy had done her a great deal of good. She was relieved, though, that she'd found a therapist that was a friend of a friend of the family. She wouldn't have liked to have gone to a random therapist off the street.

It was a sunny day, a rarity in the Seattle area during the fall. Seattle was known for its immense amount of rain. While other cities actually got more rain overall, Seattle certainly had a larger number of rainy and overcast days than many other cities. Fall was rainy. Winter was rainy (except, if Luz was lucky, for maybe one or two weeks tops of snow). Spring was rainy. Summer was rainy except for a roughly two month period when it was actually pleasant, sunny, and warm. Seattle was amazing during that period. Not so much when it was raining.

But it was a sunny day, and relatively warm too – Luz hadn't even needed to bring her coat with her to the bus stop when she'd ridden to Seattle. Everything was going right for her. The weather, the therapy session – heck, she'd even gotten some awesome comments on her Good Witch Azura fanfic recently (thank goodness no one had made the connection between her and #1GWAzuraFan, her handle on Archive of Our Own).

"Luz?" a voice said behind her, and Luz turned to see an elderly Hispanic man who looked extremely familiar to her just staring at her. Like he was expecting her to look very differently. Maybe he thought she would have horns and a tail. Or maybe he just thought she'd recognize him.

"Yeah, I'm not giving interviews," Luz said automatically. That had been one thing that Camila had been adamant about – she was not to say a single word to anyone even vaguely resembling a reporter or some sort of media person. Not even no comment. Nothing.

The man looked like he was about to cry. "Luz, don't you recognize me? It's your abuelo!"

Luz laughed. "That's impossible. My abuelo died when I was eight." She blinked. Unless…oh, crap. This wasn't Eduardo's father. It was Camila's. Oh, Luz did not need this right now. "You're Mami's father."

Sebastian Serrano (at least Luz thought that was his name) gave her a wide smile, looking relieved that Luz had finally made the connection. "That's right, Luz. Oh, it's such a relief to see you. Has she been feeding you enough? You're looking rather pale…have you been getting enough sun?"

Luz did look rather pale these days, now that she thought about it. She was pretty sure it was because of her exposure to the Demon Realm's sun. But that wasn't the issue at hand. There was a reason why she hadn't spoken a word to Sebastian in her life and barely even recognized the man from pictures, and that reason was because he was an asshole. When Camila had come out as bi to him, he'd forced her back into the closet and made it very clear that unless she stayed closeted, she would not be a part of his family any longer. Camila had severed contact with him shortly after Luz was born, even though she was in a heterosexual-passing relationship with Eduardo. She was just that done with him.

"I'm perfectly healthy," Luz said, her voice brisk and firm. "Your daughter has raised me very well. She taught me not to talk to strangers."

She turned her back on Sebastian, who grabbed her arm and spun her back to face him. "Don't touch me!" Luz shouted, attracting stares from passersby. "Are you sorry for how you treated my mother?"

"I have nothing to apologize for," Sebastian said. Of course he thought that, the bastard. "Luz, look, I don't want to fight. All I want to do is talk. You're my granddaughter. I just want to talk."

"I'm not going anywhere with you!" Luz screamed. She took a few steps backwards. "You stay away from me!"

A burly looking man in a leather jacket walked up to them. "This guy bothering you?" he asked Luz, who nodded. "The girl wants you to leave. I suggest you do that."

"She's my granddaughter!" Sebastian protested.

"I have literally never met this man before in my life," Luz shot back, completely truthfully.

"You've got ten seconds to get out of here before I call the cops, mister!" the man shouted at Sebastian, who ran for it before the man could even get past five seconds. "You okay, sweetie?"

Luz nodded shakily. "Thank you. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't been here." Probably speared him with an ice glyph. Camila wouldn't have liked that. She may have despised Sebastian, but he was her father.

"You're that witch kid," the man said, only just now seeming to recognize her. He reached into his pocket, and Luz couldn't help but flinch. But then he just pulled out his wallet, from which he withdrew a pen and a receipt. "My son's a huge fan of you. Wouldn't stop talking about you for days after he saw the video! Must be cool, being able to do magic. I know you probably get bothered a lot, but could I trouble you for an autograph, maybe? He'd really appreciate it."

"Sure!" Luz said. She wouldn't make a habit out of signing autographs, but the man had helped her out of a jam, even if Sebastian probably wouldn't have hurt her. She scribbled her name on the back of the receipt. "Hey, tell your son that maybe, one day, he'll be able to do magic too."

The man smiled and gave a soft laugh. "Yeah. Maybe one day."

Luz's bus arrived. After thanking the man once more – she hadn't even gotten his name, but that was okay – she got on the bus and headed back to her hometown. Once she got back to her house, she walked into the building to the sound of breaking glass. An object hurtled towards her and only Luz's keen instincts prevented her from getting brained by a plate headed in her direction.

"¡Lo siento mucho, Luz!" Camila said, as she emerged from the kitchen, a horror stricken look on her face. "I didn't hear you come in! Oh, that'll teach me to lose my temper like that. Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Luz said. She looked at the kitchen, which was an absolute mess of broken glass. Camila had broken glass and plate after glass and plate out of frustration. Luz was pretty sure she knew who was responsible for her being so mad. "Maybe I'm not the one who needs therapy?"

Camila sighed. "I know that was a joke, but you're not wrong about me needing help too. Luz, I don't want you to freak out, but something has happened."

"Let me guess," Luz said. "It has something to do with your dad, am I right?"

Camila's eyes widened. "How did you know that? Were you reading my mind? Querida, have you been reading people's minds? Because there are serious consent issues involved if that's the case, and –"

Luz put a hand up. "No, I can't read anyone's mind, mami. Also, thanks for just leaping to the conclusion I'd do that without permission." Camila grimaced. "I had a run-in with Sebastian just after I left therapy."

Camila let out a loud gasp. "Oh, no. Are you all right, Luz?"

"I'm fine," Luz said airily. "It's okay! He just wanted to talk. Some guy thought he was being all creepy, so he scared him off. It's cool." She peered at Camila's face. "I'm guessing it's not all cool on your end?"

Camila took a deep breath. "Luz, your grandfather is suing me for custody of you." Luz supposed she should have been shocked to hear this, but she wasn't. It was frankly surprising he hadn't come out of the woodwork before this. "Let me assure you that he will not win. Steve has put me in touch with a friend of his, a very well-regarded lawyer, who has put the full services of his very prestigious law firm at my disposal. It is literally impossible to outspend these people. These are the lawyers that rich people hire when they need to get away with their crimes."

Luz breathed a sigh of relief. It hadn't seemed very likely that Sebastian would get custody of Luz, if only because of the epically bad diplomatic incident it would cause, but it was nice to know that it was even more unlikely to happen. "Even if he somehow wins," Camila went on, "I will not accept that outcome. Should he legally be granted custody, you and I will go to the Isles and stay there until you have become an adult."

"I know you've got my back, mom," Luz said with finger guns for emphasis. "Now how's about I clean this up for you?"

"Yes, the broom is…" She trailed off as Luz put a construction glyph on the floor and stomped on it with her foot. The various pieces of the broken dishware reassembled themselves and neatly stacked themselves on the counter. "Right. Magic. I forgot."

Over the next few days, Luz tried her best to take Dustin's advice and settle into a normal routine, and it seemed to help with the nightmares somewhat. Well, it was as normal as things got for her these days. She went to school, dodged increasingly interrogative questions from Mr. Charleston, hung out with her friends, did homework, and talked daily with her friends in the Demon Realm, especially Amity.

Amity was pretty evasive about what she'd been doing recently. Apparently, there was some sort of picture that Emira had gotten her hands on which Amity desperately did not want Luz to see. Luz swore she would delete the photo if she found her hands on it without looking at it if at all possible. She trusted Amity to know what she was doing. If something was going on that Amity felt Luz should know about, she'd tell her.

Despite Camila's prior decision to forbid Luz from having any contact with the media, she had decided to allow Luz to give an interview in the school newspaper. Luz was tired of getting pestered by her classmates for details about her time in the Demon Realm, so she wanted to set the record straight. Since Caroline was now the editor of the paper, Luz trusted her implicitly to make sure that her portrayal would be a positive one. Luz was also motivated by a desire to do Caroline a favor for being such an awesome friend – getting an exclusive interview with the princess of the Boiling Isles would look amazing on her future resume.

Luz gave a summarized account of what had happened. There was no reason to tell anyone, for example, about her time in the alternate universe or the fact she'd been on her way to Reality Check Camp when she arrived in the Demon Realm. She talked about the friends she'd made, about Eda, about how they'd freed the Demon Realm from Belos, and about Amity. (She wouldn't have talked about Amity if the students at the school hadn't already known about her, but since they did, she didn't see the harm in it.)

Unfortunately, if she thought the attention on her would decrease from this, she was to be disappointed. True, the rumors subsided (not that Luz had been paying attention to them; she'd become skilled at dodging rumors about herself for the sake of her mental health a long time ago), but everyone just wanted to know more. It seemed that no matter where she went, she was bombarded by requests to do something magical. It was getting exhausting.

At the end of another school day, Luz was grabbing something from her locker when a voice called out, "HEY, WITCH BITCH!" and someone slugged her in the jaw.

Luz may not have had weak nerd arms anymore, and she was taller and bulkier than she was before, but at the end of the day, she was just a fifteen year old girl, and whoever had punched her had one hell of a right hook. She went down like a sack of potatoes. She stared, with blurry vision, at Erik and two of his cronies. Minions? Henchmen? Goons? She didn't know the exact terminology, and it didn't matter. They were on the football team with him. Not only could they probably beat the crap out of her, that was probably their exact intention.

"I'm not someone you want to screw with, Erik!" Luz shouted, and went for one of her glyphs, but before she could grab it from her pocket, a third crony she didn't see forced her hands behind her back. Erik punched Luz in the face again, his face filled with homicidal fury. And that, Luz was starting to fear, was not a metaphor.

Erik grinned at Luz, grabbed her by the throat, and slammed her against the lockers. His breath smelled like alcohol. "Got nothing else to say, Luzer?" he sneered at her. "Not so tough without your whore girlfriend to back you up, are you? Oh, you're gonna pay for what she did to me. I was humiliated! In front of the whole goddamn school! Well, now it's your turn to suffer." Luz spat in his face. It was one thing to insult her, but insulting Amity was just not something she would ever stand for.

"Do your worst, Hellinger," Luz said, sounding a lot braver than she felt. "You think you can do me in? Yeah, maybe you can – three against one, oh so brave. But my family's gonna get you."

"I'll take my chances," Erik said and pulled out a switchblade.

"HEY!" a man's voice called out. It was Principal Weiss. Luz had never met the man before – contrary to her time in middle school, her contact with the school administration was blessedly nonexistent. But everything she'd heard about him indicated that he was not someone one wanted to mess with. "What the hell are you doing?"

Erik quickly put away the switchblade and started whistling innocently. His cronies slowly inched away until they were gone from sight. "Nothing, sir. Just having a bit of fun, that's all."

"We have a zero tolerance policy for bullying at this school, young man," Weiss said sternly. Luz rolled her eyes. She'd heard that before. "What's your name?"

Erik blinked repeatedly. "You…don't know who I am?"

Weiss looked nervous for a second, but then he looked as composed as he did before. "Should I?"

Erik scoffed. "I'm only the star player on the football team!"

Weiss stalked forward until he was nearly within touching distance. Luz had a sudden wild fear that Erik would just lose all composure and stab Weiss, but much to her relief, Erik appeared to at least have a modicum of self-control. "You are delusional if you think that matters. Zero tolerance means zero tolerance, no matter what team you're on. But since nothing can be proven, I suggest you go away and leave Miss Noceda alone."

Luz was as confused as Erik was. Weiss had been so stern and intimidating a second ago, and then he'd just caved? And what was up with him not knowing who Erik was? Erik's ego notwithstanding, he was probably one of the most recognizable people in the school. True, Weiss was fairly new, but surely he'd know who Erik was.

"Are you all right, Luz?" Weiss said, sounding genuinely concerned.

"But only because you were here," Luz said. "They were going to hurt me before you showed up."

Weiss put a hand on Luz's shoulder. "I promise you, Luz, that won't happen as long as I'm around. Come with me. I have to show you something." Luz didn't like the sound of that. But then again, Weiss was the principal, and she didn't want to get in any more trouble. Not after she'd been so careful to stay out of trouble since returning from the Demon Realm.

Weiss led Luz into a dark, empty classroom. Luz took a glyph out of her pocket and braced herself for an ambush. Then the lights stood on, and Weiss wasn't in the room anymore. Instead, standing in front of Luz was a very familiar basilisk. And not only Vee. Three other figures were in the room: Gus, Willow, and Amity.

"Hey, Luz," Amity said. "Long time, no see."