Amity couldn't remember a time in her life when she'd been happier. She had Luz Noceda as her girlfriend, she was studying the kind of magic that she wanted to study, she was on great terms with her siblings again, and most importantly of all, she was free. Her parents were incarcerated and they could never harm her again.

For so long, Amity had thought that the way her parents, especially her mother, treated her was her fault. She had bought into their lies, she knew that now. She thought that all parents treated their children that way. She thought that they were only being cruel because it was how they showed their love.

Camila Noceda had shown her otherwise.

During spring break, she had gone to Earth to spend the week with Luz. It had been an absolutely magnificent experience, but – other than spending time with her awesome girlfriend, of course – the highlight of it had been basking in the warmth and affection that Camila showed her. Camila was willing to put Amity's needs above her own. She was willing to do that for a girl that she really didn't know that well, who wasn't even her own child, just her daughter's girlfriend.

Near the end of that trip, though, Amity had encountered a menacing human who had not only known who she was, but also known her mother's nickname for her – a nickname that only her mother could have told him. After that point, Amity had become consumed with the fear that the human would bust her mother out of prison, and that everything she'd fought so hard to achieve would be taken away from her.

She'd spiraled. She recognized that now. It had caused her to make some decisions that were silly in retrospect. She had, for example, gone to Camila and asked for Luz's hand in marriage. Camila could have told her how ridiculous she found the idea, and she would have been right. But she had instead gently coaxed her true motivations for wanting the betrothal out of her.

And then, for the first time in her life, a parental figure told Amity that she loved her. Her mother had never said that. It was beneath her dignity to bother with sentimentality such as that, according to her. Not once, even in her most manipulative moments, had Amity's mother ever said that she loved her.

But Camila did. Not only that, but she explicitly told Amity that her love was unconditional, not dependent on anything that Amity said or did. If Amity failed, she would still keep loving her. If Amity got a bad grade, Camila would still keep loving her.

It wasn't the end of her spiraling. She went even farther, dyeing her hair back to green and nearly having a nervous breakdown over a B grade of all things. But somehow, the memory of that conversation with Camila kept her from completely losing it. So she'd asked Emira to help her get her hair back to the purple color, and she'd started having daily Skype talks with Camila, and slowly but surely, she let go of the fear that her mother would return.

Amity knew that these were probably small, inconsequential things to Camila. It was nothing to her to show that affection; it was as easy to her as breathing. But to Amity, it was everything. And that's why Amity was determined to do something that reflected that, something which would show to Camila the sheer depths of how much she meant to her.

Luz, as it turned out, had the same idea. She knew that there weren't too many photographs of her father, who had never considered himself a particularly photogenic individual, so she decided to extract photographs of him from her memories and give a photo album of them as a gift to Camila.

"I just wish I could get photographs of him from when I was a baby," Luz lamented when they had finished extracting all the photographs.

"Well, why can't you?" Amity asked her.

"Humans don't remember stuff from so early in their lives," Luz explained. "It's called infantile amnesia. What, witches remember this stuff?"

"I can remember every single second of my life, from the moment I was first conceived," Amity lied shamelessly, and somehow managed to hold in her amusement while Luz gaped at her in awe. But she couldn't hold on forever, and soon erupted into a fit of giggles.

Luz gasped. "You tricked me! You do realize, don't you, that this…means war." Before Amity could figure out what she meant by that, Luz pounced on her and started tickling her mercilessly. Amity let out a shriek and tried her best to restrain herself from laughing, but her body fiendishly betrayed her!

"I REGRET EVERYTHING!" Amity shouted between bouts of tickle induced laughter. She couldn't remember the last time she'd laughed so much, even if it was mostly involuntary. "Seriously, though, stop now. I don't want this anymore." Luz immediately stopped. Just another reason why she was the best girlfriend in the world.

Amity impulsively kissed Luz on the lips, causing her to let out an adorable giggle. "Okay, sweetie, it's true. Witches do have infantile amnesia too. Ours isn't quite as strong as yours, though. My first memories are from when I was two years old." She tilted her head as an idea came to her. "But perhaps the memories are still there, just…blocked. Do you remember when we went into Willow's mind?"

Luz nodded slowly. It hadn't exactly been a pleasant experience for either of them, especially since Inner Willow hated Amity's guts for her decision to sever their friendship as a child, a decision that Amity still could not help but feel profound guilt for. "Well," Amity went on, "I bet that if I went inside your mind, I could find a way to bypass the infantile amnesia and get photographs of…of your birth!"

Luz laughed. "Why not get video of it, Amity, and go the whole hog?"

Oh, that was it. No one would mock Amity's ambitions to stretch the bounds of magic. Nothing was any match for a Blight, especially one who would become a Noceda in the fullness of time. (Amity was totally not counting down the days until Luz's eighteenth birthday, when Camila said she'd be willing to give her blessing to a betrothal. Okay, she totally was.) "All right, Noceda. Let's make a bet. I bet that I can get video footage of your birth, and if I'm right, you have to tell my siblings that I'm a more powerful witch than you are."

Luz gave her a grin. "All right, but if I'm right and it's impossible, you have to let me braid your hair." Luz had been begging Amity to let her do that for ages.

"Deal," Amity said. Unlike the last time they'd made a bet, there was no Everlasting Oath. Unlike the last time, they were not rivals, but partners and girlfriends, working side by side instead of against each other. "No sabotaging my efforts, though. You'll help me through the whole thing."

"Absolutely," Luz promised. "I swear to it. I don't believe that you can't do it, Amity. I just believe no one can. There's a major difference. I do have one condition, though. You can't go venturing into my mind alone."

Well, that sounded reasonable to Amity. It would be safer to have someone beside her anyway. "All right. I'm sure that Willow or Gus – "

Luz shook her head. "No, you misunderstand me. I mean that I have to be there. There's stuff in there that I don't want you to see. It's not because I don't trust you or anything…"

Amity put up a hand. "It's okay, corazón. I understand. Some things have to stay private. However, I'm not sure that the spell that we used to go into Willow's subconscious would allow you to go into your own mind."

Luz frowned, and then she perked up. "Well, what if I wasn't in it?" Amity could not keep the look of befuddlement off her face. "Eda knows this body swapping spell. I'm sure that I could get her to teach me how to use it if I used all my adorableness on her."

"Don't use all of it," Amity warned her. "She could explode from sheer concentrated cuteness overload! But who would you swap bodies with?"

"I'm sure Gus wouldn't mind swapping if I let him use my body for a while in exchange. You can't tell me he wouldn't want a chance to be human for at least a while!"

Amity couldn't argue with that logic. Gus was obsessed with humans, always had been. He had been through the roof – an idiom that Amity had picked up from Camila – to read about her encounters in the Human Realm, and had begged Eda incessantly for a chance to use the portal to go to Earth. Becoming human, even if it meant that he would be doing so in Luz's body, was surely a lifelong dream of his.

And if Luz was right about the effects of the body swap spell, then the plan was solid too. Luz would be able to escort Amity to the right memories, especially with the help of Inner Luz. And, honestly, why wouldn't Inner Luz want to help them? Amity wondered what Inner Luz would look like. Probably like an otter, knowing Luz.

"Okay," Amity said eventually. "That sounds like a good plan. I'm kind of excited to see what it's like inside your head."

"It's…going to be a little strange," Luz warned her. "That's my guess, anyway. But if you didn't like strange by now, what would you be doing with me?"

Amity squeezed her girlfriend's hand. "You've got a lot of great qualities, Luz. You're smart, pretty, kind, empathetic, pretty, loving, caring, and pretty. Did I mention pretty? Because, Titan, you're pretty." She blinked. "I've been talking too long."

Luz kissed her on the lips and Amity went completely blank. has stopped working, some part of her that could seemingly only access memes now thought. "I don't think you've been talking long enough. Tell me more about how pretty I am, hermosa."

And Amity did.

Naturally, as Amity had foreseen, Gus was behind the plan 100%. 500%, according to him, actually. "I get to be human?! I've been dreaming about this since I was a small child and first read about humans for the first time!"

"Remember, this is my body that you'll be in, so be careful," Luz warned him. "And, also, you're not going to be able to use it until we're done with our errand."

"And," Amity told him, "we may need to table you using it at all if something goes wrong."

Luz nodded. "That's right, you may not be able to use it immediately afterwards, but we will get you a chance to use it eventually. Also, this is a one-time thing, probably. I'm not just going to let you hop into my body whenever you want!" Gus nodded eagerly. "Thank you so much, Gus. This means a ton to me and Amity."

"Amity and I," Amity muttered, but as quiet as she could be. The last thing she wanted was to be tickled again over her need to correct people's grammar.

Of course, nothing in the Boiling Isles ever ended up being simple. On the day that the two of them were supposed to venture into Luz's mind, Amity's former so-called "friend" Cat had threatened to use a love potion on Luz. Amity was never very close to Cat – they were only supposedly friends because Amity's parents had forced her to hang out with her – but still, it had been a gigantic shock to learn that Cat had been capable of such a vile thing. Even Boscha wouldn't have gone as far as to even threaten to use a love potion on someone, much less be fully intending to actually use it.

Cat's perfidy was swiftly uncovered and now she was awaiting trial for possession of a love potion with the intent of using it for ensorcellment, a crime that automatically required minors to be tried as an adult and carried with it a minimum sentence of twenty years. She had a sneaking suspicion that Lilith, as head of the Law Enforcement Coven, would be asking for the maximum, life in prison, and that she would end up getting it too.

Naturally, the incident had completely shaken up Luz and she was in no position to enter into her mind anytime soon after that. It took a lot of time and extra attention from Amity, but Luz had slowly managed to heal herself. The two of them had stayed at Blight Manor during that time. They'd even slept in the same room, albeit in separate beds. Amity had expected Emira and Edric to tease them mercilessly, but instead her siblings were ridiculously compassionate and kind. They had been super supportive.

No one, Edric told her, messed with his family. And that was what Luz was to them now. Family.

(Honestly, Amity had been worried that Emira, especially, had been replaced by some sort of doppelganger until she learned that part of Emira's kindness entailed giving Luz the hippogriffs and fire wasps talk. In staggeringly excruciating detail. In front of Amity.)

Then Edric had abruptly informed her that she, Luz, Gus, and Willow would all be having a sleepover on the night of the solar eclipse. Amity wasn't blind. She knew that this had something to do with Eda's claims that she wasn't planning a heist on that night, which would have been unconvincing even if they hadn't been offered apropos of absolutely nothing. But Luz appeared to be as oblivious as ever that Eda, Camila, and Raine weren't just going to an ordinary fundraising dinner and were instead planning on getting revenge on the crime lord that had orchestrated the attempted ensorcellment.

Amity had no desire to enlighten Luz. The last thing that she wanted was her girlfriend rushing off to help them run the heist and getting herself killed. Anyway, Camila was an absurdly sensible individual. If she was in on the plan, it had to be solid. So Amity went along with the sleepover idea. Luz told her that she was feeling well enough to venture into her mind, and before they knew it, they were in Gravity Falls.

This was not Amity's first time in Gravity Falls. She had been there on several occasions without Luz, just to get more used to what life was like in the Human Realm. She soon discovered, however, that Gravity Falls was not a representative example of the Human Realm. It was, as Dipper put it, the exception that proved every rule. People casually accepted the supernatural there. It had been a part of their lives for so long. She had been able to walk around town with her ears fully uncovered and no one had given her a second glance.

"Welcome to the Mystery Shack, dudes," the blasé voice of Soos, the Mystery Shack's operator, said as they emerged from the secret passageway leading to the laboratory where the Mystery Shack was situated. Amity liked Soos a lot. He was also so chill about things. Her true family were all extremely wonderful, but sometimes, it was nice to spend time with people who didn't know about her baggage and just knew the Amity of today.

"Anyway, I'm Soos," Soos went on, "and it's my job to make sure you don't get, like, eaten by anything while you're staying here. Dudes, that would totally suck. So rule number one of Gravity Falls: Don't get eaten."

Gus took out a notebook and eagerly wrote this down. "Rule one: Don't get eaten. Got it! So, Mr. Soos, I watched a human documentary about a small town like this one called Twin Peaks, and I was wondering if…"

As Gus and Soos walked off, chattering about doubtlessly wildly inaccurate human matters, Amity turned to look at Willow. "Are you sure you're up for helping us? It's okay if you don't want to."

Willow gave her a gentle smile. "I won't pretend that I have serious doubts about this plan. But I think it's sweet that you want to do something nice for Luz's mom. Maybe you could just buy her something nice, though…?"

Amity put her head up in the air. She had committed to the plan. She had made a bet with Luz. She would not abandon it before she could even get the chance to see if it would work. So said Hexside's best student.

"I know you're Hexside's best student," Willow went on – crap, had she just said that all out loud? "But there's a reason why this hasn't been done before. My inner self nearly killed you both. Who's to say that Inner Luz won't be as hostile?"

Luz let out a loud laugh. "Come on! The worst thing that my inner self could do to her is tickle her. Every part of me loves you, Amity, including my deepest self." Amity wondered if she would ever stop blushing in the presence of her girlfriend. Probably not. "So! Sleepover stuff! Obviously, we've got to do truth or dare, and, uh…crap, I don't know what people do at these things. I was never invited to one."

"We could ask Mabel," Willow suggested. "But before we start our sleepover, we should get this plan," the words half-baked were not said, but heavily implied by her tone, "of yours out of the way first."

That sounded like a good idea to Amity. If the experience was upsetting in any way, a bunch of fun party games sounded like just the thing for her to be able to get back into a normal frame of mind. "Okay, well, I'll get Soos out of Gus's clutches, and we'll get moving!"

It took over an hour for Luz to get Gus away from Soos. As she explained when she had finally accomplished the task, first she had to find them, which proved to be much more difficult than expected. The Mystery Shack seemed like it was much bigger on the inside than it should have been on the outside. Second, she had to get a word in edgewise, which was even tougher.

But, eventually, the idea of being human, even if it was just for a few minutes initially before Willow laid the sleep spell on him, was too enticing for Gus to resist. Willow, wonderful saint that she was, had learned the body swap spell, testing it out on her and some of her plants. That had been one hell of a strange afternoon. Now, the only thing that remained to do was for her to cast it on him.

"Remember when you're in my body later to be respectful," Luz lectured Gus. "If it's not something you'd be comfortable with me doing in your body, don't do it."

"Got it," Gus assured her with a thumb's up. "Relax, Luz. I swear I won't do anything weird with your body. Well, nothing weirder than you already do with it, anyway."

Amity held the camcorder in her hand tightly. Several glyphs had been carved into it and activated which should, theoretically, infuse enough magic into it allow her to use it within Luz's mind. Yet she had put so much faith into a completely untested theory, based on nothing more than her own hubris.

Luz, however, as she always did, sensed her insecurities. "Hey, Amity, it's okay if you can't pull it off. You know what? Let's stop thinking of this as a mission. Let's think of it as a date."

Amity raised her eyebrow. "Seriously? A date?"

"Hey, why not?" Luz said. "There's all sorts of cool things in my memories. We could see any movie I've ever seen together. Go anywhere I've ever been."

Willow put her hands on her hips. "Well, that's nice and all, but remember that you only have one hour in which to do it. Time should go much slower in there, given how fast the human brain works, though. At the end of one hour, I am pulling you out, and then I am done with this experiment. If you want to do it again, you do it on your own time."

Amity nodded slowly, suddenly wondering if this was a bad idea. "I'm sorry if that sounded harsh," Willow said in a much kinder tone. "It's only because I'm worried about you. We're friends again, and you're important to me. I don't want to lose you."

Luz gave her the most reassuring smile in her arsenal, and Amity couldn't help but feel a tiny speck of jealousy that it wasn't being directed at her. "That won't happen, Willow! Not while I'm around! And I'll be completely around, since it's my mind we're going into!"

"Okay, are both of you ready for the body swap?" Willow asked. When Luz and Gus nodded, Willow cast the spell. Immediately, Amity could see the difference. She'd recognize her girlfriend anywhere, no matter what body she happened to be wearing. It was still profoundly weird, though, to have her be in Gus's body.

"WOW!" Gus shouted, and spun around in a circle. "I'm human now! I have round ears! I can't do magic!" He tried to cast a spell, but failed. "It's so AWESOME!" He abruptly seemed to lose his balance and fell to the ground in a heap. "I'm okay!"

"Yeah, I would have warned you," Luz said wryly, "but in my defense, how was I supposed to know that witches didn't get all dizzy when they spun around for too long?"

Amity accidentally made eye contact with Luz, and then let out a frantic stream of apologies when she did so. But Luz looked confused. "That…was actually fine? Oh my God, I'm neurotypical now! Holy crap, that's just weird. I can look you in the eyes without it feeling like they're burning." She gasped. "We could have a staring contest! I've always wondered what that's like!"

"Hang on," Gus said. "I want to experiment." He tried looking Willow in the eyes and then let out a high pitched shriek. "Titan, how do you stand doing that?"

"Unfortunately, I've been forced to have a lot of practice," Luz said grimly. "It's not an all-humans thing. It's because I'm autistic. That's –"

"I know what that means," Gus assured her. "I did research." A panicked look formed in Luz's eyes. Amity knew only too well why she was worried. There was a lot of misinformation about the condition they shared in the Human Realm, especially on the internet.

"I helped him do it," Amity assured her. Luz breathed a sigh of relief. "I steered him away from antivaxxers and people like that."

"What is an antivaxxer?" Willow asked.

Luz let out a groan. "Believe me, you do not want to know." She clapped her hands. "Okay, showtime. Gus, can I cast just one spell in your body before we start?"

Gus looked uncomfortable. "Um, no. Please don't. My magic is a personal thing. The idea of anyone else using it, even you…"

"Okay," Luz said immediately. "No magic. Got it. So then let's get started here, witches!"

Willow helped Gus over to the couch and cast a sleep spell on him. He was out like a light, to use a human idiom. Amity didn't know why humans used that particular idiom, but she had long ago given up on making sense of human idioms. They didn't make much sense to Luz either, anyway, and she was human.

"Good luck, and if you get killed and there's an afterlife, remember that I warned you!" Willow said chirpily, and then she waved her hand and Amity blacked out.

When she opened her eyes again, she was in what looked like some sort of library, and with a start, she realized that she recognized it. Well, at least she was pretty sure she knew what it was. Unless Amity was mistaken, Luz's mental landscape was the Overlibrary from the Good Witch Azura series. The Overlibrary had access to every single book in the entire universe, but it could only be entered from one's dreams, and thus it looked differently to every person and one could only access fragments of one's reading in the real world. Azura had gone there to find out her fate three times, and all three times, it had ended very, very badly.

Perhaps the Overlibrary would have looked different to Amity if she had not watched the Good Witch Azura movie over fifteen times, but she had and so it looked exactly like it did in the movie: a huge, infinitely cavernous hall with no ceiling, filled with books as far as the eye could see with shelves that stretched upwards to the heavens.

"Oh, this is so cool!" Luz said, looking from book to book with enthusiasm. Thank goodness, she was back in her own body. Well, a mental form that looked like her own body anyway. She grabbed a random book off a shelf, opened it to a random page, and let out a high pitched shriek, then turned as red as a tomato. Amity barely could glimpse a picture of herself in a grudgby uniform before Luz tossed it back on the shelf and then, using nothing more than her will, constructed a wall completely encircling the shelf.

"Oh, wow," Amity teased Luz, her eyes sparkling brightly. "Sports."

Luz let out a nervous laugh. "Yeah…let's stick to the young adult section of this library, okay?" She took a few deep breaths. Amity couldn't help but feel sympathy. It's not like her own mental library didn't have volumes like that.

Amity mentally created a pocket dimension for the camcorder and stuffed it in it. "Where shall we go first?" Amity asked in an effort to change the subject.

Luz looked like she was only seriously considering that question for the first time that very moment. "You know…I have no idea. I mean, I got to be honest with you, Amity, most of my life sucked before I met you. I didn't fit in anywhere. Everyone seemed to hate me and I didn't know why. I still don't know why, actually."

"I liked the photos you took of your dad," Amity said. "You must have been very happy with him. Do you have any memories of him that you'd like to show me?"

Luz brightened up. "Well, yeah, actually! But how am I going to find the right memory? There are so many books here!"

"This is your mind," Amity reminded her. "I'm pretty sure that the only limits to your imagination are those you've imposed on yourself. Just want the book and it should appear." In truth, she was actually not certain that it would work this way at all, but it certainly wouldn't if Luz had the slightest amount of doubt.

Luz closed her eyes and concentrated and a moment later, a book appeared in her hand. "Ooh, this is perfect! This is the first time we went to a Mariners game!"

"Mariners…some sort of aquatic activity?" Amity speculated.

"No, it's a baseball game!" Luz said, as if that was supposed to mean anything to Amity. "Oh, right, you don't have that in the Isles. Okay, well, let me show you, then!"

Before Amity could say or do anything, Luz grabbed her arm and shoved her into the book somehow. The next thing she knew, Amity was sitting down in a hard metal seat in the stands of some sort of stadium. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of people present and the sounds and presence of the humans was almost, but not quite, overwhelming for Amity. She was really high up compared to the field.

"Look!" Luz shouted, and pointed to the people sitting next to them. Even though there was no one else who could have been in those seats, Amity still did a doubletake when she saw Eduardo Noceda, his very young – she couldn't have been any older than five – daughter beside him.

There was no way to describe young Luz other than completely adorable. She was wearing a pink Mariners T-shirt and jeans and wearing a pink baseball cap. "You had a pink phase?" Amity said, her lips curling in a smile. "I never would have expected that from you."

"Yes, it is true, Amity," Luz said in an exaggeratedly dramatic tone. "I, too, had a misspent youth." She winked at Amity. "Besides, I think I'm into purple now more…" Someone let out a high pitched squeal and Amity was alarmed to realize that it was her.

Amity wasn't sure what was going on down on the field, or what even the objective of this baseball game was, but whatever was going down there made the crowd go wild. Amity was shocked to realize that a small round object was heading directly in Past Luz's direction. She tried to incinerate it with a spell before it could reach her, but, of course, she failed. This had already happened, after all.

Past Luz reached out her hands and caught the object, some sort of ball, in her hands, looking at it with wonder and happiness. She let out a cheer of sheer joy. "Papi! Papi, do you see?" Past Luz said. "I caught it! Me!"

"All right!" Señor Noceda shouted. "That's my girl! The light of my life! Luz Noceda!"

Amity had forgotten about Señor Noceda for a while there. Of course, she'd seen the photographs Luz had taken of him, but there was a big difference between that and seeing Luz's father in the flesh. Maybe Luz's subconscious perception of him was distorting Amity's own perceptions, but Señor Noceda appeared to possess an air of…well, it was hard to say what, but importance was the best word for it. He stood out from his contemporaries effortlessly. He was at ease with the world around him, and Amity knew that if the world around him wasn't at ease with him, he wouldn't care about that.

The real Luz was looking at Señor Noceda with undisguised awe and sadness. Of course this wasn't the first time she'd seen him since the project began, but, she was starting to realize, it might be one of the last. "Papi…" she whispered so quietly that surely she could not have intended Amity to hear it.

She tried to reach out to him, to touch him once more. Amity could almost sense Luz wanting to beg Señor Noceda not to take the path to work that had resulted in his death. But in the end, Luz knew the truth as well as Amity did: These were just shadows of the past, and she could not change them, no matter how hard she tried.

"Are we done here?" Amity asked Luz gently. Luz nodded, and then she snapped her fingers and the two of them were back in the Overlibrary.

Amity turned to face her girlfriend, expecting to have to comfort her, but much to her surprise, Luz was smiling. "That was one of the happiest moments of my life, probably only second to when I became your girlfriend. In that one moment, I believed that I could do anything. All of my doubts and insecurities just vanished." She looked contemplative. "You know, I still think I have that baseball somewhere at home. I should dig it up when I get back."

"Perhaps one day you could take me to a baseball game," Amity suggested.

Luz seemed to like that idea a great deal. "That's a great idea! I'll pitch it to Mami. It's a great time for it too. Normally, the Mariners lose all the time, but this season they've been doing amazing. Everyone says they're going to make the playoffs this year – maybe even the World Series!" Amity tried to look suitably impressed, but in truth, she had no idea what Luz was talking about. She was definitely going to need to learn about baseball if she didn't want to look like an idiot when they went to a game.

"Hmm," Luz went on. "What else could I show you? Oh! Oh, I could show you the moment when I got my first Azura book!" That sounded like music to Amity's ears. She summoned another book to her hand, and this time Amity and Luz jumped inside it together.

When she opened her eyes again, Amity was standing in the living room of an unfamiliar looking house. "This is my old house," Luz explained. "We moved after…" She didn't bother going on. She didn't have to. Amity knew why they had moved. Past Camila was gently but firmly escorting Past Luz up the staircase of her home. "Remember, mija, it's bedtime now. Your reading can wait until tomorrow."

"Sí, mami," Luz said. And then, of course, the moment she went into her room, she grabbed a flashlight and a book from her desk and started reading it underneath her blankets. Amity could fondly remember such stealth late night reading sessions from her own youth.

Real Luz gave a smirk. "What can I tell you, Amity? I was a rebel, even then."

"No, no, no!" Past Luz suddenly shouted, looking very distressed. She got out of the blanket, tossed the book onto the ground, and then ran out of the room. Amity could barely catch sight of the series name – Animorphs – and the title – The Beginning – before she ran after Past Luz.

Past Luz went to her father's home office. Even in her evident distress, Past Luz was polite, and she waited patiently for Señor Noceda to finish the phone conversation that he was having, even if she looked like she was ready to explode from sadness.

"Look, yes, I know it's all a little farfetched, but what if it's true?" Señor Noceda said to the person on the other end of the line. "We have to find out. If it's true, then someone needs to bring him to justice. Not to mention we'd both be guaranteed a Pulitzer. Please don't back out on me here, Leo." There was a pause. "Okay. Good. I'll see you at JFK. Don't forget to bring your passport with you. With luck, I'll remember to bring mine..."

He hung up the phone and looked at a set of plane tickets – Amity knew what they looked like because of her maybe ever so slight obsession with researching planes – on his desk. There was fear on his face. One of the tickets had SEA-JFK printed on them, but the others had JFK-CDG and CDG-FNA printed on them.

"Papi, Papi!" Past Luz shouted. Señor Noceda quickly shoved the tickets in a drawer and then turned to face his daughter. The moment she saw the look of anguish on her face, he immediately kneeled down to her level.

"What is it that has my light looking so dark?" he asked her.

"It's Rachel!" Past Luz said and then she burst into tears. "She died, daddy!" Señor Noceda looked alarmed, presumably thinking that Luz was talking about a real person. "The Yeerks killed her!" Señor Noceda relaxed.

"Oh, come here, mija," Señor Noceda said and lifted Past Luz into his arms. "It's okay."

"It's not okay!" Luz shouted. "She was a hero! She wasn't supposed to die!"

Señor Noceda nodded. "Sometimes, in this world…the good guys lose. That's why we always have to fight as hard as we can to do the right thing, because nothing is set in stone." He didn't speak to her as if she was a child. He spoke to her as an equal. An idea seemed to occur to him, and then he opened one of the drawers of his desk and took out the first volume of the Good Witch Azura series. "Rachel's story may have ended badly, but hers is not the only story out there. I got this for your birthday, but I think you need it now." He put it in Luz's hands.

Luz looked amazed by the size of the book, which was presumably much bigger than six year olds of her age were used to reading. "But Mr. Dandridge says I'm not supposed to be reading books this big. He says that I'm already reading too high for my grade level."

Señor Noceda scowled. "Well, Mr. Dandridge es un idiota," he said contemptuously. "Please don't tell your mother I said that. There may be a lot of big words in there, but I'll help you understand them. And if you don't like it, or if it's too hard for you, you don't have to finish it."

"Okay, papi," Past Luz said, nodding her head eagerly. "I'm going to finish my book first. I'm sure it's going to have a happy ending!" Amity couldn't help but notice real Luz give a sharp wince beside her.

Señor Noceda ruffled Luz's hair. "I'm sure it will, mija. Now, as I told you, I'm going to New York for about a week to catch up with some of my friends there. I want you to be a very good girl for your mami while I'm gone, okay?"

Luz nodded, her face solemn. "I promise I won't let you down, papi."

"Luz, you could never let me down even if you tried," Señor Noceda promised her. Titan, if only her father had told her that as a child. Instead, Amity learned that she could never fail to let her parents down even if she tried. "I love you very much, and I want to hear all about your new book when I get back, okay?"

"Okay," Past Luz said. She still looked sad, but then she opened the book and started reading it, and then, like Amity was the first time she'd ever read it, she was utterly, utterly hooked.

The memory abruptly withdrew and Amity found herself back in the Overlibrary. Luz was looking like she was struggling to refrain from bursting into tears. "That was the last time I ever saw him," she whispered. "I was already asleep when he came back, and when I woke up, he'd already gone to work. But he never made it there. It's weird. I forgot that I got Azura book 1 on this day. I thought they were two separate incidents…"

Amity hugged Luz, holding her tightly. Luz wasn't crying, but it was even odds, in Amity's opinion, about whether or not it would happen. "So what country is New York in?" Amity asked Luz in an effort to distract her.

It appeared to work, as Luz disentangled herself and let out a laugh. "Well, I've never actually been, but if I remember some of Dad's stories right, it's in a planet of its own! That's a metaphor, though. It's part of the States, just like Seattle."

"Then why did he need his passport?" Amity wondered. It was her understanding that a passport was only necessary when traveling between different countries.

Luz probably would have been less shocked to hear the question "Will you marry me?" then she was to hear that question. "Holy shit, Amity. He didn't. Unless he wasn't going to New York at all! Quickly, did you spot where he was going on the plane tickets?"

"The end destination had the airport code FNA on it," Amity informed her.

"Do you realize what this means?!" Luz shouted. Amity shook her head. "It means I finally have a lead! If he was running an investigation secretly, then maybe the target of the investigation had him killed!"

Amity didn't want to give Luz false hope, which is why she said, "Or it could be a coincidence. Remember, your dad admitted that whatever he was trying to investigate, it sounded farfetched."

"My father would not have traveled out of the country and hid it from mami if he believed he was chasing a dream," Luz argued. "We need to find this Leo person and interrogate him!"

Amity sighed. She certainly could not blame Luz for wanting to pursue a lead on her father's murder, but it was definitely not the right time for it. "Luz, I offered to use oracle magic to locate his killer, but you said no, remember?" she reminded her.

"Yeah, but that was before we had this lead. Now we have a lead that doesn't have to expose magic – a lead from my memories!"

Amity put her hand on Luz's shoulder. "Luz, I will do whatever I can to help you. But right now, we need to do what we were here for. Your mother might know who Leo is, so we'll ask her when we see her again, okay?"

"Okay," Luz said. "All right. I'm sorry…this isn't quite the romantic date I had in mind."

Amity kissed her. "Estoy contigo, mi valiente defensora. That's all I need. Now, are you ready for me to win the bet?"

"Oh, you are so on, Blight!" Luz said, and she snapped her fingers. Instead of a book appearing in her hand, a door exactly like the portal door to Earth appeared behind them. Amity summoned the camcorder and then, with her other hand, took Luz's hand and the two of them stepped through it.

And then Amity was back in Luz's memory of her current house's living room, standing face to face with Inner Luz.

Inner Luz did not look at all like what Amity was suspecting. She was older than the real Luz, for starters. If Amity had to guess, she'd put Inner Luz's age at maybe somewhere between sixteen and eighteen. She was wearing a dark green jacket, white shoes, a purple and white striped shirt, and very dark blue jeans. Her hair was long, going down to her shoulders, and the top of it was covered up by a hat that Amity was given to understand was called a beanie.

When she saw Luz, Inner Luz's face lit up with sheer joy and she practically bowled Luz over with a hug. "You finally made it here!" she shouted. Her voice sounded deeper and rougher than the real Luz's voice. "I knew it! I knew you would figure it out eventually. We're smart, right?"

"Um, yep," Luz said, sounding a little worried. "I totally figured it out. Figured out what…exactly?"

Inner Luz released Luz and then looked at her with a pitying look. "Oh, of course you didn't figure it out. Why did I think you did? I would have known if you did. I would have seen the signs. It's just more false hope again."

"Excuse me, but I have no idea what's going on here," Amity said politely. "We're looking for memories of Luz's birth. Perhaps you could lead us there?"

Inner Luz turned to look at Amity and Amity let out a yelp at the expression of pure undiluted hatred on Inner Luz's face. Her girlfriend's inner self hated her! Not only that, but it wasn't just disgust or dislike but true unadulterated hatred. "Amity Blight," Inner Luz snarled at her. "You were incredibly dumb to come here. Seriously, utterly stupid."

"Luz, why the hell does your inner self hate me?!" Amity shouted at her.

"I don't know!" Luz said, sounding frantic. "I don't hate you, I swear! I don't understand why this is happening."

Inner Luz took a rectangular object out of her pocket. Lightning crackled at the end of it. "Whoa, is that a taser?" Luz said, sounding panicked. "Why the hell do you have a taser?"

"Don't worry," Inner Luz said in a very worrying tone. "It'll all be over very quickly. I know it's going to hurt to return, but it'll all be worth it in the end. You'll see." She slammed the taser into Luz's neck and Luz screamed in agony and then dropped to the floor.

Amity let out a yell and checked for a pulse. Thank the Titan, she found one. "What are you doing? This is you you're attacking!"

Inner Luz looked sad. "Yeah. I'm sorry it's come down to this, me. But if there's one thing I've learned in the last year, it's that you so do not have the strength to do what needs to be done." She turned to face Amity, that horrifying expression of utter hatred back on her face. "As for you, I don't consider myself a vindictive woman, but I'm going to enjoy what's going to happen to you a lot."

And then without another word, she slammed the taser against Amity's chest. An overwhelming pain coursed through her, and though she tried her best to stay conscious, it was of no use.

When Amity opened her eyes again, she was not in any place that she recognized. She was in a dank, dirty basement. Her arms were extended upwards, with her wrists in chains leading up to the ceiling. Her ankles were similarly chained to the floor. Inner Luz was standing nearby, next to a cart filled with horrifying looking sharp objects that Amity could only surmise were torture equipment, as bizarre as the idea sounded.

"What memories did you take this from?!" Amity asked. The idea that Luz was ever in the same room as some of these objects was even more terrifying to Amity than the fact that they were about to be used on her.

Inner Luz sneered at her. "It's all from my imagination, you asshole," she spat at her. Amity couldn't understand it. Luz's past was pretty bad, but she must have really been understating how bad it was if this was what Inner Luz was like. "I have been waiting for you to show up here for so long. I figured it was only a matter of time after the Willow incident that you'd show up in my sanctum, and here you are."

"I don't understand anything," Amity said. "Please let me go. What did you do with Luz?"

"Luz is fine, don't worry," Inner Luz said. "When she wakes up and sees Mom again, it's going to suck, but she'll get over it in time."

Inner Luz held up a wickedly sharp scalpel. "Here's how it's going to work. You are going to tell me how to wake up, or I am going to hurt you, and then you'll tell me."

There had to be a way out of this. And there was, now that Amity thought of it! Willow was going to bring them out when the hour had passed, so all Amity had to do was to keep her girlfriend's psychotic inner self talking. "I'll tell you whatever you want to know, but you have to tell me what's going on first."

Inner Luz's face contorted into an utterly humorless smile. "All right, Amity. I'll play along with your little game one more time, for old time's sake. I'm talking about how to wake me up from my coma. The one I've been in for the last year."

And suddenly everything made sense to Amity. "You don't think the Boiling Isles are real."

"I know they're not!" Inner Luz suddenly shouted. "It's all way too good to be true! I mean, let's count the ways here, shall we? First, I get adopted by an awesome witch who just happens to appreciate my inner quirkiness, and then teaches me magic. Magic, I might add, that only I, Luz Noceda, can wield. The first human to ever learn magic!" She threw back her head and laughed. "Who knew I could be so narcissistic?"

Amity shook her head. "But, Luz, those things really happened!"

Inner Luz didn't appear to hear her. "Okay, so then, I actually went to a magic school, and made friends that shared my interests. I could be myself around them! Do you see how unrealistic that is?! Who would ever be happy with me being myself?! Even Mami hated me so much that she sent me to Reality Check Camp!"

She suddenly burst into tears. "And I never arrived! I must have gotten hit by a car or something. I've been in a coma for a whole year. Mami must be worried sick about me." A dull, hopeless expression formed on her face. "Or maybe…she's just given up. That's what I would do if I were in her shoes. That's why I need to go back! She'll pull the plug on me!"

Amity's heart was breaking. She had no idea that Luz felt this poorly about herself. "Camila would never do that," Amity said with utter confidence. "She loves you. Do you know what she told me? She said that I deserve to be loved, not because of anything I do or am, but because I'm me. And she feels the same way about you."

Inner Luz slapped Amity across the face. "Don't you speak about her as if you know her! You're a hallucination! I'm her daughter! I may be the sorriest excuse for a daughter that there's ever been, but I'm all she's got, and she needs me!" Amity was crying, not because Inner Luz had hit her, but because she wanted so badly to give her a hug and tell her that everything would not only be all right, but already was all right.

Inner Luz took a few deep breaths. "Okay, where was I? Right, so then, I fall in love with the smartest, prettiest, most popular girl in Hexside. Fair enough. I'm no stranger to out of my league crushes. But the part where you liked me back? Totally unrealistic. And don't even get me started on the whole Azura-esque final battle with Belos thing."

"Hey!" Amity said indignantly. "I don't just like you back, I love you back!"

Inner Luz let out a high pitched squeal of laughter. "Come on! You're going to have to try better than that. Oh, and, yeah, the part where Mami was totally okay with me being bi, because she's bi and now trying to get into a relationship with my other mom, now that was honestly a nice touch. I liked the symmetry between the whole coming out as a witch and coming out as bi thing. That was clever. Oh, and the friends I made in high school! Can't forget about them!"

"Luz, all of those things happened!" Amity shouted. "I don't know why you're so insistent that they didn't! We may have ended up with a happy ending, but we earned it through pain and tears and blood!"

She lifted the scalpel, which glinted in the light. "Let's see if you're still denying it after I rip out your organs one by one."

Amity racked her brains for an argument that would persuade Inner Luz, and then, much to her surprise, she found one. "I have just one question before we get to the organ ripping. What you're saying is that everything you've been experiencing has been your dream fantasy. Your absolute perfect world." Inner Luz nodded. "Then why did Adegast try to kill you?"

Much to Amity's relief, Inner Luz appeared to be befuddled by that argument enough to not get to the dissecting yet. "I don't understand."

"You wanted to be the Chosen One, you yearned to be the Chosen One, so why did your so-called perfect world have you not be the Chosen One?"

Inner Luz looked like she was unable to process that statement. "I…I…"

Amity pressed the advantage. "It took forever for me to work up the courage to tell you how I felt about you. If I was your fantasy, wouldn't I have swooped you away immediately? Are you going to tell me that you really possessed enough emotional maturity at that point to know that's not how it works?"

"You…you're trying to trick me," Inner Luz mumbled. "It's not…this can't be real."

"Why not?"

"BECAUSE I DON'T DESERVE IT!" Inner Luz suddenly screamed at her. "I don't deserve any of it! I'm a freak! I'm broken in the head, and all I've done for my mom is create trouble and problems from the day I was born! I don't deserve any of these good things. I don't deserve anything at all."

Inner Luz was now shamelessly crying, and Amity was crying along with her. There was so much pain, so much self-hatred in Luz, and Amity had no idea. None at all. Titan, Luz had no idea. "It's not about who deserves what," Amity said, repeating a sentiment she had told Luz back in spring break. "I love you, and you love me."

"You don't love me," Inner Luz sneered. "You love the real Luz."

"I love you, because you're a part of her," Amity asserted. "I love all of Luz, not just the parts of her that are nice and friendly. And I love her – I love you at your best and at your worst. Also, while we're on the subject of your worst, could you please let me go?!"

Inner Luz waved a hand and the chains disappeared, along with the scalpel in her other hand and all the torture equipment. She sank to the ground and cried for a very long time. "You…you really do love me?" she said, looking as if the concept was utterly foreign to her.

"You're damn right I love you," Amity said. "I love you more than I've ever loved anyone."

"I'm sorry," Inner Luz told her, sounding genuinely humbled. "I was being an idiot. I know it's all real now. I think…I think that I've really always known. I just…found it so hard to believe. But no one's imagination is that good, even mine."

Amity kissed Inner Luz on the forehead. "I'm so sorry that you think so badly of yourself. You are not broken, you have worth, you have value, and you matter. Remember that."

The door to the basement suddenly slammed open and real Luz ran down the stairs, a red metal baseball bat in her hand. "GET AWAY FROM HER, YOU BITCH!" she shouted and ran at Inner Luz. Amity stepped between them, and Luz stopped in her tracks so abruptly that she fell down the rest of the staircase and landed in an undignified heap on the ground, the baseball bat clattering to the ground next to her.

"Thanks for the rescue, Luz," Amity said, trying valiantly to suppress laughter. "But I had the whole situation under control." She explained what had gone down between her and Inner Luz. Immediately upon the story's conclusion, Luz swept her inner self into the tightest hug Amity had ever seen her give. "Oh, you poor thing. Have you really spent the last year believing this wasn't real?"

"I think I always knew that I was lying to myself," Inner Luz admitted. "I just didn't want to believe it was real."

There was a creak on the staircase and they all turned to see Eduardo Noceda descend the staircase, looking exactly the same as he did when he had given Luz the first volume of the Good Witch Azura series. "On the other hand…" Inner Luz said.

Señor Noceda let out a hearty chuckle. "Oh, mija, this time you are right. I'm not real. Well, not real in the sense that I'm not alive. I'm a mental construct of the real Eduardo, formed from Luz's memories of him and her beliefs about how he'd act."

He hugged both his daughters. His daughter and his daughter's inner self? Amity wasn't exactly sure how that worked. "You've grown up to be a fine, strong young woman and I'm very proud of you." Luz let out a squeal of joy.

He turned to face Amity, who let out a squeal, but this one was of fright. It may not have been the real Señor Noceda, but she was still just as petrified of letting him down as she was when she met Camila for the first time. Maybe more so, given in how much high esteem Luz held her father. "So I finally get to meet the witch who stole my daughter's heart."

"That's not true, Señor Noceda!" Amity said frantically. "It's still in her chest where it belongs, I swear! I didn't steal anything from her!"

Señor Noceda laughed. "Oh, Amity, it's just a metaphor. I mean, I finally get to meet the witch my daughter is in love with. And I am very impressed." He sighed. "You have no idea how hard it has been to watch my little girl's innermost self spiral in such a manner. I've tried to intervene, but she ignored me. To manage to get her back to where she belongs…it's extraordinarily impressive. I am very proud to know you. Oh, and please, call me Eduardo."

"You're absolutely sure you're not really Papi?" Luz asked. "Maybe you're a fragment of his soul, tasked to stay within me to look after me!"

Eduardo shrugged. "Maybe I am. There are more things on heaven and earth, my light, than are dreamt of in your philosophies. But I have no memories of him apart from yours. I don't know if that disproves your theory or not."

Luz put her head up, acquiring that stubborn expression Amity loved. "Well, I'm saying you are, and nothing you can say will make me change my mind."

"I will do my best to keep your daughter happy and safe," Amity promised Eduardo. "Even if she makes the second part difficult sometimes." Luz plastered an utterly unconvincing innocent expression on her face.

Amity nudged her on the arm. "Ask him about your mom and Eda and Raine!"

"Oh, right!" Luz said. "Uh, well, you know that mom would never, ever forget you, but you can't really expect her to just keep her heart in standby for the rest of her life. And she's…well, she's kind of, sort of, maybe…fallen in love with two other people?" She winced, expecting Eduardo's reaction to be a poor one.

Eduardo just gave her a fond smile instead. "She has my blessing. Perhaps things would be different if I was still alive, but I'm not. I cannot begrudge Camila a single second's worth of happiness, no matter who or how many people it's with."

Luz put her fist into the air. "Yes!" She turned to face Inner Luz, who was staring at the floor, looking shy and bashful. This was the Inner Luz that Amity had been expecting to encounter. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

Eduardo put his arm around Inner Luz's shoulders. "I will look after her, mija, do not worry."

"I'm going to be okay," Inner Luz said. "I'm really sorry about hurting both of you."

Eduardo waved his hand in a spell circle and another portal door appeared. "Man, I wish I'd gotten the chance to do that when I was alive. Through there is what you're looking for. Tell your mami that I love her, Luz."

"I will," Luz said, her voice suddenly cracking. Tears filled her eyes. "I miss you so much, papi. Every day, I wake up and I wish you were with me."

Eduardo wrapped Luz into a hug. "I am, mija. I am always with you." He then walked over to Inner Luz, grabbed her by the hand, and led her out of the basement, closing the door behind him.

Amity let out a shaky laugh. "Luz, next time you ask me on a date, let's just go get burgers or something, okay?"

"Deal," Luz said. "Well…time to go out to the places I'll be from, I suppose." Amity had no idea what that meant. It sounded like Luz was quoting something. She didn't bother asking what it was. She summoned the camcorder to her hand, grabbed Luz's hand with the other, and they walked into the portal.

It was hard to describe what happened next. Unlike the previous memories, where they had been observers, Amity was inside Luz's head this time around, feeling what she felt, thinking what she thought. Not that there were actually coherent thoughts in her brain, just pulses of emotion, without words because baby Luz didn't know any. There was a profound feeling of fear, of sheer, unrelenting terror. Luz had spent the last nine months safe in Camila's womb, and now she was in an unfamiliar world, and it was freaking her out.

And everything was so loud, and so bright, and so fearful, and really, was it any wonder that Inner Luz had ended up becoming so paranoid and hateful after having had to experience this? No wonder humans had infantile amnesia! Who would want this as their first memory?

But then she saw her. Camila Noceda. Luz's mother. The woman who was everything to her. And there was only one word for what Amity felt within Luz's mind now: Love. Sheer, unrelenting, almost overwhelming love. It was a love that went both ways and always would. Amity wondered if her own mother had felt even a fraction of that love when she gave birth to her. Probably not, she concluded sadly.

"It's a girl!" Camila shouted. "Eduardo, it's a girl! ¡Es nuestra propia hija! What should we name her?"

"Luz," Eduardo responded. "She will be the light of our lives, and we will call her Luz."

"Then Luz it is," Camila said. She looked about to say something, but then Amity suddenly blacked out.

When she opened her eyes, she was back in the living room of the Mystery Shack. Willow had brought her out. "Amity, Luz, are you all right?"

Amity looked at the camcorder in her hand and showed them the footage that she'd indeed been able to acquire. "Damn right I'm all right. I just won a bet!"

Luz gave a shaky smile with Gus's face. "I…you know what, I think I will be all right. I really do think that now." She let out a sigh. "Okay, Amity, I lost fair and square. Give me your scroll, and I promise to tell your siblings that you're a better witch than I am."

"You don't have to do that if you don't want to," Amity assured her.

Luz scowled at her. "A bet is a bet, Blight, and I lost fair and square." Amity handed the scroll over to her, and she used it to dial Edric's number. "Hi, Edric. Is your sister there? I have something that I want to say to you both."

"Yeah, sure, we're both here," Edric said. "What's up?"

"Amity Blight is a better witch than I, Luz Noceda, am," Luz said without a trace of hesitation in her voice.

There was a short pause. "Gus, this is just sad. You have to make your illusions sound like Luz if you want to pull the prank off successfully." Amity expected Luz to clarify the situation.

Instead, she hung up. And only then, upon seeing the smug smile on Gus's facial features, did Amity realize that she'd been tricked. Before Amity could do anything else, Luz ran out of the room at top speed, running surprisingly fast for someone in a body that was so short.

"GET BACK HERE, MI VALIENTE DEFENSORA!" Amity shouted at her, and she couldn't keep the dumb grin off her face as she ran after her awesome girlfriend.