Luz had read a lot of fanfic in her time. Like, a lot. She almost loved reading fanfic more than original material. Long before she'd come to the Boiling Isles, she'd immersed herself in remixes and retellings of the various media that she savored. It had always seemed much more interesting than her life. Sure, Camila had always said that if she just got out there and socialized with people more, she'd manage to make friends and be happier. Yet for Luz, so many times, trying to put herself out there just brought her pain, so she stopped trying. She buried herself in her writing and her reading and if she had hope that her life would ever improve, it was only a vague, distant hope that maybe when she went to college, people would stop being jerks.
Luz had no trouble separating fantasy from reality. She never had. She had just preferred fantasy. Being bullied versus daydreaming a lot? Kind of a no brainer, really.
So it was not without reluctance that Luz concluded that she was basically in the real life equivalent to a Peggy Sue fic, or a time travel fixit fic, to use the parlance that was found on AO3. And, to be sure, it wasn't anywhere close to being exactly the same thing. In those fics, the protagonist time traveled somehow back to the start of their journey, with everything else being exactly the same, and used their knowledge to make the future better, prevent tragic deaths that the author didn't like, and whatnot. Those fics had always been a guilty pleasure of hers.
This time around, however, the circumstances were very much not the same. So in order to figure out how best to make her plans, Luz had decided, late at night on Thursday, to make a list of the important events of the "season" as Zoe had put it. Wait, did that mean that somewhere, her life was a TV show? She shook her head to clear those thoughts away. She had to focus, she told herself, and started scribbling her notes on a piece of paper in her room in the Owl House.
The Owl Beast incident: Shouldn't happen, no reason for it to occur
Eda had been very open about the fact that she was the Owl Beast in this timeline, as well as what her elixir did. There was therefore absolutely no reason for her to run amok this time around. And certainly Amity had no reason to ask Eda for training and exhaust her.
The Covention: No witches duel, but might be a good opportunity to talk to Lilith/do bonding time with Amity? Does Lilith have a different protégé in this timeline? Hunter?
Luz had been debating about whether or not she should – or could – get Lilith on her side early. She had two pieces of leverage that she didn't in the original timeline at this point: First, that Other Luz was Lilith's biological niece instead of just Eda's apprentice, and second, that she knew Lilith had cursed Eda. Still, Luz wasn't sure what the best approach to handling her would be. Maybe Avery would have some ideas?
Midnight conjuring: Could be fun time with friends + Amity!
Actually, now that Luz thought about it, it might just be best to have a real sleepover without any midnight conjuring? She'd have to think about that.
Wailing Star: Very important – an invaluable opportunity to bond with Amity (+ Azura Book Club!)
There was absolutely no way that Amity wouldn't like the Azura series in this reality. They were the apex of literature and Amity was a girl of refined tastes, no matter which dimension she found herself in. Plus, without Edric and Emira's interference, they could use the Wailing Star's effect to do all sorts of fun stuff without getting chased by a monster this time around!
Swap incident: Probably won't happen, but who can say?
Luz was determined to reject any offers to have her swap with anyone. She wouldn't be able to get back to her own timeline if somehow Amity finally fell in love with her while Luz was in someone else's body.
Detention incident: Won't happen
Luz and Amity weren't banned from the school, so there was no reason for Gus to sneak them in.
Bat Queen incident: Won't happen
Luz certainly wasn't going to take Owlbert for a joyride this time around.
Author incident: AVOID AT ALL COSTS
No way was Luz getting involved in that mess again. If King got suckered in, she'd tell Eduardo, and he'd put a stop to it, end of story.
Knee trip: Won't happen, but maybe should arrange a holiday there anyway?
Amity looked so cute in that coat of hers, and a restful holiday in the mountains seemed like a fun way to bond with her…or maybe a date?
Basilisk attack: MUST STOP
It had been a miracle that no one was killed during the basilisk attack. Luz had later learned that the basilisk who had attacked the school was actually more of a victim than anything else. She (?) had been subjected to horrible experimentation alongside Vee and three other basilisks whose fates remained unknown to Luz. There was no way that Luz could stand idly by and let the experimentation continue. Something would have to be done. Vee was a total sweetheart and Luz couldn't stand to see xyr suffer. And even if xe wasn't, it would still be wrong for her to let such things continue when she had the power to stop them. Well, she hoped she did, anyway. Maybe Lilith could help once she was on Luz's side?
Second Tibbles incident: Won't happen since I'll be avoiding the first one; carnival would be a fun date place with Amity and/or time to hang out with her friends
Carnivals were fun, after all. That was an undeniable fact. True, they were less fun when you've been shrunk down and forced to fight various monsters, but even so, that day had been really enjoyable.
Willow memory incident: Shouldn't happen
That memory project could blow her cover, now that Luz thought about it. Could she create false memories? She knew that was part of oracle magic. Maybe Näkijä could help out?
Grom: Must ask Amity to Grom! Extremely vital that we be dating at this point!
Grom was, in Luz's opinion, probably the most likely place that Amity would finally fully fall in love with her. It was, after all, where Luz had started to fall in love with Amity last time. And this time, she didn't even have someone else that Amity had a crush on to compete with like she had in the real timeline! And she could totally wear her witch with a dark side costume this time around, because, honestly, who would stop her?
Grudgby match with Boscha: Probably won't happen?
Luz could honestly not envision why they'd be fighting this match this time around now that she knew that Boscha's bullying was faked. But she was not adverse to the idea of invoking it if she felt that the fake bullying was going too far.
Healing hat heist: ?
Yeah. Luz wasn't exactly sure what to do here. She knew that the field trip would go ahead as scheduled. But was it in her best interests to go forward with it? She didn't know. In any event, she'd have plenty of time to figure it out. What she'd come up with so far was good enough.
"Let me think here," she muttered to herself. "I feel like I'm missing something. Like, I forgot some detail…"
"I think your problem is that your plan doesn't have enough Hooty in it!" a horribly familiar voice announced and Luz let out an ear-piercing shriek as Hooty stuck his head in through the window.
Luz quickly incinerated her list with a fire glyph and let out a horrendously unconvincing casual laugh. "Oh, this plan? Oh, this plan is just for a…roleplaying game I'm playing?"
"You know, Other Luz is such a better liar than you are," Hooty commented. "You might want to work on that if you want people to believe you're her."
Luz's blood ran cold. This was bad. Hooty talked about everything that went through his brain. He could not keep a secret if his life depended on it, and had indeed failed to do just that several times. If he knew, it was only a matter of time before everyone else found out, and then Luz would never return home. Amity would never fall naturally in love with her once she knew Luz was an imposter, and she sure as hell wouldn't do it before the deadline!
"Hooty, how did you know I'm not her?" Luz asked him. Denial seemed pointless, and she had to learn if there was any part of her impersonation that would be unconvincing.
"I see and hear everything that goes on in the house, hoot hoot!" Hooty announced. "And I do mean everything." Luz gulped. She'd certainly be avoiding searching certain topics on her phone in the Owl House when she got back. "I've seen those letters you've been writing to her!"
Luz had been writing notes to Other Luz on Other Luz's phone, informing her of what she was missing in her life so that she could transition back to leading her own life as smoothly as possible. It also comforted her to write to someone who understood what it was like to be Luz Noceda. It was kind of like writing in a diary, now that she thought about it. Luz, unlike Amity, had never written a diary before, and never understood the point until now.
"Okay, well…I swear I don't mean anyone any harm, Hooty," Luz said softly. "Please don't tell anyone. Please don't tell Amity."
"Okay!" Hooty agreed instantly. Luz blinked. She had not been expecting him to agree so easily. Of course, just because he wasn't planning on telling anyone didn't mean that he wasn't going to tell anyone. Still, this would probably be the best she was going to get.
And if Luz was being honest, it felt really good to have someone in the Owl House who knew her secret and wouldn't judge her for it. Avery had been very helpful and supportive, but at the end of the day, Luz had stolen their girlfriend from them, and some part of them couldn't help but resent her for that. Not that she blamed them one iota; she'd have felt the exact same way in their shoes. Hooty, on the other hand, was willing to keep the secret of a total stranger, solely because he trusted her.
"I want to help you!" Hooty said. "I can be, like, your secret ally in the Owl House! Agent Hooty, reporting for duty!"
Luz let out a nervous laugh. "Hooty, I think it'd be better if I handled this on my own…"
Hooty's face turned uncharacteristically serious and even angry looking. "Luz, I thought you'd get it! You know what it's like to be underestimated, to be looked down by everyone. I thought you were my friend…" He looked like he was about to cry, but then he let out a scowl. "You'll let me help you or else…"
Luz gulped. She knew what he was going to say. He was going to rat her out unless she accepted his help. Oh, God. And if she said yes, then he'd probably end up blowing things for her anyway!
"…or else I'll cry," Hooty finished. Luz blinked. "I'll cry and I'll cry and I'll keep crying until I run out of tears, and I'm not even sure I can do that!" If Hooty was the Owl House, some distant part of her brain wondered, then where did his tears even come from? "And you know why? Because you hurt me, Luz. I'm your friend, and I want to help you get back to your own world, and you don't trust me. I just want to help. Please let me help you."
"How?" Luz wondered. "How can you help me?"
A profound look of pain formed on Hooty's face at her words, and Luz couldn't help but feel a spasm of guilt. She'd never really took him seriously. He'd just been there. She'd never really considered that he had a heart she could break. "I mean…if I wanted your help, what would that look like?" she clarified.
Hooty suddenly gave her a perky smile. "Well, I know a lot about Luz! I mean, the real Luz. If you're going to be a decent changeling, you've got to know way more about her than you do now!" Changeling? Seriously? Luz was not a changeling. She was just an imposter that the fae had replaced the Luz of this reality with and oh shit, she was a changeling!
Luz took a few deep breaths. Panicking wouldn't do her any good. "Okay, Hooty. If I have any questions about her, I'll ask you. I promise. But remember, no one else can know."
There was a gentle knocking on her bedroom door. Luz let out a yelp. Hooty slithered out of the room, moving in such a manner that indicated that he was trying to be stealthy, while being quite unaware of the fact that he was nothing of the kind. "Luz?" Amity's voice called out to her. "Are you doing all right? I thought I heard shouting."
Luz threw open the door and found Amity standing in the hallway, dressed in an old pair of Other Luz's pajamas. She looked amazing in them. Okay, yes, she looked amazing in anything, but she really rocked the casual but beautiful – wait, was Amity saying something?
"Luz?" Amity was asking. "Seriously, are you okay? Do I need to get Eda?"
Luz shook her head to clear off her errant thoughts. "Uh, yeah, sorry, no, I'm fine. Did I wake you up?"
"No, it's okay, I hadn't gotten to bed yet," Amity said. "Luz, I'm really sure I heard screaming. Were you having another nightmare?"
That was a good excuse, but Luz had decided that she was going to try to avoid lying whenever possible (which, unfortunately, meant that there were still probably a whole lot of lies in her future). "No, Hooty just wanted to talk. He startled me, that's all. So…" She trailed off. What to talk about? "How are you enjoying Hexside?"
Amity let out a soft laugh. "I got to admit, I didn't think I'd end up going to magic school covered in mud. But it's not so bad. And I don't have to do homework, so I like that a lot." Luz could get behind that. She loved Hexside, honestly, but homework was the worst and that would never change, no matter what realm she was in. "It's just tough. I miss my family. I miss them so much. Don't get me wrong, you and your folks have been so nice to me, but you're not…you're not family."
Well, Luz could understand that. Luz may have adored living in the Boiling Isles back at this time in her own dimension, but she still missed Camila every day, and that was back when she could return home at any time and could still have phone calls and exchange texts with her. Amity was totally cut off from contact, and she must be devastated.
"We're going to get you back," Luz promised. "Mom and dad are working on it. They're the most incredible people I know. When they put their minds to a problem, it gets solved."
"Thanks, Luz," Amity said, and then she reached out and kissed her on the cheek.
Holy. Moly.
Amity let out a squeak of embarrassment. Her legendary blush was going full throttle across her face. "I'm so sorry! I just acted on instinct! Let's just…let's just pretend that never happened! Good night!" She slammed the door in Luz's face.
Well. Even incremental progress was still progress, right?
Eduardo was abnormally chipper the next morning. Luz had learned that usually Eduardo was not a morning person, at least until he'd had his coffee. And without access to the Human Realm, he only had a limited supply of it left and had been rationing it for particularly difficult mornings. So what about this morning was making him so happy?
"Ugh," Eda complained as she entered the kitchen to find Eduardo once more cooking up a storm. Eduardo did all the cooking and though it felt like a betrayal for Luz to admit, his cooking blew Camila's prodigious cooking skills out of the water. "Stupid Bring Your Child To Work Day. Why Belos made that a yearly holiday, I'll never know. It's made you happy in the morning. People shouldn't be happy in the morning. It goes against the natural order of the universe."
Wait, Bring Your Child To Work Day?! That meant that Luz was going to spend the day with Eduardo at his work! That was so awesome! Luz had sometimes fantasized about what it would be like if she'd had the chance to see her father working at the Seattle Times, though, of course, she knew back then that she'd never do so. She'd read all of the articles he'd ever written, even occasionally thought about becoming a journalist herself. And now she'd truly get to see him in action!
"Are you kidding me, mom?" Luz said. "This is going to be absolutely amazing!"
Eduardo looked surprised. "Really? As I recall, last year, you were bored to tears."
"Hey, leave her alone!" Hooty called out. "She just wants bonding time with her dad!" Wow. That was a nice save. Maybe Luz had been wrong about Hooty; he could be a valuable ally.
Eduardo nodded. "Of course, mija. I'm looking forward to spending the day with you too." He turned to face Amity. "Amity, would you like to come along? You don't have to if you don't want to. I understand if it'd be too awkward for you."
"I…well, I suppose if I'm not officially going to school, then I can't get in trouble for missing it, can I?" Amity commented. "Sure, why not? Is King going?"
"Nope," Eda said. "I'm not going to risk a repeat of what happened last time."
"THEY DESERVED IT!" King shouted. "They all deserved it," he muttered. Luz couldn't help but give a fond smile. Her little brother was the same in every universe, it would seem. Some things were multiuniversal constants, and that gave her hope.
Eda shrugged. "I mean, yeah, they kind of did, but you got caught, kid, and that got your dad in trouble. If you'd consulted me, I'd have told you how to do it without getting caught!" Eduardo raised an eyebrow, but Luz could tell that he was struggling to hold back a grin.
Amity looked over at Luz. "What did he do?"
Luz started panicking. She had absolutely no idea what King did. "It's a state secret," she said. "Yep! Can't have His Majesty's dirty laundry being aired to peasants. Sorry, Amity. My royal obligations come first." Amity let out a giggle. King nodded approvingly at her.
"Well, I certainly don't mean to interfere in royal business," Amity said with a wink at Luz.
After breakfast was over and everyone but Luz and Eduardo had left the room, Eduardo gently grabbed onto Luz's arm to stop her from leaving the room. "Lucecita, hang on a second. I want to talk to you." Luz stared at him as he let go of her arm. It was the first time she'd heard that nickname out of his mouth in almost a decade. She'd almost forgotten that he had ever used it. "Is everything all right? You've been acting a bit…strange lately. This breakup with Avery seems to have come out of nowhere, and…well, I'm just worried about you, lucecita, that's all. Have you been having issues at school or anything like that?"
For a moment, Luz had a sudden, wild urge to tell Eduardo everything. But she couldn't. Her brain told her that it was too much of a risk, that there was no guarantee that he'd react well, that he could even tell Amity and everything would be ruined. But those were excuses. Her heart knew the truth: She wasn't telling him because she was afraid. If he hated her…she wouldn't have been able to withstand that.
Unfortunately, now she was going to have to do the last thing she wanted to do: lie to her father. God, why did this have to be so complicated? "I had a vision," she said. "In oracle class. Of how things would have gone down if Avery and I had stayed together. We were completely miserable. I cut things off before they could go that far."
Eduardo nodded, as if he understood, unaware that he didn't understand at all. "Well, that does make a bit of sense. Did you tell them that?"
Luz shook her head. "I just told them that we're better as friends. I didn't want them to think that it was their fault. I don't know whose fault it was. Maybe both of ours?"
Eduardo abruptly enfolded Luz into a hug. "Mija, thank you for telling me that. I know it couldn't have been easy. You should tell Avery in time…but I do understand why you haven't yet." Luz felt like she was about to cry. Every sentence that came out of her mouth just sent her deeper into a web of deception, and it wasn't stopping anytime soon.
Was she doing the right thing? Was there a right thing to do? Luz had always been sure of her path forward. True, she hadn't always been right about what the best path forward was, but she'd known what she wanted to do, and then done it. She'd wanted to become a witch, so she became one. She wanted to overthrow Belos so his evil plans to unite the realms and rule them both were stopped, so she'd done it. Now? She wasn't sure at all what she was going to do, much less what she should be doing, and she didn't like it one iota.
"Amity kissed me," she suddenly said, feeling desperate to put some truth on the table. "Just…you know, on the cheek. I really like her, dad. And I think she likes me."
Eduardo pursed his lips. "I see. Excuse me, Luz. I have to have a chat with our guest."
Luz gulped. What had she gotten Amity into?
Amity had no idea what a magical newspaper would look like. She really hoped that they'd have moving pictures on the page, like they did in the Harry Potter books. (Or was that just in the movies? She couldn't remember.) That would be so awesome. She probably had to manage her expectations, though. It was probably just as dull and boring as a newspaper office would be in the real world.
There was a knock on her door. "Can I come in, Amity?" Eduardo called out. Amity didn't see any problem with that, so she told him that it was okay. Eduardo had a concerned expression on his face, and Amity realized right then that he had found out about the little kiss that she'd given Luz the previous night.
It wasn't as if she'd come to Luz's bedroom with the intention of seducing her! But she'd just looked so cute, and she'd been so kind and sympathetic, and her brain had told her to kiss her and it was hard enough to tone it down to a kiss on the cheek. "I can explain."
Eduardo put up a hand. "It has come to my attention that you may have feelings for my daughter. As her father, it is my responsibility to steer her away from bad influences and ne'er-do-wells." He pulled up a chair and sat down next to her. Wow. Amity was getting the shovel talk. She'd never thought she'd get the shovel talk before.
Amity had never been in a relationship before. She'd never really sought out one either. She didn't like the idea of having to hide her magic or her "wizardly status" from a significant other, so she'd just decided to avoid dating. And, of course, her attempt to ask out Clara had ended up failing rather spectacularly. But TV told her that it was indeed the responsibility of a paramour's father to make threats and such.
"I must therefore ask you right now: What is your stance on the New York Mets?"
Amity blinked. She had expected a lot of things out of his mouth, but that was definitely not one of them. "Uh, aren't you supposed to be threatening me?"
Eduardo scowled. "You're dodging the question, Serrano. The New York Mets! What's your opinion of them?"
Amity thought about it. She really wasn't much of a sports fan herself, but Emma was a devoted baseball fan and often forced the family to sit through games of a sport that had honestly seemed horrendously boring to Amity. Of course, seeing Emma enjoy watching baseball games with her family was worth a little boredom. "I don't really have any feelings about the Mets. I'm a Seattleite, so I guess I'm a Mariners fan. Got to support the home team, you know." Of course, it had been roughly two decades since said home team had reached the playoffs, but Emma was sure that one day they would again, and Amity didn't know enough about baseball to disbelieve her.
Eduardo nodded, his face unfathomable. "Have you ever, at any point, supported the Yankees, Braves, or Phillies?"
"No," Amity said immediately. She barely bothered supporting the Mariners; she didn't even know where the Braves played. "Definitely not," she added, because if these teams were the rivals of the Mets, then it couldn't hurt.
Eduardo gave her a smile. "Good! I knew that you were a girl with good sense, but one has to be sure in this turbulent world that I live in. Well, that'll be all. Good luck with you and Luz!"
Amity frowned. It's not like she wanted to be threatened, but that was the single oddest shovel talk that she'd ever heard of. "Hang on a second. Isn't this where you're supposed to tell me about how violently you'll kill me if I ever hurt Luz?"
Eduardo laughed. "Sweetie, I'm not the parent you're going to have to worry about if that happens. If you lay a finger on Luz, not even being back in your own universe will save you from la ira de mi búho. That means –"
"Hablo español," Amity reminded him. "Yo sé lo que significa. Adopted, remember?"
"Right, right," he said. "Anyway, Luz is a very talented young lady with a good head on her shoulders. She's perfectly capable of violently killing you herself if you wrong her. I'm sure that won't happen. I respect you a great deal, Amity. You're tough but compassionate. Smart and levelheaded. Perfecta para mi lucecita. I already approve of you and her. But I had to make sure that you weren't some uncultured barbarian who liked the Yankees."
Not for the first time, Amity cursed her propensity for blushing furiously when her emotions were out of control. "Thank you, sir. I…um, well, I'm not ready to ask her out yet, honestly. I'm going to need some time to…adjust to things. But I hope I can make it work even after the portal's been rebuilt and I can return home to my universe."
Eduardo put a hand on her shoulder. "Rest assured, Amity, we're working on it. I asked Avery's father to pitch in. He's an expert on occult matters in both the human and demon realms. If anyone can find a way back, it's him." He gave her a reassuring smile. "Anyway, ready to join me on a typical day of work?"
"You got it!" Amity said enthusiastically. "Do the pictures in the newspaper move like they do in Harry Potter?"
Eduardo laughed uproariously before realizing that she was being serious. "No!"
Oh, well. It had been worth a shot.
Luz wasn't sure if this Bring Your Child to Work Day thing was exclusive to this timeline or not. At this time in her timeline, she hadn't even gotten into Hexside yet, so she wouldn't have heard about it from any of their peers. It hadn't been a thing this past year, but if it had been a thing in her timeline, the restructuring of the government would probably have put an end to it.
Either way, it didn't make a difference. Luz had first assumed that it was just a project of the Devourer, but it turned out that it was a mandatory holiday. The purpose, ostensibly, was to show the next generation firsthand proof that the coven system worked magnificently, but, as with everything involving the coven system, its true purpose was to help solidify Belos' power. Children were indoctrinated into the belief that there was only one way of doing magic, and for generations it had worked – until Luz had shown up. Even now, the idea of mixing magic made some of her friends uncomfortable. It had just been hammered into them for so long, and it was hard to let go of old ideas.
Luz was pretty excited about the whole thing, though. Sure, Bring Your Child to Work Day was a tool to bolster the power of a tyrannical dictator, but one could say that about a gazillion things on the Isles. Luz wasn't going to let the downsides bring her down. She was going to spend the day with her father at his workplace, and, even better, Amity would be at her side!
"Wow," Amity commented as she gazed upon the offices of the Devourer. "That's…some building. It must have cost a lot to build…though I suppose it's a lot cheaper when you can do the construction by magic now that I think about it."
The Devourer's offices were in a huge, menacing looking building with huge statues of Emperor Belos on either side of a gigantic pair of doors. Columns lined the front of the building. It was extremely different from most of the architecture in the Boiling Isles, which mostly trended medieval at best. It was lacking in ornateness, ostensibly, but its total lack of ornateness seemed to cycle around to becoming ornate again.
"That's a stripped classical style," Amity noted. "Edmond is a huge architecture nerd…huge nerd in general, really. I love him, so it's my duty to subject myself to his infodumps from time to time. It was popular during the 1930s in many parts of the world…including Nazi Germany."
Eduardo looked impressed at her knowledge. "I never really made that connection before. I know that human books sometimes make it here. Maybe a book on architecture did?" He shrugged. "Well, I'm not getting any younger standing out here. Let's go inside."
The interior of the building was just as plain yet paradoxically ostentatious as the exterior. Luz was surprised to learn that, actually, the Devourer's offices were just one part of what turned out to be an office complex housing various parts of the state apparatus. That made sense, though. She was a little embarrassed that she had thought that it was just for the Devourer offices.
"Hey, Luz!" a voice called out. It belonged to Gus. Luz turned to face him and a genuine smile formed on her face. It was nice to see a friendly face inside, especially since she was otherwise surrounded by minions of Belos. "I thought I'd run into you here!"
He turned to face Amity. "And look, it's Willow's abomination!" He winked at her. "Nice to see you again."
"What are you doing here, Gus?" Amity asked politely.
"Bring Your Child to Work Day, of course!" Gus responded and pointed over to Mr. Porter, who was talking to a receptionist on the other side of the room. "My dad's a reporter for BBN-HXN! He's super good at his job! People trust him." He beamed with pride. "I've been coming here for the holiday for as long as I can remember. I first met Luz here. Remember, Luz?" Luz was very proud of the way that she managed to hide the fact that, no, she actually did not remember that at all.
It was probably concerning that she was getting so good at that, wasn't it?
"Yeah, Gus and I were best friends from the get go," she guessed.
"Well, I wouldn't say that," Gus said with a teasing smile. "I thought that humans got fangs after their baby teeth fell out. Luz wouldn't believe me. We fought about it a lot until Mr. Noceda took her side."
"Luz is right," Amity pointed out. "We don't…I mean, they don't." She sighed deeply. "God, I forgot that I'm not even the same species I thought I was."
Eduardo spotted Mr. Porter and went across the room to join him. The two parents started talking animatedly, and Luz guessed that they'd be at it for some time. She walked over to them. "Mind if the three of us go up to the newsroom while you talk?" she asked.
Eduardo shrugged. "I don't see why not. I'll be up soon enough, mija."
Luz strode back to the two of them. "Dad gave us the all clear to go to the newsroom alone! It's going to be so cool, Amity. You're going to love it."
Amity reached out and squeezed Luz's hand, not even seeming aware that she was doing it. Luz, on the other hand, was quite aware of it. It was preventing her from thinking clearly, which is probably why she realized that she didn't actually know where the newsroom was until they had reached the staircase. Crap. It wasn't as if she had any excuse for not knowing this!
"Gus…why don't you lead the way?" she suggested nervously. Gus looked confused, and then he looked over at Luz and Amity still holding hands. The two of them blushed simultaneously and quickly let go.
Gus nodded sagely. "Okay, but don't take too long getting up there!"
Amity let out a nervous laugh. Luz gave her an understanding smile and she caught one look at Amity's face and her heart just soared, and, yeah, it was amazing. It was just like falling in love with Amity all over again, except this time it felt even better somehow. The two of them quickly followed Gus up three flights of stairs – elevators were not a thing in the Boiling Isles. He opened a door and then they were in the Devourer newsroom.
And Kikimora was standing right in front of them.
"YOU!" she screamed at Amity. "What are you doing here?! You are a filthy criminal!"
Amity looked offended. "I happen to bathe regularly! And as for the criminal part, I don't know how things work around these parts, but where I come from, we have a little thing called due process! Who even are you?"
Kikimora sneered at her. Luz had forgotten how much she hated that sneer. In her timeline, Kikimora had died in the battle to take the imperial palace. Luz had no idea who had killed her or how she had died. In fact, she hadn't even spared Kikimora a moment's thought since the battle had occurred. She was just that inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
Well, now she was standing in front of them, pissed off as hell, and seemed quite consequential indeed. Luz had no idea how she could get her to back off. She didn't really know anything about Kikimora, other than the fact that she hated Lilith and had an almost disturbing devotion to Belos.
"I am Kikimora, chamberlain to His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Belos," Kikimora responded to Amity's question, drawing herself up with an air of pride. Of course, she was so incredibly short that the gesture just made her look silly. "I am, among the many titles I possess, editor of this newspaper."
Ah. That meant that Kikimora was Eduardo's boss. That would make it harder to handle her without getting Eduardo fired. Luz had no clue what to do. Fortunately, Amity seemed to have a much better handle on things than she did.
"I caution you that I am not only a witch, but a denizen of the Human Realm," Amity said calmly, her voice strong and ice cold. "More specifically, I am a citizen of the United States of America. The United States takes attacks on its citizenry exceptionally seriously, and has access to firepower that could wipe out the Isles a million times over."
That was very true, Luz had to concede. If she had to make a bet on the forces of the American military versus the Boiling Isles' military, she'd bet on the United States every single time. They had nukes and fighter jets and nukes and tanks and nukes. Luz really had no idea sometimes of what Belos had been thinking trying to invade the Human Realm. Did he seriously not know that he'd be spectacularly outclassed?
"Attacking me would constitute an act of war," Amity went on. "His Imperial Majesty surely would not wish you to provoke such an incident."
Kikimora looked uncertain. She almost certainly had no idea if what Amity was saying was true, but she also could not dismiss it out of hand. "I don't see any reason why we can't be friends," Amity continued in a much gentler tone. "I know our two countries have no diplomatic ties at this time, but if my government presses me about my time in your realm, I'd like to be able to give a glowing report to them."
Luz was amazed at the way Amity was able to think on her feet. Her Amity wasn't nearly so calm in the face of a crisis. She just had to remember the way that she freaked out about Grom to back that up. Of course, spending time in the vicinity of Camila, whose job had given her nerves of pure adamantium, probably had something to do with that.
Kikimora blinked a couple of times. "I…have work to do. Just…stay out of my way." She scurried off, directing a heated glare at Amity as she did so.
Luz gave Amity a high five. "That was awesome!"
Amity did a neat curtsy, as if she was the society lady that her counterpart had been forcibly trained to be. "Why, thank you!"
Gus was staring at Amity in awe. "That was amazing. I've never heard anyone talk to Kikimora like that! Is that true, what you said? About your country's military?"
Amity nodded grimly. "Be glad they don't know about this place. It wouldn't end well. We can be…really aggressive sometimes. I can only imagine the calls for war against a place literally called the Demon Realm." Gus looked confused. "Demons are seen as the embodiment of evil."
"Just imagine what'd happen if people here found out that Earth was where the giraffes were sent," Luz pointed out. "They'd want to go to earth and kill every last one of them."
Gus looked horrified. "You live on the same planet as giraffes?!"
"They're harmless now," Luz explained. Crap, was she supposed to know this information? Too late now, she supposed. "Going to Earth somehow stripped them of their intelligence. They're just mindless animals."
Thankfully, she didn't seem to have exposed herself too much by revealing this, but Luz didn't want to take any chances, so she started walking around the newsroom. If she had been expecting something magical about the newsroom, she was to be disappointed. It was really just an ordinary office, filled with people working at cubicles, just like what they presumably looked like on Earth. Her boredom led her to look at the articles framed on the walls, which had apparently won the newspaper prizes.
Her eye caught an article written by Eduardo and she eagerly read it. But as she went through it, the bottom dropped out of her stomach. It was nothing more than a propaganda article! It extolled the virtues of the coven system in hyperbolic language that made her want to vomit just looking at it. It even featured a diatribe against wild witches, which Eduardo deemed to be a threat to the very fabric of existence itself.
How could he say such a thing about his own wife?
"Ah, there you are, lucecita!" Eduardo called out as he entered the newsroom without Mr. Porter. Luz stormed over to him, anger empowering her every movement. A voice in the back of her head was pleading to her that she was making a mistake, that a confrontation on this matter would be unwise at best, but she was just too angry to focus on that rational voice.
"How could you write this?" Luz whispered, her voice filled with horror. "How…how could you say those things about her – about my mother?!"
Eduardo looked like he was torn between bewilderment and some other emotion that Luz couldn't identify. She'd never been very good at figuring out what other people were feeling based on their body language or facial expressions. "I…Luz, this is hardly the time or the place for this discussion. As you know, your mother is aware of the content of the articles I write."
That just made it even worse, in Luz's opinion. Eda was just rolling over and letting her husband become a stooge of a totalitarian dictator. "I looked up to you," she said coldly, not caring how much she was hurting Eduardo with her words. "I thought the world of you! You were my hero!" Luz had grown up hearing stories about how marvelous a person Eduardo was. Of course, she knew that he was human, that he was imperfect, as everyone was, but she'd put him on a pedestal and now it was crashing down, and at the end of the day, he was just a man, no better than anyone else.
"I…" Eduardo hardly looked like he knew what to say. A small part of her pitied him. Another, somewhat larger part of her felt like she was being a hypocrite for lecturing him when she had inadvertently stolen his daughter's life. Luz wasn't listening to either of those parts of her.
"But no!" Luz shouted, not caring who heard her. "No, it turns out that you're a collaborator! I thought…I really thought you were who I'd been told you were." She wiped away tears from her eyes. "I guess I was wrong."
"Lucecita, please!" Eduardo said. "Please give me a chance to explain."
"Don't call me that," Luz spat at him. "Don't ever call me that again." And with those words, she ran out of the office. Amity and Gus called at her, begging her to come back. But Luz barely even heard them. She could barely even see straight, there were so many tears coming out of her eyes.
Eduardo Noceda had been a curious child. Like a lot of children, he had quite the "why" phase, always wanting to know the answers to the various things that people took for granted. Unlike a lot of children, he'd been lucky enough to have parents who'd encouraged that curiosity. When they didn't know the answer to one of his questions, they'd get him a book that had the answers from the public library. To Luz's paternal grandparents, knowledge was power, and one should always empower oneself whenever one could.
Eduardo strove to learn things, to know things. He couldn't stand secrets, to have knowledge kept from him. When he asked his teacher where babies came from, and he'd received the highly suspect answer that they were delivered by storks, he'd called her a liar in front of the whole class and got sent to the principal's office. He'd made it his mission to figure out the answer to the conundrum and really, the whole thing turned out to be quite underwhelming when he finally learned the answer. Seriously, it was just a normal bodily function. What was the big deal?
Eduardo's relentless quest for knowledge, both known and hidden, inevitably led him to the journalistic profession. His determination, grit, and intelligence made him a natural fit for the editor of his high school newspaper. He dreamed that one day, he'd work for a major newspaper, discovering stories that would change the course of history like Woodward and Bernstein. So after getting his undergrad at Columbia University, he took on a job at the New York Daily News. True, it was a little trashy, but there was nonetheless serious journalism being done there.
But Eduardo's quest for knowledge did not come to an end when he joined that paper. He turned his insatiable curiosity towards understanding the very city that he lived in. New York City was a city with over a thousand secrets, and Eduardo was determined to uncover them all. In his spare time, he relentlessly tracked down rumors and whispers of places long abandoned, places that were just urban myths. He told himself that he'd write a book about them one day, but he knew that he was really looking for something. He had no idea what it was, but he was sure he'd know it when he found it.
And then one day, he did.
The City Hall subway station had been shut down in 1945. Advancements in technology that the antiquated station was not able to take advantage of and the creation of a station in close proximity to it meant that it became more or less redundant. In the subsequent decades, there had often been talk of opening the station, an architectural marvel in its own right, to the public, but nothing had ever come of it. It was closed off to the public, but Eduardo didn't let a little inconvenience like that, or the fact that he was technically trespassing, get in the way of his explorations.
On the day that his life changed forever, Eduardo had a date with a medical student, the daughter of the neighbor of his first cousin once removed. He couldn't even remember her name. Carmela? Something like that. But he had absolutely no interest in going on blind dates set up by his parents, even though they were well meaning. Adventure was his mistress, and he needed no other love! So he left a message on Carmela's phone claiming that he was sick and ventured off into the City Hall subway station.
Anyway, he had more important things to worry about. Two of his fellow urban explorers had disappeared while exploring the station, one of whom was a friend of his, so Eduardo was determined to find them. If they were alive, he could rescue them from a horrid fate, and if they were dead, he would ensure they received a decent burial. Maybe some would have balked at the thought of putting themselves in so much danger, but Eduardo was a man of action! Also, he was incredibly bored, so there was that.
Once he'd gotten into the bowels of the City Hall station, he discovered something unbelievable. In fact, it took a long time for Eduardo to believe that he was seeing it. At first, he thought that he must be hallucinating, that maybe he was inhaling some sort of poisonous gas. It seemed much more likely than the truth, but Eduardo was not one to deny what he saw in front of his eyes.
There was a hole in reality.
A roughly rectangular shaped hole. A doorway of sorts. On the other side of it was rolling hills, sunlight, and a blue sky. He approached the hole extremely carefully. He approached it from the side and saw that it was two dimensional. It completely vanished when one wasn't looking straight at it.
The sensible thing to do, Eduardo knew, was to take photographs of it, and then alert the proper authorities. Granted, Eduardo wasn't sure who the proper authorities were for holes in reality, but surely the Transit Authority should know. Or maybe they already did know. Maybe that was why the City Hall Station was closed in the first place. In any event, it would have been pure and utter foolishness to go through the hole. He had no way of knowing if there was even an atmosphere suitable for humans on the other side. The fact that the explorers almost certainly went through and never returned was a strong indicator that it was dangerous on the other side. Only a reckless, spectacularly foolish individual, Eduardo knew, would go through the hole.
After going through the hole, Eduardo was relieved to find that he could breathe the air of the strange new world on the other side. He was anything but relieved when the hole just spontaneously disappeared, leaving him trapped on the other side.
Eduardo wandered the place aimlessly until he encountered a river. He wasn't sure if the water within was suitable for humans to drink, but he knew that rivers and civilization tended to go hand in hand, so he followed it until he reached the town of Bonesborough.
And once he reached there, he knew that he wasn't on Earth anymore. The portal had taken him to a land full of strange creatures, some of whom could have leaped straight out of the pages of mythology, as well as elves. At least, he presumed at that time they were elves, given the pointy ears. He would later be rather thoroughly disabused of the notion, as it turned out that elf was a slur to witches.
For a while, he just wandered the streets in pure and utter awe. He knew that he'd found what he was looking for. He was in a whole other world. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do there, but he knew that whatever it was, his time on Earth had just been practice for what awaited him there.
"GET YOUR FILTHY PAWS OFF OF ME!" a woman's voice called out, and Eduardo ran in the direction of the screams. A gorgeous redheaded witch was being roughly manhandled by two men who seemed to be law enforcement officers. "You! Human!" The woman didn't sound surprised to be encountering a human, although Eduardo could tell that it was an act. "Help me!"
When one of the guards slapped the woman, Eduardo made a split second decision. He tackled one of the guards, grabbed the nightstick he was carrying, and hit him with it, knocking him unconscious. He then jabbed the nightstick into the throat of the other guard, the one who had hit the woman, kicked him in the groin, punched him in the stomach and then hit him with the nightstick repeatedly until he, too, was unconscious.
"Wow!" the woman said, clapping her hands. "You must have been a mighty warrior back in the Human Realm." Eduardo wasn't about to tell her that this was actually the first time he had ever laid hands on another person at all, let alone cops. Actually, he didn't seem to be able to tell her anything at all; his mouth stubbornly refused to work. "Allow me to introduce myself! Eda the Owl Lady, con artist, entrepreneur, and rebel extraordinaire!"
"Eduardo Noceda," he told her, holding out a hand for her to shake. Eda stared at it uncomprehendingly. "Uh, never mind. It's nice to meet you, Eda the Owl Lady. This is a beautiful world you have here, but I sort of need to get home. Can you get me there?"
Eda sighed. "No can do, buddy. You must have come through a temporary portal. They pop up every so often, deposit some junk, and then vanish. But, hey, you can stay with me in the Owl House while we work to find you another one! You'll have to work to earn your keep, though."
"I can do that," Eduardo assured her.
And so, for the next couple months, Eduardo worked side by side with Eda at her stall, selling human garbage as well as trying to con suckers with fake magical artifacts and running other small time cons. He wasn't always very comfortable with all the crimes he was committing, but there was no doubt that the government of the Boiling Isles made Eda look saintly in comparison. It was a cruel, corrupt dictatorship, and if Eda's con artistry made them upset, then Eduardo was in favor of it.
They kept searching for temporary portals, but to no avail. They did, however, find the location of the missing explorers: inside a dragon's stomach. The idiots had thought they were on a heroic quest to slay a dragon and liberate a village from his thrall. Instead, they had broken into an innocent person's home, who had justly defended himself and eaten the trespassers. Eduardo could not help but admire the simplicity of it all, even if he did miss his friend.
Finally, after they had almost given up, the two of them, completely by accident, stumbled upon a portal in a junkyard. Eduardo tested it out and discovered that it led to a suburb of Seattle. He had no idea why it opened up on the other side of the country from New York, but it was definitely part of the human realm, so Eduardo could go back to Earth now.
"Well," Eda said, after he had returned from his test run. She looked sad and downcast, and Eduardo thought he knew why. Moreover, he was pretty sure he knew how to help her. "I guess it's goodbye now. Forever. Um, I'm not going to get all mushy and sentimental, so, you know, it's been real, and –"
"I don't want to go back to Earth anymore," Eduardo informed her. "You see, Eda, I've fallen in love with someone here. Someone beautiful, and kind, and charming, and smart."
Eda's fist clenched. She looked like she was barely holding back her rage. "Oh, yeah?! Just let me at this woman!" She then let out a nervous laugh. "Uh, well, I mean, I'm happy that you're happy?"
"Would you like me to tell you about her?" Eduardo asked, moving forward towards Eda.
Eda looked like she wanted nothing less in the two universes that they knew existed, but she nonetheless pursed her lips and nodded. "Well, she acts tough around other people, but she's got a heart of gold. She cares so much about the people she loves, so much so that she's willing to kill and die for them." Eda looked like she was about to cry. "And she is stunningly, stunningly dense."
"That doesn't sound like a good quality in a girlfriend," Eda remarked, and then Eduardo leaned forward and kissed her. Eduardo had been worried up until this point that he'd maybe been misreading the signs. They had appeared blindingly obvious, but Eda was of an entirely different species, so he couldn't be completely certain. Thankfully, he'd been right: Eda felt the same way about him.
"And finally, she's standing right in front of me," Eduardo said, just in case Eda hadn't gotten the message by this point. He gazed into her eyes. "Edalyn, I have no idea what my future holds, but it would be so amazing if you were in it. So…" He trailed off. For God's sake, he hadn't gotten this tongue tied around a girl since high school!
"Do you want to go out with me?" Eda blurted out.
Eduardo groaned. "No, I was so ready!"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Eda said quickly. "You can say it."
"Okay." Eduardo took a deep breath. "Edalyn Clawthorne, do you want to be my girlfriend?"
"YES!" Eda shouted. She grabbed him and spun him around, her face filled with that gorgeous, giddy smile that Eduardo could not get enough of.
And so they had gone out together, and they'd formed a relationship. Eduardo took Eda to the human realm to visit his parents. He'd passed off his long absence as having been on a meditative retreat. The con unraveled before the dinner was even served; the Nocedas could smell lies a mile away. Eduardo's parents took the news that their son had abandoned his whole life to live in another dimension stunningly well. The fact that they took a real liking to Eda helped with it. They didn't care that she was a witch or that she could do magic; all they cared about was that she made him happy. Eduardo's parents moved to Seattle to be close to the portal, but decided to stay on Earth. The strange new world was just too strange and frightening for them to want to live there, though they visited on a semiregular basis.
Eduardo was somewhat surprised to learn that Bonesborough had a newspaper, although he supposed in retrospect there was no reason why they shouldn't. He was able to easily get a job there. Once there, however, he was dismayed to find that it was a propaganda outlet. Eduardo had known that he probably wouldn't be able to get away with criticizing the government, but there was a difference between working at a censored outlet and one that was really no better than Pravda. Still, he'd kept his head down and done what he was told. He had someone he loved to protect.
Five years into their relationship, Eduardo got married to Eda. He'd been stunned when she said yes. He'd have thought that he'd have to do a lot of persuasion, not because she didn't love him, but because she was scared of commitment. But, as she explained, when he had taken the news about her curse completely calmly – especially after she'd spent so much time hiding it from him – she'd known that she couldn't lose him. It had been a beautiful ceremony, even if it had devolved into a firefight when the Coven had shown up to arrest her. They'd lost, of course.
Around the time Eduardo turned thirty, he and Eda decided that they were going to have a child. Eduardo had fretted through the whole pregnancy. There were no records of a human ever reproducing with a witch before. But at the end of it, Eda had given birth to a perfectly healthy girl. She had the telltale pointy ears of a witch, but her interior anatomy was apparently entirely human, complete with a lack of bile sac. Eduardo's daughter was light personified, so he had named her Luz.
Despite having to deal with bullying for her half-human status, Luz fit into the Isles like a duck to water. If she had been born on Earth, Eduardo surmised, something in her wouldn't have rested until she had gotten to the Isles. It was where she was destined to be. She had even discovered a completely new form of doing magic when she was five; she was that much attuned to the magic of her land.
Eduardo's yearning to explore did not end when he discovered the Demon Realm. He often went on expeditions to uncharted parts of the land, ostensibly to look for treasure, but really because he just had the need to find new things. When Luz was six, his journey took him to a mysterious island where he discovered a baby demon. He was all alone, so Eduardo had brought him back to the Owl House, and, just like that, he had a son. The King of Demons, as Luz nicknamed him, proved to be surprisingly sweet despite his megalomania and grandiosity. Eduardo loved him with all his heart; it didn't matter that he wasn't his biological father.
And as the years passed, Eduardo gave thanks every day that he could form a family, even if it wasn't anywhere close to being a conventional one. His parents sadly passed away, one after the other, of natural causes, when Luz was ten. He had hoped that magic could cure them, but the Healing Coven was as powerless to save them as human doctors were. Eduardo hoped that they were in heaven. He had never really believed in heaven, but nor had he believed in magic until he came to the Boiling Isles, so what did he know?
Eduardo was especially proud that he could develop such a close relationship with his daughter. The two of them just clicked. Luz was always closer to him than she was to Eda. Of course, Eda and Luz loved each other, but Luz would always be Eduardo's daughter first and foremost, as much as she tried to protest otherwise. He had thought that they were getting along extraordinarily well.
So why was she now acting like he was the devil incarnate, just based on reading articles that she already knew about?
"Luz!" Eduardo called out to her as she ran down the stairs, not seeming to notice or care about anything around her. "Please stop, Luz!"
Luz ignored him and ran towards the door, only to find her path blocked by two security guards. "You seriously think you can stop me?" Luz said with an alarming laugh as she took a piece of paper on which an unfamiliar glyph was written out of her pocket.
"Miss, it's raining," the guard to the left said gently. Luz's eyes widened in horror as she took in the boiling rain that she had nearly ran out into.
"Luz, please talk to me," Eduardo begged as he walked over to her. "We can work this out, I promise." All the fight seemed to go out of her, and she allowed Eduardo to lead her over to a couch. The two of them sat down next to each other. Eduardo longed to hold his daughter, but that, he sensed, would be a bad idea.
Luz took several deep breaths, looking like she was unsure of what she was going to say. "I'm sorry I yelled at you," she said finally, her voice possessing a formality that was quite unlike her usual tone. "I was wrong. I'm sure you're doing what's necessary to keep your family safe." Eduardo realized, as a chill went down his spine at the thought, that Luz was excluding herself from that category. But why?
Maybe he was overreacting, Eduardo hoped. But he just took one look at her face and he realized that he was not. Something was wrong with Luz. Something had happened, something that had caused Luz to fundamentally change her way of looking at the world. Something that maybe even led her to break up with Avery. And he hadn't the slightest idea what it could be.
But pressing Luz wouldn't get him to the truth any faster. She had all the stubbornness of her mother (and, okay, yes, him too, not that he'd ever admit it) and once she'd committed to a course of action, she wouldn't abandon it even if it was a good idea to do so.
"Can I ask what caused you to feel the way you do now?" Eduardo asked her carefully. "It seems rather an about face for you."
Luz was silent for a few moments. "Amity was telling me about her realm. About how they have something called freedom of the press there. Where she lives, journalists can write whatever they want, and the government can't punish them for that."
It was a reasonable explanation. It made perfect sense. And it was a total lie. Luz was lying to him. Why the hell was she lying to him about this?
"Luz, why," are you lying, Eduardo was about to say, but then he changed his mind, and instead finished with, "didn't you tell me about this before you came here?"
"I don't know," Luz muttered. "I guess it took a while to sink in." She wiped tears away from her eyes. "All of this just sank in all at once, and I just snapped. I know you're doing the best you can, papi. I do. I just wish…" She shook her head. "It doesn't matter." In fact, Eduardo was pretty certain that it mattered a lot.
"Lucecita," Eduardo began, and then winced, having forgotten for a second that she had forbidden him from using that word, but Luz gave him a smile and a nod, so he charged on. "Lucecita, I've thought about returning to the Human Realm a lot. But I couldn't. Do you know why?"
She did know why, of course. Eduardo had had this conversation with her before, and there was no way that Luz wouldn't remember it. But she shook her head. What in God's name was happening in his daughter's head right now? "It's because of King," Eduardo went on, as if nothing was wrong.
Luz blinked. She hadn't expected that response at all. "In the realm I come from, you'd be the target of bullying and harassment, but their response to King would be infinitely worse. He'd end up getting locked away, dissected in some government lab. I couldn't let that happen to him. My family – which you are a part of, Luz; never forget that – is right here. And if it means I have to follow Kikimora's blasted directives and write articles that have made me vomit to write – not hyperbole there – to keep you safe, then that's what I'll do."
"Te quiero, papi," Luz said, and planted a kiss on his cheek. "You're still my hero. You always will be."
"And you are still mi luz," he promised her. "You will always be mi luz."
At least…that's what Eduardo thought. But now, looking at the girl who kept causing alarm bells to ring in his inquisitive mind, he wasn't nearly so sure.
There was no higher honor in Kikimora's opinion than serving the great and glorious Emperor Belos. Her mother and grandmother before her had served as his chamberlain. Lilith may have been the head of the Emperor's Coven, but all of Belos' orders came through Kikimora. It was power the likes of which most mortals in the Boiling Isles could scarcely comprehend. Everyone feared Kikimora. Everyone knew that if she so chose, she could have them executed on the spot, or locked in the Conformatorium, or fed to ravenous slitherbeasts. No one dared to speak to her with anything less than the utmost fear and respect.
And so it was thoroughly galling when the human raised witch that the wretched Owl Lady had taken in had the nerve to disrespect her in such a horrid way! She was actually threatening her! In fact, she was not just threatening Kikimora, but the emperor himself! As if this pathetic United States of America – what kind of a name was that anyway? What was a state? – was any match for the Boiling Empire. The Empire had magic on its side. What could the humans have, pointier sticks than usual?
The humans were barbarians. They lived in caves. They hit each other with rocks. They had no culture or religion or history worth noting. They were nothing but filthy, ill-mannered savages that needed to be civilized by witches. At least, that's what Emperor Belos always said, and why would he lie about such a thing?
Yet the Serrano girl had acted as if she was superior to witchkind! As if she herself was not a witch! She had forsaken her own people for the sake of a bunch of apes writhing in the mud. What was even up with that?
"Your opinions are duly noted for the record," Belos stated, a trace of irritation in his voice, after Kikimora had explained all this to him at length. Perhaps she had gone on for a bit too long, she conceded privately. There was silence for a while. Not for the first time, Kikimora wished she knew what her liege looked like behind his mask. But, of course, asking him to take it off was simply unthinkable.
Belos drummed his gloved fingers on his throne, and said, "Rescind the warrant for Miss Serrano's arrest."
Kikimora blinked. "Sire, the girl deserves to be punished, not rewarded!"
"And what do you think you deserve for questioning the will of the Crown?" Belos hissed at her. Titan be praised, it turned out that the question was rhetorical, because Belos pressed on, saying, "You will do what I say when I say it. I am curious as to what Miss Serrano will do when given some leeway. I will give her rope…and she will hang herself with it, I have no doubt."
Kikimora bowed deeply. "Thy will be done, my liege."
"Oh, and send a message to Lilith," Belos said idly. "I think I'm going to be attending this year's Covention. It promises to be a very interesting one. Very interesting indeed…"