There was an imposter living in her home. Amity could hardly breathe with the fear of what Posterity, as Luz had dubbed her, would do to her family looming over her. How had no one noticed it by now? Her mami had been living with a stranger in her home, and she didn't even seem remotely suspicious of her. True, she kept very busy with her two jobs, trying to make a living to support all four of them, but still, a mother should know when her daughter was replaced by an imposter! And what about Jane? Camila may not have been versed in the supernatural, but Jane was, and she should have realized that something magical was up.

"Amity, look at me," Luz instructed her, her voice quiet and careful. "What are three things you see?"

Three things she saw? Why was Luz asking her that? Had she gone blind somehow? "There's some grass over there. Um, a roc in the sky." She pointed at a gargantuan bird that cawed at them contemptuously as if in response. "And…do you count? Why are you asking me this?"

"You had a panic attack," Steve said told her seriously. "You haven't been with us for at least fifteen minutes. I was worried the bog had gotten to you somehow…"

Luz groaned. "Oh, man, I forgot we had to go through that again."

She had a panic attack? Huh. That was the first time that had happened to her. How horrendously embarrassing. She stood up, not having been aware that she was on the ground until she did so. And apparently she'd been deposited in front of the cave containing the portal to the In-Between Realm. "Uh…could you maybe not tell anyone about this? About the panic attack, I mean." Steve made a lips zipped gesture.

"Don't worry, Amity," Avery said. "We're really good at keeping secrets." Amity groaned. Yet another reference to whatever their issues were with Luz. She needed to come up with some in-jokes of her own with Luz to get some revenge.

"What was that thing?" Amity wondered. "Is it some sort of feature of the portal, like it makes a clone of you whenever you go through it?"

Luz shook her head. "Dad would have told me about that if it did. It's some sort of shapeshifter. Maybe a basilisk?"

Steve eyed her suspiciously. "Basilisks are extinct, Luz. They are extinct, right?"

Luz gave a nervous giggle. "Right! I forgot! Um, what else could it be, Steve?"

Steve considered the matter carefully, presumably cycling through his knowledge of shapeshifters. "Hmm. A lot of options, actually. Yuxa, verechelen, nagas, kelpies…yeah, all we know is that she looks like you, and can speak, and has somehow managed to fool your mom all this time. That…doesn't narrow it down very much."

"Changelings?" Avery suggested with a look over at Luz, who frowned deeply.

Amity couldn't blame her for being displeased with the idea. In various mythologies, especially Celtic and Germanic, changelings were beings that the fae swapped with normal humans, especially babies. The changelings would exhibit strange, supposedly inhuman behavior. They'd not respond to people in the same way that "ordinary" people would. It was believed by some people today, however, that these changelings were actually autistic or other neuroatypical individuals. Such viewpoints continued to this day with minor changes – instead of the fae stealing away their children, vaccines did. So, yeah, Amity was pretty uncomfortable with the idea of changelings being real too.

"Let's take things one step at a time," Steve suggested. "This is a big deal, but right now, we're still in the same place we started. You still can't get home. But I give you my word, Amity, that I will help you confront this imposter when we make a working portal."

Amity sighed. "What if they don't believe you? What if they think I'm the imposter?"

"Jane will believe me," Steve pointed out. "We're friends."

And beyond those concerns, there was another theory that Amity refused to articulate aloud. What if she was the imposter? True, Luz had told her that the portal did not make copies, but to the best of Amity's knowledge, no full witch had gone through the portal. Eda was cursed; she was a half-witch, half-Owl Beast. Eduardo and Steve were human and Luz was half human. Maybe the portal really did split witches.

"You're not the imposter," Luz said softly.

Amity's eyes widened. "Did you read my mind? Can you read my mind?" If Luz could read her mind, Amity would have to be careful about shielding her thoughts, so Luz didn't find out how cute Amity thought she was. Or how nice and smart and funny, and damn it, if Luz could read her mind, she might as well just die of embarrassment right here and now.

Luz shook her head, thankfully. "Some people are good at that branch of oracle magic, but I'm better at reading the future. Maybe if I really, really concentrated and used the right glyphs, I could pick up some surface thoughts? Maybe? I haven't really tried." She gave a wry smile. "No, I just guessed based on what I'd be thinking in your shoes. Remember, Posterity yelled at you not to come back and take what's hers. Would you do that?"

No, she wouldn't. Well, that was a relief. And if Posterity considered Amity's family "hers" now, she probably wouldn't be motivated to harm them. Probably. And Steve was definitely right that there was nothing more they could do but wait. Unless…? "How about we try to contact Jane?"

Steve sighed. "The portal to the In-Between Realm became unstable; we had to pull you out. It's closed now. You brought one of those cubes with you, but it disintegrated the moment that you left." Ugh. Of course it did. That would be too easy, right?

"Don't worry," Steve said. "I've got a lot of experience dealing with monsters. I'm not going to let anyone hurt your family if I can help it. I got your back."

It honestly felt good to know that Steve had Amity's back. Amity had lucked out running into these wonderful people as soon as she arrived in the Isles. It was the kind of luck that she'd have once attributed to her destiny. She knew better now, of course, even if she still instinctively thought of herself and how she viewed the world in wizardly terms. It would take a long time to purge that part of her out. In the end, she may not even want to. She'd have to have a long chat with Jane about that.

And she'd have to talk to Camila too, she knew. If Amity had revealed her magic to Camila before this mess started, if she'd had the courage to do it, maybe Camila wouldn't have fallen for Posterity's lies. Or at least she'd have been able to have a magical framework to work with when she first started to get suspicious, because, really, Amity had to believe that Camila was a little suspicious. She was a great mami. She had to be suspicious.

Unfortunately, neither Steve nor anyone else could help her through the hallucinations the Bog gave her on their way back. On the way there, Amity had been beset by visions of her biological parents and the abuse they gave her. The abuse had almost entirely come at the hands of Odalia; Alador had just watched and let it happen, which was hardly any better. She'd seen Odalia forcing her to dye her hair to match her siblings (and, honestly, Amity wouldn't be caught dead in that horrifying shade of green). She'd seen Odalia telepathically berating her with some sort of necklace. She'd seen Odalia hit her for talking back and manipulate her and lock her in her room for days and force her to study without even eating or drinking, using magic alone to sustain herself.

It was a truly miserable life that Amity could have led, and she thanked her lucky stars that she'd had Camila. Camila may have been distant at times, as her jobs forced her to be away from home a lot, but she was still an amazing, spectacular, loving mother.

On the way back, it wasn't visions of what might have been that beset Amity. It was a horrifying vision of the future, one that she very much hoped would never possibly be able to come to pass.

She stood in front of a huge tree with purple leaves. It was astonishingly pretty. Truly, Amity had never seen a more beautiful plant in her life. It wasn't just how it looked, it was how it felt too. It radiated love and happiness and joy that Amity could feel trying to seep into her bones.

And all of it was failing, because at that moment, Amity wasn't feeling happy. She was feeling scared and confused and horrified. Luz was standing in front of her, looking as if all hope was lost, and she may well have been right, because all of what Amity was feeling was directed at her. And even more strangely, this version of Luz had round ears somehow.

"I can explain," Luz said frantically. "Just please don't hate me. I was so close! Just a couple more days…I could have saved her."

"Don't hate you?!" Amity screamed at her. "How the hell can I not hate you, Luz?! You lied to me! This whole damn time, every word you've told me, every word you've told everyone was a lie! You betrayed me! You stranded me here! And for what?! So you could lure me into some sick incestuous affair?!" Oh, God, please let that be a metaphor.

Luz's eyes widened in horror. "It's not incest! We don't share any blood, we weren't raised by the same people! If you're not her, then your mami isn't mine either!"

Amity rolled her eyes. "Oh, well, I suppose everything is peachy, then! I can't believe this is happening. I…I never should have trusted you!"

"No, no, no," Luz begged. "I'll lose her. I'll lose her, and it'll be your fault!" She flinched. "No, I didn't mean that. It's not your fault. Can't you find it in your heart to love me? We're meant to be! We're true love!"

Amity slapped her across the face. "Don't you say that to me. There's no such thing as true love, and you're an idiot for believing her lies, Luz Noceda. We could have stopped her together, if you had just trusted me. But you chose to lie, and now you're reaping the rewards."

"Please, Amity!" Luz said, tears flowing down her face. "I'll be trapped here! I'll do anything you want."

"The only thing I want you to do," Amity hissed at her, her voice colder than the Arctic, "is to stay the fuck away from me. Boscha, get me out of here!"

There was the ringing of a bell and then Amity was back in the real world with Avery shaking her. "We're done. We're out! Amity, are you okay?"

Amity shuddered. That had been a truly horrible vision. Thank goodness it couldn't ever become true, because if it was true, then Luz would have round ears instead of pointy ones, and that was manifestly not the case. But maybe somewhere it was true, and that…that wasn't something that Amity felt comfortable with. Luz had gone to extreme lengths to save whoever she was talking about – maybe yet another parallel version of Amity?

"Not everything the Bog shows you can possibly be," Steve told her gently. "I saw a vision of…of myself being the one to reject Avery, and Catherine accepting them, not the other way around. That may have happened to some version of me, but it can't happen to this me."

Luz nodded. "I saw something…something similar. A vision where I hurt someone I loved. But the circumstances can't occur to me anymore." Amity looked over at that beautiful, innocent face, and she realized in an instant how silly she was being. Luz wasn't capable of harming a fly, much less deliberately stranding Amity in the Demon Realm.

"It was bad," Amity said. "In my vision, you hurt me. You betrayed me."

Luz reached out and squeezed her hand. Oh. Wow. Hand squeezing. "I'll never do anything to harm you, Amity. I love…spending time with you." Yeah, that sentence had definitely originally been going somewhere else, Amity was pretty sure. "I'll make an Everlasting Oath if that's what you want."

For a few moments, Amity seriously considered it. But in the end, she knew that it would be a serious sign that she didn't trust Luz, and she didn't want to do that to her. She'd already rejected her and her subconscious was now trying to scream at her that Luz was some nefarious traitor. But she wasn't. Luz was just a girl with a huge crush who was trying to help a stranger from another world out, not a monster. "I trust you, cariño," she whispered, and then she gave Luz another kiss on the cheek.

Seeing the huge grin on Luz's face almost made that horrifying vision worthwhile.

Almost.

Luz was reasonably certain she knew who Posterity was: Vee, the resurrected basilisk and certified cutie-pie who was Willow's datemate in the main timeline. Vee had mentioned once that xe had escaped from the custody of the Emperor's Coven right around the time when Luz had first come into the Boiling Isles and had almost impersonated her and fled into the Human Realm. But xe was recaptured before xe could do so.

Luz was kind of glad that Vee didn't go to Reality Check Camp in her place. It would have made things easier, perhaps, in the short term, but when Luz came back and found an imposter having taken her life…well, she wasn't sure what she would have done. But it would have made things a lot more complicated.

Posterity was pretty testy in the brief time they'd interacted, but if Posterity was Vee and xe had found a real home where xe was safe for the first time ever, then that would only make sense. Luz was absolutely certain that Vee wasn't capable of hurting anyone, much less Amity's family.

Still, Luz wasn't about to tell Amity about her suspicions for two reasons. First and foremost, she had no plausible way of knowing about Vee's existence and xyr lack of hostility. Pretending that her knowledge of the future came from oracle magic could only take Luz so far. Oracle magic didn't make one omniscient, and not even an oracle of Näkijä's skill could have made a prediction like that.

The second reason was even simpler: She could very well be wrong. Luz was honestly just taking a wild guess. There were other basilisks than Vee out there after all, and, as Steve pointed out, they were hardly the only shapeshifters on the Isles either. For all Luz knew, Posterity could have hostile intentions, and it was dangerous to assume otherwise. Making assumptions on Earth could get you humiliated; making assumptions in the Boiling Isles could get you killed.

She had mentioned her theory to Steve, who was intrigued, but pointed out that there was no way for them to prove it either way, and thus it was no less or more valid than any other theory. He urged her to keep it to herself unless she stumbled upon actual proof that she could use to explain why she had the theory or if she stumbled upon proof that the theory was true.

In the meantime, Amity was getting more and more stressed about what was waiting for her at home, and Luz knew that something needed to be done about it. It wasn't just that there was no way that Luz could sweep Amity off her feet when she was so stressed (though that thought did enter her head, and Luz felt ashamed for thinking that way). It was also that Amity was Amity. True, she was different in many ways, but her soul was still the same as the girl that Luz loved. Luz couldn't stand to see her feeling so bad.

That was why, on the day the Wailing Star was supposed to rise, Luz charged into Amity's room without even bothering to knock. She was lying on the bed, reading more Animorphs on her Kindle. Well, Other Luz's Kindle, but it was really Amity's Kindle now. Amity let out a shriek and pulled the covers over herself instinctively. Then she looked down and realized that she was fully dressed and scowled. "What do you want?"

"You've been moping for far too long," Luz announced. "We're going to have some fun today if it's the last thing we do!"

"Will it be the last thing we do?" Amity asked nervously, completely serious.

Luz couldn't help but let out a laugh. "No, mi amada, it's a metaphor!" She let out an eep as she realized that while Amity Blight's command of Spanish wasn't particularly estelar, as it were, Amity Serrano was fluent in the language, and thus knew exactly what Luz had said.

Luckily for Luz, Amity just gave her a teasing smile at the usage of the overly familiar term. That, combined with the second kiss on the cheek Amity had given her, made Luz think that her chances were getting better. "And just where would this fun take us, brujita?"

"The library!" Luz responded enthusiastically.

Amity tilted her head. "Actually, that does sound fun, but I didn't think that was your idea of fun. Unless there's something I'm missing?"

Luz gave her a huge smile. "Actually, there is! The Wailing Star is rising today! It's a meteor shower that has all sorts of weird magical effects. And in the library, it makes things in the books come to life!"

Amity's eyes lit up with more enthusiasm than Luz had seen her have in ages. This had definitely been a good idea. "YES! That sounds absolutely amazing!" She let out a gasp. "Luz, do you think that it'd apply to ebooks too?"

"I don't know," Luz said truthfully. "Why?"

"Because then we can make the Escafil device real," Amity said, looking lost in the possibilities already. "Doesn't that sound amazing?! Luz, haven't you ever dreamed of morphing before?"

The Escafil device was the device that put the morph in Animorphs. Through technobabble, it could be used to bestow the power of morphing – shapeshifting to any animal, as long as one had touched it beforehand and used the device's power to acquire its DNA. The catch? One could only stay in morph for two hours, and then one would become the animal one was morphed as forever, a condition known as being a nothlit.

Luz had dreamed of morphing before. Many of those dreams had been nightmares, frankly, given the lovingly detailed and horrifying process of morphing as described in the books. But, yeah, sure, some part of her had longed for the ability to soar in the air as a bird, untethered from the cares of the world. Or to experience the wonders of the sea without having the worry about breathing underwater. Who wouldn't after reading those books?

But still…

"I don't know, Amity," Luz said. "What if something goes wrong? We could summon a Hork Bajir here or something!" The Hork Bajir were the foot soldiers of the evil alien parasites, the Yeerks, that served as the antagonists of the Animorphs books. They were peaceful vegetarians despite their fearsome appearance on their own, but each one of them was forced to be soldiers by the will of the Yeerk in their head, which controlled them absolutely.

Amity shrugged, looking completely unconcerned. "And what if we do? There's no Kandrona rays here." Yeerks needed Kandrona rays, which they could only get through specialized technology, or they'd starve to death in three days. "The Yeerk in its head will die in three days, and we'd have freed a sentient being. You can't tell me that a Hork Bajir wouldn't thrive here."

Amity did have a point. No one would know that it wasn't originally from the Boiling Isles. Even if Eduardo had seen it, he wouldn't give it a second glance. But there was another problem. "The thing is, Amity, the things made real stop being real after the stroke of midnight."

"Oh," Amity said, slightly disappointed, but then she perked up. "Well, still, I wouldn't mind being able to morph for a few hours. And maybe the objects disappear, but would our morphing powers disappear?"

Luz shrugged. She had absolutely no way to answer that question. But Amity did have a point. So long as they were sensible and cautious (which they were capable of, despite evidence to the contrary that might prove otherwise) and make sure that they did not go past the two hour time limit, Luz didn't really think that anything particularly bad could happen from morphing. And, yeah, maybe the fact that morphing had kind of been something that she'd been wanting since her real father had been alive had something to do with it. Not to mention that being able to morph would be a nice consolation prize to Other Luz for screwing up her life so much.

"Okay!" Luz said. "Let's do it!"

Amity giggled. "I see your inner Rachel is coming out already." She formed a serious expression on her face. "But we really shouldn't bring her here, though." Luz blinked. The idea of manifesting Rachel Berenson, mighty warrior and shopaholic, into reality would never have occurred to her on her own.

As much as Luz yearned to do it, to warn Rachel about the fate that awaited her, to save her life, Luz knew that she couldn't. If she was being summoned from some other universe, then Luz could change the fate of that universe by giving Rachel a hint of her future, and Luz knew that she'd be powerless to avoid giving Rachel answers if she asked for them. Her death had been the first of the one-two punches of grieving that Luz endured that month, and to Luz's six-year-old self, it had been just as real as Eduardo's death. And if Luz was just making Rachel out of thin air, then she'd be creating a sentient being, only to destroy her. She'd be killing Rachel. Luz would sooner kill herself than do that.

"We're not bringing anyone here," Luz promised. "Just objects. That should be safe enough, right?"

The library would be closed for the Wailing Star, Luz knew, just like last time, but this time she had a friend who worked in the library who could let her in. And even if Mr. Harrington didn't want to, they could just break in like she had with Edric and Emira. The idea of morphing was already cheering up Amity, and Luz would do anything, and she did mean anything, to keep her that happy.

"So…how's the librarian business going, Steve?" Luz asked in a way too casual voice. Okay, that settled it. She was going to have to ask Eda for remedial con artist lessons. She was losing her touch.

Mr. Harrington let out a loud, long-suffering sigh. "No, I cannot let you into the library for the Wailing Star. It's not safe."

Amity actually pouted, which was just so adorable. "But, Steve, we're going to morph! It's going to be so cool! You can morph too if you let us in!"

Mr. Harrington rubbed his eyes. "You know, Amity, I don't know if you've learned this, but explanations are supposed to make things make more sense, not less."

"Shapeshifting into animals," Luz clarified. "Using a device we're going to make reality from a book. We're not sure if the effects will last past midnight, but you can't deny that it'd be cool to find out." She leaned forward, sensing that she had Mr. Harrington on the hook. "You'd be able to morph my dad if he gave the okay and be able to go back to the Human Realm without having to worry about being arrested."

Mr. Harrington looked intrigued at that. He'd told Luz that he had been wanting to spend time with his friends, but was too scared of getting put in prison if he returned to the Human Realm. "Okay. You've worn me down. But I have conditions! First of all, I need to be there to supervise. Second of all, your parents need to give the okay, Luz. And that goes for the whole thing, including the morphing. And I will check with them, so don't go thinking you can just pretend that you've got it."

That sounded reasonable enough to Luz. She didn't really anticipate any major problems. She had a lot of persuasive arguments that she could use to get them on her side too. Morphing would be a very useful survival skill on the Isles, after all.

Sure enough, Eda had been down with the whole thing from the start, though she didn't want any morphing for herself. "This gal right here doesn't need superpowers!" she pronounced. "I'm awesome as is!"

Eduardo had been more difficult to persuade. "Are you sure this is advisable? As I recall from reading those books myself, morphing could be quite dangerous."

"Yeah, when you're fighting an alien invasion," Luz argued. "But this is just for my day to day life. If the Coven comes to take me away, I could just turn into a bug and escape, or turn into a bird and fly away. Also, it'd make me the happiest girl in the history of two planets, so there's that."

Eduardo was silent for a few moments. "Well…I suppose if Steve thinks it's safe, then it should be fine. But be very careful. I don't want you to be a nothlit, mija." That was the absolute last thing that Luz wanted too. She nodded very enthusiastically.

"Do you want to be able to morph, Eduardo?" Amity asked him.

Eduardo shook his head firmly. "Absolutely not. This sort of thing is universally more trouble than it's worth." Despite very much being comfortable in a magical world, Eduardo eschewed using magic himself and often magical solutions from what she'd heard from Hooty. He believed that such things always came with a cost, perhaps one that he would be unwilling to pay.

Well, Luz would be happy to pay it. Other Luz would be fine with the morphing ability if Luz was able to keep it for her; if she liked Animorphs enough to have bought ebooks of the entire series, surely she'd know how to use her new power safely. Heck, maybe she'd want to switch to the beast keeping track once she figured out the ropes of morphing.

After persuading Other Luz's parents, Amity and Luz went to the library. Luz spun an elaborate lie about how she used her oracle powers to sense secrets, and promptly "demonstrated" by finding the secret room that the real Amity had used as her hideout. A complication swiftly arose, though: It turned out to be not quite as secret as Luz had thought it was. Luz soon came face to face with one of the most horrifying sights she'd ever seen in the entirety of her life: A shirtless Boscha making out with Willow.

Luz let out a horrified shriek as Willow quickly pushed Boscha away. Thank God Willow had all her clothes on. Boscha quickly dove for her shirt and put it back on. It was ironic that Boscha was no longer in the potions track, because she needed a forgetting potion stat now.

"Do you mind?!" Boscha shrieked. "Like, have you never heard of knocking?!"

"I thought I was the only person who knew about this place," Luz said defensively. "And, come on, you've traumatized me for life! That's enough punishment, don't you think?"

Willow took several deep breaths, clearly working through her impulses to scream at Luz. "Luz, you know how much I enjoy spending time for you. But we're rather busy right now. Maybe you can come back later?"

"Nah, the mood's been ruined," Boscha said sulkily, and then leaned against a wall. Willow glared fearsomely at Luz. Oh, come on. Luz had been responsible for a lot more things than average since she arrived in this strange upside down world, but that had not been one of them.

Amity looked as if she was rather irritated. Clearly this teen drama wasn't all that interesting to her. She looked over at Luz and her face flushed red. Obviously, she was angry that Luz was disrupting her fun by getting her involved in such things. "So…setting this aside, how have you been doing, Boscha? Did…did I help you?"

Boscha gave a so-so gesture with her hand. "Mom's not hurting me anymore, even though she really, really wants to. But she's been shouting a lot more and…words can hurt just as bad as spells sometimes." Luz sighed. She knew what Boscha meant by that. "But then again, it doesn't hurt nearly as bad as getting decapitated."

Being decapitated, Luz had learned, was not something that witches could ordinarily shrug off at all. Eda was the sole exception thanks to her curse. But while witches could survive for longer than humans without their head, it was invariably fatal…unless one's decapitator had access to healing magic. "I…I had no idea it was that bad," Luz whispered. She didn't actually feel guilty, but she figured that Other Luz would feel that way.

"I don't want to focus on the past," Boscha said bluntly. "The future's going to be hard enough."

"We're being extra careful to keep our relationship secret now," Willow explained. "The deal that you forced Mrs. Hart to make, Amity, doesn't prevent her from hurting me. If she finds out that Boscha cares about me…I don't want to think about the consequences. That's why we're doing our makeouts in places like this. How'd you find this place anyway?"

"Oracle magic," Luz said breezily.

Willow raised an eyebrow, indicating polite skepticism. At least, that was Luz's guess. Body language was hard enough to figure out for her on humans, much less witches. "Really? You never told me that your scrying studies got that advanced."

Oh, man, they were heading into some pretty thorny territory here. Luz needed a distraction, quick. "Yeah, you know me, modest as heck." By the frown on Willow's face, that was not a word she'd use to describe Other Luz."

"Right," Willow said slowly. "Hey, Amity, do you mind if I talk to you about something….personal?" Amity looked surprised, but nodded. "Great. Luz, this'll just take a few minutes."

Willow grabbed Amity by the arm and dragged her out of the room. Well. That definitely didn't bode well, in Luz's opinion.

She turned to look over at the only other person in the room, who was desperately trying to avoid looking at her, a more difficult feat than average given her three eyes. "So…read any good books lately?" Luz asked Boscha. Boscha just groaned.

"Has Luz been acting strangely lately, in your opinion?" Willow asked Amity the instant they were out of the room and out of earshot.

Amity let out a laugh. "Willow, I think I'd be more worried if Luz hadn't been acting strangely! Even for someone with circumstances as unique as hers, she's very odd."

Willow gave a slight smile, conceding the point. "Yeah, she definitely has a…unique perspective on life. But she's been acting even stranger than usual since you arrived. She…has gaps in her memory. She has no idea how we met, none at all. I alluded to the incident, and there was no recognition in her face. She hasn't known things she should know, and vice versa."

Well, this was very concerning news. And, yeah, Amity would have to be blind not to realize that Luz had something very odd going on in her life, something that she'd only chosen to confide to Avery about. "There's an imposter in my home," she said softly. "Someone who shapeshifted into me. Do you think someone shapeshifted into Luz, and then…" Killed her to cover her tracks, the unspoken words echoed in Amity's brain but could not emerge from her mouth.

Was that what her vision was about? It didn't seem right, though. Amity had remembered feeling betrayed to a level which she could scarcely comprehend, even now, but she had been certain that it was Luz betraying her.

It seemed a far-fetched theory, though, even by the standards of what she'd been experiencing as of recently. Surely Eda and Eduardo would have noticed such a thing. Camila had an excuse, given that she was very busy and had no knowledge of the magical world. But Eda had been mostly lazing around the house all day and had a thorough knowledge of the magical world. So did Steve, for that matter.

"I'm not saying that," Willow responded to Amity's earlier question. The unspoken yet hovered in the air. "I'm just saying that you maybe should be careful around her."

Amity frowned. She didn't agree with Willow's warning at all, even if she wasn't entirely convinced that Luz wasn't a shapeshifter. If Luz had wanted Amity dead, she could have easily let Adegast kill her. "You don't trust her because she's been acting strangely." Willow nodded. "As strange as, for example, someone who suddenly turned out to be in a relationship with her longtime bully, the same person who's been harassing Luz and her friends for years."

Willow winced. Amity had scored a hit there. "Yeah…that's fair. We've all got layers. Look, by far the most likely scenario is that I'm jumping at shadows. Boscha's always telling me I'm too paranoid, and she's not wrong. But a little extra caution never hurt anyone around here…and the opposite often has. So be careful. That's all I'm saying. Nothing more."

Amity was suddenly very, very tired of Willow. She knew that Willow meant well, but right now, Luz needed a friend who was there for her, not stuck in almost, but not quite, entirely baseless suspicion. "I've got it all under control. Trust me, Willow. I stuck my neck out – literally – for your girlfriend. Give me some trust in return, please."

Willow sighed. "Well, if she tries to eat your soul or something, don't say I didn't warn you."

Luz wasn't sure what Willow and Amity had been talking about, but it seemed to have left Amity annoyed when she returned, alone, to the secret hideout. Boscha scurried away without even saying goodbye. Amity may not have been gone for very long, but it felt like an eternity of making exceptionally awkward conversation with Boscha to Luz. Boscha wasn't exactly a sterling conversationalist when it came to things that weren't grudgby or other kinds of sports, most of which Luz hadn't even heard of and none of which she cared about.

While both Boschas were repentant of their bullying ways (well, her Boscha was; this one was still doing it, which left her repentance kind of a moot point), Luz still wasn't willing to forgive them. She didn't know that she ever would be. And more than that, she didn't care if she was. Luz felt terrible for Boscha, having to suffer such abuse, but it still didn't obligate her to forgive. Nothing did, and considering how much pain she'd suffered at the hands of bullies, she wasn't sure what would.

Amity was the exception, of course. Amity was always the exception.

"Is everything okay there?" Luz asked tentatively.

Amity looked at her carefully for a few seconds, and then seemed to come to some sort of decision. "She doesn't trust you, Luz. She thinks you're an evil shapeshifter too."

Luz's eyes widened in horror. Holy shit, was this it?! Had her cover been blown? How obvious was she being? "I'm not a shapeshifter!" she protested. At least that part was true. "My God, what brought this on?"

Amity shrugged. "Apparently, you didn't recognize the story behind the two of you meeting. And a number of other factors that she didn't explain." Amity reached out and squeezed Luz's hand. "I think she's being ridiculous. She's just letting her stress about hiding her relationship get to her. I trust you, Luz. You're an amazing person…and I feel privileged to know you."

Luz's grin was so big that it must have looked horrifying to see on her face. "Gee, thanks, Amity! I like you too."

Amity started wringing her hands together in a sure sign of nervousness. "As a matter of fact…would you like to…to go out with me once I get home safely?" YES! She was finally getting somewhere! "It's just…I really feel like you and I have a connection, you know? Almost like you knew me in a previous life or something." Or something, Luz mentally agreed. "I can't date you now, though. I'd just…I'd just be too stressed to be a good girlfriend."

"I don't mind waiting," Luz lied. Of course she minded waiting; how could she not with a huge deadline looming over her head? But what else was she supposed to say? "It's fine, Amity. I'll take whatever you want to give me…and if that's nothing, that's okay too." She took a step forward and then another and then the two of them were standing so close to each other. Within touching distance. Within kissing distance. Luz closed her eyes and puckered her lips.

"ALL RIGHT, PEEPS, MOTOR ON OUT OF THE LIBRARY BEFORE I START CRACKING SKULLS!" Mr. Harrington's magically augmented voice boomed over the intercom, instantly killing whatever mood existed between Amity and Luz. Wow. It was closing time already? Time flew fast.

Evidently, no one wanted Mr. Harrington to start cracking skulls, because everyone quickly high tailed it out of the library, even demons that could probably crack Mr. Harrington's spine as easily as it was for Luz to snap a toothpick. Luz's respect for the guy went up a couple of notches at that.

Mr. Harrington emerged from the stacks, flourishing a baseball bat with nails embedded in it at the patrons who wouldn't move fast enough. It looked old enough to have been used during his occult exploits during his teenage years. "Yeah, you'd better run," he muttered. He then appeared to spot Amity and Luz and gave them a big smile. "Hey! Good to see you. Ready to manifest a fictional alien device from a series filled with more war crimes than you can shake a stick at?"

"You bet your life I am!" Luz said, jumping up and down with enthusiasm. She'd been thinking about it all day. Her six-year-old self would be so insanely jealous of her right now. Everyone else could keep their princess fantasies; Luz had wanted to fly in the air as a bird, with no one telling her to do homework or not draw scenes of people getting eviscerated or clean her room. And now her fantasies were about to become reality! It almost made her situation worth it.

Luz wasn't sure if Other Luz flapped her arms when she was excited too, but, heck, she could barely stop herself if she tried, so she flapped them anyway. It felt so good! Stimming was the best. By the massive smile on Amity's face, she could see that she agreed with her.

The Wailing Star was rising earlier than usual, though still at the same time as it had in Luz's timeline. Which made sense. People changed. Stars, on the other hand, didn't. Luz wondered exactly what it was about the Wailing Star that granted it such power. But without the technology to examine it closely – which witchkind was nowhere close to creating, even under Eda's new progressive administration – no one would ever know. Which was probably for the best, to be honest. Luz was going to use its power for good, but she could only imagine how it could be used for evil.

Amity set the Kindle on the ground and the two of them channeled power into it. Luz could feel the power flowing out of her, and it hurt so much. Without a bile sac to properly channel it, the power felt like fire burning in her veins. But Luz pressed forward. She would not give up. She was persistent, she was awesome, she was…

…on the ground. Oh. She'd fainted. Damn it.

"Luz, why must you keep doing this?" Mr. Harrington said, sounding like he was asking the question in all seriousness instead of just rhetorically.

"I'm me," Luz said simply.

Mr. Harrington nodded, as if she had made a good point. "Well, at least your efforts worked. But, please, Luz…let's not do this again." Luz made no promises. But at least it had worked. Wait, it had worked?!

Luz cast her eyes upon the object that she'd been envisioning for almost a decade. The Escafil device didn't look like much. It was just a blue cube that was glowing. It looked almost exactly like the Tesseract from the MCU movies, actually, but it was opaque instead. But what it represented was so much more than what it looked like. Power. Freedom. Possibility. They were all Luz's now.

Luz reached out to touch it, but she hesitated. Maybe she was making a mistake. Tobias had gotten stuck as a hawk in the very first book, and it had taken divine intervention to even partially reverse it. That wouldn't happen here. On the other hand, she'd come this far. Amity would think less of her if she chickened out, she persuaded herself, despite knowing very well that this wasn't the case.

So she touched the blue box. Nothing seemed to happen. Was that normal? It had been a while since Luz had read the books. She couldn't remember if the blue box was supposed to make you feel anything when it bestowed its power upon you. Amity touched the box next without any sort of hesitation.

Mr. Harrington took a box out from behind his desk and plopped it on a table. Inside was a collection of human books. "I know that you probably didn't think of getting something that you'd morph into," he said, and Luz's cheeks flushed with embarrassment when she realized he was right. "So I got some books with animals in them. We can make them reality, and you can morph into them." He pulled out a stopwatch. "Two hours. Remember that."

Luz didn't think that it was possible for her to forget that, given how dire the consequences could be, but she nonetheless nodded eagerly. She rummaged through the box until she found what she was looking for: a book about semiaquatic mammals. It was time. Her destiny was upon her. Luz was about to fulfill her most deep-seated ambition, something that she had wanted more than anything else in the entire universe as a child.

She was about to become an otter.

Luz put her hand on the book, but Mr. Harrington grabbed it and shoved it away. "Amity will do it, Luz. I'm not having you faint again."

Luz let out a nervous laugh, and some possessive part of her felt like she should be manifesting the otter, but nonetheless, she let Amity channel the power of the Wailing Star into the book, and then an otter appeared out of nowhere. One second, it wasn't there, and the next, it was. And it was easily the cutest thing that Luz had ever seen in her life. Luz just wanted to hug it and never let it go!

She placed her hand on its fur, and its eyes went vacant. When acquired by a morpher, an animal went into a trance while its DNA was…duplicated in the morpher's body? Damn it, Luz could not remember for the life of her how exactly the morphing cube worked in scientific terms, or, indeed, if it was ever explained.

Luz reached out inside her and called to the otter DNA within her. Amity let out a shriek. Evidently, morphing did look as nauseatingly disgusting as it was lovingly described in the book. Those descriptions were not for the faint of heart, or, as Luz discovered on several occasions that still embarrassed her to think about, stomach. But Luz felt nothing but joy as her body transformed into the form she'd long sought.

Her vision was blurry, since otters were nearsighted. But her smell and hearing were much better than a normal human. (Half-human, whatever.) She could hear the tiniest sounds. The building settling. The slithering of the animals in the deep stacks. Mr. Harrington and Amity's breathing. Luz's autism had given her greater sensitivity to her hearing than normal, which was extremely problematic for her at times, but this didn't feel like that. She could hear so many things, but her brain didn't have any difficulty processing them.

She looked over at Amity and Mr. Harrington, and decided to exercise the other cool ability morphing gave her: thought speak. Morphing allowed one to telepathically communicate with others while in morph. The telepathic message could also be sent to as many or as little individuals as one wanted. How do I look? she asked them both.

Mr. Harrington, not clued into the whole telepathy side of morphing, let out a yelp. Amity, who was, gave her a thumbs up. "You are easily the cutest otter I've ever seen, Luz," she called out to her. "10 out of 10." Amity thought she was cute! Granted, it had a different meaning when one was morphed as a cute animal, but still!

Luz effortlessly did a flip. She tried to walk on hind legs, but fell face down on the floor. Okay, fair enough. If otters could walk on their hind legs, they'd probably be doing it all the time. So instead, she crawled over to Amity, stood up, and licked her on the hand. Eek! That was so weird and creepy! Why did she even do that?

"Don't freak out, Luz!" Amity called out. "It's just the instincts of the animal trying to break through, remember?" Oh, yeah. Luz had almost forgotten about that. The instincts of the animal in question were a constant threat to the Animorphs, sometimes more so than their enemies. "You made a good choice picking the otter for your first try. I mean, it's not like you picked an ant, right?" Luz shuddered at the thought, remembering what had happened when the Animorphs morphed ants.

Mr. Harrington reached over and pressed his hand on the blue box. "Cool. I think I'm going to wait until after the Wailing Star to try this out, though. Amity, you want to change into an otter, or is there some other animal that you want here?"

Amity looked hesitant. Was she worried she'd hurt Luz's feelings if she didn't become an otter? Pick out whatever you want, Amity, Luz urged her. I won't mind! By the relieved expression on Luz's face, that was precisely what Amity was worrying about.

While Luz occupied herself by posing adorably while Steve took pictures of her with his cell phone, Amity rummaged through the box. She let out a loud gasp and pulled out what looked like a leather bound journal with an image of the portal door emblazoned on it. "Steve, what the hell is this doing in here?"

Luz crawled over. She assumed that it was another book about animals, like the rest of them were, but it was not. It was, in fact, a very familiar book, one that Luz had only seen in the original timeline.

When Luz had been forced to destroy the portal, she'd searched incessantly in the library for something, anything, that could help her repair it. All of her friends had told her that her search was futile, but they'd all turned out to be wrong. Luz found the journal of the scientist who had created the portal in the first place. She would later learn that he was the father of Leandra Phalanx, author of the Good Witch Azura series. With the notes of the original creator of the portal in hand, they were able to rebuild the portal quite quickly. Luz had told Mr. Harrington about the journal, but he hadn't been able to find it. Until now.

"How the heck did this get in here?" Mr. Harrington wondered. "One of my assistants must have misfiled it, I guess." He flipped through the pages and his eyes lit up. "This is perfect! With this thing, I'll be able to rebuild the portal in days." He flipped another page and grimaced. "Okay, maybe weeks. That is not an easy to find reagent. But the portal can be rebuilt!"

Luz morphed back into being half-human. She had a feeling that she'd need to be back in her original form for the conversation. Anyway, being an otter had been something of a letdown, though only because she'd spent so much time building it up. "This is great news, Amity!" she said. And she meant it. The creation of a stable portal meant that Amity would be able to confront her imposter and be more secure about wanting to date Luz. "Just think, you'll be able to go home soon!"

An idea suddenly seemed to occur to Amity, and Luz did not like the look in her eyes. Not one iota. "What if we didn't have to wait? What if we did it right now? We can use the power of the Wailing Star to make a working portal!"

"NO!" Luz screamed so loud that maybe all of Bonesborough could hear her. If Amity made a working portal that would disintegrate in just a few hours' time, then she'd be trapped on Earth, maybe forever, and Luz would never be able to save her Amity. "I mean, we don't know if it's safe! What happens if you need to come back?"

"Why would I need to come back – oh." She sighed. "Oh, Luz. I've enjoyed our time together. And I sincerely hope that you'll be able to create a working portal and come to visit me. But I have to protect my family. It's just a few weeks." A few weeks where Luz would be able to make absolutely no traction with Amity! Time was slipping out of her fingers, and she'd never be able to get it back.

Luz didn't care how desperate she was being. "Amity, you can't! It's just not safe!" A wild and crazy idea occurred to her. "Let me go with you! ¡Déjame ser tu valiente defensora!"

Mr. Harrington put a hand on Luz's shoulder. "You are not going anywhere, Luz," he said in a far firmer voice than Luz thought he was capable of. "It's not happening. I will not let you leave this dimension with no known way of coming back. I have a responsibility to your parents to keep their daughter safe. To say nothing of my child." Only Luz knew that he was talking about Other Luz when he talked about that responsibility. It didn't make her feel any better to realize that he was right. It'd be the height of irresponsibility to possibly leave Other Luz stranded, maybe forever, in a strange and unfamiliar world with a girl who was destined to hate her.

Luz wiped away a tear from her eye. "I can't lose you, Amity," she whispered.

"You won't," Amity promised, not realizing how wrong she was. "But I have to do this. If Posterity wasn't there, I could wait, but I can't now that she's there. For all I know, she's planning on eating their brains or something!"

"Amity, I'm begging you," Luz said. "Don't. It's not safe."

"Luz, if we could use a fictional device that's based on wildly inaccurate scientific premises safely, we can use a real device that's built on actual scientific premises safely," Amity said patiently. Damn her logic. Damn Zoe. Damn this whole giraffing situation!

There was no persuading Amity when she got an idea into her head. It was who she was, no matter who had raised her. So Luz was able to do nothing but watch helplessly as Amity set the journal on the ground and poured power into it. A portal door appeared from nowhere. Amity was about to walk out on Luz, about to walk out on any hope of saving her parallel self, and there was nothing Luz could do to stop her.

Amity opened the door and a very familiar room was on the other side. It was Luz's own. Well, the physical space was. The room was decorated completely and utterly differently but it was the same room in terms of location. And someone was in the room, rummaging through drawers. "Where the hell does she keep that thing?" that someone muttered.

The person in the room was both very familiar and very unfamiliar at the same time. Emma Serrano may have been, biologically, the same person as Emira Blight, but she looked completely different in every way but her actual features. If there was one word Luz would use to describe Emma, it would be goth. Her hair was cut extremely short and dyed black, as if daring people to look at her pointy ears. She wore a very large amount of makeup, including black lipstick and heavy eyeliner. She wore a long black dress that made her look like Wednesday Addams, and there was a tattoo of ankh on her arm, which Luz dearly hoped was not permanent.

"EMMA!" Amity shouted.

Emma blinked once upon seeing a door manifest in the middle of her sister's room with her on the other side of it, but while she was surprised, she wasn't shocked. "Hey, Mittens," she said with a wave. It was said completely and utterly casually. Luz's blood instinctively boiled at her using the nickname that Odalia had given Amity, that Emira had forsaken using a while ago, but, of course, the name had no negative connotations in this reality. "You coming back?"

"You knew I was gone?" Amity asked incredulously. She stepped through the portal. Luz and Mr. Harrington followed her, and just like that, Luz was once more in the Human Realm.

"Hi, I'm Steve Harrington and this is Luz Noceda," Mr. Harrington told Emma. "Luz's parents have been looking after Amity. I'm a friend of theirs."

Emma gave him a smile. "Well, thanks for looking after my baby sis! I really appreciate it." She looked over at Amity somewhat pityingly. "And, yeah, of course I knew that you were gone. You really think I didn't notice? Maybe those of us who aren't initiated in the ways of magic wouldn't recognize that my sister had left behind a replacement so that no one would be bothered by her disappearance when she had her Ordeal, but I sure as hell did." She grimaced. "And, honestly, Amity, you did a horrible job making her. She doesn't even know Spanish."

Amity started breathing rhythmically, doubtlessly trying to stay calm. "Emma, I did not make that thing. I don't know who she is."

Emma's eyes widened in sheer, unrelenting horror. "No! You mean…oh, God. We've been covering for her for weeks! We thought you left her behind! Mami would have gotten suspicious eons ago if we hadn't been covering for her." She started breathing heavily herself. "What have I done?"

"What about Jane?" Amity demanded. "Surely she must have gotten suspicious."

"Jane's been covering for her too," Emma admitted. "ED!" she called out. "Estoy en la habitación de Amity; ¡ven rápido!"

A few seconds later, the door to Amity's bedroom and Luz did a double take, because it was hard to believe that this nerd was Edmond Serrano. Luz had nothing against nerds – she pretty much was one herself when she thought about it – but Edmond look like he'd stepped out of central casting. He wore a plaid striped shirt with a pocket protector and khakis. There was even a pencil stuck behind his ear. His hair was dyed a brown color and was cut short and neat. He wore black framed glasses, and had a look of befuddlement on his face.

"Cramity wasn't sent by Mittens," Emma said without preamble.

"Oh, damn," Edmond said, sounding remarkably chill for someone who just found out that they had a potentially hostile imposter in his house.

"Wait a second, who's Cramity?" Luz asked.

"The imposter," Emma explained. "Creepy Amity. Cramity."

Amity crossed her arms and smirked. Clearly, she had a good natured (at least, Luz hoped it was good natured) rivalry with her sister. "We've been calling her Posterity. Imposter Amity." Emma scowled at her, no doubt recognizing that Posterity was a better name for the imposter by far.

"Okay, well, she doesn't suspect anything," Edmond pointed out. "Let's sneak up behind her, bash her brains out, and bury the body on your side of the portal. Problem solved." Everyone, including Emma, looked freaked out at how cavalierly Edmond was advocating for violence. "What? Hey, this thing messed with my family! I'm telling you, it'll work. She's preparing for her date with Clara, and –"

Amity's eyes widened in horror. She looked unsteady for a few seconds, and Luz grabbed her just in case she fell. "Clara. My Clara? Clara MacKinnon?" Edmond grimaced, but nodded. "But Clara is straight!"

"She says that she realized otherwise," Emma said carefully. "She definitely doesn't know she isn't dating you."

So Amity's crush Clara was Clara MacKinnon, from Luz's school. Now that was interesting. Luz didn't really know how she was supposed to feel about that. When Luz had realized she first liked girls, she'd…overcompensated a little. She'd decided, based on evidence that seemed ridiculously tenuous now, that her civil interactions with the head cheerleader were indicative that Clara had a crush on her too. So she'd asked her out, and when Clara had refused – and even in retrospect, she'd been really nasty about it too – Luz had gone overboard trying to impress her, leading to the infamous audition and eyelid incidents. Evidently, Amity had had more luck in winning her heart. Or at least Clara thought she did.

"She could be under mind control!" Amity fretted. Luz wasn't so sure about that. Clara had later come out as bi during the school year between Luz's first and second summer in the Boiling Isles. Naturally, because the universe was entirely unfair, she'd been hailed as a positive role model for the LGBT community instead of a freak Luzer. But, of course, Luz should have no way of knowing that, so she kept her mouth shut.

"All the more reason to kill Posterity!" Edmond said eagerly. Emma nodded slowly. With a spell circle, she summoned a small, black handled double edged dagger to her hand. Amity looked shocked that her sister was able to do magic too.

She walked over to the door, and then it opened before she could reach it and Posterity stood in the hallway. Emma pointed the knife at her throat. "In here now," she ordered her. "No sudden moves or I'll open up your throat."

Posterity slowly walked into Amity's bedroom with her hands raised. She didn't bother protesting that she wasn't the real Amity. She knew as well as Luz did that it would have been pointless. She looked resigned to her fate…right up until the moment she saw the portal in the room, and then her eyes widened and her body started shaking. "NO!" she shrieked. "I won't go back! I won't, I won't, I won't!"

Abruptly, Posterity started changing shape until she was in a basilisk form that Luz immediately recognized. Luz had been right. Posterity was Vee. But that knowledge wouldn't do Luz any good. She wasn't looking at Willow's datemate. She was looking at a traumatized creature who had stumbled into a life where xe was safe for the very first time and would do anything at all, even kill, to keep it.

Vee knocked the knife out of Emma's hand with xyr talon. Emma looked too stunned by the sudden transformation to prevent it. Xe turned towards Amity with a furious expression on xyr face. "How could you give this up? Mami is a perfect mother! You have a perfect life! And you just walked away from it, because you think you're, what, destined to save the universe or something?"

Amity held out her hands, palms open. "I didn't give anything up. I got stranded by accident. I can see you're scared. I'm not going to make you go anywhere you don't want to go. I don't want anyone to get hurt, including you."

"I DON'T BELIEVE YOU!" Vee shrieked. Xe pointed at the knife on the ground for emphasis. "I heard you! You're trying to kill me! They're mine, do you understand me?! MINE! Mami is mine! Clara is mine! You can take them from me over my dead body!"

Xe opened xyr mouth and a stream of darkness emerged from it. Luz could feel the effects distantly, possibly an effect of her semi-witch anatomy. The witches in the room were getting it full blast. Vee was sucking their magic from them, and it was slowly killing them. Their skin was getting paler and paler and they were in agonizing pain. And to make matters worse, the portal was slowly disintegrating too, as Vee ate its magic as well.

Mr. Harrington made a split second decision. It was the same one that Luz would have made, but she was too disoriented by the effects of Vee's attack to make it. He grabbed Emma and Edmond and shoved them through the portal, then did the same for Amity. Luz staggered through the portal, barely able to keep conscious, the magic sucking effect was so bad on her.

Seconds after they all returned, the portal blinked out of existence.

Emma and Edmond were now stranded in the Boiling Isles too.