Luz told her two friends what had happened, and the more she went on, the more her voice became like a whisper. Gus and Willow didn't say a word the entire time, while Vee stood back trying to appear detached, even as she continued to cast furtive and displeased glances at the puppet. When she finished Luz remained silent and looked towards the floor, as if waiting for the judgment of her friends. Gus and Willow didn't know what to say; if they listened to the urge they would rush out and punch Terra, Adrian, Warden Wrath, the guards, and whoever else had helped hurt Luz like that. They could clearly hear from her voice and the way she described the facts how heartbroken she was to have been deceived and betrayed like this. It almost looked like he wanted to cry but didn't have the strength to do even that. "Luz, I... I'm so sorry" Willow finally said. "You didn't deserve it. It was really unfair"

Luz let out a sad laugh. "Seriously? You don't tell me that I was foolish, naive and gullible, and that I deserve all this for breaking the promise I made to Eda and listening to bad company?"

"Hey, hey, don't be so hard on yourself!" Gus told her. "Of course, breaking a promise is not a good thing, and in that case you have no excuse... but otherwise it wasn't your fault"

"Yeah. Never blame yourself for being too good to see the rottenness in people" Willow added. "Those two were quite convincing and even we were not sure whether they were lying or not. When a person is deceived it is never his fault, it is always the fault of those who deceive him. We have nothing to blame you this time... except of course breaking a promise and hanging out with strangers, but we'll talk about that later. What happened isn't your fault, it's Terra and Adrian's fault, and we'll find a way to make them pay!"

"You should listen to your friends" Vee said interjecting into the conversation. As much as she tried to pretend that she wasn't listening she couldn't hold back any longer. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself and accept that sometimes bad things happen. It's part of life"

Luz cracked a smile. "Thanks guys. And... thanks to you too Vee". Her cellmate turned away, as if to say 'whatever', but a small sign of satisfaction passed over her face anyway.

"Okay, one thing at a time! Now let's get you out of here!" Gus said. "We're definitely not leaving you in here for the next five years!"

"Wow, and I guess a spider and a cricket will be able to pull off a master escape" Vee commented from the sidelines.

"We don't, but Eda can. That fairy will definitely have no problem getting you out of here. We'll go to her and explain everything. Hey, you! Can you give us a ride to the Owl House?" Willow said looking at the Palisman, who nodded with a chirp. "Ugh, I can't believe I'm actually asking a bird for help... and by the way, Luz, know that I don't forgive you for sending that little demon to get us! I almost had a heart attack when it grabbed me with its beak!"

"Sorry. I only thought about it after it had already left... and I was a little out of options anyway" Luz replied blushing a little.

But suddenly a muffled sound was heard in the cell. Luz turned and realized that Vee had just nearly choked on her own saliva. "Um... sorry to ask, but... what does 'fairy' mean? Is this Eda you're talking about a fairy?"

Luz thought there was definitely something strange about the way Vee was talking; it looked like she was scared. "Um... yes, Eda is a fairy. She's supposed to be my fairy godmother... or a mentor... or something else... but she's also the one who technically gave me life, so she should also be a sort of second mother... I actually haven't understood it yet either" she admitted. "And she's a really skilled fairy, so when she knows what happened she'll fly here, break through the wall and..."

"NO!" Vee screamed so loudly that Luz almost jumped in surprise. "You can't bring a fairy into this town! She'll be killed!"

Silence fell in the cell. Vee was breathing deeply as if she'd just gone for a run, then suddenly she seemed to realize she'd said something she shouldn't have said and put her hand over her mouth. Her skin trembled slightly and strange white spots formed on it. "What does it mean? Who should kill Eda?" Luz asked.

"I… ergh… um… I don't want to talk about it, okay? Just… don't bring a fairy here!" Vee exclaimed as she backed away.

But Luz didn't take pity on her. "No way! Tell me what you're talking about!"

"I…" Vee was clearly nervous, and seemed to be desperately trying to come up with a plausible excuse. The spots on her body grew larger. "What are those white spots?" Luz urged her.

Vee looked down at her hand and she too saw the blemishes on her skin; at that moment she seemed to go into total panic. "Nothing! I don't have any white spots!" she exclaimed, covering her hands, but this was useless because they were appearing on her face too.

"You're lying! You're almost covered in it!" Luz screamed. "Enough, I'm tired of being made fun of! Tell me what's happening NOW!"

But she immediately regretted having screamed: Vee began to tremble more and more violently, as if she were having an epileptic fit. "I... I can't" she whispered. "If I told you... you would try to kill me or you would run away... you would be afraid of me... and if anyone else hears me..."

Luz felt bad seeing Vee like this; sure, those could always be crocodile tears, but she was pretty sure that wasn't the case. "There's no one here except me, you and my friends, and the corridor is empty too; no one can hear you. And I'm not an assassin, I've never killed a single fly. And I don't know if you've noticed , but I really don't have the chance to escape from here" she told her. "Vee, tell me the truth. You have my word that whatever it is, I will not be afraid of you"

"You didn't keep the promise you made to your fairy" Vee reminded her in a voice that was now more reminiscent of an ant than a girl. "How much value does your word have?"

Luz knew Vee was right: she wasn't exactly good at keeping promises. "My word has been worthless many times, but it will have value now. Vee, please..."

Vee seemed to be scared, worried, indecisive, furious with herself and many other emotions combined: through her eyes Luz could see that a real battle was taking place inside her. Then Vee took a deep breath and closed her eyes; suddenly, her entire body trembled as if it were made of water, and under the amazed gaze of Luz, Gus and Willow, her legs disappeared replaced by a snake-like tail ending in a fin and her skin turned green and white. When the transformation ended in front of them there was no longer a girl, but a creature with a small and plump serpentine body with two slender arms and a round face with wide eyes and an upturned nose, a large mouth with the shape of a 'W' and two small teeth protruding from the lower jaw and a dark brown lower lip; she had pale swamp-green scales with cream-colored spots on her head, tail, belly, and the lower half of her face. Her green hair had transformed into strange dark blue fins on her head, back and ears, while more dirty white fins were present on the sides of her body and on her tail, along with a dull peacock blue piercing at the tip of it.

Luz was silent for a few seconds, then her eyes seemed to become bright: "Cool! How did you do it? Can you teach me?"

Vee, who until then had kept her head down and her eyes closed, suddenly raised her face and finally opened her eyelids. The black and gold eyes were the only thing that hadn't changed. "Are you kidding me? Aren't you afraid of me?"

"I am not kidding you!" Luz replied. "And why should I be afraid of you?"

Vee looked at her with wide eyes, as if trying to figure out what game Luz was playing, but when she realized she was serious she seemed to get furious. "Don't you see what I am!? I'm a basilisk, you idiot!" she exclaimed. "I could kill you in an instant!"

But despite having a serpent-like monster screaming at her in front of her, Luz didn't bat an eyelid. "Well... but you haven't done it yet, have you? So why would you do it now?" she said. "And by the way... forgive my ignorance, but what is a basilisk?"

Vee looked more and more shocked with each passing second. "Okay, that's enough, you're pretending. I can accept that you believe that a money tree can grow, but no one in this world could not know what a balisk is!"

"I actually don't know either" Willow said.

"Yeah, me neither. We've spent years listening to humans talk in a shop, but we've never heard of basilisks" Gus added.

"And I was technically born a few days ago and I still haven't been to school once" Luz said. "So... no, none of us here have any idea what a basilisk is. Can you explain us?"

Vee was completely taken aback. She had expected looks of fear, hatred and terror, but instead what was in front of her was just a puppet, a cricket and a spider who had no idea why she was so afraid of revealing herself. For a moment she considered the possibility of using it to her advantage and telling something false, but then she met Luz's gaze again and when she looked into those eyes so calm and sincere that they almost seemed to invite her to tell her story, she didn't have the courage nor the strength to lie. "Okay" she finally said. "Basilisks like me are a... very dangerous species. We can absorb life force. Yes, I mean, we can take the life out of a person and turn it into energy, the same way other creatures eat fruit or meat and they transform them into energy. And in particular we can absorb fairy magic or any other good magic very well. In the past my species, proud of this extraordinary power, was convinced that our role was to dominate over all other creatures We were supposed to be the supreme predators, better than wolves, better than lions, better than humans and any other sentient creature; creatures at the absolute top of the food chain. And so we attempted to take command of the entire world. My species killed, consumed and conquered everything in its path, drying up the land it passed through and destroying ecosystem after ecosystem and city after city. No defense served, no alliance could stop them, no sacrifice changed destiny. Within a short time, all the landmass was on its knees before us; the fairies and other magical creatures who had tried to side with the humans were powerless against our power, and those who could oppose us were often not interested in battle. But in the end, too much power made my species proud... and that was the fatal mistake. The earth was no longer enough for us... we wanted the whole world, we wanted the skies and even the ocean. So the basilisks descended into the sea and subdued entire populations of mermaids and tritons... but then, they went to prick the creature that the whole world fears. They dared to challenge the terrible oceanic monster, the Cruel Emperor of the Sea himself... Belos"

Luz raised an eyebrow. She had already heard the name during the Adeghast puppet show, and even then she understood that it must be something truly terrifying. Unfortunately, however, she hadn't been able to see the show until the end, so she didn't know exactly who or what Belos was. But before she could ask for explanations Vee continued with her story: "The first encounter happened by pure chance, while that giant monster was sleeping in the sea and my kind had mistaken him for an island. Needless to say, the explorers who went to never returned. My species couldn't tolerate the existence of a competitor in the world, someone powerful enough to stand up to them, and so they decided that they had to kill Belos. Eliminating the Cruel Emperor of the Sea would cement their position as rulers of the world, and no one would ever rebel against them again. But they had overestimated their abilities. They gathered all the armies, all the elite soldiers, all the heroes... and when they finally reached the sea and challenged Belos, that preparation was all useless. The entire basilisk species was crushed by the power of the Cruel Emperor of the Sea. Belos killed, consumed, and conquered far more efficiently than any basilisk, and nothing survived on his path. Not even when the basilisks gave up and begged for mercy he stopped and devoured them all. His ruthlessness and cruelty were not something my species could compete against. In less than half an hour, those who had been the rulers of all the emerged lands were dragged to the brink of extinction. Only a lucky few managed to reach the shallow waters, where Belos couldn't go without breaking his back, and survived. But when they returned to land... well, it's not hard to imagine what happened. With the basilisk army destroyed, all the people who had previously submitted to them rebelled and rose up, and killed all the basilisks they found, pushing my species even further towards extinction... until finally only a few basilisks scattered around the world, who hid themselves using their powers to disguise themselves as humans or other creatures. My grandparents were some of those, and my family has been in hiding ever since. And even now... even though more than fifty years have passed since then, people have not forgiven the basilisks. If we didn't disguise ourselves, we would be burned alive or lynched to death"

"Wow... this is... intense" Luz murmured. "But... all this happened fifty years ago! You weren't even born, I have no reason to be afraid of you!"

Vee looked at her with sparkling eyes. It was the first time in her life that a person had said something like that to her… not that she had interacted with many people before then. "Thank you" she whispered. "Really... even though you now know the whole story... you don't care? Don't you feel... at least a little disgusted by me?"

Luz shook her head vehemently. "Absolutely not! I actually find you quite cute"

Vee blushed, which for a basilisk meant turning greener than usual to the point of resembling an immature pepper. "You... you're not lying, are you?"

"No I'm not lying! You can see for yourself, if I did my nose would get longer!" Luz replied.

Vee raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. Trust me, we've seen it with our own eyes" Willow said. "And anyway, you have no reason to fear that she'll judge you for who you are, Vee. Luz may be a bad girl, but she's too good to do that. She judges people for their actions, not for what they are. She got this trait from her mother, she's like that too"

Vee was quite confused, but she didn't ask any questions. It was amazing that she would think that given that she was a basilisk, but Luz was definitely the strangest person she had ever met. And for reasons that even she couldn't explain, she didn't dislike it at all.

"Anyway, is that why you don't want Eda to come here? Because basilisks absorb fairy magic?" Luz asked her.

Vee nodded. "Exactly. You see, there are four types of magic in the world: light magic, dark magic, life magic, and death magic. Each of these magics can compete equally with another, has total power over a third, and is very weak against the fourth. To put it simply, light magic overpowers dark magic, dark magic overpowers life magic, life magic overpowers death magic, and death magic overpowers light magic" she explained. "Fairy magic is light magic, while basilisk magic is death magic, since, well, it's based on stripping life away. Which means if a fairy and a basilisk were to fight..."

"...the fairy would lose for sure" Luz concluded.

"Well, not exactly for sure: it would depend on the fairy's skills, but certainly the basilisk would have an absolute advantage and would most likely end up winning. To fight on equal terms against a being with death magic, one with light magic must have to be at least one hundred times more powerful" Vee corrected her. "To win against a basilisk, you would need a being with life magic. Your friend Palisman there is an example, but Palisman can't use magic without a master and they are too weak anyway. We would need a djinn or a Titan. If we had a being with dark magic like an evil spirit or a dragon, or even one with death magic like a ghoul or another basilisk, then the fight would be evenly matched... but I doubt you have any at your disposal"

"Yeah. Damn, if Eberwolf had stayed with Eda, we could have used him..." Luz thought, remembering the little ghoul, then she realized something. "Wait... why are you talking as if a fight is safe? You're a basilisk, but you don't have to fight a fairy. Just let me do the talking when Eda arrives"

"I'm not the problem" Vee responded, rubbing the back of her neck in embarrassment and shame. "It's... my aunt. It's the Inspector"

Luz was speechless for a moment. "The mistress of this town of criminals is a basilisk!?"

"Yeah... I didn't really tell you the whole story before" Vee admitted. "One year ago the Inspector changed completely as if she were another person... because she really is another person! The real Inspector is locked up in the dungeon of the palace. The one who looks like her right now is my aunt, the last relative I have left after my parents... well... you can imagine. She and I came to this town a year ago, and she took the opportunity to replace the Inspector and become the owner of the city. When I saw how much poverty she was reducing people to, I tried to reason with her, but she had always been a greedy person and didn't care about common people. I tried to stop her... but she's older than me and she's a greater basilisk, an advanced version of my kind, and she almost killed me and then threw me in a cell and threatened to reveal my secret to everyone if I tried to escape"

Luz felt anger rising in her heart. How could Vee's aunt have behaved so cruelly? She thought Terra and Adrian's betrayal was horrible, but compared to what Vee had suffered, it was nothing. "How could that woman be so bad?"

"My aunt never really loved me. She kept me with her because it was easier for two to survive, but she always considered me just a nuisance. She didn't kill me just because she considers a heresy to shed the blood of another basilisk since there are so few of us left, but she won't lift a finger if the others do" Vee replied, pretending to be calm, but still her fists visibly tightened. "That's why I've never tried to get out of here. I have nowhere to go out there and... hey!"

Her words were cut off as she felt something warm envelop her; it took her a few seconds to realize that that warm thing was Luz who was holding her in a strong hug. The puppet was made of hard wood, yet her body was as warm as that of a normal person. Vee felt her heart warm: it was the first time in many years that someone had hugged her, and certainly not in that warm way. The last one to do that was her mother before she... "Luz, what are you..."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything you had to go through" Luz told her. "If you don't have a family, why don't you come with me?"

Vee's eyes widened. "With you?"

"Yes! With me and my mom! You'll see, she'll immediately accept you into the family! She's the kind of woman who doesn't leave people in difficulty behind! She'll treat you as if you were her second daughter!" Luz replied. "And… personally I don't mind having a sister at all"

Vee's eyes began to water. "Why are you doing this? You don't owe me anything" she said, her voice shaking. "You don't even know me. I could be a horrible person for all you know. I could be trying to deceive you right now, just like those two scoundrels did!"

"Yes, it's true. You could be a cheater like them and I might regret this choice one day. But I still want to take the risk" Luz replied without any insecurity in her voice. "Besides… someone once told me that evil people don't cry, so… I don't think you're one of them at all"

Vee's eyes filled even more with tears, and after a moment's hesitation she hugged her back. "You know... you really are the most naive, silly, and weirdest person I've ever met" she said with a chuckle.

Luz smiled, then she remembered the words Eda had said to her: "Maybe. But if I can make you laugh, I don't mind being weird at all"

Vee laughed even more, then she wiped her tears and pulled away from her embrace. "Okay, you win. But I warn you, getting out of here won't be easy at all. And please, don't involve your fairy: my aunt has eyes everywhere, she would know of her arrival as soon as she entered the city and would run to face her. I don't want an innocent person to get hurt because of me"

"Don't worry, I don't want to put Eda in danger either. We'll find a way on our own" Luz replied.

"Yeah. We'll do it" Willow added. "I don't believe what I'm about to say but... we have always managed in every situation. We'll find a way to get you out even without Eda"

"Yeah! In fact, let's go find a way right away! Hey, you!" Gus exclaimed calling out to the Palisman. "Could you show us around the town? Maybe we'll get some good ideas!"

The red cardinal chirped in approval, so the two arthropods quickly climbed onto its back and then flew away from the cell.

For those who haven't understood, the Inspector is the greater basilisk who appears in the first season of the series; we don't know if in canon she is related to Vee, but given that the basilisk species was practically extinct apart from those brought back to life by the Emperor Coven, it is likely that there is some connection between them (if she isn't her aunt she should at least be a distant cousin or relative). Unfortunately we don't have the name of this character (thanks so much Dana!) so I will only refer to her by her title (Inspector, which is how they call her in the series since she pretends to be the inspector of the Emperor Coven) or by that of its species (greater basilisk). As for the division of magic into four categories and which category is more powerful than the others, that is a total invention of mine to justify the fact that during the story sometimes Eda is either unable to help or Luz herself decides not to ask her help to avoid putting her in danger; I'll delve deeper into how magic works in this world in future chapters. As for Vee's backstory, I will delve into it in the next chapters.