Luz left the tent to go talk to Hunter, but she found that he had disappeared in the meantime. "Great. Now where did he go?"

"He probably wanted to take a walk to calm down" Gus tried to say. He hoped Hunter would keep his cool and not do something stupid like go kill Vee's aunt on his own like he wanted to do all along. "Rather, how do you intend to convince him?"

"I have no idea. I'll find a way" Luz replied bluntly.

"Seriously? You just want to go and talk to him without even a plan? But that's completely... no, now that I think about it, that's just like you" Gus sighed.

As they were talking they heard a flapping of wings and soon after the Bat Queen landed in front of them. "If you're looking for your blond friend, he's taken his staff to take a flight around the area" she warned her. "Flapjack went after him. You don't have to worry, he won't let him go away: that little guy is very stubborn"

"So it's natural that he chose him as his master" Luz commented. "Look, can you take me to him?"

"You should ask 'please', but yes, I can take you to him" the Bat Queen sighed. "Hold on to my hair, it won't take long"

Luz did as she was told and the Bat Queen took flight, and soon they were above the treetops. "So... you're a Palisman, then?" the puppet asked her to make some conversation.

"I was once. I was the Palisman of a giant. A Yggdrasil root had to be used to build me" the Bat Queen replied with a hint of sadness in her voice. "Today I am just a big bat who lives in this place and surrounds himself with all the Palisman abandoned by their masters. Over the decades I have also learned the human language"

A doubt made its way into Luz's heart. "You too were abandoned... or worse? At the camp you told me that you had been deceived by someone..."

The Bat Queen's face tightened into a grimace. "It happened a long time ago. Another giant convinced me that if I betrayed my master, he would keep me as his own and implant amulets in my body to make my magic even more powerful. But it wasn't like that. As soon as I wasn't useful to him anymore, he threw me away. And so I lost my master, my dignity and my purpose. I betrayed the trust of others and believed the words of the wicked". She let out an annoyed snort. "Consider yourself lucky. You may have thought that a money tree could grow, and you may have lost some money, but at least you haven't lost the people you care about and you haven't betrayed anyone's trust"

Luz felt a bitter taste in her mouth: it wasn't really like that. She had betrayed Eda's trust, who had made her promise never to stray from the chosen path. She wondered how the fairy had taken the fact that she had broken that simple promise; judging by the look on her face when she said goodbye, it seemed to be very important to her that she didn't. But even if hers had just been a whim, Luz would still have felt bad: Eda had trusted her and she had trampled on that trust in exchange for nothing. She would have a lot to apologize for when she got home. "I'm sorry" she said to the Bat Queen. "If you ask me, the one who deceived you is the real culprit. As a friend once told me, never blame yourself for being too good to see the rottenness in people. And anyway, you may have lost your master and your old purpose, but now you have a new one. All those Palismen would be lost and alone if you weren't there to look after them. There is something noble in what you do"

The Bat Queen seemed surprised by Luz's words. "So you can also be kind when you really want it. You should practice this quality of yours more often, bad girl" she said. "Thanks anyway. What you said is really nice"

Luz was a little irritated that someone had once again called her a bad girl, but before she could retort she glimpsed the silhouette of Hunter, sitting in his staff suspended ten meters above the ground, appearing to be arguing rather intensely with Flapjack. "There's no point in continuing to insist, I'm not your master! I don't want you and you're not my problem! Find someone else to torment!"

As soon as the Bat Queen was close enough Luz jumped onto Hunter's staff. "I'll leave you alone" the bat said, and then she flew away before the blond guy could call her back and order her to take the puppet away.

"What do you want?" Hunter grumbled, then a strange light passed into his eyes. "Are you alone...?"

"No, we're here too" Gus and Willow said coming out of Luz's sleeves.

Hunter raised his eyebrows, as if he was thinking very hard. Luz only realized at that moment that the two of them were suspended very high and that therefore this was an excellent opportunity for him to throw her down and get rid of her. She swallowed: the wood she was made of was hard, but she doubted it was hard enough to withstand a fall from that height. Hunter met the puppet's gaze for a moment, and Luz was sure she saw something sinister move in the boy's magenta irises... but then Flapjack started nibbling on the tuft in front of his forehead. "Agh! Again!? You stupid rascal, it's already the third time you've done it! I already told you it's not a worm and I'm sure you've understood that by now! Can you stop!?"

Luz burst out laughing at that scene. "Seriously, why are you acting like that? Flapjack just wants to have a master. What's wrong with having a Palisman?"

A shadow passed over Hunter's face. "I simply don't like Palismen. And even if I did, I couldn't have one. Where I live, such creatures come to a bad end. My uncle... he's not very hospitable to magical beings"

Luz found this strange, and decided to take the opportunity to try to start a conversation. "Do you live with your uncle?"

"Not really. I travel all the time, but my uncle's amusement park is where I always come back. That's where he waits for me after every mission, after all" Hunter replied. But even though he was talking about being reunited with his family, an event that normally brought joy, his face remained passive.

Luz twiddled her thumbs. "So... what kind of person is your uncle? I mean, if he has an amusement park I assume he's a jovial, funny and always smiling guy..."

"He is like that with his... clients, if you want to call them that. You know, nobody wants to go somewhere if a grumpy old man tells them to, even if that place is the funniest place in the world" Hunter said. "With me... he's more severe, but sometimes he smiles at me too. We don't really have a great relationship, let's say. We only talk to each other when he needs something. But it's the only family I have... and this one It's the only life I have and could ever have"

"Wow... these days I'm finding out that I'm very lucky to have my sweet mother, if this is the average of other families. I hope your uncle isn't a psychopath like Vee's aunt..." Luz commented.

"Luz! That's not a nice thing to say!" Willow scolded her. "Sorry, Hunter. She doesn't know when to shut her mouth"

"Yes, I noticed that" the blond grumbled, glaring at the puppet. "And anyway no, my uncle doesn't go around conquering cities, also because he couldn't even if he wanted to. He just makes a few trips every now and then to advertise his amusement park. And anyway our relationship isn't that terrible... every now and then he gives me gifts, even if he almost never expresses enthusiasm"

"Well, at least that's a good thing" Luz said. "This staff... did he give it to you?"

"Yes. Don't ask me how he got it, because I won't tell you" Hunter answered. "He gave it to me on my thirteenth birthday, so that I could travel the world more easily"

"I see..." Luz murmured, then even though she knew Willow would scold her, she decided to ask the question that had been bugging her for some time: "Look, that scar on your cheek... how did you get it?"

Hunter's body stiffened even more than the hard wood Luz was made of. "Mind your own business" he hissed, and as he said it he looked at her in such a terrifying way that the puppet felt the urge to move away, and only the fact that she was ten meters from the ground prevented her from doing so.

Silence reigned for a few moments, then Willow jumped onto the blond's shoulder. "Hunter... just in case you don't want to go back to your uncle and need a place to stay..."

"I told you to mind your own business!" Hunter repeated taking the cricket and placing her back in Luz's hands. "We're not friends, I'd like to stop saying that before the next decade. My family situation is none of your business. And I certainly don't… hey! Damn Palisman, I swear that I…!"

Luz grabbed Flapjack, who had gone back to nibbling Hunter's forelock, an instant before he managed to grab it. "You should treat him with more consideration" she said.

"And he should stop eating my hair!" Hunter snapped.

"I have a spider and a cricket constantly crawling all over my back tickling me, yet I don't complain. Sometimes you have to make compromises" Luz said. "And I'm pretty sure Flapjack keeps nibbling on your quiff because he knows he'll bother you and you'll give him some attention. If you treated him right he wouldn't do that anymore"

"Oh, so you are a Palisman expert now?" Hunter asked rolling his eyes skeptically.

Luz shrugged. "Well, technically, like them, I'm made of Palistrom wood"

Hunter seemed to regain his attention immediately. "Are you made of Palistrom wood?" he asked, with those sinister eyes again.

Luz swallowed. "Yes, but it doesn't matter right now. What I know is that if someone ignored me like you ignore Flapjack, I would start annoying them just to get some reaction out of them"

Hunter lost his menacing gaze and looked back at her smugly. "It's a childish thing"

"So that's exactly a Luz thing" Willow pointed out. "Come on, what does it cost you to be nice to him? What problem do you have with magical creatures?"

Hunter was silent for a moment. "I don't have a problem" he said, rubbing his elbows. "I just... I know what magic can do. I've seen it with my own eyes, and I've learned that the only good magical creature is a dead magical creature"

"Really? This little guy doesn't look bad to me at all" Luz said as Flapjack lay back in her hand and let her scratch his head. "Listen, Hunter… I don't know what happened to you and personally I'd rather not know. If you've had a bad experience with magic, I understand and you have every right to be afraid… but that's no excuse not to try something different. After I had a bad experience with some of my acquaintances, I was initially prejudiced against Vee, not because she was a basilisk, also because I didn't know it then, but because I feared that she wanted to use me like they had... but then I realized how wrong my thinking was. Vee is good and I don't mind having her as a sister at all. I had the courage to... look beyond my previous experiences and try to trust of the others again". She handed Flapjack to Hunter. "And you? Don't you want to at least try to trust a magical creature again?"

Hunter was doubtful, but very reluctantly, he still reached out and let Flapjack jump on top of him. The little bird sat on his palm and looked at him intently. Hunter had to admit that now that he was holding it in his hand he could feel that Flapjack was very soft and warm despite being made of wood, and that it wasn't much different than holding a real red cardinal. "Try scratching his head" Willow suggested, jumping up next to his ear. Hunter listened to her and did so, and Flapjack chirped with extreme satisfaction and pleasure. The little bird looked as happy as he had ever been in his life.

Luz clearly noticed a smile forming on Hunter's face. For the first time since she had met him, he seemed relaxed, as if until then he had been perpetually with a weapon pointed at his head. "See? It wasn't that difficult" she told him.

Hunter seemed to realize only then that he was smiling and quickly wiped the smile off his face. "Even if it were, it doesn't matter. My uncle won't approve of me having a Palisman..."

"Well, he doesn't have to know, does he?" Luz told him. Even though she had seen evidence several times that saying that phrase only brought trouble, she still never stopped falling into the same mistake.

Hunter looked deeply conflicted. He remained silent for about a minute, looking at Flapjack and seeing himself in his eyes, then he murmured: "Look... Is Vee still intent on sparing her aunt?"

"Yes. And we have a plan that will allow us to win without anyone getting hurt" Luz replied. "But obviously we need you. Please, Hunter… do you really need Vee's aunt's head as a trophy?"

Hunter let out a deep sigh. "Okay" he finally said to the surprise of Luz, Gus, and Willow. "All I need is proof that I have defeated her. A scale, a fin, a tooth, a claw, whatever you want. Give it to me and I will be satisfied. When someone will ask, I'll tell them that I've disintegrated that basilisk and that is all what remain of her"

Luz's face lit up. "Yay! Since you can be a pleasant person too?"

Hunter rolled his eyes as Luz raised her arms in the air triumphantly. It seemed absurd to him that a wooden puppet could contain so much joy. It was as if Luz was a little sun that gave off warmth and light whenever she was happy. In short, the complete opposite of Hunter, who could count on the fingers of one hand the times he had smiled during his life and whose only goal was to kill or capture all those his uncle sent him to deal with.

"I can take her to him now" he thought looking at Luz. "She may be exactly what my uncle is looking for, what he has been looking for continuously for four hundred years. It's made of Palistrom wood... she is really promising. She's here alone with me now. Her only allies are a spider and a cricket. She can't run away from me in any way. I can kidnap her now and fly away faster than any bird. Nobody will be able to help her. Within half a day we will reach my uncle, and he will finally have what he seeks... it could be my only chance to... to avoid THAT... and live a little longer than all my predecessors...'

He instinctively moved his fingers as if he were gripping something tightly. He could have taken Luz right then. He could knock Willow and Gus away with a single swing of his hands, or crush them. He could kick Flapjack away. He could hold Luz's arm in his hand and prevent her from any attempt to escape. She could never resist him. She was weak. He was strong. He could do whatever he wanted with her.

But he didn't.

"So, now we're all on the same page!" Luz exclaimed, who hadn't even noticed the emotional storm that had just occurred inside Hunter. "So, do you agree? Truce?" she said, extending a hand towards him.

Hunter nodded slightly. "Fine. Truce" he replied, and started to shake his hand.

Too bad that a second before their palms met Luz suddenly moved her hand away and placed it behind her head. "Too slow!" she said in a deliberately irritating voice.

Hunter's eyelid twitched again. "You... are the most childish, spiteful and annoying being I have ever..."

"Forget it, it's a losing battle" Willow stopped him. "Let's go back to the others instead of fighting, so we can get to work"

Hunter summoned all his willpower to ignore Luz's laughter and flicked his staff, flying back in the direction of the resistance camp.

As Amity once said, Luz always finds a way to sneak in people's heart. In any case she should be glad that Hunter has a big heart after all. Otherwise it could end badly for her.