Chapter Text
Amity had nodded along with Luz's brash proclamation about needing to focus on the task at hand (namely, "kicking ass" as she put it). Even the thought of the potential dangers looming ahead still wasn't enough to keep the witch's mind from racing about other matters completely unrelated to ass-kicking, however.
Luz knows!
How does she know? How long has she known? I thought it was supposed to be impossible... they told me that she would never be able to recover the memories she lost.
No, not lost. Lost implied it had been an accident, like a person misplacing their scroll or forgetting which pocket-dimension their staff was stored in. What had been done to Luz was intentional, and deliberately cruel as well.
And yet the look that Luz had given her moments ago when she had asked Amity if they had known each other before had been layered with a sense of familiarity. Maybe she had just been imagining it, but there was something almost like the spark that used to appear in the human's eyes whenever they were able to meet again during one of Amity's visits to Cypress as a teenager.
Amity's heart was caught in a whirlwind that flung her back and forth between joy and dread with each breath.
The thought that Luz might somehow remember her... it was more than she had ever hoped was possible.
Then again, she might also despise me now - depending on how much she remembers , Amity thought with a sharp twinge of pain.
She stole a quick glance at Luz. Her gaze travelled over the determined line of her mouth, the way her charmingly messy mop of hair framed her face, and her eyes the color of polished wood. Those eyes caught Amity's when Luz returned the glance, and Amity was pathetically relieved that there didn't seem to be a hint of anger in them.
She might not remember enough to be angry with me yet, though , Amity thought.
But I promised that I was going to tell her everything after we finished here.
And I will.
Amity almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of it all. Here she was, marching through the now-ruined remains of one of the most heavily guarded areas in all of New Bonesborough and on her way to confront two of the most formidable demons that she had ever met, but somehow the thing that worried her the most right now was unrelated to any of that.
Get your priorities straight, Amity , she chided herself.
It's going to be really hard to tell Luz anything later if I'm so distracted by this stuff that I can't keep Wrath from slicing me into bite-sized pieces.
Counselor Clawthorne (it still felt weird to think of her as just 'Lilith', no matter what the Counselor insisted) and her sister were striding side by side through the still-smoking remains of the door that Luz had obliterated with an easy confidence that Amity was most certainly not feeling herself. One would almost think the two older witches did this sort of thing every day from the way that they were amiably bickering with each other the whole time.
Meanwhile, Amity's eyes were darting around the chamber they had entered like a pair of hyperactive pixies just released from their cage. She didn't know where the next attack would be coming from, but her mind was buzzing with defense spells that were practically begging to leap out from her fingertips at the first sign of trouble. She noticed that Luz seemed to be as jumpy as she was, clutching her strange fire-bat in a white knuckle grip and moving with quick, jerky steps.
The inner chamber of the command tower was in shambles. Chunks of broken door from the blast had knocked over or destroyed many of the furnishings and decorations, and patches of the carpet were blackened and smoldering with faintly green-tinged flames. In the midst of all the destruction, Commander Kikimora was seated at her elevated desk while Inquisitor Wrath loomed up from behind her chair with his splay-fanged mouth twisted into a deep frown.
The thick, finger-like appendages that lay draped across the commander's head like hair were twitching slightly with a nervous tic, but her face was composed and her crimson and lemon-yellow eyes were staring at the four intruders as though they had just interrupted her in the middle of an important scroll-call.
"Lilith, what an unexpected surprise," the demon said in a dry voice. "What brings you up to my office at this late hour?"
Counselor Clawthorne stepped out to the front, placing herself squarely between her rescuers and her former captors. Amity could feel the tension radiating off of the black-haired witch, though her voice was steady and commanding when she spoke.
"It's time to put an end to this, Kiki," she said. "Order the Guardians stationed in town to stand down and release the other members of the Council at once."
A low growl rumbled out from Inquisitor Wrath's throat, but Kikimora held up a claw in warning and the sound subsided. The tension relaxed in the huge demon's shoulders, but he continued to glare at them with undisguised fury in his small eyes.
"And why would I do that, Lilith?" the small demon asked in a perfectly calm voice.
"Because we'll blast you to pieces if you don't," Eda said in a flat tone.
"Oh, will you, Owl Lady?" Kikimora said as she turned her eyes to Eda. "And what do you suppose will happen after you do that? Do you think the grateful citizens will get together to throw you a parade for 'rescuing' them from our protection?"
"Frankly, I don't care what the chumps living here want to do-" Eda began hotly.
" Edalyn ," Lilith interrupted in a warning tone.
Eda rolled her eyes and continued in a calmer voice.
" I just wanted to be left alone. You were the idiots that started this, not me," she finished.
"Well, you were too convenient of a scapegoat not to make use of," Kikimora said in an off-hand way. "I'm sure you already know that your reputation in the community has never really recovered since your curse took hold."
"Yeah, the overwhelming amount of empathy around here is one of the things I found myself missing the most about home," Eda muttered.
"I must admit, though, I hadn't expected to learn that you'd fallen quite so far," Kikimora continued. "When the Inquisitor told me that a human had used magic against him earlier today, I knew that you must have been the one behind it somehow. You really have turned your back on us all if you're willing to teach one of those things our secrets."
"Why don’t you go find a ladder somewhere so that you can try saying that to my face?" Luz snapped in an annoyed tone of voice.
Kikimora directed a half-lidded stare at the human and made a dismissive gesture.
"Quiet round-ears, people are talking," she said.
Amity felt a blaze of anger surge in her chest, and she was moments away from ordering her remaining abomination, Otabin, to charge over and flatten her former commander when Lilith spoke up first.
"Enough!" Lilith growled, her ice-blue eyes blazing. "I'm going to ask just once more - will you surrender quietly, or are we going to have to drag both of you kicking and screaming in front of the Council to face judgement? The results will be the same either way but I promise that surrender would be far more comfortable for you."
Luz leaned in closer to Amity.
"Are you sure we should be letting her do the talking for us? We kind of sound like the bad guys when she says stuff like that," she said in a far-too-loud whisper.
Amity raised a finger to her lips and made a sharp shushing noise, although privately she was inclined to agree. The Counselor's speaking style had always seemed just a little sinister, even when she was doing something as simple as wishing someone good morning or ordering a cup of tea.
Kikimora's face scrunched up in an exaggerated parody of thought before she finally shook her head.
"No, I don't think we will be surrendering," she said. "I knew you wouldn't be able to resist the urge to grandstand at me for a while, Lilith, instead of just attacking right away like you should have. The delay was very helpful, but I'm afraid that I'm already tired of listening to the sound of your voice."
The small demon lifted up a large silver medallion out from beneath her cloak, and the symbol stamped on its surface was burning with an intense orange glow.
Amity felt the icy claws of dread sink into her chest at the sight of the binding sigil.
"And my backup has just arrived," Kikimora added in an infuriatingly smug tone of voice.
The large stained glass window behind Wrath exploded inward, scattering colorful shards that had once depicted the founding of New Bonesborough across the room in a blast of bellowing cries and a gust of sharp, acidic stench.
An enormous demon was shrieking and squirming as it tried to cram its vast gelatinous bulk through the too-small window frame. The demon's numerous neon-blue eyes were burning with otherworldly madness, and a sigil matching the one on the medallion burned painfully bright at the center of its misshapen head like a brand.
The sudden arrival of the enslaved demon was all the signal that Inquisitor Wrath needed to act, and the towering purple demon vaulted the desk to leap at the Counselor, his arms blurring in midair as they shifted form. The witch could only dodge backward, so focused on not getting sliced to pieces by the demon's blade-shaped hands that she couldn't draw a proper spell circle to fight him off.
A burst of flame struck the Inquisitor on the arm before he could bring it down on the Counselor when she stumbled, and Eda stepped in to assist her beleaguered sister with a wave of attack spells that pushed Wrath back on the defensive.
Amity felt a tug at her wrist and spun, her lips pulled back in an instinctive snarl but found that it was only Luz.
"Eda and her sister are busy fighting Wrath, so it's up to us to get that sigil away from the little racist jerk right now ," she said in an urgent tone. "I don't think my baseball bat is going to do much against something that huge if it manages to squeeze in here."
Amity's eyes darted to the side and she saw that the enslaved demon had extruded several long, spidery limbs out from its lumpy body and was attempting to use them to lever itself free from the window frame. Crude mouths full of dagger-like teeth were randomly opening and closing all across its broad head, gnashing the air with fury as it struggled to obey the will of its summoner.
Even trapped as it was, though, Amity could see that Kikimora was easily within the reach of its grasping claws and that approaching her wouldn't be easy.
"That might be a little tricky to do as long as she has that demon protecting her," Amity said.
"Yeah, but it isn't going to get any easier if it manages to break through the wall and then eat all of us," Luz pointed out. "Now is the best chance we've got - maybe if we have control of that sigil we could try to keep it from killing everyone?"
Amity was about to argue that she didn't have any clue how sigil binding was supposed to work in the first place, since she didn't even know the forbidden magic had existed until today, but realized that she didn't have a better idea to suggest.
"Okay then, how do you want to do this?" she asked instead.
Luz bit her lip and turned back to where Kikimora was clutching the medallion in one of her small claws and shouting orders at the demon as it hammered its limbs against the stone walls in an attempt to widen the gap. Whenever the commander raised her voice the sigil burning on the demon's head flared brighter, and its shrieks and struggles intensified.
"I think I have an idea for how to hold back the demon - do you think you'd be able to get the sigil away from your boss while I'm keeping it busy?" she asked.
The thought of Luz trying to stop the massive, maddened demon on her own sent a shiver of panic down Amity's spine, but she fought it down.
Luz isn't some weakling that needs to be coddled , she reminded herself.
Her magic is a lot stronger than I thought… and so is she. I need to trust her.
“Okay, we’ll try your plan.” she said. “But I’m sending Otabin with you to assist. It can obey simple commands, but try to keep them as direct as you can - abominations aren't good with subtlety.”
Amity drew a swift spell circle in the air to impart the new commands into Otabin, forcing it to prioritize protecting and obeying Luz over Amity. The abomination lurched forward to stand beside Luz, gave her a very sloppy wave with one of its shovel-sized hands and then spread its gaping hole of a mouth into a broad smile.
"Help... pretty... girl," Otabin gasped out in its distinctive croaking voice.
Luz gave the abomination a quick once over with a puzzled expression on her face and then raised her hand to bemusedly return the wave.
“Are you making it do that?” Luz asked.
Amity declined to launch into a full-blown lecture about the quasi-sentient nature of abominations, particularly their constant psychic links to their creators which sometimes caused them to manifest expressions of her subconscious thoughts or emotional state, and just gave a small shrug instead.
“Sometimes they do stuff like that at random, just ignore it,” she said briskly.
“Huh. Cool,” Luz said. “Well, Otabin - let's go take down a demon!”
Amity watched as Luz reached into her pockets to draw out a handful of colored glyph pages, and then set off toward the demon with a determined step. Otabin followed at her side, nodding as she whispered instructions toward one of the holes placed roughly where ears would be on its glob-shaped head. Amity was briefly tempted to leap into the golem's mind to be able to hear what she was saying, but didn't follow through with the impulse since leaving her body undefended in this room would have been unthinkably reckless.
Amity turned her attention back to Kikimora, and her mind raced as she tried to think of a way to get the amulet away from her tiny claws. Fortunately the small red demon seemed too focused on attempting to control her summoned servant with her amulet to notice the approach of Luz and Otabin, but Amity knew that that wouldn’t last for much longer and she would need to act soon. While the commander was not physically imposing, her skill with magic had been whispered about with awe by Amity's fellow Guardians who had seen her in action. Before today the idea of trying to fight Kikimora would have been unthinkable.
But, it's been an unthinkable kind of day in a lot of ways , Amity thought as she breathed in deep and began to mentally center herself.
Might as well try the direct approach first .
She could feel the pulse of heat build in her veins as raw magic flowed down her arm and she began to trace out the fiery fuchsia outline of a spell-circle in the air, centered on Kikimora.
A bubble of indigo-tinted force flashed into existence just in time to deflect Amity's firebolt, and the commander turned away from exhorting the demon to shoot an irritated scowl in her direction. Kikimora traced a quick circle in the air with contemptuous ease, and the shield bubble surrounding her body unraveled into a spiral-shaped ribbon of pure energy which flashed out toward Amity with the sinuous grace of a predatory eel.
Amity's heart caught in her throat as the spell raced toward her, and she was barely able to dodge in time as it passed by in a rush of searing air that crackled with power. Somehow during the leap to save her life she lost one of her horrible red human shoes, and cut her now-bare foot on the shards of stained glass strewn about the carpet. When she turned back and saw how the serpentine ribbon of magic had bored a smoking hole straight through the stone wall behind her, though, she considered it a good trade.
My firebolt didn't even put a dent in her shield , Amity thought with a sinking feeling in her gut.
How am I supposed to stop her if I can't even touch her?
From the corner of her eye she could see that Lilith and Eda still had their hands full with Wrath, who was bellowing like a berserker, his body warped and twisted by his shapeshifting abilities into a form that was almost unrecognizable as he sought to slice, crush or impale them with his rapidly mutating limbs.
Meanwhile, Otabin was serving as an inhuman shield for Luz, catching hold of the trapped demon’s scything claws in its enormous hands and holding them firmly in place. Amity watched with surprise as Luz slapped a blue glyph paper onto the abomination’s back, and a thick column of ice rapidly grew up around the golem, as well as the portions of the demon it had been holding onto. Before the first column of ice had finished expanding, the human had applied another glyph to the ice she had already summoned and the ice shifted color from clear blue to the opaque, marble-white of an ancient glacier as it spread out further across the window to freeze the demon in place.
Amity felt a rush of hope in her chest as Luz's tactic began to slowly but surely immobilize the demon.
But for her plan to work, Amity knew that she needed to make sure that Kikimora kept her eyes away from Luz until she could finish.
The beat of the witch's heart had shifted into an uneven, shuddering rhythm. The battle to take the Hall had pushed Amity past every limit she thought she possessed and then had demanded even more from her. She had never used so much magic in one day. Had never felt more exhausted than she did right now.
But she couldn't allow herself to stop until the job was done.
Even if I was at my strongest right now I don't think I could break Kikimora's shield , Amity thought as an idea occurred to her.
But maybe I don't have to.
Amity splayed out the fingers of both her hands wide and grit her fangs. The veins in her arms burned like molten lead as she channeled the flow of magic swirling in her blood into each separate finger at once. The witch's mind felt like it was going to fracture into tiny pieces from the strain of her concentration as she rotated her wrists to simultaneously trace ten small spell circles in the air.
Ten firebolts, each no larger than an acorn, flashed into existence at her fingertips and streaked through the air with the erratic, jerky flight of a swarm of hornets. Kikimora swore and raised another shield bubble as they drew closer. Kikimora's eyes stared daggers at Amity as the fiery projectiles swooped and dove around the commander, but not a single one moved in close enough to touch the surface of her shield. The commander's eyes darted around trying to track the progress of Amity's swarming missiles as they wove in and out around her bubble.
Gotcha!
Before the demon could figure out a way to strike back without exposing herself to the fiery swarm orbiting her protective bubble, Amity was already tracing another circle.
The difficulty of summoning an abomination was proportional to its size, distance and a number of other complicating factors, but fortunately Gildersnake was only a few miles away guarding Eda's shop, and she didn't need all of it here.
Just its arms.
A ring of fiery pink energy traced itself into existence behind Kikimora, and a pair of massive hands made from lavender colored goop emerged from the darkness within to grasp the commander's shield bubble with their thick, clumsy fingers.
The small demon's eyes widened as she realized her predicament and Amity shot her a spiteful grin before she gave the command.
"Abomination - shake!"
The disembodied arms holding onto Kikimora's bubble obeyed, and began to rapidly and randomly jerk about in every direction. The small demon screamed out a number of increasingly vile curses as she was slammed back and forth against the walls of her own protective spell over and over again. She managed to hold out for almost a full minute until the spell-bubble collapsed from the strain, sending her tumbling to the floor with a loud thump.
Quick as a thought, Amity used one of Gildersnake's arms to snatch the demon up off the ground in its huge fist while the other plucked the sigil medallion out of her trembling hand. The commander seemed too sickened and dizzy from her recent ordeal to even realize what had just happened to her.
A loud snapping sound split the air, and Amity turned to see that the thick sheet of ice which Luz had used to imprison the giant demon was beginning to splinter with a spider-web of fracture lines. The human was slapping a fresh glyph paper onto the ice-wall to repair the damage, but Amity wasn't sure how long it would be able to hold out against the struggling demon trapped behind it.
She stumbled forward, wincing as her bare foot tracked blood across the carpet from the cut on her sole. Gildersnake's arm stretched out to meet her halfway and presented its creator with the silvery sigil medallion in its open palm.
Hopefully this thing isn't difficult to use, otherwise we're all in trouble , she thought to herself.
Amity reached out and took the medallion from the abomination's goopy hand. Her flesh crawled as it came into contact with the silvery metal. Even though the sigil stamped on its surface glowed like a heated brand, touching the medallion somehow felt like Amity had just plunged her arm into a frozen lake up to the elbow. She could feel something in the medallion pulling at her mind, struggling to make a connection similar to the psychic link she shared with her abominations.
Every bit of common sense she possessed told her that allowing that connection to go through was a bad idea, but the witch was running low on options.
Amity closed her eyes and opened her mind.
KILL INTRUDERS OR PAIN INCREASES MAKE STOP PAIN MUST OBEY OR PAIN MUST OBEY OR PAIN KILL INTRUDERS OR PAIN INCREASES
The witch winced and recoiled from the shrill cries of the demon's mind echoing on repeat inside of her skull as it struggled to follow its master’s commands.
The demon's mind was nothing like the placid, artificial pseudo-intelligence of an abomination. She could sense its fear and rage as it struggled against the force of the sigil which had wrapped itself like thorny vines around the being’s soul. Its longing to return to the demon realm and its terror of this strange new world it had been trapped in. The feel of its despair, and its desperate need to obey in order to soothe the agonizing compulsion spell gouging into its spirit made Amity's stomach lurch with how wrong it was.
She clenched both hands around the binding sigil and opened her mind once more.
Rest now. Rest and sleep. I command the pain to stop. There will never be pain again. You will be free soon. Sleep for now.
The icy ache in Amity's fingers gradually lessened as the coercive force flowing out from the medallion toward the demon began to grow weaker and then finally fade to nothing. The molten glow of the sigil brand dimmed and Amity could sense the frenzied rage gripping the demon’s mind beginning to lessen as it did. She could feel, vaguely, as it began to pull itself free from the window in order to seek a place to rest as she had commanded it to do. Amity's stomach twisted when she could feel the soothing clouds of peace that had blotted out the demon's own thoughts as it began to drift off to sleep. The fact that she had forced the demon to obey her will, even if it was only to put an end to its pain, still made her feel like she had committed a grave violation.
Amity turned a furious glare toward Kikimora. She had known that sigil binding was wrong, but she hadn't fully grasped just how viscerally evil the forbidden art was until she had held the medallion in her own hands and felt the torment that her former commander had been inflicting on the bound demon's mind.
The ring of tiny firebolts orbiting around the now-defenseless Kikimora began to buzz with increasing intensity as Amity's anger crystalized. The demon's yellow eyes widened as she realized her predicament and she began to desperately struggle to escape the abomination’s slimy grip.
It would be so easy to just use them right now , she thought. She deserves it for what she's done.
But Kikimora was helpless, and even as furious as Amity was she couldn't see how doing this would be anything less than murder.
She turned to see if the Clawthorne sisters needed her mini-firebolts to help them deal with Wrath instead, but saw that they already had the situation well in hand. The Inquisitor was currently wrapped up in a truly startling number of glowing magical chains which Lilith had conjured, and Eda was standing over him with a white-hot orb of energy poised at the tip of her finger that looked ready to launch at the first sign of trouble.
Amity blinked several times and then looked back and forth between the captured Commander and subdued Inquisitor. It took a moment for her exhausted, adrenaline-addled brain to fully process her next thought.
By the Titan, did we actually win ?
Luz had turned toward Amity from her place by the window, and she realized that the human must have been thinking the exact same thing because she looked equally surprised, confused and hopeful all at once.
Well... what now, then?
"I, Lilith Clawthorne, chosen by the people of New Bonesborough to hold the rank and bear the responsibilities of a Counselor, hereby call this meeting to order," Eda's sister intoned in a sombre voice.
Luz leaned back against the stone wall of the ruined Command Tower office and tried to make herself as unobtrusive as possible, but she still received several curious stares from the line of older witches and demons that had gathered here.
I wonder if I'm the first human they've ever seen in person? , she thought to herself.
After the ringleaders of the conspiracy had been defeated, Eda's sister had taken control of the situation with ruthless efficiency. The last of the traitorous Guardians had been ordered to surrender by a now-cringing Wrath, and the town's leaders were released from house arrest shortly after. They had all gathered here, at the site of the final battle, in response to Lilith's request for an emergency meeting of the Council (Luz could hear the capital 'C' from the way that the raven-haired witch had pronounced the word).
Eda had tried to hustle out of the room and drag Luz with her when she heard her sister’s plan, but Lilith had pleaded with them both to stay in case she needed their help as witnesses for the night's events. Luz was surprised when Eda had grudgingly agreed to her sister's request, but her mentor had leaned in close afterwards and whispered that she had a distraction spell prepared just in case they needed to make a break for it.
Luz really hoped they wouldn't have to. She was bone-tired already, and the idea of being able to relax for a few minutes without anything trying to blow her up or eat her felt almost novel at this point.
She wasn't sure what she had been expecting when it came to witnessing a meeting of the wisest and most powerful beings of a secret magical community, but there seemed to be an awful lot of bickering about whose job it was supposed to be to keep the record of tonight's session and what was the etiquette for the proper speaking order. The human found herself tuning them out after only a few minutes, in defense of her sanity. The slow drone of bureaucracy plodding along dragged down at Luz's eyelids, and she was forced to pinch her thigh in order to stay awake.
After the endless arguments about protocol were finally out of the way, Amity was called forward by Liith to give her testimony of the day’s events. Even though she was clearly exhausted and still wearing the singed, stained wreck of Luz's old Good Witch Azura t-shirt (and only a single bright red Croc right now for some reason), Luz still felt like she was the most beautiful sight that she could have hoped to see right now.
Amity, possibly alerted by the pressure of Luz's entranced stare, glanced back and caught Luz's brown eyes with her own amber-gold ones. The witch gave her a small smile, exposing just the barest hint of fang, and it was all Luz could do to not stumble all over herself as she smiled back.
God, I've really got it bad for her don’t I? , she thought.
It was already bad enough before, but knowing that she is literally the girl of my dreams isn't helping either.
Luz paused as she considered that thought for a moment.
I must never let Amity hear me call her that out loud or she'd never let me hear the end of it.
When Amity turned away from Luz to face the Council, she was back to being all-business once more as she launched into her tale. Most of what she recounted were things that Luz already knew, since she had been there for them as well - such as the discovery of the illusion-disguised batswine and being attacked by Wrath after calling for backup. As the young witch described the horrifying feeling she had experienced when she had used the medallion to stop Kikimora's demon from attacking, though, Luz felt her stomach lurch. The idea of Amity being forced to come into contact with such sickening sorcery was deeply unpleasant, and her heart went out to the witch for enduring it.
The members of the Council seemed upset by the description of the binding magic as well, and there were several roars, hisses and croaking bellows from the more demonic-looking Counselors directed at Wrath and Kikimora, who were currently wrapped in rune-etched chains brought up from the dungeon and contained behind a barrier of glowing magical bars.
When Amity's testimony concluded, she gave a small bow of her head to the Counselors and then went back to join Luz at the wall. The green-haired witch blew out an exhausted breath, and Luz leaned in and gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder.
"You did great," she whispered.
"Thanks," Amity whispered back.
The witch glanced back at Luz and looked like she wanted to speak, but shut her mouth and then gave a small shake of her head instead.
Luz thought she had a pretty good idea about what was giving Amity pause.
"You can tell me after this is done," she said. "I imagine we'd probably want a little more privacy for that particular conversation, right?"
Amity gave a relieved sigh and then nodded a quick agreement.
Luz couldn't deny that she was anxious to learn more about the truth behind her dreams, but she didn't want to push Amity too hard for it.
Obviously there’s something painful here that is hard for her to talk about , Luz thought.
I can't imagine our story had much of a happy ending when all I had left of her was weird nightmares full of fire… but good or bad, I still have to know what happened or else I'll never be able to move on from it.
She turned her attention back to the proceedings as the Counselors bowed their heads together and engaged in a lengthy but quiet discussion, presumably about Amity's testimony.
After their debate concluded the Council decided that they would allow Wrath and Kikimora to speak in their own defense before any final judgement was reached.
Kikimora spoke first, and the small red demon spat pure defiance back at the assembled Counselors as she did.
"Everything I did, I did to save my community because this Council was too weak to do so. When I was a child we were a tight-knit people, and our unity was our strength. We were all trapped in this world together, surrounded by creatures like that one over there,” she said, pointing straight at Luz.
Luz responded by pointing a finger of her own back at the demon, though it wasn’t the same one.
“But once the Owl Lady left to live outside of our borders everything changed,” Kikimora continued. “At first it was only one or two witches leaving every few years, but I know the statistics and I can recognize a pattern when I see it. Almost a third of the children born in the second generation since we arrived in this world already live out there now, among the humans, and more leave every year. If this had been allowed to continue, New Bonesborough would have been an abandoned wasteland before much longer and all of the effort it took to build this community up would have been for nothing. I tried to bring my concerns to this Council in the past, but you refused to act. I was told that it was not the place of either the Guardians or the Council to declare where free witches could choose to live. Your permissiveness would have been the death of us as a people.”
Eda leaned in close to Luz and spoke out of the corner of her mouth.
“Sheesh, can you believe this arrogant little windbag? No wonder Lily used to be crazy about her,” the grey-haired witch whispered.
The gears of Luz’s mind ground to an abrupt halt.
“Wait, are you telling me that your sister had a crush on her ?” Luz whispered back in a horrified voice.
Eda snorted.
“A crush - are you twelve? They dated for almost two years! Lily cried for a week straight when the little goblin finally dumped her. Remember kid, workplace romances are never worth the trouble,” Eda said with a sage nod.
Luz glanced back and forth between the very short ranting demon and the tall raven haired witch standing at the head of the Council and then silently cursed her vivid imagination.
“Do I admit that I used forbidden magic to achieve my goals? Yes- but it was a necessary sacrifice for the protection of our people. Judge me if you must, but know that I will be proven right in the end,” Kikimora finished with a defiant scowl at the Council.
“Very passionate,” remarked an elderly witch with an extremely strange hat (Luz hoped it was a hat anyway, or else some little red creature was currently in the process of eating his head). “It’s curious that you consider capturing and enslaving our fellow demons to be a sacrifice on your part, though. What, precisely, were you sacrificing in that arrangement? Your free time?”
Kikimora declined to answer the elderly Counselor’s question, though she dropped her eyes away from his icy blue stare.
“And how about you, former-Inquisitor Wrath?” the elderly witch asked. “Do you have anything to add on your behalf to that self-righteous diatribe that we were all just subjected to?”
The bulky purple demon straightened up as his name was called and turned his tiny glowing eyes at the questioner. He drew in a deep breath, and Luz winced in preparation for whatever bellowing rant was sure to come.
“It was all her idea, Chief Counselor Bump! Honest! I was only following orders like a good subordinate should!” Wrath rasped out in a frantic voice, as pitch-black tears streamed down his face.
Huh… I didn’t see that one coming.
The huge demon whined out excuses for another minute before the old witch made a quick spell-circle with an annoyed frown on his face. Wrath’s mouth continued to move after that, but no sound came out.
“Well, I think that was embarrassing for all of us,” the elderly Counselor grumbled. “Let’s just get the sentencing over with already - I was supposed to be in bed hours ago.”
A hush fell over the room, and Luz could have sworn that the light from the various glowing orbs situated in sconces on the walls dimmed as the elderly head of the Council straightened to his full height and pointed a clawed finger at the prisoners.
“Wrath and Kikimora - this Council finds you guilty of leveling false accusations against a fellow witch, attempted murder, false imprisonment, treason against both the Council and the people of New Bonesborough, and practicing forbidden magic to enslave your fellow demons,” he intoned in a booming voice which sounded nothing like the dry avuncular tone he had spoken with earlier. “For these crimes you shall be banished to the demon realm, to live out the rest of your natural lives there. The wild demons you have enslaved will be released from their bindings and returned to their proper home along with you as well - perhaps if you are extremely lucky they will be in a forgiving mood.”
Luz saw a look of dread spread across the faces of Wrath and Kikimora at the prospect of their future.
“Let it never be said that this Council is entirely without mercy though,” the old witch said. “In recognition for your many years of service, you will both be given a fifteen minute head start before we send the freed demons in through the portal. May you find the Titan’s peace in the next world.”
The other members of the Council repeated that ominous sounding final line in unison as Wrath and Kikimora were escorted out of the room by a pair of extremely large abominations, which had been summoned by one of the other Council members at the start of the meeting to serve as bailiffs.
There was a moment of silence following the exit of the condemned demons, broken by a sharp noise as the elderly Chief Counselor clapped his hands together and then fixed Luz with an appraising blue stare.
"Well, now that the unpleasantness is out of the way, I would like to finally ask who our young guest is, Counselor Clawthorne?" he said.
Luz's muscles tensed. Considering how quickly the Council had acted to pass sentence on two of their own people, she wasn't sure how well they were going to react to her presence now that it had been officially brought to their attention.
I hope Eda still has that distraction spell ready .
Lilith straightened up and waved an arm toward Luz, like a showman unveiling a marvelous curiosity before a crowd.
"Fellow Counselors, this is Luz, a human of my sister's acquaintance. She was extremely helpful in rescuing me from the dungeons as well as capturing the ringleaders of the conspiracy," the witch said in a firm voice.
The barest hint of a smile twitched up at the corner of Luz's mouth.
Good to know I'm not just 'the human' to her anymore .
There was a murmur of hushed whispers from among the assembled Council at that.
Amity stepped forward from her place at Luz's side and spoke next.
"Not only that, but she was also essential in uncovering Kikimora and Wrath's plot in the first place, when she assisted me with my investigation," the young witch said. "And she saved my life when I was betrayed by the other Guardians."
The old Counselor's look grew more intense as he nodded along.
"Most impressive," he said. "It would seem that we owe this young human a great debt for her help… though if we were to go strictly by the rule of law, she would still need to have her memories altered, of course."
Luz's heart shuddered to a stop in her chest.
"I sincerely believe that we should make an exception in this case, Chief Counselor Bump," Lilith said quickly. "She is not just a regular human, but my sister's protégé in the art of magic. One of this Council's primary responsibilities is the protection of magical folk, is it not?"
At that, the murmuring from the other Counselors grew even louder, and Luz could hear tones ranging from shock, anger, disbelief and wonder in their voices.
"A human that can do magic?" the old witch mused. "Would you be able to demonstrate this ability for us, young lady?"
Luz reached into her pocket for a green glyph-paper and nodded.
She held an image firmly in her mind, then activated the glyph. The green paper crumpled in on itself, and then sprouted into a long vine that wound its way up her arm and burst into bloom with clusters of colorful flowers.
"Ta-da," she said, giving the Counselor a weak smile and (before she could stop herself) jazz hands.
The old witch's eyes widened.
"Intriguing," he murmured.
"Preposterous!" shouted a small demon that looked a little bit like an orange pig standing on their hind legs. "Even if she can do magic, that is more reason to wipe her memory, not less! How long will we be able to maintain our secrecy if humans are allowed to start running around casting spells at each other?"
"Hey, no one is wiping anybody's memory here!" Eda growled. "The first person who even thinks about messing with my apprentice will have to answer to me."
"She is a danger to us all! Just having her here already violates a number of laws," the pig demon continued, ignoring Eda. "You can't seriously be entertaining this idea, Bump?"
"Luz isn't a threat to anyone!" Amity objected. "If anything, she is an ally to our kind. The witches living in the human city that I spoke with during my investigation all considered her a friend, and said that she had helped them adjust to life outside of New Bonesborough and understand human culture. We're probably safer now because she has prevented them from making too many mistakes and getting noticed."
"Yeah! Saying that Luz is trouble just because she's human without any evidence is bigotry, plain and simple. That kind of paranoid, isolationist thinking is what almost led to you guys getting overthrown by the Guardians in the first place," Eda pointed out.
Shouting continued back and forth for a while, and Luz fought back the panic she felt trying to claw its way out of her chest. The thought of losing her memories and her magic was too much to bear, and her mind raced with half-baked schemes about using her last few glyph papers to try and escape.
Counselor Bump raised a hand to call for silence, and then turned his attention to Luz once more.
"You have some very enthusiastic defenders here tonight, but I would also like to hear what you have to say for yourself. Our community is small, so we must maintain our secrecy from humanity for our protection and you are without doubt a human… but on the other hand, Counselor Clawthorne is correct that we are supposed to use our authority to protect the welfare of magical folk, which you technically are now as well. Tell me, Luz, what do you think we should do in this situation?" he asked.
Luz swallowed the lump lodged in her throat.
Oh cool, not only did I just have a ton of magical cops try to kill me but now I have to do some public speaking tonight too.
Best day ever .
"Well, obviously I'm not in favor of getting my brain scrambled," she began. "I know how important keeping your home a secret is, and I can respect that. It sucks to have things you'd rather keep hidden dragged out into the open, and I'd never want to jeopardize my witch friends, or their families that live here by doing that. I just want to keep learning magic with Eda and not cause anyone living here trouble. This world isn't something I just stumbled into today by accident- my magic has become an important part of my life, and of who I am as a person. If you take that away from me now just because some of you are scared, then I'm not sure how it would be any better than what Kikimora did to those demons."
A hush fell over the room as Luz finished talking, and then the old Counselor spoke.
"Counselor Grimhammer was not wrong when he reminded the Council that having a human aware of our existence is a grave violation of the rules we have laid down," he said.
Luz clenched her fists.
"But exceptional circumstances necessarily demand that exceptions be made to those rules," the old witch continued. "The human, Luz, has shown herself to be willing to risk her own life to help protect this community from harm even though she had no stake in the matter. I believe she should be granted special dispensation from memory alteration, and allowed free access to visit New Bonesborough as well. A human that can do magic could help serve as something like a bridge between our worlds, if she was interested in the opportunity to do so."
Luz released the breath she hadn't even been aware that she was holding, and then her mind caught up with her ears as she processed the last part of Bump's statement.
"You mean I'd be allowed to come over here and visit your awesome, secret magical town whenever I wanted?" she asked.
"Yes," Bump said. "Kikimora was right that many of the younger witches are interested in living outside of New Bonesborough and among your people - and it's no question why since there's a whole world to explore out there and only a few square miles within our barrier. Even I get bored of this place sometimes. Maybe you could help ease the transition for the young witches and demons that wish to go out and see your world? Perhaps even give them a few crash courses in human manners and things of that nature- in exchange we would grant you access to our resources on learning magic since you seem very enthusiastic about it."
Luz failed to contain the grin that spread across her face at the thought.
"I'd be honored!" she said.
Eda rolled her eyes.
"You do know that you've just been signed up to teach a bunch of snot-nosed kids how to pretend to be human in exchange for stuff you were already getting with me for free, right?" she said.
Amity had sighed with relief when Chief Counselor Bump made his suggestion about what to do with Luz. As one of the oldest members of the Council, his opinion carried a lot of weight and many of the others soon spoke up in agreement of his proposal.
There were still a few dissenting voices, of course, but they soon fell silent when Luz had taken the elderly witch's hand and sealed an everlasting oath with him to never deliberately reveal the existence of magic, or New Bonesborough, to another human being unless he granted her permission to do so.
The meeting concluded fairly quickly after that, and many of the Counselors left the room in small groups while talking animatedly about the momentous events of the night.
No doubt it would be a night for the history books, and the subject of news and gossip for ages to come in the sleepy little community.
At the moment though, Amity was mostly thinking about the fact that she might actually get her chance to show Luz around town now, since she was no longer banned from New Bonesborough. That is, if Luz still wanted to see her after tonight, of course.
There's no point in trying to put this off , Amity thought.
It's time.
She turned to catch the human's eye and was about to approach her when Counselor Clawthorne caught hold of her shoulder in a gentle, but unshakeable, grip.
"Amity, would we be able to talk for a few minutes?" her former mentor asked.
A small frown creased Amity's forehead, and the Counselor must have noticed her irritation.
"Don't worry, I won't take up too much of your time. I'm sure you and your new friend still have much to discuss," Lilith added.
A blush burned the tips of Amity's pointed ears at the Counselor’s extremely unsubtle emphasis on the word ‘friend’.
Am I really that transparent?
Luz turned toward Amity with a questioning look and the witch gave her an apologetic smile in return.
"Can you wait for me in the lobby downstairs? I'll just be a few minutes longer," Amity said.
Luz nodded in agreement.
"Sure thing, see you in a bit," she said.
Luz exited the room, followed by a grumbling Eda. With them gone, Amity and Lilith were left alone in the ruins of the commander's office.
The Counselor was looking around the scorch-marked walls and mostly shattered furniture with an almost wistful look on her face.
"It wasn't quite this big back when it was my office, you know," she remarked. "Though I suppose it was still too large even back then. Too ostentatious for someone who was supposed to be a servant of the community, and not its master. It's easy to see how Kiki might have lost sight of that after sitting in this office for years, nursing her grudges and paranoia."
Amity knew that while Kikimora was an egomaniacal monster, she was right about one thing- the Counselor loved to hear herself talk if you gave her even half a chance.
"What had you wanted to speak with me about, Lilith?" Amity asked in a businesslike tone.
If Lilith was annoyed by the interruption she at least had the good grace not to show it.
"Well, firstly I wanted to thank you. I think every citizen of the town is in your debt right now. If Kikimora's plan had been allowed to succeed, she and the other Guardians would have turned our whole community into a prison in the name of 'protecting' us," Lilith said.
A pulse of pride swelled in Amity's chest at those words, but she shrugged modestly rather than show it.
"Just trying to do my job," she said in a nonchalant tone.
Lilith nodded.
"I'm afraid that job will not exist for much longer. The other Counselors and I feel that as an organization, the Guardians have lost their way. They are going to be permanently disbanded once we can finish determining which Guardians were active members of the conspiracy and punished accordingly, and which ones were simply pawns that weren't brave enough to question their orders," Lilith said.
Amity blinked as the enormity of Lilith's statement fully dawned on her. The Guardians had existed longer than she had been alive… she had worked and trained for years to be able to join their ranks and now they were just going to cease to exist practically overnight.
She couldn't disagree with that reasoning though.
"It's for the best," Amity said. "I'd already been thinking about looking for a new job anyway, after everything that happened today."
"The tragedy is that you, Amity, were always the ideal of what a Guardian should have been. Powerful, yes - but also compassionate and dedicated to doing what was actually right and not just what was 'proper'," Lilith said.
I can't remember her giving me nearly this many compliments when she used to train me , Amity thought suspiciously.
Where's the catch?
"Maybe I can go work in the library instead," Amity said off-handedly. "Or I could try teaching. I heard that Hexside was looking for a new grudgby coach after that thing happened with the griffin last year."
"Both are fine choices," Lilith agreed, "But I have an alternative offer to propose, if you would be willing to take it."
Ah, here it comes then.
"What sort of offer?" Amity asked.
"A job offer. Just because the Guardians are being disbanded doesn't mean that New Bonesborough still won't need to be protected. While you are young, I feel like you might be an excellent candidate to help shape whatever form that future protection might take," Lilith said.
Amity raised a skeptical eyebrow.
"So, you want to make a whole new group of Guardians, but just call them something else and make me their commander?" she asked.
"Perhaps not 'commander' - the title has too many aggressive overtones now that I think about it... But something like that, yes," Lilith said.
Amity crossed her arms.
"What's to keep these new Guardians from becoming just as corrupt as the old ones?" she asked.
"Different leadership, for one," Lilith said. "I'm sure you would be able to keep the people working under you on an honest path."
Amity considered the offer for a moment. If she had been offered the position yesterday she would have taken it without hesitation.
Now, though…
"I think that I'm going to have to decline your offer," Amity said. "And I also feel like you should probably rethink the whole concept. The community does need to be protected, I'll agree with that, but there are probably better ways to do it than with a troop of witches and demons stationed in a big castle who are accountable to practically no one."
Lilith's expression didn't change, but her shoulders stiffened. She nodded in acceptance.
"Very well then," she said. "I do still owe you a favor though, for everything you've done for me today."
"I'll keep that in mind," Amity said solemnly. "But I really have to go for now."
She turned to leave, but when she reached the doorway the Counselor’s voice stopped her in her tracks.
"That girl, Luz," she said. "She's the same one from before, isn't she?"
Amity turned back and saw that the Counselor's face had an uncharacteristically sympathetic expression.
"Yes, she is," Amity replied.
"Well, I won't keep you here any longer, then. You've already been made to wait long enough," Lilith said. "I wish you every happiness, Amity."
"Thank you," Amity replied as she left the room.
I hope that happiness can come from this , she wished fervently.
Though I have a hard time seeing what there is to be happy about... how is she going to react when-
Amity's train of thought was violently derailed when the uneven tread caused by her single red human shoe catching against a bit of rubble threw off her step and sent her stumbling against the wall with a curse.
In a fit of pique, the witch kicked the hateful shoe off her foot and then obliterated it with a hastily conjured firebolt before it could hit the ground.
She stared in satisfaction at the drifting puff of ashes floating in the air that was all that remained of the hellish footwear.
Okay, first I'm stopping by my locker to finally get my own shoes back, and then I can have that talk with Luz.
At least this way, when she breaks my heart I can still have a little dignity left.
Eda had left Luz alone in the lobby of the Hall at her request, before going off to try and do a little shopping at the night market.
"Take all the time you need to sort out whatever weird thing is going on between you and Blight," she had told her. "But try to get it finished before dawn if you can. I'm too old to be pulling all-nighters anymore and I really want to get to sleep soon."
Luz had passed the time waiting for Amity to arrive by admiring the fantastical architecture of the building, with its soaring columns, arched roof and beautiful stained glass skylights which were illuminated from below by a cloud of floating light-orbs. The place looked like it would have been a perfect set for a high budget fantasy movie, and here she was standing right in the middle of it instead of just watching it longingly from a screen.
It's kind of unreal to think that something like this exists just a few miles away from that one gas station that serves the absolute worst hotdogs in the entire world , Luz thought to herself.
She was finally shaken out of her aesthetic trance by the approaching sound of heels clicking against the stone floor. When Luz turned around to find the source of the noise she saw that it was Amity walking toward her, wearing a pair of short, black boots with golden crescent-moon shaped buckles on them which she hadn't seen before. Her outfit was otherwise the same, aside from the change in footwear.
I should probably just let her keep the shirt, it doesn't really fit me right anyway.
Plus it looks good on her.
"I like your fancy shoes," Luz remarked.
Amity gave her a small smile.
"Thanks. I didn't want to walk another step in those human monstrosities if I could help it," she explained, "so I grabbed my own from my locker. The only other clothing I had to wear in there was my uniform though, and I didn't feel like wearing it again right now… or probably ever, honestly."
"Yeah, I imagine not," Luz said sympathetically.
There was a pause as the two stood facing one another, less than an arm’s length apart. Luz could practically feel the tension in the air gathering together like a dense cloud, suffocating words in their throats before they could pass their lips.
"Want to take a walk outside for a bit?" she asked. "I think I could use a little fresh air right now."
Amity nodded.
"Yeah, that sounds good to me too," she agreed. "I know a few nice spots around here where I like to go sit and think."
Luz motioned for the witch to lead the way, and they left the abandoned Guardian Hall behind as they stepped out into the cool night air, walking side by side.
The moon was sitting high in the sky, heavy but not yet full, and wreathed in long wispy streamers of cloud that glowed with its silvery light. Luz smiled up at the sight of the stars. Even though they were only a few miles outside of town, the field of twinkling lights seemed so much brighter and more beautiful here than it did in the light-polluted sky of Cypress.
She turned to say as much to Amity, and saw that the witch was looking at her with a pensive expression. The way the moonlight reflected off her golden eyes made the breath catch in Luz's throat.
I'd say she's inhumanly pretty, but she's literally not human so I guess that would be redundant.
"How… how much do you remember?" Amity said suddenly. "About me… about us, I mean."
Luz was about to make a snarky comment about how they had agreed that it was going to be Amity's turn to talk, but the hesitation in her tone gave Luz pause.
"Not much at all," she answered honestly. "I wasn't even really sure what I was remembering until just moments before I asked you about it. I guess I just suddenly recognized you and things kind of clicked from there."
Amity cocked her head curiously at that.
"How did you recognize me then, but not before? We’ve been together practically all day," she asked.
Luz drew in a deep breath as she tried to put her thoughts in order.
"Okay, this is probably going to sound like a pickup line, but I swear that it's not," Luz began, "I recognized you because I realized that I had seen you before in my dreams."
Amity raised an eyebrow at Luz.
"You're right, that does sound like a pickup line," she said with a tiny twitch of a smile at the corner of her lip.
"I'm being totally serious. For years I've had these really strange dreams," Luz pressed on. "They all seem to take place when I was a teenager and they all involve me spending time with a girl. I didn't know who she was and I could never see her face for some reason, but I knew that she was important to me. Someone special, that I cared about very much."
Amity was silent now, but Luz could see that she was paying close attention, so she barreled on in a rush of words.
"The dreams always end the same way - with this fire sweeping in out of nowhere and just burning everything to the ground until I wake up," she said, feeling an instinctive prickle against her skin at the mention of the flames. "And when we were there in the tower, surrounded by all that smoke and fire, I looked into your eyes and I realized they were her eyes and it all just... it fit."
Luz took a breath to calm herself back down, and was relieved to see that Amity wasn't looking at her like she was crazy. The witch's expression was difficult to read, but it was easy to see that she was hanging onto her every word.
"Anyway, after that moment of clarity, I started thinking a little more about that story you had told me earlier - the one about the human friend you had when you were younger," Luz said in a quiet voice. "Cypress is a small town, and I realized there probably weren't many other girls our age around here who would have been socially awkward enough to run up to a complete stranger on the street and pretty much force them to be her friend just because they were holding a Good Witch Azura book. It had to have been me."
"Okay, maybe it was a little awkward," Amity objected. "But it was also very sweet. I think you could tell I was lost and needed help and just used the book as an excuse to see what was wrong."
Luz snorted and gave Amity a small smile at that overly generous estimation of her younger-self's character.
"Well, whatever the case may have been, we probably won't ever know for sure since I can't remember it," she said, and then winced when she realized how unintentionally harsh that must have sounded.
Amity had flinched back too, and Luz cursed herself for not thinking before she opened her mouth.
"I'm sorry," Amity said in a quiet voice.
Luz wanted to reach out toward her, but held herself back. She couldn't bear the thought of seeing Amity flinching away from her again.
"Can you tell me what happened?" she said instead. "Why can't I remember anything about us except for those little bits and pieces from my dreams?"
Amity nodded and then drew in a long, shuddering breath before she began to speak.
"The story I told you earlier today was true, but it wasn't the whole story. You're right that you were my human friend in it, too," she began. "And more than just my friend, really, but we don't have to get into all the details right now," she added with a sudden flush blooming across her face.
A flash from a dream appeared in Luz's mind of soft lips pressed against her own, and she nodded.
"I kind of remember that much too," she said. "We were... girlfriends, right?"
Amity looked surprised that Luz had broached the topic, but then nodded.
"Yes... you were my first love, actually," she said.
"I guess you were probably mine too," Luz said.
There was a brief, slightly awkward pause before Amity continued.
"I'd been coming to visit you for... I guess it was almost a year or maybe a little more at that point," Amity said. "We’d been talking about the idea of writing our own fantasy book that day, and you had been going on about how cool it would be to actually be able to cast spells like the heroes in our favorite stories. I got it into my head that it would be a great idea to show you some real magic - nothing big, just the sort of little spells that they teach children: light orbs, levitation, that kind of thing. I passed them off as tricks, like the ones that humans do with the cards and silly costumes, but you loved to see them and I loved seeing the smile on your face when I did them. I shouldn't have done that, but I thought that I was clever just because I got good grades in school. Too clever to ever get caught."
The witch's mouth hardened into a thin, bitter line at that.
“A few weeks after that I went to visit you again, like I usually did on the weekends, and when I got to your house your mom told me that you had been sick in bed with a bad fever for a few days,” Amity said. “Of course I was worried, so I begged her to let me go up and see you. She finally agreed once I promised to keep it short. I thought maybe I could use a small healing charm I’d learned to patch up grudgby injuries to help you feel better.”
Amity paused, scrubbed the back of her hand against her eyes in two sharp movements and then drew in another deep breath.
“When I went up to your room and you saw me you looked confused and delirious. You asked who I was, and I got more worried than ever. I told you my name… and then when you heard it you looked at me like you understood... and then grabbed your head and started screaming ,” Amity said. “Your mom ran upstairs and dragged me out of the house after that - she was very polite about it and told me to come back later, but she looked sick with worry.”
Luz felt a cold dread start to wind its way around her chest and then squeeze crushingly tight against her lungs as the story unfolded. Amity’s voice seemed close to breaking, but she swallowed heavily and pressed on.
“I was freaking out, so when I got back to town I rushed off to the library to see if there were any good books on human illnesses or healing magic that I could use to save you. When I got back to my house, my parents stopped me in the hall when they saw my choice of reading materials. My father looked me in the eye and told me that I was wasting my time - that nothing in those books would be able to help you,” Amity said.
Amity’s face darkened with a scowl, and Luz could have sworn that her eyes actually flashed for an instant like twin sparks.
"To this day I still don't know how my parents found out. When I was younger I suspected my siblings had told them, but it could have been something as simple as a scrying charm targeting me at the exact wrong time. My mother was always good at using oracle magic to keep tabs on me," Amity said. "No matter how they learned though, they were furious . 'Disgracing the Blight name' for daring to fall in love with a human was already bad enough, but the fact that I had been doing magic around you would have brought the Guardians down on me and probably destroyed the family reputation forever if I had gotten caught. They just couldn't risk that."
The scowl twisting Amity’s features deepened and for an instant it almost seemed like she had transformed into something feral, before her face collapsed into a mask of bleak sadness.
"They decided to remove all the evidence of my crimes themselves before any nosy Guardians could come along to probe your memories and find me in them, showing off spells like the lovesick idiot that I was. When I demanded that they tell me what was happening, my parents said that they had placed a curse on you - one that would destroy all of your memories of me," Amity said.
"Don't Guardians destroy people's memories all the time? What makes this so different?" Luz asked.
Amity shook her head.
"When we... when Guardians alter a human's memory they try to do it with subtlety. The goal is to trim as little as possible, and it doesn't actually destroy the memory - it just blurs out the parts they don't want you to recall clearly. It's painless, and causes no lasting harm to the person's mind. The curse my parents placed on you wasn't like that - they were all too happy to explain it to me in detail. This curse worked by burning the memories out of the victim’s mind. Whenever they thought of the forbidden subject the curse would activate to consume that particular memory, and it would do it painfully and completely until nothing remained. The more you tried to think about me the faster it would devour those memories and the worse it would hurt you each time. They also told me that this type of curse could spread like wildfire to other memories - that it might even drive you completely insane," the witch said in a shaking voice.
Luz's eyes widened. It was true that the fire dreams she'd had were always accompanied by headaches, and sometimes there were also minor fevers or other pains, but never anything that was nearly as bad as what Amity was describing. She was pretty sure that a dire curse of mind-melting insanity should have required something a little stronger than acetaminophen to successfully treat it.
"Well, Eda says I'm a little goofy sometimes but I'm pretty sure I'm not insane , so I guess their curse was a dud then," she said, with as much false bravado as she could summon up.
“No, it wasn’t,” Amity said. “When my parents told me what they had done to you I begged them to break the curse, and promised that I’d stay away from you forever afterwards if they did. That I wouldn’t disobey them ever again. They said that I’d never learn if they were too lenient with their punishments, though, and told me that what was happening to you was my fault. That you'd have been fine if I'd just stayed away.”
“Wow,” Luz said. “That is just about the most fucked up thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
“Yeah,” Amity agreed.
“What happened after that?” Luz asked.
“I had to do something ,” Amity said, “So I snuck out of the house that night and headed straight to the Guardian Hall to tell them what my parents had done. Using curses or any other kind of dangerous magic against humans is a serious crime unless it's in self defense, so I hoped they’d be able to stop them. I knew that I’d be punished too for casting spells in front of you, but if they’d be able to have one of their healers save you from the curse then it would be worth it.”
“So the Guardians were the ones that removed my curse?” Luz asked.
“Yes,” Amity said. “It was actually Counse- Lilith , who did it. She was still the commander at that time, and when she heard the full story she personally took charge of the case and had me wait in her office instead of the dungeon like I’d been expecting. When she returned a few hours later she told me that she had been able to remove your curse before it had caused too much harm. She said you’d probably suffer side effects from it, but that you weren’t in serious danger anymore. She also altered whatever memories you still had left of me, as well as your mother’s, so it was like I never existed as far as either of you knew.”
“Wait, Eda’s sister is the one who broke my curse?” Luz asked. “Why didn’t she recognize me earlier?”
Amity gave an embarrassed shrug.
“She’s always had a hard time telling humans apart, to be honest,” Amity said. “Plus, I don’t think she even asked for your name back then - just asked me where you lived before she went to go treat you. Apparently she specialized in curse removal and that was the only reason she was interested in the case at all. She was always spending her free time researching new ways to try to break curses when I lived with her.”
“You lived with Eda’s sister?” Luz asked, more confused than ever.
Amity nodded.
“My parents were able to use their connections on the Council to avoid being punished too harshly, but they still ended up mired in scandals over it and disowned me. Lilith managed to have my punishment commuted as well, and took me in afterwards. She pushed me to join the Guardians - she told me if I did that I’d be able to help prevent situations like this from ever happening again, and I felt like I owed her so I agreed,” she said. “I even started to look forward to it after a few years of training with her.”
Luz tried to picture Lilith in any sort of maternal capacity and, for the first time in her life, her powerful imagination utterly failed her.
“How was that? Living with Lilith, I mean?” she asked.
Amity shrugged.
“Fine, I guess? She was very cold, formal and insisted on having me spend all of my free time practicing my spells and studying so that I could keep out of trouble,” she replied. “It pretty much felt just like home, but quieter because my siblings weren’t there.”
Amity fell silent, and the atmosphere seemed to thicken once again after her story concluded.
So, I guess that explains pretty much everything , Luz thought.
The dreams… the headaches… why I felt so connected to Amity even though I’d never seen her until today. It’s all wrapped up as neat and tidy as a Christmas present.
An extremely heavy Christmas present that is crammed full of tragedy.
Luz drew in a deep breath and glanced back up at the moon, which was still shining just as beautifully as it had been before, regardless of any life-altering revelations she might have just heard.
“Did you ever try to look for me after all that happened?” she asked after a pause.
Amity shook her head.
“I had promised Lilith that I wouldn’t,” she said. “It was one of her conditions for letting me stay with her after she saved you. Plus… well, you wouldn’t have remembered me even if I had, and I don’t think I would have been able to bear having the person I loved looking at me and only seeing a stranger. When I saw you again this morning in Eda’s shop I had no idea what to do with myself. It was like the universe was playing some kind of twisted joke on me.”
Luz felt a sharp jab in her chest at those words.
“What, you weren’t even a little happy to see me?” she asked in a half-joking tone to disguise the hurt she felt.
Amity turned to face her, and there was a look of such naked vulnerability in her amber eyes that it struck Luz right to her core to see it.
“I was thrilled to see you,” she said. “And terrified. And a million other things. I still felt so guilty about what had happened to you, of how much you’d suffered because of me, that I couldn’t even look you in the face at first. Honestly, I’m surprised that you’re even still talking to me right now.”
“Why wouldn’t I want to talk to you?” Luz asked in genuine surprise.
Amity stared at Luz as if she had just asked her what color an orange was.
“Because you were cursed and it was all my fault? You were nearly driven completely insane!” she practically shouted. “If you’d never met me that would never have happened to you.”
Luz stopped and reached out to grab Amity by the shoulders, turning her so that they were eye-to-eye. The witch tilted her head back to look up into Luz’s face, her expression hovering between anxious and resolute.
She’s waiting for me to start screaming at her right now about how this really is all her fault, isn’t she? , Luz realized.
She’s been expecting that this whole time, ever since I asked her to tell me our story, but she came out here and told me the truth anyway, instead of trying to hide it or gloss over the rough parts.
And the worst thing about it is that she thinks she deserves it, too …
Luz tried to find the right words for the situation, but when none came to mind she pulled the witch toward her and folded her into a tight hug.
“None of that was your fault,” she said firmly. “Not a single bit. You didn't know what your parents had done until it was already too late - you said so yourself... and as soon as you found out what happened you did everything you could to help me. Please, don’t ever blame yourself for what happened again, because I never will.”
Amity felt tight and stiff in her arms at first, but at the sound of those words she collapsed against Luz’s shoulder and her arms squeezed around her torso almost crushingly tight.
“You’re really… you’re really not angry with me?” Amity murmured against her shoulder in a dazed voice.
Luz drew in a deep breath.
“I’m unbelievably pissed at your parents, and feeling oddly conflicted about Lilith right now,” she said. “But yeah… um… we’re cool.”
Amity gave a little snort of laughter.
“I tell you about the darkest chapter of my entire life and your response is that ‘we’re cool’,” she said in a disbelieving voice.
“Better than cool,” Luz said awkwardly. “The coolest!”
Oh god, get it together Noceda! What are you doing to yourself?
“Look,” Luz said, “The thing is that… well, until today all I really had were some weird dreams and the occasional headache… I felt like I was missing something from my life but I didn’t even know if it was ever real in the first place or just some figment of my imagination. But you… you’ve had to live with all of this for years and I can’t even begin to imagine how hard that was for you.”
There was another pause and then Amity nodded her head slightly against Luz’s shoulder.
“I missed you so much," she whispered. "It was like someone had reached into my chest and ripped out a chunk of my heart.”
Luz ran a soothing hand up and down the witch’s back.
“Is there any way… no never mind, forget I even asked,” Luz said quickly.
“To get your memories back?” Amity said, completing Luz’s unspoken thought.
There was a tense pause.
“Yeah,” Luz said.
Amity shook her head, and Luz could see that her eyes were glistening with unshed tears.
“No, not even with the ones that had only been altered instead of completely burned away. It’s already been too long at this point for recovery. Any loss after that many years is totally irreversible,” she said.
Luz hadn’t been expecting otherwise, but the flat declaration still knocked the wind right out of her.
So many memories, gone forever. I have nothing left of my time with her but snippets and ashes.
She looked down at Amity’s face and reached out to wipe a tear tracing its way down the witch’s cheek with her thumb.
Hearing the story of her curse unfold had been a surreal experience - she knew what had happened now, but she couldn't really feel any of it. It had been like listening to the tale of a complete stranger's tragedy and not her own.
And she found, even knowing everything, that it didn't change how she felt about the witch in her arms in the slightest.
“Okay,” she said. “Then… would you maybe want to make some new memories together with me to take their place instead?”
Amity blinked several times and then looked at Luz with a stunned expression.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
The cowardly part of Luz’s mind was screaming at her to back away at this point, but after everything that had happened today she no longer felt like doing anything by half measures.
The fact that I'm even still alive right now shows that I'm luckier than I thought.
Might as well try and push that luck as far as it can go.
“I don’t know how you feel about me right now, but I really like you… I know it’s been a long time,” she said in a rush, “And we’re both probably very different people now than we were back when we were together… but the fact that we met each other again after so long… well it has to mean something , doesn't it? If magic is real then maybe so is fate or destiny or whatever you want to call it that brings people together.”
“You’d have to ask a different witch, I was never any good at oracle magic,” Amity said with a faint hint of a smile on her lips.
The haunted look in her golden eyes was gone now, and she was gazing up at Luz with something that looked a bit like hope instead. The sight gave Luz the courage to press on to the end of her spur of the moment confession.
“Maybe I’ll never remember what we used to be to each other back then, and I won’t deny that it sucks, but I’d be really happy if you’d give me the chance to get to know you all over again and see what we could become to each other now… if you wanted to, that is,” she finished.
“Yes!” Amity said quickly, and then flushed strawberry-red up to the roots of her hair. “I mean… Yes, I do like the sound of that idea. Very much.”
Luz’s face split into a wide grin, and the leaden feeling in her gut that had sunk in during Amity’s story was replaced with a gentle warmth. She felt light as air, as though she could jump up and pluck a bouquet of stars straight out of the sky if she wanted to.
The memory fragment flashed through Luz’s mind once more, of Amity leaning in close to her for a soft kiss on a gorgeous summer day.
It’s probably way too soon for something like that, right?… I mean, there was all that talk about potential insanity and trauma just a few minutes ago… probably better to just wait… right?
Or maybe…
“Um… I don’t know if this would be okay or not,” Luz’s lips said without any input from her brain, “But do you think I could kiss y-”
Her words were cut off as Amity seized her by the back of the head and then pulled her in for a kiss that set off a fireworks display in Luz’s mind.
The thin, faded flashes of memory from Luz’s dreams didn’t even begin to compare with the real thing, and when the kiss finally broke she was left feeling dazed and breathless.
“Was that too much?” Amity asked with an apologetic expression on her face.
“Oh no, definitely not,” Luz said with a shake of her head. “Just the perfect amount.”
Luz took a deep breath of the cool night air and grinned again.
Things were still going to be complicated, of course. There was so much to unpack between them, and so many things they still needed to learn to make this work… but they’d be learning them together.
And after everything else that she and Amity had overcome today, Luz was confident that there wasn’t anything that could stop them.