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Chapter Text

“Marcy! There you are! We were looking everywhere for you!” Marcy looked up from where she was doodling flowers in her notebook. She glanced around for a moment before she saw her two best friends, Anne and Sasha, running towards her. She was happy they had found her; at the moment, she couldn’t really look for them.

“Hi! she said once they reached her. “I was waiting for you guys! I broke my leg yesterday, so I can’t really walk long enough to look for you both!”

“What? How?” Anne looked shocked, and Sasha leaned down and poked the case encircling Marcy’s left leg.

“Does it hurt?” she finally asked. “Can I sign your cast?”

“Is that why you weren’t at the park yesterday?” Anne joined Sasha in inspecting Marcy’s cast.

Marcy handed her pencil to Sasha. “Sure, you can sign it. And I did go to the park, actually! I was climbing a tree to look at a cool bug while I waited for you guys, but then I fell out and my leg got hurt. Mommy took me to the doctor and they said I got a greenstick fracture on my tibia. They told me I have to wear a cast for about a month, and the best part? I don’t have to do PE!”

“What’s a greenstick fracture?” Anne asked.”

“A greenstick fracture is when only a part of the bone gets broken, so you just need to keep it still,” Marcy explained. “At least, that’s what the doctor said.”

“Ohhh. So it’s not fully broken?”

“Nope!”

“Hey, Marmar,” Sasha said, handing her the pencil back. “I can’t sign your cast with this. Do you have a marker?”

“Of course I do!. Let me get it out!" Marcy set her notebook next to her on the bench and unzipped her pencil case. “What color?”

“Do you have pink?” 

“Oooh,” Anne said, “can I sign your cast with yellow?”

“Yellow won’t show, Anne,” Sasha said.

“But-”

“Do blue instead. That’ll show really well on a white cast.”

Anne sighed. “Fine, I’ll do blue,” she conceded.

“Okay, blue and pink it is!” Marcy pulled the corresponding colors out of her pencil case, zipping it shut before handing the pens to her friends. She leaned over and watched them sign the cast. Sasha wrote a ‘Get well soon, from your best friend Sasha’ in large pink block letters, while Anne wrote a message too far away for Marcy to read, then surrounded it in a bunch of hearts.

“Thanks, guys,” Marcy said as she took the pens back. “I can’t wait to read your notes!” She slipped the two pens into her pencil case, then tucked it and her notebook into her backpack.

“Scoot over, Marmar,” Sasha said, then took a seat at Marcy’s left. “Anne, sit on Marcy’s other side.”

“Ok.” Anne did as Sasha told her.

Suddenly a lot of yelling on the playground caught all three girls’ attention. Marcy looked over and saw a group of fifth graders being told off for shoving a fourth-grade boy.

“Hey, isn’t that Kyle?” Anne asked. “The one who sits across from you, Sashy?”

Sasha squinted at the fourth-grade boy. “Yeah, it is,” she finally said. “I’m not surprised those older kids were being mean to him. He always seemed kind of wimpy.”

“Sashy!” Anne said, scandalized.

“What? He does!”

Marcy’s eyes slid past the scene on the playground to land on a girl with dark hair in pigtails and a missing tooth. The girl was sitting under a huge sweetgum tree, eyes fixed on the conflict on the playground. She looked lost. Marcy had seen her before, but the other times she had seemed cheerful, not upset and hurt.

“Guys,” she said, “do you see that girl sitting under the tree? Do you know her?”

Sasha turned to look at her. “Nope. Never seen her before in my life.”

“She looks kind of sad,” Anne said. “What do you think happened?”

Before Marcy could think of an answer, the bell rang, signaling the end of recess. She tried to stand up, but nearly tripped.

“Here,” Anne said, grabbing her arm to keep her from falling. “Put your arm around my shoulder. I can help you get to class.”

“Thanks, Anna-banana,” Marcy said with relief.

“Let’s go, guys!” Sasha picked up Marcy’s backpack and took the lead, Anne and Marcy following behind.

A few days later, Marcy used her new crutches to get to their unofficial bench as soon as the bell rang. While she waited for Anne and Sasha, she glanced at the other kids running onto the playground. Two second-grade girls immediately claimed the swings, and a group of kids were taking turns using the monkey bars. Marcy searched for the pigtailed girl who usually sat by the bushes, wondering if she was still sad. Then Marcy saw Pigtail Girl walking toward her usual spot with an exhausted face, carrying a book and looking as though she had the weight of the world on her shoulders.

The girl sat down and opened the book to read. Marcy squinted and could just make out the title- The Good Witch Azura . Maybe that would be a good book to check out from the library.

“Hey, Marcy!” Anne’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts. “Sorry we’re late, we were running here but then the custodian stopped us from running in the hallway.”

“Yeah,” Sasha added, “he watched us as we passed him so we couldn’t run then either.”

“That’s fine!” she said. Sasha and Anne took their regular places on either side of her.

“Guys! The arcade got a new game, Mom told me. She said it’s a dancing game.”

“That sounds awesome! We should try it!” Anne said, then immediately realized. “Wait, Marcy can’t play it.”

“Oh, yeah.” Sasha was quiet for a moment, then nodded. “We can wait until her leg heals and then-”

“Wait.” Marcy interrupted. “You guys can go without me. And I know you’re bored of sitting on the bench, too. You can go play on the playground, you don’t have to be here every recess instead of having fun.”

“But, Marcy-” Anne protested. “We can’t just leave you! You’d be alone!”

“It’s not leaving me if I let you,” Marcy replied. “And besides, I can sit and read a book or draw or something. You both know I love doing that anyway.”“Are you sure?” Sasha asked. When Marcy nodded, she stood up and dragged Anne toward the playground. “Thanks! And we’ll still wait for you before we go to the arcade!” she yelled over her shoulder.

“No problem! And thanks!” Marcy yelled back. Then she reached for her backpack and pulled out her journal and a pen, and started writing.

“Marcy,” Raina Wu said as she pulled away from the parking lot. She pressed the turn switch and glanced at her daughter in the rearview mirror. Marcy was engrossed in math homework, scribbling the answers to the addition problems down almost as soon as she read each question.

“Marcy,” she said again, and Marcy finally looked up. “Do you miss going to the park?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Why?”

Raina smiled. “Well, I noticed you’ve been really bored after we stopped going to the park until your leg heals, and I have a little surprise for you.”

Her daughter’s interest was visibly piqued. “What’s the surprise?”

“Well, you’re going to have to wait and see, or it won’t be much of a surprise, will it?”

“But, Mommy, please?”

Raina laughed. “Not yet, sweetie, but we’re almost there.”

“Mommy, that’s too long! Please tell me now?”

“Marcy, you can keep asking me, but I’m not gonna tell you until we reach.”

“Fiiiiine.” Marcy leaned back on the seat, homework forgotten on her lap. “Are we there yet?”

“No.”

“ Now are we there yet?”

Raina turned on the indicator light. “Yeah, we’re here.”

She looked in the rearview mirror and saw Marcy pressed up against the window, seatbelt a tangled mess. “Put your seatbelt on,” she reminded her, and Marcy sat back in her seat and obeyed. 

“We’re at the library?” she squealed. “Thank you, Mommy, thank you! I can’t wait!” Looking out the window again, she gasped. “Wow, there are so many books!”

Raina chuckled. “You don’t have your own library card yet, Marcy, so I was planning to get you one. Do you want one?”

“Yes, please!”

“Finish your homework while I park, then.” As she pulled into the only available parking space, right next to the building, she could hear the sound of pencil across paper before Marcy proudly proclaimed ‘done!’.

“Let’s go, then.” Raina picked up a shopping bag from the empty passenger seat as Marcy unbuckled her seatbelt, opened the car door, grabbed her crutches, and hopped out. 

“Mommy, mommy, hurry up! You’re taking so long !”

“Coming, sweetie,” she said.

Raina followed Marcy into the building. The nine-year-old girl was almost bouncing up and down with excitement, the heavy cast and unwieldy crutches hardly slowing her down as she made her way toward the bookshelves visible behind the information desk.

“Marcy, come back! We have to get you your library card!” With obvious reluctance her daughter dragged herself back to her mother, who was stopped at the information desk.

“Hello,” the librarian said with a pleasant smile. “How can I help you today?”

“Hi, I was hoping to get a library card for my daughter here? One for myself as well.” Raina put a hand on Marcy’s shoulder. “I don’t actually have a card for this library, before Marcy broke her leg she checked out all her books from the school library, but now she’s so bored at home I figured it was about time to get a card for her. And while I’m here, I might as well get one for me and my husband to use as well.”

“Oh, I hope you get better soon, dear,” the librarian said to Marcy. Marcy clutched her mom’s arm in response. “Oh, a shy one, are you? Well, no matter.” Pulling out two forms from a filing rack, the librarian slid them across the desk. “Just fill these out with your name, email address, and phone number, then you should be good to go. Does your daughter want to pick out a color or pattern for her library card, or do you both want the standard one?”

“There are different colors? I think I’ll take the standard one.” Raina looked down at Marcy, who stared back up at her. “Marcy, don’t you want to pick one out?”

“We have a catalog, if she wants to look at that,” the librarian offered, pushing a small brochure across the desk. “Just pick the one you want and we’ll set it up for you. All of them should be available, we just restocked.” 

“Thank you,” Raina said, picking up the brochure and unfolding it. She handed it to Marcy, who carefully let go of her arm and took the paper.

Marcy’s eyes immediately caught on a picture of a green card with a shiny gold-tinted star pattern. “This one is really pretty,” she said, pointing to it. Raina took the brochure and pointed it out to the librarian. 

“Excellent choice, dear,” the librarian praised as she opened a drawer and pulled out a physical copy of the card. “This is what it looks like. Do you like it?”

Marcy peered at it. “Yeah, I like it.”

“I’m done filling out the form,” Raina said, setting down the pen and sliding the form back to the librarian. “What next?”

“Just wait a minute as I input the information into the system.” The librarian peered at the form over a pair of spectacles before tapping at a keyboard, 

Marcy fidgeted, then finally burst out, “Mommy, can I please go see the books?”

“Fine, go, have fun,” Raina conceded.

“The children’s section is that way,” the receptionist said, pointing down a hallway. “Straight through there. You can talk to the librarians there if you need help finding a book.”

“Thank you, Ms. Librarian,” Marcy said, then turned and went in the direction the librarian had pointed in as fast as she could with a broken leg and crutches.

Raina watched after Marcy until she couldn’t see her anymore, then turned back to the librarian. She tapped at a few more keys, then lifted a barcode scanner and flipped the library cards over before scanning them into the system. A few clicks of the mouse later and she was sliding the cards to Raina. “You’re all good to go, ma’am,” she said. “Have a nice day!”

“You too!” Raina picked both cards up and headed off in the direction of the children’s wing, sure that Marcy wouldn’t be able to collect many books in the time she had taken with getting the library cards. When she rounded the corner and saw Marcy piling another book on a table with twenty already, she was flabbergasted.

“Marcy- I didn’t think you would get this many books!” she spluttered. “I can’t carry that many!”

Marcy made puppy dog eyes at her. “Please, Mommy? I have one more book I want to borrow, then that’s all!”

Raina tried to hold out as long as she could, but Marcy rarely begged her like that for anything, and she was a sucker for puppy dog eyes. “Fine, but only one more, okay? And you have to read them all, don’t take books you don’t think you’re going to read.”

“Thank you, Mommy!” Marcy immediately rushed off to find her last book, and Raina sighed and began gathering up the books to bring to the checkout kiosk. She wasn’t really surprised to find out half of the books were nonfiction; she supposed there were going to be a lot more interesting facts at the dinner table over the next few nights. She was more surprised to find that Marcy had started pulling from the novel section of the library as well.

After piling the books at the checkout counter, she typed in the number on the back of Marcy’s library card, then began scanning each book. Marcy returned when she was nearly done. 

“Here it is!” she said, putting another novel called The Good Witch Azura on top of the checkout counter. “I got it!”

“Can you start packing the books I already scanned into the bag?” Raina handed the shopping bag to Marcy, who obligingly began to shove books in. “Wait-not like that! You have to do it carefully, stack them on top of one another so they all fit.” She demonstrated, then handed the bag back to Marcy.

“Ohhhhh,” she said, then began doing as Raina showed her.

Raina returned to checking out the books. She scanned the final book, The Good Witch Azura , and handed it off to Marcy, then clicked the ‘Print receipt’ button at the bottom of the screen. The machine whirred for a moment, then slowly began printing out a long receipt. Raina tore it off once it was done and folded it up. She took in the bag Marcy had packed surprisingly well for her first time, then nodded. “Nice job with the packing, sweetie. I’ll hold on to your library card for now so nothing happens to it, but whenever you need it I’ll give it to you, is that okay?”

Marcy nodded. “Can I read these in the car?” she asked, tapping out a thin nonfiction book about dinosaurs and The Good Witch Azura in the bag.

“Sure,” Raina said, tucking the receipt in, then picking up the handles of the bag and hoisting it up. “Wow, this is heavy. Let’s go, okay?” 

“Okay.”

On the way back to the car, as they passed the information desk, Marcy spoke up. “Thank you for bringing me to the library, Mommy,” she said.

“Anytime, sweetie.”

“Marcy! Time to go! Where’s your backpack?” Marcy heard her dad’s voice from where she was grabbing her homework to keep in her backpack. After she’d shoved everything inside, she turned to leave the room, but stopped at the door. She turned to look back at her desk, at the copy of The Good Witch Azura she’d left there after finishing the first and second chapters before bed.

She made up her mind and turned to grab the book, then walked out of the room and down the hallway to the front door.

“There you are, Marcy,” her dad said from where he was grabbing his coat next to the front door. “Let’s go, or you’ll be late for school.”

Marcy followed her dad to the car, then handed him her backpack and climbed into the backseat, setting The Good Witch Azura and her crutches on the . She heard the thud of the trunk slamming closed, then her dad opened the driver-side door and sat down, starting the engine. 

“All buckled in?” he asked, and when she nodded, he started driving. After they pulled out of the driveway, Marcy opened her book and was absorbed into the world of Azura and her quest to find the Staff of the Skies and keep it from enemy hands.

“Marcy, we’re here,” her dad said just as she finished reading the sixth chapter. She put her bookmark in and tucked the book under her arm, grabbing her crutches and climbing out of the car. She gave her dad the book, and he tucked it into her backpack before helping her wear it on her shoulders. 

“Bye, Daddy! See you later!” she yelled once he got back in the car. Then she turned to go inside the school, arriving at her classroom just as the bell rang and the teacher opened the door.

The moment the recess bell rang, Marcy swung her bag over her shoulders and grabbed her crutches, rushing to make it to the playground fast enough to claim her usual bench. 

Unlike usual, when she made it onto the playground, she saw Pigtail Girl already sitting under the sweetgum tree. Usually she arrived later, once Marcy was already settled down on the bench, but this time Marcy considered going to talk to her. She’d certainly watched Pigtail Girl enough to want to at least learn her name.

Making up her mind, Marcy turned and crutched across the playground, slowly making her way up the slight incline. Up close, Marcy could see that Pigtail Girl was deeply absorbed in her copy of Azura , sitting with her back pressed against the tree.

“Excuse me,” Marcy said quietly, and Pigtail Girl looked up. “Can I sit here please?”

The girl blinked for a moment, as though she didn’t understand, and then her mouth opened in a silent ‘oh’. “Sure, I guess.” Her eyes dropped to Marcy’s broken leg, but she didn’t comment, instead turning back to her book.

Marcy felt an odd sense of disappointment that she hadn’t gotten more of a reaction, but figured conversation could wait. She carefully lowered herself down next to Pigtail Girl, setting her crutches down next to her and taking her bag off of her back. She unzipped it and pulled out the library book.

“Is that The Good Witch Azura ?” Pigtail Girl’s voice startled Marcy so much that she nearly dropped the book into the dewy grass, barely managing to hang onto it with the tips of her fingers. She set it into her lap so she wouldn’t accidentally drop it again. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Pigtail Girl apologized.

“Yeah, it is,” Marcy said. “I checked it out from the library yesterday. You’re reading that too, right?”

“Yeah.” Pigtail Girl’s gaze unfocused for a moment, then she sighed. “How do you like the book so far?”

“Oh my gosh, it’s so good! I love Azura so much! I love the adventures of Azura and her friends so much!”

Pigtail Girl titled her head. “What chapter are you on?”

“I just finished Chapter 7, where Azura sets out to find the Staff with her friends Lucy and Jaxon.” Marcy grinned. “I can’t wait to find out what happens next!”

“Oh, I’m on Chapter 10,” Pigtail Girl said. “Do you like spoilers or not?”

Marcy thought for a moment. “Sure, that’s not too far ahead,” she said.

Pigtail Girl leaned closer and lowered her voice dramatically, casting her gaze around as though looking for eavesdroppers. “Azura, Lucy, and Jaxon… get separated in Chapter 8 and have to face a test. I don’t know if they survive yet.”

“No, really?” Marcy’s hands flew to her cheeks when Pigtail Girl nodded solemnly. “Oh, no! Jaxon is terrible under pressure!”

“I know! I hope he doesn’t mess up!” Then Pigtail Girl’s grin faded and she adopted a thoughtful look. “You know,” she said slowly, “I don’t actually know your name. I’m Luz. What’s your name?”

“My name is Marcy. It’s nice to meet you, Luz,” Marcy said. “Can I meet you here again tomorrow?”

“Sure. Oh! I have an idea! What if we both read to a certain chapter and then meet every day and talk about what happened? That could be really fun!”

Marcy gasped. “Yeah! That’s a really good idea! How about we both read to Chapter 12! Does that work?”

“Works for me,” Luz said. 

Just then, the bell rang. Both Luz and Marcy groaned, and Marcy tucked her book back into her backpack before trying to stand up.

“Here,” Luz said, standing and offering a hand to Marcy.

Marcy took it gratefully. “Thank you,” she said once she was upright, placing a hand on the tree to steady herself. Luz knelt down and picked up her backpack and crutches for her. Marcy tok both gratefully.

“See you tomorrow?” Luz said, waving as she headed off toward the main building.

“See you tomorrow!” Marcy followed her, then they both went their separate ways, back to their classes. 

“We’re almost done with the book!” Luz said abruptly a week after they had started talking about The Good Witch Azura at recess. Marcy carefully set down her crutches and took a seat next to Luz, then unzipped her bag to get her book out. She flipped open to their current chapter, Chapter 32, and saw that they were indeed almost done with the book. 

“You know, we can finish the book by tomorrow. But I kind of don’t want to, it’s like saying goodbye to the characters and I hate goodbyes.”

“I don’t want it to end either,” Luz said grimly. “I’m kind of afraid of what’s going to happen.”

“Do you know if there are any other books?” Marcy asked. “I wonder if there’s going to be a second book.”

“I think there will be. There are way too many questions than can be answered in-” Luz flipped to the table of contents, counting the remaining chapters silently under her breath. “Five chapters,” she said after a moment.

“Wow, that’s it?,” Marcy said with dismay.

“Yup.”

A pair of fifth-grade girls walked past Marcy and Luz, whispering to one another. Then one of them turned to Luz. “Hey, Luz-er,” the girl said. “Whatcha doing? Nerd.”

Luz shrank into herself, her arms wrapping around her shoulders. Marcy glanced between her and the two fifth-graders, then made up her mind.

“She’s not a loser,” Marcy said, and both girls’ attention snapped to her. “Leave her alone.”

The first girl cocked her head. “Hey, Laura,” she said to the second, silent one. “Would you look at that? The Luz-er found herself a little nerd friend.”

“Yeah, Amy,” Laura said. “Somehow she’s even smaller than Luz-er. I didn’t think that was possible.”

“H-hey, leave her alone,” Luz said, voice trembling. “Leave us alone.”

“What are you gonna do about it, huh?” Amy bent down and picked up Marcy’s crutches. “Laura, grab the nerd’s book.”

Laura obliged. Marcy tried to hold on as long as she could, but a moment later, Laura was flipping the book closed and dangling it over Marcy’s head. “Here, nerd. Get it if you can,” she said in a sing-song voice. Without her crutches, Marcy couldn’t do much more than reach for it–standing with the cast was difficult enough when she was on a chair, but there was no way she could do it while sitting on the ground and leaning against the tree.

“Give it back!” Luz stood up and tried to reach for it, but Laura was just tall enough for her efforts to fall short.

“Ha, the babies are so tiny,” Amy taunted.

“Leave them alone!” A high-pitched voice yelled from behind, startling the two bullies and Luz enough for Laura to drop the book and for Luz to barely manage to catch it before it hit the ground. Marcy cheered, having caught a glimpse of the two people who came to save the day.

Amy turned around, mouth open to issue excuses– at least until she caught sight of their rescuers. A snicker escaped her lips, then she collapsed in a fit of giggles. Laura quickly joined her.

“Sasha!” Marcy cried joyfully. “Anne!” Anne waved from where she was partially hiding behind Sasha.

“Leave them alone,” Sasha repeated. “Or we’ll call the yard duty.”

At this, both girls stopped laughing. Amy stood up straight again, holding Marcy’s crutches tight in her hands. “You wouldn’t,” Laura said, voice filled with dread.

“Try me.” Sasha leveled a glare at the two fifth-graders.

Amy gently dropped Marcy’s crutches on the grass and raised her hands up in surrender. “We’re going. Don’t make a scene,” she said, “Laura, let’s go.”

The two fifth-graders were at the base of the hill before Sasha yelled at the top of her lungs, “Mrs. Walters! Those two fifth graders were bullying Marcy and Luz!” A gray-haired woman on the other side of the playground snapped to attention, then made a beeline straight for Amy and Laura. When she reached them, all of them watched the fifth-graders get berated for a moment before glancing away. 

“Serves them right,” Sasha muttered.

“How did you know my name?” Luz asked, curious.

Anne grinned at Marcy. “Mar-mar talks about you at lunch. It’s always,`The Good Witch Azura’ this, Luz that.’”

“I don’t talk that much about her,” Marcy mumbled sheepishly. 

“Sure you don’t,” Anne agreed teasingly.

A beat of silence, and then Luz erupted with questions. “How did you know that would work? Where did you guys come from? Who’s Mrs. Walters? Are you guys psychic? Have you read The Good Witch Azura?”

“Uhhh…” 

Anne stepped up. “It was Sasha’s plan, we saw what was happening from the playground, Mrs. Walters is the strictest yard duty we know, um, no? And no.”

“Hey, you want to sit with us at lunch today?” Marcy asked. She glanced at Sasha and Anne to check if that was okay, and both nodded.

Luz’s eyes grew bigger. “Would I? Yes!” she replied just as the bell rang. 

“Well, time to go inside!” Sasha turned to head down the hill, and Anne helped Marcy up while Luz picked up her crutches and gave them to her. Marcy picked up her backpack and took her book from Luz gratefully. 

“So,” Marcy started as they followed Sasha. “We sit at the lunch tables, next to the magnolia tree… the one with big white flowers…”

Chapter Text

Camila pulled onto the side of the road, pressing on the brake and shifting the car into park mode. She twisted in her seat to glance at her daughter in the backseat. Luz was twitching with eagerness, the expression on her face the closest to a smile Camila had seen her with since… since Manny passed.

Trying to distract herself, she plucked her phone from its usual place on her dashboard. “Is this the right address?” she muttered to herself, unlocking the phone and checking the picture she’d taken of the paper Luz had given her the day before. It was correct; all that was left to do was walk in.

“Mami, are we there yet?” Luz asked impatiently.

Locking her phone, Camila unlocked the car. “Yeah, we’re here,” she said. She heard the sound of Luz removing her seatbelt, then the car door swinging open. Chuckling at Luz’s eagerness, she followed suit, locking up behind her.

When Camila caught sight of her again, Luz was racing to a playground, multiple children already busy playing in the sandbox. One of three girls clustered around the swing sets saw Luz and yelled something, a fabric brace wrapped around her lower leg, just below the knee. Luz quickly changed direction and ran to the swings instead.

Once she had reached the playground, Camila took a seat on the bench beside a woman with curly brown hair. “Hi,” she said to her hesitantly.

“Hello,” the other woman said with a thick accent. “Is that your daughter?” She motioned to Luz, who was taking turns swinging with the other girls. “Anne has told me much about her already.”

“Yeah, that’s my daughter Luz. I’m Camila. We just moved here two months ago, and so we’re still getting used to the place.”

“That’s okay!” Anne’s mom said. “When me and my husband moved to LA from Thailand, we were overwhelmed too. It took time to get used to new city. I’m Oum, Anne’s mom.” She motioned to the girl with curly hair currently on the swings.

“Oh, you’re an immigrant too?” Camila asked. “I’m from the Dominican Republic. Came to the States years ago for my veterinary degree, then settled down with my husband and had Luz.”

“My husband and I own Thai Go. It’s a Thai restaurant. What does your husband do?”

Camila turned to watch Luz playing, her heart heavy. “He’s… no longer with us.”

“Oh.” Oum looked sad for a moment. “Did not mean to bring it up.”

“It’s okay, you didn’t know.” Trying to think of a way to change the subject, Camila said, “Your daughter, Anne, and the other two girls. How long have they been coming to this park?”

“Anne is friends with Marcy since they were three. This park is near to Marcy’s house, and her family showed us. Then one day Sasha came and made friends with Anne and Marcy here. So we’ve been coming for a few years since then.” Oum smiled. “Now Luz is friends with the girls, so she can come to the park and play too.”

“Yeah,” Camila replied. “Luz is usually so energetic, it would do her some good to play for an hour or two in the afternoon.”

“Anne is very energetic also,” Oum said. “We enrolled her in Muay Thai classes. Maybe it would do good for you to enroll Luz into martial arts too?”

“That’s… a really good idea. I had never thought of that,” Camila admitted. “I’ll look into it. Maybe I can find a class close to our home.”

Oum pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, checking the time. “Actually, Anne has class in twenty minutes and I have to take the girls home then take her to the class. See you soon?”

Camila smiled. “See you soon!” 

“Let’s go, mija ,” Camila said, unbuckling her seatbelt and opening the car. Luz followed suit, then Camila locked the car and took her daughter’s hand. “You ready?”

“For what?” Luz asked. 

They started walking across the parking lot as Camila explained. “Do you remember when we went to the park for the first time? Your friend Anne’s mom told me about her daughter, and how she’s enrolled in a martial arts class. I’ve signed you up for a tour and trial class here.”

“Is Anne here?”

Camila shook her head. “The class that she goes to is too far from home, so I enrolled you in this one instead.” She swung open the front door, looking around for the office room.

“But I want to go to the class with Anne!” Luz tugged at her arm futilely. Camila stepped into the office, Luz in tow.

A woman with black hair in a ponytail looked up from behind the desk. “Oh!” she said. “You must be Camila! Is this your daughter Luz?” Luz hid behind her mom.

“Yes, my name is Camila. I’m here for the tour and trial class for Luz?”

“Yup! Follow me.” The woman stepped out from behind the desk and left the room, Camila and Luz following behind. “My name is Aanya,” she said, “students call me Sensei Aanya. Sensei means master. I’m one of the teachers at this dojo, and I’m very excited to be showing the dojo off to you both.”

“How many teachers are there?” Luz asked. She hid a little more as Aanya’s attention turned to her.

“We have twelve total, but all of us take shifts, so the most teachers you’d see at any given time is five,” Aanya answered agreeably. “Normally we split up between the Youth 1 classes and the Youth 2 classes. We have two classrooms, one for each.”

They stopped by an empty doorway. A room full of kids Luz’s age with white uniforms and brightly colored belts stopped their practice to stare at them. “Carry on,” Aanya said, and they went back to practicing.

“So this is the Youth 1 classroom. You’re going to be joining this class for today once the tour is over and the next class starts. We wear uniforms, but because it’s a trial class you don’t have to.” 

Camila nodded. “What were those belts for?”

“The belts are used to indicate rank. White belts are the very beginning rank, which is what Luz will be getting today, and black belts are the final rank. All the teachers at the dojo are black belts, though the TAs are brown belts, which is one level lower. The other levels will be explained later, in class. Now let’s go see the Youth 2 classroom.”

They followed Aanya to another door, filled with teens and tweens mirroring an instructor’s moves. “Right now they’re practicing punches, so they’ll be going off to pair up and drill soon.” 

By now, Luz was actually starting to want to learn martial arts here. The class looked interesting, and if one teacher was nice, maybe all the teachers would be nice. And fighting was definitely something a character from Azura would have to learn.

“Now it’s time for the trial class. How are you feeling, Luz? Are you ready to learn?”

Luz looked up at her mom, who nodded at her. “...okay,” she said.

“So how was it?” Camila asked Luz after the class. 

“It was actually really fun!” she replied, grinning. “Look what I got!” Luz waved white-colored belt made of silky fabric in Camila’s face. “Let’s go home now, I’m tired. And hungry. What’s for dinner?”

“Leftovers,” Camila answered absentmindedly. “Do you want to attend classes here?”

Luz nodded vehemently. “Yeah, it’s awesome! They even teach sword- and weapon-fighting for blue belts and above, which is so cool! I’m gonna be just like a character from Azura!”

“Hey, girls,” Sasha said to Luz and Marcy, who both looked up from Marcy’s Swap. “Cheer practice was canceled today. Wanna do something?”

“Do what?” Luz asked as Marcy turned back to the game of Wario Kart on her Swap. 

“Well, for starters, leave this place,” Sasha said. “Why are you hanging out in front of the locker room anyway? School’s out! You could be literally anywhere else!”

“We’re waiting for Anne to text us. She has tennis practice, so we were going to watch,” Luz said just as Marcy’s Kart raced across the finish line. She cheered and Luz sighed, sending her own racer hurtling across the line a moment later. “You win, again,” she told Marcy, and the other girl patted her on the shoulder sympathetically.

Sasha studied them for a moment, then made a decision. “Luz, Marmar, stop playing on that Swap. We’re going to the mall!”

Luz stared up at her, confused. “What? Why?” Beside her, Marcy obligingly put her Swap into sleep mode and tucked it into her bag.

“I’ve got nothing to do, you guys have nothing to do, I know for a fact that you don’t have karate today, Luz, so why don’t we go?”

“Uh, that’s not strictly true-“ Luz started, but Sasha cut her off.

“So, let’s go to the mall! What do you guys say?”

Luz hesitated. “Shouldn’t we wait for-“ Marcy tapped her on the shoulder and whispered something in her ear, and Luz’s eyes widened in understanding. “You know what, why not.”

The moment they were both standing, Sasha took her rightful place directly between Luz and Marcy. She threw an arm over both their shoulders, guiding them both to the front doors of the school. “We’re going to have so much fun!”

“Wait!” Luz said. “We should tell Anne we’re going, so she doesn’t look for us.”

“Yeah, we told her we would come to see her practice, so she’ll be looking for us,” Marcy added.

“Ugh, fine,” Sasha griped. “I’ll text her, don’t get your feathers all in a twist.” She pulled out her phone and scrolled to the messages app, then clicked on their group chat.

<👑Sasha👑> hey anne just letting u know luz marcy and me are going to the mall

<👑Sasha👑> if u want smthn from there just text

<annabanana> no im good have fun

Both Luz and Marcy’s phones pinged a moment after Anne sent her reply. Luz pulled out her phone and read Sasha’s messages silently to herself, then nodded. “We can go now, I guess,” she said.

Sasha let out a cheer. “ Now we’re going to have so much fun!”

“How many more stores are we going to?” Marcy was dragging her feet as Sasha pulled her by the wrist, her other hand carrying two shopping bags. Luz was carrying two more as she trailed behind.

“Yeah, can we stop soon?” she called. “Your bags are heavy!”

“Sure,” Sasha reluctantly said after glancing back at Luz’s shaking arms and at Marcy’s tired expression. “One more store then we leave.”

“Wait,” Luz said as they passed a sign for the bathroom. “I need to go. Be right back.” She set down Sasha’s bags and sprinted off to the bathroom. Sasha let go of Marcy’s wrist and leaned against the wall, waiting.

“So,” Marcy began as she knelt down and unzipped her backpack. “It’s Luz’s birthday tomorrow.”

“Wait, it is?” Sasha stood upright in shock. “Oh no, I don’t have a gift!” She quickly reached for one of her shopping bags and searched through it. “Do you think she’d like strawberry shampoo?” Oh, who was she kidding. Luz wasn’t into that stuff. 

“Well, I don’t have a gift either. I was planning to use this mall visit to search for a gift, and I think I found the perfect one in that shop over there.” Marcy pointed to a shop with several colorful hoodies displayed in the window. “That hoodie over there, the purple one with the cat ears? Luz would really like that, and it kind of looks like an outfit Azura wears in The Field of Deady Fates .” She pulled out her phone and tapped on it for a few moments, then showed Sasha an image of Marcy and Luz’s favorite protagonist Azura launching a crying white volleyball over an old guy’s head. 

Sasha took a closer look at the shirt Azura was wearing, then looked at the hoodie Marcy was motioning at. “Huh…you’re right. It does look similar.”

“So, it’s probably going to be pretty expensive, so what if we split the cost?” Marcy suggested. “The gift can be from both of us, and we each don’t have to pay as much!”

Sasha considered. After a moment, she nodded. “Sure, why not,” she said. “Should I go buy it and you wait for Luz?”

Marcy nodded, then sat down next to Sasha’s shopping bags and leaned against the wall. Sasha watched her immediately take her Swap out of her bag, then shrugged and headed off to the store.

“Happy birthday, Luz,” the teacher said as Luz walked into class that morning. “Class, what do we say?”

“Happy birthday, Luz” the class chorused. Anne waved at Luz from where she was sitting at the back of the classroom, and Luz wove her way through the seats until she was at her own seat next to Anne.

“Hi!” Anne whispered as their teacher instructed them to please take out their textbooks. “Happy birthday!” Anne pulled out a small wrapped package with her textbook and handed it to Luz. “Here’s my gift to you!”

Luz carefully unwrapped the box and set the wrapping paper in her lap, then opened the uncovered jewelry box. A thin silvery chain with an owl shone up at her. Luz looked at it for a moment, then set it on her desk and reached over to hug Anne. “Thank you, I love it! It’s so pretty!” She then lifted it out of the box and clasped it around her neck.

“Luz, Anne, I need you two to pay attention or you’re going to have to switch seats with someone.” Both Luz and Anne turned their attention back to the teacher, who went on droning about medieval history.

After class, Anne and Luz left the classroom and headed to their usual meeting spot with Sasha and Marcy. Both were already waiting for them, and Sasha was holding another wrapped box. They were talking intently, then Marcy spotted Luz over Sasha’s shoulder and waved frantically. 

“Happy birthday!” Marcy yelled loud enough for Luz to hear. 

“Thank you,” Luz said as she and Anne reached their meeting spot. “Look at what Anne got me!” She showed her new necklace off to Sasha and Marcy, and both oooh ed in response.

“We have a gift for you too!” Marcy said.

“We saw it yesterday at the mall and split the cost,” Sasha added. “Here.” She handed Luz the box she was holding, and Luz quickly unwrapped and opened it to find a white hoodie with a purple stripe on the top and a purple hood. 

“No way-” Luz took in the pattern, then gasped. “It looks like Azura’s shirt from The Field of Deadly Fates!” She looked closer at the hood. “And it has cat ears too! Oh my gosh thank you both so much!” She engulfed them in a hug, then squealed and slipped the hoodie over her school uniform. “I’m going to wear this all the time!” She flipped the hood up and lifted the cat ears. “Meow meow!”

“Hey Luz,” Marcy said after school. “Do you wanna go study at the library?”

“Study at school library?”

“No,” she replied, “that library closes after school on Wednesdays. Let’s go to the public library instead!”

“Sure. Are Sasha and Anne coming?”

Marcy shook her head. “Anne has to go help her parents with the restaurant, and Sash has cheer practice.”

“Oh, okay. Let’s go, then.”

Hours later, Marcy slammed a science textbook down onto the table. “Done! I win!”

Luz looked at the heavy book in shock. “There’s no way you skimmed through that entire thing so fast!”

“I can, and I did! Take that!” Marcy stuck out her tongue at Luz, who laughed and shoved her shoulder. “Now you’re just being a sore loser.”

“Come on, Marshmallow, you are literally one of a kind. I’m sure there aren’t many people who can read an entire science textbook in an hour, and I’m definitely not one of them.”

“Fair. I’m going to read something else now, you keep reading the textbook, and we’ll see when you finish.”

Luz groaned. “You already won, why do I need to do this?”

“‘Cause the competition isn’t over till we both finish.” Marcy picked up a book from the table and flipped it open, already distracted from the conversation. Sighing, Luz followed suit with the textbook.

Midway through a lesson on DNA replication, Luz was momentarily distracted by the thump of something falling somewhere else in the library. She looked around for a moment, disoriented, then glanced at Marcy. The other girl was sitting on the edge of her seat, eyes fixed on her book. She laughed at something, and her whole face lit up, brightening her dark brown eyes and causing Luz’s own face to twist into a smile.

“You know,” she mumbled to herself. “You’re really pretty when you laugh.” Then Luz’s eyes grew wide and her smile dropped as she registered what she’d just said. Oh, shoot.

Thankfully, Marcy didn’t look up from her book. Maybe she hadn’t heard what Luz had said? All of Luz’s hopes crashed to the ground when Marcy quietly said, “Thanks? That was kind of random. What brought it on?”

Luz stiffened as she wracked her brain for an excuse. “Oh, just noticed,” she finally said, and Marcy shrugged before she started scanning the pages of her book again. Luz silently breathed a sigh of relief as she returned to her own book, resolving to think about what had happened later.

Later that night, Luz lay in her bedroom, unable to sleep. She stared at the ceiling and thought about what had possessed her to say such a thing, and to Marcy of all people!

Her mind drifted to all the time she’d spent with Marcy, and all the little things she’d noticed. When she got deep into a subject, her eyes sparkled. The way she couldn’t help but strive to be the best in everything she did. How pretty she looked when she laughed.

Then suddenly it struck her, and she sat up in bed, eyes wide. “Oh, no.”

I have a crush on Marcy Wu.

Sighing, she lay down again and closed her eyes. “I can’t tell her,” she mumbled to herself. “It’ll go just like last time I asked someone out. And I’d be devastated if I lost my first friend in the world.”

“Sasha, look! My parents bought me some new shoes yesterday! Aren’t they nice?”

“Oooh, cute shoes, Anne,” Sasha said. “Can I try them on?”

“Sure,” Anne said, slipping them off her feet and stepping onto the pavement in her socks. “Go for it!”

Sasha took her own shoes off and stood on them, then daintily stepped into Anne’s shoes. “Wow, these are nice shoes,” she remarked after she was done. “Can I keep them?”

“…you want to keep them? But my parents got them for me to replace-“

“Anne, these are great shoes. Can I please have them?”

“I don’t have any other shoes to wear-“

“Nonsense,” Sasha interrupted. “You can wear your gym shoes. These are amazing shoes, Anne, thanks!” She picked up her other pair of shoes and headed off to class.

“But my gym shoes are in the locker room!” Anne’s call went unheard as Sasha turned around the corner.

Luz, observing the whole interaction, frowned. “You can use my gym shoes, I didn’t leave them in the locker room yet,” she said, handing Anne a plastic bag with her shoes in them. “Trade them out for your gym shoes later if you want.”

“Thanks, Luz,” Anne said, relieved. “Well, at least Sasha likes the shoes, right?” She shrugged helplessly while putting on Luz’s shoes. “I’m just a little disappointed that I didn’t get a chance to wear them for a full day, I guess… Well, I’m off to class. See you soon!” She headed down the hall, and Luz resolved to talk about this with Marcy later.

“…and then she walked off.” Luz was finished recounting the story of what happened between Sasha and Anne to Marcy, who frowned and sat up straight. “I don’t think Anne realizes what’s happening between her and Sasha.”

“Talking about me, girls?” Sasha slid into the seat beside Marcy with a tray of school lunch. “Only good things, I hope.”

“Only good things,” Luz replied weakly. “Where’s Anne, by the way?”

Sasha shrugged. “Dunno. Ugh, what kind of school lunch is this?” She picked at the food on her plate. “We go to a private school, you’d think they’d give us something a little more edible than this junk…” She stood and emptied her tray into the trash can. “I’m not eating that.”

“Sorry I’m late, guys!” Anne said, walking up to the table. “I had to walk here from the other side of campus. It was pretty far, and it did not help that the teacher made me stay late.” She sat beside Luz and unzipped her backpack, pulling out two food containers.

Sasha perked up at the sight of the containers. “Oooooh, actually good food! Give me some, Anne?”

Anne stared at the two containers, then half-heartedly slid one to Sasha. The other girl opened it and started shoveling food into her mouth with a muffled ‘thank you’.

Luz gestured to the scene beside them and made a ‘see what I mean’ face at her. Marcy nodded, and made a ‘I see’ face at Luz, then stuck her tongue out and crossed her eyes. Luz giggled a little, her cheeks growing warm.

“So, what do we do about it?” Luz asked. “Sasha’s pushing Anne around. A lot. And Anne’s just letting Sasha walk all over her.”

“Now that I think about it,” Marcy mused, “whenever Sash and Anne used to fight, remember how you and I would try to mediate, but Sasha wouldn’t listen unless Anne apologized? Even if it was her fault? I think that’s kind of led Sasha to think she can get Anne to do whatever she wants her to do. And Anne just can’t say no to her.”

“But what do we do about it?”

“I…have no idea.” Marcy collapsed dramatically on the library table. “I’m stumped. What do you think Azura would do? Or Cynthia Coven?”

“I think Azura would maybe just talk to her,” Luz said. “Anne, I mean. I think we all need to confront Sasha. Like an intervention.”

“Not a bad idea. But when?”

Luz checked the time. “Doesn’t Anne’s tennis practice end in half an hour? We can text her to meet us at the library and wait here.”

“I’ll text her,” Marcy said, already pulling out her phone. “What do you want to do while we wait?”

“Hmm…” Luz considered. “Do you have your Swap?”

“No,” Marcy said, sending the message and putting her phone in the pocket. “My parents made me leave my Swap at home today so we can’t play any games. Something about gaming too much.”

“Oh. Well, we are in a library. Let’s read books!”

Marcy looked around. “Yeah, we are in a library. That is a very good idea!”

Anne went up the stairs to the library, pulling her phone out of her pocket and sending Marcy a quick text asking where she was. Her phone pinged a moment later, with Marcy sending the name of an aisle in the library–Anne had no idea where that was. She decided to ask a librarian, and the librarian pointed her in the direction of the children’s section.

A moment later she spotted Luz and Marcy deep in discussion over an open book. “Hey, guys!” she called. “There you are.”

“Hi, Anne!” Luz waved her over. “Here, sit down. There’s something we need to talk about.”

Anne was starting to get a little suspicious, but put it out of her mind. She handed Luz the plastic bag with her shoes in it. “Thanks for letting me borrow this,” she said. “I switched them out with my gym shoes.”

“No problemo,” Luz said, taking the bag. “Marcy, you want to start?”

Marcy opened her mouth, then closed it and buried her head in her hands. “I hate social confrontations,” her muffled voice said.

“Okay, I’ll start then. Anne, I have a few questions for you, and please answer honestly. When was the last time you said no to Sasha?”

“...I don’t know.” Anne struggled to think of something, but her brain came up empty. “But I’m just being a good friend, right?”

“Besides your shoes and your lunch, what else have you given Sasha from your stuff?”

Anne shrugged. She had no idea where Luz was going with this. “Sash likes a lot of my stuff. Why?”

“We think you’re letting her walk all over you,” Luz said. “She’s always trying to get you to do things her way. If you say you don’t want to do something, she still convinces you to do it anyway.”

“W-what?” Anne was confused now. “Where did this come from? Besides, I’m being a good friend, right?”

“That’s not-”

The intercom in the library crackled to life. “Attention, everyone,” a voice blared. “The library closes in fifteen minutes, and the checkout counters close in ten minutes. Please check out your books and proceed to the library exit.”

“Anne, just–think about it, okay?” Luz slid her chair back, followed by Marcy and Anne. “Let’s go, guys.”

The whole walk home, Anne remained lost in thought. She barely registered saying goodbye to Marcy and Luz, and went to sleep that night wondering if Luz was right.

Chapter Text

Anne walked into biology class, feeling miserable about what had happened at the library. Principal Murphy’s assigned essay yesterday hadn’t helped either. She hadn’t gotten a good night’s rest for three days, and even her mom’s khao niew bing hadn’t cheered her up very much. A small part of her resented Luz and Marcy for what they had told her; she tried to ignore that feeling, though. It probably wouldn’t lead her anywhere remotely pleasant, and they were just trying to help.

She slid the swivel chair out from under the table, then lay her head on her arms without giving too much thought to the tray set in front of her seat.

“Hey, girl, there you are!” Anne had forgotten that she shared this class with Sasha. She wanted to hit her head on the table. How was she supposed to deal with the library incident and try to act normal around Sasha at the same time??

“Hey, Sash,” she finally said, proud that her voice came out normal, or at least close enough that Sasha didn’t suspect anything to be wrong. Sasha sat down beside her, swinging her backpack onto the floor.

“Alright class,” Mrs. Virk announced. “Today’s your lucky day ‘cause it’s Frog Dissection Day!” She motioned to trays with dead frogs lying in them. One was set in front of every student. Most of the class began to murmur amongst themselves, and a few of the particularly outspoken kids in the front of the class gagged and mimed throwing up. Anne heard one kid yell “Gross!” in disgust.

Anne looked into her own tray, seeing an orange frog with something that looked an awful lot like hair sticking out of the sides of its head. She poked it with one of the tools lying next to the tray and shuddered when she caught a glimpse of its weirdly-shaped eyes and long tongue. She gagged. “Ugh, frogs are the worst,” Anne said in disgust. She considered pushing the tray away, but that would mean touching it, and she didn’t want to do that.

Sasha pushed her chair closer to Anne. “Right? Let’s get outta here.” Sasha took a leaf out of the other kids’ books and began pretending to gag. “Mrs. Virk…the sight of blood…I-I’m gonna be sick.”

“Oh, dear. Anne, why don’t you take Sasha to the sick room before she desecrates these beautiful frog bodies with her vomit.” While speaking, she squeaked a frog in her fist as though she were trying to prove her point.

Sasha and Anne obediently grabbed their backpacks and left the room, closing the door behind them. The moment they were out of earshot of the biology classroom, Sasha yelled “Race you!” and took off straight ahead. 

“Hey, no fair! You got a head start!” She chased after Sasha, whose laughter echoed through the hallway.

When they passed the sick room, Anne skidded to a halt. “Yo, Sash. Sick room’s over here.” She pointed toward a sign reading ‘Nurse’.

Sasha sighed, then turned around. “Forget the sick room, forget school . Let’s get out of here and celebrate your birthday in style!”

“Oof, skip school? I don’t know, Sash…“

“Anne, this is your thirteenth birthday. You only get one of these! So let’s make it the best birthday in the history of birthdays.” 

Anne knew it was futile to argue with her. We think you’re letting her walk all over you. She shuddered and tried to push those thoughts out of her head. It probably didn’t count when Sash was doing it for her, right? Sasha was a good friend who wanted to give Anne an amazing thirteenth birthday and Anne, though loathe to leave school without permission, appreciated the sentiment. Sighing, she nodded. “Alright, I gotta be home by 6 though, my parents are throwing me a big party and they really want me to be there.”

“Right, right, you got it,” Sasha immediately brushed it off and set off for the exit. “Now let’s get this thing started!”

<Luzura> where are you?

<Luzura> i went home to change out of the uniform, are we still talking to Sash today?

Marcy considered Luz’s message for a moment, then sighed. 

<marmar> I don’t think that’s a good idea, it’s anne’s birthday today and we wanna let her have a good birthday

<marmar> not deal with all of this stuff

<marmar> i’m at the library btw

<Luzura> fair

<Luzura> have you gotten a gift for her yet?

Marcy sat up straight in her seat. “Oh no, I forgot!” 

After a minute had passed with Marcy fretting about how she could have gotten so distracted, Luz sent another text. 

<Luzura> dont worry about it

<Luzura> worst comes to worst we can just go to the mall last minute and get something together

<Luzura> I don’t have one either if it isnt obvious

<marmar> Thanks Luz! Really appreciate it

Marcy put her phone in her pocket and began to put her study materials in her bag. A librarian wheeled past with a cart loaded with books, a squeaky wheel catching Marcy’s attention. As she watched, she saw a book tumble off the upper shelf of the cart. 

Marcy stooped to pick it up. “Uh, excuse me, ma’am, you dropped your… book?” 

She trailed off as she took in the cover. “ Dr. P’s Extraordinary Guide to Magic and Mystery ,” she read aloud. Flipping through it, she stopped on a splash illustration of a music box carved with frogs, three gems clearly visible on top. She read the name at the top. “Woah! Calamity box? Travel to other worlds?” She paused for a moment, contemplating. “Heh, goofy stuff. Cool artwork though.” She snapped a picture with her phone, then a text alert popped up from her dad. “‘Come home. We need to talk.’ Huh, wonder what this is all about. Guess I’ll head home before finding a gift for Anne.”

<marmar> Sent an image

<marmar> do you think this is a good gift for anne?

<Luzura> what is it?

<Luzura> those three gems look really expensive

<Luzura> its really pretty tho

<Luzura> gold and green is a good color scheme

<marmar> its a music box 

<marmar> its in this thrift store near my house

<marmar> Shared their location

<marmar> i checked the price, its twenty dollars, i have ten and you can pay ten and we can both give it to anne

<Luzura> sure

<Luzura> omw 

Sluuuuuuuurp. Anne glanced at the milkshake glass in her hand. “So that’s what a unicorn tastes like!” she said. “Corn syrup!”

On the other side of the table, Sasha took another sip from her own shake. 

Suddenly, Anne’s phone buzzed on the table. Anne pushed her sunglasses onto the top of her head, then picked the phone up and stared at the notification for a moment. “Oh shoot, it’s a text from Mom. It’s almost 6! I gotta go.” With fifteen minutes before the party, she would barely be able to make it home on time even if she left right at that moment. 

Sasha lounged on the café chair, taking another sip of her shake. “Family party, right? Lame. Let me guess, a clown? With balloon animals?”

Anne blushed in embarrassment. “I know it’s not the coolest, but it’s important to them.”

“Mmmhmm.” Sasha’s phone vibrated with a text alert, and she picked it up, pushing her own sunglasses up to read it. “Oooh, Marcy says she and Luz found you the perfect gift downtown. A frog music box for the frog lover.” She showed the picture to Anne. “I wonder if those gems are real…” Shaking it off, she stood up and grabbed Anne’s shoulder and hand. “Come on, let’s keep this party train rollin’. Choo-choo!”

“Sorry dude, you don’t understand. I really have to go.” Was Sasha always this pushy?

“Oh I understand, Anne. You’re a good little girl who’s gotta go home to her mommy and daddy. Come on,” she said, exasperated, “hang out with your friends that love you.”

“Sash, I’d really like to, but…”

As Anne was turning away, Sasha put a hand on her shoulder. “Anne. This isn’t cute anymore. We’re meeting up with Luz and Marcy. End. Of. Discussion. ”

Anne looked down, picking the edge of her shoe against a gap in the tile. “I– I guess it's okay if–” If you say you don’t want to do something, she still convinces you to do it anyway. Luz’s words echoed through her mind, and she clammed up as she realized this is what she and Marcy had meant.

She knew the easy answer. The one Sasha was expecting, and the one that Anne herself was expecting a little bit too. But all the things she’d been told in the past three days showed themselves clear in her mind, and she knew what she had to say. Maybe it was Luz and Marcy’s words. Maybe it was the conversation she had with Principal Murphy. Maybe it was just the fact that Sasha was telling her to skip her own birthday party. Whatever it was, Anne couldn’t say why she did it, only that she wouldn’t have even dreamed about doing it three days ago. “No, Sash. I can’t stay. I’m already going to be late as it is, I don’t want to miss my party.”

Sasha’s jaw dropped. “Where did that come from?” She looked positively bewildered by Anne’s words. 

“Well, I– I can’t tell you.” Anne mentally cursed herself for slipping up.

Eyes narrowed at Anne’s slip-up, Sasha put her hands on her cheeks, adopting a hurt expression. “Are you hiding something from me, Anne? Friends don’t hide things from friends.”

Seeing Sasha’s sad look, guilt filled Anne. “Luz said I can’t say no to you. She said you force me to do things I don’t really want to do.” The moment she processed what she’d just said, she clapped a hand over her mouth and her face paled. Why did I say that, why did I say that!

Sasha’s face flattened. “What.”

Anne knew she’d messed up. “I– she didn’t mean it in a mean way! She didn’t say force, exactly, but she told me that you don’t take no for an answer and that you make me do things I don’t want to do and Marcy didn’t say anything but she agreed and–” With great difficulty, Anne closed her mouth to prevent herself from digging Luz and Marcy into any deeper of a hole.

Sasha took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Anne. What exactly did Luz tell you?”

Anne did her best to recount the conversation she’d had a few days ago in the library. The whole time she did so, as she watched Sasha’s expression slowly harden into anger, she felt a pit open in her stomach. This wasn’t right. Luz and Marcy had only been trying to help Anne, not make Sasha angry; yet, here they were, thanks to Anne’s mistake.

When she was done, Sasha stood quietly for a moment. A small vibration in Anne’s pocket alerted her to the fact that it was five minutes before the start of her birthday party. A café customer brushed past them, grumbling about teenagers always blocking the path.

“Anne, do you really believe those things she said about me?” Sasha’s voice was calm, but a slight hint of hurt underneath further widened the pit in Anne’s stomach.

“...I don’t know?” she tried. 

Sasha studied her face for a moment, then nodded. “Fine. Let’s go confront them. A good friend always backs the other up, right?” Anne shrank into herself as she nodded mutely. 

Another text from Marcy came from Sasha’s phone, and Sasha’s hands shook with suppressed anger as she typed back a text. “Let’s go, then,” she said shortly, and Anne followed her out of the café without another word, guilt piloting her every step.

“That’ll be twenty dollars, please,” the old lady at the cash register said, nudging her glasses farther up her nose as she peered at the cash register. Marcy and Luz each handed over a ten-dollar bill, and once the lady gave Marcy a receipt, Luz picked up the box. “Thank you for shopping at the Thrift Stop, and have a good day.”

“Thanks for giving us such a deal on this music box,” Luz replied. Marcy added a ‘thanks’ of her own as they turned to leave the store. Before they even set foot on the sidewalk, they heard the old lady’s snores echoing through the tiny storefront. 

“Now we just gotta get to Anne’s party,” Luz said. “I hope she likes the gift.”

“Same,” Marcy agreed. “I texted Sasha earlier to meet us here, then we can all head over to Anne’s house together. I hope Sash has her gift ready with her. Oh, and Luz, thanks for helping me buy this gift for Anne. It really means a lot to me that you went out of your way for this. More than you know.”

Luz’s cheeks felt like they were on fire. “It was no problem–” she said in the squeakiest voice she had ever heard. She cleared her throat. “I mean, it’s no problem. I didn’t really have a gift either, so you helped me just as much as I helped you.” Then she glimpsed something that saved her from her impending embarrassment. “Speaking of,” Luz pointed down the sidewalk. “Isn’t that Sash over there?” She pointed to a person with blond hair tied back in a ponytail striding down the sidewalk.

“Yup, looks like it,” Marcy said, shading her eyes with her hands. “Wait–is Anne following her? Isn’t she supposed to be home for her birthday party?” Luz looked closer. It was indeed Anne, head hanging and feet dragging as she trailed after Sasha. Luz and Marcy started walking towards them as they drew closer, meeting up outside the window of the thrift store.

“Happy thirteenth birthday, Anne!” Luz said, handing her the music box. 

Marcy echoed Luz, adding, “We bought this music box for you. Hope you like it!”

“It’s really pretty,” Anne said, taking it and rubbing at one of the colored gems on the lid. “Thanks.”

“Enough of that,” Sasha interrupted, drawing Luz’s attention to her. “We have to talk.”

“Talk?” Marcy asked. “Talk about what? Why do you look so mad?”

Sasha didn’t elaborate. “Anne, go stand behind them so they don’t walk away.”

Anne slowly obliged, the music box still clutched in her hands.

“What’s going on?” Luz asked.

Sasha sneered. “Like you don’t know.”

“Like we don’t know what, exactly?” Luz was hopelessly confused. She glanced at Marcy; the other girl seemed to share the same sentiment, shooting her own bewildered look back.

Then it hit both girls at the same time. Marcy’s face fell with understanding, and Luz immediately whirled around on Anne. “Wait, you told her?” she asked, feeling betrayed. “Why did you tell her? You weren’t supposed to tell her!”

“I–I didn’t–” Anne stammered. “It just happened!”

“No, no no no…” Marcy said, numb. “This wasn’t supposed to happen!”

“How could you go and tell her!” Luz wasn’t through with being mad at Anne yet. “We trusted you, we were trying to help you, but you go and pull this on us? What in the world?”

“I didn’t mean to–It just–”

“Doesn’t matter, it still happened. Thanks a lot, Anne.”

Sasha waved her hand to get everyone’s attention. Three sets of eyes settled on her. “Why would you say those untrue things about me?” she asked. “If anyone has the right to get mad here, it’s me. Not you. ”

“They aren’t wrong, you are super controlling,” Luz proclaimed hotly. “They’re actually valid concerns that you could and probably should be addressing, not shutting them down and whining about it! And you!” she yelled, turning on Anne again. “Why would you tell her? We were trying to help you!”

“I’m sorry, it was a mistake– it just slipped out–I didn’t mean to–”

“Guys, stop–” Marcy pleaded. “Please just–”

“That’s enough!” Sasha stepped forward and shoved Luz. “Take it back!”

Luz stumbled back a little, catching her balance quickly. “You making me take it back is literally proving our point!”

“Guys–” Marcy sounded desperate.

“Ugh, just stop!” Sasha shoved Luz again. This time when Luz tried to recover her balance, she tripped over Marcy’s waiting foot and went toppling backward, straight towards a stunned Anne. She felt cold metal hitting her side, heard the creak of Anne’s music box opening for the first time, saw bright, blinding white– and then nothing.

Chapter Text

When Luz opened her eyes to blue sky and pine trees, her first thought was that she was freezing.

She sat up with a groan, nursing a slight headache. “Ugghhh…” She closed her eyes and focused the rest of her body, assessing for pain. But she couldn’t feel anything but the cold, windy atmosphere in her flimsy hoodie and leggings. 

She opened her eyes again, and there was only white ground and tall trees in every direction. “Is this…snow?” she mumbled to herself. A quick test of picking a little bit up and watching it melt into water from the heat of her palm proved that it was, in fact, snow. “What’s snow doing in the middle of LA?”

She glanced around, but there was nothing but snow and pine trees, neither of which she’d ever seen back home. “If I’m not in Los Angeles, where am I?”

Standing up, Luz took inventory, checking her shoulder bag for anything she could use to keep warm. Thankfully, her mom had made her pack an SJMS hoodie that morning, and she hadn’t bothered to take it out when she’d gone home to change for Anne’s party. She slipped it on, the light purple fabric doing little to help keep the cold out. 

Then came the fifth volume of The Good Witch Azura, which she’d been intending to reread, and so she’d kept it in her bag before leaving the house to meet Marcy. She put it back as soon as she saw it to avoid accidentally dropping it in the snow. 

After more searching in her bag, she pulled out her phone. Unlocking it, she tried to find any signal she could, but it was useless. Quickly scrolling to her messages app, she tried to send a text to the group chat, but it didn’t deliver. The same happened when she tried to call her mom. She slid the phone back in her bag in an effort to conserve the battery, not sure when she’d find a place to plug in her charger.

“Well,” Luz mumbled to herself. “Do you know how you got here?” Wracking her brain to see if she could remember what happened, her eyes widened as she recalled what happened after she left home to meet Marcy. Buying the music box… the fight with Sasha and Anne. Or, rather, being mad at Anne and fighting with Sasha. Maybe overreacting a bit to the news that Anne had told Sasha. And then… and then what? Sasha pushed her, and she bumped into Anne, and the music box opened….

“Oh…” she said with a moment of clarity. “The music box must have done something to bring me here. But where am I now? Where did it take me? Did the girls come here too?”

She wasn’t going to find an answer to that question just standing around. She swung her shoulder bag back onto her shoulder then glanced at the sun. The sun always rose in the east and set in the west, right? She picked the direction where the sun was closest to the horizon and began walking, hoping to find something to help her figure out where she was.

Luz kept walking through the forest for she didn’t know how long, long enough for the thin jacket she wore to warm up to her body temperature — but it wasn’t warm enough to combat the chill of the snow and ice everywhere. Before long, she started to suspect that she was the only one anywhere near this snowy forest. There was no movement anywhere, aside from wind blowing through leafy tree boughs.

It didn’t take long for Luz to begin to shiver from the cold, but she kept going. There had to be something… Luz suspected that it was a futile hope at this point. At the rate she was walking, she would never get out of this forest before she found herself lost–or worse, before she got hypothermia.

Then she heard a click, click just above her shoulder.

Luz froze and turned around slowly, dreading what she was about to see. She caught a glimpse of long, spindly legs…then a black, shiny body…then a giant head with antennae, two mandibles clicking together, hovering just behind her. The creature cocked its head and peered at her through beady black eyes. Her own eyes widened and her jaw dropped with fear.

“G-giant ant!”

Instinctively, she ducked, which turned out to be a good call when the ant shot a huge burst of fire at her, lighting up a tree behind her. Luz could feel the heat of the flames beginning to thaw her chilled body. Then her mind caught up with the rest of her. “Wait…” she muttered as she dodged to avoid the ant’s lunges. “Fire breathing ants shouldn’t be possible. What is this place? Am I even on Earth?”

The ant turned to face her and rushed at her again, and as she moved out of the way, she realized that its body wasn’t black like she’d originally thought, but a dark maroon with lighter red streaks that became more apparent in the firelight from the burning trees. “It’s like a giant fire ant, except this one can actually breathe fire. At least it’s warming me up,” she mumbled to herself. She ducked under yet another blast, then dodged and ran, grabbing a broken, burning branch from the ground before the rapidly melting snow put it out.

“Come on, come on, come on!” she mumbled, desperately trying to find a place where she could escape the giant ant pursuing her. A stray burst of flame sailed over her head, singeing her hair and setting a nearby tree ablaze. She heard the threatening click, click following her, always staying way too close for comfort. Her shoes were starting to sink into the snowy terrain, making it that much harder to stay ahead of the creature. Her makeshift torch hit a passing tree branch and set it on fire, and it cracked and collapsed, falling between the ant and Luz and creating a barrier that nearly burned her pursuer when it ran into the flames headlong with a shriek of pain. Luz used the opportunity to turn towards a cliff face to the far left, hoping the fire ant wouldn’t cut across the forest to catch up to her. She grabbed a few more branches along the way, hoping to use them as weapons against the ant if it caught up.

Thankfully, the ant followed in Luz’s footsteps instead of cutting across the forest to save time. She ran as fast as she could, but when her foot fell through a particularly deep patch of snow, it cost her precious seconds unsticking it and making sure she still had her shoe. She stumbled to her feet and kept running, finally reaching a huge crack in the cliff face just before the ant caught up with her. She immediately started to wriggle herself in, praying the crack led somewhere and wasn’t a dead end, or she was dead. She pulled her burning branch into the crack last so she wouldn’t accidentally burn herself. 

Thankfully, her silent pleas were heard, as the crack in the cliff face opened up into a round cavern with patches of snow scattered on the ground. Luz did a quick scan of the cave, but upon seeing no particularly hostile things jumping out at her, she let out a breath of relief and set the makeshift torch down in the center of the cave to provide some light, taking a seat next to the entrance with her knees folded to her chest. On the other side of the cliff face, the ant screeched in anger, a burst of flame roaring through the crack and setting several more of Luz’s sticks ablaze. She tossed them onto the torch in the center so they wouldn’t set her entire supply on fire. Then she scooted farther away from the crack and leaned her head against the wall, breathing hard.

Luz sat in the cave for what felt like an hour before the giant ant left to find easier prey. She heard the ant’s screech of fury slowly get quieter and quieter as it walked off. Before long, she felt safe enough to stick her head out of the cave and saw nothing but snow, sunset, and needle-leaved trees.

Now that the danger had passed, she felt herself relaxing. She turned to look at the fire, watching the dancing, flickering flames for a while. Heat washed over her chilled body, and she scooted closer. It felt like she was melting… and she felt… so, so sleepy….

The next thing Luz knew, she was lying on her side, mouth dry, gravel stuck to her cheek, a dying fire in front of her. Drops of water slowly dripped to the ground an inch from her face. She slowly sat up, and her stomach growled.

“Did I fall asleep?” She brushed the gravel off and carefully went to her feet, then picked up one of her last few sticks and poked the fire until it was roaring again, casting dancing shadows on the cave walls. Then she looked at the entrance and went to take a peek outside.

It was high noon, and the sun shone through the tree branches, causing Luz to squint at the sudden brightness and shade her eyes with her hand. She considered staying in the cave’s shelter, but decided to go see if she could find any way out of the forest. Her stomach rumbled again and she frowned, hoping she could find food while she was away.

It took only a few minutes to find a particularly thick branch under a tree outside to use as a torch, then she lit it, grabbed her shoulder bag, and left the cave. Looking around, Luz decided to follow the cliff so she had a way to find the cave again. When she got thirsty, she picked up some snow and melted it with her torch before drinking her fill.

The sun was almost setting and she was considering turning back to try again the next day when she saw something unusual against the last remaining rays of light.

Luz squinted, trying to see it better against the rapidly darkening sky. “Is that… smoke?” She was wary of approaching, considering it could have been another fire breathing ant, but her hunger soon won out over her caution and she went forward, hiding behind trees as she crept closer.

Before long, Luz saw a cabin through the trees, smoke rising slowly out of two chimneys, and she immediately abandoned her torch in the snow and her sense of caution to her hunger. She raced to the door and knocked as though her life depended on it.

Luz waited on the doorstep for what felt like forever before the door creaked open. And to her surprise, it wasn’t a human that opened it. An indigo-colored axolotl wearing a green sweater stared into Luz’s eyes with a brief moment of surprise. “Hello,” the axolotl said, burying her confusion. “Do you need something?”

“I need help,” Luz said a little desperately. “Where am I? Do you have food?” What are you? Luz didn’t say the last part, knowing it would be rude.

“Oh,” the axolotl said, then pushed the door open wider and moved aside. “Come in. I’ve almost prepared lunch, I’ll answer your questions over soup.” She disappeared behind the door, and Luz followed, stepping into the entryway. She stayed there awkwardly, not sure where to go.

“You can come to the kitchen, just take off your shoes,” the axolotl called from a room down the hall. Luz obliged, slipping off her wet shoes and padding down the hallway in her socks, finding her host preparing some sort of vegetable stew over a fire, stirring a pot before ladling a portion into a pair of bowls.

“Thank you–” Luz started, but the axolotl cut her off. “You don’t need to thank me, it’s nothing. Eat up.” Luz nodded, and sat down where the axolotl pointed.  Her host took a seat across from her.

“So, to answer your question from earlier,” the axolotl said, “you’re in the mountains north of Newtopia, not far from Starwater Basin. But I suspect that’s not what you mean. This is Amphibia, and you’re from another world, aren’t you?”

“Uh, yeah, I think so,” Luz mumbled. “I’m from Earth.”

“Very well,” the axolotl said. “I’m Anisa. I’m the only one who lives in these mountains as far as I know, and I’ve explored quite a bit of it. The closest city is Newtopia, all the way down the mountain, by the ocean. If you want to go there, it would be wise to prepare for all the snow and the little food available in winter.”

“It’s winter?” Luz asked. She took a sip of soup, savoring the food, then continued. “Is that why there are no animals outside, aside from the giant ant I saw?”

Anisa’s eyes widened almost comically. “You saw a fire ant? Did it attack you?” When Luz nodded, she let out a gasp. “You’re lucky to have escaped alive. Anyway, to answer your question, yes. During the summer there isn’t nearly as much snow, so when it comes, most animals either head down the mountain or go into hibernation. That fire ant was one of the few species that can tolerate the cold. Still, it’s odd to see one so close to the top of the mountain at this time, as all of its prey usually heads toward Newtopia.”

“Oh,” Luz said. “That makes sense, I guess.” She took another sip of soup, then, after a moment of thought, decided to ask. “Do you know if there’s any way for me to get home? And maybe my friends are here as well, do you know how to find them?”

Anisa sighed. “Newtopia’s libraries don’t have any information on how to travel worlds, at least not beyond fiction,” she said. “My nephew works as a Newtopian archivist, and even through all the books he’s read there hasn’t been much more than legends and tales. As for your friends, they could be anywhere. It would probably be best to wait for now. You can stay while you wait, or you can go; it’s entirely up to you. Going would require a lot of preparation. Newtopia isn’t exactly close, and I’m willing to bet you don’t know where to go or what’s safe to eat.”

Luz considered as she scraped the bottom of her bowl. The soup had been thick, so she wasn’t too hungry, and she didn’t want to ask for more so she wouldn’t bother her host; but Anisa took her bowl and filled it again without Luz even asking. “Eat,” Anisa said, “then you can go to my library and entertain yourself as I prepare the guest room. It’s through that door, feel free to read any book you like.” With that, she left, not waiting to hear Luz’s protests. Luz heard a door shut somewhere as she finished her soup.

It didn’t take long for the axolotl to return, but by then Luz was settled in an armchair by the fire warming up and reading her Azura book. “The room is ready, you can go to bed if you want,” Anisa said, then gestured for Luz to follow. Luz stood up and followed her down the hall to a plain, unmarked door, which Anisa pushed open to reveal a modest bedroom with a dressing table. She clapped her hands to turn on a mushroom  light hanging from the ceiling, giving the room a warm orange glow. “Bathroom’s next door.” Anisa pointed, then turned to the door. “I’ll leave you to settle in.”

Before she could leave, though, Luz said, “Wait! Thank you, so much, for letting me stay. I really appreciate it.”

Anisa waved it off. “Don’t worry about it. I know a thing or two about being lost.” 

“One more question–how do you know so much about traveling worlds?”

The axolotl stopped in the doorway, considering Luz’s last question. “It’s a very long story,” she finally said. “One best told much, much later.” Then she shut the door, leaving Luz alone in her new bedroom.

Luz gasped in delight. “Backstory…” she whispered almost reverently. Then she turned to look at her new room, feeling her excitement dim as she took in the fact that she would be here for a while, long enough to have her own room.

After unpacking her bag’s contents into the dressing table, Luz lay in bed, staring at her book. The familiar image of Azura and Hecate raising the Staff of the Skies was comforting to see in such unfamiliar surroundings. After a moment, she opened the book’s cover, removing the jacket before pulling out the photo tucked underneath. ‘BFFs’ was written on the bottom in pink marker, and she traced the little heart next to it, before looking at the actual photo. The smiling faces of herself and her three friends greeted her. She could still remember when they’d taken the photo, right before school started– she desperately hoped they were okay, because Anne, Sasha, and Marcy were still her best friends. Even if Sasha was refusing to see reason, and even if she was still kind of upset at Anne. With that thought, she put the photo back in the book and stared at the mushroom light hanging overhead until her eyes grew heavy and she couldn’t keep them open anymore.

Chapter Text

The screen flickers to life. A hand reaches back, uncovering the camera. Luz smiles at the camera from where she’s lying stomach down on top of the blanket.

“Hola, Mami!” Her smile falters. “You’re probably worried sick about me right now. It’s been at least two days since I went missing….” She scratches her head. “Wow, it’s cold in here. Be right back.” The camera shifts as she gets up and reaches for something off-screen. A moment later she’s putting on a lavender hoodie with ‘SJMS’ printed on it. “That’s better. So, back to the story.”

“Remember how I told you Marcy and I were going to buy that music box for Anne? I never came home… but that wasn’t on purpose. Somehow the music box we bought zapped me to another world, and it might have taken Marcy, Anne, and Sasha here too. I don’t really know.

“I kind of passed out, I think, and I woke up in the middle of a snowy forest. I had no idea where I was, and I just kind of… wandered? For like at least an hour, just looking for something.” She shrugs. “I mean, what else are you supposed to do if you don’t know where you are?

“I eventually found a cave, and I slept there. It was really cold outside, but I had a campfire in the cave. I didn’t start the fire, I have no idea how to do that. But there was this giant fire-breathing ant…” She looks away. “ …the less said about that, the better. It eventually left me alone; I just used some of the fire it shot into the trees.” Luz sneezes, then wipes her nose. 

“So then, I woke up around what was probably noon in this world, and I kept walking. I was really hungry at this point. I skipped dinner 'cause I thought I was gonna eat at Anne’s party, remember? So that last food I ate was lunch at school, and now it would have been about time for lunch again, so that’s a really long time. And eventually, I came across a cabin in the middle of the woods. It belongs to a really nice axolotl lady named Anisa who took me in. She gave me food and a place to stay and everything. That was really nice of her to do, to be honest… I’m not sure how long I would have lasted without her.” She stops to think for a moment. “I’m forgetting something. Oh, yeah, Anisa told me I’m in a place called Amphibia! It’s another world, like in isekai anime!” She pauses. “Oh wait, you probably don’t know what that is.

“Well, anyway, I kind of feel bad that I don’t have a way to repay her for basically saving my life, so I’m going to offer to do chores and anything else she needs. Do you think that’s a good idea?” Luz’s face falls. “Oh, I forgot you probably aren’t even going to get this message.””

Luz buries her face in her arms. “Mami, I kind of feel like a jerk. I told you about everything that was happening with Sasha, remember? You told me the best thing to do would be to tell Anne and help her deal with it in her own way…” She looks at the camera again. “But Anne went and told Sasha. Not in a confrontational way, not asking why, but like she was telling on me and Marcy. I was really upset at first. I yelled so much. I definitely overreacted. Like, a lot.” She sneezes again, then sniffs. “I guess it’s not really fair to her to expect that she’ll be able to keep a secret that big for long. I mean, how long has this been happening? Months?” Luz laughs bitterly. “She was in denial for a while, too.”

She sighs and picks up the phone. “I’m just– I’m kind of afraid that the last conversation we had was just me yelling at her mostly. I’m kind of afraid that she thinks I’m mad at her. Because I’m not, not anymore at least.” She sneezes. “In all seriousness, I don’t know if any of them are okay. Anne, Marcy, Sasha…” She hesitates . “Sasha kept denying that she was really controlling. She really refused to take the feedback. But I really, really hope all three of them are okay, they’re still my best friends after all. If they’re on Earth with you, that’s great. It means they’re safe, most likely. But if they’re here… I barely escaped that fire ant with my life, and then the cold and hunger would have done me in. I can’t imagine what danger they could be in.” Luz coughs into her elbow. “And I’m sorry I can’t come home yet. I don’t know how to get back home. I don’t have the music box, and if the girls are still on Earth, it’s probably still there with them. If they’re here… I need to find them first, and that’s probably not happening for a while.”

Luz reaches for the screen. “ Te quiero , Mami. Talk to you soon!” Her hand obscures her profile.

The video stops.

Luz stopped the recording, then picked up her phone and scrolled to her messages app. Despite knowing it was useless, she still tried sending the video to her mom, crossing her fingers. It somehow felt devastating anyway when she saw the tiny red exclamation mark pop up next to the thumbnail.

She sighed and set her phone face down on top of the blanket, sitting up and sliding off the bed. A sudden rush of vertigo had her wobbling on her feet for a moment. “Huh, maybe I got up too fast,” she mumbled. “I guess I’d better go tell Anisa I’m awake.”

Luz left the room, peeking in every room she saw to find Anisa. She found the axolotl in her personal library, sitting at her desk and carving a chunk of glowing orange stone into a curvy shape. Luz couldn’t tell yet what it was supposed to be. Perhaps sensing her presence, she looked up from her work, nodding hello. “Good morning, Luz. You’re awake,” she said. 

“Um, thanks for letting me stay–”

“I told you already,” Anisa replied nonchalantly, returning to peering at her carving and scraping with a tiny metal pick, “no need to thank me.”

“I just wanted to say I can help you with anything you need me to,” Luz finished.

“No need–” Anisa started, but then she stopped. “Hold on a moment, there is something you can help me with,” she said. “Are you willing to help??”

“Sure,” Luz said.

“Okay.” Anisa pulled open a drawer in her desk, set her carving tools inside, and shut it with a thud . “You can help me harvest some food from my garden, then,” she said. “I finished the last of it this morning, and it’s almost lunch.”

“Okay. Where’s your garden?” Luz glanced toward the far wall, where a pair of windows showed a thick snowfall blanketing the ground and the branches of the trees. “Wow. I would have thought it was too cold outside for plants other than trees.”

“My garden isn’t outside,” Anisa said. “It’s underground. Follow me.” She stood up from her chair and left the library.

When Luz caught up, she saw Anisa in a room she’d originally thought was a closet of some kind. Anisa was pulling up a trapdoor from the ground, and a gust of cool, strangely fresh air whooshed through the small room. A set of stairs descended into the earth, well-lit by more of the glowing orange rocks Anisa had been carving earlier. They were all inlaid into the walls of the tunnel, and Anisa started down, not waiting to see if Luz was following. Luz considered staying upstairs, as the bright orange was making her head start to ache, but she headed down, curious to see how Anisa had managed to grow a garden in what was probably a cave. She didn’t think the axolotl had electricity for hydroponic gardening, considering how every room in the house was lit by the same kind of mushroom light her room was.

Luz’s headache grew worse the farther down they went.

It didn’t take too long to reach an opening in the long staircase tunnel. Anisa stopped in front of the entrance and gestured. “This is my garden.”

Luz’s eyes widened as she took it in. Clusters of the glowing orange rocks from earlier were sticking out of the ceiling and floor in crystalline formations, and there was a spring in the center of the room filled with water. Channels had been dug from the spring to the edges of the room, and next to those grew dozens of different types of plants, some clustered so close that the roots were literally sticking into the water. “Woah…” Luz said in awe. Then she sneezed three times in rapid succession, her eyes tearing up. “Sorry,” she continued, sniffling. “This is amazing. Did you do all of this yourself?”

“For the most part, yes,” Anisa answered. “Now, I need your help with harvesting enough food, as now I need to bring enough food for two. I left some baskets over here…” She bent down and gently pushed aside some thick leaves by the wall to reveal an alcove with several baskets haphazardly piled on top of one another. “Come help me uproot this yellowroot,” she said after handing Luz a basket.

Ignoring the throbbing in her temples, Luz followed Anisa, who knelt in the dirt and started digging around a patch of plants that reminded her of ferns nestled in the ground. “If the top of the root is still red, like this,” Anisa said, pointing to the root she’d just unearthed, “that means it’s not ripe yet. But,” she brushed dirt aside around one that had turned a deep purple, “if it’s purple you pull it up.” She did so, displaying a dark purple carrot-like vegetable with yellow streaks. “Yes, that’s a good one. Now check the rest of this patch. We want at least five, okay? But keep going until you check the entire patch or the ripe ones you don’t pick will rot.”

Luz sneezed, then wiped her nose with her sleeve and crouched down beside Anisa. “Okay,” she said, starting to dig around the roots that Anisa had shown her. “I can do that.”

They worked in silence for a while, Luz periodically sneezing or sniffing. After a moment, her curiosity got the better of her and she had to ask. “How did you– sniff – find this place?”

Anisa thought for a moment. “Well, it was a very long time ago. I had first come here to the mountains in summer, before most of the snow fell, intending to settle here and conduct research. And then I tripped and fell face-first into a hole in the ground. This was before there were stairs, so I just rolled to a stop at the bottom of the tunnel. At first, I thought I found something important to study, but it just had a pool of water, sunstone crystals, and a lot of moss and lichen. Despite that, something about it resonated with me, and I decided to settle on top and plant my garden down below.”

“Oh, is that what those are called? Sunstone crystals?” Luz pointed to the ceiling, at the clusters of orange crystal lighting the cave, then sneezed. “Why do they glow?”

“They capture magic deep in their cores, like a sponge,” Anisa said, turning to pluck something from a nearby bush. “It’s the same kind of inherent magic that the Dark Arts utilizes, but none of the crystals have magic naturally, which means if a curse-user does it properly, they can siphon all the magic out of it without damaging the crystal. They only grow in these mountains, deep in the caves. I was really lucky to find a sunstone cave so close to the surface. Usually, if you drop a sunstone without preparing a proper potion or curse, the crystals’ stored magic is so potent that it can cause the entire spell to explode on the witch who tries to use it.”

“Wow,” Luz said, glancing at the innocuous crystals with something akin to awe. Then what Anisa had said hit her. “Wait, there’s magic here? Do you know magic?” She sneezed, and her eyes started to water.

“Yes,” Anisa said. “Magic is spread across Amphibia, and most plants and the like contain little bits of it naturally. That’s why curses work. Witches mix together the different types of magic in their ingredients to cause something different to happen.”

Luz pulled another root from the ground. “I think that’s five, and I checked all the roots,” she said. “What else should I do?” She wiped her eyes, but another sneeze rendered her efforts useless. “Why does my head hurt so much?” She mumbled the last part, squeezing her eyes shut.

“Well,” Anisa said, turning to look at Luz’s work. “That looks good. Come over here.” She motioned to a bush covered in bright blueberries the size of Luz’s fist. “Pick some of these,” she said. “They’re called orroberries, and you harvest them when they turn black.” She moved aside a leaf and showed Luz a shiny black orroberry, deftly plucking it off the branch with a twist of her wrist. “Pick at least ten, but you can pick more if you want. They’re really sweet and make a good snack.”

Luz crawled over and did as told, locating black orroberries and plucking them off of the branch. She set them in the basket with the yellowroot. Catching a glimpse of the spring as she worked, another question filled her mind. “Where does the water come from?” she asked. “It doesn’t look like there’s a source.”

“The water comes from below. It’s connected to the same water source that feeds Starwater Basin.” Anisa plucked another vegetable, not looking up from what she was doing. “Because of that, sometimes the giant creatures that live in the lake wind up here instead. Just don’t fall in or you might attract something dangerous. Actually, it’s probably not a good idea to even touch the water.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Luz said, saluting. She was starting to feel kind of dizzy. “What next?”

“You’re done already?” Anisa asked. “That was pretty quick.” She looked inside Luz’s basket in surprise, sifting through the berries. “Well done,” she complimented. “You picked that up fast.”

“Yup, that’s me,” Luz mumbled. “Fast. I’m fast.” She sniffed and wiped her nose. Her headache was making it difficult to concentrate on Anisa’s words.

“There’s one more thing,” Anisa said, standing up. “On the far side of the cavern, I grow thornberries. I need a basketful of them. Thornberries are dark red when ready to harvest, and they’re about the size of a fist so it won’t take you long, can you please fill this for me?” She pointed to a cluster of climbing vines in the back of the room and handed a second basket to Luz.

“Sure. Dark red.” Luz got up to a rush of vertigo and stumbled a bit as she tried to get her footing. “I'm gonna go pluck those berries really quick, I’ll be right back.” She walked in the direction Anisa was pointing. The room was starting to spin, and she blinked in confusion. “Maybe I should sit down until the room stops spinning,” she mumbled. She took another step.

“Are you okay?” Anisa called from where she was.

“I’m– sniff – I’m fine,” she called, wiping hair out of her eyes, which were suddenly really heavy. Her hand brushed her forehead and she felt a searing heat. “Why am I so warm? It’s so cold down here.” Another sneeze. She looked down at the ground, seeing that she’d stopped in front of the well of water. “I need water.” The basket fell from her hand, bouncing on the ground and falling down on its side.

“You don’t want to touch that–” Anisa started, but it was too late. Luz had already knelt next to the water and plunged her hands in, then splashed the cool liquid all over her face. “That’s better,” she said, wiping her face with her sleeve. “I felt kind of sleepy.” She felt more alert as well, with her headache receding to a dull throb and her vision steadying. “What was I–”

“Oh, no.” The sheer panic in Anisa’s voice was enough to stop Luz’s words, and she turned to see the axolotl’s face was full of dread. She turned to glance at her dripping fingers. Dimly, she recalled Anisa saying something about touching the water. The axolotl’s expression was enough for Luz to tell that she’d done something dangerous, and she came to the conclusion that maybe , just maybe, touching the water had been something she shouldn’t have done.

“Oops,” she said, just before she heard an inhuman screech and a huge splash. A wall of water slammed into her as she turned to look, a giant centipede-like creature springing out of the water and snapping at her. She wobbled for a moment, then fell hard, scraping her palm against a rock. She turned to look at the gargantuan bug that had landed just an inch away from crushing Anisa’s orroberry bushes. It thrashed, breaking several branches off of the bushes and crushing shrubs laden with yellow fruit beneath its body.

And then the cave plunged into darkness, save for a grid of dots glowing like someone had splattered spots of molten lava across the ceiling in place of paint.

The giant bug had stopped thrashing at the sight, likely as confused as Luz was. The dots slowly detached from the ceiling and floated down, undulating with a serpentine grace, closer and closer to where the lake creature had landed. They slowly, mesmerizingly surrounded the creature, and it started thrashing again, but to no avail. The dots constricted around the bug and lifted it into the air, and its wild thrashing was useless when there wasn’t any nearby enemy.

Suddenly, a thump could be heard, and the lights came back on, causing her to blink back spots from her eyes. Luz’s headache came back with full force and she groaned in pain, trying to see what the bug had managed to hit. A quick glimpse of what happened though headache-induced teary eyes saw the huge gray lake bug lying unconscious under a glowing twine net, an indigo axolotl slowly rising to her feet, hand pressed to her temple. Luz’s own attempt to get up didn't go well, with her legs wobbling and unceremoniously causing her to fall down barely a few seconds after getting up.

She dried her eyes and sniffed, watching Anisa raise her fists. The net tightened around the snoozing bug again, and she made a pushing motion, brow tensed; the centipede creature began floating towards the hole it came from, causing Luz to scoot further back from the edge as she watched it go in with barely more than ripples. A moment later the glowing net floated out of the water and settled on top of the opening, then a quick gesture from Anisa had it hurtling above, embedding itself into the ceiling of the cavern once again.

“Woah…” Luz breathed as Anisa doubled over, panting heavily. 

The axolotl only straightened when she noticed Luz lying on the ground, and she went over to her, holding out a hand for her to take to get to her feet. She hissed when she brushed the skin of Luz’s palm, snatching her hand back. “Ouch!” she said, holding it gently and inspecting it. “Looks like my hand got cut.” 

And it’s bleeding a lot, Luz thought as she glanced at the reddish-purple blood the axolotl had left behind on her own scraped skin. Some of it had already spread on the irritated flesh left behind from the rock, mixing a little with the few beads of her own red blood, and she wiped it off on her hoodie, worried that she’d accidentally absorbed some of it. The posters in the nurse’s office at SJMS had given her a healthy fear of blood-transmitted diseases, and she nearly plunged her hand in the water to wash it off before she remembered that the last time she’d done that, she’d accidentally summoned a giant bug from the lake. She resolved to wash her hands when she got to her room. Then her throbbing headache that was steadily increasing in intensity washed that thought away.

She looked up when she heard a tearing sound and saw Anisa wrapping a torn strip of fabric from the bottom of her tunic around the cut on her hand. Then she held out her other hand to Luz, who gratefully used it to get to her feet. “Thanks,” she said, starting to feel dizzy again. When Anisa let go, she pitched forward, causing the axolotl to catch her just before she hit the ground. 

“Is this level of clumsiness normal for your species?” Anisa asked. “And dizziness, and whatever else you have going on?”

“What dizziness? I’m not clumsy, Marcy is,” Luz slurred, her body having finally hit its limit. “Humans aren’t dizzy. Dizziness is funny. Dizzzzzzzzzzy, what a funny word.” she mumbled. Then she turned to Anisa. “You do know magic! Teeeeeeaaaaach meeeeeee….” She trailed off as Anisa started dragging her to the stairs.

“You clearly aren’t well, you’re talking nonsense,” she said. “You need to rest. Just stay awake long enough to get up the staircase, okay?”

“B-but your g-g-garden!” she protested. “I caused the centipede to come, it’s my fault. All those hurt plants! Screaming out in pain! Noooooo, let me fix it,” Luz bemoaned as Anisa pushed her into the tunnel leading back into her home.

“It’s okay, this isn’t the first time this has happened,” Anisa consoled. “Last time, a week ago, my old net broke from a particularly strong river pest and I still have yet to make a new one. The one I just used is my backup and isn’t nearly as strong, so I have to make another pretty soon.” She exhaled a sharp breath of exertion and sighed. “I’m getting far too old to expend that much power. Come on, we’re almost to the top of the stairs.” 

She let go of Luz for a moment and stepped ahead to push open the trapdoor, her shorter frame meaning she needed to walk farther before reaching the handle. A moment later she shoved it open and pulled Luz along, leaving the closet room and sitting her down on the sofa in the kitchen. When she left again, Luz shifted herself until she was lying down and staring at the ceiling, and she felt a soft blanket being spread over her a moment later. While pulling it closer, she felt tiny, smooth shards of stone stitched into the borders.

“You have rocks in your blanket,” she mumbled.

“I know.”

She heard Anisa’s footsteps retreat down the stairs, and the axolotl returned several minutes later with four baskets. Luz watched her set them down on her kitchen table, then glance at the human girl lying on her couch. Anisa then immediately turned to her cauldron– soup pot– whatever and poured some kind of broth-like liquid from a jar in a cabinet, then started slicing vegetables. After tossing them in and stoking the fire she grabbed a coat and a handful of maroon-colored berries, then strode straight out of the room and out the front door. Luz caught sight of a navy blue coat and Anisa’s light indigo skin outside the window, and she soon disappeared out of sight amongst the trees.

After that, Luz closed her eyes, and opened them again what felt like a moment later as Anisa shook her awake. “Drink some stew,” the axolotl said in a hushed voice, “and give me your jacket. It’s still wet from the spring water, I’ll dry it and make it warmer.” 

Luz obliged, handing over her wet lavender hoodie and taking the bowl of stew Anisa offered. She sat up and sipped it, and the hot broth was a wonder for her sore throat (when did my throat become sore? she thought, touching her neck unconsciously). She ate it as fast as she could, and the moment she handed the bowl back to Anisa, sleep took over her again.

Anisa sat at her desk in her library, painstakingly stitching tiny shards of sunstone into the cuffs of Luz’s jacket. She glanced out the door at Luz, who was fast asleep on the couch.

She turned back to her work, adding one more loop with the needle before slicing the thread and tying it into a knot. Then she closed her eyes and focused, locating the tiny reserves of magic within the sunstone and pulling them out like spools of thread, weaving the energy in between the already fine weave of the cloth and connecting them to the sunstones stitched on the other sleeve. After it was attached, she opened her eyes and folded the jacket, leaving it on the armchair by the fireplace before pulling out her unfinished carving.

She worked for another hour, cutting gently into the crystalline stone and wiping it down with a soft cloth, etching fine details into the form.

That night, before she went to bed, she woke Luz up and moved her to the guest bedroom so she wouldn’t have to sleep on the couch. The human girl’s skin was hot to the touch, hotter than it had been before, and she mumbled in her sleep, spooking Anisa the first time it happened. Anisa tried putting a cloth soaked with cold water on Luz’s forehead, and that seemed to have worked, considering Luz’s face relaxed and her skin cooled down significantly.

When Anisa woke up the next morning, she brought Luz breakfast of leftover vegetable soup again. Luz sat up straight just as she’d asked, but she didn’t have enough strength to feed herself, so Anisa had to feed it to her the way she’d fed her nephew when he was an eft. She remembered when young Leo would push the food away, refusing to eat until his mother came home, despite having known Anisa for just as long. At least Luz didn’t seem to have the same problem, eating without complaint. The moment she was done, the human girl lay down and went back to sleep, and Anisa took that as her cue to leave.

She regularly brought Luz food, and on the second day, Luz ate by herself and her fever started to go down. Anisa had hope that she would wake up soon from her illness. She left the human girl’s jacket, freshly washed and dried, on the dresser.

On the third day, while she was sitting at her desk reading, Luz woke up.

Luz opened her eyes and looked at the ceiling. The last thing she remembered had been the fight with the giant centipede bug. She wasn’t entirely sure what had happened afterward; only the feeling of warmth, and the nostalgia that a good dream always brought her.

She sat up, noticing she was somehow back in the room she’d slept in the day before. Then she paused. Was it still the day before? She glanced at the dresser and saw her phone lying next to her purple SJMS jacket, and she stood up and grabbed it. She opened her recording app and checked the date of her message to her mom, comparing it to what it said was today’s date.

“I was out for three days?” she said in a voice hoarse and raspy from disuse. “Wow, I must have been really sick.” She then set her phone down and left the room, intending to find Anisa.

The axolotl was sitting at her desk again, giving Luz a sense of déjà vu as she recalled the last time she remembered waking up from sleep. This time, Anisa wasn’t carving, but reading one of her many books. “Uh, hi,” Luz said to attract her attention.

Anisa looked up, then smiled at the sight of Luz standing at the door. “Glad to see you’re awake,” she said. “How do you feel?”

Luz considered Anisa’s question. “I feel… great! Hungry, though,” she added with a wry grin.

“Food is ready,” Anisa responded. “Vegetable stew again, I hope you don’t mind. Bugs are mostly in short supply at this time of year.”

“That sounds great!” Luz said. “I don’t eat bugs, you don’t have to worry about that.”

“Okay, that’s good,” Anisa said, bookmarking her page and standing up. She passed Luz and went into the kitchen, where there was a bubbling pot of stew waiting in the fireplace. She pulled it out and filled two bowls, handing one to Luz.

They ate in silence for a moment, until Luz realized something. “I have a question… Did you do magic? Down in your garden?” 

“Yes,” Anisa answered. “I did magic.”

Luz’s eyes widened. “Teach me, pretty please?”

Anisa sighed. “I can’t.”

“What? Why?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to teach you, it’s that you most likely won’t be able to do the magic I use. It's not like curses, which don't require inherent magic from the user.”

Frowning, Luz asked another question. “How are you able to do it then?

“To be honest… I’m not really sure.” Anisa stared at the light bandage still wrapped around her hand. “My magic isn’t a normal method of doing magic. Not even actual curse-users can manipulate the power that objects like sunstones absorb, instead relying on concoctions and rituals to do magic. I discovered I could do this completely by accident, and I don’t know of anyone else that can.”

“But what if I can?” At Anisa’s look of skepticism, she waved her hands. “No, really! I’m from a different world, right? What if that means I can learn it?”

“That’s very unlikely…” Anisa trailed off as she saw Luz’s hopeful look. “You just want to learn magic, don’t you?” she said with a flat stare.

“Yeah, I really, really, really want to learn magic!” Luz exclaimed. “It’s been my dream for such a long time!”

Anisa looked at her for a long moment. “...Fine,” she finally said. “I’ll show you how I manipulate magical energy.”

“Thank you!” Luz finished her bowl of stew and almost instinctively went to hug Anisa, but stopped when she realized that she had literally just been sick a few hours prior. “Actually, I should probably shower first,” she said with a sheepish grin. “But seriously. Thanks. And do you have any clothes that could fit me?”

Anisa looked her up and down. “I have some newt clothing that could possibly fit you, at least until your own clothes are washed,” she said thoughtfully. “They should be in the lowest drawer in the guest room. Sorry, I mean your room.”

“Thanks,” Luz said. “You can start teaching me after I shower!” She rushed off, leaving a confused Anisa staring at the spot where she had been.

“...I never said we’d start today,” she muttered to herself. “How does that girl have so much energy after being sick?”

Chapter Text

“You’ve been spending an awful lot of time in my library,” Anisa remarked offhandedly two days later, while she and Luz were eating lunch. “I thought you were the kind of person who would want to get out and explore, not stay cooped up reading all day.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much accurate,” Luz said, picking at her food. For lunch Anisa had made some kind of salad out of the yellowroot Luz had harvested at her instruction. She hadn’t expected it to taste so sour, as though someone had pickled a lemon and then dumped the results all over the yellowroot. “ But I can’t exactly go anywhere without warm clothes, can I? It definitely didn’t go well last time.”

“You should have warm clothes,” Anisa replied. “Your jacket should be warm enough now that I’ve stitched sunstones into it.”

“Wait, really?” Luz had immediately felt the tiny, smooth rocks sewn into the seams, and had fully expected them to be sunstones, but she hadn’t realized such small shards were the reason the SJMS hoodie was always so warm– she’d thought it was just the nice climate of Anisa’s home, coupled with the fact that she rarely took the hoodie off. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have been exploring outside ages ago! Though you’re going to have to tell me where the best places are, a whole two days out there and I saw nothing but trees, rocks, and snow.”

“I suppose so,” she said thoughtfully. “What would you like to see most?”

“I don’t know,” Luz replied. Then her eyes lit up as she realized she had the perfect opening. “How about you show me how you use your magic?”

“I should have known you’d say that,” Anisa said with a sigh. “As I told you already, not yet.”

Luz groaned. “You say that every time I ask! When are you going to show me how your power works?”

“When I’m ready,” she answered cryptically. 

“Ugh, fine.” Luz let go of the subject for the time being. 

“Are you going to finish that?” Anisa asked, pointing at Luz’s plate. 

Luz stared at the chopped-up roots on her plate. “Yeah, I’ll finish it, eventually,” she said, because being lost with no idea when she’d next get to eat had given her a healthy appreciation for meals. “It just might take a while, it’s really sour.” She picked up another piece of the yellowroot and placed it in her mouth, chewing quickly so she could swallow faster. “Where are you going, anyway?” she asked as Anisa stood to gather her coat. 

“Out,” Anisa said vaguely. Before she left, she grabbed a few thornberries from the basket on the table and left the room. Luz heard the front door swing shut, and just like clockwork, she turned to the windows in time to see Anisa walking past. A trail of footprints followed in her wake, clear against the snow. The moment Anisa was out of sight, Luz turned back to her plate and thought for a moment. Soon her curiosity won over and she grabbed the last few pieces of yellowroot on her plate, stuffing them into her mouth and heading to the front door. She hoped Anisa was right about her jacket as she gently pulled the door open.

She stood on the threshold of the open door for a moment, looking outside. She saw Anisa’s footprints were clearly visible as they curved around the house, and her cheeks felt like they were freezing as a cold wind blew past into the hallway. Luz took a step onto the snow-covered ground, keeping her foot inside Anisa’s footprint, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that the snow wasn’t as deep as she’d originally assumed. The biting chill of the wind was softened by Anisa’s magic, and she kind of felt comfortable– not nearly as warm as it usually was at home in Los Angeles, but definitely much warmer than she’d been outdoors when she had first arrived in Amphibia.

She took another step, then started following Anisa’s footprints, going around the house and following the trail to a copse of trees. She saw a flash of navy blue ahead and quickly darted behind a tree, watching an unsuspecting Anisa walk past with hands empty of berries. Once Anisa’s figure had disappeared around her cabin, Luz kept walking in the direction she had come from.

It only took a minute more of walking before Luz came to a clearing and found the missing thornberries. The raspberry-like fruits were abandoned in a pile in the center, their dark red druplets in clear contrast against the brilliant white snow. Luz took a step into the clearing, going to investigate, but a sudden screech had her diving behind a tree and peeking out tentatively.

A red cardinal the size of a small car had landed in the clearing. As Luz watched in awe, it started nibbling on the berries. She slowly stepped out from behind the tree, and it turned to look at her, its four eyes blinking almost owlishly at her.

Wait– four eyes?

The bird seemed to have forgotten about its snack, instead turning fully to face her. It opened its wings and let out another screech, and Luz slowly backed away. Once it had deemed her at a far enough distance, it turned back to the thornberries, keeping one eye on her and the other three on its meal. Or two eyes on her and two on its meal? Luz wasn’t sure how four eyes on a bird worked.

She put it out of her mind and kept walking backward, keeping her eyes on the bird to make sure it didn’t attack, every now and again glancing at the footprint trail to make sure she was still walking in the right direction. When she could no longer see any hint of the bird’s red feathers, she turned and ran the rest of the way back to Anisa’s front door, opening it and rushing inside before slamming it shut. She let out a breath of relief when she couldn’t hear anything following her.

After collecting herself, Luz slipped off her wet shoes and left them by the door, padding down the hallway in her socks and going into Anisa’s library. Anisa was hunched over on her desk carving something new if the chunks of sunstone crystal scattered on her desk were anything to go by. She briefly looked up when Luz passed by, then turned back to her work.

“Do you have anything on birds?”

Anisa paused. “What?”

“Fauna? Local wildlife?” Luz wracked her brain for other synonyms. “Mountain animals?”

“I think I have a copy of The Traveler’s Guide to Mountain Creatures on that shelf over there,” Anisa said, gesturing to a shelf near the far wall. “That’s where all the animal books are.”

“Thanks,” Luz said, going over to where Anisa had pointed and scouring the shelves until she found the book she was looking for. 

Taking a seat in the armchair by the fireplace, she looked at the cover. “ The Traveler’s Guide to Mountain Creatures, full-color edition. Ranger’s Choice,” she read to herself. Luz opened the book, skipping the introduction and flipping through each page one by one. 

She paused on an illustration of the giant bug that had tried to attack them down in Anisa’s garden; she hadn’t gotten the best view of it but it looked pretty much the same. “‘Armored Aquapede’,” she read out loud. “‘Common in Starwater Basin and surrounding smaller lakes and ponds. Eats Amphibians. Avoid at all costs.’” She moved to the next page with a shudder.

A few pages later, she found what she was looking for. A splash image of the giant four-eyed red bird Luz had seen eating thornberries was spread across one page, while the next detailed information about its habits. “‘Red-Beaked Cardinal. Non-hostile to Amphibians. Diet consists of select fruits and insects, most particularly caterpillars. Extremely territorial.’” At the last line, she gasped, then exhaled a breath of relief. “So that’s why it got so mad when I got too close! It didn’t want to eat me, it just didn’t want me near its food!”

She continued reading for the rest of the day, flipping through The Traveler’s Guide to Mountain Creatures and marveling at the strange fauna that she’d never even heard of before. Before she knew it, the sun had set and Anisa was calling her name for dinner.

She went to bed that night hoping to ask Anisa about the cardinal the next morning.

The next day, after waking up, Luz looked at the wildlife book she’d left on the dresser and immediately remembered the cardinal. She went to breakfast with the book, her question ready on the tip of her tongue, but before she could get out more than ‘good morning’ Anisa had pressed a plate of leftover dinner into her hands and gone off to her library. More than a little put-off, Luz finished the leftovers silently and continued flipping through the book.

When she was finished with her food she went into the library, still hoping to find Anisa and ask about the cardinal. Anisa was sitting at her desk again, doing something with a length of cord and a jewelry chest. When she saw Luz, she turned and held up the cord in front of her, squeezing one eye shut as though she were comparing Luz to the string.

“Uh, Anisa?”

“Yes?” Anisa turned back to her desk and picked up the sunstone jewel she had been carving the previous day, sliding it onto the cord. “What is it?”

“Why do you leave thornberries in the middle of the woods for a cardinal?”

“Oh, you already seen the cardinal?” Anisa tied a knot in the string. “I had been planning to show you today.”

“Wait, really?”

Anisa nodded. “Yes, after lunch I was going to take you to meet the cardinal, then fly over to Starwater Basin.”

“Yeah, but why do you leave food for it every day?”

She thought for a moment. “Well, long story short, while walking to Starwater Basin not long after moving here, I found an injured cardinal chick that had fallen out of its nest. I brought her home and helped her heal, then left her back at her nest. Once she could fly, she kept coming back, so I started leaving berries outside for her, so she had more of a reason to be here than to perch in the trees and watch me through the window. Soon enough it became a habit.” Anisa handed the finished necklace to Luz. “Can you please try this on?”

“That’s so cool! Did you save her life? What’s her name?” Luz obligingly slipped the pendant over her head. 

“Yeah, I suppose I did save her life. And I don’t know her name.” Anisa checked the pendant, pulling until she was sure it was tight. “Don’t take that off, okay? We’re going to need that where we’re going.”

“Okay. Why don’t you know the cardinal’s name? Didn’t you name her?”

“No.”

Luz’s jaw dropped. “You didn’t name her? Why wouldn’t you name her?”

“Why would I name her? She doesn’t belong to me, she belongs to herself. Naming her would be like I was claiming her for myself.”

Luz opened her mouth to argue, then closed it as she considered Anisa’s point. “Fair,” she admitted after a moment. “That’s fair.”

Anisa turned to rummage in the jewelry chest, pulling out a pendant similar to the one she’d just given Luz, though the cord was much more frayed. She slipped it over her own neck.”Let’s eat lunch fast so we can go.”

“Okay.”

After they finished lunch, Luz followed Anisa out of the house and back to the clearing. Anisa was carrying an armload of thornberries, but when they reached she handed them off to Luz and dug around in her coat pocket until pulled out a miniature whistle. She blew in it once, then tucked it back into her pocket, despite the fact that no sound had come out from the whistle. A moment later, the beating of large wings filled the air and the cardinal landed in the clearing. At the sight of Anisa, the bird let out a soft trill, but the moment she saw Luz she flared her wings in surprise.

“It’s okay, this is Luz. She won’t hurt you.” Anisa took all of the thornberries from Luz’s arms save for one and gestured. Luz slowly stepped forward, holding the remaining thornberry, and reached out. The cardinal eyed her warily, then pecked the thornberry out of her hand.

Luz gasped softly in awe. “I’m feeding a giant bird,” she whispered. “This is so cool!”

When the cardinal had eaten all that it could from Luz’s hand, it pecked at her fingers until she dropped the remaining pieces of the thornberry into the snow. It contentedly munched on those as Anisa set the rest of the berries onto the ground as well. “She likes you,” Anisa said, probably noticing the betrayed look Luz was casting at the bird as she clutched her hand. “She only does that to people she likes.” Anisa said with a laugh, then continued, “She never did that to my nephew. She barely even tolerates him, and refuses to eat out of his hand.”

“Love hurts,” Luz said piteously.

They stood in silence for a few more minutes as the cardinal continued with her feast. When the last of the berries were gone, the cardinal chirped at Anisa, who then placed her hands on the bird’s neck and climbed on. “Come on,” she said, “get up here, we’re going to Starwater Basin.”

“Are we going to see more of those armored aquapedes?” 

Anisa shook her head. “No, we aren’t going into the water, and those live far down in the depths anyway. You’ll see where we’re going when we get there.” She held a hand out to Luz, the one that had been wrapped in bandages before today, and Luz saw that it had healed quite well; there wasn’t even a scar. What caught her attention about it was a peculiar greenish-blue spot on the center of her palm, obvious against the light indigo of the rest of her skin. Luz shrugged it off and took Anisa’s hand, getting onto the cardinal’s back and gripping onto Anisa’s shoulders for dear life.

With a mighty flap of its wings, the bird took off, the ground falling away rapidly as she soared through the sky with them on her back. Before long, Anisa’s cabin looked like a dollhouse as they flew toward a now-visible glistening lake in the distance. The water, surrounded by cliffs, shone in the sunlight as the cardinal swooped closer. 

“Almost there,” Anisa said, her voice nearly drowned by the wind. “That’s Starwater Basin, over there is the Singing Waterfall-” She pointed to the one section of the lake that wasn’t bordered by cliffs, where the water was spilling over the edge. “Newtopia’s that way as well. And that’s where we’re going,” she added, pointing at a thin, rocky beach on the edge of the lake farthest from the waterfall. A dark, jagged slash was clearly visible in the cliffs by the beach.

The moment Anisa finished speaking, the cardinal swooped down, and a moment later her talons were making contact with the pebble-filled soil and she knelt down so her passengers could get off. Anisa slid off her back, shortly followed by Luz.

“Thank you,” Anisa said to the cardinal. The bird cawed once, then took off, soon disappearing over the cliff. “Don’t worry, she’ll be back when I blow the whistle. Now let’s go.”

“Where are we going?” Luz turned to face the giant gash in the cliffside; it was much bigger than it had looked from above, stretching what must have been at least fifteen meters up the side of the cliff. Peering inside, she saw that the light of the day faded fast into darkness. “Are we going in there?” she asked, unable to hide the slight shake in her voice.

“Yes, we are,” Anisa replied, stepping into the jagged slash on the side of the mountain. Luz gulped, then followed, holding up the pendant Anisa had given her earlier. The warm, pulsating glow of her necklace and Anisa’s necklace combined did just enough to combat the shadows for them to see where they were stepping.

“What are you taking me to see?” Luz kept her eyes firmly fixed on the ground so she didn’t fall. “What’s in this cave?”

Anisa didn’t reply immediately, focusing on making sure they didn’t get lost in the twists and turns of the cave. When the path evened out, she spoke. “When I lived in Newtopia,” she started, “I worked with Newtopia University as a historian. Explorers would send us ancient artifacts, and we would perform research on them and try to figure out what those artifacts were so we could add them to the university’s catalog and curriculum. I retired maybe ten years ago and came up here instead. So imagine my surprise when I explored my new home and found more ancient relics, ones that had never before been documented and sent to the university. That’s what I’m showing you.”

“Were you a teacher?”

“Kind of. I had a couple of classes, but I wasn’t a full-time professor like the–” She stopped for a moment, thinking. “Well, like the full-time professors.” 

As they went deeper into the cave, the darkness only grew more and more pronounced, and it started to feel like they were walking through an endless void. The passage started to grow narrower until it suddenly widened into a broad cavern so big that despite the fact that they went fairly far in every direction, the lights of the sunstone crystals seemed like they were illuminating nothing at all. Anisa led Luz closer to the far end of the cavern and raised her pendant, closing her eyes before throwing the crystal in the air. It hovered there, emitting a pulsing glow and illuminating a wall packed with carvings.

“Woah,” Luz breathed as she took it in. As Anisa took Luz’s pendant and repeated her magic, Luz craned her neck up to see if she could see to the top of the carvings. But no matter how hard she squinted, the shadows far above refused to settle into recognizable shapes.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Anisa said after the second crystal was hovering nearby, glowing steadily. “It took me and my nephew months and many trips to the library to figure out what some of these carvings could have meant, and I think you’ll find it interesting. They’re pure historical gold, maybe even before King Andrias’s time, and I’ve had to show several university historians these carvings many times over the years after I retired.” She laughed. “It’s always fun seeing them moan about the long walk here. I’ll show you the ones I think are relevant to you.”

She took a step forward to place her hand over one of the carvings near her head, her fingers hovering inches away from the stone. It depicted three holes, almost like three eyes watching something. Someone had taken care to paint a cloud of white around the eyes. As Anisa motioned with her hand, the crystals glided closer, illuminating silvery glitter-like flakes embedded into the white.

“According to many of the legends Leo and I read, this is some kind of god. Of not just Amphibia, but everything–even your home world. They are the source of ultimate power.” Anisa moved her hand lower, fingers almost brushing against the likeness of several planet-like spheres. “Many of the books we researched told us that their job was to watch over everything. Maybe to protect all the worlds? They were called the Guardian.”

Anisa stepped to the side, moving the sunstone light to better illuminate a carving of the Guardian in the sky, a series of Amphibians clustered beneath, hands raised. “The Guardian gave our ancestors some sort of power. It’s unclear as to what that power was; most of the legends that talk about it never give a clear answer. But whatever it was, it was our people’s duty to take care of it. I don’t know why they gave us this power, but my nephew theorizes that it could have been a test of sorts. It might be connected to the Three Stones of Power, but many of the historical records of that story have been lost; most of the remaining tales are simply children’s fiction.”

“What are the Three Stones of Power? Is the power still here?” Luz asked. 

Anisa shook her head. “The Three Stones of Power are a legend of three jewels scattered across Amphibia that contained unimaginable power. Wars were waged over those stones, long before Amphibia was united under the Leviathan Dynasty. And not that I know of, though if it were, it would probably be with King Andrias in Newtopia.” She let her hand drift to the right, the crystals following in the air. “This one over here is really confusing. Neither my nephew nor I have any clue as to what this could mean.” She pointed to five worlds clustered around a sixth, with several Amphibians standing on top of the central world. Bridges stretched to doors on four of the other worlds, with a variety of alien species standing on top of each bridge. The fifth world had no bridge, but the door was open, with a shadowy figure standing inside. “I think this is your world,” Anisa said, gesturing to the fifth world. “That looks like your species.”

“Yeah,” Luz agreed. “That’s definitely a human.”

“It’s strange,” Anisa said, “because it’s been re-carved several times. My nephew thinks the carvers kept adding new bridges, but we have no idea why.”

The next image that the light illuminated was defaced, with slash marks and black paint covering what once was depicted. “All of the images after the carving with the bridges are destroyed. Nothing I’ve tried has been able to restore them. But that isn’t why I wanted to show this to you.”

“Why, then?” Luz responded. “What does this have to do with me and my friends?”

Anisa returned to the first carving she’d shown Luz, the one with the Guardian watching over multiple worlds. “I suspect the Guardian could have something to do with the arrival of you and your friends in Amphibia. I don’t know why. However,” she started. “I do know it’s possible to happen accidentally, which could prove that theory untrue. It happened to me once, when I was very young. I think I went to your world, as I saw someone who looked very much like part of your species. It wasn’t for long, just a day, but I carry the effects of that with me even now.” She rubbed her palm, the one with the greenish-blue splotch on it.

“No way,” Luz said. “For real?”

“Yes, for real. If the Guardian theory isn’t true, I suspect that it could have something to do with the latent magic your world possesses–”

“Wait. Wait, wait, wait. That doesn’t sound anything like my world. Earth doesn’t have magic. At all.”

“Is that so?” Anisa shrugged. “Maybe it was another world then, with a similar species. In that case, it probably isn’t on this carving.” She gestured to the carving with the bridges, where all of the worlds except for Earth were wildly different, with different people.

“Is that why you weren’t surprised when I showed up on your doorstep? You didn’t even seem the slightest bit startled!”

Anisa thought for a moment. “Oh, I was startled for sure. But yes, I suppose I wasn’t too surprised by your appearance thanks to that.”

Luz decided to put it out of her mind. “So you’re saying the Guardian could be the reason we’re here? Like a prophecy or something?” Man, there’s SO MUCH LORE here, she thought. Marcy would love it.

“I believe that while the Guardian may not be the reason you’re here, they could at least be part of the reason. From what you’ve told me, you don’t know how you got here, but your description of the music box you think it was could be connected to the Three Stones of Power legend or the Guardian legend. Or I could be wrong, and the Guardian may not exist, and it’s just an accident or a coincidence. There is no proof, after all. Are you ready to go back home?”

“Sure, can I just take a photo first?” Luz asked. She slipped her phone out of her pocket. 

“What’s a photo?” Anisa asked, starting to coax the two pendants down. 

Luz’s jaw dropped. “I forgot I was in another world for a minute! You guys don’t have cameras here, do you?” She snapped a photo of the carvings, then showed it to Anisa. “See? It’s like you capture an exact image of whatever you take a photo of.”

“You come here claiming there’s no magic in your world,” Anisa said slowly, “then you show me this? This is magic! This is the very definition of magic!”

“What? No, it’s completely normal!”

The walk back to the front of the cave was mostly spent in silence, so it seemed far longer than the walk to the stone carvings. When Luz and Anisa finally reached the entrance, the sun had already set, and stars could be seen covering the night sky– more stars than Luz had ever seen in her life.

Anisa blew her whistle while Luz walked to the water’s edge, looking at the stars’ reflections in the water. The sight was stunning; the sloped cliffs surrounding the lake were barely visible, so the entirety was reflecting the sky.

“Woah,” she breathed, crouching and almost reaching out toward the water. “It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah, it is,” Anisa said, stepping up beside her. “That’s why it’s called Starwater Basin. It’s one of, if not the most spectacular view in these mountains.”

“I can see why,” Luz whispered.

They stood in silence for a moment, until the flapping of the cardinal’s wings filled the cold, crisp air. Anisa climbed on the bird’s back, then held out a hand to Luz, who went up after her. 

The entire flight back to Anisa’s cabin, Luz watched the lake until she could see it no longer. 

That night, long after she probably should have been asleep, Luz lay on the bed in the guest room, staring at the images she’d taken on her phone. She hadn’t been kidding; Marcy would have loved to see those carvings and learn the lore behind them. Luz had taken those pictures so that when she and Marcy met up again, she could show her the carvings and tell her the story Anisa had told about the Guardian. She could almost picture the glint in Marcy’s eyes as she listened to Luz tell the tale of the Guardian…

If she had even survived for this long. Worry filled Luz as she remembered the encounter she’d had with the fire-breathing ant when she’d first arrived in Amphibia, and then the incident with the lake bug five days prior. Maybe Marcy had come upon something worse, and with how clumsy she typically was, something terrible could have happened. And Luz would likely never find out. Her heart clenched, and she desperately hoped Marcy was okay.

Then she realized her worries about Marcy could also apply to Anne and Sasha. Despite her current standing with the bolder of the two, she still hoped Sasha was safe. She would never want her to be hurt; Sasha was still a really close friend of hers, even if they had to patch their relationship up before they could probably be in the same room peacefully again. 

And Anne… The guilt was constantly there, just hovering over her shoulder like the nosy gossip kids at SJMS did every time they sensed a story. Luz still felt like she should have realized that Sasha had been manipulating Anne way too long for her to keep a secret from her, and she hoped that they could meet up again soon so she could tell Anne that she was sorry for overreacting.

She sighed and put her phone down on the dresser table. She wished she could do something to find her best friends, but her hands were tied until she knew where to look. 

“Girls…” she whispered to the empty room, turning to face the window and looking out into the star-filled sky. “I hope you all are okay, no matter what.” With that said, she closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

Chapter Text

After yet another breakfast of vegetables from Anisa’s garden, Luz went straight to Anisa’s library. She browsed the books for a few minutes, then decided on a book about Amphibian history and settled in the chair by the window, opening the book.

A few minutes into the book, a thump on the window startled Luz and caused her to lose her concentration. She looked up to see a large brown mosquito the size of a dog banging its head against the window, a letter clutched in its proboscis.

“Uh, Anisa?” When the axolotl looked up, Luz gestured to the window. “There’s a giant mosquito hitting its head on the window,” she added, unhelpfully.

“Open the window,” Anisa said. She turned back to her work.

Luz’s eyes widened with shock. “You want me to open the window?”

“Yeah,” Anisa said. “That’s a message mosquito, they deliver messages.”

Shrugging, Luz did as Anisa said, unlatching the window and pushing it open. The mosquito backed away to avoid the glass, then flew past Luz and perched on the edge of Anisa’s desk, unfurling its proboscis.

“Thank you,” Anisa said, taking the paper from the waiting mosquito. “Luz, go grab something sweet from the kitchen as a tip for our messenger here.” The mosquito buzzed its wings in response.

Luz did so, bringing a berry to Anisa’s library and leaving it on the desk in front of the bug. The mosquito buzzed its wings in thanks and curled its proboscis around the round berry, lifting it off the table. Anisa had finished reading the letter and was scribbling a response.

Once the mosquito was done eating, she rolled up the paper and handed it to the mosquito. The mosquito buzzed its wings and took off through the open window. Once it was no longer in sight, Anisa closed the window, then turned to Luz. 

“Luz, pack your stuff,” Anisa asked as she walked back to her desk. “We’re leaving after lunch.”

Lunch was quiet as the two of them finished their food as fast as they could. Anisa had packed two bags of her own, and Luz had packed her satchel and a bag Anisa had told her to fill with books from her library; she claimed that Luz would get bored fast otherwise. Luz still wasn’t completely sure why Anisa had suddenly decided that they had to leave the mountain thanks to a message that Anisa said was from a friend. When she’d asked, Anisa had said that her friend needed a bit of help. Not that Luz was complaining; as much as she loved Anisa’s library, she was getting hopelessly bored being cooped up inside most of the day.

Just like the last time Luz rode on the cardinal, when they finished lunch they went outside to the clearing with an offering of thornberries. This time the flight was much longer. They flew in the opposite direction, away from Starwater Basin, and Luz watched in awe as the landscape soon changed from rocky expanses and snow-covered peaks to green fields, tiny villages, and an ocean in the distance.

The cardinal soon started to descend, her wings no longer flapping as she went into a steep glide. Luz barely had time to see a walled seaside village over the horizon before the bird soared closer and closer, landing in a copse of trees not far from the outskirts of town. Anisa and Luz both dismounted, and the cardinal twittered at them before taking off and flying back in the direction of the mountains.

“Where is she going?” Luz asked.

“Back home,” Anisa answered. “From here on out we’re on our own. Get ready to walk a lot, because that’s what we’ll be doing.”

“Aww,” Luz said. She unzipped her hooded sweatshirt. “Wow, I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be warm outside.” She pulled her sweatshirt off and tied it around her waist. 

“Wait, you can’t do that. Hold on a second.” Anisa started digging around in one of her bags.

“How is it dangerous to take off my jacket?” 

“You need to hide the fact that you’re an alien from another planet at all times.” Anisa finally pulled out a roll of forest-green fabric. “Here, wear this.”

Luz unrolled it to reveal a cloak that was a little too short, but definitely too big for Anisa. “I’m supposed to wear this?”

“It’s dangerous for you otherwise. Most Amphibians aren’t so open-minded about strange creatures from other planets.”

“Oh, okay.” Luz figured Anisa would probably know better than Luz did, so she fastened the cloak around her neck and pulled the hood on. Then she hoisted the two bags she had to carry. “Let’s get going, then.” 

Luz followed Anisa into the walled town. They had to pass under an archway over the main road to enter, and Luz admired the carved stone that read, ‘Welcome to Riverport’. The town itself was bustling even though the walls surrounding it made it look deceptively small. As, and as Anisa led Luz past a tavern, the sound of hearty laughter was clearly audible despite the relatively early hour. She peeked inside and saw a group of toads sitting on the barstools, a shaky frog bartender frantically refilling mugs with some kind of brew.

“Woah, it’s like a medieval Earth town!” Luz shuddered in disgust as she saw a maid toss trash out a window, raining on a poor unsuspecting frog. “Just like a medieval Earth town,” she continued weakly as the frog and the maid started yelling and shaking fists at one another. “Books and history class were not kidding.” She turned away from the sight. “Where are we going?”

“We’re going to the marketplace,” Anisa responded. “I have some things to sell here.”

“So you come here regularly?” Luz asked.

“Yes,” she answered. “During winter, in the coldest part of the year, I travel away from home to sell sunstone carvings here in Riverport and in a few other towns. It’s how I make money after I retired from my job at Newtopia University. I also visit my nephew in Newtopia before going back home. ”

She stopped at a stall with ‘Market Manager’ painted on a sign, run by a large and gruff toad, and negotiated with him for a moment before handing over a bag of something and returning with a wooden card. “Our table is twenty-four,” she said, showing Luz the card which had a 24 scrawled on with black paint. “That’s on the edge of the market, not a great location but it’ll have to do, especially considering we got here so late. Normally the market opens early morning.”

“What did that messenger mosquito in the morning have to do with coming here?” Luz asked the question again, not really sure she would get an answer this time. But to her surprise, Anisa thought for a moment before replying.

“The message was from a friend of mine, and it was a request for help with delivering a package he can’t deliver himself, which is why I hastened the trip here by a good two weeks and why we didn’t have much time to prepare. Speaking of, I need to go meet with him to pick up the package in about an hour, so I’ll have to teach you to run the stand by yourself.”

Luz’s mouth dropped open. “Wait, what? I’ve never sold anything to anyone in my life!”

“Well, now’s a good time to start.” Anisa stopped in front of a table sandwiched between a stall selling roasted beetles and one selling jars of honey. “Here we are!” She looked around at the surrounding booths. “This isn’t as bad as I thought, roasted beetles are fairly popular and we can get the attention of a lot of customers who come here to buy a snack.” She hoisted her larger bag onto the table and unbuckled it, removing several glowing sunstone carvings from the inside before pulling out a folded-up cloth. “Help me set this up.”

Luz did as asked, taking one end of the dark blue cloth and unfolding it, then helping Anisa drape it over the table. Anisa started meticulously positioning her sunstone statues on it, then pulled out a tangle of necklaces and began the long and arduous process of untangling the strings.

“Uh, need some help with that?” Anisa pulled the strings apart roughly in two and handed one clump to Luz, who started attempting to unknot the tangle. 

After a few minutes of fruitlessly trying to pull the cords apart, Luz looked at Anisa’s attempt and saw she’d already reduced her pile to two or three necklaces, the rest already organized neatly on the tablecloth. “How do you do that so fast?”

“Practice,” she said easily, finishing quickly and reaching out for Luz’s clump.

Luz handed it over. “Huh,” she said, watching Anisa deftly untangle the lump, then turning and looking at the sunstone statues. They were of various creatures, mostly ones that Luz had read about in The Traveler’s Guide to Mountain Creatures and some of Anisa’s other books. Each one was rendered with care and attention to detail. Luz recognized the figure of the Armored Aquapede, which was the curvy thing she’d seen Anisa carving on her first full day in her cabin. “Wow, these are amazing,” she said. “Really detailed.”

“Thank you,” Anisa replied. “I appreciate it.” Once she was finished, the axolotl walked around to the other side of the table, pulling out one of the two chairs that had been left there by whoever ran the market. Luz followed her example, and they sat and watched prospective customers walk past for a bit, Anisa pulling out an unfinished carving and working on it.

Finally, a frog woman with her child in tow stopped at the stall on her way to the roasted beetle stand, admiring the glowing necklaces. “What stone are these made of?” she asked.

“These are sunstone, harvested from and carved in the mountains north of Newtopia,” Anisa answered without hesitation. “They make excellent gifts, and they give off a strong glow, so they help light up a dark room as well.” She glanced at the frog child, who was standing bored at his mother’s side. “And there are toys here, too,” she added. “I’ve carved figurines that you can play with. Sunstone is far from fragile.”

The frog woman looked down at her kid. “Sweetheart, do you want something from here?” she asked. “I did promise I’d buy you a gift, remember?”

The frog child hopped up to get a better look, then pointed at a statue of a praying mantis. “That one, Mama!”

“Are you sure you want that one?”

When her son nodded, she sighed. “That statue, and that necklace, please,” she added. “We’re going to visit my sister, and I need to get her a gift.” 

“Yes ma’am, that’ll be six gold farthings,” Anisa said. She picked up the two items in question and wrapped them in two separate sheets of paper before keeping them both in a paper bag the market had provided. 

“Six gold farthings! Sweetheart, you’re going to make me go broke!” The frog woman nevertheless pulled out a pouch of coins, counting out six large gold coins and sliding them over to Anisa. She then took her new purchases and left, her son in tow.

Once they were out of earshot, Anisa sat back and tucked the coins she’d gotten into her bag. “And that’s how you sell things,” she said, satisfied. “Six gold farthings. Not bad. A gold farthing is twenty coppers, by the way,” she added.

“I still don’t know how much that is. And I feel lied to,” Luz said. “I thought it was harder than that to sell things to people.”

“Well, the hardest part is when you don’t have any customers and you need to convince people who probably aren’t interested to buy something,” Anisa said. “Or when the customer tries to bargain for a better price. That’s pretty tough as well, those customers are difficult.” Then her eyes widened as though she was remembering something. “I forgot to mention, I thought about it and I think I’ve come up with a good way to explain to you how I do magic.”

Another customer stopped by, and Luz held her tongue while she watched Anisa deal with him, but the moment the customer left with his new necklace, she couldn’t help but ask. “Can you tell me now?”

Anisa thought for a moment. She was going to say no, Luz could tell.

“Sure.”

“But– wait, what? Really?”

Anisa shrugged. “Why not? You can try it for yourself while I’m gone. It’ll give you something to do that won’t distract you like a book would, at any rate.”

Luz sat up straight. “Okay, I’m listening. How do you do your magic?”

“It’s nothing special, really. I just visualize what I want the stone to do, and I locate the energy inside the gemstone with my mind. Then I have to feed it my own energy to get it to do what I want. Hand gestures help focus the energy, though they’re not really necessary.”

Luz tried to imagine what Anisa had said. “What?”

“That’s the best I can put it in words.” Anisa shrugged. “It’s not like I’ve ever tried to explain it to anyone before.”

Luz sat in silence for a moment as she tried to process.

“Excuse me?” Another customer had come, this time a toad wearing a sailor’s cap. “I heard tell from some of the other stall owners that you have rocks that glow without a fuel source. Is this true?”

Anisa nodded toward the customer, as though telling Luz to take a shot. “Um, technically, no,” she said, “but I have someplace to be. She’ll help you,” she added while pointing to Luz.

“Has it already been an hour?” Luz asked.

“Yeah,” Anisa said, standing up and coming out from behind the table. “Take good care of the stand.” She disappeared into the crowd.

The sailor toad tapped on the table. “So is it true or not?” he asked. “If so, I want to buy your entire stock. My crew and I have been looking for a cost-efficient way to light up belowdecks for months now, since the last time the ocean washed all our fuel away.”

”Yeah, it’s true. These are sunstones. And, um, technically these do have a fuel source, but from what I understand it won’t run out because it actually uses magic in the air to glow–”

“I don’t care about the specifics,” the sailor said. “How much for everything? Except for the jewelry, that’s useless to us.”

Luz thought back to the other two transactions Anisa had handled. “Uh, three gold farthings apiece,” she said. “So for ten statues, that’ll be thirty gold farthings.”

“Thirty gold!” The sailor shook his head. “Since I’m buying your entire stock, I want a discount.”

“Listen, sir, Anisa does all the work so she sets the price. It’s three gold apiece.” 

“No. I’m not paying that much, give them to me for forty-five coppers each.”

Luz was starting to understand what Anisa had meant when she said customers who wanted to bargain were difficult. “You aren’t buying everything, sir,” she said, taking care to be respectful. “There are at least twenty necklaces that are staying here, you’re not buying those. So this is definitely not ‘everything’, and it definitely doesn’t warrant a discount that big.”

The sailor sighed. “Forty-six coppers apiece.”

“Three gold per piece.” Luz stood up in annoyance, her cloak swishing around her shins.

“Come on, Miss Newt,” the sailor said, probably in response to her comparative height and hidden face. “Give me a deal here.”

Luz sighed. “Three gold per piece. It’s not mine to give discounts on, if it were I would have given one by now but,” she gestured to the direction Anisa had left in, “the one who made these left because she has business to handle.”

The sailor bit his lip, then groaned. “Fine. We need these for the lanterns too much.” Luz began wrapping each piece that wasn’t jewelry, stuffing two of the market bags and handing them to the sailor, who was counting out gold farthings from a bulging bag. It was significantly lighter when he was done, and thirty gold coins were stacked precariously on the cloth. Then he left, clearly struggling with carrying the ten crystal statues, however small they were.

Sighing, Luz glanced at the market, seeing shops start to close down. After dealing with another customer who left with three new necklaces and nine fewer gold coins, Luz packed all of the coins she’d gotten into Anisa’s bag and rested her head on the edge of the table, and stared at the leftover sunstone jewelry.

Anisa’s words from earlier crossed her mind. She tried picturing the energy in the gem, but it was hard; squinting didn’t help, and she just couldn’t see anything other than the glow and the heat coming from the crystal. Even her vivid imagination wasn’t helping her much.

After a moment, she decided to skip that step and move on to the next one. Anisa had said that she fed the stone her own energy to manipulate it? Luz tried to do the same, focusing and imagining she was forcing her own energy into it, willing it to move–

Was she imagining it, or did it just jump into the air for a millisecond?

Luz watched it with wide eyes, but her hopes were dashed when she saw that in reality, a group of toad kids had crashed into the table, causing all the jewelry to move a little from the force. The three toads stood up, rubbing their heads, then returned to chasing after a pair of frog children, who were hopping frantically down the street. The two frogs disappeared into an alley, soon followed by the toads.

She glanced at the table again, at the jewelry lying on the table, then back to the alley when she heard a shout. Making up her mind, she haphazardly grabbed the remaining sunstone necklaces and stuffed them into Anisa’s bag, buckled it, then ran after the toads, hoping that Anisa’s necklaces were safe enough under the covered table.

When she caught up, the toads had surrounded the frogs, who were pressed back to back against each other, an expression of terror clearly visible on the closest one’s face as he tugged at his brown hair. Luz’s heart sank as she realized that something scary was actually going on to the poor frogs.

“Leave us alone!” The orange frog that was farther away from Luz cried, her two braids flying as she twisted her head toward each of the toads. “What did we do to you to make you guys so mad?”

“You exist, and that makes Rathor annoyed,” one of the toads said, motioning to someone who appeared to be the leader of the group. “And you didn’t say sorry.”

“What?” Though Luz couldn’t see all of the orange frog’s face, what little she could was deadpan with annoyance. “That’s a dumb reason.” The blue frog shushed her in fear.

“No one calls us dumb. Rathor, what should we do with them?” The third toad grinned in excitement.

Luz had seen enough. “Hey! Leave them alone!”

Her sudden appearance startled everyone in the alley, but her height and hooded face didn’t do anything to deter the toads. Rathor cracked a grin, and a moment later all three toads were doubled over guffawing.

“Oh look,” the first toad said after he’d gathered himself enough. “Leana, Rathor, can you believe this? This newt thinks they can boss us around!”

The third toad, Leana, laughed. “Ha! Imagine that! You may be the top in Newtopia, but you sure aren’t here in Riverport. Go back to your home, little newt, and stay where people like you belong.” She was very clearly ignoring the fact that Luz was twice as tall as she was.

“I’m not a newt.”

“What’s that?” Rathor said, speaking for the first time. His voice was unusually high; Luz had expected a far gruffer tone to match his demeanor. “Not a newt! Ha! What are you, then? An unusually tall frog?”

“Ha! I’ll believe it when I see it!” The first toad erupted into another fit of laughter.

Luz considered throwing back her hood to prove that she wasn’t a newt but resisted as Anisa’s warning flashed through her mind. 

Then the toads stopped laughing and started creeping closer to the frog kids, completely unbothered by her presence, and Luz decided maybe the consequences were worth it if she could save these two from the toads’ clutches.

She pulled back her hood. “Hey, toads. Did you want proof? Here’s your proof.”

Just as she’d expected, all three of the toads and both of the frogs turned to look at her. And, almost as one, their jaws dropped open at the sight of her. 

“A-are you seeing what I’m seeing, Tor? Leana?” Rathor’s voice shook, going even higher pitched with fear.

The first toad, Tor, shrugged. “Th-that depends, a-are you seeing a huge, scary beast?”

“The beast I see has a disproportionately large head and a strange bump on its face.” The orange frog sounded matter-of-fact. “If you all are seeing that, then it’s definitely real.”

It only took a moment before all three of the toads were hightailing it out of there. The two frogs were standing absolutely still, and Luz glanced at them. “You guys aren’t running too?”

“Nah,” the orange frog said. She shrugged. “I’m Tula, and this is my twin brother Drak.”

“I’m Luz. Nice to meet you,” Luz said, “but if it isn’t rude, why aren’t you guys scared of me?”

Tula and Drak exchanged a look. “Oh, we’re scared,” Drak said. “Really–”

Tula cut him off. “But you saved us from those bullies. So we figure you can’t be that bad. Thanks for that.” Drak echoed her.

“It was no problem, I know what it’s like to be bullied.” Luz looked between the orange and the blue frog. “So you aren’t going to run away?”

“Nope, not running.” Drak shrugged. “Unless you feel like there’s a reason for us to run.”

“No reason,” Luz said. “Why were they chasing you anyway?”

Tula rubbed her head. “Well, Drak and I moved to Riverport with our parents just about three months ago, and we keep running into those same toads over and over again at school and outside of it. They always come after us because we’re easy targets, and we’re new to Riverport.”

“By the way, you should probably run. Or hide,” Drak added. “There’s no way that those toads won't call a mob to hunt you down. This town is normally pretty open to other Amphibians, but you’re some strange creature that did kind of threaten Rathor, Tor, and Leana, so you definitely have a less-than-ideal place in our community. Like, prison kind of place.”

Luz froze. “What?”

“Yeah.” Tula squinted at Luz’s face. “You did know that, right?”

“No!” Luz looked at the rapidly emptying marketplace and the darkening sky. “All my stuff is at my friend’s booth, I need to grab everything before I get out of here!”

Tula and Drak glanced at each other, then up at her. “Don’t worry, we’ll help,” they chorused in unison. 

“I already have an idea,” Tula said.

“Thanks so much!” Luz let out a sigh of relief. “So, what’s your plan?”

“Well…”

“I hate this plan.” Luz’s voice came out muffled thanks to the fact that she had to press her knees to her mouth to fit into the barrel the twins had forced her into.

“Shhh!” Tula was rolling the barrel down the street as Drak scouted ahead for the mob. 

Luz was starting to feel kind of dizzy, but soon she glimpsed the stand she’d come out of through the hole Drak had poked in the barrel. “There!”

Tula rolled the barrel over to the table, and per Luz’s instruction, she folded the tablecloth up and tucked it into the bag with the sunstone carvings. Then she lifted both of Anisa’s bags. “Oof! What’s in these, rocks?”

“Mostly, yeah,” Luz said.

“Wait, really?” Tula looked like she wanted to hear more, but a call from Drak down the street silenced her question. She quickly opened the lid of the barrel and stuffed both Luz’s and Anisa’s bags inside, then shut it and continued rolling Luz’s barrel down the street.

“Now it’s even more uncomfortable!” Luz griped.

Tula shushed her again.

For a while, Luz couldn’t hear anything but the sound of the wooden barrel scraping against the cobbled street and the slightly wet sound of Tula’s footsteps. The inside of the barrel was starting to become really warm, and Luz could feel the edge of the book bag digging into her ribs.

Drak rejoined them a moment later, and he and Tula talked to each other in low tones as they kept moving. Finally, he filled Luz in. “So the mob is just a few streets over. They’re scouring the entire village for you, and just about everyone who isn’t participating in this mob is holed up in their homes to stay out of their way. I didn’t see Rathor and his gang, so I think we’re good on that front.”

“Ha! I bet those three are all hiding, fearing for their lives,” Tula added.

“Point is,” Drak continued, “we have a disguise for you. Now, all we need is an excuse.”

“An excuse?” Tula looked just as confused as Luz felt.

“An excuse for us being out at this time, pushing a barrel in empty streets,” Drak explained.

Luz thought for a moment. “What about… tea?”

“Tea?” Now Tula and Drak were confused. “What do you mean by tea?”

“Well, I don’t know enough about this world to say for sure, but doesn’t tea come in a powder or grain form or something? I forgot the word.”

“Tea leaves?” Drak supplied. “I think?”

“Yeah, exactly. You guys could be rolling a barrel of tea leaves down the street, couldn’t you?”

“But nobody in our family drinks–” 

Tula elbowed him. “You dummy, it’s not like the mob knows that. For all they know, we’re actually taking tea leaves home for some reason.”

“But why tea leaves?”

“Yeah, Luz, why tea leaves?”

“I don’t know! That’s the only thing I could think of that I know goes in a barrel and isn’t a liquid! Maybe you could say you picked it up from the market?”

“They’re coming!” Drak sighed. “Tea leaves it is, then.”

Luz could hear marching steadily growing louder, then suddenly it stopped. A new voice spoke up. “Hey, you! Frog kids! Have you seen a strange bipedal monster around here? Apparently, it has a face bump and spiky hair on its head.”

“No! Not at all, no monsters around here!” Tula was quick to respond. Almost too quick.

“Are you lying to me, frog girl?” The voice moved closer. “What’s in the barrel?”

“Tea leaves!” Drak cut in. “A-a delivery of tea leaves. For our mom. She loves tea.”

“Yep! She loves tea.” Tula’s agreement didn’t seem to do anything to lower the suspicion of the voice, for a moment later they asked, “Can I take a look inside the barrel?”

“No!”

“No, definitely not,” Drak explained. “The tea leaves haven’t been exposed to any atmospheric moisture, and if it gets exposed to moisture it’ll start to clump together, which greatly reduces the usability of this particular brand of tea as–.”

Tula interrupted. “Basically, if we open the barrel it’ll spoil.” 

“And Mom’s expecting these soon, right?” When Tula didn’t answer, Drak elbowed her. “Right?”

“Oh! Right.”

“Yes, so if you could please let us through, we’d really appreciate it.”

Luz shifted a little inside the barrel so she could get a better view, and saw that the person Drak and Tula were speaking to was a green-skinned toad. They squinted at the two frogs. “Which merchant ship did you pick up these, uh, tea leaves from?”

“Uh–”

“No ship, no ship. It was a wagon delivery at the market.” Tula tapped the barrel anxiously. “The merchant just gave it to us after we gave him the money.”

After a long pause filled with tension, the toad relented. “Get going, then. Don’t keep your mother waiting.” They turned and addressed the waiting crowd. “Nothing to see here, the monster must be elsewhere! Let’s keep looking.”

With a roar of approval, the mob sped past.

Barely a few minutes later, Drak and Tula continued rolling the barrel, though this time around they were taking their time, though Luz still felt incredibly dizzy. Before long, they reached the town entrance, and Tula pushed the barrel into some trees near the entrance and unlatched the lid. Luz climbed out, sore all over. 

“Ow…” she mumbled, “Never doing that again.” She heard a crack in her spine as she stretched. “Wow, that can’t be good.” 

Tula shoved the barrel, watching it roll back toward the town and down the street.

“What are you?” Drak blurted. Tula elbowed him. “Ow!”

“No, it’s okay,” Luz said. “Figured you were curious, and I guess I owe you two for saving me back there.”

“We’re even,” Tula said. “You saved us from those bullies.”

Luz shrugged. “Okay then. I’m a human being, from another world. My planet is called Earth, and I ended up here in Amphibia by accident.” 

“That’s so cool!” Drak had stars in his eyes as he considered it. “Imagine that, Tula! What’s your world like?”

“There is definitely a lot less nature, and there are a lot more huge cities,” Luz said. “And amphibian species on Earth are tiny and don’t talk.”

“Aww, poor things,” Tula said. “How did you get here, though? To Riverport?”

“I’m staying with an axolotl named Anisa, and she came here to help a friend out. I kind of just tagged along, I guess.” Luz suddenly realized that Anisa didn’t know where she was. “Oh, no. Anisa’s going to go back to the market, and she’ll see that everything’s gone! Can you two do me a favor?”

“Depends what it is,” Tula said suspiciously, and this time Drak elbowed her. “Fine, yeah, sure. What do you need?”

“Can you go back to the market, just hang around the table we grabbed my stuff from, and when a light indigo axolotl comes by just tell her that everything’s outside the city with Luz, in the trees from this morning? Oh, and give her this.” She dug around in Anisa’s bag for a second and pulled out the wooden card. “She needs to return that to the market manager.”

“Okay,” Tula said, taking the card. “Guess we’re off, then.” Drak lifted a finger as though he wanted to protest, but Tula grabbed his arm and yanked him after her. “Bye, Luz!” she called over her shoulder.

“Bye,” Drak echoed mournfully.

The moment Luz couldn’t see them anymore, she dropped to the ground and leaned against a tree. She pulled out a few of the necklaces from Anisa’s bag and stared at them. “Come on, what do you want from me? Why won’t you do something?” She set them gently into the dirt and watched their light flicker in the darkness for a bit.

She closed her eyes while she waited for Anisa, but she could still see the glow of the crystals through her eyelids. It was a warm, orange glow, and she could feel the comfortable heat it let out even through her cloak.

“Anisa told me that she imagined what she wanted you to do, and you did it,” Luz said. The gems winked innocuously back at her. “Maybe Anisa was right, and I can’t actually do magic like her.” A grim thought struck her. “Maybe I can’t do magic at all.”

She stewed in that thought for a moment before shaking her head. “No… no, that can’t be right. Maybe this magic is genetic, or maybe it’s just something in Anisa’s blood, and that’s why I can’t do it. But Anisa talked about Dark Magic too, right? She said that was just mixing stuff together. Like alchemy.” She looked at the sky. “And now I’m just talking to a bunch of rocks.”

Luz sighed. “Point is, I’m not going to give up.” She picked up the necklaces and tucked them back into Anisa’s bag, then tugged at her own sunstone necklace as though she were checking to see if it was still there. Then she rested her head against the tree and closed her eyes, pulling the cloak tighter around her.

She pulled a book out and read for a while, and when she looked up, Tula and Drak had returned with Anisa. “There you are,” Anisa said, holding a decently-sized box in her hands. “You just vanished! I came back from the meeting with my friend, saw the stand was empty and panicked.” She motioned to Tula and Drak. “These two told me everything.”

“Sorry I couldn’t tell you what happened,” Luz answered. “I had no idea where the meeting with your friend was, and it was a bit of a rush to get out before the mob caught me.”

“It’s fine, these two also told me how you got into that mess,” Anisa continued. “I must say, I’m kind of impressed that you stood up to those toads, even if it meant taking off your hood.”

“Really?” 

“Yeah, really–”

Tula looked kind of annoyed. “This is nice and all, but Drak and I have to go. It’s dark and our parents will definitely be annoyed.”

“She’s right,” Drak said, though he didn’t seem happy about leaving. “Last time we stayed out after dark our parents nearly sent search parties after us.”

“Let’s go, Drak,” Tula said. 

“Wait!” Luz reached into Anisa’s bag and pulled out two necklaces. “Think of them as a thank-you gift,” she said, handing the first to Tula and the second to Drak

Drak gasped softly. “Wow!” he said, taking his necklace reverently. “It’s amazing,”

“I’d give you guys mine, but it’s probably too big for you. And tell those bullies that they’re communication devices, and if you use them, the monster will come back. And it’ll come for them.” She winked.

“Thank you,” both frogs chorused. Drak bit his lip, then hugged Luz; she sat still for a moment before reciprocating. Then the two frog children started back toward Riverport, Drak waving goodbye as Tula tugged him along.

Luz kept waving until she couldn’t see them anymore, then turned to Anisa. The axolotl had an amused expression on her face.

“Sorry for giving two of your necklaces without asking,” Luz said. 

“It’s okay.” She shrugged. “I’m not planning on selling anything in the next town we’re going to, anyway. It’s about a day’s walk from here.”

“Then we’ll go back to the mountains?” Luz felt a sense of relief when Anisa shook her head; she’d been having fun, even if it was dangerous. “So where are we going?”

“After this, we’ll head to Newtopia, remember? I have to deliver the package I got from my friend to Newtopia University.”

“Oh yeah.” She glanced at the box. “What’s in the package?”

“Just an artifact my friend dug up. I haven’t actually seen it myself; apparently, it’s some kind of really fragile paper and can’t be exposed to sunlight.” Anisa shrugged. “I’ll probably take a look at the university.” Anisa glanced at the sky. “Well, normally I would have gotten a room in a local inn, but you seem to have somehow gotten yourself banned from the city. So we’re going to have to sleep under the stars tonight.”

“Cool!” Luz grinned, excited at the prospect. “I’ve never actually gone camping before. Is it fun?”

“It really depends,” Anisa said. “You’re going to have to use your cloak as a blanket, and a bag as a pillow.”

They set up camp in silence. When both Anisa and Luz were lying down, Anisa spoke. “How much did you sell, by the way?”

“All the rest of the statues, to that one merchant guy who was there when you left. I sold it at three gold per statue. He kept demanding a discount. And then I sold three more necklaces to someone else. So thirty-nine gold farthings.”

“Oh, that’s a good sum. Also, could you have fought the mob? Would you have been able to escape or fight if you had a weapon?”

Luz shrugged. “Depends on the weapon, I guess. Or the circumstances. Martial arts classes taught me how to fight with things like knives, but I’ve never actually fought anyone before aside from dojo duels and competitions with practice weapons. And I’ve never fought more than one other person– human, I mean.”

“Huh. Well, that answers a question I’ve had for a while. Okay, good night, then.”

“Good night.” With that, Luz turned on her side and closed her eyes.

Chapter Text

“Remind me what we’re doing here again?” After hiking through the plains of Amphibia, following a trail, Luz and Anisa had finally come across Stonewell Town, the town that Anisa had planned to visit. Anisa had gone straight in and rented them a room at a small inn. The streets had been pretty quiet at night, but now that it was morning Luz could hear the sounds of busy chatter through the window, despite their room facing away from the street.

“I’m here to meet up with another old friend who I haven’t seen in a while, and pick some things up while I’m gone. Then we’ll start our journey to Newtopia.” Anisa picked up one of her bags, leaving her other one on the chair. “Watch over the artifact, will you? Oh, and don’t leave the hotel room. That’s an even worse idea in this town, which is primarily toad military and merchants because we’re so close to the West Tower. You could cause quite a stir.”

“Toad military? Are they the protectors of this town?”

Anisa shrugged. “You could say that, I suppose…” She shook her head. “I have to go, I’ll be back later. Bye!”

Luz waved, and a moment later, she heard the door shut. She sighed and glanced at her bag, then the box. A small smile spread over her face as she looked at the ‘Do Not Open: Fragile and Valuable’ she’d scrawled on top in black pen the previous night. Then she groaned and collapsed face down on the couch she’d slept on. “Ugh, it feels like half the time I’m just on my own somewhere,” she mumbled into the cushions. “This is so boring.”

After a moment, she got up and dug into her bag, pulling out the sunstone necklace Anisa had gifted her. “I suppose there’s only so much I can do with you,” she said. “I’ve already tried what Anisa said, and it definitely didn’t work. So,” with a shrug, she slipped the necklace over her head, “guess all I can do is read or something.” Suddenly a thought struck her. “Maybe I can draw, too! The inn might give some paper to guests like hotels do back home, and I have a few pencils and pens in my bag.”

She entertained the thought of going down to the reception to ask for paper but soon thought better of it. “Anisa told me not to leave the room. I’ll read instead.” Pulling out one of the few novels Anisa had kept on her library’s shelves, she flipped it open and soon got absorbed into the storyline. When she finished, she felt like it had been long enough for Anisa to have returned. Then she checked the time on her phone.

“What? It’s only been two hours?” Luz dropped Anisa’s book on the couch beside her and groaned. “Fine, maybe I will go ask for paper from the reception.” 

Having made up her mind, she stood up and slipped on her cloak, pulling the hood up. She made sure to grab the room key from where Anisa had left it and tucked it into her pocket. A short walk down the stairs later and she was standing in front of the reception desk.

“Excuse me?” she said. An old toad was doing some numbers in a small book, but at the sound of Luz’s voice, he turned to face her, closing the journal. 

“How may I help you?” he asked. “Is your room good?”

Luz scratched her head through the hood. “Uh, yeah, the room’s fine. By any chance, do you have any paper I can use?”

The toad cocked his head as though he hadn’t heard that one before. “Paper?”

“Yeah. Um, to draw on?”

He shrugged. “Well, nobody normally asks for paper, so we don’t really have any. But,” he turned to the book he’d been writing in, “here you go.” He flipped to the end of the book and tore out a sheet of paper, handing it over to Luz.

“Thank you, so much,” she said gratefully, taking the paper. She turned to head back up the stairs.

When she was in front of her room, she fished the key out of her pocket and twisted it until it faced the right way. Then she unlocked the door and tucked the key back into her pocket before gently pushing it open. She stepped in, not really paying attention as she turned to close the door and slipped off her cloak. Then she turned around to see the window wide open, a green frog poised to jump out. And in his hands was Anisa’s box.

They stared at each other in shock for a moment, then the frog let out a gasp of fear and leaped out of the window. Luz rushed toward the window and leaned out to try and see where the frog went. He had landed several feet below on another building’s rooftop and was now sprinting for his life, box clutched in his arms. 

“Hey, give that back!” she yelled, but he showed no sign of stopping. “Oh, come on,” she mumbled as she realized what she had to do. She sat on the windowsill and pushed herself off, stopping herself just before she left the ledge. 

She took a deep breath, her hands shaking slightly. “You have to do this, Luz,” she told herself sternly. “Anisa trusted you to watch over that box of ancient paper, and you need to get it back.” Then she slowly lowered herself, holding her breath until her foot made contact with the tiled roof. She exhaled a breath of relief once she was safely on the top of the other building. “Now where did that thief go?”

Turning and scanning the rooftops, she finally saw him far ahead. She set off at a jog, then started running on the maze of rooftops. She slowly started to gain ground as the frog started to seem unsure as to where he was going, and soon she was close enough to read the warning she’d written on the top of the box.

Then she barely stopped in time to not fall off the edge.

Peeking down, she saw the ground a good two stories below, and it seemed to grow farther with every passing second. She was on top of a restaurant with several patrons dining down below. One of them was Anisa, sitting at a table with a one-armed newt that must have been the friend she went to meet. Anisa and the newt got up and walked away.

“Luz, focus!” she told herself. When Anisa’s friend looked up, she ducked back, then glanced at the gap between herself and the frog she was pursuing. He seemed to be exhausted, as he had collapsed on the ground with the box lying next to him. 

She scanned the gap again. A good two meters. How am I going to get across? She glanced around the roof, then saw that the roof she was standing on was actually only half-finished, with several long wooden boards lying on the far side. She dragged one over and with some difficulty managed to get it standing upright, then let it fall until it hit the edge of the other roof and settled down, forming a bridge between both rooftops. She quickly ran across and went over to the panting thief.

The frog’s eyes dilated with terror when he saw her. He sat up and tried to run, but she put a hand on his shoulder to stop him from moving. “L-leave me alone!” he said fearfully.

“This box belongs to my friend. Not you.” She let go of him and picked up the box. “Why did you take it anyway?”

The frog glanced at the box as though searching for something. Finally, he mumbled, “I saw you writing ‘valuable’ on it yesterday and thought it had a whole bunch of coppers or something.” He shook his head. “But it doesn't weigh anything! All of that was for nothing!”

Luz leveled a cool glare at him, causing him to flinch. “Did you open it?”

“What?”

“The box. Did you open the box?”

The frog frantically shook his head, and Luz breathed a sigh of relief. 

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” he wailed, eyes squeezing shut and hands defending his face. “Just don’t eat me please!”

“…eat you?” Luz frowned and crouched next to him. “Why would I eat you?”

The frog peered through his hands. “You’re… not going to eat me?”

“No. That’s gross.”

The frog looked offended, putting his hands down. “I’ll have you know, I would taste wonderful.” Then he flinched and hid his face again. “Please don’t take that as an invitation to try me!”

“I, uh, I don’t eat sentient species.” This was turning out to be one of the strangest conversations Luz had ever had. She shifted uncomfortably. 

“Oh.” He looked briefly embarrassed, then wailed again. “Please don’t turn me in to the toads at Toad Tower! They'll throw me in jail!”

Luz frowned, though she was starting to feel bad for the terrified frog. “Um, why shouldn’t I turn you in? Surely the police would know what to do with you.”

“Police? What’s a ‘police’?”

“Never mind. Why shouldn’t I turn you in to Toad Tower?” 

The frog thought for a moment, brow furrowed. “Because I’m, uh, nice?” He flashed a weak grin and two thumbs up.

Luz sighed. “I’ll let you go,” she paused as the thief pumped his fist, “on one condition. You need to promise you’ll stop stealing stuff.”

The frog’s face fell. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

He sighed. “I have to steal. I don’t have another option.”

“I mean, I could be wrong,” Luz said, shrugging, “but couldn’t you just get a job?”

“It’s not that simple.” The frog buried his face in his knees. “He won’t let me escape.”

“He? Who’s ‘he’?”

The frog glanced around as though checking for eavesdroppers, then leaned in. “Tim Treller.”

“…who?”

“Tim Treller? Leader of the Secret Circus? Nicknamed ‘The Huntsman’? The most dangerous gang leader in all of northwestern Amphibia? That Tim Treller?”

Luz shook her head. “I’m not from here, I don’t know about wanted criminals around here. How is he stopping you from getting a job?”

“He’s watching my every move.” The frog shrunk closer to himself. “Or at least, his henchmen are.”

“Why is he watching you?”

“I, uh, borrowed money from him several years ago, to pay a Newtopian doctor enough money to look at my sick mother. Bless her soul, she ended up passing away anyway,” he took a moment to look up to the sky, “but it left me in debt. Mr. Treller keeps raising the interest rate, so it’s impossible for me to repay him. And if any employers find out that I’m indebted to him, they’ll toss me out on the street faster than you can say ‘Wait!’. And if I don’t pay the Secret Circus back every month, I could lose my life. So the only option I have is to steal. And they’re always watching.”

“That sounds terrible!” Luz thought for a moment, then stood up. “I’ll help you escape this guy. Promise.”

Following her example, he got to his feet. “Why would you help me? All you know about me is that I tried to steal from you!”

“This mob boss guy is clearly evil. So if I help you take him and his gang down, you and however many other people are in his debt can be free to live how you want to live!”

The frog looked touched as tears of happiness began to pool in his eyes. “Thank you! Really!”

“It’s nothing. Uh, so, how do we get down?”

After dropping the box off in her room in the inn, the frog (whose name was Fyn, Luz had learned) led her through the streets of the city. Luz had worn the hood of her cloak pulled up as far as it would go, but just as an extra precaution, she tied a piece of cloth over her mouth to function as a mask. Hopefully, it would keep anyone in the city’s underworld from recognizing and targeting her or, by association, Anisa.

Speaking of Anisa, Luz spotted the axolotl browsing a vegetable stand. The moment Luz saw her, she tugged Fyn into an alley and asked him to take a different route; after giving her an unreadable look, he shrugged and changed course.

It didn’t take long before they arrived at an innocuous bakery in a nearly deserted part of the city. Fyn tapped some kind of code on the countertop while asking where the restroom was, and the baker pointed to the back room with a nod. Fyn passed straight by the bathroom sign and went into the pantry instead, where he pushed aside an entire shelf of what looked to be sacks of flour but was mostly empty bags stuffed inside one another. It revealed a staircase that went down into darkness, dim glowing lamps on the wall just enough illumination so they wouldn’t trip. Once they were both inside, Luz heard a scrape and turned back to see the baker pushing the shelf back over the entrance. Soon they were entombed in darkness but for the glow of the lanterns.

“What now?” she whispered as they started to descend. “Where are we going?”

“To arm ourselves,” Fyn whispered back. “What weapons can you use?”

“Um, short stuff? Like knives?” Luz shrugged.

“Okay, knives it is,” he said “They’ve got to have those in the armory somewhere.” He made a right turn into a passage Luz hadn’t noticed, then stopped. “I… actually don’t know where to go from here. I’ve never been down this way before.”

Luz looked around the dim passageway. “Why is it so dark in here?” She pulled her sunstone necklace out from under her shirt, and its warm glow quickly overpowered the sparse lanterns in the passageway as they moved farther down.

“I think it’s supposed to deter intruders,” Fyn replied, then Luz heard a thump. “Can you shine that light of yours over here? Nearly tripped.” He knelt next to a shadowy lump on the ground.

Luz stepped closer to illuminate an unconscious toad in armor slumped against the wall. He was tied up, his arms held behind his back with a piece of rope that was tied to the lantern on the wall several feet above. 

“Don’t wake him up,” Fyn warned Luz. “He’s definitely the armory guard.”

“Why is he asleep on the job?” Why is he tied up?

Fyn stiffened. “Uh, I don’t know,” he said defensively.

Luz took a step back. “Woah, okay then.” Suddenly, her back bumped into the wall and it seemed to disappear, nearly making her lose her balance. “Wait, I think I found the armory,” she said, turning and shining her sunstone pendant on the wooden door she had accidentally pushed open.

“Good.” Fyn went in first and scanned the room, then went straight to a shelf of vials, each emitting a faint glow. He grabbed a few and inspected their contents, shaking a few and studying the bubbles that formed on the surface. After a moment he slipped two of the bottles into a sling hanging on the wall and draped the sling around his small frame. “I’m ready.” When he looked up and saw Luz standing awkwardly in the doorway, he frowned. “What are you waiting for?”

“Well, I don’t actually know where anything is,” Luz muttered. 

Fyn sighed. “Knives are on that rack over there. I’ll wait,” he said, gesturing to the far wall as he went back to inspecting vials.

Luz glanced at him for a moment before shrugging and going to where Fyn had pointed. She watched him out of the corner of her eye while she pretended to be perusing the selection of blades. Fyn clearly knew his way around the armory, but he’d claimed to have never been in there barely a few minutes prior. Something was off.

Luz slipped a long, thin knife off the wall and pretended to inspect it. When she was sure he wasn’t looking, she slipped a smaller, sheathed knife off the wall and slipped it into the hood of her cat hoodie, which was usually covered by her cloak. Better to be safe than sorry. Worst case, she could drop it on the ground somewhere for one of the leftover gang members to find. But if Fyn was lying…. She shook the thought off and turned to Fyn, waving the long knife. “I found one that I like!” Luz wasn’t kidding, it was a good knife, but she hoped whatever Fyn was doing worked and she didn’t have to use either of them.

“Excellent, let’s get going then.” Fyn walked out of the room with barely a cursory glance toward Luz. She trailed behind as he kept moving back toward the staircase, starting to second guess her decision to help, as things were starting to get scary. An unconscious ‘guard’, a suspicious ally…. It was starting to feel like the later books of the Cynthia Coven series, one of Marcy’s favorites, when things got serious for the main character Cynthia.

They walked down in silence for a few minutes, until finally the staircase leveled out and the hallway opened up into a small room with a pair of double doors on the far wall. “Stay behind me,” Fyn said. “I have to throw this potion into the room first, to take out any guards.”

Luz did as he asked, watching as he mixed the contents of the two vials together and shook vigorously before he pushed the door open a crack and tossed his vial onto the other side. A faint sound of shattering glass was accompanied by a quiet hiss as some kind of green-tinted gas started seeping through underneath the door.

“Don’t breathe any of that in,” Fyn warned, but he didn’t move an inch as the gas started to swirl around his feet.

Seeing this, the foreboding feeling Luz had been getting only intensified. “Doesn’t it feel kind of odd, though, that there’s nobody here but that unconscious toad?” she asked. “And every room is so dark, how does anyone even see anything in this place?” 

Luz watched Fyn’s reaction carefully. He looked nervous for a second before masking it with a complacent expression. “They must all be on vacation or something, I don’t know. I’m just the guy they tell to steal stuff.”

“Okay.” Luz shrugged. “You’re the boss.” 

She didn’t fail to notice how he stiffened up at that. “Why don’t you go ahead?” he said, his voice a strangled squeak. “The gas should be dissipated enough to stay alert.”

Luz cast him a suspicious look. “Okay…” she said, pulling out the long knife and pushing open the door all the way. The room was pitch-black, and she took a few steps in, turning back to see Fyn flashing her two thumbs up. “There’s no one here,” she said.

Fyn dropped his hands, an almost maniacal grin spreading across his face. “Think again.”

And suddenly, the room was filled with bright light, illuminating the grandest throne room Luz had ever seen, and twenty weapons were pointed straight at her throat.

“Luz, Luz, Luz.” Fyn was pacing in front of Luz in the throne room-like chamber, clapping slowly. “So naive. Never once thought that I could have been lying.”

“Why did you bring me here?” Luz had been forced into a kneeling position, and a newt had tied her arms behind her back and snatched the long knife from her hand. Several of Fyn’s cronies were holding spears uncomfortably close to her, and she tried to keep herself as still as possible so she wouldn’t get scratched. “I’m not as naive as you think, by the way. I know you’re the mob boss. What did you say his name was? The Huntsman? Tim Treller? And did that gas thing even do anything?”

Fyn stopped. “Huh. Perhaps you really aren’t as naive as you seem. When did you figure it out?”

“In the armory. You knew the place too well. But I wasn’t a hundred percent sure until I called you ‘boss’ in that room back there and you reacted so strongly.”

“Smart. I’ll have to do better next time.” Fyn– no, Tim– grinned. “But I suppose it was pointless in the end. You figured it out, but too late. You’re ours now.” He paused for a moment. “As for your other question, that gas was just a harmless fog effect tinted green.”

“What do you want with me? What did I do to you guys?”

Tim leaned closer. “Dear me, no. It’s nothing personal. This has nothing to do with what you may or may not have done. You see,” he straightened and raised his arms dramatically, “I deal in monsters. Specifically, strange and powerful creatures of the wilderness. Like you.” 

“I’m not a–”

Tim shushed her. “It doesn’t matter what you are. You aren’t an Amphibian, that much is clear. One of my scouts caught a glimpse of you in that other town, what was it?” He pointed to one of his henchmen. “Tell me what it was.”

“Riverport, sir. The seaside one.”

“Yes, that’s the one. Riverport. Lovely place, with a beautiful open-air market, but unfortunately very mob-minded. Anyway, the scout followed you and your axolotl friend all the way here. What luck! You wandered right onto our home turf. He watched you both until you fell asleep, then came back to report to me. That same night, I hatched a plan to lure you here.”

Luz frowned. “But why?”

“You know how much money the exotic creatures market makes? I’m literally rolling in coppers. Toads come to me for new beasts for the coliseum or creatures to hunt for training, rich nobility come to me for strange decorative monsters to wow their neighbors, frogs come to me for–” He paused. “Actually, frogs don’t come to me at all. You, make a note to change that.” He snapped his fingers at one of his toad henchmen.

“Yes, sir,” the toad said, jotting something down on a clipboard.

“Okay, back to the point. You, my dear, are a strange creature from who-knows-where. Imagine how much money I could fetch by selling you!”

“You’re sick,” Luz spat out.

“I can imagine the sales pitches now!” Tim continued, ignoring Luz. “Rich Newtopian nobles, coming to see the newest monster for sale… ‘One-of-a-kind strange mammal, never seen before?’ Oh, they would eat it up–” One of Tim’s goons tapped on his shoulder and whispered something. “What? There’s already one of these things in Newtopia? Frog, what’ll it take to get something new around here? Everything’s so overused. It’s always ‘mantis this’, ‘beetle that’.... ”

One of my friends is in Newtopia. The news shook Luz to her core. I’m not alone here. She had to escape from this guy and get back to Anisa, then leave Stonewell as soon as possible.

Something in her face must have clued Tim in, as he turned to face one of the cronies holding a spear at her throat. “Take her away,” he said, “and lock her up with the other monsters. We’ve got some marketing to do.”

The two henchmen surrounding her forced Luz to her feet and marched her out of the room, pushing her through a long hallway and down a short flight of stairs. Finally, one of them stopped and pushed open a cell, and the other shoved her inside and tied her hands to the wall with a length of rope. Then they left, talking with one another.

“So, that just happened,” Luz mumbled to herself as she sat alone in the darkness. “Thank goodness I suspected that guy.” She maneuvered her arms under her cloak and pulled out the knife she’d hidden in her hood, and after a lot of twisting, managed to unsheathe it. Soon enough she had started sawing at the rough fibers, and before long they snapped. “Guess that’ll teach me to trust random strangers,” she continued, standing up and grabbing the leftover rope. “This could be useful.”

She tugged on the door and to her surprise, it opened. “Wow, those toads were way overconfident. They didn’t even lock this!” 

She paused when she heard a growl. She turned to face the other cells in the room and found that they were, in fact, occupied. By animals who had been tied up the same as she had. When she shined her sunstone pendant on the giant beetle closest to her, it flinched and let out a hiss at the light.

Her heart sank as she walked further down and saw just how many cells were filled. By the time she made it back to the end of the cell block, she’d only passed two empty cells including her own, and she could tell that there were at least a dozen cells in all. All of them were unlocked, but the animals were bound in so much rope that they could barely move.

“This is terrible. And inhumane. Si mamá viera esto...,” Luz said, her jaw clenched. “Don’t worry, I’m going to free each one of you. Then we can go kill those gangsters for doing this to you all.” 

One by one, she went into each cell with soothing words and hands raised, and, once each animal relaxed, she slowly sawed at their bindings with her knife. Each animal, once freed, stood still for a moment in fear, but then they slowly started to creep out of their cells, marveling at their newfound freedom. When Luz was finished freeing them all, they all clustered in the middle of the room. Then, as one, they began running toward the exit.

“And they’re gone,” Luz said to herself once she was once again standing in an empty room. “They deserve to escape, after being trapped here for who knows how long.” She followed, making her way back up the hallway and emerging into the throne room. And it was chaos.

The henchmen were running for their lives as their former prisoners chased them, streaming out of the room and completely ignoring the orders of their leader. Tim himself was hiding behind the throne. Before long, there was nobody there but him and Luz. The frog was quivering, completely tuned out to the world around him.

Luz silently walked up behind him, then flashed the most menacing grin she could muster. “Hello, there. Looks like you’re all alone.” She held the rope she’d salvaged from the dungeon aloft.

Tim slowly turned around, eyes wide with fear. He slowly raised his arms in surrender, but almost faster than Luz could react, sprang backward. Thankfully, almost five years of martial arts had honed Luz’s reflexes enough that she just managed to grab the edge of his shirt. Upon realizing he was caught, he gave up.

“You caught me,” he said. “Are you going to kill me for what I did?”

Luz thought about it. “Nah,” she said after a moment. “While you definitely deserve it for what you did to all of those animals, you aren’t worth the toll it would take on me to have taken a life.” She tied him up and slung him over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “You’re going to the Toad Tower instead.”

Tim went rigid with fear.

Luz followed in the wake of the animals’ destruction, the frog on her shoulder struggling against his bonds. Before they left, though, Luz made a quick stop in the armory tunnel to find out what happened to that tied-up toad.

To her surprise, the toad was still unconscious, but now that everything had been lit up Luz could see that he wasn’t actually knocked out, but asleep, his eyes closed and his chest rising and falling in rhythmic succession as soft snores escaped his lips. Luz made sure her hood and mask were still on and shook him. “Hey, wake up.”

The toad came to with a snort and a sniff, eyes slowly blinking open and focusing first on Luz, then on the glowering Tim standing next to her. “Huh?” he mumbled. “Who are you?”

“Are you part of the Toad Tower military?” Luz asked bluntly.

“Uh, yes,” the toad said, scratching his head. “Where am I?”

“You’re in the base of the Secret Circus,” Luz said. “Do you remember how you got here?”

“I remember doing the routine check of a bakery, then I nearly tripped on something. I put my hand on a shelf full of flour to steady myself but the shelf somehow moved and I fell down a flight of stairs. Then someone came up to me and hit me in the head.” What Luz said seemed to hit him, as his eyes widened. “Wait. Do you mean the Secret Circus Secret Circus? The Huntsman's Secret Circus? We’ve been trying to catch them for ages! They don’t pay their taxes!”

“Well, you’re in luck,” Luz said. “Here’s their leader.” She gestured to the tied-up frog, who let out a whimper of fear.

The toad gasped. “No. Way. If I bring him back to the Tower, Captain Beatrix is going to be so happy with me! How’d you manage to catch him?”

Luz knelt down and started sawing at the toad’s ropes. “Don’t worry about it,” she told him as she worked. “Just take him back to the tower.” 

“Yes, ma’am!” the toad said once he was free. He saluted and took a hold of the frog, then turned back to Luz. “Um– where’s the exit?”

She gently set the knife down on the ground. It wasn’t hers, and she didn’t want to take something that had belonged to animal traffickers. Casting one last glance at it, she replied. “I’ll show you.”

Luz led the toad soldier up the stairs, to which he’d left with Tim in tow. They split up once they were out of the bakery, which had a gaping hole where the door used to be. Luz could hear screaming as the animals fled the town and the panicked people in the crowd all tried to hide or run. The sheer madness was enough for Luz to slip away from Tim and the toad soldier unnoticed, hoping she could make it back to the inn before Anisa did.

Luz retraced the path Tim had shown her when he claimed to be Fyn, and soon enough she had found her way back to the inn. She quietly slipped past the snoozing receptionist, all the way up the two flights of stairs to their room, and unlocked the door. Thankfully, Anisa wasn’t back yet; but barely a moment later, Luz heard her coming up the stairs behind her. She turned to see the axolotl pausing on the landing at the sight of Luz.

“What are you doing here?” Anisa asked. “Is that a mask? What happened to you?”

Luz considered coming up with an excuse but decided that it would probably be better to tell the truth to Anisa. “I had a bit of a crazy day,” she said.

“Me too,” Anisa replied. “On my way back here, someone chased a bunch of animals out on the street. It nearly caused a stampede in the crowd.”

Luz pressed her fingertips together and glanced away. “Well, I may or may not have had something to do with that.”

Anisa’s mouth dropped open. “Tell me everything,” she said.

So Luz did.

“Wow. Just, wow. The biggest gang on this side of Amphibia had their eyes on you, and you somehow managed to escape and utterly ruin them?”

“That about sums it up,” Luz said nervously. “Sorry for not listening to your warning about leaving the room.”

“No, it’s fine,” Anisa said. “That was a… unique situation. Looks like you have a knack for getting into trouble. Just two towns and you’ve already angered two groups of dangerous people.” She twisted in her seat and dug around in her bag. “I’d been intending to give you this,” she continued, pulling out another necklace. “It’s supposed to teleport you to somewhere safe. It didn’t work for me, but I figured with the amount of danger you attract, it would probably be better to have with you on the off chance that it worked.”

Luz took it, admiring the blue diamond-shaped pendant. It had a large green stone set in the center, though the gem had a large crack that someone had placed tape over. “What’s this?” she asked, touching the tape.

“The first time I tried to use it, it cracked,” Anisa explained. “That’s where I got this from,” she added, pointing to the mark on her palm. “I put the tape so the liquid inside wouldn’t leak out and so it wouldn’t cut anyone who touched it.”

“Where did you get it?”

“It was a gift from an old friend, and part of the very long story I told you I would tell later.”

“Oh, okay,” Luz said. “Thank you for the gift.”

“It’s actually not the only gift I have,” Anisa said. “I realized you’ve been in this world for a month and a bit and you don’t actually have anything to defend yourself with.” She pulled out a wooden box the size of a shoebox from her bag. “So I got you these.”

Luz gently opened the box and gasped. Sitting on a velvet pillow were two sheathed daggers, with sunstones inlaid into their hilts. “Wow,” she breathed, picking one up and unsheathing it to admire the silvery blade. “Did you have these made today?”

“Not quite,” Anisa said. “My friend knew a blacksmith in town who owed her a favor, and I supplied some sunstones which I had added to a pair of daggers. Now you won’t need to be undefended, and the glow means you can find them even in the dark. It could be useful if your pendant breaks. There’s a belt in the box, too, so you can have them available at all times.”

Luz looked at her, eyes tearing up. “Can I hug you?” she asked. When Anisa nodded, she lunged forward, folding the axolotl in a bear hug. “Thank you, thank you!” she said. “Thank you so much!”

“It’s nothing, really,” Anisa said, awkwardly patting her back. “Oh! I almost forgot. My friend said that she actually encountered one of your friends out in Frog Valley? I don’t know how she got through the mountain pass in winter, she does things that seem unbelievable, but it means you’re not in Amphibia alone.”

“No way! Really? One of the Circus people said that one of my friends was in Newtopia too! Which is where we’re going!”

“It’s a long journey on foot though,” Anisa warned. “And I don’t have enough money left to rent a snail or tarantula or anything else for that long, not even if we sell the rest of the sunstone necklaces.”

Luz looked at the new daggers in her hand. “Did you spend all your money on these?”

“Not just those,” Anisa said. “Supplies for the trip as well. We leave tomorrow morning.”

Luz slipped the safety device over her neck and her new daggers into her bag, hoping to wear them on their journey to Newtopia. “Thank you, again,” she said.

“Really, it’s nothing. Sleep well, Luz. You’re going to need the rest.” Anisa disappeared into the bathroom.

Luz sat on the couch and pulled out her Azura book. She opened the cover and pulled out the photo of her friends that she usually kept hidden inside. “Girls,” she whispered to the smiling faces of her friends, “now I know where two of you are. And I will find you all, I promise.”

Chapter Text

On the first day of their journey, Anisa stopped them at least an hour before sunset. As the axolotl scrounged for sticks in the underbrush, Luz started pulling out the tarp-like fabric they used as a tent.

“Hey, Anisa?” Luz asked. “Why are we stopping so early? It’s only late afternoon, we can keep going for another hour at least!”

Anisa emerged from the bushes carrying the handful of sticks she’d gathered. “Well, I’m getting on in years, Luz. I need to pace myself, normally on this journey I rent a snail but that’s not possible this time.”

“Oh,” Luz said, feeling a little bad; she was the reason Anisa had to make this journey by foot. She watched Anisa sit down and start to arrange the sticks into a cone shape, pressing dry grass into the middle. “If it was that tough, you should have left the weapons you got me and rented a snail instead.” Her fingers brushed the blades in question, and she pulled one out of the sheathe at her hip, tracing the swirls of sunstone set in the hilt.

“Nonsense,” Anisa dismissed. “They are useful, are they not? It’s good that you have them, even if it means a longer, tougher journey for us.” Whatever she was doing with the campfire worked as the kindling caught and started to burn. “Are you hungry yet?”

Luz nodded, and Anisa pulled out a pair of skewers she’d carved out of sticks the day before and speared a few pieces of some kind of root she’d foraged the day before. A moment later both skewers were roasting over the open flames and Luz and Anisa were settled on either side of the fire.

“So,” Luz asked, “have you ever heard a scary story?”

“Yes, though it was a while ago,” Anisa said. “Would you like to tell one? Maybe you have interesting stories from your world you could tell.”

Luz shook her head. “I was actually hoping you’d tell one. I’m not that good at coming up with short stories on the spot, scary or otherwise.”

Anisa thought for a moment. “Hmmm… I actually have a story I think you would want to hear. No, I know you would want to hear this story.” She grinned. “You’ve only been curious about it since the day we met.”

“No. Way.” Luz’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. “Is this the thing you mentioned, in those caves? The one where you thought you went to Earth for like a day? Or at least a world somewhat similar to Earth?”

Anisa pulled the cooked skewers out of the fire and handed one to Luz. “Yes. Now quiet, so I can speak. 

“When I was fourteen, I dreamed of being friends with this popular newt I admired at my school. Back then, I lived in Newtopia, so it was a pretty big school, and a lot of the different levels ended up being mixed together for different classes because there were a lot of classes offered. She was in only one of my classes, but that was all it took, really.” Anisa shrugged. “She and her friends just didn’t like me much. They were really nice about it,” Anisa added, seeing the shocked look on Luz’s face, “but back then I just couldn’t take a hint. In hindsight, it was really obvious why they tried to avoid me.” She pulled a face.

“What does this have to do with other worlds?” Luz asked, curious.

“You’ll see,” Anisa said. “Now, where was I? The story began one afternoon when school let out…”

Anisa stepped outside the school building, making a beeline for where she could see Fiona and her friends standing by the gate at the front of the school. Before she could get there, though, a short newt Anisa barely knew stepped in front of her, stopping her in her tracks.

“Anisa!” the newt said. “How have you been? Did you understand the assignment Miss Clary gave in Amphibian today? I didn’t get what she asked at all.”

“Yeah, I got it, Lena. She just wants us to write an essay again,” Anisa said, trying to edge past the overeager newt. She glanced over at Fiona’s group, who were starting to pick up their things. She was almost too late! 

Lena gasped. “Maybe you can help me! Can you study at the library tomorrow with me? It’s the weekend, if you have something planned, it’s okay, but it would be a huge help if you could!” 

Lena’s babbling was starting to get on Anisa’s nerves. “Sorry, Lena, but I have to go, and I’m busy all day tomorrow,” she said, finally managing to make it past the newt. “See you around.”

“Oh, okay,” Lena said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to hold you up.” Anisa walked away, though a quick glance at the hurt-looking newt caused a twinge of guilt to curdle her stomach. She sighed, turning her attention back to what she was trying to do. Today, she was finally going to get Fiona and her three friends to want to be friends with her!

Reaching into her bag, Anisa pulled out a handful of the beaded bracelets she’d made in anticipation of this moment. She’d bought the tiny beads from a jewelry shop with her own pocket money, and she’d taken care to make sure each bracelet was unique in its own way. Finally, she reached Fiona and her friends, who were starting to walk through the gate with their bags.

“Wait up!” she chirped in her friendliest voice. “How are you all doing? I have a gift for each of you!”

Fiona and her friend Lukas exchanged looks. “Oh, look,” one of the other two stage-whispered. “Little Miss Obsessed is back again.”

“Don’t be mean, Bastian,” Fiona chastised, then sighed. “Hello, Anisa,” she said patiently. “I’m doing well, how are you?” 

“I was having a slightly bad day, but I’m good now that I’m here with you all,” Anisa said, hoping that would score her bonus points so they would finally accept her as one of their friends. She held the handful of bracelets out. “I made these for each of you,” she explained. “You can choose your own colors, I have more in my bag if you don’t like these ones.”

Fiona had an unreadable look on her face. “Thank you,” she said, reaching out and cautiously taking the beaded bracelets from Anisa’s hand. “They’re beautiful.” She held them out to each of her friends, and one by one they reluctantly took a bracelet. Anisa was starting to realize that this wasn’t going as well as she’d imagined it would.

“I– I have more colors in my bag, see?” she said desperately, digging around in her school bag and coming up with a handful more bracelets in other colors. “You– you can each have two if you like! There’s a lot more where that came from!”

“How about this,” Alisi, the last of Fiona’s friends, said. She gave Anisa a look full of sympathy. “Fiona, what if we invite her with us tomorrow? You know, to the caves?”

“Why–” Fiona asked, but Bastian interrupted. “Excellent idea! Let’s take the little stalker with us! Absolutely nothing can go wrong!” he added in another stage whisper.

“Bastian,” Alisi said in a warning tone. “If we take her with us, maybe we can show her that it’s not actually as great as she thinks it is to hang out with us.”

“But it is that great to hang out with us–”

“No, Lukas, for her, not us.”

Anisa waved her hand, bracelets forgotten. “You know I’m right here, right?”

“Yes, of course,” Fiona said. “Do you want to come with us to some cool caves outside Newtopia tomorrow? My cousin went there before and said he’d take us.”

Anisa didn’t think twice. “I’m not busy at all tomorrow, I can’t wait!”

Early the next morning, right after breakfast, Anisa was all ready to meet Fiona and the group. Before she could set foot out of the house, though, her mother cornered her. “Anisa, wait,” she said.

“Yeah, Mom?”

“Please be careful. Those caves are dangerous. I know you said you have a licensed tour guide taking you, but even so, just be careful.”

Anisa shifted uncomfortably at the mention of the lie she’d told her mom. “I know, Mom,” she said. “You’ve only told me a thousand times that I need to be careful. You’re so overprotective sometimes.”

“One more time won’t hurt anyone,” she said, hugging Anisa tightly. “Come home before dinner, alright? I’ll pick up food from your favorite restaurant.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Anisa said, hugging her back. “I’ve got to go, or they might leave without me. Bye, see you soon!”

“See you soon, Anisa,” her mom said, waving. Anisa stepped outside and let the door shut behind her.

It was a short walk through the winding streets of Newtopia to the front gates. They were wide open as a large group of people came out, and it didn’t take long for her to slip into the crowd and walk outside to where Fiona and her friends were waiting. They were standing with Fiona’s cousin, a tall newt three levels ahead of Anisa who she’d seen in passing in the hallways at school. He was supposed to be their guide for this trip.

Glancing at their wrists, she noticed only Alisi was wearing the bracelet she’d made.

“Is that everyone?” Fiona’s cousin asked, glancing around at the group. “There are only five of you, right?”

“That’s right,” Fiona said. “Thanks for taking us, cuz. Really appreciate it.”

“Ha!” The newt ruffled Fiona’s brown hair, and she swatted at him in irritation. “Anything for my little baby cousin.”

“I’m not that much younger than you,” Fiona said. “Only a few months.”

“More than enough for me. Anyway, here’s what’s up.” He turned to face each of them in turn. “This isn’t an official tour. I and a friend of mine explore the caves around Newtopia in our free time, looking for interesting things we report to our science teacher for extra credit, but we’re by no means experts. It could definitely be dangerous and easy to get lost in there, and if you want to back out, now’s your chance.”

Anisa glanced around at her companions, starting to feel a little afraid. But none of the newts around her seemed surprised, only excited.

“We all know, E,” Fiona said. “We’re aware of what could happen.”

“Just giving you all fair warning,” he said, shrugging. “I’m Edwin, and I’ll be taking you all to visit some pretty big caves, so we’ve got a bit of a hike ahead. Hope you’re all okay with that!”

When all Edwin got were nods, he turned. “Let’s go, then.”

“Don’t tell me you went with them,” Luz groaned.

Anisa gave an apologetic smile. “Teenage me didn’t make the best decisions, did she?”

Edwin led the group through the shallow sea around Newtopia, and after half an hour of hiking, they finally came upon the entrance of one of the many cave systems scattered in the surroundings of the city. Edwin paused at the cave. “Everyone ready?” he asked. 

Anisa didn’t respond. She didn’t know if she was ready or not.

Her delay in responding was pointless, as looking at the faces of his cousin and her friends, he shrugged. “Let’s go in.” The group walked into the darkness, leaving Anisa at the entrance of the cave.

Anisa gulped and looked inside. The cave’s opening looked like the maw of some giant creature, with stalactites hanging down and stalagmites jutting up like sharp teeth. She shivered and went in, but stopped when she realized she had no idea where the group had gone off to.

She was alone.

Anisa considered turning back, but the prospect of looking like a coward in front of the people she was trying to impress was scarier than the idea of going into the cave. She glanced around and saw two tunnels, one of which they had gone down. But she had no idea which. She took a deep breath and started walking down a random tunnel. What was the worst that could happen, right?

Soon the tunnel began to slope downward, quickly becoming so steep that it took all her effort to stay upright; she desperately wished she had some of the newts’ natural climbing skills right about now. Having no choice but to follow the path, Anisa kept moving forward until she reached a vertical dropoff.

“Woah,” she said, windmilling her arms and desperately clinging to the walls of the passage. “Glad I didn’t fall off that.” She carefully peeked over the edge and gasped. “Woah… are those stars?” The pool of water ten meters below was filled with some kind of tiny glowing insect, making it look like the night sky had settled in the water.

She admired the sight for a moment then shook her head. “I can’t get distracted… where did they go?” She looked into the aquifer underneath. “Hello? Fiona, Edwin? Alisi, Lukas, Bastian? Are any of you down there in that lake thing?”

No response.

She sighed. “Huh… maybe I went the wrong way.”

As Anisa turned to retreat back up the path, she glanced up and realized just how steep it had become. “How do I get back up?” she murmured. “Guys?” Her voice echoed through the room, and she could dimly hear a stalactite crashing to the ground somewhere. “Help!”

She heard a cracking noise right above her and saw the base of another stalactite splintering. “Oh, no.” She sprang backward just as it crashed into where she’d been standing, then realized that there was no ground behind her. She had just pitched herself off the edge and was falling down into the water. 

The last thing she remembered was the feeling of hitting the water, and then black.

Anisa’s eyes opened, and she sat up. “Is it sunset?” she mumbled, seeing the sky above her, which was a deep reddish-orange Anisa had never seen anywhere except for books. “How long was I out?”

She sat up and gasped in shock. “What… where am I? Where did that underground lake go?” She was floating on a piece of driftwood in the middle of the ocean, steam wafting off the surface of the water. She stuck the tip of her finger in and pulled it out immediately, her makeshift raft bobbing at the sudden movement. “Why is the water so hot? It’s like it’s boiling or something, but the ocean doesn’t boil.”

She glanced around at the horizon, looking for land. “There!” Far away in the distance, a huge landmass was clearly visible, though it didn’t look like Amphibia– there were large white stone spikes, and a smooth, round mountain made of the same stone with more spikes on top. Anisa hadn’t seen anything like that anywhere on the maps of Amphibia she’d studied in science class.

But at this point, Anisa was desperate. If her raft broke, that was it for her– so she needed to escape. Glancing around, Anisa spotted a long, mostly flat piece of driftwood floating nearby and reached out as far as she could, just barely managing to make contact with it. She picked it up, nearly dropping it at the sudden heat that seared her fingers, and used it as a paddle.

It took less time than Anisa had expected to reach the land she’d seen, but the sky had still lightened considerably, turning a purple-blue that was reminiscent of a darker version of Anisa’s own skin tone. She was starting to suspect something was wrong here; the sky wasn’t supposed to be that color at night, and even if it was morning and she’d been unconscious for almost a full day, the sky wasn’t supposed to be indigo but a light blue.

She steered her raft onto a beach far to the right of the round mountain, which looked far more like the skull of some strange animal from this angle. “Where am I?” she said again, voice filled with fear. “Am I even in Amphibia anymore?”

She got off of her raft and stepped onto the sandy beach, a sudden hiss behind her catching her attention. The piece of driftwood she had been floating on had finally succumbed to the boiling water, breaking apart and falling to the bottom until all Anisa could see were tiny black splinters of wood bobbing in the waves. She shuddered as she realized how close she’d come to death.

Sighing, she threw the piece of driftwood she’d been using as an oar into the water to join the makeshift raft and turned to face the forest she found herself in front of. The trees were orange, which Anisa had never seen before– back home, the only trees in Newtopia were green, and even in science class she’d never learned about orange trees.

She stepped into the forest, unsure what she would find. It looked normal except for the color of the leaves, though, so she kept moving. Soon the sky grew overcast, and thunder rumbled in the distance. Anisa was relieved, rain was the first thing she’d seen that was also common at home.

But when the first drops spilled from the sky and hit the ground around her, Anisa noticed the environment didn’t seem to be reacting so well. Shriveled, browned splotches were appearing on the plant life, and her worst suspicions were confirmed when one hit her arm. “Ouch!” A stinging, burning sensation overtook all of her senses. She took shelter under a tree, shivering.

She huddled under the tree for what felt like forever, yet only a short time had passed before the burning rain slowed, then stopped. Glancing up at the hole-riddled canopy, she quickly left to find a better shelter. Barely a minute passed before she felt a tap on her shoulder, and she flinched and spun around. A strange creature was standing behind her with a bump on her face, a missing tooth, and bright orange hair.

“Aah! Don’t eat me!” Anisa flinched and reflexively threw her arms in front of her.

The orange-haired alien creature watched her in confusion. “...What? You’re acting as though you’ve never seen a witch before. Heh.” A moment later, she was doubled over in laughter.

Anisa shook her head, huddling closer to the tree trunk behind her. The boiling rain began to fall again, and the alien creature– no, witch– followed her example, huddling next to her.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to eat you.” She winked. “I save that for people who make me angry.” On seeing Anisa suddenly flinch, she let out another giggle. “Just kidding! I don’t eat demons. What’s your name?”

“A-Anisa…” Anisa stammered.

“I’m Eda.  I’m hiding from my sister Lily, trying to see how long it’ll take until she notices I’m outside. Want to join me?”

Anisa wasn’t sure she could trust her, but it didn’t seem like Eda was going to hurt her, and she had nothing better to do. “Sure,” she managed to say.

The witch stood up, revealing that she was just a little shorter than Anisa herself. “Great!” Eda said with a grin, tracing a circle in the air. A glowing golden-orange shield appeared in the air in front of the tree they were under, raindrops bouncing off and dripping to either side. “Come on!”

Anisa hesitantly stepped under the shield, and when nothing happened, followed Eda until she was standing next to the witch under a different tree. The shield disappeared a moment after, and Anisa exhaled a breath of relief as she saw she was standing safely on the other side.

“My house is over there,” Eda said, turning and pointing behind the tree. When Anisa looked where Eda was pointing, she saw a huge two-story house built in the forest, cliffs in the distance. 

“That’s your house?” she asked in disbelief. “It’s huge!” Anisa thought of the apartment where she and her mother lived. It was only about a fourth of the size of this place.

“Yup, home sweet home,” Eda said with pride. “Where do you live?”

“I live in Newtopia, but I’m lost,” Anisa said.

“New-to-pi-a,” the witch said, sounding it out. “Never heard of that. Is it nearby?”

Anisa shook her head sadly.

Suddenly, the door swung inward and Anisa could hear it slamming into the wall. A red-haired witch with glasses stepped out, summoning her own blue-tinted shield to protect against the rain. “EDA CLAWTHORNE!” she yelled, spotting the two faces hiding behind a tree. “YOU SCARED ME HALF TO DEATH!”

“Sorry, Lily,” Eda said, summoning her shield again and grabbing Anisa’s hand. “Let’s go,” she whispered to her. “Try to look pitiful.”

“I can’t help but wonder,” Anisa replied, schooling her face into what she hoped was a pitiful expression, “how long did it take for her to notice?”

“Five minutes,” Eda replied. “Just like usual. Even the dummy I put under my blanket didn’t help this time.”

Eda’s sister, Lily, marched over furiously. “Why were you out here? I was afraid you got caught in the boiling rain!”

“I was trying to see how long it would take you to notice I was outside, then I saw this demon kid out here in the rain!” Eda let go of Anisa’s hand and pointed at her. “She’s lost!”

“Yeah,” Anisa said. “I woke up in the middle of the ocean.”

Lily gave her a shocked look. “How are you alive? Can you withstand the extreme temperatures of the Boiling Sea?” She half-looked like she wanted to pull out a pen and start taking notes.

“No, so luck, I think,” Anisa said seriously.

Lily looked over at Eda. “Well, let’s go inside, out of the boiling rain, okay?”

Anisa followed Eda and her sister inside Lily’s room. The older witch closed the door gently. “Dad’s busy carving Palismen,” she whispered, “and Mom’s making dinner. So let’s be quiet. How did you appear in the Boiling Sea?”

Anisa scratched her head. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I fell into an underground lake and woke up here.”

“Lily! I have an idea! What if we go to the…” Eda paused dramatically… “Night Market! They have everything, and it starts at sunset! It’s almost sunset!”

“Eda, no! That’s a terrible idea! We’re too young to go, and neither of us has ever been there!”

“But Lily…” Eda made a pouting face. “Lots of the kids at Hexside said they went, and they’re the same age as me and you! Besides, look how sad she looks! She wants to go home so bad!” She elbowed Anisa, who resumed making the same face from earlier.

Lily continued keeping her arms crossed in front of her, but after a moment she dropped them and sighed. “Fine, you can stop making that face now,” she said to Anisa. “But we’re only going if the boiling rain stops. And you’re paying for anything out of your allowance,” she added, raising a brow at Eda.

Eda let out a cheer, the gap between her teeth on full display. “Yes! I’m going to get my snails, I’ll be right back!” She dashed out of the room, leaving Anisa alone with Lily, who sighed. Anisa wondered how she was going to fit more than one giant riding snail into Lily’s room but put it out of her mind.

“What’s the Night Market?” she asked instead. 

Lily brushed her curly hair out of her face. “It’s a market that opens at sunset, and frankly it’s kind of dangerous. But when Eda wants something, there’s no persuading her otherwise..”

Anisa opened her mouth to ask what world she had ended up in, but Eda’s return distracted her. “I got it!” the orange-haired witch cried. “And the rain stopped! Let’s go!”

“Here, wear my sister’s spare cloak,” Lily said, handing Anisa a bundle of fabric as they walked; Anisa didn’t know where the snails Eda had promised went, and neither of the witches seemed to have a problem with going by foot, so she didn't bring it up. “You’ll want to keep your identity hidden in the Night Market,” Lily explained as Anisa unfurled the fabric. “They say that if you make someone angry, that person will stop at nothing to find you and take revenge, so it’s best to make sure that never happens.”

Anisa took it and slipped it on. “Thanks,” she said, pulling the hood of the cloak up. It caught on her gills, but she managed to pull it over after a bit of maneuvering. “Am I hidden?”

Lily inspected her. “Yeah,” she said after a moment. “Good enough.”

“So what are we looking for?” Anisa asked, but only received a shrug in response.

“Come on, slowpokes,” Eda called from up ahead. “Hurry up!”

After a few more minutes of walking, they made it into town, and Anisa was shocked at the sheer amount of different species all lingering in the market square. Not a single one was familiar to Anisa. She stared openmouthed as they passed stall after stall of the most fantastical wares she had ever seen.

“Alright, let’s start looking,” Lily said once there was a noticeable shift in the crowd; most people were now wearing hoods and cloaks, and the stalls seemed a lot less extravagant, lit with magenta lights instead of the many colors of before. “If there’s a map that can tell us where your home is, it should be somewhere here.” All three of them scanned the stalls, though Anisa found herself keeping a wary eye on the crowd more often than not.

Before long, Eda grew bored and started darting from stall to stall, exchanging words with the vendors before moving on to the next. After a while of doing this, she returned to Lily and Anisa. “I found something!” She excitedly led them to a stall manned by two figures wearing masks, one of whom was helping another customer. 

“Just as you requested, ma’am, we have something that can take you home from just about anywhere,” the other masked figure said, their white mask seeming to glow in the lack of light. They held up a necklace with a blue pendant on it, a green gem set in the center. The gem glittered enticingly. Eda made a grab for it, but at a look from Lily, Anisa pulled her arm down before she could touch it.

“How do we know it’s not a scam?” Lily asked. She turned to leave.

“Wait!” the masked vendor said, and Lily glanced back. The salesperson scratched their head nervously. “It’s not a scam, really,” they said. 

“Prove it.” Lily’s voice was steel.

“I can’t! It’s untested, and if I use it, it’ll go with me.”

Eda looked at Lily. “Come on, it might work!”

“We came here for a map, E–” Lily stopped herself just before uttering Eda’s name. She sighed. “Even if we take it, if it doesn’t work then it’s a waste of snails.”

Oh, Anisa thought. Snails are their equivalent of coppers.

“Please? I’m paying for it! I wanna see if it works!”

Lily sighed. “Money isn’t the problem. But fine, how much is it?”

“Fifty snails.”

“Fifty snails!?” The incredulity in Lily and Eda’s voices caused the salesperson to flinch. “How about thirty?” they asked desperately.

“Make it twenty-five and we’ve got a deal,” Lily said.

“Sold,” the masked vendor replied, handing it to Lily as Eda fished out twenty-five coins from her pockets. 

The other masked figure waved goodbye to his patron and turned to his partner. He caught sight of Lily holding the pendant. “Wraith, you idiot!” he cried, his black mask in stark contrast to his partner’s white one. “Why did you sell the pendant? That strange guy wearing a skull reserved it, we were gonna make like two hundred snails off of it!”

“I told you, Shadow, I don’t trust that guy. He seems fishy.” They started to argue, Eda leaving the snails on the table and turning back to Lily. “Let’s go,” she whispered.

The three walked out of the market, heading into the forest. Once they were well on their way back to the witches’ house, Lily handed the pendant to Anisa. 

“Woah,” Eda said, watching the gem sparkle in the moonlight. She watched it unblinkingly.

 “Try it,” she urged. “If it doesn’t work, at least we’ll know and can figure out some other way to get you home. Maybe the Bonesborough Library would have a map we can use.”

Anisa turned the pendant over in her fingers. “How does this work?”

“Maybe press the gem in the middle? That seems like the most obvious thing to do,” Eda said.

Shrugging, Anisa did as she said. Then there was a sudden bright light and she was gone.

“Did you make it home?” Luz asked when Anisa paused in her storytelling. 

“Well, of course I did, I’m here in Amphibia, aren’t I?” 

Luz shrugged. “That seemed kind of too easy, for some reason. And besides, you told me that when you first used this pendant it cracked, so clearly something must have gone wrong.”

“Perceptive, aren’t you?” Anisa asked, impressed. “You’re right, it wasn’t that easy to make it back to Newtopia.”

When Anisa blinked the spots back from her eyes, she found that she was still surrounded by orange trees. “No…” she mumbled, then tears began to pool in her eyes. “No, no, no!” 

The feeling of warm, wet liquid pooling in her palm drew her attention to the pendant clenched in her fist, and she opened her hand to look at it. The green gem in the center had cracked, spilling out a dark turquoise substance. It puddled in her hand as the components separated, the blue liquid being absorbed into her skin while green gathered on top, staining it. Eyes blurring with tears, she took the pendant in her other hand so more of the strange liquid wouldn’t spill out and scrubbed her hand on her pants. No point– the green stuff was stuck stubbornly, and she couldn’t get at the blue that had already absorbed into her skin.

She looked at the pendant again. A single drop of whatever liquid was inside it clung to the edge of the crack, and as she watched through teary eyes, it fell and splashed into a puddle of leftover water from the boiling rain. Suddenly, the image shifted, changing to gold-green-brown and speckled white instead of the strange stars in the skies up above her. Peering over to get a better look, a tear dropped from her eye down into the water and it quickly morphed into the familiar image of Amphibia’s light blue sky.

Anisa gasped and wiped the rest of her tears from her eyes. She crouched down and touched the water, and her hand went through the ground. Gasping, she plunged her head in and found that she was in the shallow sea surrounding Newtopia. She climbed the rest of the way out, careful to make sure the liquid inside the pendant didn’t spill. Just before she pulled her feet out, she whispered, “Thank you,” to the two witches who helped her go home. Then she stood up and the portal disappeared.

A lone newt was standing in the water around Newtopia, periodically bending down and picking something up from the sandy bottom before tucking it into a bucket on their forearm. “Hey! Over here!” Anisa shouted, and they looked up, then started splashing their way to Anisa.

When the figure was close enough for Anisa to realize it was her classmate Lena, the newt was already talking. “Oh my gosh! Anisa! You’re back! Where have you been? Your mom had an entire search party set up for you, they just went in to call it a night! Those people you were with came back and reported you missing, wow your mom chewed them out!”

“How did you know all of that?” Anisa asked, her head spinning in circles at Lena’s words. 

“Oh, I happened to be there when those kids from school said you were missing, and I’ve been helping with the search party. Everyone else went inside, but I didn’t. I figured I could keep looking for you while I collect seashells for the jeweler. She pays me by the number, so I try to get as many as I can.”

“I was in another world,” Anisa said, half sure that Lena would think she was insane. But the newt only gasped. “Wow! That sounds so cool! What was it like?” As they began to walk back to Newtopia, Anisa recounted the entire tale.

“What happened next?” Luz asked. “Is that it?”

“That was it,” Anisa said. “This all happened almost forty years ago, though, so my memory is a little fuzzy.”

“What happened when you got home?”

Anisa laughed. “My mother was furious that I had lied to her about the cave exploration being led by a certified tour guide, but she was so relieved to see me. We both cried so hard…. When I told her what happened, she told me not to tell anyone else because my story was so unbelievable and she didn’t want me to be an outcast of society. Lena was an exception, I suppose. I underestimated her secret-keeping skills.”

“Speaking of Lena,” Luz said, “what happened to her? You thought she was kind of annoying, what changed?”

“I had very severely misjudged her,” Anisa said. “My first impression of Lena was that she was loud and brash, back when we first met in school as children. That day, I learned of another side to Lena, a side that I had not even thought existed because I was so determined to make her fit into my impression of her.”

“And?” Luz pressed, sensing there was more.

“She became like a sister to me,” Anisa admitted. “My best friend. My mother even unofficially adopted her. She was my sibling in all but blood, and so I treat her son as my nephew.”

“Is Lena’s son the person we’re going to visit?” Luz asked, and gasped when Anisa nodded. “But then what happened to Lena?”

Anisa looked at the ground, downcast. “She passed away five years ago from a severe illness.”

“Oh. I, um, I know what that feels like,” Luz said quietly. They both stared at the ground awkwardly as they walked. 

Finally, Anisa broke the silence. “We’ll be arriving in Newtopia sometime tomorrow,” she said. “Are you ready to see one of your friends again?”

“More than ready,” Luz said in reply. “I have some things I need to say.”

Chapter Text

“Woah,” Luz whispered, awed by the splendor of the majestic city before her. “This is Newtopia? It’s amazing.”

“Yep,” Anisa said. “We’re here.” After almost two weeks of walking, Luz could tell Anisa was exhausted– and Luz felt the exact same way. She had gained a lot more respect for those pioneers Mrs. Jones taught her about in history class, the ones who walked hundreds of miles across the entire country of America. “Let’s go in,” Anisa suggested, snapping Luz out of her reverie. They both started heading toward the massive gates.

The gates were even more impressive up close. They towered over Luz and Anisa, ornately carved and plated with what appeared to be gold leaf. Two stone reliefs of gargantuan newts faced each other on opposite doors. Luz paused in the ankle-deep water. “How are we going to get in?” she asked.

“Like this. Hey, whoever’s up there! Open the gate!” Anisa’s sudden shout startled Luz so badly that she nearly fell over, and she windmilled her arms just in time to keep from landing face down in the water. 

“That’s… it?” she asked skeptically, but her question was answered a moment later as the huge gates started to slowly grind open. “I don’t know why, but I thought there would be more security. This is the capital of Amphibia, right?”

“There’s not a lot of threat from creatures on the outside as they’re usually too afraid to come closer than the hills over there, and there have been no uprisings during the many years King Andrias reigned over this land. Though I do suggest you pull your hood up, just in case.” She pointed to a mountain range in the distance. “By the way, up on top of that mountain is where my house is.”

Luz looked between the mountains and the direction they’d come from. “It was so close this whole time? We didn’t have to walk all this way?”

“I guess not,” Anisa said. “Let’s go see if we can find my nephew’s house.”

Luz looked past her to the busy streets surrounding them. “More walking? Noooo-”

“It’s not actually that far,” Anisa assured Luz, patting her back sympathetically. “The faster we get going, the sooner we’ll get there.”

As they walked through the city, Luz took in the ornate statues and fancy façades of the many buildings around her. “You lived here? It’s so pretty,” she said. “Why’d you leave?”

“It wasn’t for me,” Anisa replied matter-of-factly. 

Before Luz could think of a response, they passed a canal and her attention was caught by a gold gleam. She turned her head to look and stopped, her jaw going slack with shock.

After a moment, Anisa realized Luz wasn’t following her and glanced back, following her gaze. “Well, that wasn’t there before,” she said, eyebrows raised.

“Why is there a giant gold statue of Marcy in the middle of that bridge?” Luz gestured at it in shock. “What– how–”

“Oh, that?” A passing pair of newts lugging a stack of boards stopped at Luz’s words, and one of them spoke. “That’s Marcy Bridge. It used to be called Leviathan Bridge, after the royal dynasty, but it was so old that it was this close to breaking every time someone put their weight on it. And then, in her first week in Newtopia, Master Marcy took one look at it and basically made it new again with her magic gaze. So King Andrias named it after her instead, and built a statue of her on it.”

“What? Harv, no, the Lady Olivia got a bunch of Newtopians to help–”

“You’re talking crazy again, Clem.” They walked off, arguing.

Anisa glanced at Luz’s dazed expression, slightly concerned. “Are you… okay?” she asked awkwardly. “At least we know which one of your friends is here, right?”

Luz blushed. “I’m fine! Yeah, that’s great! I… wow, I just didn’t expect that I guess,” she stammered out. “Let’s– let’s just go.” She took a deep breath and the heat faded from her cheeks.

“Okay,” Anisa said, shrugging.

The entire rest of the walk, Luz thought about that statue and the explanation provided by those two newts. “I’d known she was smart,” she mumbled to herself, “but I guess she never had an opportunity to do things like this back home. Just, wow.”

“What?” Anisa turned back. “I couldn’t hear you.”

“Oh, nothing,” Luz said. “Just talking to myself.”

“We’re here,” Anisa replied, stopping in front of a wooden door and rapping on it with her knuckles. They waited for a minute before it swung open, revealing a young newt with long, curly hair. 

“Hello, Teora,” Anisa said.

“Anisa! You’re here early! Leo and I thought you weren’t coming for another week! And who’s that?” she added, glimpsing Luz standing awkwardly behind Anisa.

“May we come in? We’re both exhausted from the journey here.”

Teora stepped aside to let them in. “Oh, of course! How was the trip? Can I get you anything? Oh, I should put tea or something on, I’ll be right back.” She disappeared into the back room, and Luz heard the clattering of dishes for a moment before she returned. “Oh, nothing’s ready, so sorry,” she fretted.

“No worries, Teora, I know you’re busy at the hospital,” Anisa said to calm the newt down. It seemed to work, as Teora let out a breath and pulled out two of the chairs by the dining table. “Sit down,” she insisted.

When both Anisa and Luz were seated, Anisa asked, “Where’s Leo?”

“Oh, he’s at work,” Teora said. “There was this cult that burned a lot of books, mostly about some old legends, but they didn’t get to King Andrias’s personal library before the Night Guard stopped them. So Leo is working overtime with the Newtopia University archives and the many public libraries in the city to help find out which books were burned and get new copies printed.”

“No, really?”

Teora sighed. “Yeah… I think he’s starting to stress over whether or not we lost all the copies of some specific books. Today was supposed to be his day off, but he didn’t take it. Anyway,” she said, changing the subject, “who is this?” 

“This is Luz,” Anisa said.

“Hi,” Luz said nervously. 

Teora glanced between the two of them. “You never mentioned anything about a ‘Luz’ in your letters,” she said.

“Luz showed up at my doorstep about two months ago, lost,” Anisa said. “She’s from another world. You can take your hood off,” she told Luz. “Now that we know your friend is well-known in Newtopia, it’s safe for you to go without.”

Luz pulled back her hood, and Teora gasped. “Oh, you’re the same species as Master Marcy! Did you come here to look for her?” 

“Yeah, I did,” Luz said. “Her and my other two friends. Do you know where any of them are?”

“Master Marcy lives at the palace,” Teora said. “Lady Olivia takes care of her, she’s the one who checked her out of the hospital when she first got here.”

“Wait,” Luz said incredulously, “Marcy was in the hospital?”

“She had a broken leg. One of the other doctors told me,” Teora confirmed. At Luz’s confused look, she elaborated, “I’m a doctor at the Newtopian Public Hospital, though I mostly work with the efts.”

“Efts are young newts,” Anisa clarified.

“Oh, so you’re like a pediatrician,” Luz said. Both the newts looked confused, so she added, “A doctor who works with kids? Efts, I guess. That’s what they’re called in my world.”

“Pediatrician, huh…” Teora shrugged, then changed the subject. “Why did you come so much earlier than planned?”

“Because of this,” Anisa said, pulling the artifact box out of her bag. “I need to deliver this to my former colleagues at Newtopia University so they can take a look at it.”

“I can call a messenger mosquito to deliver a note,” Teora said, getting up. “Let me get some paper and a pencil–”

“No need,” Luz interjected, pulling out the leftover paper from the hotel and one of her pens. “I never actually ended up using this paper, you can have it.”

Anisa took the pen and paper and scribbled down a note, then handed it to Teora who promptly disappeared into the back room. Luz heard the sound of a tea kettle whistling and the clanking of dishes before the window opened. She turned her attention back to Anisa. 

“Who was that?” she whispered.

“Teora,” Anisa said, holding out Luz’s pen. On seeing Luz’s look of confusion, she frowned. “That wasn’t what you were asking, was it?”

“Not particularly. I mean, you never mentioned her.”

“Ohhh,” Anisa said. “Yeah, I guess I didn’t. She’s Leo’s fiancé.”

Just then, Teora returned with a tray of cups filled with steaming orange-brown tea. She carefully set it on the table and set a cup in front of Anisa and Luz each, then took a seat with her own cup. “I sent the note, so the messenger mosquito should be back soon. In the meantime, let’s talk.”

“Where’s Marcy?” Luz’s abrupt question startled even herself, but she gazed at the newt anyway, desperately hoping for an answer.

“I… don’t really know, actually. I know that Lady Olivia took her to the palace, and I know she became a Newtopian Night Ranger, but I don’t know if she lives in the barracks or at the palace.”

“Could we ask her? Lady Olivia, I mean?”

Anisa sighed. “Luz, we’re all tired, just wait until tomorrow–”

“Anisa, please, I’m so close! It’ll just take an hour maybe, and I get to see my friend again sooner rather than later. Besides, I’m not tired anymore.” It was true; all of Luz’s exhaustion had melted away when she’d learned that it was Marcy in the city.

Anisa glanced at Teora, who shrugged. “You can stay here and wait for the messenger mosquito. I’ll take her to the palace. Though I can’t guarantee that you’ll be able to talk to Lady Olivia, seeing as she’s very busy,” she added, turning to Luz.

“I’m more interested in seeing if I can find Marcy,” Luz admitted, cheeks flushing slightly. “If we find Marcy before we can talk to Lady Olivia, that’s good with me.”

Teora glanced at Anisa, who shrugged. “Fine by me,” she said, taking another sip of tea. “Go and find your friend.”

As she stood up to leave, Luz took a sip from the tea and her eyes widened. “Hey, this is really good!”

“Are the barracks closer or is the palace closer?” Luz silently willed the newt to move slightly faster than she was, but Teora was taking her time, glancing at each intersection twice before turning.

“Well, I don’t know where the barracks are. I only know where the palace is, so that’s where we’re going. “Shouldn’t the location of the barracks be common knowledge so people can call on the army? Or, I guess it’s called the Night Guard?”

Teora shook her head. “The Royal Newtopian Night Guard is different from the Royal Newtopian Army. The Army works directly for the king and the city, but the Night Guard is like an elite force that mostly does what the Army can’t and operates mostly on its own merits, so the king doesn’t have much influence. There’s probably more to it, but that’s about all I know.”

“Oh. So Marcy joined the Night Guard, but she’s close friends with this Lady Olivia, who is the…”

“King Andrias’s royal advisor,” Teora supplied.

“Yeah, what you said.”

Teora shrugged. “Your friend is a special case, I suppose. Oh, that’s the castle over there.” She pointed to a towering tiered building that dwarfed the surrounding rooftops.

“Wow,” Luz breathed, taking in the sheer size of it. “This city is amazing.”

Teora tilted her head and looked at it. “Huh, I suppose it is,” she said. “I never really stopped to think about it. Though the castle does need to be really big,” she continued. “King Andrias is far larger than the average newt. Or, in your case, the average, uh–”

“Human.”

“Yes, human. Are you an adult human?”

Luz shook her head. “Adults tend to grow about this tall.” She put her hand in the air to demonstrate.

Teora’s eyes widened. “Wow, that’s tall. But even so, King Andrias is much bigger than an average adult human. You’ll understand when you see him.” She glanced up at a street sign. “And we’re here,” she said, rounding a corner. 

“It’s so much bigger up close!” Luz stepped forward, heading toward the gate. “So we just go in here, right?” 

Her question was answered a moment later when a hooded Newtopian soldier stepped in their path, leveling a spear at Luz. “Where do you think you’re going?” 

“To see Lady Olivia–”

“The Lady Olivia is out on business, so unless you have an appointment you may not set foot inside,” the soldier said. “Leave.”

“Wait! If you would please let us wait inside,” Teora hastily began, but the soldier interrupted her. “Unless you have an appointment, leave peacefully or I will have to use force.”

“There will be no need for that,” a new voice said from behind. The soldier stood to attention at once, and Luz and Teora turned to see a regal blue newt with shell accessories and a wave-patterned dress. Teora instantly bowed, and Luz glanced at her in surprise for a moment before copying her example. “Can you not see that this is one of Master Marcy’s friends?” the newt continued. “I will speak to them inside the castle.”

“Yes, Lady Olivia,” the soldier said, saluting. 

Lady Olivia brushed past Luz and Teora as she headed into the castle. “Come, then,” she said. “I gather you are here for Master Marcy?”

“Yes, uh, milady…?” Luz said, not sure if that was how she was supposed to address the newt.

“Lady Olivia will do,” Lady Olivia said. “And you are too late. Master Marcy departed the city a week and a half ago with no notice.”

“What?” Luz’s face fell.

Teora tentatively raised her hand, much more in awe than Luz at being in Lady Olivia’s presence. “Why did she leave?”

“As I said, there was no notice, though I am sure it had something to do with one of her missions as a Chief Ranger.” Lady Olivia stopped in front of a pair of tall, ornate mosaic-covered doors with a giant embossed Newtopian seal. “King Andrias isn’t expecting you,” she began, “so you must remain on your best behavior when you meet him. This is a big deal, so treat it as such.”

“Wait. What?” Teora shook her head. “You’re– what?”

“You are about to meet King Andrias. He specifically told me that if any of Marcy’s friends were to arrive in Newtopia, I was to let him know. And seeing as you are already here in the palace, you get to meet him far sooner than you otherwise would.”

“Oh frog, oh frog!” Teora put her hands on her cheeks. “I didn’t think this would happen!”

Luz stood up straight. “What’s the king like?” she asked Lady Olivia.

Lady Olivia sighed. “I will go in and let King Andrias know you are here to see him. Make sure you’ve gathered yourself by then.” She disappeared behind the doors, which shut with a loud thud.

“Leo has spoken with the king multiple times, and he told me that King Andrias was a pretty nice guy, but I’ve never met him before!” Teora patted the front of her patterned dress anxiously. “This isn’t my nicest clothing, maybe I should have worn something else–”

“It’ll be fine,” Luz said, patting Teora on the shoulder. “Just, uh, act normal?” Before Teora could answer, Lady Olivia swung the door open again. “King Andrias is waiting,” she said impatiently.

Teora gulped and followed Luz into the room.

At first glance, Luz looked around and saw stained-glass windows and coral lighting fixtures. When she turned to the front of the room, she was awed by the giant newt sitting on the coral throne. “Woah, you were right,” Luz told Teora. “King Andrias really is huge.” 

“Hello!” King Andrias’s voice echoed across the massive room. “You must be Marcy’s friend, right?”

Teora bowed, and Luz followed her example, but the king swatted his hand. “Psh, no need for that. I’m sure Lady Olivia told you it was a big deal to be meeting me, didn’t she?”

“Yeah, she did,” Luz admitted. “You seem pretty chill though.”

“Yes, I suppose I am pretty ‘chill’,” he said with a booming laugh. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Luz Noceda, Your Majesty,” Luz said. “I came here looking for Marcy.”

“And your friend?” King Andrias motioned to Teora.

“Oh, I’m just here accompanying Luz.”

King Andrias squinted at her, then his eyes widened in recognition. “Oh, you’re the archivist’s wife, aren’t you?”

She coughed. “Fiancé, Your Majesty,” she said.

“Close enough. I saw him looking at a picture of you once, and he told me about you.” The king shrugged. “Anyway, back to business. Marcy isn’t here. There was this whole cult business a couple of weeks ago, which really messed the place up. Marcy led a team of rangers and ambushed them, but apparently, their leader escaped, and her superiors in the Night Guard decided to close the whole thing up. So she came to me with a request to reopen the case, but there was nothing I could do. My hands were tied! And then Marcy left the city with her team and went after him. I think.”

“Oh. So you don’t know where she is, or when she’ll come back?” Luz sighed. “Guess I’d better go, then.”

“There’s no need to be so glum! Don’t worry, you’ll be the first to know when she returns.” King Andrias turned to Lady Olivia. “Make sure to take note of that, Olivia,” he added.

“Yes, Your Majesty.” She left the room, muttering something under her breath.

Luz glanced at the open door. “Well, I guess that’s our cue to leave. It was nice to meet you, Your Majesty,”

“None of that ‘Your Majesty’ stuff. Call me King Andrias.” He flashed a wide grin. “See you later!”

After she closed the door to the throne room behind them, Teora turned to Luz. “Since we’re nearby, why don’t we go see if we can find Leo?”

“Uh, sure,” Luz said, falling into step beside Teora. “Where do we go?”

“He said he wouldn’t actually be in the castle today. Apparently, he’s heading to the Archives of Antiquity instead. That’s very close to the castle, and it’s just about time for him to head home anyway. If we can, uh, find our way out.” 

“Oooh, I have an idea!” Luz glanced around and went up to a Newtopian soldier. “Excuse me, sir,” she asked, “can you show us the front entrance?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the guard said, saluting, then turning and leading Luz and Teora down the corridor.

“Here we are. The Archives of Antiquity,” Teora said, motioning to an ancient-looking building with white stone columns.

Luz took it in. “I feel like I have been officially awed by every single thing in this city. There’s just so much to see!”

Teora entered the building, and Luz soon followed, leaving the warm air outside and entering a lobby cool enough to give her goosebumps. As Teora went through a doorway in the back, Luz glanced around at the various renditions of ancient Amphibian history hung on the walls.

After a few minutes of looking at the artwork, Luz followed Teora through the door she’d gone through and once again felt the familiar Newtopian heat. Confused, she looked around at the barren room, before a quick glance at the ceiling revealed that someone had broken a massive hole in the roof, letting in the outside air. “Woah. What happened here?” She turned to Teora, who was currently speaking to a couple of other newts. The two newts Teora was talking to looked at Luz, startled. “Another one of Master Marcy’s species!” one of them said. “Teora, did you come with her? And why is she wearing my cloak?”

Teora tilted her head. “That’s your cloak?”

“Yeah, I left it last time I visited Aunt Anisa.” Then the newt (who Luz assumed was Leo) gasped. “Is Aunt Anisa here already?”

“That’s what we came here to tell you. And to take you home.” 

“Oh, okay. We’ll continue work tomorrow, sir,” Leo said to the elderly newt standing beside him. “I think we’re almost done cataloging the books and artifacts that were destroyed. Just a few more days and we should be ready to start making copies of certain books.”

“Thank you, Leo,” the elderly newt said. “Good night! See yourself out, I’ll lock up behind you.”

“Good night, sir! Let’s go, Teora, and, uh…”

“Luz,” she supplied.

“Nice to meet you, Luz. I’m Leo.” He stuck out a hand to shake as they walked. “I’m assuming you came with Aunt Anisa, thanks to the fact that you have the cloak I left at her home. Is that right?”

“Yeah,” Luz said.

Teora nodded. “They arrived early in the afternoon. Luz is friends with Master Marcy and was trying to find her, so we went to the palace to ask where she was while Anisa waited for a letter from Newtopia University. It should have arrived by now,” she said as they approached the house. Teora opened the front door to find Anisa asleep with her head on the dining table, an opened letter lying beside her. She glanced toward a door in the back sheepishly. “I’ll go, uh, set up the guest bedroom. Oh, and looks like Anisa has an appointment with the university in a week,” she added, glancing at the letter.

Leo went to the table and gently shook Anisa awake. “Hi, Aunt Anisa,” he said with a smile. “Long time no see!”

She blinked blearily at him for a moment before her eyes focused. “Leo?” she asked, her voice gravelly with sleep. “When did you come back?”

“Just a moment ago,” he said with a grin. “How was the trip here?”

“Much longer than usual,” Anisa said, starting to tell Leo about the journey.

Luz fought back a yawn. “You have only one guest bedroom, right?” she asked Leo, and he nodded. “I can sleep on the couch, then. Good night.” She lay down and closed her eyes, soon drifting off into a deep sleep.

Andrias stood at the window in his personal chambers, watching the sunset over the city. He glanced at the wooden figurine he was clutching in his hand, then left the window and set the statue of Marcy’s friend, Luz, gently beside Marcy’s statue on his flipwart board.

“This isn’t right,” he mumbled to himself. “Something’s wrong.”

Suddenly, his surroundings changed, becoming an expanse of nothing but darkness. He looked up. “My Lord,” he said respectfully to the orange eyes hovering above him.

The Core spoke in a thousand whispery voices. What do you mean, ‘something’s wrong’?

“There are only three gems in the box,” King Andrias explained, “but there are four humans. Wit is already here in Newtopia, as you know. But I don’t know which of her friends are Heart and Strength, and which one doesn’t belong.”

You had better find out. As for the one that doesn’t belong… remove them from the equation. Permanently.

“What? Can’t we just, I don’t know, send the last one home or something?”

You already delayed their deaths once. Twice is pushing it. Take care of the odd one out, or we’ll do it far less mercifully.

“My Lord, please!”

Do you want to join us or not? We are sensing hesitation from you.

“Yes, My Lord. I’ll do what it takes to find out which one is not connected to Heart or Strength. And then…” Andrias gulped. “I’ll remove her.”

You are weak. Spineless. Prove yourself. With that, the eyes retreated into the dark, which soon faded to reveal Andrias standing once more by the flipwart board, hands shaking.

Chapter Text

Marcy took one last glance at the campsite she, Femur, and Bomme had hurriedly packed up while Kettle tended to Javi and made sure he was well enough for travel. She glanced up at the top of the cliffs, where the tallest spires of Dawnblood Castle were just barely visible in the rising sun. She shuddered as she recalled the terrible fight that had occurred only a week prior, leaving one of her cadets almost fatally wounded, the other two hurt, and herself nearly killed. Captain Ernst had gotten what he had deserved, in her opinion, but it didn’t make it feel any less strange to know he’d died in that throne room.

She sighed. At least she could appreciate the epic-ness of that battle of good versus evil, and she’d gotten a killer new betrayal arc for future CnC games. Two positives from a whole slew of negatives.

“Marcy, hurry up!” Kettle’s voice snapped Marcy out of her memories, and she turned to see the short firecracker of a newt waving from beside Marcy’s newly tamed steed, Joe Sparrow. A small backpack rested by her feet. “What are you even doing there?”

“Just thinking,” Marcy said, burying her thoughts for another time. “How’s Javi holding up?”

“Ask him yourself,” Kettle replied, gesturing to where the normally appearance-conscious newt was looking the most disheveled she’d ever seen him, with bags under his eyes and bandages wrapped around his chest. Even his shiny red hair had lost some of its luster. Nevertheless, he gave a grin and a thumbs-up from his position leaning against a tree. “Never been better!”

Marcy decided to take him at his word. He did seem to be doing a lot better than a few days prior, anyway. She returned Javi’s thumbs-up and turned to see Bomme Frite and Femur returning from where they’d been clearing the remains of their campsite. “Everything’s all set,” Bomme said, hoisting her own backpack up. “We buried the ashes of our campfire so we wouldn’t start a forest fire, and basically everything else was something we found out here, so it didn’t take long.” She motioned to Femur’s huge backpack. “Femur here is carrying all of the bedrolls and stuff, by the way.”

Femur nodded in affirmation.

“Well, should we all get a move on, then?” Marcy asked. “It’s going to be a bit of a tight fit with all five of us, so–”

“I’m sitting up here!” Kettle chirped, interrupting Marcy. She immediately clambered onto Joe Sparrow’s head, sitting down and grinning at Marcy, Femur, Javi, and Bomme. “You guys would squish me otherwise.” Beneath her, Joe chirped and fluttered his wings excitedly.

“Okay, okay, You’re comfortable up there, right?” Javi asked, one hand holding his bandages as he climbed up after her, settling just ahead of Joe’s wings. Marcy followed, watching their interactions with confusion. When Marcy had first been appointed Captain in ex-Captain Ernst’s place, one of the first things she’d noticed about her two most talkative cadets was that they were quarrelsome and prone to infighting. Not that they didn’t care about each other– after having known Sasha and Luz for years, Marcy firmly believed that some of the closest friends were the ones who argued the most– but Kettle and Javi had never seemed to treat each other with any semblance of affection. The normally heated rivalry that had previously almost seemed to define them had somewhat cooled after the battle with Ernst, however, and they were actually showing each other kindness – something that she thought could never possibly happen.

Femur followed behind, Bomme balancing on his shoulders, and she hopped off and took a seat next to Kettle once the biggest member of their group was settled. With a pant of fatigue, Joe Sparrow took off, and they were airborne in a moment. Dawnblood Island, which had before seemed absolutely massive from their camp on the ground, was soon just a smudge on the horizon. Marcy was pretty sure that none of them wanted to come back there ever again.

“Marcy, Femur,” Kettle said a few minutes into the flight. She hesitated, avoiding eye contact. Marcy looked up, briefly wondering why Kettle sounded so dejected. “Javi and I have something to tell you both.” She took a deep breath, looking strangely subdued as she turned to face them. “We were talking… and we’ve both decided to retire from the Night Guard. Now that we’re together, we’re leaving together.”

“Really?” Marcy’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t believe it. Kettle and Javi ? Leaving ? She’d known how much Kettle loved being in the Night Guard and remembered Kettle’s tale of struggling to join the Night Guard due to her size despite having dreamt about it for so long. And Javi had always made it clear that he never wanted to leave. For a second, Marcy thought about her own dreams that she’d held onto for so long, refusing to think about what she would do as an adult when, as she’d been repeatedly told by her parents, guidance counselors, and teachers, life just… changed. She tensed up, deciding not to think about it, and turned to face Kettle again.  “But that was your dream since you were an eft!” Then she remembered the rest of what Kettle had said. “Wait, you two are dating?”

“Yeah,” Javi replied, blushing and turning to the side. “For a few days now.”

“Congratulations! But you’re still leaving?”

“It’s not worth it,” Kettle answered, sighing. “Being a member of the Night Guard just holds too many painful memories for us now.” 

Marcy felt a tap on her shoulder, and she twisted in her seat to look at Femur. The giant newt motioned to himself. “Are you leaving too?” Marcy asked, and Femur nodded sadly, noticing Marcy’s crestfallen expression. 

She turned to look at Bomme, still trying to process what she had just heard, and the newt gave a noncommittal shrug. “This has nothing to do with me,” Bomme said. “You all sort out your emotional baggage. I’m just gonna sit here.” 

 “Well, where are you going to go now?” 

Javi shrugged. “We don’t really know. We’re thinking of moving to Stony Gulch. They’re apparently really welcoming to strangers, and it’s a quiet town where we can start a new life in peace.”

“Yeah,” Kettle added, “and I don’t think we’ll be coming back to Newtopia, either. Too many memories.”

Femur shrugged. “Are you still working it out?” Marcy asked, and he nodded.

Marcy sat in quiet contemplation for a while. She knew it wasn’t their fault. Of course it wasn’t. She wasn’t even really angry that they were leaving. That’s what people (and newts, apparently) did. They lived their lives. They lived out their dreams. And then their dreams changed, and their lives changed, and they moved on, leaving everyone else behind. Nevertheless, Marcy hated the idea of all of her friends leaving. She was being cut loose, just like she was cut loose back home when her parents decided to…. She quickly cut off that train of thought. The whole point of coming to Amphibia in the first place was so that she wouldn’t ever have to deal with that again, but with Anne, Luz, and Sasha separated from her, and her entire team leaving, her grand plan didn’t feel like a plan anymore. If anything, it was meant to be one last Hail Mary, one last adventure she could have with her best friends.

Were adventures meant to hurt like this?

For a while, Joe Sparrow’s beating wings were the only sound filling the melancholic air. Finally, Kettle broke the silence. “Marcy, can you come with us when we talk to Headmaster Albert and give our resignation requests?”

Marcy nodded in a heartbeat, glad that Kettle had asked. At the very least, she wouldn’t have to say goodbye. Not yet. “Of course,” Marcy said, doing her best to sound cheerful. “I’ll be sad to see you go, but I’ll be there for you all.” It did hurt to see everyone downcast after her cadets’ admission, no matter how much she tried to believe that everything was going to be okay. 

“How about one last CnC game here, on Joe’s back, before you all have to prepare to leave?” she suggested. “It doesn’t have to be formal or anything, just verbal. Maybe just an RPG?”

She was relieved to see their spirits lifted at least one more time before they left.

“You four are in big, big trouble.” Headmaster Albert slammed a stack of papers onto his desk, then took a seat, seething. “You went against direct orders to pursue someone who I expressly said was inconsequential and part of a case that was officially closed . Now, what do you all have to say for yourselves?”

Marcy spoke first. “Sir, we were going after ex-Captain Ernst because he was a former Newtopian Night Guard chief ranger who went rogue. See, we found–” 

“It doesn’t matter what you found,” Albert interrupted. “What matters is that you went against direct orders. And you disappeared for two and a half weeks. Weeks that could have been spent doing, oh, I don’t know, actually important missions . You broke so many rules, and I have half a mind to dishonorably dispatch the lot of you from the Guard.” He sighed, then sat down behind the desk. “But I won’t, because, despite your recent… misconduct, you all are still some of my best rangers.”

Kettle spoke up. “Actually, sir, Femur, Javi, and I want to retire from the Night Guard.” 

“Wh-what?” Albert seemed at a loss for words, looking as though he was trying to mentally calculate what would need to be done to keep the rest of his Night Guard together. Finally, he sighed. “Very well then,” he said. “You shall each receive the retirement package soon. I am honorably discharging you, which means you will maintain the respect that being a member of the Newtopian Night Guard entails. Return to your dormitory and pack up your things by the end of the day. I’ll send someone down there with some forms for you to fill out.”

“Thank you, sir,” Javi said. Femur and Kettle nodded quietly.

“You will each be given a room in a nearby inn for a week, after which you’re on your own. It’s up to you whether you stay that long.” Albert turned to Marcy. “And as for you… Chief Ranger Wu, as I am losing three of my best rangers today, you will remain in your position. You are still the best-qualified ranger for the job.”

“Thank you, sir–” Marcy started, but Albert interrupted her. 

“However. You are on thin ice, Chief Ranger Wu. Maybe this will end up being the greatest mistake of my career, but I am not releasing you from service. However, for a month, you will not be given any major missions. You will also be removed from the dormitories. Go live with the king in the royal palace, if you must. I don’t care. After a month has passed, you may move back into the dormitories.”

At first, Marcy was upset, but after thinking more about it, she realized it could actually work in her favor. At the very least, she had more time on her hands. Time that could be spent finding Anne, Sasha, and Luz and doing something other than thinking about (and missing) Kettle, Javi, and Femur. So it was with a touch of gratefulness that she said, “Thank you, sir.”

“Go, get out of here. Pack up your things and leave.” Headmaster Albert sighed irritably. “I wish you all the best.”

“Wait a moment,” Marcy said. Headmaster Albert looked at her curiously. “Before I go, there’s someone I need to tell you about…”

“I’m going to miss you guys,” Marcy said, holding back tears. “You all were the best cadets anyone could have ever asked for.”

“And you were the best Chief Ranger anyone could ever have asked for,” Kettle replied, doing her best to contain her own emotions. “Thank you, Marcy, for everything you’ve done for us.” 

Javi nodded in agreement. “Yeah, thank you, Marcy,” he repeated, smiling. “Honestly, I think it’s for the best. Femur’s been wanting to become a sheepfly herder anyway.”

Marcy laughed a little. “I’m gonna miss you, guys. Good luck out in Stony Gulch, Kettle and Javi. And I hope you find your happiness out in nature as a shepherd, Femur. Play a song for me on the violin I gave you, won’t you?”

Femur smiled sadly and gave Marcy a hug before joining the others. He, Javi, and Kettle all waved, and then they entered the hotel, leaving Marcy alone.

Why does everyone always have to leave so soon?

She turned and glanced at the almost empty Newtopian streets. The only creatures out and about in this part of the city were workers on night shifts and newts returning home. She sighed. “Let’s go see where Bomme is, how she’s settling in,” she mumbled to herself.

It was a short walk back to the Night Guard barracks, where she quickly grabbed her singular shoulder bag– even after almost two months in the barracks, most of Marcy’s things were in her room in the palace. It didn’t take long before she was at the main headquarters of the Night Guard. Despite having seen it dozens of times, she was always awed by how the first Night Guards had managed to hollow out an entire whale skeleton and turn it into a base that was somehow still in use today. Several Night Guards were taking the night shift to keep watch over the city, though they were currently engaged in a very intense game of cards.

“Hey,” she said, and they flinched, before calming down once they realized it was her. “Oh, hey, Captain Marcy,” one of them said as the others turned back to their game. “Anything we can help you with?”

“Yeah, actually. Did any of you see a newt named Bomme Frite? Headmaster Albert said he hired her to be his Chief Engineer, do you know where she is?”

The newt thought for a moment. One of the other Guards tapped his shoulder to tell him to take his turn, and he tossed down a card. All the other newts groaned as he cheered and pulled the entire pile towards himself, putting another card down. “Um, what was your question again?” he asked Marcy.

“I was asking if you know where Bomme Frite is,” Marcy repeated. 

This time the newt’s eyes widened in recognition. “Oh, Bomme was that short newt with the eyepatch, wasn’t she?” When Marcy nodded, he grinned. “I actually have a message from her to you. One second. Hey, Clark, pass that envelope, would you?” 

The axolotl seated at the far side of the table looked around for a moment before picking up a plain envelope with a slight bulge. “Is this it?”

“Yep, that’s the one.” Once it was passed down, he handed it to Marcy. “She was very insistent I give this to you.”

“Thanks,” Marcy said, smiling slightly. She took the envelope and turned around.

She waited until she was seated by Joe Sparrow to read the letter. The bird had settled down, head tucked beneath his wing, and Marcy leaned against his side, surrounded by warm, soft feathers, and pulled out her phone to use as a flashlight. When she opened the envelope, a coin fell out, and Marcy shined her flashlight directly at it to illuminate a familiar design– one that brought her right back to where she’d seen hundreds scattered in Ernst’s throne room at Dawnblood Castle. She shook off the memories and went back to the letter.

“Dear Captain Marcy,” she read aloud. “I just wanted to say, thank you…” She stopped talking and settled down to give the letter her full attention.

Dear Captain Marcy,

I just wanted to say, thank you very much for securing me the position of Chief Engineer in the Night Guard. This is the first stable job I’ve had that gives me enough money to build my gadgets as well as make a living, which means I no longer have to take up sketchy mercenary jobs for even sketchier employers. I really appreciate it.

Headmaster Albert has transferred me to work at the East Tower, so I likely won’t be seeing you again for a while. Apparently, the Toad Lord Bufo has some weapons development work that needs to be done, and Headmaster Albert believes I’m just the newt to do it. Again, thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. I extend my thanks to Femur, Javi, and Kettle as well, though I know they must have left the Night Guard by this time. I wish them the best of luck, and you as well.

In this letter, I have enclosed one of the coins that Ernst used to pay me to booby-trap his castle. I took the time to study it, and I’ve found that it’s easily over a thousand years old. Every single coin he paid me with was of a similar time frame, and I know he didn’t selectively pick out coins to give me, which means that whoever was funding Ernst was either part of a very old Newtopian family or is quite a connoisseur of old coins. It may be worth looking into that if you are still investigating.

I wish you and everyone else the best, and I hope you find who you’re looking for. 

-Bomme Frite

Marcy trembled, wiping away tears. For whatever reason, she’d thought that she’d gotten over whatever emotions she was feeling when Kettle, Femur, and Javi had left. Whatever sense of betrayal she’d felt, whatever shock she had endured. She was sure it was all gone, replaced only by a calm, mature sense of disappointment. 

Marcy Wu was not particularly good at being mature.

She thought about what would happen now, now that her team was entirely split up and her friends were scattered across Amphibia. Everyone that she’d thought would be there for her was gone, or, at the very least, an unfathomable distance away. And yet, nothing could be done. The only (and therefore best) thing she could do would be to pick herself up, hop on Joe Sparrow, and start searching. Searching for Anne, Sasha, and Luz. Searching for everything she needed and everything she had lost. She even nearly considered finding a way home. For now, though, the only things she had were a thousand-year-old coin, an incredibly large bird, and a relatively stable friendship with the king of Amphibia. That was a lot, wasn’t it? That was probably enough. That had to be enough.

Marcy turned the coin that had fallen out of the envelope over in her hands. “Wow,” she said, squinting at the worn markings, succumbing to her historian-like interest in all things mysterious and archaic. “Can you believe that, Joe? More than a thousand years old. That’s insane!”

Joe gave a sleepy chirp in response, slowly blinking himself awake.

Marcy glanced at the letter again. “Well, I’m happy for Bomme,” she said softly, “though I’m kind of sad that she left with no notice. We spent a week getting to know each other, and we shared a lot of common interests, like science–” She glanced at Joe Sparrow again and saw his beak once again buried under his wing. “Joe, come on. We gotta fly to the castle. Almost there, okay?”

The bird chirped, then slowly got to his feet and knelt down. Marcy climbed on, then he took off, heading in the direction of Andrias’s palace towering at the center of the city.

Marcy and Joe landed a ways off from the castle, right next to the royal stables. A newt came outside, presumably to bring Marcy’s mount inside, but he shrank back and his eyes widened with terror when he saw that Joe was a giant bird and not the snail that he’d been expecting.

“Don’t worry, he’s friendly,” Marcy said, and Joe nuzzled her cheek in response.

“O-oh,” the newt stammered. Marcy helped him lead Joe inside the stable, and she was surprised at how well he behaved inside. He didn’t seem like he was uncomfortable at all, rather reveling in the attention that being a bird instead of a snail seemed to bring him, despite the fatigue clearly visible. She left him preening his feathers and basking in the adoring gazes of his neighboring snails, trying not to fall asleep.

As she looked up at the star-speckled night sky, she realized just how late it had gotten, and her own exhaustion hit her like a truck. She walked into the palace, straight to the room King Andrias had given her, and fell asleep barely a moment later.

When Marcy woke up, she headed down to a very late breakfast and ate quickly, hoping to see King Andrias right afterward. Her wishes were fulfilled, as the king was seated at his throne, sipping on a bugaccino and reading the Newtopian newspaper.

When he caught sight of her, he grinned broadly. “Ah, Marcy,” he said. “I heard you got back last night. I was hoping you would come.” 

“Hey, Andrias,” Marcy said cheerfully, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “How are you?”

“I’m fine.” Andrias’s grin faded. “Marcy, why would you leave on such a dangerous mission? You could have gotten hurt! Or worse, killed!” 

“It’s fine, we’re all fine.” Marcy sighed. “We survived.”

Andrias watched her for a moment with an inscrutable expression before breaking into laughter. “Ha! I’m very proud of you. You did well out there, catching the ex-captain who went rogue. I’m so happy you took initiative and chased that criminal down. Is he gone?”

“Thanks, Andrias,” Marcy said, relieved that he wasn’t upset with her. She’d had enough of disappointed adults for one week. “I, uh, don’t think Captain Ernst is gonna come back any time soon.” 

“Good to hear!” Andrias said heartily. “I’m very impressed. Now, Marcy, listen to me. Because of how you have consistently proven yourself to be an amazing leader and shown that you’re willing to make the right choices, even if they’re hard, I have made a decision.”

“Huh?” Marcy tilted her head in confusion. “What decision? What do you mean?”

“Marcy, would you do me the honor of becoming my royal advisor?”

Marcy gasped in shock, and she made a hasty attempt to shift her demeanor to one that better suited a king’s advisor. “What? Why? Isn’t Lady Olivia already your royal advisor?”

Andrias’s eyes twinkled merrily as he chuckled. “Your skills are far too valuable to be wasted on the Night Guard, who clearly don’t appreciate them,” he said, hiding what Marcy guessed was a vaguely distasteful expression behind a veneer of carefully crafted cheerfulness. “I’d much rather have you here, working with me, so I can keep a watchful eye on you and make sure you’re in the best possible position you can be in to serve the kingdom. And,” he added, “who’s to say I can’t have two royal advisors?”

“Wow, Andrias, I- I don’t know what to say,” Marcy said, stunned. Sure, she’d been told that she was ‘destined for great things’, to put it in the words of her school principal, but somehow, she’d never expected that as an awkward, geeky kid with a penchant for puzzles and mysteries, she’d become the royal advisor to a giant newt king. Even as it was happening, it felt unreal.

“How about I sweeten the deal a little?” Andrias reached beside his gigantic throne and pulled out a rolled-up sheet of paper, which he unrolled and held in front of Marcy. A golden helmet with a green feather plume and an ornately patterned gold breastplate were sketched and colored. “The stablehands informed me last night that you have somehow acquired a pet sparrow, so, in anticipation of your acceptance, I requested that Newtopia’s finest bird scientists and blacksmiths create armor for your noble steed. These are only the plans,” he explained, “and they still have to take measurements on your bird. The armor is meant to signify that he is the trusted steed of the King’s Advisor.”

Marcy traced the design of the helmet, nodding excitedly. “Wow, Andrias, of course I’ll be your advisor! I can’t wait to start!” Then she realized that now that she worked directly under the king, she should probably be more respectful. “I mean, I gratefully accept the honorable position of royal advisor to the esteemed King Andrias, Your Majesty,” she said, channeling her inner Lady Olivia and giving the best curtsy she could manage while still trying to keep her balance.

“Ha! You don’t need to be as formal as Olivia is! I’ve tried countless times to get her to loosen up a little, so don’t you start too.” 

“Oh, thank goodness,” Marcy gasped, nearly falling over as she returned to standing upright. “I don’t think I could have done that any longer.”

“Is there anything else you want to let me know?” Andrias asked, taking another sip of his bugaccino.

Marcy shook her head, but then suddenly remembered. “Oh!” she said, pulling out the coin Bomme had left with her letter. “We found these all over Ernst’s lair at Dawnblood Castle, and apparently they’re over a thousand years old, easily. Ernst was being paid with these, or something, so do you have any idea where these might have come from?”

Andrias took the tiny coin and fumbled with it for a second, nearly dropping it into his bugaccino before managing to set it in the center of his comparatively massive palm. “Huh,” he said, peering at it, “let me take a look.” After a long moment, he shrugged. “Sorry, I’m not one of those really weird guys who’re super into coins, but I’ll look into it.” He slipped it into his pocket and took another sip before setting his empty bugaccino cup on the armrest of his throne. “What do you plan to do for the rest of the day? I’m sure there’s something you can help with around here…”

“I kind of want to take Joe Sparrow– that’s what I named my bird, by the way– and search the nearest town for any sign of my friends,” Marcy admitted. “I didn’t find even a single clue while traveling outside of–”

“Hold up. I completely forgot!” King Andrias hit himself on his forehead. “One of your friends, uh, Luz, was it? Luz came here about a week ago, but you weren’t here. I promised I’d tell her as soon as you came, too. Oh, I need to tell Olivia to let her know you’re back! O-li-vi-aaa,” he called out, but Marcy wasn’t paying attention anymore.

“Are you telling me… that if we hadn’t been stranded on Dawnblood Island for that extra week, I could have been reunited with Luz already?”

Andrias shrugged. “I suppose so?” He opened his mouth to say more, but the doors to the throne room creaked open and Lady Olivia poked her head in. “Yes, Your Majesty?” she said patiently. Her expression morphed to one of shock as something shoved her into the throne room, causing her to nearly trip on the hem of her dress. The doors burst open and three newts, identical apart from their coloration, ran screaming into the room. 

“SIRE! THE BARBARIANTS ARE UPON US!”

Lady Olivia straightened and irritably brushed invisible dirt off the top of her skirt. “Branson. Bartley. Blair. Calm down at once.” Her tone was as cold as steel.

“There’s no time!” the blue one yelled.

“The barbariant scouts are almost at the gates!” The pink one was panicking.

The purple one nodded fervently. “We must close down the city at once!”

Lady Olivia sighed. “Your Majesty, what must be done?”

King Andrias squinted in thought for a moment, then his eyes widened again as an idea struck him. “Marcy, why don’t you go help Branson, Bartley, and Blair subdue the threat? I’m sure they could all use your expertise in research. By the time you are done with this, the message should have reached your friend, which means you’ll be able to see her again.”

“Yes, King Andrias,” Marcy said, saluting eagerly. “Those barbariants won’t know what’s coming!” 

“I’m sure you’ll do great, Marcy,” King Andrias said assuredly, “but they’ve already left.”

Marcy looked behind her to find that, indeed, the three panicky newts had already fled the throne room, leaving Lady Olivia glaring in annoyance at the door they’d left ajar. “Oh no, I’d better get going!” Marcy shouted, and she tore off in pursuit of the newts, following the sounds of their screaming as they headed toward the entrance of the castle. 

Finally, she caught sight of the front gates of the palace swinging shut behind the fast-retreating figures of Branson, Bartley, and Blair. She ran as fast as she could, shoving the door open in hot pursuit, only to bump hard into someone, falling to the ground. “I’m so sorry! I’m kind of in a hurry right now, I wasn’t really looking–” She paused to catch a breath as she looked at the person standing in front of her. Her eyes widened in shock.

“Oh my frog…”

Chapter Text

“You have that appointment today with the Newtopia University staff, right, Aunt Anisa?” Leo asked as he grabbed his jacket from the coat rack by the front door.

“Yeah,” Anisa said, taking a bite of her breakfast. “Luz, can you come with me? I’d like to use that magic photo box of yours if I can.”

“Are you gonna show them the pictures you took of the carvings?” Luz asked.

Leo paused. “Wait, what? Pictures of the carvings? Are you talking about the ones in that really deep cave by the Starwater Basin?”

“That’s the one,” Anisa said.

“Did you draw it or something?” Leo shut the front door and turned to the dining table. “How accurate is it?”

“Oh, no,” Anisa said as Luz fished around in her pocket for her phone. “She did a lot better than that.”

A moment later, Luz unlocked her phone and navigated to the photos app. She clicked on the most recent photos– in an effort to conserve her phone’s battery, she hadn’t taken any photos after the ones in the cave. As Leo marveled over the phone’s accuracy, however, she noticed with a tinge of worry that the bar in the corner of the phone read 15%.

“Sorry, but my phone’s gonna die soon if I don’t conserve power,” she said after a moment, locking the phone and tucking it back into her pocket. “I still need a certain amount for Newtopia University, and I want to make sure that I still have access to the files on my phone in case I need them.”

“Oh, okay,” Leo said, straightening and turning to leave. “Teora’s already left for the hospital, so just lock up after yourselves when you go to your appointment.” He waved goodbye and headed out, closing the door behind him.

“Finish up breakfast and we’ll leave,” Anisa said, standing up and rinsing off her empty plate. She disappeared into the guest room, probably to retrieve the box.

Luz scraped at the last bits of food on her plate and gazed out the window to the view of Newtopia Castle in the distance. “It’s been a week since we spoke to the king,” she whispered, desperately hoping she could find her friends soon. “Marcy, where are you? When will you come back?” 

She stood up and washed her plate off, setting it on the drying rack and grabbing her cloak. Anisa returned with the box, grabbed the key, and locked the door behind them.

“It’s a pretty short walk,” Anisa said. “And the appointment shouldn’t take long, maybe an hour at most if Lyssa insists on catching up.”

“Lyssa?” Luz asked. “Who’s that?”

“The most sentimental and enthusiastic researcher I’ve ever met,” Anisa said with a touch of fondness. 

“Ah,” Luz said, though Anisa’s answer hadn’t explained much.

They walked into a massive grass-filled park. The place was jam-packed with students, all wearing navy-blue uniforms with the stiffest collars Luz had ever seen. “You wore that?” she asked Anisa incredulously.

“It was not fun,” Anisa admitted. “I hated those uniforms. But as a member of the faculty I had slightly more freedom to wear marginally more comfortable collars, and once I became a researcher I could wear what I wanted to wear as long as a lab coat would fit over it, so it wasn’t all bad.”

“Huh,” Luz said, pitying the students. “Still, those look painful. And I thought my school uniform was uncomfortable.”

They walked past a group of students being lectured by an elderly purple newt with glasses and an easel, and Anisa stopped in shock. “So Professor Herringbone still teaches here, does he?” she mumbled, smiling. “He was my favorite colleague.”

“Anisa Greenwood? Is that you?” The professor waved at Anisa from his place by the easel, and every single student in his class turned to look at them. “Professor Greenwood was a history professor about ten years ago. Her class was one of the most engaging Amphibian history classes on campus. Any of you would have been lucky to have her as a teacher.”

“Aww, Professor Herringbone,” Anisa said bashfully. “Thank you!”

“You shouldn’t thank me for speaking the truth, Professor Greenwood,” Professor Herringbone said, nodding at Anisa. “Anyway, class, can anyone tell me in what season the Lovenado occurs for magpie beetles?”

“Let’s go, Luz,” Anisa said, and they continued walking towards a large, slightly isolated building. “That’s the research lab. All the researchers at Newtopia University work there, although some do teach classes like I did.”

“Oooh,” Luz said, following Anisa through the building’s entrance. She’d expected to see scientists working in a state-of-the-art lab filled with experiments and cutting-edge technology, but her hopes were dashed when all she saw was a waiting room. “We have to wait ?” Luz complained. “For how long?”

“It usually isn’t long,” Anisa replied reassuringly. “There aren’t often a lot of people in the waiting room.” She was right; there was only one bored-looking newt waiting in the room, and he was quickly ushered into a room marked ‘Science Research Wing’.

Anisa and Luz sat in the waiting room for only a few minutes before the receptionist let them enter. When the door to the ‘Artifact Research Wing’ opened, Luz heard a high-pitched squeal. “Ohmyfrog! Anisa! It really is you!”

“Hi, Lyssa,” Anisa said cheerfully. “It’s nice to see you again.”

The pink newt who replied squealed again. “Agh, Anisa, it’s been too long! Come on in! Who’s your friend?”

“I’m Luz,” Luz said as she and Anisa followed Lyssa into a hallway filled with doors. Peeking into one of the open doorways, Luz saw a newt hunched over shards of pottery, carefully brushing dust off.

“We’re actually here to deliver something for Ceris,” Anisa said, motioning to the box tucked under her arm. “Apparently it's a very sunlight-sensitive paper.”

“Oh, to the doom room with that one!” Lyssa must have seen Luz’s look of confusion, as she elaborated, “The doom room is a room completely sealed off from sunlight and dust. We use an amber-colored light there instead. It minimizes the amount of light damage that materials like paper sustain during study. We call it the doom room because it’s kind of creepy in there.”

“Oh,” Luz said, though she still didn’t quite get what the correlation was between doom rooms and creepy labs. 

“Only you and Uri call it that, Lyssa,” Anisa said with good-natured exasperation. “The rest of us call it the dark room, like normal Amphibians.”

“I’ll have you know we converted Terrence,” Lyssa said indignantly. “And the new one, what was her name? Oh yeah, Shelly.”

“Congratulations,” Anisa said wryly.

“Oh, we’re here,” Lyssa said, stopping in front of a door that looked a lot like the door of a vault. “I think Terrence is inside, so you might want to knock.” She turned to lead Luz away.

“Hey, Luz?” Anisa called. “Make sure to show Lyssa the pictures!”

“That was fun,” Luz said as she and Anisa left the building half an hour later without the box. “Lyssa told me a bunch of stuff about you when you were working here. Did you really always drink a cup of tea at exactly three in the afternoon?”

“Never missed a day,” Anisa admitted. “I stopped once I retired.”

“Wow, that takes dedication. Hey, can we go to Newtopia Castle?”

Anisa sighed. “The King of Amphibia said he’d send you a message when your friend returned, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, but it’s been a week! He could have forgotten!”

“Really.” Anisa’s tone was dripping with skepticism.

Luz shrugged helplessly. “He’s the king of all of Amphibia! For all we know, he’s really busy and just forgot!”

“Fair,” Anisa admitted. “Fine. But we’re not going to bother the king with this, okay? You can bother the guards at the front of the palace with your questions.”

“Good enough for me!”

Anisa glanced between an intersection and turned left, Luz following in her path. Before long, the gates of the castle were clearly visible. Luz saw the front doors open and three screaming newts run out, passing Anisa and Luz. Luz gave them an odd look and went to stand in front of the doors to talk to the guards.

“Excuse me?” she asked one of the guards, who turned to face her. “Do you know if Marcy has returned to the castle yet?”

“I don’t know,” came the guard’s swift response. “Why don’t you ask my partner over there?” They gestured behind Luz, to where the other guard was staring straight ahead. 

“Okay,” Luz said, making a 180-degree turn and walking across to the other guard. “Excuse me, do you know if Marcy has returned to the castle yet?”

“I don’t know, ask the other guard on this shift,” the second guard said irritably. 

“What? But that’s what the other guard said!”

“That’s all I got for you, stranger,” the second guard replied.

Luz sighed and started walking back across to the other guard. Just then, the doors opened with a thud and something barrelled into her, nearly knocking her over before she widened her stance to stabilize herself. She turned to see what had hit her and her eyes widened, and she stilled in shock.

“I’m so sorry! I’m kind of in a hurry right now, I wasn’t really looking–” Marcy looked up from where she’d fallen onto the ground and gasped. “Oh my frog… Luz? Is that you?”

Luz inhaled sharply. “MARCY! Where were you?” She crouched down and engulfed the other girl in a hug before blushing. Marcy grinned, and Luz hastily covered her face, desperately trying not to think about the romantic implications of hugging.

Nevertheless, Luz was relieved. It was the same old Marcy, after all. The only thing about her that had changed was that she was now clad in what appeared to be some sort of ranger’s uniform and had the privilege of holding a truly epic-looking crossbow. Marcy looked really pretty in that uniform, too. Kind of like a fictional love interest…

Luz blushed again and, following her usual strategy of ignoring her problems until they inevitably came back to haunt her, she cut off that thought as soon as she could. Nope. Not today . 

“I was on a mission for the Night Guard! Where were you ?” Marcy had placed her hands on her cheeks. She stood up, and Luz followed suit. “Oh my gosh, is that a cloak? And a glowing stone on one of your necklaces? For that matter, are those multiple necklaces? And are those knives ?”

“Look at your uniform! You look so cool! Is that a crossbow? I’m totally jealous. I mean, you look so awesome! You look kind of like, uh–” Luz stalled, wondering what she even wanted to say after that. “Never mind. It’s from, uh, a… book you haven’t read yet, I think. Maybe I’ll show it to you once we get out of here!” She flashed her most charming smile, briefly wondering why Marcy just had to be so smart, so talented, so perfect…  

“Agh, I have so much to talk about!” Marcy chirped, snapping Luz out of her thoughts. Both girls squealed.

Then Marcy’s eyes widened. “Oh no, I have to chase after Triple B. I’m so sorry, I have to go! Let’s talk later, okay?” She turned and nearly tripped, then straightened and sprinted after the three screaming newts that had passed them earlier.

Luz turned around, remembering how endearing Marcy’s clumsiness was. Even Anne had agreed with Luz on that front. Luz looked at Anisa, silently begging Anisa to let her find Marcy again. The axolotl nodded, as though saying, “Go on.”

“Thank you!” Luz turned and ran off after Marcy.

When Luz caught up to Marcy, she spoke. “So, where are we going?”

“Oh, you’re coming? Awesome! So basically,” Marcy huffed, “there’s a whole army of barbariants headed this way. Triple B– they were the screaming newts, by the way– came to warn us about the incoming ants, and King Andrias assigned me to help them drive the barbariants off. Oh, there’s Triple B!” Marcy pointed ahead to where the three screaming newts had stopped screaming, instead waiting at the giant Newtopian gates as they slowly creaked open.

Luz and Marcy stopped just behind the newts Marcy had dubbed ‘Triple B’, and one of them turned around and widened his eyes. “Oh, look, Branson, Bartley!” he said. “Master Marcy found another member of her species!”

“Hey, Branson, Bartley, Blair,” Marcy said, waving slightly sheepishly. “This is my friend Luz, and she’s here to help us.”

“Can she fight?” Bartley raised an eyebrow at the knives on Luz’s belt. “Or are those just for show?”

“Don’t worry, she can fight,” Marcy reassured him. Luz grinned gratefully, desperately wanting to hug Marcy again. She decided against it. 

Bartley nodded approvingly. “Excellent! Welcome to the team!” 

“Ugh, Bartley, I already told you that we should try to avoid fighting,” Branson said, irritated. “There are way too many barbariants. We’ll be overrun in minutes.”

“Why don’t we just tell them to–”

“Shut up, Blair!” Branson and Bartley said in unison.

“You know, I think this is the most entertaining argument I’ve ever seen,” Luz whispered to Marcy, who giggled. 

Suddenly, a voice called from the top of the gatehouse. “You can go through! The gate’s open!”

“Oh, it is,” Marcy said with surprise. “Let’s go, then.”

The moment the group all stepped into the shallow sea surrounding Newtopia, the gates closed with a thud . “Guess we’re not going back anytime soon,” Bartley said. “Those gates are staying closed until the barbariants are gone.”

“What?” Luz asked incredulously. “Oh no, Anisa won’t know why I’m gone for so long!”

The same voice called again from the top of the gatehouse. “Good luck with the barbariants! You’re a lot braver than the rest of us!”

Marcy sighed. “It’s okay, Luz, this shouldn’t take longer than the rest of the day, anyway. Where did you set up the strategy tent, guys?”

“Follow me,” Bartley said.

“No, follow me! I did most of the work!”

Blair groaned. “Shut up, Branson. I did most of the work and we all know it.” They all started arguing. Again.

“You know, at this point, it might be quicker to find it ourselves,” Luz suggested, and Marcy nodded in agreement.

When they had finally reached the tent, with a massive amount of arguing from Triple B, Luz and Marcy glanced at the books piled on the strategy table. “At least Triple B had the foresight to borrow research books from the library,” Marcy remarked. “Let’s get to researching.”

Luz knelt by the table and pulled out a book, following Marcy’s example. “Do we just share information when we find it?” she asked, and Marcy nodded.

Marcy opened her own book and quickly flipped through the pages, searching for any mention of barbariants. A moment later, she found a page with a sketch of an ant with coral-like bioluminescent horns. “I think I found something,” she said, glancing at the heading of the page. “Yeah, I definitely found something.”

“Oh, what did you find?” Luz asked, glancing over Marcy’s shoulder.

“A lot of stuff about barbariants,” Marcy said. “Apparently they only migrate once every ten years. Oh, they’re also super bouncy.” She laughed. “That’s kind of random.” She scanned the rest of the page, then flipped the page to see that the subject was instead changed to something called the Mountain Mantis. “That’s all, unfortunately. Have you found anything?”

“I found information about the queen,” Luz said, sliding her book over to Marcy. 

Marcy scanned the text, and an idea started to formulate in her mind. “What if… no, that won’t work… but it could…”

“What are you thinking about?” Luz asked, familiar with Marcy’s thought process after years of friendship.

“I’ve been studying Amphibian flora,” Marcy began slowly, still reading over the text. “You know, something that particularly fascinates me is the way that even two species that are nothing alike can produce offspring. There was this one study performed in the wild where a newt explorer accidentally pollinated a flower bush with the pollen from a fruit tree and it actually grew into an entirely new plant .” She grinned. “So I was trying to figure out a way to replicate that artificially, and I think my research might actually be the perfect thing for this situation.” She glanced up to see Luz staring at her with unfocused eyes and a small smile. “Uh, hello? Earth– sorry, Amphibia– to Luz?”

Luz jumped, startled, and then buried her face in her hands. “Oh, sorry, carry on. What were you saying?”

“Basically, in a nutshell, we can breed two types of mushrooms together to create a new type of mushroom that can drive the barbariants away from Newtopia.”

Luz squinted at her. “I’m… kind of sensing a ‘but’ here.”

“No. No ‘buts’,” Marcy said, then shrugged. “It isn’t gonna be easy, though. We need to get the mushrooms, then separate the spores from the shrooms, then somehow get them to mutate, grow, and then we have to test them.” She stopped and considered. “Huh. I guess that could be considered a bit of a ‘but’.”

“We have to do all of that?” Luz asked incredulously. “How long is that gonna take?”

“Don’t worry, it’s not as hard as it sounds!” Marcy glanced at the book again. “I have a growth accelerant, so that cuts down the time significantly, and it says here that there’s a mushroom that has artificial pheromones to scare off insect predators similar to barbariants, and I’ve already seen this one! Which actually explains the funny smell,” she mumbled to herself.

“What?”

”Nothing! So we just need to gather a few of those. If we breed them with boomshrooms, we should be able to create a mushroom that can explode and chase off those barbariants.”

“Sorry, did you just say explode?”

“Oh, have you never heard of boomshrooms before? Basically, they’re Amphibia’s version of bombs. They primarily grow near the large town of Ribbiton and are their primary export. It also means we’re not going to be able to get fresh boomshroom spores, so we have to hope their delivery crates are pretty airtight.”

“But how are you going to–” 

Marcy interrupted Luz, brandishing her crossbow. “I have an invention that I’ve been wanting to test for a while now.” She left the tent, and Luz followed in confusion. Then Marcy swapped the arrow in her crossbow for her untested grappling hook arrow. She leveled her shot to just above the walls of Newtopia and released.

The arrow sailed straight over the wall and pulled taut on something, and Marcy tested the rope by tugging it. “Well, that’s about it,” she said. “Looks like it worked.” She tied the rope around her waist, then placed her feet on the wall, holding onto the rope for dear life. “Wow, this is tougher than it looks.”

“Marcy, what are you doing? Those walls are really, really tall!”

“Climbing the wall, of course. There’s no way the newts at the gatehouse are going to open that gate for us.” Marcy slid down the rope, boots splashing into the water. “Ugh, why is Newtopian rope so slippery?”

“Come on, there has to be another way,” Luz said. “Maybe Triple B can do it?”

Marcy’s eyes widened. “Oh yeah, newts are really good at climbing! Maybe it’ll get them to stop arguing.” She fruitlessly tugged on the rope to try and retrieve it. “Heh. Maybe they can unstick that arrow I shot, too.”

Luz and Marcy returned to the tent, where Triple B were still arguing. “Hey,” Marcy said to get their attention, “can one of you please scale the walls and get some boomshrooms from the armory? And also retrieve my grappling hook arrow?”

“I’ll do it,” Bartley said. “It’ll give me a chance to get away from these two.”

“As if!” Branson said. “I’m going, not you!”

“You didn’t even ask my opinion,” Blair said. “Why don’t both of you go? Then there’ll finally be peace and quiet in this tent.”

“Wha-”

“Hey!”

“Why don’t all of you go,” Luz said. “Then you can try and outcompete each other.”

Blair groaned. “Do I have to go with them?”

“Yeah! Come on, wimp!” Bartley punched Blair in the arm. 

Triple B fought the whole way out of the tent, and Marcy gasped at the sound of a door opening. “Luz, there was a secret door this whole time!”

“No way,” Luz said, who walked out of the tent just in time to see the stone door sliding closed. “So cool.” First, she’d found Marcy, then seen an actual crossbow, and now there was a secret door. Amphibia just kept getting better and better. 

A moment later, Marcy’s arrow dropped from the wall, the rope coiling up beneath it as it fell.

“Anyway,” Marcy said, picking it up, “while they’re gone, we need to go get that other mushroom I mentioned. It’s this kind of sticky mushroom that smells kind of weird and tastes like cherry juice. I found it while searching for a giant golden crab. While researching later, I found that it was called the stickshroom.”

Luz laughed. “Did you actually eat it? Seriously, girl, I still don’t know how you’re even alive.”

Marcy shrugged. “Adventurer’s luck, I guess. So, anyway. The stickshrooms near the giant golden crab-”

 “Giant golden crab?” Luz echoed as she fell into step beside Marcy. “Why did you need to search for a giant golden crab?”

“That’s actually kind of like the entry exam to get into the Night Guard,” Marcy replied. “Anyone who wanted to be a member of the Night Guard was supposed to steal an egg from this terrifying golden crab. It was set up to test how prospective members handled failure. But I succeeded, so I was fast-tracked to Chief Ranger of my own unit.”

“Wow,” Luz said admiringly. Of course Marcy would succeed in a test that everyone else was supposed to fail. “That sounds terrifying.”

“Isn’t this place amazing, though?” Marcy glanced back at Newtopia. “It’s like our very own isekai adventure!”

“Huh. It kind of is, I suppose,” Luz said. “But I miss my mom. I wish I had a way to talk to her, at least.”

Marcy opened her mouth to say something else, but the ground suddenly started shaking. “What’s happening?” Luz asked.

“I think it’s the barbariants,” Marcy said. “Oh, no. Run!”

The two girls broke into a sprint. “Where are we going?” Luz asked. 

“Over there, to that hill,” Marcy said, pointing. They ran the rest of the way to the hill, skidding to a stop once they were at the top. When they turned back, they saw a pair of barbariants standing confused in the water between them and Newtopia.

After a moment of breathing heavily, Luz glanced at the tent near the walls of Newtopia. “What do we do now? How do we go back?”

Marcy had already started scanning the ground. “Here, found it!” She pulled a glass box from her bag and plucked long, thin mushrooms, sticking them into the box and closing it. “Now to look for those puffy dandelion-like flowers.”

“What puffy dandelion flowers?” Luz asked.

Marcy plucked a flower that looked like a ball of cotton. “This might be great for starting fires. Let’s try it.”

“What–” Luz’s mouth fell open as Marcy reached into her bag, pulled out a couple of pieces of rock, and started striking them together. “Where did you learn to do that?”

“You showed up in Newtopia a week ago, right?” Marcy said conversationally. “Sorry I wasn’t there, by the way. My cadets and I got stranded on an island, and we had to do this to light a fire for warmth. I figured the flint would be useful, so I kept it.”

“Okay, that’s all well and good, but why are you starting a fire?”

“To drive off the barbariants, of course. At least long enough for us to get back. You see, I have an idea about what we can do. I did some research on local flora and found that there’s another plant somewhere around here that grows fruit with really flammable juice, and if we shoot the fruit around the barbariants and then light it on fire, they might get spooked and run.” Suddenly, the cotton-like plant caught on fire. “It worked!” Marcy said, tossing a few sticks onto it as fuel. “Now let’s look for that plant.”

“What does it look like?” Luz asked. 

“It’s like a really thick bush with red, round berries,” Marcy said. “Oh– there it is!” She scrambled up a slope toward a bush with red berries the size of grapes. “This is what I was looking for.” She grabbed one to pull it off of the branch, but it burst in her hands. Black ooze dripped through her fingers onto the ground. “Oh wow, they’re really juicy.”

“I can help,” Luz said, kneeling beside the bush and pulling out one of her knives. She carefully cut another berry off the branch, holding it by the stem. “Here.”

“Thanks,” Marcy said, wiping her hands off on the edge of her cloak. “I have some cloth we can use to carry and throw these, so they don’t explode on us.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a large folded maroon cloth. “I cut it off of the cloak that I wore to infiltrate the Order of the Olm’s cult congregation.”

“Order of the– wait, you were at a cult meeting ?” Luz shook her head. “You’ve had way more exciting adventures than I’ve had, that’s for sure.”

“Can I borrow one of your knives, please?” Marcy asked. Luz handed one over and pulled her second one out. “Thanks.”

Luz began sawing at more of the fruits while Marcy cut the cloth further and wrapped each berry in a piece of fabric. “So, what were you up to for the past two-and-a-half months?” Marcy asked. 

“I woke up in the middle of a snow-filled forest,” Luz said. “I think I would have died if it weren’t for me finding Anisa– that’s the axolotl that’s taking care of me, by the way. I found her cabin and she took me in. She took care of me when I got really sick. Then we left her house in the mountains and went to help out her friends, and I got chased out by a mob of people terrified of me. Then after that, we went to another town and I got captured by a bunch of animal traffickers. Oh, and that’s when Anisa gave me these knives. Then we walked for like two weeks and arrived here.”

“Wow, you went through a lot,” Marcy said. “Did you really almost die on your first day here?” She turned her head so Luz couldn’t see the guilt-ridden expression on her face.

“Yeah,” Luz said. “There was this giant fire-breathing ant that almost killed me, and I had no food, and it was snowing everywhere. I definitely would have died if it weren’t for Anisa taking me in. And then I got sick for three days, and she took care of me.”

Marcy took a deep breath. Luz is fine now, she reminded herself. It was just bad luck. She’s okay, she’s here, it’s not your fault.

“-arcy. Marcy!” Luz was shaking her shoulders to get her attention. 

“Huh?” she asked. “What happened?”

“I was asking what you were doing during your time here, but you zoned out, I think.”

“Oh,” Marcy said, blushing in embarrassment. “Sorry. So, I woke up in Newtopia, and I tripped and fell down a whole bunch of stairs. I got a minor fracture in my leg, the same as when we first met, remember? And then I met the king, and he was pretty impressed by me, or maybe he was just being nice, but I got my own room in the palace! Like, how cool is that? I got to live in an actual palace ! Well, anyways, I heard about the Night Guard, and my understanding of them was pretty much that they got to go on cool adventures, so I was totally ready to join. So I joined the Night Guard, and my first– well, technically second– mission was to fight this creepy cult that was burning down libraries, and it was such a cool adventure. Kind of nerve-wracking, really, but it was basically the most exciting thing I’ve ever done, and I loved it. We chased down the leader of the cult, and you’ll seriously never guess who it was. It was actually the ex-captain of my team, the one I replaced when he supposedly died, and once we defeated him we accidentally got stranded on an island until I made friends with a bird who carried us home.”

“Oh, Anisa made friends with a bird too!” Luz said. “She’s friends with this giant cardinal who flew us all the way to a town by the coast. The cardinal is really nice, though she looks kind of scary.”

“No way, you met a cardinal? So cool!” But Marcy quickly changed the subject when she realized they were out of cloth to make pouches. ”I think we’re done,” she said. She picked up a handful of the pouches. “Let’s test it out!” 

She started to walk down the slope, but her foot got caught in a hole and she pitched forward, rolling the rest of the way down. Quickly getting to her feet, she looked up to see Luz coming to a stop beside her. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Marcy said dismissively. She opened her crossbow, then squinted at the tip. “Wait, I don’t think that’s gonna catch on fire…”

“Could you wrap something around the tip?” Luz suggested. 

“Excellent idea!” Marcy went to some reeds growing near the water and pulled one off, then speared it onto the tip of her arrow before notching it. “This should work.”

“Are you sure this is safe?” Luz asked anxiously as Marcy tossed one of the pouches of fruit. It exploded into black goop on the surface of the water, confusing the two barbariants standing between them and the tent. She held her arrow near the small fire she’d set, nearly singeing her hand as she did so. 

“It’ll be fine,” Marcy reassured Luz as the reed caught fire. She squeezed one of her eyes shut and aimed. Then she shot, hitting the patch of black goop dead-center. An inferno roared up on the surface of the water, startling the ants back into the ground. “Yes!” she cheered. “It worked!”

“Wow,” Luz said, impressed. “That’s so cool! Should we go back, then?”

“Yep! We got what we came for! Can you please help me put this fire out?” 

Luz made a face and gestured behind Marcy. “Uh, Marce, your cloak’s on fire.”

“What? Oh my gosh!”

Once both fires had been put out, Marcy and Luz ran into the water and started making their way across to the tent. They both emerged, panting in the entrance of the tent with their shoes tracking water on the floor, and found that Triple B had returned with the boomshrooms Marcy had asked for.

“What’s going on?” Luz asked, seeing all three newts sitting at separate corners with their faces turned to the air and arms crossed over their chests. Marcy went to the only empty corner and exchanged her burned cloak for a fresh one.

“Kindly inform Bartley and Branson that I am currently not speaking to them,” Blair said haughtily. “At least not until they apologize for nearly blowing me up with a boomshroom.”

“For the last time ,” Bartley said, throwing his hands up in the air, “that boomshroom wasn’t going to explode. Ugh. I swear none of you have any sense !”

Branson groaned. “Shut up, you two. You’re giving me a headache.”

“ You shut up,” Blair grumbled, breaking his vow of silence.

“Guys, don’t we need to figure out a way to stop the barbariants?” Luz asked awkwardly.

As the three started to argue again, Luz caught between, Marcy tuned them out and started grabbing the materials she would need: a pair of small syringes from the tent’s first-aid kit, one of the boomshrooms Triple B had left in the box that was set on the strategy table, one of the stickshrooms from her bag, a large plate, and her bottle of growth accelerant.

She dripped some water on the gills of the boomshroom, taking care not to activate it, then delicately absorbed the now spore-filled water into one of the syringes. She carefully did the same with the stickshrooms, then mixed them together in the dish and poured a little bit of growth accelerant on it. “I know I’m skipping a step, but please work,” she prayed, crossing her fingers. “I don’t exactly have access to alkylating agents here in Amphibia. Actually,” she added thoughtfully, “not like I had access to those back home either. They’re like really powerful cancer drugs or something.”

She quickly realized that she had no way to stabilize the temperature in the tent, and decided to just let the growth accelerant do its thing since she wouldn’t be able to access anything vaguely resembling a lab with the time she had. Just as she’d hoped, the mushroom spores in the dish grew in a puff of smoke, and when she cleared it away with a cough, she found that they were neither boomshrooms nor stickshrooms. Instead, they were pointy and thin, with orange caps tipped with yellow.

“Yes! It worked! Alright, time to test if it works on those ants!” Marcy deftly plucked a handful of the mushrooms and turned around. “Does anyone have something I can test this on?” Every head in the room turned toward her.

Her jaw went slack at the sight of Luz with her hands on Branson and Bartley’s shoulders, forcing them apart as they tried to hit one another. “Wha… What happened here?”

Luz let go of the two newts and crossed her arms, standing in the most authoritative stance Marcy had ever seen her in. “Apologize to each other right now .”

“Sorry for calling you a poophead, Branson.” Bartley said it as though he was forcing the words out.

“And sorry for hitting you, Bartley,” Branson replied just as forcedly. 

“And you, Blair?” Luz asked, raising an eyebrow toward the newt cowering in the corner. 

“Sorry, Branson and Bartley, for calling your ideas terrible,” Blair said, sounding far more sincere than Marcy expected. The three newts then went to stand beside the strategy table and started talking, casting nervous glances at Luz.

Marcy went to stand next to Luz. “I don’t know how you did that,” she said, “but that’s the nicest I’ve ever seen them act to one another.”

“I just laid out the facts,” Luz said, sounding fairly nonchalant. “Those three can keep arguing all they want once the barbariants are gone. But if the barbariants succeed, there won’t be any Newtopia left to argue in.”

“Hey, guys, do you have anything of the barbariants’ that I can test these mushrooms on?” Marcy asked.

“There are some barbariant eggs over there,” Blair said, motioning to the back of the tent.

“Huh. I was wondering what those were,” Marcy said, walking over and picking one up. “These are perfect, thanks, bye!” She headed out of the tent.

Luz joined her outside, but a moment later, the discordant noise of Triple B arguing resumed, and Luz scowled. “Sorry, but it’ll take all my time to keep those three actually strategizing ,” she grumbled, heading back into the tent.

Marcy shrugged and pulled out her phone, setting a timer before activating the new mushroom. She set the barbariant egg next to it, pulled a snack out of her bag, and waited, hoping someone could hold off the Barbariants long enough for her to finish her experiment.

She was busy writing in her journal when the mushroom finally exploded in a puff of orange-tinted gas, and she paused the timer and checked the time on her phone. A little over thirty minutes. A sharp crack caught her attention a moment later, and she glanced at the egg to see it had hatched, the baby insect inside scurrying off into the distance. And most importantly- it was moving away from Newtopia.

“Yes!” She whooped in celebration, causing Luz to stick her head out of the tent. “Everything okay? What happened?”

“Just bred the right mushrooms on the first try, that’s what happened!”

Luz clapped. “Nice job!”

Suddenly, the secret door in the wall slid open, the sound of stone sliding against stone causing Luz and Marcy to flinch. One of the newts who managed the door came running out. “There’s a family of frogs being attacked by barbariants near the city gates! Chief Ranger Wu, do something!”

Marcy leapt to her feet and started to follow the newt. “Luz? Are you coming?”

“I think you’ve got this,” Luz said. “I have to make sure these guys actually come up with a concrete plan.”

Marcy shrugged. “Okay then. See ya later!” She dripped more of her growth accelerant onto the mushrooms as quickly and carefully as she could, and shoved her larger collection of mushrooms into the tent before following the newt. “Lead the way, sir!”

“You can’t come in here. Newtopia’s closed.”

Anne and the Plantars groaned. “Seriously?”

“Closed? Like closed, closed? Or like closed for lunch?” Anne added.

“Newtopia is closed, closed to all outsiders,” the gatekeeper said.

“What the hey hey? Why? Till when?” Sprig asked.

The gatekeeper frowned. “Until the barbariants are gone, of course. Good luck out there–” He reached for the handle of the small door. “Stupid handle.” Just as his hand managed to close around it, it swung open wider, and he was left dangling over the water, clutching onto the handle for dear life. “Woah!”

Polly giggled at the sight.

After much struggle, the gatekeeper finally managed to get back into his station. “I’m okay!” he said, then used a pole to tug the door closed.

When he was gone, Anne turned to Hop Pop. “What’s a barbariant?”

“Beats me,” he replied. “We don’t got ‘em in the valley.”

Sprig laughed. “Psh, they close the whole city because of a few little ants?” He looked up to see Anne, Polly, and Hop Pop trembling in fear, staring at something that was hovering over his shoulder. “Huh?” Something hit him on the back, sending him flying, and he turned to see a giant ant rushing toward him. “Ahh! Big ant! Really big ant!” It grabbed him, and he screamed.

Anne jumped onto the ant and it let go of Sprig, and then Polly leapt at the ant and started biting its leg. While the ant was distracted with Polly, Anne and Sprig prepared to catapult Hop Pop.

“One… two… three…” On three, Anne and Sprig let go of Hop Pop, and he puffed out his throat right before he made contact with the ant. It screeched and dived back into the hole it had come from.

Anne whooped. “Yay-uh! In your face, ant!” She went to stand beside Hop Pop and Polly, the former of whom was knocking the water out of his ears. 

Suddenly, the ground started to rumble. “Uh, you guys feel that?” Sprig asked in concern.

Anne nodded. “Starting to feel a bit antsy. What the…”

Before Anne could finish her sentence, a whole bunch of ants erupted out of the ground around the Plantars and the fwagon. Bessie retreated into her shell in fright.

“Oh no…”

Suddenly a small pouch flew through the air, hitting the water and exploding into black goop. 

“Huh?” Anne said what they were all thinking.

More pouches zipped through the air, forming a semicircle around Anne and the Plantars. They gasped at the sight of a lone newt at the top of the Newtopian wall, carefully aiming and then shooting a flaming arrow. The arrow landed dead-center of the patch of black goop, causing it to catch fire. The raging inferno spooked the barbariants away.

“Hop Pop, can I get a crossbow for my birthday?” Polly begged. “Please, please, please?”

Hop Pop scratched his head. “Eh, we’ll talk,” he said, not wanting to deny his youngest, but still hesitant about the idea of giving a volatile and hot-tempered pollywog a long-range deadly weapon.

Suddenly, the newt shot another crossbow bolt straight into the wheel of the wagon, pulling the attached rope taut. 

“That’s one cool newt,” Hop Pop said as the newt began to zipline down the rope.

All four of them watched as the newt drew closer and closer… right until the rope snapped, sending the hooded figure crashing into the water below. They all cringed in sympathy.

“Been there.” Sprig said.

“Didn’t really stick the landing,” Polly added.

Anne squinted at the figure, then pushed her way to the front. “Wait a second…”

The figure coughed and stood up. “Okay, so, Newtopian rope can hold an average human girl for, uh, 2.3 seconds. Maybe I could reinforce the rope with ironspider silk to increase the tensile strength.” They pulled out a journal to scrawl something down.

Anne felt her eyes tearing up. “Marcy?”

The figure stood still and gasped, turning around and pulling her hood down. “Anne?”

“Marcy!” Anne ran and engulfed the other girl in a hug.

“Anne! Oh! Anne? Is that really you?”

“Marcy! I can’t believe it!”

There were tears in Marcy’s eyes now too. “You, me, here?”

“I know! I know! I missed you so much!”

Marcy giggled. “Oh, I missed you too!”

“Aw…” Polly cooed at the heartwarming sight of two best friends reuniting. Beside her, Sprig frowned and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Look at you! Look at this outfit!” Anne said. “You’re like an Amazon warrior queen or something!”

“I know, I know, right? It’s nuts! This is real!” In her excitement, Marcy unlatched her crossbow, nearly hitting Anne in the nose.

“Yeah, very real,” Anne said nervously, pushing the crossbow out of her face.

“Ah, sorry!” Marcy latched her crossbow again. “Isn’t this place wild? What an adventure. Aw, man, I’ve really grown out here, Anne! Come into my own. Leveled up. No more clumsy, klutzy Marcy. Can you believe it?”

Anne nodded distractedly. “Uh-huh. Hey, your cloak’s on fire.”

Marcy looked behind her in shock. “What? Help!” 

“Don’t swing it around!” Anne grabbed the cloak and plunged it into the water; with a slight hiss , the fire was extinguished.

Hop Pop cleared his throat. “So, Anne, who’s your friend?”

Marcy pulled out her journal and scribbled down another note. “Note to self: nonflammable cloak, preferable.”

“You guys, meet Marcy!” Anne said, gesturing grandly at her best friend since they were three.

That caught Marcy’s attention, as she looked up from her journal at the three frogs. “Oh my gosh. Who are these cuties?” She squinted at them, then gasped with a realization. “Are they your surrogate frog family? Did they find you and take you in? Oh! I love the found family trope! Gosh, this is just like the hero in my favorite game, Vagabondia Chronicles. The greatest JRPG of all time.” She grabbed the Plantars by their shoulders. “Have you played it? Do you wanna play it, borrow it? Just say the word and I’ll lend you my copy. Man, it’ll change your lives!”

Sprig glanced between his adoptive big sister and Marcy. “Uh, Anne?”

Anne laughed. “Yep, the Plantars took me in. The one you got there is Hop Pop.”

Marcy had pulled a measuring tape from who-knows-where and was now measuring the size of Hop Pop’s head. “Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. As I thought, 62 centimeters!”

“Yep! All brain.” Hop Pop said proudly.

Marcy took a closer look and plucked a few grains of sand off of the top of Hop Pop’s head. “Judging from the size of your cranium and flecks of sediment, you’re from Frog Valley, right?”

Hop Pop gasped. “You can tell all that from my head?”

“Oh, Anne. I’m so jealous you found a farming community. I’ve been studying Amphibia history, and farm culture is super underappreciated in my opinion. You’re the backbone of society and do not get enough credit for it.”

Hop Pop started opening and closing his mouth as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His legs gave out and he fell back on Polly, who shoved him to the side. “Get off of me!”

“Thank you, thank you!” Hop Pop thanked Marcy profusely, but her attention was already captured by the young frog behind him. “Hey, a pollywog!”

“Hi,” Polly said.

Marcy picked Polly up and held her up to the sunlight to see the inside of her body. She pulled a magnifying glass and squinted at the pollywog’s developing legs. “Hmm, I’d say those legs should be coming in about… bub, bub, bub, buh… two months, give or take.”

Polly gasped in delight. “Can I get that in writing?”

“Oh yeah, absolutely.” Marcy put Polly gently on the ground and handed her a post-it note saying ‘Legs in 2 months - Marcy’.

Polly squealed. “Thank you!”

Finally, Marcy turned to the last member of the Plantar family, Sprig. She stuck her hand out in a friendly handshake. “Oh! And hi there. Wow. I’ve never seen a frog your color before. You’re not poisonous, are you?”

Sprig took her hand. “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not.”

Marcy gasped. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah, I literally actually don’t know.”

Marcy nodded. “I will iodine that later.”

Now that Marcy had introduced herself to all of the Plantars, Anne spoke up. “So what about you, Mar-mar? Have you been in Newtopia this whole time?”

“Here and there, but, uh, mostly here. I actually warped in right inside the city walls. Pretty lucky, right? Like, what are the odds… Oh, oh, okay! Oh my gosh! Remember that game Luz and I tried to get you and Sasha to play, Creatures and Caverns?”

“No.” 

Anne’s flat refusal didn’t deter Marcy, however. “It turns out newts are just like Cephalons. From Shadows of Xel’noth! Anyway, I just roleplayed like your typical artificer/rogue, and the next thing I know…” She pumped her fist. “Boom! I’m a chief ranger of the Newtopian Night Guard!”

“Uh…” Polly asked. “Were those words?”

“So, Marcy, can you get us into the city?” Anne asked. “We tried the gate, but they won’t let us in.”

“Unfortunately, those gates will stay closed until the barbariants are defeated,” Marcy said apologetically. “Luckily, we’ve got a plan. Come on!” She raised her crossbow and shot another grappling hook arrow, launching herself away.

Polly’s eyes widened. “Hop Pop. Birthday. Make it happen.”

Luz was bored. She wished she could have gone with Marcy to save that frog family, but she was stuck here, listening to these three newts arguing about the same things over and over again.

“Branson, a direct frontal assault is the best course of action!” Bartley snapped, stridently making the same points over and over again.

“Bartley, we need a sneak attack. We are not going to be able to withstand a direct frontal assault!”

“You’re both wrong,” Blair said. “If we just communicate with our ant brethren and live in sweet, sweet harmony–”

“Shut up, Blair,” Bartley said, then froze. He cast a nervous glance at Luz. “I- I mean, that’s not a good idea, as that could take more time than we have. We should attack them before they attack us!”

“We don’t have enough people to hold a frontal assault,” Branson said again. “If we sneak in, we’ll have a much higher chance of success.”

“But what would we do if we sneak in?” Bartley asked.

“Wasn’t Master Marcy working on something for that?” Blair asked.

“That’s right, I was,” Marcy said, ducking back into the tent.

Luz gasped. “Oh thank goodness you’re back, I was getting so sick of these three going in circles all the time!”

“Luz, you’ll never guess who I found.” Marcy gestured to the tent flap. “Anne!”

The girl in question stepped into the tent, then froze at the sight of Luz. Tension filled the air between the two.

Marcy looked at the shocked expression on Anne’s face. “Oh, uh, did I forget to tell you Luz was here…?”

A magenta pollywog hopped around Anne’s leg. “Hey, Anne, what’s the holdup– woah.” She looked at the three humans clustered in the tent. “ Two of your friends are here? Which one’s this?” 

Anne coughed. “Luz. Hi.”

“Hi, Anne,” Luz said, staring at the floor. “How are you?”

“Fine,” Anne said. “You?”

“I’m fine,” Luz replied. How would she be able to explain how she was feeling? How furious she had felt at Anne. Furious for betraying her, for betraying Marcy , for that matter. Furious for listening to Sasha again , no matter how obvious it had been that Sasha was in the wrong. Furious for basically rejecting their help.

Yet, even though she was undoubtedly still mad, Anne was her friend. Her kind, gentle, forgiving, helpful friend, who always managed to get stuck in the middle of someone else’s problems. A friend that didn’t deserve to be yelled at for just telling the truth. 

She wondered what she could possibly say to make up for what she’d done. Really, she wasn’t even sure what Anne could say to redeem herself in Luz’s eyes. She looked up to see an unreadable expression on Anne’s face. Finally, she sighed. “Look, what you did on your birthday wasn’t fair. You basically threw us under the bus when we were just trying to help you.”

Anne nodded, looking a tiny bit hurt. “Yeah, but you didn’t need to yell at Sasha like that,” she said quietly. “And stop telling me that you’re doing things just to help me . I’m sick of–” she paused. “I’m sick of being stuck in the middle of all of your arguments, okay? I feel like I’m never able to call the shots in my own life anymore! You– all of you, constantly telling me what to say, and think, and–”

Luz’s heart tightened. Of course Anne was tired of being stuck in the middle. Anyone would be, after constantly being inundated with advice from people– people like Luz, who meant well, yet somehow never seemed to get things right. She held back tears and nodded. “I know, Anne, and I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, okay? And I know it doesn’t fix anything I did, but I really messed up. I shouldn’t have done that, especially not on your birthday, and I was trying to help you, I promise, but I just– I’m never able to help people correctly .”

Anne was crying a little, too. “No, Luz, don’t say that. You were helping me, see? You were right about everything, and I shouldn’t have done that, okay? It was such a bad decision on my part, and I didn’t mean to hurt any of you! I just–” She stopped talking for a second, then continued. “No, that’s it. I’m really sorry, and I shouldn’t have done that.” She paused. “Do you forgive me?”

Luz nodded, doing her best to muster up a smile. “Of course I do, Anne, you’re literally one of my best friends! I just don’t want you to be mad at me, or anything, but I understand if you are–”

Anne smiled. “Obviously not, Luz. Really, there’s nothing to be mad about.”

Luz shook her head. “Yes, there is, and I shouldn’t have reacted like that. But really, I’m so glad. I’ve been worrying about the whole thing so much , and I just– I’m just glad we’re still friends.

Hug?” Luz asked, and Anne nodded. As they embraced, the tension in the air dissipated.

“Eeee!” Marcy squealed, turning Anne and Luz’s hug into a group hug. “Three of us are back together! Now, all we gotta do is find Sasha!”

“And then we can head home!” Anne said.

Bartley cleared his throat, catching the girls’ attention. “We still need to take care of the barbariants, remember?”

“Oh, right! This shouldn’t take long, does anyone want to come?” Marcy pulled out a bandolier, which she tucked the rest of her stinkshrooms in.

“Me!” Luz, Anne, and Branson all chorused, then glanced at each other. “It’s okay, you go,” Anne said awkwardly.

“No, no, you can go,” Luz replied.

“Alright then, if you say so,” Anne said. “Come on, Plantars! Let’s go fight some barbariants!” 

“Does that mean I’m not going?” Branson asked.

“It does look like that, doesn’t it,” Luz told him sympathetically. “Guess not.” She watched Anne follow Marcy out of the tent with an old orange frog, a pink frog, and the small magenta pollywog from earlier. 

“Aww, but a stealth mission was literally my idea!” Branson said, disappointed.

“Oh, the gates are open,” Blair said when the sound of a bell rang through the humid air. “We should be able to return now.”

“We can’t go anywhere until we clear out this tent,” Branson replied.

“You can go ahead if you want,” Bartley told Luz.

Luz nodded. “Sure– wait. You guys just want to get rid of me, don’t you?”

“What?” “No, what makes you think that?” “Of course not!” Only Blair sounded even remotely sincere.

“It’s fine, I’ll get out of your hair,” Luz said dismissively. “Wait, do you even have hair? You all always have your hoods up…” Seeing the annoyed look on Bartley and Branson’s faces made her laugh. “Alright, bye!”

Barely a minute after she left the tent, she heard them arguing again. “Of course. Well, I guess I did tell them they could argue again once the barbariants were gone…”

It was a short walk to the front gates, and soon enough she was once again surrounded by the splendor of the Newtopian main streets. The sun was starting to set, but the streets weren’t yet empty; Luz caught sight of a family of frogs hanging around a quaint wagon pulled by a huge snail. When she got closer, though, she realized that it was the same family of frogs from earlier, the ones that had gone with Anne and Marcy to fight the barbariants.

The pink one looked up and saw Luz. He waved and hopped down from his place on top of the wagon. “You’re Luz, right?” he asked. “Anne told me all about you!”

Luz gave him a look of confusion. “Really?”

He scratched his head. “Well, she told me that you guys fought, and then after Toad Tower she said that you were right about everything. I’m just kind of assuming that’s all there was to say.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Sprig Plantar. Normally I’d be super suspicious of you, but I already went through that with Marcy, so whatever. You get a free pass.”

Luz shook his hand. “Uh, thanks? I guess?”

Sprig gestured at the old frog and the pollywog still atop the wagon. “That’s my grandpa, Hop Pop, and my sister Polly.”

“Oh, uh, nice to meet you! I have to go soon, do you know where Anne and Marcy are?” Luz asked.

“They’re sitting by that fountain over there. Hop Pop said that me and Polly should leave them alone to talk, but I don’t think he would have a problem with you going over there.”

Luz stood on her tiptoes and tried to look behind the wagon, and she caught a glimpse of the tops of Anne and Marcy’s heads. “Thanks,” she said. “I’m going to go over there now if that’s okay?”

“Sure…” Sprig dragged out the word, and Luz wondered if he wasn’t quite as unsuspicious of her as he’d said he was. He hopped back onto the wagon, still watching her.

Luz shrugged, then walked around the wagon and toward Anne and Marcy by the fountain. “Hey, girls,” she said.

“Hi, Luz!” Marcy said enthusiastically. “Anne was just talking about all the adventures she had when she and the Plantars were in Frog Valley. She has pictures and everything!”

“Hi, Luz,” Anne said. She tucked her phone back into her pocket. 

“So,” Luz said, sitting on the edge of the fountain. “Three of us are back together, and now we only need to find Sasha and get home. That’s going to be fun,” she said, making a face.

“I actually found Sasha,” Anne said quietly. “We had a fight. With swords and explosions and everything.”

“Oh,” Luz said quietly. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

“Not really, no.”

An awkward silence settled over the three girls until Marcy finally broke it. “Do you have any pictures of what you were doing before you got to Newtopia, Luz?”

Luz shrugged. “I only have a bunch of photos of these really cool carvings Anisa showed me. I wanted to show them to you, actually. But my phone is super close to dying.”

“Oh, there’s actually a way to charge them,” Marcy said. “There are these really cool zapapede horn arrows in the castle armory, and I accidentally let one get too close to my phone and it somehow charged it fully.”

“Oh, same for me! Except it was a whole pile of live zapapedes, and it charged my phone to ten thousand percent.” Anne’s words caused Marcy’s jaw to drop open. 

“Wha– that shouldn’t even be possible! Mathematically, at least. Like, does ten thousand percent even exist as a percent ?”

Anne shrugged. “I don’t question the strange laws of Amphibia.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll question them for you,” Marcy said, already lost in thought.

Luz sat back and asked the first question that crossed her mind. “What now?”

Anne shrugged. “I don’t really know. I didn’t really think of anything past finding you guys. And Sasha, of course, but that didn’t go so well.”

“Same, to be honest,” Luz admitted. She turned to glance at Marcy, but the girl was absorbed in her thoughts, scribbling in her journal about potential applications of zapapede power. Luz smiled fondly at the familiar sight of her crush deep in thought.

“I think the sun has almost set,” Anne said, and Luz blushed, hoping that nobody had seen her staring. A quick glance at Anne showed that she was looking at the horizon, not her friends. “Where are you going to stay?”

“I’ve actually been in the city for a week, and I’m staying with Anisa’s family– Anisa is the axolotl that took me in and saved my life, by the way. Speaking of,” she added, “I should probably get going. She hasn’t seen me since the morning when Marcy and I met up by accident, and I ran off with her to fight the barbariants.”

“Okay,” Anne said. “Bye, then. See you tomorrow?”

“Oh, for sure,” Luz said. “Now that you’re here, you couldn’t get rid of me if you tried. See you tomorrow!” She stood up to go.

Anne tapped Marcy on the shoulder, and she looked up. “Oh, you’re leaving? Bye! See you tomorrow! I’ll send a messenger mosquito!” 

Luz waved and headed out of the plaza, a huge burden lifted off her shoulders.

Andrias sighed as he watched Luz wave goodbye to Marcy and the other human girl. “Looks like three of the four are back together. I could have put my plan into motion with just two, but three is all the better.”

The room once again vanished into black, until all Andrias could see were orange eyes suspended in the darkness. What is your plan?

“Just watch, My Lord,” Andrias replied. “I need to see where I’m going for this part.”

With more than a bit of grumbling, the eyes retreated until the familiar surroundings of his personal chambers were once again visible. Andrias looked around, then left the room, heading to his personal library.

He stepped inside, heading straight for a tapestry of a majestic scorpi-newt shooting an arrow into the sky. Right before he pressed it to open the secret passageway, a voice startled him. “Your Majesty? How may I help you?”

Caught! Worthless, good-for-nothing– A thousand voices whispered in his ear, and his eye twitched.

Andrias turned around to see the royal archivist standing behind him with a crate of books in hand. “Hello, Royal Archivist,” he said, putting on a jovial expression. “I’m just looking for a particularly good book I would like to reread. It shouldn’t take me long to find it. You can finish what you were doing, don’t worry about it.”

The royal archivist nodded. “Your Majesty, please call me Leo. I was merely wondering if you needed any help from me.”

“No, no, go on, Leo,” Andrias said. The archivist bowed the best he could with his heavy load and left the room, shutting the door gently behind him.

You idiot. The Core’s many voices did not sound impressed. You nearly revealed the secret tunnels. Watch yourself, or at this rate, we will take over.

“There’s no need for that, My Lord,” Andrias said nervously, glancing around to make sure the library was truly empty before pressing the button to open the passageway. “It was a mistake–” he began. He immediately regretted it.

The room went dark again, the Core’s eyes the only thing he could see. A mistake? they screeched. A MISTAKE? You would do well not to infuriate us when we are already furious. One mistake can cost us everything. Maybe trusting you was a mistake.

“It won’t happen again, My Lord,” Andrias bowed deferentially. “May I please finish preparing my plan?”

The Core hissed quietly before retreating again. Once his surroundings were fully material again, Andrias allowed himself one silent breath of relief before he began the short trek down the passageway. “Do you remember this wing of the library, My Lord?” he asked, curious.

Of course we do, came the immediate reply. We know all.

“Then, My Lord, you know that all of our most important information was kept here,” Andrias said. “Including texts explaining the music box. Is that correct?”

Yes. Why are you asking?

“My Lord, do you know which one of these books gives the information about the three gems on the box? Not the temples, no. I must withhold that information from the bearers of the gems for now. I’m speaking of the symbolism behind the gems.”

There should be a text detailing that in the far corner, the Core said begrudgingly. What are you planning to do with this information?

Andrias went to where the Core had said the book was. “I’m going to get the humans to do my job for me. To find the odd one out.”

Chapter Text

“Have you ever fought with a friend before?” 

Anisa stopped peeling some kind of green potato-like vegetable and raised an eyebrow at Luz. “Why are you asking?”

Luz sighed, turning to look at the ceiling from her position lying on the couch. “Did I ever tell you how I got to Amphibia?”

Anisa waved the peeler around as she thought about it. “Uh… vaguely. Bits and pieces, mostly.” She then went back to peeling the vegetables.

“Well, long story short, Marcy and I tried to help our friend, Anne, stand up for herself instead of letting our other friend Sasha push her around all the time. Then Anne accidentally told Sasha what we’d said to her, which was understandable, really–” she sighed softly– “and I admit we made a mistake just forcing the information on Anne and expecting her to know what to do with it. And Sasha refused to believe that she made a mistake. We got into a fight and then got teleported here. That’s the gist of it.”

“That sounds like quite the fight,” Anisa said, dropping the last of the peels into a trash can and chopping the veggies into small cubes.

“And it’s just– I have a lot of feelings about it, I guess,” Luz said. “I feel guilty about how I made Anne feel, but at the same time, I feel angry. I thought I was past the anger, but it resurfaced when I saw Anne again, and it’s stubbornly refusing to leave. Ugh.” She groaned. “So. Have you ever fought with a friend before? Do you know what to do?”

Anisa slid the diced vegetables into a bowl she’d filled with some kind of liquid and several spoonfuls of spices. She picked it up, stirring with a spoon as she walked over to sit by Luz. “Sounds like you need some advice,” she said.

“Yes, please,” Luz said, smiling a little. “A lot of advice.”

Anisa thought for a moment. “Well, I can’t say that I’ve had a fight quite like the one you had with your friends,” she said slowly, “but there was this really bad fight I had when I was in university. A good friend of mine. Not Lena,” she added hastily, noticing the shocked look on Luz’s face. “Another friend. We shared quite a few classes and got to know each other through several group projects. But he was struggling a lot with school, and before long, he decided to quit. I tried to talk him out of it, but he refused to listen, and in the end, I let him go because I knew it was the right thing for him. What I wanted for him wasn’t really what he needed. I suppose it wasn’t exactly what he wanted, either.”

“Oh, that’s really sad,” Luz said quietly. “What happened to him?”

“He became a soldier in the Newtopian Army. Happiest I’d ever seen him,” Anisa replied. “I suppose the moral of that story is that your friends may know what’s best for themselves more than you know what’s best for them. That… wasn’t your question, was it?” she asked, seeing the confused look on Luz’s face.

Luz shook her head. “Sort of? I mean, not really. I feel both angry about what happened and guilty about it at the same time, and I was wondering if you had any advice,” she explained.

“Oh, okay, then!” Anisa returned to the kitchen with the bowl, splitting the contents into several smaller bowls, and continued talking. “You know, it makes sense that you feel that way. You know what I think?” Anisa paused, looking at Luz. “I think you did the wrong thing for the right reasons. It makes sense that you think you’re wrong, because you didn’t make the best choice you could have made. But it also makes sense for you to think you’re right, because your intent was good. And I’m sure Anne must feel the same way, right?”

Luz shrugged. “I guess so,” she said, tears filling her eyes. “I don’t know how to explain it, really. I was being such a horrible friend, and I–”

“No, Luz,” Anisa cut Luz off. “You’re not a horrible friend. If you were such a horrible friend, would you have tried to help Anne? Would you have apologized, after knowing that you hurt Anne and Sasha? Would you have volunteered to put yourself in harm’s way to help Marcy fight the barbariants? Luz, I haven’t known you for long, but from what I’ve seen, I think you’re a wonderful friend. And a wonderful person, for that matter. Even wonderful people can make mistakes. Do you see what I’m saying?”

Luz smiled, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Yeah, I do. Thanks, Anisa.”

Anisa nodded. “No problem, Luz,” she said. “You know, you’re going to feel so much better about yourself and about life when you stop worrying about the past and start to focus on the future.”

Luz nodded. “You’re saying I should just try to be a better friend going forward instead of worrying about the fight, right?” She nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, I can do that. I think.” 

“If you need any more advice, just ask me,” Anisa said.

“Umm…” Luz thought for a moment. “Do you know what to do about crushes?”

“Crushes?” Anisa sounded startled. “Sorry, I don’t. I’ve never had experience with those. Maybe you could ask Teora instead?”

“I don’t really know her,” Luz replied. “I know you a lot better. It kinda feels weird to ask her.”

“You don’t have to ask her, it’s up to you,” Anisa said, “but I can vouch for Teora’s character. She’s a good person, and I’ve known her for years now.”

“Okay,” Luz relented. “Maybe I’ll ask. But don’t tell anyone I asked about crushes! Especially not Anne or Marcy, I’d never hear the end of it,” she added quickly.

“You have my word,” Anisa said, smiling slightly. “By the way, here’s food if you’re hungry.” She set all three bowls on the table. “Teora should be coming back from the market soon.”

“Thanks,” Luz said, getting up from the couch and walking over to the table. Just as she sat down, the front door swung open, and Teora walked through, clutching several bags of groceries in her hands and tail.

“Lunch is ready, Teora,” Anisa said, joining Luz at the table. “Come eat.”

“Coming, Anisa,” Teora said. “Give me a moment to put these away.”

Luz and Anisa ate quietly, joined a moment later by Teora. The newt looked pensive, preoccupied with something. Luz thought about asking, but before she could, Teora spoke.

“I’m worried about Leo,” Teora said, picking at her food. “He’s been working himself to the bone trying to find copies of all the books the libraries lost thanks to the Order of the Olm. He refuses to take a break.”

“Is he working all by himself?” Anisa asked.

Teora nodded. “I wish I could help him, but I’ve got a lot of patients to meet starting tomorrow. It’s whitespot season, so there’s no way I can take a break from work; we’re going to be flooded, and the hospital needs every doctor there. I also have no idea how to help, anyway,” she added as an afterthought.

“Whitespot season?” Luz asked.

“It’s an annual disease that causes white spots to appear on newts. It’s easy to cure, but it also sets in fast, and just about every newt that catches it has to head to the hospital for treatment.”

“Maybe I could help? Not with the whitespots, with the books,” Anisa explained at Teora’s confused look. “After so many years at the university, I definitely know my way around the stacks.”

Teora’s expression brightened. “Oh, you’re right! You could help! You’d have to ask Leo, but I’m sure he won’t say no. Thank you so much, Anisa.”

“It’s nothing,” Anisa said, finishing her meal. “It’ll be nice to be back in the library, if only for a few days.” She finished the last of her food, then stood up. “If either of you needs me, I’ll be reading in my room.”

Luz sat awkwardly with Teora at the dining table. “So… how was your day?” Teora asked, clearly trying to fill the silence.

“It was fine,” Luz said. “I didn’t do much, really.” She remembered Anisa’s advice from earlier, to ask Teora about crushes. “Uh, how did you and Leo meet?” she asked.

Teora looked surprised at the question. “Well, Leo and I have known each other for a few years now. Both of us attended Newtopia University at the same time, although for different subjects. We became friends because we both shared the same language class. We got to know each other better and eventually fell in love.”

“Oh, that’s pretty cool,” Luz said. “How did you guys start dating?”

“What is this, an interrogation?” Teora said with a laugh.

Luz was quick to deny it. “No, no! Just curious,” she said.

“Okay, then. It was really simple. I asked Leo if he wanted to go out with me, he said yes, we went out. That was it.”

“Oh. Was it scary?” Luz asked. “Asking him out, I mean?”

“Are you planning on asking someone out?” Teora asked instead of answering.

Luz blushed. “N-no? I’m, uh, asking. For a friend. Yeah.”

Teora gave her an unreadable look. “Well, tell your friend it was scary, yeah. But it was worth it in the end.”

“Did you ever have a crush on anyone aside from Leo?” Luz asked. “How did you get over them?”

“Yeah, actually,” Teora replied. “I had a huge crush on this one newt from my old school around the time I transferred to Newtopia U. But the crush just faded the more I got to know Leo.”

“Oh.” Luz tried to hide the fact that Teora’s words hadn’t helped at all. If she ever needed to stop crushing on Marcy, where was she supposed to find another love interest in a world of talking amphibians?

Suddenly, a tap at the kitchen window distracted Teora and Luz from their conversation. A messenger mosquito tapped the window again, and Teora walked over to open it. “It’s a letter for you, Luz,” she said, taking the message from the mosquito and reading the name printed on it.

“Really?” Luz asked. She walked over to where Teora stood and took the scroll. “It’s a message from Marcy,” she said after scanning it. “It says to head to the palace. Apparently, King Andrias wants to talk to us.”

“Again?” Teora asked, surprised.

Luz shrugged. “To be fair, last time we did kind of drop in on him without warning. Can you take me?”

“I can’t, sorry,” Teora said. “Maybe you can ask Anisa?”

“I’ll go do that right now!” Luz said, spinning on her heel and walking out of the kitchen. She went to Anisa’s room, knocking on the door before pushing it open. “Hello?” she asked. “Anisa, can you take me to the castle?”

Anisa looked up from her book, giving Luz a confused glance. “Why?” she asked. 

“Apparently the king summoned Marcy, me, and our other friend, Anne. At least, that’s what Marcy said in the letter she just sent. So–” She shrugged.

“Okay,” Anisa said. “Let’s go, then. It’s best to not keep the king of Amphibia waiting for long.”

They headed out of the apartment, Teora closing up behind them, and started walking towards the palace again. “By the way,” Luz started, “remember when you said you would teach me magic? I tried doing what you said and I couldn’t get it. Could you try explaining again?”

Anisa sighed. “Look, if you can’t do my brand of magic, it’s not your fault. I’m the only one who can, at least as far as I know. So don’t feel upset.”

“What if that means I can’t do magic, though?” Luz asked. 

Anisa shook her head. “That doesn’t mean you can’t do magic, Luz. There are lots of forms of magic out there. I already mentioned dark magic, and anyone can do that. It doesn’t require a special ability, just the following of directions and the memorizing of formulas.”

“That’s cool, I guess,” Luz said, still disappointed. Before she could add anything else, though, she spotted Marcy, Anne, and the Plantars waiting for her at the castle gates. “Hey, guys!” she yelled, waving.

Marcy waved back enthusiastically. “Hi, Luz!” Anne called out. “Who’s your friend?”

“Oh, yeah! You’ve never met Anisa, have you?” Luz said. “Guys, this is Anisa. Anisa, this is Marcy, Anne, and the Plantars.”

“I’m Sprig, and this is Hop Pop and Polly,” Sprig said, doing his best to look cheerful.

Anisa nodded. “Nice to meet you all.”

“What’s happening?” Luz asked.

“Let’s go inside! Andrias wanted to talk to all of us. The message he sent was ‘Bring me your friends’,” Marcy explained. “That’s you, Anne, Sprig, Polly, Hop Pop, and Anisa.”

Once they had all filed inside, Marcy led them to the entrance hall before the Throne Room, where they were supposed to wait. “Dang, girl. This is where you've been hanging out this whole time?” Anne’s words were full of awe.

Marcy shrugged. “I wouldn’t say I ‘hang out’ here, but yes! Staying at the castle has been awesome!”

“Wow, I can’t believe we’re here!” Sprig said.

“And that we’re about to meet the king of Amphibia,” Polly added from her perch atop his head.

Hop Pop studied the opulence of the room. “Wow, just look at this place,” he said in awe. Then he glanced down at his outfit. “Am I dressed okay? Should I have worn my silk ascot? I’ll go back and get it!” He turned and tried to flee the room, his nerves getting the better of him, but bumped straight into Anisa, who had been standing behind him while studying one of the windows in wonder.

“Hey, hey. Don't stress, guys. This is no big deal,” Marcy said, walking over and crouching down beside Hop Pop.

“Yeah,” Luz added, “the king was really chill when I met him.”

“You met the king?” Anne, Sprig, and Polly all chorused. 

Before Luz could answer, Lady Olivia stepped out of the throne room and marched over to them. “Okay, frog family and axolotl,” she said regally. “You’re about to meet King Andrias. This is a big deal .”

Everyone in the room except Luz, Marcy, and Lady Olivia gulped nervously.

Lady Olivia led the group to the massive throne room doors. They stepped into a long room lined with stained-glass windows, through which tinted sunlight filtered. During the long walk to the front, everyone admired the amazing architecture of the room.

Finally, Lady Olivia stepped to the side and made a sweeping gesture. “May I present to you King Andrias Leviathan, Lord of Amphibia. Peacekeeper of a thousand years and the first of his name.”

Everyone gasped. “Now that’s king-sized,” Anne said, echoing everyone’s thoughts. 

The king himself was seated imposingly on his throne, his massive frame blocking the sunlight from the giant window before him. Then he leaned forward, a brilliant smile on his face. “Hello, Plantar family! And you are?” he added, glancing at Anisa.

“I am Anisa Greenwood, Your Majesty,” she said, bowing. “I have come here with Luz.”

“Ah, yes. Sorry I never sent you that message, Luz,” King Andrias said. “The matter of the barbariants took precedence at the time. I hear you helped with that?”

“Yep!” Luz said. “It’s perfectly fine.”

“Moving on,” the king said. “Bring it in, you guys!” 

“Quick, kids, bow!” Hop Pop and Sprig bowed, with Polly face-planting on the floor in an imitation of a bow.

King Andrias stood up, his footsteps shaking the ground, and scooped up Hop Pop, Polly, Sprig, and Anisa. He pressed them to his chest in a hug. “It’s so good to finally meet you!” he said, grinning. Anne and Luz’s mouths fell open at the sight.

A moment later, King Andrias dropped them back on the ground. “I love this guy!” Polly said, gesturing at the king. King Andrias laughed happily.

“Dear King Andrias, just once, it would be nice if you followed proper castle etiquette,” Lady Olivia said, walking up to him with an irritated expression on her face.

Andrias blew a raspberry. “Oh, etiquette shmetiquette! Oooh, and what do we have here?” he asked, turning to look at Anne. “A third friend returns!”

“Hey,” Anne said nervously.

The king walked over and knelt in front of her. “You must be Anne. ‘Sup?” Then he paused and glanced at Marcy. “Am I saying it right? ‘Sup?”

“You got it!” Marcy replied, giving him a thumbs-up.”

“Oh-ho, the thumb of approval!” King Andrias made his own hands into thumbs-ups. “And here’s a thumb for you, Anne. And for you, Luz, as well!” He moved his hands so fast that the wind blew their hair back.

“Oh, uh… right back at ya!” Anne gave him a fist bump, and Luz followed her example.

Andrias held his hands up and looked between them, chucking. He giggled exuberantly, using his tail to help him get back to his feet. “Delightful!” The impact of his feet hitting the floor shook the room so much that Luz stumbled and Anne fell. Marcy leaned down and helped her back to her feet. 

“But now, let's get down to business, shall we?” Andrias said, clapping. “Getting you girls back home, safe and sound. Hmm... Alas, without the music box, I'm afraid there's nothing I can do.” He gestured. “Marcy doesn't have it, and, well, I assume neither of you has it either.”

Luz shook her head, but Anne grinned sheepishly. “Oh! Uh, actually, I do have the box.” 

“What? Are you serious?” Marcy asked.

“No way,” Luz said.

Andrias clapped in excitement, sitting back on his throne. “Why, this is marvelous news! Come, come, let’s see it.”

Anne made a face. “Well, I don't ‘have it’, have it. Hop Pop left it with some contacts to see what they could learn about it.”

Hop Pop chuckled, and Luz glanced at him. The old frog seemed oddly nervous.

“But, I do have a photo of it,” Anne added, digging her phone out of her pocket.

Andrias grinned. “Yes, yes, a pho-to,” he said, sounding out the word. He pulled a pair of glasses out of his pocket and put them on. “Let’s see here.” He squinted at the image on the tiny screen. “Hmm, how peculiar. Marcy, didn't you say the gems were colored? Look here. They're... They're gray.”

Anne turned the phone and looked at it herself. “Hey, you’re right. I… never actually noticed that.”

Andrias took off his glasses. “Huh. I actually think I know why.”

Marcy’s eyes widened. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah.” Andrias pulled a thin book from beside him. It looked laughably tiny in his massive hands, despite being regular-sized. “Yesterday, I stopped by the palace library to search for a book, and I accidentally found this book hidden behind another. I opened it, seeing as I was curious, and suffice it to say I was shocked when I saw an illustration of the Calamity Box inside.” He put his glasses on again and peered at the book, flipping through the pages quickly. “Here,” he said finally, turning the book to show a picture of a music box. Anne held her phone next to it and confirmed that it was, in fact, the same box.

“Can I take a look?” Marcy asked. Anne stepped aside to let her see, and Luz caught a glimpse over her shoulder. There was a diagram of the box on one side, and an illustration of the three gems on top of the box on the other side.

“Strength, Heart, Wit,” Marcy read aloud from the book. “What does that mean?”

“The book says that is what each gem represents,” Andrias replied. “The green gem is Wit, the blue gem is Heart, and the reddish gem is Strength. It also mentions that the power inside the gem can be drained by consistent use. There’s no mention of a way to recharge it, but it does mention that each gem usually connects to someone with the traits it represents.”

“Is that all it said?” Luz asked doubtfully. “The book seems thicker than that.”

Andrias chuckled. “There were also mentions of it enhancing those characteristics in its host, but there are no examples in the book as far as I’m aware. As for the rest of the pages,” he continued, “the book is actually about cursed Amphibian artifacts. The music box is just a brief mention.” He flipped the page, showing a picture of a cauldron with a bonsai-like tree in it. “Like this cauldron, which grows plant life from ambient magic without the materials usually used in similar dark magic. And there’s a necklace that apparently turns the wearer invisible, oh! And a cup that compels the person who drinks from it to tell the truth for as long as the liquid they drank remains in their body, which actually takes a good, long while. Fascinating, isn’t it?”

“Yeah!” Marcy exclaimed. “That’s so cool!”

“So who did the power go into?” Sprig asked, changing the subject.

Andrias gestured grandly at Anne, Marcy, and Luz. “In you three, of course. And your other friend.”

Marcy raised her hand. “Uh, there’s a problem,” she said. “You said there were three powers to match the three gems, but there are four of us. Not three.”

Andrias sat back. “Huh, it seems you’re right. Maybe the power skipped over one of you?”

“But who?” Polly asked. “All three of them seem plenty smart, strong, and, uh– heart-filled? To me.”

“If I may propose a solution to this problem?” Andrias asked cheerfully. “Perhaps you could think of which of you most fits each trait.”

“Wit has to be you, Marcy,” Luz immediately said, Anne nodding in agreement. “There’s literally nobody else it could be. You’re the smartest of us by a long shot.”

Marcy blushed. “Aww, thanks!” 

“Who’s Strength then?” Anne asked. “It has to be either me, Sasha, or you, Luz.”

“We all do sports,” Luz said. “I do mixed martial arts, you do tennis and Muay Thai, and Sasha does cheerleading.”

“I think it’s Sasha,” Marcy said. “If you go by the common definition of strength as the amount of muscle, it could be any of you three. But there’s another definition: perseverance. And Sash has that in spades. She’s the one of us that never gives up.”

Luz opened her mouth, then closed it. “You’re right,” she finally said. “It has to be Sash.”

“Then that leaves Heart,” Sprig said, hopping over to them. 

Anne and Luz looked at each other. “And that leaves us,” Anne said quietly.

Luz shifted awkwardly. “Yeah.” She couldn’t describe the feelings running through her mind right now; part of her desperately wanted to be Heart, but another part of her felt bad for thinking that when Anne wanted to be Heart, too. After all, Anne, Marcy, and Sasha were the first real friends she had– the only friends she had, really. And now that they were stuck in a fantasy world with the power to have a truly incredible adventure, Luz could be left out again . In fact, who was to say that this would be the last time she was left out? After all, if an ancient magical artifact said that she wasn’t meant to be with her best friends, why would Anne, Marcy, and Sasha disagree? She’d be trapped in Amphibia forever as Luz, ordinary Luz, friends with three smart, talented girls chosen by the ancient magic of Amphibia itself, while Luz still couldn’t do basic magic. She’d have a crush on a girl who was so absolutely perfect , out of her league in every way. In some ways, it was worse than the fear of being alone, worse than the idea that she might never be able to return to Earth.

Marcy glanced between them. “I… I’ve got nothing. I don’t know which one of you two it could be.”

“It has to be you, Luz,” Anne said. “I betrayed your trust back home, remember? And Marcy’s as well. I’m sure that’s not something a person with Heart would do.”

Andrias opened his mouth to say something from his throne, but Luz beat him to the punch. “No way, Anne. It was a mistake. You could definitely be Heart. Even good people make mistakes sometimes!”

“But I betrayed you guys!” Anne argued.

“If we’re going by mistakes, it could just as easily not be me,” Luz said. “Because of how I reacted when you made your mistake. That wasn’t very Heart-like of me, I’m sure. You have the most heart out of anyone I know, Anne.”

“Are they arguing with each other to deny that they’re connected to a powerful magical energy?” Polly whispered to Sprig. 

The frog boy nodded. “Sure seems that way.”

Polly groaned. “Who does that?”

Anne cast a long glance at the pollywog, then finally nodded. “Okay.”

“Good. I guess we’ll see later, then?” Luz asked.

“Yeah,” Anne replied.

Anne turned to say something to Marcy, and Luz took the moment to let herself have one moment of fear. If Luz was right, and Anne’s mistakes didn’t stop her from being the remaining third of the trio, that was amazing. And yet, it also meant that Luz would be alone. But bringing up her own fears would hurt Anne even more, and Luz decided she’d already done enough of that, so she relegated herself to bottling her feelings up inside.

“Well then, Plantar family!” Andrias boomed, startling everyone in the room as he stood up again and walked over to right in front of the Plantars. “You should go and explore the wonderful city of Newtopia. Who knows what you might find?” He held out two fists, causing a gust of wind to blow everyone’s hair back. “Here, pick a hand!”

Anne stepped up and peered at the two hands. She glanced between them, then up at Andrias, who motioned to one with his head. “Uh, this one?” she asked, tapping it.

Andrias uncurled the fist to reveal– nothing. “Psych!” he said delightfully. Anne glanced back, an annoyed look on her face. Andrias laughed, then gasped. “But wait, what’s this?” he said in mock surprise, pulling a gold card out of his sleeve. “The Royal Credit Card! It’ll grant you access to do anything in Newtopia!” He handed the card gently to Hop Pop. “Be safe with this, now. Wars have been waged for less.” As Sprig examined the card, he turned to Anisa. “I apologize for not having anything for you, as I wasn’t expecting you,” he admitted. 

“That’s perfectly fine, Your Majesty,” Anisa said. “Last time Luz came to meet you, she went with my nephew’s fiancé, Teora.”

“Oh, you’re the royal archivist’s aunt?” Andrias said. “Now I have to give you something! Olivia, withdraw a thousand gold farthings from the palace treasury and get them delivered to Anisa’s current residence. Where are you staying?” he asked, turning back to Anisa.

Anisa rattled off an address. “I don’t actually live here in Newtopia anymore, that address is my nephew’s address. I live up north in the mountains. And thank you so much, Your Majesty. You really didn’t have to.”

“That’s perfect! And nonsense, of course I had to!” Andrias said dismissively. “Olivia, did you write down the address?”

“Yes, King Andrias,” Lady Olivia said, holding a small notepad. “I’ll contact the treasury at once. Everyone, follow me,” she added to the rest of the room. “I’ll see you all out.”

 The Plantars and Anne left not long after the group walked out of the castle. Anne, Polly, and Hop Pop all looked exhausted, but Sprig was practically bouncing, excited to explore Newtopia. Luz felt kind of bad for him; it was clear his family wasn’t willing to do more than check into the hotel and crash. 

Once they were gone, Luz and Anisa waved and turned to leave as well, but Marcy tapped Luz on the shoulder. “Hey, Luz, can I, uh, go with you?” she asked nervously. “I don’t really want to be alone right now. The castle is beautiful, but it can be lonely. I kinda got used to sleeping in the barracks, and it feels weird to be on my own.”

“Of course!” Luz said. “Anisa, is that okay?”

Anisa shrugged. “It’s not my house,” she said, “but I doubt Teora and Leo would mind.”

“Great!” Luz said. “Let’s go!”

After a few minutes of walking, Anisa knocked on the door to the apartment. Teora opened it. “You’re back!” Then she saw Marcy standing a little bit behind Luz. “And you are?”

“This is Marcy,” Luz said. “The friend we went to ask King Andrias about.”

“Oh, you found her then!” Teora said, clapping. “Come in, come in! We just finished making dinner. Are you hungry?”

Anisa nodded. “For sure!”

Luz and Marcy followed Anisa inside, taking a seat at the dining table. There was a steaming bowl of stew set on the table. Leo emerged from the kitchen with four smaller bowls, but at the sight of their guest went back in to grab a fifth.

When everyone had been served, Teora spoke. “So, what happened at the meeting with the king?”

Luz uncomfortably stirred her soup, and Marcy answered instead. “He was just meeting our other friend Anne and the family that took her in. And he told us some information about how we got here to Amphibia.”

“Yeah, that,” Luz said halfheartedly.

“That’s interesting,” Leo said. “By the way, Anisa, Teora told me you were interested in helping me sort out which books were lost so we can finish finding copies faster. I’d really appreciate it if you could come.”

“You’re the palace archivist, right?” Marcy asked before Anisa could answer. “Andrias mentioned it.”

“Yeah, I am,” Leo said. “Anisa?”

“Of course, Leo. It’ll be good to be back in the library again, even if it’s just for a little while.”

“Wait, again?” Marcy asked. “Were you an archivist or a librarian too? Also, can I come? ”

“I was a historian and professor at Newtopia University,” Anisa replied. “I retired a while ago, though. And sure, why not,” she added, looking amused.

Marcy’s eyes widened as she realized she was sitting at a table with a (former) college professor. “No way, you worked at Newtopia University?” she asked excitedly. She began asking question after question, but Luz soon zoned out. She was feeling really tired after the events of earlier, and she just wanted to go to sleep and end the day. 

After a while of picking at her food, she slid the bowl over to Marcy. “You want this?” she asked. “I’m not too hungry. I’m actually going to sleep now if you guys are fine with that.”

“Sure! The stew tastes really good,” Marcy said, pouring Luz’s leftover soup into her own bowl. “Thanks!”

“Good night,” Luz mumbled, then walked over to the couch and lay down, closing her eyes.

She drifted off to sleep listening to the sounds of talking and laughter.

Andrias sat at his desk, looking at the paper lying on top of the desk. He sighed and picked up his pen. This was why he had Olivia write everything for him; if he wrote as he normally did, it would be much too big to fit on the paper, and if he somehow managed to write small enough, the average-sized frog, toad, or newt would struggle to read it.

Write already! the Core complained in his head. We’re getting impatient.

He groaned. “I’m trying, okay?”

He set the pen to the paper and slowly began forming each letter. When he finally finished writing and glanced out of the window, the moon was almost halfway through its nightly cycle. “Wow,” he said. “Time passes fast.”

Andrias squinted and scanned his work again and, deeming it passable, folded and tucked it into an envelope. Opening the window, he flagged down a messenger mosquito. Once he’d told the mosquito who to deliver it to, it flew off, wings buzzing.

“The plan is in motion,” he told the Core. “Now all we have to do is trigger it and wait.”

Excellent job, Andrias. We’re almost… impressed.

Chapter Text

Anne woke up face-down in the mud.

She sat up, spitting it out. “Blegh! Gross. Why am I…” She looked around, losing her train of thought as she took in her surroundings. “Where am I? Is this the jungle?” A pair of giant dragonflies zoomed past, and her eyes widened.

She was standing on the top of a cliff, looking out at trees and mountains and rivers– more greenery than she’d ever seen anywhere in LA. “Woah,” she breathed, in awe at the sight. “Marcy? Sasha? Luz? Are you guys seeing this?”

There was no response, and Anne turned around in confusion. “Guys?”

No matter where she looked, there was no motion but the wind rustling through the trees, and no sound aside from the monotonous buzz of insects.

“Where are you? Sasha? Marmar? Luz?” A flash of out-of-place bright pink in the corner of her eye had her turning to see what it was. But, unfortunately, it was just her backpack lying in a bush. Anne went over to the bush and hoisted it up by the handle, uncovering the music box that had been hidden underneath it.

“The music box…” she whispered. “I remember you. You were a gift from Marcy and Luz…” Her eyes widened as she remembered what had happened before she’d woken up in the mud. “We fought, then Luz bumped into me, and then… I woke up here. What if it’s my fault we’re here?”

Picking up the music box and stuffing it into her bag, she shook her head and buried her feelings about the fight deep, deep down. “It can’t be my fault. It had to be an accident. Just some kind of, uh, coincidence?”

She slung the backpack onto her back and turned to face the forest, pulling her phone out of her pocket. No signal. She sighed and tucked it away. “No use waiting here. I need to find Sash, Marcy, and Luz. And I need to find out where I am.”

Alone in an unfamiliar place, separated from her friends, with her parents not knowing where she was? This was turning out to be the worst birthday ever.

It didn’t take long for Anne’s ‘plan’ to fall apart. After several hours of exploring, there was still no sign of anyone other than herself and some very big, very unfamiliar hostile creatures– definitely nothing she’d heard of existing. At least on Earth. Who was to say the magical music box with a portal inside hadn’t taken her to a different planet? After all, at this point, anything could be possible. She eventually decided to try and climb a tree to see where she was, and when she was staring out at the landscape from the top of the tree, she realized the sun was setting. Anne was running out of sunlight. Not to mention that with no sign of civilization, she couldn’t find out where she was.

Anne accidentally stumbled into a cave after tripping and losing her shoe– it was too dark to try and find it, and there was no way she’d risk tripping again and losing her other shoe– or worse, breaking a bone. She spent that time instead bandaging a long, shallow cut she’d sustained in the fall with scraps she’d torn from one of the many t-shirts in her backpack. She honestly didn’t know why she had so many, but she was grateful for it now. 

That first night, she could have sworn she heard voices, but with the constant sound of heavy rain, the creepy bugs crawling all over the walls, and her incessant shivering, she chalked it up to her imagination.

In the morning, when she headed out of her cave shelter to find her shoe, it was missing. Nothing left but mud and puddles.

Now that her shoe was gone, Anne could literally feel the mud squishing beneath her sock as she walked. But it didn’t take her long to get used to it, surprisingly. At one point, it even felt kind of satisfying. The one thing she disliked was the fact that her sock was wet all the time , but at least it didn’t affect how fast she moved. She found herself a sharp rock and a tall, thin branch, and carved herself a makeshift spear to defend herself. That night, she made herself a tiny rock companion in her cave, so she hopefully wouldn’t lose her mind. She named him Rocky and gave him long, flowing hair made from some kind of moss, and spent a good ten minutes telling him all about her friends back home.

Well, maybe she was already losing her mind.

That was when she heard the sound of an accordion.

Anne knew it was dark. She knew it was dangerous to go outside at night because she didn’t know her surroundings well enough. But an accordion meant civilization , and the allure of finding someone to help her was too much to resist. And she was hungry; the snacks her mom had packed for tennis practice had long since run out, and she’d had to share her lunch with Sasha when they skipped school. So she followed the sound, taking her steps with care.

Her jaw dropped and her eyes widened when she found the source of the sound– a blue frog-like alien half her height jauntily strolling down a narrow road, playing the accordion. A twig cracked under her foot, and the frog stood still. “H-hello?” he said nervously.

Anne ran around to the frog’s other side, preparing to introduce herself and ask for help. 

“What’s that?” the frog asked.

She tripped on a tree root just before she came out from behind the trees, catching herself on her arms. She pushed herself to her feet. Then she realized she made a mistake.

The frog’s eyes widened, and he screamed in fear. “No, no, no, NOOOO!” he yelled, turning and racing down the road. He was gone before Anne could say more than ‘hey there’.

She sighed, then perked up. “At least now I know there are sentient creatures here! Even if they’re, uh, frogs. Eugh.” She shuddered.

She returned to her cave, dejected, but with more hope than she’d had since her first few hours in this world.

Before stepping out of her cave on her third day in this strange world, Anne grabbed her spear. Just in case she needed it. It turned out to be the right decision when, the moment Anne set foot in the sunlight, a giant red praying mantis turned to face her and screeched.

She paled and dodged the arm it shot out to hit her. Anne turned and ran into the forest, shoving branches out of her way as she tried to escape the giant creature chasing after her. Before long, she doubled over, panting, the mantis’s screeches reduced to echoes in the distance.

She sat down and leaned against a tree, catching her breath and listening to make sure the mantis wasn’t still following. Then suddenly she heard a voice a ways behind her. “Beast with a, uh– what was the list? Huge head, spindly limbs, and face bump! The one that scared Wally! Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

Fear coursed down her veins and she stood up. Anne kept running, away from the voice looking for her. She ran into a small clearing, looked up, and realized it was the perfect place for a trap.

There were several long vines hanging down from the tree canopy. Anne quickly sliced one off with her spear and tied the end into a simple loop, just like her dad had taught her while talking about his Scout days. Then she laid the loop on the ground, covered it with leaves, and grabbed the other end. Anne scaled the tree, taking care to keep the rope hidden, then looped it around a tree branch and dropped back to the ground. She grabbed her spear and dropped to a crouch in the grass just in time for the little pink frog that had been chasing her to step into the clearing.

Wait. Little pink frog?

She took a closer look at the frog. It was even shorter than the one she’d seen yesterday. Maybe it was looking for her because she’d scared off the other one by mistake.

“Seems like the beast roams these parts,” the frog said, looking down. “Probably a good place for a tra-aaAAAAAH!” Anne’s trap had worked. Way ahead of you, pink frog.

The frog turned to look at the grass rustling as Anne got to her feet. She stepped into the clearing, holding her spear out. “Caught ya! Thought you got the best of ol' Anne, eh? Well, you didn't !” 

The frog gasped. “Giant head! Spindly limbs! Face bump! THE BEEEEAASST!”

Anne leaned closer to the pink frog’s head. “Stop following me ,” she said clearly.

The frog narrowed its eyes at her. “I have bad news for you, beast!” it said. “I taste terrible. ”

Oh. He’s not trying to hurt me. He thinks I’m gonna hurt him. Anne pushed her stick into the mud. “Ew,” she said, sticking her tongue out. “I am not gonna eat you.”

“You tried to eat Wally!” the frog protested.

“I tried to ask ‘Wally’ for help,” Anne explained. “He ran off screaming the second he saw me!”

The pink frog considered. “That does sound like Wally…”

Suddenly a screech echoed through the clearing, accompanied by the sound of snapping branches and falling trees. Anne’s eyes widened. “It’s coming back!” she yelled in fear. 

“What is?” the frog asked.

Anne ignored him and turned to run, grabbing her spear. Behind her, she could hear the frog call, “Where are you going?”

The mantis screeched again, and the frog screamed. Anne hesitated, turning back to see the frog gnawing on the vine, then screaming again and letting go.

Oh, come on, she thought as she turned around. I’m running right back into danger.

Anne leveled her spear and sliced through the vine, then grabbed the frog boy and started running. Spotting an opening in a fallen log, she dropped her spear and dove in. She put her hand over the frog’s mouth, huddling against the side of the log.

She and the pink frog peeked out of two holes in the log, watching the giant mantis walk past their log. The mantis stepped on her spear, breaking it in two, then screeched and moved on. They had escaped.

Anne and the pink frog both gasped in relief, collapsing against the walls of the log. A moment later, the frog stood up. “You... you saved me! You're not a beast at all! You're a hero! An ugly, ugly, ugly hero!”

“Call me ugly again and maybe I will eat you,” Anne said jokingly.

“Ha. You're not gonna eat me. You got a name, stranger?”

Anne smiled. “My name’s Anne. Anne Boonchuy.”

“I’m Sprig Plantar! Put ‘er there!” The frog boy– Sprig– put his hand out. 

“Uhh, okay…” Anne took it, shaking it, then let go. A slimy substance stuck to her hand when she let go, and she gagged. “So, your hand just barfed on my hand.” Wiping it off on her SJMS uniform, she blushed when her stomach grumbled. “Okay, ‘Sprig’. You got anything to eat?”

Sprig nodded. “Sure do!” He peeled a section of the log, revealing the rotting insides crawling with bugs. 

Anne looked to the side in disgust. Frogs were honestly a menace to society. “Things that aren’t bugs…?”

“No bugs, eh?” He ate a beetle absentmindedly as he thought. “We’ll have to hunt a bit. C’mon! Follow me!”

Anne stepped out of the log, but hesitated. “How do I know I can trust you?” she asked suspiciously.

“Whaaaat?” Sprig put his hands on his cheeks and widened his eyes. “Does this look like a face that can deceive you?”

Anne laughed. “Yeah, I guess not.”

“Well then, c’mon!” Sprig grabbed her arm, and she jumped in surprise. “Chow time!” he continued, pulling her along as he ran off.

Anne and Sprig surveyed their bounty. After foraging through the woods, with Sprig pointing out what was safe to eat and what wasn’t, they had collected a good amount of mushrooms and roots. Sprig poured them from a bucket onto the ground in the clearing. 

Anne picked up a root that looked kind of like a stick. She took a bite. “Hey, this is pretty good,” she said, her mouth full.

Sprig nodded. “Mm-hmm. So, first question: What the heck are you, and where did you come from?!” He threw his arms up at the last part, gasping.

Anne wiped the crumbs off her mouth. “I'm a human being and I come from…” She stood up. “Another world!” She thought for a moment. “Either that, or this is a dream.” Some dream, she thought to herself. More like a nightmare.

“Wooooow…” Sprig said in awe. “Do you know how you got here?”

Anne shook her head. “Nope. One minute, I was in my world, and the next thing I knew I was here. I don't know how to get home.” She sat down, drawing her knees close to her chest. “Or if I even can go home.” She sat in silence for a moment, then remembered she wasn’t alone. “So, yup, that's my story. How 'bout you? What were you doing in the woods?”

Sprig grinned, his face lighting up with enthusiasm. “Proving that I’m responsible!”

“Oh yeah? How?”

“Uhhhh…”

Suddenly, the bushes rustled, and Anne turned her head just in time to see the same blue frog from last night pop up. “There they are!” he called, pointing at Anne and Sprig.

At the blue frog’s signal, more frogs stepped out of the woods, holding torches and pitchforks aloft. They surrounded the two, angry gazes focused on Anne. Someone in the mob shouted “Here come our boys!” but Anne couldn’t tell who.

“What? Stay away from me!” Anne screamed as the frogs shoved her to the ground and tied her with rope, hammering stakes into the ground. In moments, she was securely tied up, unable to move even an inch no matter how hard she tried.

“No, you guys got it all wrong!” Sprig called, but the mob ignored him.

When the frogs surrounding her finally stepped back, a suspiciously familiar orange frog with what appeared to be a magenta ball sitting on his head went to pat Sprig on the back. “Ha-ha!” the frog laughed. “You caught the monster! Sprig, I’m impressed!”

Anne couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Dude, what the heck? You set me up? I thought we were connecting! ”

Sprig stepped back, stammering. “No, no, no. This wasn’t my plan!”

Before he could say anything to explain what his plan had been, a roar caused the entire clearing to fall silent. Anne and every frog in the clearing turned to look at the source of the noise. Anne’s eyes widened in fear as a giant green praying mantis rose out of the bushes.

The fancy leader frog– or toad, considering he was a head taller than everyone else– raised his hand. “Hurry! Everyone!” He raised his hands, then called out. “Mantis formation!”

Anne watched open-mouthed as the frogs clambered on top of one another in a pyramid formation to rival Sasha’s cheer team’s best moves. The frog on top yelled “Hyah!”, and for a moment the mantis seemed to stop and consider. Then a glimpse of motion in the canopy above her caught her eye and she paled. It’s back. It found me.

The orange frog next to Sprig joined in the frogs’ cheering. “We scared it off!” Then the giant red praying mantis that had been chasing Anne all day dropped to the ground, startling everyone in the clearing but Anne herself.

“Nope, that scared it off,” the magenta ball on the orange frog’s head said.

The orange frog agreed. “Yeah, that makes more sense.”

The mantis screeched and swung its arms, knocking the frog-pyramid down. Frogs flew all around the clearing. “It’s gonna eat our guts!” someone called in fear. Everyone scattered.

I’m gonna die here. Anne screamed. “NO!” But a sudden loosening in the ropes binding her caused her to look over and see Sprig rapidly untying the knots. She still couldn’t rid herself of her suspicion, though. “What is this, another trick?”

“I'll distract that thing,” Sprig replied. “You get out of here.” Anne sat up, pulling the remainder of the rope off of her and turning to see Sprig running at the mantis. She turned to see a clear path out of the clearing. If she wanted, she could leave. There was no way the frog people would be able to follow her with the mantis on the loose, and Sprig’s distraction was more than enough for her to get away. She turned and glanced at the mantis again.

Sprig had knelt down in the mud and pulled a slingshot out from somewhere. “Hey!” he called, shooting a rock. He laughed as the stone nailed the giant bug right in its lavender eye. Then he realized that he’d just made it angrier. “Oops.” He screamed as the bug shot its arm down, aiming straight at him. And Anne knew what her decision was.

She reacted fast, throwing herself forward and catching the mantis claw just before it hit the frog boy. She braced herself and pushed it upward, putting herself between it and Sprig. It was taking Anne more effort than she’d thought she could give just to keep the claw from crushing her. She turned to look at Sprig. “ Do something! ” she called, her voice strained with effort.

“Oh, right!” Sprig said. He added something else, but Anne stopped listening, his voice fading away as she focused on keeping the mantis in place. A moment later, Sprig returned, the remains of the rope used to tie Anne up trailing behind him. He hopped around and around the monster, tangling it in rope. He tried pulling the rope once he was done. The mantis strained against the bindings, not quite tied up, but unable to untangle itself.

Anne glanced at the ground, spotting the other end of the rope. She grabbed it and pulled, falling as she put all her energy into it.

The combined strength of Anne and Sprig was enough to pull the rope so hard that the sheer force of the rope pressed the mantis’s limbs to its body and stopped it from moving whatsoever. It screeched, lost balance, and fell over, losing consciousness. Or maybe it was dead. Anne was too tired to care.

The frogs that had fled the clearing popped out of the bushes at the sight of the fallen mantis. “It’s down!” they cheered.

Anne got to her feet. “We did it!” she and Sprig chorused. She raised her hand for a high five. “Up top!”

Sprig stuck his tongue out and it hit her hand before he pulled it back, leaving what looked like frog saliva dripping down her palm. “Oh, boy, that’s gross,” she said in disgust.

The fancy mob leader walked up to them, speaking. “Well, now that that's settled, what the heck are we gonna do with this thing? Maybe we oughta run it out of town just to be safe. Let it be someone else's problem.”

At his words, the villagers took up their torches and pitchforks and started to run at her again. Anne backed away, preparing to flee, but Sprig jumped between her and the mob. “Stop right there!” he yelled. “She's not a monster. She's just lost and needs our help. We should take care of her.” Anne smiled as she realized he’d been telling the truth earlier. He really hadn’t meant to bring the mob to her.

The mob leader scoffed. “Are you crazy?”

“Yeah, what if it goes nutty tomorrow and starts eating people?” the one-eyed blue frog added.

Anne made a face. “Not gonna happen, buddy.”

The old orange frog walked up to them and hugged Sprig. “Don't worry yourselves silly,” he said reassuringly. “I'll keep an eye on 'em, both of 'em.”

“Hmph. Have it your way, Hopediah Plantar, but I don’t like it.” The leader turned and started leading the mob away, taking the mantis with them. “All right, boys, pack it in.”

As the other frogs walked away, Sprig turned to Hop Pop with an ashamed expression. “Looks like I'm back to causing trouble for the family again, huh?” He bent his head as though he was waiting to be scolded.

The orange frog, Hopediah Plantar, smiled. “Trouble? Sprig, standing up to that angry mob to help this creature out was some of the bravest and most responsible stuff I've ever seen!”

“That was pretty cool, Sprig,” the magenta ball added. “It was also really dumb!”

“Yes, really, really dumb,” Hopediah said magnanimously.

Sprig’s eyes widened, and he gasped. “You think I’m responsible?”

While the frogs sorted everything out, Anne pulled her phone out of her pocket. She raised it and waved it around a bit. Still no signal. She tucked her phone back into her pocket and turned around, wondering what the frogs had been talking about. Whatever it was, Sprig had enjoyed it so much that he was currently dancing. She raised an eyebrow, then decided that this was probably just normal behavior for frogs, and turned back to Hopediah. “Welp, this has been great,” she said, getting the three frogs’ attention, “but just give me a map. I’ve gotta find my way out of this kooky place.”

Hopediah reached into his coat. “Oh, a map won’t be enough,” he said. He pulled out a map and unrolled it, revealing a map with the words ‘The Valley’ printed on the corner. “This here valley is surrounded by mountains that are impenetrable this time of year.” 

Sprig looked at Anne. “It should clear up in a couple months,” he added.

Well, that’s kind of reassuring.

Hopediah continued. “But until then, you try to cross those mountains–”

“You will die.” the magenta ball finished.

Okay. Not reassuring.

“Are you telling me I'm stuck in this crazy place for two months?” Anne asked. “Where am I gonna stay?”

“You could stay at home with us,” Sprig answered. “Right, Hop Pop?”

Hop Pop frowned. “Ehhhh…”

“Come on,” Sprig said. “Polly?”

“Leave me out of this,” Polly replied, disinterested.

“Hop Pop, please?” Sprig begged, dropping to his knees. “Come on!”

“Fine, fine. Stand up, boy,” Hop Pop conceded. “So what’s your name?”

“I’m Anne,” Anne said. “Before we go, can we please go get my stuff from the cave I was staying in?”

Hop Pop pulled a cord hanging from the ceiling, turning the lights on in the basement Anne was supposed to sleep in. Anne surveyed the slightly damp room despondently, the bedroll from Hop Pop held under her arm.

“Alrighty. Kitchen's upstairs. Breakfast at sunrise, sharp.” Hop Pop turned and started climbing up the exit ladder.

Anne glanced at him. “Okay, thanks dude,” she said, then turned and walked to the end, depositing the mattress not far from the fireplace. The door suddenly creaked open, and she turned to see Sprig poking his head in from outside. 

“Hey! Gettin' comfy?” he asked, tossing a pile of stuffed animals down into the basement and then sliding down the ladder. ”Brought some toys to keep you company. I'm too old for these. O-oh, except for this one,” he said nervously, holding out a bird with a purple plume of fur. Anne cast him a fond smile as he proceeded to pick up every single toy he’d brought. “Oh, and this one. Oops, this one too. Sorry. This one as well. I'm glad you're livin' with us, monster,” he finally said, arms full of stuffed animals.

Anne put her hands on her hips. “Yeah, me too, weird little frog boy,” she said jokingly.

“Okay,” Sprig said, turning and grabbing the ladder. A toy tumbled down from his arms, landing on the floor. “Good night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” As though as an afterthought, he added, “Seriously, they can drain a body in seconds.” Then he was gone.

Anne shuddered. “Ew.” She turned and sat on the rolled-up mattress, putting her backpack on her lap and unzipping it. She pulled out the music box wrapped in one of her t-shirts and unwrapped it, taking in the shiny surface. She held it up and blew gently to get rid of dust, then closed her eyes and prepared herself to open the lid. “Come on, come on!” she said to herself. She heard the creak of the box flipping open, then opened her eyes and looked at the now open box. Nothing. Anne opened and closed it a few more times just to be sure, then sighed. “Looks like I’m gonna be here for a while.” 

Hop Pop pushed the cart down the aisle, Anne following behind. “Oh, pillbugs are on sale!” Hop Pop said delightedly.

Anne’s eyes widened. “Oooh. That reminds me. I’m gonna go grab some of that beetle jerky I like.” Then her expression turned thoughtful. “Can’t believe I just said that,” she said in surprise. I’m getting way too used to this place.  

“Okay, kiddo. See ya outside,” Hop Pop said distractedly. As Anne turned to walk toward the snack section of the Grub and Go, she heard a loud clatter behind her. She glanced back and saw every single pillbug once on the shelf now in Hop Pop’s cart, except for one that was rolling away. She snickered quietly and kept walking.

When she reached the right aisle, she started scanning the shelves for the beetle jerky. “Hmm. Where is that–'' she mumbled to herself. Finally spotting the canvas pouch with the jerky poking out the top, she grinned. “Aha! Score. And I got the last one!” She reached for it, but just before she touched it, a long lilac tongue snatched it away. She turned to see One-Eyed Wally with the pouch stuck to his tongue, a smug little grin on his face. “Hey! That was totally mine, Wally!”

The blue frog took the pouch in his hands. “Ya snooze, ya lose, scarecrow!” Then he hopped off, guffawing, leaving a fuming Anne in his wake.

“Hey!” Anne called after him. “Don’t call me scarecrow– oof!” Something thudded against her legs, causing her to lose her concentration. She turned to see it was Mrs. Croaker pushing a shopping cart.

“Hey! Move your big behind, scarecrow! Croaker needs her cookies!” For good measure, Mrs. Croaker shoved her shopping cart into Anne’s legs some more. In the cart, Archie chirruped as Anne started walking.

“My behind’s not big, I’m big,” Anne said to herself, frustrated and annoyed. “Technically it’s to scale. Woah!” Before she could say anything else, she’d face-planted into the stone floor, having slipped on a puddle of water.

A small crowd formed around her. “Hey! Didn’t you see the sign, scarecrow?” the janitor said. “Classic, clumsy scarecrow,” Wally added, and everyone laughed.

Anne pushed herself up and flushed red with embarrassment. She got to her feet and started walking, trying to ignore the jeering of the townsfolk.

She walked out the door of the Grub and Go, feeling dejected. She headed over to where Hop Pop, Sprig, and Polly were waiting with Bessie. “So did you get the beetle jerky you–” Sprig’s voice caused her to look up at him, and he frowned at the sight of her sad expression. “What’s wrong?”

Anne sighed. “Well, it's just...I've been here over a month now, and the townspeople still treat me crummy. I just wish they were a little nicer.”

“Oh, that's just the way these frogs are,” Hop Pop said dismissively. “Slow to accept, and even slower to respect. It's actually our town motto.” He gestured to a sign hanging below the ‘Welcome to Wartwood’ archway, and sure enough, that was exactly what it said. “You'll find a way to get their respect, in your own weird Anne way,” Hop Pop finished encouragingly. Anne gave a small smile in response. “Now, who wants pill bug pancakes?”

“Ooh! My favorite.” Anne stopped talking, stunned at the words that came out of her mouth. “I've been here too long.”

She clambered onto Bessie’s shell behind Sprig and Polly, and Bessie began gliding back toward home. As they passed through the town square, they caught a glimpse of an artisan carving a statue. A closer look revealed that it was a giant stone image of Mayor Toadstool kissing a pollywog held aloft by an adoring frog. 

“Well, that statue’s new,” Hop Pop said.

Sprig nodded. “And tasteless. Woof.”

Suddenly, Bessie came to a hard stop in the middle of the road, nearly causing everyone to tumble off. Anne quickly slid off her shell and walked over to her head to try and comfort her. “Woah, woah, girl. Easy. What’s wrong?”

Once Bessie had calmed down, her eyes fixed on something in the distance. Anne turned to see what she was looking at and was startled to see a cart rolling down the road far ahead. Usually, almost nobody came this way.

Several frogs crossing the street turned to see the cart and gasped, then bolted off the road and pressed themselves to the walls in fear. Once the wagon was close enough, Anne could see it was some kind of a cart being pulled by a tarantula. Inside were three toads, each one looking tougher and scarier than the last. They were the first toads she’d seen aside from Mayor Toadstool, and her jaw dropped at their rough, stained armor and the silver badges gleaming on their chests. All the frogs nearby hid from them.

The one in front cracked his neck, making her flinch at how loud the sound was. “Ah! Nothing like cracking your neck after a long drive. Ain't that right?”

Before either of his companions could say anything, Mayor Toadstool and Toadie walked out the door to City Hollow. “Oh, good, you’re here. Toadie, give ‘em the list.” Mayor Toadstool proclaimed. Toadie pulled out a scroll from seemingly nowhere.

“Who are those guys?” Anne asked.

“Toads from Toad Tower,” Hop Pop said. “They rule over the entire valley.”

Anne wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. “Toads from Toad what?”

Sprig leaned down, unrolling the same map Hop Pop had used when she’d first met them. “It's a big, scary tower deep in the swamp and the toads that live there are the valley's fiercest warriors.”

“Woah!” Anne said. “Cool!”

Hop Pop began speaking. “Cool, yes. But they can be a rough sort. It's probably for the best that we all…” Anne stopped listening as Sprig hopped down to the ground next to her. They began walking toward the toads, excited.

Anne and Sprig stood a little away from the cart while the toads were unloading weapons. “Hey, guys!” Sprig said. “So you’re from Toad Tower?”

“Sure are, runt,” the red one said, not looking away from whatever he was doing.

Sprig laughed awkwardly. “My name’s Sprig, actually,” he said.

“Uh-huh. Yeah, sure,” the red toad said, glancing back. Then he jumped. “Whoa! What is that?” He and his two buddies walked closer. “It's some kind of gangly new critter I've never seen before.”

“I wonder what it tastes like,” the green one said with a glint in her eyes.

Sprig pulled out his slingshot. “Woah, hey. She is not for eating.” He drew the band of the slingshot back, ready to shoot. Anne followed his example, pulling out her tennis racket.

“Don’t come any closer,” she warned.

The green one laughed. “Is that a challenge?” She pulled out a spiked club and rushed for Anne, swinging. Anne dodged her first two strikes. The other two toads and Sprig watched openmouthed as she smacked the toad’s face with her tennis racket. When she pulled the racket away, the green toad’s face was crisscrossed with red marks where the strings of her tennis racket had hit.

The red toad started laughing, and the green toad felt her face in awe. “Woah, that was awesome!” she said.

“Well met, creature,” the red toad said. “I don't know what you are, but you've got fire.” He and his friend turned and walked away. Anne grinned with pride.

Beside her, Sprig grumbled something unintelligible.

Hop Pop, Polly, and Bessie came up behind Anne and Sprig. “Okay kids, that’s enough flirting with death,” Hop Pop said. “Let’s head home.”

“Blech, finally. Come on, Anne,” Sprig said, turning and marching toward Bessie.

Anne held back. “I was thinking we could hang out with these guys a little longer. They seem pretty cool.”

“Cool?” Sprig scoffed. “More like smelly. Not to mention creepy.” As if to prove his point, the toad encased entirely in armor turned to face them, his raspy breathing clearly audible even at a distance.

Anne considered Sprig’s words, then something struck her. “Wait a second. Are you jealous I think they're cool?”

Sprig looked almost offended. “No. Ha! If you wanna hang out with some grody toads, Anne, be my guest. No skin off my skin.” He turned and hopped back to Bessie.

“Okay,” Hop Pop conceded. “But don’t dally too long, Anne.”

“I’m eating your pancakes!” Polly called.

Sprig had the last word. “Not jealous!”

“Oh, he jelly,” Anne said smugly. She turned and walked over to the toads. “Hey. I didn't get a chance to ask your–”

“Name’s Bog,” the red toad interrupted, shoving a box of weapons into her arms. “The silent one there is Mire. And Fens you already met.”

“I'm Anne,” Anne said. “What are you guys doing in Wartwood?”

Bog pulled an axe out of the wagon. “Every year, this town sends taxes to the tower. Well, this year, they came up short. So, the Mayor gave us this list of frogs who didn't pay and we're just here to collect.” Bog looked her over. “Say, we could use someone like you.”

“Really?” Anne asked, grinning.

“Yeah,” Bog said. “You've got inside knowledge of this town. It'll make the whole job go a lot smoother.” He pulled a shiny badge just like the ones he and his friends wore and held it out invitingly.

Anne awkwardly looked away. “Oh. Um...I don't know. I'm not sure any of this is my business.”

“You know,” Bog added, “the best part of wearing this badge is how everyone in this town will have to treat you with respect.

Anne dropped the box of weapons. “Gimme that ding-dang thing!”

Anne shoved open the door to the Plantar house. “Guess who became a Toad Tower deputy!” she crowed.

Sprig, Polly, and Hop Pop all gasped. “What?”

“Also, check out this cool sword Bog gave me.” She pulled it out of the scabbard and gave it an experimental swing, accidentally slicing the coat hanger by the door. The top of it slid off, dropping to the ground. “I can fix that,” she said quickly.

“Anne, when I said earn the town's respect, I didn't mean join a gang,” Hop Pop said gently, sounding slightly concerned.

Anne scoffed. “I don't believe this. They're not a gang. They're just here to do a job. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some respect to enjoy.” She turned and stalked out of the house, hurt. She heard the sound of the window opening, but nobody called after her.

“You done here?” Bog asked, seeing her walking down the path.

Anne nodded glumly. “Yeah. Who are we going to first?”

Fens squinted at the list. “Some frog named One-Eyed Wally? Anne, where does he live?”

“He has a shack on the edge of town,” Anne said. “Here, I’ll show you.”

They spent a few minutes traveling on the toads’ tarantula-pulled cart, finally stopping in front of a quaint shack in the woods. “All right, first name on the list,” Bog said delightedly.

“So, how does this work?” Anne asked. “Do we remind Wally how much he owes or–”

Before she could finish, Bog kicked open the door. Inside the house, a bathing Wally abruptly stopped singing and screamed. “Jumping June bugs!” he called. “What’s all this about?”

Bog chuckled.

“I, uh, guess you owe the town money?” Anne said from behind the group.

“Rubbish,” Wally said. “I may live in squalor, but I always pay my taxes.”

“The mayor's list says otherwise,” Bog replied. “And since you haven't paid, we'll be taking your stuff.”

Wally whimpered as Fens drew closer. He offered his scrubbing brush, and Fens snatched it from his hands, grinning.

The toads trashed the house, grabbing everything they could carry and shoving it outside. “Here you go, Anne. Little something extra for you.” Bog handed her the bag of beetle jerky she and Wally had fought over earlier. 

When she didn’t take it, he shoved it at her, and Anne had no choice but to reach up and hold it before it fell. “Oof! Bog, this seems a little extreme,” she said nervously.

“It's just the way we do things here,” Bog replied. “Plus, it's not like we enjoy it. Now who wants to race to the next house?” he added, immediately contradicting himself. Mire and Fens raced out after him, Mire shoving Wally’s stuff out the door and Fens playing with Wally’s accordion.

Anne glanced at Wally. The poor blue frog looked dejected and heartbroken, slumped over in the tub. Anne felt so bad. She’d caused his sadness.

Well, it was mostly Bog and his cronies. But still.

She held out the bag of beetle jerky to Wally. “Here, take this back.” Before she or Wally could say anything else, Bog called, startling her. “Come on, Anne!”

“Comin’!” she yelled back, then slowly walked away.

Wally looked down at the beetle jerky he held. “Thanks,” he said quietly.

Sprig peered through his binoculars, watching the tax collectors walk out of Wally’s house with an armload of random junk. The red toad turned and yelled something, and Anne came jogging out of the house.

“That’s weird,” Sprig mumbled to himself once the cart started moving. “Wally always pays his taxes.”

“Come on.”

Sprig dropped his binoculars in shock at the sudden voice. He glanced around for a place to hide before diving into the bush he had been hiding behind, hoping the rudimentary disguise would keep whoever was coming from finding him. Especially if it was the tax collectors.

“Come on, Toadie. While the townsfolk are preoccupied.”

He breathed a quiet sigh of relief once he realized it was just Mayor Toadstool and Toadie. Though… Why are they in the woods? he wondered. He turned in the bush until he was facing the gap between the foliage and the ground. Toadstool walked past, gold cane periodically thumping the ground, while Toadie followed behind, straining under the weight of a bag that sounded like it was full of bells.

What are they… Sprig’s unspoken question was answered when a single copper coin slipped from Toadie’s bag and bounced on the grassy ground, rolling until it came to a stop in front of Sprig’s hidey-hole. He reached out and picked up the coin, inspecting it. “A copper coin? The mayor? A hole? In the bag? Hmm…” He was starting to have an idea about where all the taxes went. 

Toadie rounded a tree, and Sprig stood up once he realized that if he didn’t hurry, he was going to lose them. He glanced at the tax collector cart in the distance. “I hope you’ll be okay, Anne,” he murmured, then put on his most determined face and hopped after the mayor and Toadie.

The toads ransacked every single house they visited. Anne followed with a growing sense of unease as Bog, Fens, and Mire gleefully took prized possessions from every single one of the townsfolk. She did her best to return at least one thing to everyone the toads hit.

Anne hefted the heavy grandfather clock up and walked outside of Mrs. Croaker’s farmhouse, looking for a place to put it down. “I don't know, guys,” she told Bog, dumping the clock onto the cart. “This whole thing feels wrong.”

Bog shrugged. “The law’s the law, Anne. It can be tough, but this kind of work needs to get done.”

Fens hopped off the cart, some kind of snack in hand. She shoved a handful of something crunchy into her mouth, then spoke, her voice muffled. “Yeah. Needs to get done. Stuff, gotta get it done.”

“…Are you sure you’re supposed to take this much stuff? From everyone ? Doesn’t that seem kinda…” She paused, not sure what it seemed like..

Bog’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What were you going to say?”

Anne stiffened. “Never mind. Uh, who’s next on the list?”

Bog lifted up the list and peered at it. “Eh…” he said, reading the names they’d already been to. “Some nut named Hopediah Plantar.”

“Oh, crud,” Anne said, her eyes widening. Not Hop Pop. She walked over to the red toad, who was absentmindedly picking at his teeth. “Bog, that list has to be wrong. I know that frog. He’s totally honest.”

“Anne,” Bog admonished, rolling up the list and tucking it away. “The tower didn't get any taxes, okay?” He threw his hands into the air to embellish his point. “And if we didn't get the money, then where is it?”

“I don’t know,” Anne replied, shrugging helplessly. “But Hop Pop paid his taxes. I know that for sure.”

“Look, this is the way it’s gotta be, Anne. Maybe the frog lied to you. Okay? We have to get moving.”. 

Anne sighed. Bog’s instant dismissal was starting to feel a little familiar. She needed to think of a way to convince him somehow, but for now, she gave in. “Okay, let’s go.”

Sprig watched Mayor Toadstool and Toadie hurry into the town square, disappearing behind a curtain around the new statue. He crept closer, standing just on the other side of the curtain when Mayor Toadstool’s voice filled the air. “It's flawless, Toadie. The perfect plan. Who would think to look for the missing taxes in plain sight?”

He wasn’t making any effort to be quiet, Sprig noticed with amusement.

But never mind that. Sprig’s theory was right. Mayor Toadstool had stolen the town’s taxes and left the townspeople to be punished in his stead.

“Quicky now,” Toadstool continued, catching Sprig’s attention. “Let’s skedaddle before anyone notices–”

That was his cue. Sprig pushed back the curtain and stepped past. “The taxes! You fiends! Everyone's gonna be furious when they find out about this!”

Toadstool gave a smirk. “Well, then it’s a good thing you’ll never get to tell them.” The mayor lunged for Sprig, but he’d anticipated that well in advance, and was fully ready to make his escape. 

Sprig launched himself into the air, slipping through Toadstool’s fingers and somersaulting in midair. Toadstool barely had any time to fully appreciate the acrobatics, though, because Sprig had already bounced off Toadie’s head and used the extra momentum to sail straight over the curtain. “Well, ya gotta catch me first!” he crowed, then blew a raspberry at Toadstool.

The toad growled. “Hey! Get after him!” he called, crashing straight through the curtain and sending it toppling on Toadie. Sprig allowed himself a moment to grin before hopping as fast as he could away from the mayor. He needed to find Anne and the tax collectors.

The sky rumbled threateningly above as Bog, Anne, Fens, and Mire disembarked from the tarantula cart parked in front of the Plantars’ house. Anne could see Hop Pop and Polly through the window, but there was no sign of Sprig. She decided not to think about it; maybe he was somewhere else in the house.

Bog walked up to the door and knocked, then stepped back as Hop Pop opened it, Polly sitting on his head. He stopped and gulped upon seeing the tax collectors. “Anything I can help you with?”

Bog cleared his throat. “Hopediah Plantar, you owe the Tower your tax money. So pay up.”

“Now what’s all this about? I paid my taxes. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Polly nodded. “Yeah, go away!”

“Guys, wait–” Anne said.

“Get out of the way,” Bog told Hop Pop. He held his hand up to stop Fens and Mire from stepping forward. “You didn’t pay, so we need to take your stuff to make up for it.”

“Like I said, I already paid my dang taxes.” Hop Pop threw his hands up to block the door from the toads. “You can't come in here, and that's final.” On his head, Polly glared at the tax collectors.

Bog put his hands on his hips. “I don't like your tone, frog. Or did you forget who you're talking to?”

Anne looked at Bog. “Bog, I am telling you, he paid his taxes. He... He made me watch.” 

For a moment, she remembered what Hop Pop had said. The words “Guess what, Anne? You’re a deductible!” would forever be stuck in her mind, cemented in her memory for all eternity. She shuddered.

Bog threw his hands up in frustration. “Anne, they all say they've paid! I don't care what you think you saw. The list don't lie.” He glanced to the side in delight. “Now, what should we start with?”

“Well, how about that thing?” Fens pointed at Bessie, who looked up from her meal and chirped at them in confusion.

Hop Pop was shaking from barely restrained fury. “You stay away from her!” Polly puffed herself up and added, “I’ll bite your face off!”

Ignoring the two frogs, Bog said, “Good choice. That snail should cover everything. Mire, Fens, Anne, move out.”

Mire and Fens started walking forward, but Anne didn’t move. She watched as Fens and Mire surrounded Bessie, the snail chirping fearfully at the toads. 

Was respect worth losing Bessie? Losing the Plantars? The toads were going to take away someone Anne loved and she wasn’t doing anything to stop it. What would Sasha do?

“ You monsters! ” Hop Pop called fearfully.

The whole thing was so frustratingly familiar. She looked around, wishing she’d never been transported to this strange new world in the first place. At least if she was back home, this would have never happened. She wouldn’t have had to commit crimes to earn anybody’s respect. Or steal from innocent people…

Oh.

Anne clenched her fists, desperately trying not to think about how she’d stolen things like scrunchies and candy from stores. Or how she’d skipped school on her birthday. The graffiti, stealing coins from the arcade, robbing a store of a shopping cart and nearly running over pedestrians… Well, that was different, wasn’t it? After all, it was for Sasha. That was what friendship meant, right? Doing things you didn’t want to do so that you could make someone else happy.

Sasha . Sasha always did these kinds of things, somehow landing Anne in trouble just so that Sasha could get what she wanted. For a brief second, she wondered if Luz had been right about everything, if she should have just said no for once-

She decided to put that thought to rest, turning to the toads instead. She’d done all of their dirty work with them, and for what ? She recalled Hop Pop’s stricken expression. That wasn’t respect at all. That was fear. Everyone she’d grown to care about in Wartwood was now scared of her , and she didn’t want any of it.

She took a deep breath. “Stop!”

Fens’s hand froze inches away from Bessie’s neck. She and Mire turned to face Anne, who glared at them. “You keep your claws off that snail. Better yet…,” she continued, walking over to stand beside Hop Pop, “get off our property.” She stomped her foot for good measure, hands on her hips as she drew herself to her full height.

There was a clap of thunder, then the rain began to fall. Light at first, then heavier until it was a steady pour.

“Care to repeat that?” Bog almost snarled, water dripping down his face.

“I said, get lost, ” Anne repeated as lightning flashed somewhere behind her. “ Now. ”

The Wartwoodians started trickling in to watch the conflict, whispering to each other. 

Wally said, “Oh, she’s brave.” 

“What did she just say?” Mrs. Croaker asked.

Anne didn’t let their sudden appearance distract her, glancing down at her sash and ripping the badge off. “All I wanted was this town's respect.” She looked at herself in the shiny surface of the badge, the silver metal gleaming innocently. “But just because these people treated me crummy doesn't mean I'm going to do the same to them.” She looked up and stared at Bog, directing her words to him. “I'm done with this. I don't care if they've broken the law.” She tore off the shoulder pad, tossing it to the side. “You can't treat people like this !” She flung the badge into the mud, staining it greenish-brown.

Bog’s eyes widened, and then he glowered and snapped his fingers. Anne felt something shove her face down into the mud. She started to get to her feet, but a sudden weight on her back had her immobile. She glared at Bog.

“Anne!” Hop Pop called. She heard the clang of something metal, then the sounds of struggle. “Hey! Let me go!” Polly called, Hop Pop echoing her words.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. How disappointing.” A smirking Bog walked up to Anne, his hands hidden behind his back. “Do you know what we do to traitors in the tower, Anne?” He pulled a giant metal warhammer out from behind his back, getting ready to swing, and Anne’s eyes widened in fear.

Fens cackled. “You’re about to become a pillbug pancake, you little brat,” she said excitedly.

Anne turned and glared at her. “Your foot’s about to be a pancake.” Then she pushed off the ground, grunting as she used her momentum to slide out from under Fens’s foot. A moment later, Bog’s warhammer came down. Fens yowled in pain as her toes were crushed under its head.

Anne rolled herself away from the toads and quickly got to her feet, pulling out her trusty tennis racket and the toad sword. She held one in each hand, then waited. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed, and the tax collectors glowered.

Fens predictably pulled out her spiked club and rushed straight for Anne. She blocked it with her sword and stepped out from the side, Fens’s extra momentum sending her tumbling right past Anne and into the mud. Anne felt a prickle on the back of her neck and turned around just in time to block Bog’s warhammer with her tennis racket and her sword. She strained against the force, but the toad cackled and hit her weapons right out of her hand. They tumbled through the air, clattering to the ground behind Fens.

“No!” Anne reached out desperately, but before she could do more than take a step forward, she saw Fens rushing towards her with the spiked club. And this time she couldn’t do anything about it. She raised her hand to try and shield her face and– 

Pain. It felt like fire coursing through her veins as Fens’s club smashed into her forearm. She stumbled back, collapsing to the ground as she clutched her arm in a futile attempt to numb the pain. Her vision swam. Where’s Sprig?

She looked up, teeth gritted to prevent a cry, and sat helplessly as Fens and Bog closed in around her, weapons raised and grinning with excitement. Bog laughed. “Sorry, creature, it’s just business,” he said, raising the hammer again. But before he could swing, mud splashed in his face. “What the–”

Sprig hopped out of the forest, slingshot in hand. “You leave her alone!” He pulled back his slingshot, readying another shot.

The townsfolk closed in, echoing Sprig’s words. “Yeah, you leave our Anne alone,” Wally agreed.

“She’s one of us.”

“If you got a problem with her, you got a problem with all of us.” 

The rain slowed to a stop as the Wartwoodians raised weapons, ready to fight, and Fens and Bog finally surrendered. They dropped their weapons, watching all the frogs around them in fear. As Hop Pop and Polly struggled against Mire’s grip, the visor on his helmet swung open and he squealed. He let go of Hop Pop and Polly, who immediately tore away, heading towards Anne.

“Anne!” Sprig immediately rushed to her side, dropping his slingshot. Polly hopped over and settled in her hair, and Hop Pop followed closely behind, a smile on his face.

“Hey, what took you so long?” Anne asked.

“Sorry, I got tied up.” 

He glanced back and frowned as Mayor Toadstool came jogging out of the forest, huffing. “Oh, boy. Gotta cut back on them cricket nuggets. Whoo!” Toadie collapsed face-down beside him.

Sprig pointed at Toadstool. “Arrest that toad. He stole the town's money and was keeping it all for himself.”

Everyone gasped.

Toadstool looked up and realized he’d stumbled into the entire town . “Oh boy,” he chuckled nervously. “Uh, you don’t have proof! How do you know I took the taxes?”

“Ha! I do have proof!” Sprig dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out a single copper. “This fell out of the bag Toadie was carrying! And I followed you so I know where you hid the money.”

Realizing he’d been backed into a corner, Toadstool raised his hands nervously. “Well, uh…”

“There’s an easy way to settle this,” Bog said, putting his hands up in surrender as every single Wartwoodian in the clearing leveled a glare on him. “Just show us where the tax money is.”

“Let’s go, then!” Sprig got to his feet and held out a hand for Anne. “We’ve got a bit of a walk ahead of us.” As they started to move, the skies began to clear, sunlight starting to filter through the trees.

“It’s in the statue,” Sprig said as the crowd started to spill into the town square. He led the tax collectors to the statue of Toadstool, circling until he was standing behind it. He put his foot on the pedestal. “May I?”

Bog dropped his warhammer into Sprig’s arms and he grunted, his hands yanked down by the sudden weight. “I think you should do the honors,” he said, voice straining as he lifted the warhammer and offered it back to Bog.

The toad wasted no time and immediately swung it into the statue. It cracked, then shattered. The hidden stash of coppers started to spill out, the waterfall of coins causing a deafening clatter. Everyone gasped.

“No-good son of a slug!” Mrs. Croaker called.

Toadstool backed away. “People, I needed the extra money for my campaign. Do you have any idea how much it costs to buy your love?” A melon soared through the air, splattering against the building behind the mayor. He chuckled nervously. “Uh... And as mayor, I hereby pardon myself of any wrongdoing. Thank you. Good day.” He turned and ran off, a barrage of rotten produce and insults following in his wake.

Hop Pop tapped on Anne’s shoulder. “Now that that’s all over, what do you say we get that arm of yours wrapped up?”

Anne struggled to lift Mrs. Croaker’s grandfather clock off the cart with her hand wrapped in a cast. Before it fell, Hop Pop, Polly, and Sprig were all there to help her. Together they all managed to set it on the ground.

Bog walked past, addressing Anne. “If it was respect you were looking for, you sure lost mine. You've a lot of nerve, I'll give you that.” He laughed. “We'll be back, Anne, and we won't be alone.” He lifted the bag of tax money into the tarantula cart, then picked up the reins and got into the driver seat.

“She don’t need your respect,” Hop Pop said.

Wally nodded. “Yeah! She’s got ours!”

The townsfolk started to clamor, and Bog tugged on the reins. The tax collectors started to move, soon going out of sight.

“Three cheers for Anne, defender of Wartwood!” Wally called. The townsfolk started to cheer, and Anne smiled, touched.

“Aw, thanks, guys.” Tears pooled in her eyes, and she sniffled and wiped them away, then raised her bandaged arm. “Now who wants to sign my cast?”

“Me, me, me! I’m her best friend!” Sprig called.

“Out of the way, you plebes,” Polly retorted.

Wally laughed. “Oi! I can’t write!”

Anne sat in her room that night, inspecting the many signatures she got on her cast. It was so covered with ink that the original white was barely visible, and she smiled as she read through the many names written on it.

She sighed and lay down on the mattress. She closed her eyes, but a moment later looked up as the trapdoor to the basement creaked open. “Uh, Anne? You awake?” It was Sprig.

Anne sat up. “Yeah, I’m awake,” she said. “What happened?”

“Nothing, just checking up on you.” Sprig hopped down the stairs and stood beside her. “Are you still sore?”

She nodded. “Just a bit,” she said, an uncomfortable twinge going down her neck as she twisted to look at him. Then she sighed. “Maybe she was right,” she admitted quietly.

“Who? The toad?”

Anne giggled. “No! My friend, Luz. You remember her, right?”

Sprig thought for a moment. “Uh, the spiky-haired one?”

“Spiky-haired–?” Anne glanced at her picture, squinting and tilting her head to the side. “Huh, maybe her hair does look a bit spiky. But yeah, her.”

“Okay, so what was she right about?”

“I think she was right about Sasha.”

Sprig cocked his head. “What did Luz say about Sasha?”

“Well, back home…” Anne recounted the entire thing to Sprig, from the talk she’d had with Luz and Marcy to the moment right before they’d left home. “So, yeah, I think she’s right. About some of it, at least.”

“Oh, wow,” Sprig said. “That’s a lot.”

“The whole time I was with the toads…” Anne looked away. “It felt kind of familiar. Then I realized it was because Sasha used to do the same thing, and–”

“Wait,” Sprig interrupted. “Your friend used to take stuff from innocent people because they didn’t pay their taxes?”

Anne laughed. “Well, no, not the same thing,” she conceded. “But it was sort of similar. She’d see something of mine that she liked, and she’d ask for it, and I’d have to give it to her because she was my friend and that was what friends did.” And she convinced Marcy and me to steal stuff, and she broke the rules and got off scot-free, and– Anne cut her thoughts off.

“Oh, yeah, you were saying that at the lake,” Sprig recalled. “I thought that was kind of suspicious.”

“Yeah, I should have listened to you. Anyway, it got to a point where I literally couldn’t say no to her. Luz pointed that out, and I refused to believe her. But she was right about that. Not her trying to make me just do things her way,” she hastily added. “She listens to me! I think. But never mind that.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

Anne thought for a moment. “I think I have to find Luz and Marcy and apologize,” she said. “If they’re here somewhere. I don’t know.” She hugged her knees close to her chest.

“That sounds like a good idea,” Sprig said, then yawned and rubbed his eyes. “What else?”

“You should go to sleep, dude,” Anne said, giving him a fond smile. “You look like you’re going to collapse.”

“Just a bit,” Sprig said, then closed his eyes. “You’re right, maybe I should go to bed.”

“Good night, Sprig.”

“Good night, Anne.” He turned and walked up the stairs, the trapdoor shutting behind him with a gentle thud .

Anne sat down on a bench, quietly listening to the cheery Wartwood music. She tapped her finger to the beat and watched as frogs danced and laughed and talked, enjoying the party.

Sprig hopped over and took a seat beside her. “You good?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Anne replied, picking at the ‘Frog of the Year’ sash she wore. “Still feel a little bad, I guess.”

“You shouldn’t!” Sprig threw his hands in the air to emphasize his point. “You just got carried away, that’s all. Nothing for it.”

“Thanks, dude. Sorry I tried to rush you into confessing your love to Ivy. You do that when you're good and ready.”

“Thanks, Anne. When the moment strikes, I'll know it.” He turned and his eyes widened as Ivy walked over.

“Hey, Sprig. There's something I've, uh, been meaning... to ask you,” Ivy said, looking away nervously. “I, uh... Do you, um…” She cleared her throat and squeezed her eyes shut. “Do you think you'd wanna go out with me sometime?” She opened one eye hesitantly, watching his reaction.

Sprig gasped, and Anne squealed.

Ivy’s entire face turned purple in embarrassment, and she tugged her beanie over her eyes. “Never mind, I’m stupid. This is stupid. This is stupid.” She turned to walk away.

Sprig bounced off the table, practically floating. “Ivy, wait! I’d love to.” He pulled his own hat down over his eyes. “Mlep!”

Ivy gave a small smile, blushing again.

“Wanna dance?” Sprig asked.

“Heck yeah!” The two ran off, excited.

Anne giggled at the adorable display. Then a voice caught her attention. “Ahem! Miss Frog of the Year?” She turned to see Toadie walking up. “There's someone waiting at the bridge for you. They say they're a friend.”

The wind picked up, and Anne raised an eyebrow. “...A friend?” 

She got up and weaved her way through the party, curious. It took only a moment before she was walking out of the town, toward the bridge. Fireflies lit up the night, giving the whole place an ethereal glow.

Anne squinted, and she could just barely make out a silhouetted figure waiting on the bridge, facing away from Wartwood. They turned, and then lowered their hood. “Anne?”

Anne’s eyes widened, and she grinned. “Sasha?”

Both girls screamed, Sasha fanning her face. “Oh my gosh! I can’t believe it’s you!” Anne said as they rushed toward each other, laughing and hugging.

When they finally separated, Anne stepped back with her hands on Sasha’s shoulders. “Oh, my gosh. You're here too? I wasn't sure. I woke up all alone and…” She gasped. “Are Marcy and Luz with you? Where have you been? I've missed you so much!”

Sasha giggled. “I'll fill you in later. For now, I'm just glad I found you. We came as soon as we heard.”

Anne tilted her head, confused. “‘We?’”

Sasha nodded, gesturing to someone behind her. “Yup. Just me and some friends of mine.”

A firefly darted past someone standing imposingly in the distance, and a tongue reached out and caught it, chewing. Their eyes opened, and they grinned menacingly. “Nice to finally meet you, Anne Boonchuy.” A whole army of toads opened their eyes, each one glowing faintly in the dim lighting.

She watched openmouthed as the toads filed past, flooding into Wartwood. The Wartwoodians started to scream, spurring Anne into action. “Sasha! The toads! I gotta go help my fr–” She was abruptly pulled back.

“Chill out, Anne. They're with me,” Sasha reassured her. 

Anne’s eyes widened. “Wait, what?”

Before Sasha could answer, Anne heard Sprig calling her name. “Anne, Anne, Anne, Anne, Anne, Anne!” The Plantars rushed up to them, Sprig holding Polly aloft. He set her down when they came to a stop. “Toads! They're everywhere. We barely slipped out while the guards were–”

Polly interrupted him. “Holy toot! Another Anne!”

“Oh.” Anne chuckled. “Guys, meet my bestie from back home, Sasha!” She stepped to the side.

“Hey,” Sasha said.

“Sasha, meet the Plantars,” Anne continued. “This is Hop Pop.”

Hop Pop shrugged. “Eh.”

“Sprig.”

Sprig coughed. “Uh, hey…”

“And Polly.”

“‘Sup.”

“Nice to meet ya. Sasha, was it?” Hop Pop said. “Now, can someone please tell me why there's a toad army invading Wartwood?!” He pointed at the town, a deep frown on his face.

“You’re Hop Pop? Thought you’d be taller,” Sasha muttered thoughtfully, ignoring Hop Pop’s question.

“Huh?”

“Relax, we're not invading anything.” Sasha waved off his concern. “Come on, Anne. You too, frogs. We don't want to keep Grime waiting.” She started walking off in the direction of Wartwood, expecting everyone to follow her.

“Captain Grime?” Hop Pop exclaimed.

Sprig clapped his hands over his ears. “The cruelest toad soldier of all time?”

“Here?” Polly finished.

“Ah, he’s not so bad once you get used to him,” Sasha said dismissively. “Now hurry up, nerds.”

Anne chuckled nervously. “She’s persuasive, right?” Then she started following Sasha, the Plantars trailing after. Sprig leapt onto her shoulder.

“Anne? Is this the friend you told me about, after the incident with the tax collectors?”

Anne froze. “Uhh… yeah?”

"Anne, seriously! I mean, you haven't been away from her for that long. It's not like she's an entirely new person! What if she's just doing the same thing she did before you came here?" Sprig looked at Anne, desperately hoping she could understand the importance of the situation. "You said that your other friend was right about all of that, remember?"

Anne looked away. She wanted to ignore Sprig, or disregard what he'd said, or at the very least, come up with some sort of logical, cohesive argument that would put Sprig's fears to rest. Somehow, though, she couldn’t find any way to prove Sprig wrong. She looked at Sasha again, realizing she’d fallen right into the same routine she’d always had with her, always deferring to Sasha, always believing her over everyone else. She sighed. “Okay, look,” she said, starting to walk again, “let’s keep an eye out, okay? But I trust her. Maybe she just didn’t realize what she was doing. I'm not going to accuse her right out of the gate, okay? She's my best friend, and we're seeing each other for the first time in months. Seriously, Sprig, don't be mean to her.”

“Okay…” Sprig said as they walked into the town square. “I can do that.” He raised his hand in a salute, then gasped. The toads had herded all of the Wartwoodians into a spot by a wall, and they surrounded the townsfolk, keeping them from going anywhere.

“Anne, put the frog down and come up here,” Sasha said from the top of the wall, where she was standing beside an imposing toad who Anne assumed was Captain Grime.

“Remember to keep an eye out,” Sprig whispered in her ear. Then he hopped to the ground, looking slightly nervous, though he was trying his best not to show it. Anne picked her way through the crowd, eventually clambering onto the stone wall to stand beside Sasha.

“Frogs of Wartwood! We toads have come here to…” He stammered, and Anne caught sight of the Plantars standing nervously in the crowd. “Invite you to a banquet!” Grime finished, pulling out confetti from his coat and tossing it. It gently rained down on the heads of the frogs closest to the wall, settling on top of their heads and on the ground. Nobody moved.

A toad in the crowd blew a party horn and dumped confetti onto a pollywog sitting beside him.

“The moment we heard that Anne was here,” Captain Grime continued, “we rushed over to reunite these two friends and hold a celebration.”

Sasha and Anne smiled at each other at his words. “Aww, come here,” Sasha said, spreading her arms wide. They embraced, and the Wartwoodians let out a collective ‘aww’.

Hop Pop, Sprig, and Polly, however, were still tense. “Really?” Hop Pop asked skeptically.

“Yes,” Captain Grime replied. “Despite my rough exterior, I really am just an “old softy”. He made air quotes, dragging out the words. Sasha cleared her throat and gave a small grin, and Grime followed her example, baring his teeth. The crowd gasped, and a young pollywog started to cry.

Probably sensing Grime’s speech was going nowhere, Sasha shoved him aside and took his place. “Uh, so what do you say, Wartwood? You ready to party back at the tower?”

A frog croaked, breaking the dead silence. “What does Anne think?” Mrs. Croaker asked.

Anne thought about it. “Uh… Sasha’s been my friend since kindergarten. If she says it’s fine, it’s fine.” Probably , she added in her head. 

Before she could say anything else, Sasha leaned on her, causing her to get distracted trying not to fall off the wall. “Whoo!” Sasha cheered. “All aboard the party barge!”

The toads began showing the townsfolk to a giant wheeled barge decorated with flashing lights and streamers. Anne and the Plantars moved to follow, but Sasha stepped in. “Psst, Anne, you’re with me.” She pointed to the most opulent carriage any of them had ever seen, green with gold trim and heart-shaped windows. It was pulled by a giant spider wearing sunglasses. The spider tipped its glasses at them.

“Wow, cool,” Anne said.”Hey, mind if the, uh, Plantars come along?” 

Hop Pop, Sprig, and Polly all grinned.

Sasha watched them wordlessly, an unreadable expression on her face. Then she smiled. “Of course, I don't mind. The more, the merrier!”

The Plantars cheered. “First class!” Hop Pop called.

“I call window seat,” Sprig said eagerly.

Polly hopped ahead. “No, me! No, me!”

They rushed inside of the carriage, and Hop Pop’s voice came filtering out through the windows. “Kids, stop pushing! Ow!” Then the sound of shattering glass.

Anne giggled. “They’re fun.”

Sasha coughed awkwardly. “Yeah…” she said, sounding irritable.

“You two comin’ or not?” Hop Pop shoved the door to the carriage open again. “By the way, sorry, but we accidentally dropped a glass. Hope you don’t mind!”

Once the carriage had pulled to a stop, Sasha shoved the door open and stepped out. Anne followed. “So, here we are,” Sasha said, gesturing to the imposing tower standing in front of them.

The tower was the most terrifying place Anne had ever seen, but she kept that to herself. “Ominous,” she said instead, hoping that didn’t sound like an insult.

“Oh, Percy,” Sasha called in a sing-song voice. 

A yellow-green toad wearing a helmet that looked much too small for him walked up, saluting. “Yes, commander?”

Sasha put her hand on Anne’s shoulder. “I’m gonna give Anne a quick tour. Escort these frogs to the banquet hall.”

“Hey, I wanna go on the tour too,” Sprig said, waving his arms in the air, though Anne was sure his reasoning was less about curiosity and more about worry.

Polly gasped. “Me three!” She bounced up and down, excited.

“Come on, kids,” Hop Pop said. “Give Anne and her friend a chance to catch up.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll find you guys later,” Anne reassured them. “Go have fun in there.”

Sprig groaned. “We’ll try.” He gave Anne a meaningful look. “Be careful.” Then he, Polly, and Hop Pop followed Percy into the tower.

Once they were gone, Sasha raised her eyebrow at Anne. “You certainly seem close with those three,” she said. “What happened to ‘Ew, frogs are the worst’?”

“They’re actually pretty great once you get to know them,” Anne replied, chuckling. “I’ve been living in their basement since I got here.”

Sasha’s eyes widened. “A basement? Yuck!” Then she grinned. “Follow me. I’m gonna show you something crazy.” She started walking off, and Anne followed.

A few minutes later, Sasha was standing in front of a pair of double doors. She pushed them open with a proud, almost smug grin. “This is where I’ve been living.”

Anne gasped. “Hoopa de boopa! Woah!” The room was well lit and surprisingly cozy, with statues of Sasha and Captain Grime, paintings, sofas, plushies, and everything else anyone could ever want in a bedroom. There was even a dining table with a throne-like chair.

“Yo, Brunton,” Sasha called, snapping her fingers.

A toad that looked an awful lot like Stumpy if he was a toad came walking over. “ Oui , Commander?” he asked in the thickest French accent Anne had ever heard outside of TV, arms crossed behind his back and his stained apron on full display.

“Bring us the usual,” Sasha said. Brunton nodded and left the room, soon emerging with several other toads carrying silver-domed platter after silver-domed platter. The toads set the food on the dining table, and Sasha steered Anne over to the chair.

“Pizza? Tacos? Hamburgers?” Anne named each item as she saw it. She gasped as she saw a familiar red condiment. “Woah, you’ve got ketchup?” She glanced straight ahead with a thousand-yard stare. “It just occurred to me that I’ve been eating bugs for a month.” She reached for anything on the table and started stuffing it into her mouth, hungry for the familiar cuisine of home.

“Anything else, Commander?” Brunton asked.

“Run the hot water, please. For the shower.”

Anne looked up. “Shower?!”

Anne sat on Sasha’s couch, wearing a bathrobe, her hair in curlers, feeling the cleanest she’d felt since arriving in Amphibia. “Wow, Sash, this is so surreal,” Anne said. “I can’t believe you’re really here.” She took a sip of her hot cocoa.

Sasha stirred her own glass mindlessly. “I know, right?” She sighed. “And once this is over, we can finally find a way out of this crummy, gross world.”

Anne put her cup down. “Once… what’s over?” she asked, starting to get a sinking feeling in her stomach.

“Oh, the rebellion,” Sasha said nonchalantly.

She chuckled. “The what now?”

Sasha’s eyes widened. “You don’t know about the rebellion?” She set her cup of hot cocoa to the side. “Look, I’ll explain. Just promise not to freak out or anything.”

“O…kay,” Anne said hesitantly. Sasha only told her not to freak out when she was about to say something that would absolutely cause Anne to freak out.

Sasha walked over to a map of Amphibia on the far wall. “So, you’ve probably already noticed that the toads in this valley have one job: to rule over the frogs.” A small grin spread over her face at the words. “And lately, those frogs have been stepping outta line.”

Anne’s mouth fell open. Sasha walked back to the coffee table right in front of the couch.

“It turns out these “rebels” have been inspired by a certain frog.” She picked up a scroll lying on the coffee table. “You might just know him. Stood up to some tax collectors, even ran for mayor against the local toad.” She held out the scroll and unrolled it, revealing a blue and red poster of Hop Pop posing dramatically, the words ‘Freedom Frog’ emblazoned on the top and bottom.

Anne spit out her hot cocoa, then coughed. “What? Hop Pop’s not a revolutionary!” She threw her arms out to the side to emphasize her point.

“Doesn’t matter,” Sasha said, tossing a bunch of newspapers onto the coffee table. All of them had pictures of Hop Pop or of frogs rebelling in his name. “Word has traveled like wildfire, and we've got to make an example out of him.” She walked over to the window, Anne following in her wake. “So, the toads are just gonna feed him to that thing.”

Down in the courtyard, Captain Grime and several guards wrestled with a giant, angry venus flytrap. Anne gasped in fear. She had to warn Hop Pop and get him out of here.

“Okay, here's the thing,” Sasha continued. “I struck a deal with Grime. I'd help him capture Hop Pop and crush the rebellion, and Grime and his army will help us find a way home. The whole banquet trick– My idea, obvi.” Her obvious pride in her plan to kill Anne’s adoptive grandfather made Anne sick to her stomach. “Now we've got those slimy frogs right where we want them. Isn't this great?”

Anne glanced at the door out of the corner of her eyes, then started walking towards them, not turning away from Sasha. “Uh, I have to, uh… go to the roomrest– uh, the restroom.” She laughed awkwardly, then bumped into the stone bust of Sasha, barely managing to catch it and set it back on the pedestal. “Whoa.” She flashed her best attempt at a grin as she opened the door. “Stay. BRB.” Then she darted through and let it slam with a thud .

Anne quickly ran down the hallway to Sasha’s closet, frantically tugging the curlers out of her hair. She slammed the door to the closet and picked up her freshly laundered school uniform, discarding the bathrobe and tugging it on. She had to get the Wartwoodians out of there. She might just be the only one who could.

She tugged on a chestplate, then quickly added a black cloak to disguise herself. In a panic, she grabbed an extra sword from a hook on the wall, cinching the belt of the scabbard around her waist. “Sprig was right,” she muttered to herself. “Luz and Marcy were right. Sasha hasn’t changed.” She grabbed a leftover poster Sasha had left in her closet, then ran out of the room, hurrying as fast as she could.

“Banquet hall, banquet hall…” She all but ran through the tower, trying to avoid drawing attention while looking for the entrance to the banquet hall. Finally, she heard the familiar sounds of screaming and glass shattering, and grinned gratefully. Thank goodness for Wartwood’s tendency to panic.

Anne pulled up her hood, then shoved open the door. “Enough!” she cried, channeling every imitation of Sasha’s voice she’d ever done. “Guards, leave us. I’ll get these frogs to fall in line.” She stepped forward, pulling out her sword.

The toad soldiers grinned. “You lot have made a huge mistake,” one of them said gleefully.

“Enjoy your time with Commander Sasha,” another said.

Captain Grime’s soldiers all filed past, shutting the door behind them. The Wartwoodians gulped, and Anne could see faces pale with fear.

Anne tossed back her hood and grinned. “Hey, guys!”

Everyone gasped. “Anne!”

“Anne!” Sprig jumped to the front from somewhere behind the crowd and hugged her fiercely. “Boy, are we glad to see you.” Then his grin turned serious. “We’ve got a situation. We’re not guests. We’re–”

“Prisoners, I know. You were right about Sasha, Sprig,” Anne interrupted. “And it’s worse than that. Captain Grime and Sasha are planning to execute Hop Pop!” Anne pointed at him with her sword.

Everyone turned to face Hop Pop, who was standing by the banquet table with arms piled high with seafood and Polly sitting on his head. “Say what?!” he cried, dropping all his food. “But why?”

Anne unrolled the poster of Hop Pop and held it out. “Turns out Hop Pop’s been inspiring rebellions all across the valley. Blah blah, it’s some political nonsense.”

Hop Pop took the poster from Anne’s hands and inspected it. “Well, it’s a good-looking poster though,” he said. There was a beat of silence. Then– “I’m gonna die!”

“Don’t worry, youngster,” Mrs. Croaker said. “We won’t let ‘em get you.”

“So what do we do?” Felicia asked.

“Nobody panic.” Anne held her hands out. “I’m busting us out of here.” She looked at the ground and realized she didn’t know how. “Somehow. Anyone got any ideas?”

Loggle pointed his finger. “I do…n’t. I don’t.”

“Aw, come on!” Everyone groaned.

“Geez, Loggle,” Sprig said.

Wally pushed aside Anne’s cloak. “I’ve got one. What say we plant these boomshrooms around the joint? Blow the place sky-high.” He opened his vest, revealing boomshrooms plastered to his jacket and bandoliers of boomshrooms looped around his body.

Anne’s jaw dropped. How did Wally even feel safe walking around with those? She gave him an unimpressed look. “With us still inside? We’re not doing that.”

“Right.” Wally put his hands on his hips, then made a weird face. “We’re not doing it.”

“Seriously. No boom shrooms.”

“Loud and clear,” he said again, still making that face.

Anne considered saying it again but figured Wally had already agreed, so there was no point. “Okay. Gotta figure a way out. Hmm.” She walked closer to the gate. “There's only one door, and the toads are outside it. There has to be some other wa–” An acrid smell filled her nostrils, and she sniffed. Then she gasped. “That's it!” She bent down and tugged at the grate on the floor, pulling it off in a cloud of noxious gas. “The sewer!”

Felicia sniffed, then put her hands up. “Oh, yuck, really?”

“Deal with it, lady!” Polly hopped over to the top of Felicia’s head. “It’s time to get dirty!” Then she leapt off of Felicia and soared straight into the sewer, yelling with delight.

It took a bit of Anne coaxing everyone into the sewer (Duckweed and Felicia were the hardest to convince) but they were soon all filing down the stairs and to the tunnel system below. She took her place in the front of the group and started leading them down the tunnel, every Wartwoodian following right behind. More than once they ran into some kind of creature that made its home in the sewers beneath Toad Tower, and everyone had to run screaming to another tunnel.

It took at least half an hour of trudging through sludge and muck and who-knew-what-else before Anne could feel moonlight on her face. She looked up and gasped. “Finally! I think we made it!” 

“Mantis formation!” Toadstool called. Once the frogs had all assembled into a pyramid, Toadstool added, “Anne, get up there. Open the sewer grate and we’ll start climbing up.”

“Sure thing, Mayor Toadstool!” Anne clambered up the pyramid, apologizing every time she accidentally stepped on someone’s face, and grabbed onto the rungs in the wall. She ascended the ladder and threw open the cover. “Ah, fresh air,” she said with relief, then her eyes widened with fear as several dozen toads leveled their weapons at her. 

“Boy, those toads really stink,” Sprig said, climbing up next to her. Then he caught sight of the threat. “Did I say stink? I meant, are very handsome.”

“Anne, Anne, Anne.” Sasha walked over, and the toads parted for their commander. “Very disappointing. Now let’s move. Grime’s waiting for us.”

Sprig and Anne exchanged a look.

The toad soldiers shoved the Wartwoodians up the last flight of stairs, Sasha dragging Anne in front. Captain Grime was standing on the far edge of the tower, looking at something down below. “Caught these prisoners trying to escape, Grime,” Sasha said, and the toad captain turned to face them, an almost maniacal grin on his face.

“Dude, are you crazy?” Anne asked, pulling her arm out of Sasha’s grip. 

Sasha poked her in the chest. “Shh. I’m trying to get us home.”

Captain Grime finally spoke. “Very impressive, Sasha. Always playing Flipwart when everyone else is playing Bog Jump.”

“Huh?”

“Whaa…?”

“Well, see, Flipwart and Bog Jump are games,” Grime tried to explain, “but Flipwart, of course, is far more complicated and…” He gave up. “I'm trying to say you're smart!”

“Oh, thanks, Grimesy,” Sasha said with a laugh. She walked over to stand beside the captain. “What can I say? Just how I do. Up top!”

Grime looked at the hand she offered in confusion. “Ah… um… yes.” He smacked it with his own.

“Sasha, please!” Anne tried to appeal to her soft side. “There has to be another way! Oh–” A pair of toad soldiers blocked her way with their spears.

“There is no other way, creature,” Grime said. “Our very way of life is at stake. I don’t expect an outsider like you to understand.” He snapped his fingers. “Seize the traitor, Hopediah Plantar.”

Two toad soldiers walked over and grabbed Hop Pop by the arms. “No! Get your hands off me!” he cried. Sprig and Polly fruitlessly tried to get the soldiers to let go of Hop Pop. “Kids!”

“No!” Anne crouched down and shoved the two soldiers blocking her way, darting between them and grabbing one of their swords. She swung the weapon at the soldiers holding Hop Pop captive and shoved them away. “Stay back!” But the toad soldiers started advancing anyway, forming a half-circle around the Wartwoodians and drawing closer with every step.

She wasn’t alone, though. Sprig pulled out his slingshot, Hop Pop a pair of– were those crab legs? And Polly got her flail out from seemingly nowhere. Even the other Wartwoodians picked up rocks and stones, ready to fight.

“In retrospect, we really should have tied them up,” a toad soldier said.

“Enough!” The toads gasped and parted, and Sasha stepped through. “Anne, what are you doing? Are you really gonna risk your life for these talking frogs? We don’t even belong here,” she continued, coming to a stop in front of Anne. “Don’t you wanna get back home?” She shrugged. “See your family?”

Anne glanced to the side. “Yeah, but–”

Sasha’s voice turned hard. “Then put your sword down now. End. Of. Discussion. ”

Anne considered it for a moment. Then she thought of what Luz and Marcy had said, back home. And a quick glance at Sprig steeled her resolve. “You know what? Luz was right about you,” she said. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner. So back off. Leave Hop Pop alone. Leave Wartwood alone.”

Sasha tried to glare at Anne but still stopped short of looking her in the eye. “Anne, you need to stop this nonsense. I’m just trying to help you , okay? Look, you’ve known me for your whole life, and you met these frogs, like, what, two months ago? Who are you really gonna trust?”

Anne narrowed her eyes, hating herself for doing what she was doing. She wished she could have been kinder, more understanding, more sensible– anything, really, that would redeem her in Sasha’s eyes. Sasha could be mean at times, sure, but she could also be kind and heroic and strong. And somehow, she always ended up asking Anne the questions Anne was too afraid to ask herself.

Who are you really gonna trust?

Maybe she didn’t need Sasha anymore. Maybe, for once, she could call the shots in her own life, just like she’d promised herself she would. Maybe she’d stop trying to satisfy everyone just so that she wouldn’t be alone. Maybe she’d actually start to answer the difficult questions.

Who are you really gonna trust?

Anne looked back at Sasha, steeling her nerves. “Myself.”

“Yeah,” Sprig piped up. “Anne’s not gonna be pushed around by a bully like you.”

Sasha gaped. “Wha– Anne. I said end of discussion . Put the sword down! ” Then a mudball splattered her in the face. “What the heck?”

Everyone gasped. Sprig had raised his slingshot and was readying another. “Didn’t you hear her? She said back off .”

“You know what?” Sasha drew her sword. “I think I’ve had enough of you, squeaky toy.” She stepped forward and swung the sword, aiming it right at Sprig. He gasped, putting his arms up to shield his face.

A clang echoed through the entire tower.

Anne had stepped in front of the sword, pressing it back with her own. Sasha gasped. “Anne, what are you doing? ”

“Something I should have done a long time ago,” Anne said through gritted teeth, furious. “Standing up TO YOU! ” She pushed harder, and Sasha stumbled back, shocked.

Anne turned back to look at Sprig. “Thanks for believing in me, Sprig,” she said.

Sprig nodded. “Spranne against the world.”

Grime started to chuckle behind Sasha, who spun around to face him. “What are you laughing at?” she spat.

“Looks like you’ve got a rebellious seed of your own,” he said. “You've given me plenty of advice. Now let me give you some.” His face grew somber. “Stamp this out. Make her yield. Fail, and nothing will ever be the same.”

“Not gonna happen.” Sasha turned to face Anne, holding her sword out.

“This should be fun. My friends!” Grime started to address everyone gathered on top of the tower, walking out to the center. “Instead of a messy free-for-all, I have a splendid idea. How about we settle this–” He hopped onto a rock behind him. “–the toad-fashioned way?” With a snap of his fingers, the toads surrounded Sasha and Anne, holding their shields out to form a barrier. “Trial by combat! If your champion wins, you all go home, no harm, no foul,” Grime explained. “But if our champion wins, well…” He glanced at the venus flytrap in the courtyard behind him and chuckled. “Baby’s hungry.”

“Anne, you don’t have to do this,” Hop Pop said, holding his hands out.

Anne turned away, facing Sasha. “Yes, I do.”

Sasha and Anne started to circle around the makeshift arena, glaring at each other. Then they finally stopped, swords held at the ready.

Grime threw his arm out. “Begin!”

Sasha immediately started rushing at Anne, sword held out as though she meant to skewer her. Anne ducked and parried blow after blow, barely getting an opportunity to get in one of her own. Sasha swung her sword at Anne’s head and she bent back, then swung. Their swords locked, each pushing the other, neither willing to give.

“What’s gotten into you, Anne?” Sasha asked, sweat dripping down her forehead, teeth gritted. “You were never like this back home!”

“Do you ever– stop– talking?!” Anne shoved just a bit harder with the last word, pushing the point of Sasha’s sword into the ground. Then she swung at it, hitting it to the other side of the ‘arena’. It clattered to the cobblestones, and everyone gasped.

Elated, Anne turned back to Sasha with a laugh, only to find the other girl knocking her sword away with a smaller but no less deadly knife that she’d hidden on her person. She slashed at Anne, who had no choice but to step back. “Oh, come on, a dagger?”

Sasha dashed for her sword, diving into a roll and coming up with it in hand. She immediately bounced back to her feet and rushed straight for Anne, who tried to get her with a blow of her own. But Sasha ducked under Anne’s outstretched arm and parried her next blow, tossing her sword to her other hand and tugging her cloak off. She tossed it over Anne’s head, blocking her vision. Then Anne felt something hitting her legs and fell, slamming against the ground.

She tore the cloak off her face and tried to sit up, only to be met with the point of Sasha’s sword. “They’re just slimy little frogs, Anne,” Sasha said forcefully, the huge red moon bathing the scene in an eerie red light. She slowly drew her dagger, her sword never wavering. “ They don’t matter! ”

Anne looked down. “They’re not just frogs.” She clutched her sword tighter. “THEY’RE MY FRIENDS!!! ” Anne surged back to her feet, and with one swing, knocked both of Sasha’s weapons out of her hands. Sasha stumbled back and fell, blood welling up in a small cut on her cheek. Her weapons spun through the air and landed blade first, burying themselves in the stone of the tower.

The frogs immediately started to cheer. Breathing hard, Anne turned back to Sasha. “It's over, Sash. You're not gonna push me around anymore.”

Sasha looked shocked, then she narrowed her eyes in fury.

Anne glanced at Grime. “So how about it, big guy? We're free, right?”

“Yeah, I don’t think so.” Grime inflated his throat, then shot his tongue straight at Anne, who dodged. Then she watched, shocked, as Grime’s tongue wrapped around Hop Pop, pulling him out of Sprig and Polly’s grip. They all cried his name helplessly.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Grime asked once Hop Pop was securely in his grip. Then he glowered. “This ends now.”

Right before he could toss Hop Pop to the venus flytrap, the tower started to shake. “What the– what?!”

Anne immediately knew who was responsible. “Wally, what did you do?!”

“What?” came the response. “I thought we agreed. Wait, could you not tell I was winking? Ah, curse you, one eye!”

The tower began to crumble, the stones falling away. People screamed and backed away from the edges, quickly turning tail and fleeing down the stairs. “Where are you going, you cowa-AAAARDS?!” Grime called, losing his balance and falling off the side of the crumbling tower. Hop Pop used the opportunity to wriggle out of his grasp and jump off his head, landing on the tower and quickly rejoining his family. “Ah! Eh, I never liked that guy anyway.” He and Sprig pulled open the trapdoor, calling to the scared Wartwoodians. “Everyone! Come, get off of the roof, quick!”

Anne watched the chaos in shock, then fell to her knees as the ground started to tilt. “Anne!” someone called. She looked up just in time to see Sasha falling to the rapidly collapsing tower, screaming. 

“Sasha!” she called, then lunged forward and caught her hand. “Gotcha. I've got you, Sash. You're gonna be okay–” Then she screamed as she felt herself starting to fall, just barely managing to catch herself on a loose brick.

It took everything Anne had to keep Sasha from falling. “Can’t… hold on… much longer…” she grunted. But she knew one thing– she couldn’t let Sasha fall to her death, not if she could do something about it.

She felt her feet slipping off the brick, and she gripped Sasha’s hand as tight as she could while the tower crumbled around them. She slipped off the rock, nearly falling off the tower itself, but somehow, perhaps due to some unusual luck, someone caught her, and she suddenly felt something pulling her foot.

It was Sprig. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you– oh!”

Anne’s grip tightened, hoping nobody had accidentally dropped her– or, worse, let her and Sasha fall off the tower. Finally, she felt herself stop falling and breathed a sigh of relief when she heard Hop Pop’s voice.

“Hold on, kiddo,” Hop Pop grunted. 

Anne saw Sasha glancing down, tense. “Hey, hey. Look at me, look at me.” She forced herself to smile. “Everything's gonna be totally fine. Just hang on.”

“We got you, Anne.” Hop Pop said. “No matter what.”

“Uh, guys?” Polly warned. “I think we have a situation.”

The stone cracked, and Anne dropped a few inches.

“Hey, Anne?” Anne opened her eyes, and her heart dropped at the sad look in Sasha’s eyes. “Maybe you're better off without me.”

Then Sasha let go.

“NO!” Anne called. Sasha grew smaller and smaller, heading closer and closer to the ground, right before Grime jumped and caught her. Sasha’s alive . But Anne couldn’t do anything but sit on the ruins of the tower and watch. The sun started to rise, bathing the ruins in dawn’s warm glow.

Grime walked to the edge of the forest, Sasha in his arms, and turned back to look at Anne. Sasha was unconscious. The former captain of the Southern Toad Tower bared his teeth, and somehow, Anne knew this wasn’t over.

Sprig walked up to her, his hat clutched in his hands and his hair blowing wildly in the wind. “Anne… are you okay?” he asked with concern.

“Oh yeah,” she said. “Never felt be–” She couldn’t even finish before she burst into tears.

Sprig, Polly, and Hop Pop all hugged her, trying to comfort her, but she couldn’t help but feel like she’d just lost everything.

Anne and the Plantars sat on the edge of the fountain in Wartwood, dejectedly staring at the ground.

“I know that was hard for you, Anne,” Hop Pop started. “Thank you, you know… for everything.” 

“Hop Pop, you three are my family. I'd never let anyone hurt you.”

Sprig tried to lighten the mood. “So, you guys wanna get breakfast and come up with some kind of plan to get Anne home?”

“It's gonna be dangerous,” Hop Pop warned. “Perilous, even.”

“Understatement!” Polly agreed.

“Well, whatever happens next, one thing's for sure.” Anne enfolded the other three in a hug. “If we're together, I know we'll be alright.”

“Hugging a little tight there, Anne.”

“No I’m not.”

“Sprig, what do I do?” Anne stood on the balcony of the Hemisphere Hotel, looking out over the nighttime city. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

The pink frog hopped onto her shoulder. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I wanted to find my friends. You know that already.” She sighed and looked at him. “Now I’ve found them, and the king said I might not belong with them.”

“Well, it could be you or Luz,” Sprig said in an attempt to be reassuring.

“But that’s the problem! If it’s not me, it’s her, and then what?”

“I… don’t know,” Sprig said. “But it’s not like you’ll stop being friends, right?”

Anne nodded. “That’s true.”

“Besides, you’ll always have me, Hop Pop, and Polly. It’ll be fine!”

“Thanks, Sprig,” Anne said, giving him a smile. “You’re right.”

“Now, you wanna ride the Ferris wheel?” Sprig asked excitedly.

“You’ve been raving about this thing all day. Of course!”

Chapter Text

“Wake up, Luz! We have to go!”

Luz opened her eyes blearily. “What time is it?”

“I don’t know,” Marcy replied. “But Leo said we have to go soon.”

Wait, Marcy?

Luz sat up, cheeks flushing as she realized it was morning. She’d definitely overslept. “Marmar? What are you still doing here? Didn’t you go back to the castle?”

Marcy shook her head, rummaging through her bag and pulling out her phone. She checked the time. “It’s seven,” she informed Luz, then tucked the phone back. “I stayed here last night ‘cause Leo said I could go with you guys to the library and he had to leave pretty early, and the library he has to visit is a long walk away. And Joe’s still off getting fitted for armor.”

Joe? Luz shook her head. “Where did you sleep? Did you stay awake the entire time? ” Luz rubbed her eyes. She felt like she hadn’t gotten any sleep, but there was no point in going back to bed. She was too wide awake.

“No way, I wouldn’t be able to focus if I did, 'cause I barely slept the day before yesterday.” Marcy gestured to the armchair. “I slept on that,” she added.

“Wha– how–”

“Luz, come have your breakfast,” Anisa said from the kitchen. “Then we’ll leave.”

Luz nodded, deciding she wouldn’t question it. Marcy surprised her all the time. “Okay.”

“Here we are,” Leo said. “Luz, Marcy, feel free to explore if you like. Aunt Anisa, we’ve got to speak to the head archivist before we can do anything.” He and Anisa walked toward a newt with long hair and glasses sitting at a desk marked ‘Information’.

“Woah…” Marcy gasped, trying to take in the sheer amount of books in the main branch of the Newtopian Public Library. “This place is huge. Gigantic. Enormous! ” She turned to look at Luz. “We have to go explore!”

“I wonder what kinds of books we can find here,” Luz said. “Maybe there’s something on the stuff King Andrias mentioned, with the gems?” She grimaced, remembering all the other stuff he'd told them. One of us doesn't belong here .

She shook her head, hoping that would do something to clear her mind, and turned her attention to Marcy, who was practically glowing with excitement.

“Oh, there’s got to be something here! Where do we even start?” Marcy picked an aisle at random and ran down it, then stopped and gasped.

“Oh, no,” Luz said, following in her wake. “What happened here?”

“The Order of the Olm happened, that’s what,” Marcy said, clenching her fists. Luz took in the hole in the roof and the charred ground, the acrid smell of burnt paper still lingering in the air. Half of the shelves and nearly all of the scroll walls were empty.

She stepped closer to the shelves and picked up one of the surviving books. “These are just history books,” she said after a moment, flipping through the pages. “Do you think–”

“That the cultists were trying to erase history?” Marcy finished. “Maybe. Let’s go ask the librarian where we can find stuff about the music box, though.”

“Yeah…” Luz didn’t look up from the book. “Um, Marcy? I was wrong, these aren’t just history books. They’re books about legends. This one’s about the Legend of the Guardian. Anisa told me that one.” She picked up another and skimmed through that as well. “This one’s a collection of folktales. The cultists weren’t trying to erase history, they were trying to erase legends! Maybe even a certain type of legend.”

Marcy picked up a third book. “Wait a second,” she said. “This one’s in some kinda runic alphabet.” She gasped. “I’ve seen this before! There were burned scraps of pages with this alphabet wherever the cultists hit, and it was also scratched into the walls at Dawnblood Castle.” She flinched. “And, uh, Ernst had one. But yeah,” she continued. “Long story short, I can’t translate this. Yet. ”

“We should probably go find Leo and Anisa,” Luz said. “We don’t know our way around this place, what if we get lost?”

“Good point.” Marcy set the book back on the shelf. “I’ll come back for you,” she promised.

“Oh, you’re back,” Leo said cheerfully. “Great! Now you can help.”

Luz cocked her head curiously. “What should we do?”

“Marcy, you go with Aunt Anisa and find the titles on the list with her.” Anisa waved a piece of paper in the air before Leo continued. “Luz, you’re with me.”

“Okay,” Marcy said, shrugging, before walking off with Anisa. 

Luz looked at Leo. “What’s first on the list?”

“Uh, Legends and Myths of Ancient Amphibia by Silus Stormwind. That should be in the history section.” They started walking through the stacks, and Leo stopped in front of a shelf. “Here it is,” he said, pulling a book off the shelf and flipping through it. “The Emerald Coast Public Library and Archives need this one.” He set it on a nearby cart. “Next on the list is A History of Legends by Mara Nimis.”

Before long, the top shelf of the cart was full of books, and they were only halfway through the list. “Did the cultists burn all of these books?” Luz asked, struggling to push the cart.

“These are only a small amount of the books the cultists burned,” Leo replied, scouring the shelves for Artifacts of Amphibia: A Cursed History . “The rest were all recovered in other libraries. If there are any books we can’t find here, then all copies of them in public libraries were destroyed. And then,” he looked pained as he pulled another book off the shelf, “our only hope rests on the rich noble connoisseurs. Specifically, the ones who didn’t already offer their books to help the public knowledge system.”

“Are they a pain to deal with?”

Leo glanced around furtively before leaning over to whisper in her ear. “Let's just say most of them do whatever’s in their best interests and nothing more.”

“Ah.” Luz nodded in understanding. “By the way, did you notice that most of the books burned by the cultists are all books about legends? Could the cult have been trying to wipe out all knowledge of some type of legend?”

Leo thought about it for a moment. “I did notice that,” he said. “But I didn’t think much of it. You could be right. Maybe finding out what books they burned would help us understand what their goal was. Though last I heard, the royal army and the Night Guard decided to close the case.”

“Wait, what about the king? Didn’t he want it to be investigated?”

“Well, I honestly don’t think the king really cares,” Leo said. “He says he can’t do anything about it, but I don’t think he minds as long as the cultists stop burning things.”

“Oh. Actually, did you see him looking for that book he showed us in the castle?” Luz gritted her teeth, trying not to think about what the book had meant for her and her friends. One of us doesn’t belong here . 

Leo looked at her. “What book?”

“Some book about Amphibian artifacts, it had a picture of the music box in it,” Luz said. “He said he got it from the palace archives. Or was it a library?” She stopped for a moment, then decided she didn’t want to know. After all, Anne, Marcy, and Sasha might all be part of some grand cosmic prophecy– without Luz . Or worse, Luz could be left behind. Forever . She shuddered, wondering what she’d even do without her friends. Without Marcy . She desperately tried to stop herself from blushing, forcing herself to finish her question. “Did you see it?”

“Amphibian artifacts, you say?” Leo asked. He pulled a book off the shelf. “Like this one? Artifacts of Amphibia: A Cursed History by Yolan L. Than?”

Luz took the book from him and flipped through it. Her hands started to shake as she saw the same page Andrias had shown them, the same page that had been haunting her nightmares. “This is the one,” she said quietly, handing it back.

“Well, that’s strange. I don’t have this book in the palace. If I did, I’d have been able to take it with me to get copied,” Leo said, adding the book to the pile on the cart. “Then we wouldn’t be looking for it.”

“Are you sure?” Luz asked, stuffing her hands in her hoodie pockets to stop them from trembling. “He said he found it behind another book.”

“Beyond positive,” he replied. “I’ve been managing that library for almost three years, I know that catalogue inside and out.”

“Huh,” Luz muttered, an idea beginning to form in her mind. Something was definitely off.

“We’re nearly done with the list,” Anisa said, adding yet another book to the precarious stack on the table. 

Marcy glanced at the sheet of paper Anisa had given her to hold. “We only have a dozen books left to find.” She cast a longing glance at one of the many books they’d found that were written in the runes instead of in English– or Amphibian, as it was called in Amphibia. But Marcy knew she couldn’t study until after they found the rest of the books. Just twelve more books to go, she told herself, trying to cheer up. Twelve more books until I can actually do something interesting.

“You can go if you want,” Anisa said.

Marcy looked at her. “What?”

The axolotl laughed. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you keep longingly watching those books over there,” she explained, and Marcy flushed with embarrassment. “So, go ahead. I can find a dozen books by myself, no problem. I’m a historian, remember?”

“Thanks, Anisa,” Marcy said, grateful.

Anisa just smiled.

Marcy turned and walked as fast as she could toward the burned section of the library, grabbing the book she’d found earlier. Then she walked over to a table near the front and sat down, pulling out her journal. 

“Okay,” she said to herself, opening the book. “If I can count how many characters there are, maybe that’ll give me a basic understanding of what kind of alphabet I’m working with.” She started scouring the text, isolating individual characters and painstakingly copying each swirl and dot into her journal.

It didn’t take long before she couldn’t find any more. “So, how many are there?” she muttered to herself, carefully counting the symbols she’d copied. Her eyes widened when she realized there were exactly twenty-six different characters. “Hang on a sec–”

She pulled a random book off the shelf that was written in a language she could read. “Amphibian is just like English, right?” she muttered to herself, searching the text. “So there should be… twenty-six letters!” She gasped. “I was right! What if the runes aren’t another language, but some kind of cipher instead?”

As she thought about it more, it began to make sense. “If it was another language, it would have had a different amount of letters, right?” she mused. “And different grammar. Maybe Amphibian has two sets of alphabets? Which could also explain why there are so many books written in the runic alphabet as though it was common knowledge…”

She listed down each of the letters in the English alphabet in her journal, then meticulously copied down the first sentence from the book written in runes.

“Hmm…” she said to herself. “Okay, I’m assuming for now that all the three-letter words are ‘and’ and ‘the’. There are two single-letter words, and both are the same character. That means they could be either ‘A’ or ‘I’.” Marcy considered it. “Let’s go with the letter A, ‘cause that’s the one that also appears in the three-letter words,” she decided, scribbling down the translation.

Marcy squinted at the translation. “That three-letter word at the bottom could translate to ‘and’,” she said, thinking aloud. “Let’s try that.”

“Huh, that didn’t actually do a lot,” she said to herself. “Okay, so what two-letter words are here?” She checked the sentence and looked over her options.

“The first one is repeated four times,” she observed. “The second one only once. And neither of them has ‘a’, ‘n’, or ‘d’, so that eliminates words like ‘in’, ‘at’, or ‘an’. And they don’t share any letters, so if one is ‘it’, for example, the other can’t be anything with an ‘i’ or a ‘t’.” After considering her options, she settled on the words ‘is’ and ‘of’.

“It’s starting to come together!” Marcy exclaimed, glad that she was dealing with a cipher. After all, even the most complicated ciphers usually didn’t take too long to solve. “Okay, now for the remaining three-letter words.”

“So the one with the middle letter ‘a’ can’t be the word ‘the’,” Marcy said thoughtfully. “But the other one can. I wonder if it would work?”

“Okay, so that five-letter word is definitely ‘three’,” Marcy said. “The second word could be either ‘tale’ or ‘take’, or maybe ‘tame’? ‘Tape’? ‘Tale’ seems like the one that would make the most sense, though.”

“The tale of the three… gems? Could it be talking about the gems?” Marcy thought about it. She’d been thinking about the gems since the day Andrias had told her, Luz, and Anne about them. She considered her options, then decided to go with it, considering how badly she needed more information on the music box. “This book was on the legends shelf…”

Marcy was starting to have a sinking feeling about where this was going. “The tale of the three gems is a tale of a gift, of… war? And of, uh, contest? No. Conquest? Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“The tale of the three gems is a tale of a gift, of war, and of conquest,” she recited. “What does that mean?”

She glanced at the quick translation guide she’d written for herself in her journal. It was still missing a lot of less common letters. “I guess I’d better keep translating,” she said quietly. “And maybe I’ll learn more about this legend.”

“And that’s the last of them,” Leo said, folding up the list. “Let’s go find Aunt Anisa and Marcy so we can see what books we have to get from the–” He shuddered. “The connoisseurs.”

“Don’t worry,” Luz said sympathetically. “We found all the books we were looking for, and if we’re lucky, they did too.”

Leo nodded. “Maybe.” 

He rounded a corner and gasped, and Luz nearly bumped into him with the heavy book cart. “Why’d you–” she started, but she stopped as soon as she saw Anisa carrying at least ten books, dozens more stacked behind her on a table. 

“I found all of the books,” Anisa said, her voice muffled behind the thick stack. “Marcy did too. Wherever she is.” The pile of books in her arms started to teeter, and she stumbled. “A little help here?”

Leo darted over to help her, taking half the stack and starting to shelve them on the book cart. Luz grabbed some more from the table and followed suit, and before long, between the three of them, the cart was full.

Leo stared at the cart sheepishly. “Maybe I didn’t think this through,” he admitted. “I’m not sure how we’re supposed to take this to the print shop.”

“At least you don’t need to talk to the connoisseurs,” Anisa said encouragingly. “Things could be worse.”

“You’re right, Aunt Anisa. Can you help me take this cart to the head archivist? Luz, do you want to go look for Marcy? We need to head over to the print shop soon.”

“Sure,” Luz said, turning and walking through the shelves. “Marcy? Where are you?”

“Over here!”

She followed the sound of Marcy’s voice and found her hunched over her journal, scribbling frantically and consulting a book laying open on the table beside her. “Hey,” she said without looking up. 

“Hi,” Luz replied. “You look busy.”

“Not really,” Marcy said, finally glancing up. “I just figured out how to translate the rune!. Apparently, the runes were another Amphibian alphabet, not a different language like I’d originally thought. So I ended up solving it like a cipher.”

“Really?” Luz leaned over to look at the book, seeing row after row of strange runic symbols Marcy had seemingly no problem understanding. “That’s so cool!”

“Isn’t it?” Marcy went back to writing in her journal, and Luz took a moment to admire her crush. Marcy was so smart that she managed to learn another language from just a book… well, not a language. Another alphabet. But still. Luz smiled, grateful that she was friends with such a talented person.

Just friends, right? For now, at least. Maybe if I just ask her–

Luz quickly ended that train of thought, turning to Marcy. “Hey, Marcy?” Luz started, wondering if she should just explain how she was feeling about Marcy, how she loved being her friend, though she wanted something more. But her thoughts caught up with her before she could say anything. She clapped a hand over her mouth, her cheeks turning a furious shade of red. Was I just about to confess to Marcy?

The thought gave her a warm feeling, even if she was starting to feel nervous and her blush refused to fade. Maybe it was Teora’s advice that had Luz almost spilling her feelings out to her crush. Or maybe it was just the fact that she’d been hiding her feelings for over five months, and she was starting to get a little sick of it.

But… there’s no way she likes me like that. Marcy’s never said anything about a crush, ever. Not to mention, where would that leave Anne? Or Sasha? And…

If Heart is Anne… then I really am the odd one out. Marcy can't start a relationship with someone who isn't even supposed to be with her. She doesn’t deserve that.

Luz’s warm feeling faded, and her heart ached.

“-uz. Luz? Amphibia to Luz?” Marcy was waving her hand in front of Luz’s face. Luz blinked and put her hands down.

“Sorry,” she said. “I, uh, zoned out.”

Marcy shrugged. “What were you gonna say?”

“Uh…” Now or never, Noceda, she told herself. If you’re gonna say it, just say it. “…Leo was calling us,” she finally said. “I forgot to tell you earlier.”

Way to go. You just lost your chance.

“Really?” Marcy stood up and stuffed her journal and pens into her bag, then closed the book. “Do you think he’d let me borrow this library book?”

“I don’t see why not,” Luz said tiredly.

Marcy sighed as they started to walk to the front of the library. “Y’know, the book is frustratingly vague about how the gems got to Amphibia. It says they were gifted from a higher power, but it never mentions what.”

“Higher power…?” Luz asked. “Oh! That actually reminds me. Remember when I mentioned those photos of carvings I took for Anisa? She actually explained a bunch of lore along with a few of them, and one of the carvings was about a ‘Guardian’ giving some kind of power to early Amphibians. Now that I think about it,” she added, “Anisa did say it could be connected to the legend of the three stones.”

“Oooh, show me!”

Luz chuckled. “Okay, okay.” She dug her phone out of her bag and eagerly tapped it, waiting for the reboot screen to load.

Nothing happened.

Luz fiddled with the phone for a moment, then sighed. “Guess it finally died,” she said. “You said you had a way to charge it, right, Marcy?”

Marcy nodded, looking disappointed. “Man, I wish I could have seen those pictures–” Her eyes widened and she gasped, inhaling air until it looked like she was gonna burst.

“Uh, you okay, Marmar?” Luz asked, concerned.

A mighty exhale and a small coughing fit later, Marcy was bouncing up and down excitedly. “What if you come to the castle for a sleepover? Anne too! And maybe those two frog kids?”

“Sprig and Polly Plantar?” Luz clarified.

Marcy nodded. “Yeah, them. We could all have a sleepover! By then I’ll be finished with reading this book, and also you can bring your phone and charge it at the castle, and we can look at those photos, and augh!” Marcy squealed. “It’s gonna be so fun!”

“Sure,” Luz agreed easily, if a little quickly. Any excuse to spend time with Marcy was an excuse she would gladly take. Even if… She shook her head to rid herself of the thought. “I mean, yeah. I’d love to come, and I’m sure Anne, Sprig, and Polly would want to come too!”

“We’ve got to ask them first,” Marcy said. “Plus I want to research some more with King Andrias tomorrow. Not to mention that–” Marcy was interrupted by Leo as they finally reached the front of the library.

“Time to go,” he said. “We’ve got to drop the books off at the print shop and then we’re done for the day. We managed to get a few of the librarians to help us carry them over, but we still need to make two trips. Do either of you have a book you want to check out?”

“Yeah!” Marcy held up the book she’d been translating. “This one, if that’s okay?”

Leo glanced at it. “Sure,” he said. “Follow me, and be sure to return the book when you’re done. Okay?”

“Yes, sir,” Marcy said as they walked off, Luz following in their wake.

Luz and Marcy walked outside while Leo, Anisa, and the two librarians spoke to the printer’s assistant. “I think it’s getting pretty late,” Marcy said sadly. “Andrias and Lady Olivia don’t know where I am, and I’m sure they were worried when I didn’t come back to the castle last night. I should probably head back.”

“Aw,” Luz replied. “See you soon?”

“For sure,” Marcy said. “We are definitely going to have that sleepover. See you soon! And tell Anisa and Leo thanks for letting me come!” She turned and walked toward the giant castle in the middle of the city, waving at Luz until she couldn’t see her anymore.

Marcy opened her book and began to read through it. After the hour or so she'd spent in the library, she'd practically memorized the different letters and many of the more common words, and she easily read through two pages without needing the translation guide. She walked straight through the palace doors without looking up until she saw the familiar doors of the throne room.

She finally came to a stop, gently pushing open the doors. “Andrias?” she called, tucking the book back into her bag. “Lady Olivia?”

The two newts in question looked at the open door from the front of the throne room. “Master Marcy,” Lady Olivia said in relief, hurrying down from the dais where she’d been presenting something to the king. “You’ve returned. Where were–”

“Marcy!” Andrias’s voice boomed through the room, cutting Lady Olivia off. “Just the human I’d hoped to see! What have you been up to”

“Oh, you remember Luz? My friend?” Marcy asked.

Andrias chuckled good-naturedly. “How could I forget?

“Well, I went with her yesterday and ended up accidentally staying overnight. Then we went to the library. And then I came back.”

“ Ahem, ” Lady Olivia coughed.

Andrias ignored her. “What did you learn, Marmar? Anything interesting?”

“ Ahem. ”

“Yes, Olivia?” Andrias finally said.

Lady Olivia straightened her dress. “It’s dinner time, and I’m sure Master Marcy forgot to eat lunch. You can continue your conversation after dinner.” As if on cue, Marcy’s stomach rumbled and she blushed.

“Very well, then,” Andrias said, smiling. “Would you care to join me for a game of Flipwart after dinner?”

Marcy nodded. “Of course!”

Marcy stepped into her room, glancing around the space and flipping on the lamp. Then she changed into her pajamas and settled on the bed, pulling the library book out of her bag and flipping it open. She stared at the runes for a moment, then sighed and set the book aside, taking out her journal instead.

Entry 59

Guess what, Jo! I finally figured out how to translate that Amphibian runic language and, turns out, it wasn’t a language like I’d thought! It turns out that Amphibian actually has two sets of letters, unlike English. I hadn’t even considered that possibility! I haven’t gotten around to translating the other papers I left with you, though. I’ll do it eventually, just not right now.

That’s not the only thing. I told you how last night I ended up staying the night with Luz, Anisa, Leo, and Teora instead of my room in the palace after the talk with Andrias. But I didn’t really get into specifics… I think I’m ready to do that now.

So, yesterday, after Anne revealed that she had the music box and Andrias said he knew why the gems weren’t colored anymore, he pulled out a book and showed us a diagram that he found. It said that the three gems’ powers were drained by consistent use. The powers would each find a different host depending on what trait the gem has: Strength, Heart, and Wit. And we were the people that the power was drained into.

But the problem: there are four of us. Me, Luz, Anne, and Sasha.

Andrias suggested that we find out which of us each power could have drained into, and Wit’s host is obviously me. Strength has to be hosted by Sasha, she’s the most persevering out of all of us. And that leaves Anne and Luz. One of them is the host for Heart, and one of them… isn’t. I don’t know what that means for them, what that means for us .

Jo, I’m scared. What if this drives us apart? By bringing us to Amphibia, I wanted to make sure the four of us would never be separated, but what if I end up causing that separation, like a self-fulfilling prophecy?

I don't even want to think about it. Yesterday, after we left the castle, Anne immediately left with the Plantars. She barely even said goodbye. And Luz barely ate during dinner. Not to mention Anne and Sasha's big fight. I'm not even sure why I'm remembering all this; back home, I could barely even remember where my locker was. But… I can't be the person I was at home, Jo. It won't be enough. Maybe it was never enough. Maybe I'll never be enough. I don’t know how to keep us together. I don’t even know if I can . But that’s okay, everything’s going to be fine. We’ll be fine. We have to be. Right?

…I should probably go to sleep. Good night, Jo.

Marcy shut her journal and set it back into her bag with her pen, preparing to turn the lamp off and go to bed. But before she could, a knock at the door sent her tumbling out of the bed in shock.

“Master Marcy? What was that?” Lady Olivia asked, voice filtering through the door.

Marcy pushed herself to her feet. “I’m okay, coming!” She walked across the room and pushed the door open, revealing a very concerned Lady Olivia standing on the other side with a book clutched under her arm. “What’s up?”

Lady Olivia coughed, her concerned expression replaced with a disgruntled look once she saw Marcy was fine. “King Andrias asked me to deliver this book to you. I requested that he wait until morning, but he insisted that it be delivered now. And that I be the one to give it to you,” she said with obvious annoyance. She held the book out, and Marcy took it, confused.

“But… why?” Marcy asked.

“I haven’t the faintest idea. Oh, and he also requested that you meet him in his personal library tomorrow after breakfast. Sleep well, Master Marcy.” The lady turned and walked off, clutching her skirts. Marcy watched after her for a moment, then gently closed the door.

She walked over to the bed and sat down, looking over the cover under the lamplight. “Magical Plants and Their Properties?” she read aloud. “Looks interesting.” She flipped the book open, skimming through it. An illustration of some kind of moss or lichen growing on a glowing rock caught her eye. “That crystal kind of looks like Luz’s necklace…. Maybe I should ask her about it next time I see her.” She shrugged and shut the book, putting it on top of the library book. Then she turned off the light and closed her eyes, ready to sleep.

Chapter Text

“What do you mean Captain Beatrix isn’t here?”

The guard shrugged helplessly. “She left two days ago for some gatherin’ at the North Tower.”

“What gathering?”

Tim Treller peered the best he could between the bars of the prison wagon. The clumsy toad guard that...she had handed him off to was arguing with the sentinel at the entrance to the tower. He allowed himself a moment of relief to learn that Captain Beatrix wasn’t at the tower; she was known far and wide as one of the toughest and least forgiving toad captains, a position she shared with her brother Grime.

“Just toss the frog in the dungeon,” the sentinel said gruffly. “Not like ‘e can do much.”

“But–”

“Listen, man,” the sentinel interrupted. “You want credit. I get that. I’ll make sure Captain Beatrix knows it was you who captured ‘im, okay? When she returns, that is.”

The clumsy toad sighed. “Fine.” He walked around to the other side of the carriage, and Tim quickly stepped back from the window and pretended like he hadn’t been listening to the entire conversation. When the doors creaked open, he blinked as though he wasn’t used to the light, pretending he’d just woken up from a nap and definitely hadn’t been eavesdropping. 

“You’re coming with me, Treller.” Clumsy Toad roughly grabbed his arm and yanked him out of the carriage. He was dragged through the entrance, hands still bound, stumbling over every step as the toad took much wider strides. Barely a moment later, he was tossed into a cell on the third floor. The iron bars slammed shut behind him, the sound of a key twisting in the lock following soon after, and Tim sat up, taking in his surroundings.

Tim was in a dingy cell surrounded on three sides by iron bars and the fourth by rough, pockmarked stone. He glanced at the wall behind him and saw a tiny wire-mesh-covered window showing the sun setting on the outside world; he had an inkling that he would be glued to the limited view it offered.

“Dinner,” a toad called, coming in with two bowls of green slop. The toad slipped one to a prisoner on the far end of the cell block, then pushed the other through the bars of Tim’s cell. He sniffed the food and gagged. 

“What is this stuff?” he asked.

The toad looked back. “Dinner. Suggest you eat it; you ain’t gettin’ anythin’ else ‘till mornin’ comes. Shove the bowl between the bars when you’re done eating.” With those words, the toad was gone.

Tim experimentally poked the bowl, and a live centipede crawled out. He picked it up between two fingers and tossed it in his mouth, then gagged at the sour taste. These people need a real cook . 

He glanced out the window. The sun was just a sliver on the horizon, and stars were beginning to show in the sky. 

Tim grimaced at the bowl of slop, then gulped it down. His stomach rumbled uncomfortably and he made a face, then sighed and slid the bowl between the bars. Another scrape on the far side of the cell block caught his attention, and he turned to see the other prisoner doing the same.

“Uh, hello,” he said. “What are you in for?”

The toad grunted and refused to turn around.

“Well, I can tell you what I’m in for,” Tim continued as though the toad hadn’t ignored him. “I’m Tim Treller, the leader of the Secret Circus. Because we were a secret organization, we didn’t pay our taxes. Which, in hindsight, we totally had enough money to do…”

The prisoner said nothing.

“I actually thought Captain Beatrix was gonna sentence me to death or something, but ha!” Tim Treller blinked tears of mirth out of his eyes. “She’s not even here! The rest of these bozos can’t do anything to me without her permission, so I’m safe!”

The toad still didn’t say anything. Tim was starting to doubt that the other prisoner was even listening.

He scoffed, finally working his hands free of the rope bindings. “Whatever. Don’t listen to me. Who cares.” Give it two weeks and I’ll be out of here.

Tim scratched another line into the wall of the cell to track the passing days. Eight already. He was running out of time on his self-assigned deadline.

He glanced out the window and saw the sun starting to sink below the horizon. “Dinner’s almost here,” he said to the other prisoner, who still refused to respond. Right on cue, the door to the cell block swung open and the same toad that had been coming for the past eight days emerged with two bowls of slop.

The moment the food was in his cell, Tim downed it, making a face at the taste, then snapped off a sliver of clay from the bowl. He added it to the stash of six other makeshift lockpicks pinned in his shirt, then shoved the bowl between the iron bars. He pulled his vest a little tighter to prevent the picks from being noticed.

By now he’d memorized the food schedules; one meal of some charred insects a little after sunrise, another of a bowl of slop a little before nightfall. Nobody so much as set foot in the cell block any other time. Being up on the third floor meant he could still hear what was going on in the courtyard down below, and from the snatches of conversation he’d managed to glean, he put together that Captain Beatrix wasn’t meant to return for another month. Great news, in Tim’s opinion.

He had a plan, but for his plan to work, he needed to get out of this cell and find something sharp. Preferably something that wouldn’t be missed; the less evidence he left behind of his escape, the better.

Outside, a scout hollered something at one of the guards on the gate, and the gate started to grind open. When Tim squinted through the window, he could just barely see the silhouette of a tax collector’s wagon. Toads began to file out of the tower to help out, torchlight reflecting off shiny metal armor, and Tim realized it was the perfect distraction.

He pulled out one of the hardened clay shards, accidentally poking himself and letting out a slight hiss of pain. No matter. He rubbed the pricked finger on his shirt and stepped up to the bars, carefully sticking his arm out right next to the lock. He carefully inserted the lockpick and wiggled it experimentally, pressing his tympanum to his side of the door in an effort to hear if he’d managed to undo the lock. Instead of the soft click or the loud thunk of the tumblers in the lock shifting, however, Tim heard a tiny crack . He pulled his hand back into the cell to see that his makeshift lockpick had snapped. Well, that’s why I have extras, he thought to himself with a shrug, pinning the remains of the first lockpick to his shirt and pulling out a second.

Three lockpicks later, Tim finally heard the click of the lock giving, then gently pulled out the lockpick and pushed the cell door open. Before he left the cell, he checked the courtyard through the window. The toads seemed to be having some kind of meeting, and Tim figured it was now or never.

Before he left, Tim glanced at his fellow prisoner. The toad was still slumped against the cell wall, barely moving. They would have passed for a corpse, except that every day, without fail, they finished the food left in their cell. Tim and his fellow prisoner made eye contact, then the toad looked away, disinterested.

Uh, hello? Are they gonna do anything? Tim thought to himself as he left the cell block. I don’t even think they’re going to report me. They literally just don’t care.

He shrugged and placed his hands on the wall, then climbed up to the ceiling. It was pretty unlikely that any of the toads still in the tower would think to look up. He crawled along for a bit, passing right over the heads of the few guards that he saw, and finally dropped to the ground in what looked like a kitchen. He breathed a sigh of relief, then dived under a shelf as two toad guards passed.

“When did everyone get so lazy?” one of them said.

“Since Captain Beatrix left, everyone’s been shirking their duties…” The voices dwindled as both guards walked past.

Tim filed the information away for later, then emerged into the open. He glanced around and almost threw himself back under the shelf when he spotted a snoozing toad sitting in the corner of the room, a stained chef’s hat covering her eyes. The toad let out a loud snore, and Tim jumped, barely stopping himself from bumping into a cart filled with unwashed dinner plates.

He took a breath, wondering why he was so on edge. It was a simple escape mission, nothing too unusual or complicated. The toad let out another snuffle, and he realized why he was panicking. Tim had broken out of dozens of places, but never anywhere as secure as Toad Tower.

Though, if those guards were right, that wasn’t much of a problem.

With his nerves under control, Tim started lightly stepping around the room, searching for something sharp he could take without notice. It didn’t take long before he found a small knife somebody had dropped in between two tables. He got to his knees and fished it out, tucking it into his shirt and buttoning up his vest so it wouldn’t be visible.

Now to head back. Tim straightened up and carefully walked over to the door, grabbing some kind of fresh beetle from a basket on the way. After all, he'd be here for just a little while longer, and he figured he might as well eat something actually decent. He stuffed it in his mouth and walked straight through the doorway, only to collide with an incoming toad soldier.

The two stared at each other in shock for a moment. Then the toad groaned. “I just wanted a snack…” He immediately lunged for Tim, who jumped too slowly. The soldier caught his feet and dangled him upside down for a moment before slinging him over his back.

“Hey! Let me go!” Tim yelled fruitlessly, his voice muffled by the beetle still in his mouth.

The soldier ignored him. “Zinna! Stop sleeping on the job!”

With a quiet snort, the toad in the corner smacked her lips and groggily pulled the chef’s hat off her head. “Whozzat?” she mumbled, eyes still closed. “Wha…”

“Get back to work. Do you want Captain Beatrix to return and see you sleeping?” He gestured to the frog slung over his shoulder. “One of the prisoners escaped and came here for more food. If I hadn’t been here, he would have gotten away with it.”

“So what?” came the response. “The prison food is terrible anyway.”

“Terrible– wha–” the soldier sputtered. “ You make the prison food!”

“Not like I want to.” Zinna’s snide reply caused the soldier to emit a deep sigh.

“Look,” he said at last, “I’m taking this prisoner to solitary confinement. And you need to make sure you don’t sleep until your shift is over.” With that said, he turned and left the kitchen, Tim still hanging off of his shoulder.

Solitary confinement? Tim gulped. Now how am I gonna get out of here?

The toad walked toward the cell block, then strode straight past. Tim caught a glance at the other prisoner. He was still slumped against the wall, staring off into space.

Then the prison guard turned a corner and went down a flight of stairs, and Tim couldn’t see his old cell anymore.

The guard went through a stone door, then tossed Tim into the only cell in the room. The door swung shut behind him with an echoing thud , and the guard locked it with a keyring he then slipped into a pocket. He then strode out of the room, shutting the stone door behind him and leaving Tim to explore his new surroundings.

The room was built on the very edge of the tower, so it was semicircular instead of the box he’d been living in previously. The bricks were crumbling and mossy, but the bars between Tim and the stone door looked as though they’d been added recently, the metal still shining in some places instead of tarnished and rusty. There was a single window on the wall, and he hopped up to it to be met with a view of the torch-lit courtyard below. The tax collector’s wagon was unloaded, most of the toads having returned to their posts.

He stifled a yawn. Figuring that he’d better get some sleep if he wanted to figure out how to escape, Tim found himself a nice patch of moss in the corner and lay down, closing his eyes.

Tim spent less than a day silently bemoaning his predicament before starting to formulate a plan to get out of solitary confinement. The toads watched him eat now, sitting and staring at him as he forced himself to eat the charred insects that somehow got more burned every day. The moment they left with the dishes, however, he hopped over to the window and peered outside.

His lower vantage point on the second instead of the third floor made it a lot easier for Tim to overhear passing conversations. He observed everything that went on in the courtyard down below, from infighting between two guards (an extremely convenient distraction) to a sewer grate that clattered every time someone drove a wagon over it (maybe an easy escape route?). But his ticket out of prison came four days later, in the form of a young toadlet who wanted nothing to do with Toad Tower.

“Come on, Rathor,” someone said frustratedly outside the window, drawing Tim’s attention. “What will it take for you to go see your brother?”

“Do we have to go to Toad Tower for that?” a high-pitched voice whined. “Why can’t Talon go home and visit us ?”

“Now, you know your brother has an important job,” the first voice scolded. “Being a guard at Toad Tower is a huge honor, and he can’t just leave his post like that.”

Tim angled his vision the best that he could and caught a glimpse of a dark red toadlet pouting at his mother, a serious-looking green toad. She gave him an unimpressed stare, then sighed. “If you don’t want to see Talon, stay out here,” she finally said. “I also need to report the strange creature that was spotted in Riverport. Really, you should be doing that,” she added as an afterthought, “but I’m not going to make you do something you clearly don’t want to do.”

“But, Mom–”

“Nuh-uh. Not hearing it.” She turned and walked closer to the entrance of the tower, out of Tim’s line of sight. Rathor pouted and sat down on the ground.

A strange creature at Riverport, eh? Tim’s fists clenched. I have a good idea as to who that is.

And if he was right, this toadlet would be helpful in more ways than one.

Tim glanced at the wall of the prison cell, looking for loose stones. It didn’t take him long to find the crumbling corner of a brick, and a moment later he spotted dozens of cracks crisscrossing across a brick that was poking out of the wall. He used the knife the toads still hadn’t noticed he’d stolen to pry the bricks apart. Before long, he had a good-sized pile of pebbles and stones lying on the windowsill.

He took the knife and carefully sliced the mesh right where it met the stone of the wall, taking care to not accidentally nick himself or tear the netting. He gently rolled it out of the way, leaving an opening just wide enough for him to crawl through. But he’d surely get spotted if he tried to escape.

At least, not unless he had a distraction.

Tim picked up one of the pebbles on the windowsill, almost instantly spotting the two feuding guards standing on opposite sides of the wall, facing away from each other. He squinted, raised the stone, readied himself, and threw it.

It sailed up, up, in a perfect arc, finally clattering to a stop barely a foot from one of the toad guards. They glanced up, startled, but didn’t do more than look around for the source of the noise.

Tim sighed and tried again, this time aiming for the other guard. This time he managed to hit the second guard directly on the back of her breastplate. She glanced up, then turned to glare at the first guard, yelling something.

The two guards calmed down after a moment of back-and-forth shouting, both returning to their original posts on the wall. That was when Tim took his shot, nailing the first guard straight on their helmet. They turned to their fellow guard, yelling something. The arguing between the two toads soon devolved into a full-on fistfight, drawing the attention of everyone in the courtyard.

Tim took the chance. As the toads crept closer to the scene, a few trying to stop the fighting while everyone else egged the fighters on, Tim carefully climbed out the window. He unrolled the mesh, tucking the edge in between two protruding bricks to prevent it from folding and revealing his escape route. He quickly scaled the walls of the tower, climbing down hand over hand until he was hidden behind a particularly large wagon filled to the brim with barrels and crates.

Nobody noticed, the squabble on top of the wall serving as the perfect distraction for Tim to make his escape.

He exhaled in relief, then straightened, putting on his best ‘victim’ face. He was going to need it to convince the toadlet to–

“Did you just climb out of that window?” 

The incredulous high-pitched voice of the toadlet snapped Tim out of his thoughts. He grimaced. So much for nobody spotting him.

“Uh, hello?” Rathor waved his arm at Tim. “Amphibia to random frog?”

Tim coughed nervously. “Yeah, I climbed out of the window,” he said at last.

The toadlet motioned to the commotion on the wall. “You did that, didn’t you?” More toads had streamed out of the tower by now, cheering and jeering. Through the crowd, Tim caught a glimpse of one of the toad guards sporting a black eye, a split lip, and an almost manic grin.

Tim nodded, trying his best to look miserable and guilty. “Yeah, I did,” he said, “but I had no idea it would get that bad. I was just trying to cause a distraction.” The lie slipped off his tongue as smooth as butter. He absolutely had known it would get that bad.

Rathor sat back, satisfied with Tim’s answer, and Tim had to stop himself from grinning. Still got it, he thought to himself with a measure of pride.

After a moment, Rathor spoke again. “So, why are you climbing out the window of Toad Tower? Are you a criminal or something?”

“Not really,” Tim lied. “I’m innocent. I’m trying to get out of here so I can go home to my son, Fern.” My nonexistent son, Fern.

Rathor raised an eyebrow. “If Captain Beatrix put you in prison, there’s no way you’re innocent. I’m going to tell someone.”

“No, wait, don’t!” Tim put his hands up to stop Rathor from moving, adopting a panicked expression. He wasn’t actually worried that Rathor would spill the scream beans, but he couldn’t let the toadlet know that.

“And why shouldn’t I?”

Now to pin this on… her. “I was framed! And Captain Beatrix isn’t even here, so they locked me up with no trial!” he cried. “A terrifying, intelligent creature came to my town and stole all of my taxes, so I couldn’t pay them when the tax collectors came! I need to get back. Because–”

“Wait,” Rathor interrupted, paling. “What kind of intelligent creature?”

The toadlet had taken the bait. Hook, line, and sinker. Tim took a deep breath to stop the smile from spreading over his face. “It was a gangly, horrifying monster as tall as a newt that had a face bump, short and spiky hair, and a necklace with a glowing rock. I caught it stealing my taxes but when I tried to stop it, it broke through my window and ran off into the night. You know the rest.”

Rathor rolled his eyes. “Ugh. That creature.”

“You’ve seen it?” Tim asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yeah. And it can speak Amphibian.”

“Then you know what I’m talking about,” Tim continued. “I need to get back home to my son. Poor Fern doesn’t have anyone to take care of him other than me, and I’d do anything for him.” He waited, holding his breath and hoping that softened the toadlet’s heart.

Sighing, Rathor glanced to the side. “Look,” he said after a moment, “fine. I lost my dad years ago, I don’t know if I want that to happen to your son. But I want something from this too. What have you got to pay me with?”

“I can prove that the creature isn’t dangerous,” Tim said after a moment. “Aside from stealing my taxes and breaking my window, it tried to convince me that it didn’t want to hurt anyone when I caught it in my bedroom.”

Rathor watched him for a moment. “Don’t you have money or something?”

Tim stared at him. “Fine. A hundred gold.”

“You’ve got a deal,” Rathor said. “What do you want me to do?”

“I’m Fyn, by the way,” Tim said, the fake name familiar enough that he’d answer to it without hesitation. “And can you sneak me out of here?”

The toadlet shrugged. “If you can find a hiding place in there, sure.” He gestured to a covered wagon parked a little behind him, a saddled tarantula snoozing in front. “Mom borrowed it from our neighbors.”

Tim scrutinized it for a moment, then nodded. “Okay. Sneak me out of here on that.”

Rathor nodded, then glanced at the toads still pummeling each other on the tower. “I don’t think you’ll have a problem with being stopped by these guys.”

Tim rolled his eyes. “Let’s just go,” he said.

The toad stood up, sighing. “Can’t believe I’m helping a frog ,” he mumbled.

“Rathor! Hey, it’s been a while!”

The toadlet grumbled. “Hi, Talon,” he said halfheartedly.

Tim recognized that voice. It was the same toad soldier who’d caught him in the kitchen and dragged him to solitary confinement. “Are you still mad at me for leaving?” the soldier said now, pouting.

“Yes.”

Rathor’s curt answer didn’t deter Talon, though, and his voice drifted closer to the wagon where Tim was hidden under one of the seats, covered by several canvas sacks. “Come on, it’s been a year since I left for the Tower. Sorry I didn’t take you, but you’re still too young to join.”

The toadlet only huffed.

Talon sighed. “Look, just let me say bye to Mom, then I’ll get out of your hair.” He said something else too quietly for Tim to hear before the door to the wagon swung open. Rathor stepped in, and the door closed behind him. 

A moment later, the wagon started moving. “Hey, Fyn. We’ll be in Riverport in a few hours,” Rathor said quietly.

Tim nodded, then crawled out from beneath the seat to stare out the window. The plains around the Toad Tower soon gave way to the forest.

And now for the last part of his plan: getting away from these toads.

Tim remembered when he’d stationed several of his best henchmen in the woods near Toad Tower to keep an eye on what was happening there. He hadn’t been able to get an update in time about Captain Beatrix’s sudden departure, but they should still have been watching out for a signal. With that in mind, he slipped his knife out and pressed it against the window, angling it until it flashed with the light of the receding sun.

He flashed it in a pattern, pausing and seeing if they would respond before trying again. 

“What are you doing, Fyn?” Rathor asked, clearly bored.

Tim shrugged. “Admiring the view,” he said, sending another signal.

The toadlet accepted the answer and went back to sulking in the corner.

Tim glanced at Rathor. Maybe I should ask what’s got him so upset? Then he brushed it off. He honestly couldn’t care less, and it didn’t matter to him once he managed to ditch the toadlet. He turned and flashed another signal through the window.

It took a while of Tim signaling through the window, but finally, a loud thud caught his attention. The wagon ground to a halt. 

Rathor swung the door open and hopped out, disappearing around the corner. “Mom? What’s going on?”

Tim glanced at the wide-open door and tucked the knife back into his pocket.

A few minutes later, when Rathor went back around the wagon, there was nobody there.

“Took you long enough,” Tim complained, catching up to his second-in-command, Erid. 

The toad just grunted, hefting the axe he’d used to topple a tree onto the road. “How did you even get captured?”

“Long story short, I captured some kind of strange creature, but she escaped and destroyed our original base, catching me in the chaos,” Tim admitted. “If I ever see her again I’ll–” He took a deep breath and forced his fists to unclench. “I need to stay a few days to recover,” he continued, blushing when his stomach growled, “but then I need a ride back to Stonewell so I can pick up the pieces she left behind. She didn’t get to our other base, thankfully.”

“I’m sure we can spare a tarantula,” Erid replied.

After an hour of hard, fast riding, Tim steered the tarantula into the stables at the most prestigious inn in all of Stonewell, the Hargrave. He handed the reins over to a stablehand and strode into the inn, approaching the front desk.

“Hello, how may I help… you…” The receptionist faltered upon seeing Tim.

“I’m hoping to watch the sparrows fly at midnight, do you have any recommendations?” Tim asked.

“Uh… yes sir, if you would please follow me,” the receptionist said. They disappeared into the back room, Tim following suit.

The receptionist pulled open a heavy trapdoor leading into the basement of the building. Tim stepped in, and the receptionist slammed it shut. He descended into the darkness for a moment, finally emerging in a large room filled to the brim with almost all of the members of the Secret Circus.

The low chatter in the room fell silent at the sight of him.

“I’m back,” Tim said flatly.

A frog raised her hand tentatively. “Um… weren’t you taken to Toad Tower?”

“I was, but I escaped,” Tim said, his impatience leaking into his voice. “Why are you all so surprised?”

“We thought… It’s been two and a half weeks.” The frog lowered her voice. “We thought you were given lifetime imprisonment, if not execution.”

“I’d have thought you all would have more faith in your leader,” Tim said indignantly. “How bad were the damages?”

A toad Tim recognized from the original hideout raised his hand. “Well, everyone got out alive,” he started, “but all the creatures that were there escaped. And the entirety of the base is intact, but the Toad Tower soldiers are constantly monitoring it.”

Tim sighed. “Did you manage to get everything out? The coppers, the transaction papers, anything?”

“The papers, yeah,” the toad said. “But not the coppers. Or our supplies. Or weapons, or–”

“That’s enough,” Tim said. “I get it. We’ve got a lot of rebuilding to do. And another base to build.” He headed into the office room on the far end, grabbing a pencil and some paper and jotting down a quick checklist. “Now, here’s what we’re going to do.”

Over the course of a week, Tim delegated task after task, doing whatever he could himself. Honestly, he had no idea how the Secret Circus was able to get so much more work done in the single week he was back than the two and a half weeks he was gone. Before long, the Circus had managed to restock all of the lost supplies, though it made quite a dent in their savings to do so.

So he was sitting in his office a week later, contemplating the checklist he’d written and wondering if he’d forgotten anything. At first, he confused the tapping at his door for the tapping of his pencil against the table, but it persisted even once he set the pencil down. He glanced up and saw a nervous-looking frog holding a letter.

“Um, Mr. Treller sir, a messenger mosquito came looking for you,” she said, holding the letter up.

Tim nodded. “Bring it here, then,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Of-of course, Mr. Treller.” The frog scurried out of the room, the door gently shutting behind her. Tim shrugged and adjusted his lamp, brightening the glow.

He glanced at the letter. There was no seal. He shrugged and took a drink from the steaming mug of tea on his desk, then pried the envelope open with his knife and unfolded the letter.

He laughed quietly to himself when he saw the almost childlike scribbles covering the page. “Why in frog’s name is this person’s handwriting so bad?” Sighing, he squinted at the page, trying to make sense of the letters.

To Tim Treller, the Huntsman,

I have a job for you. It’s quite different from your usual line of work, but I hope that you will still consider helping me out with this. I’m willing to pay you a hefty sum in exchange for your aid.

Here are the details of the mission. Should you choose to accept, please make your way to the location circled on the enclosed map. Then, once the mission is complete, come to Newtopia. I will send a message with more information then.

I need you to use your creatures to threaten two otherworldly creatures called humans.

Now, I know how that sounds. But one of them has abilities that only come out in high-stress situations, So I need you to put them in that high-stress situation, and find out which one exhibits increased speed, strength, and/or a blue glow. The other one, well, you’re free to do as you wish, but as much as it pains me, make sure she does not return to Newtopia.

The price for doing this is 5,000 gold farthings.

Signed, a client

Tim frowned. More otherworldly creatures? He was tempted to refuse; while five thousand gold was a lot of money the Circus could definitely use, the last time he’d tangled with a creature from another world, he’d lost far too much to consider doing it again. 

He shook out the envelope, hoping to see the map, and let that aid in his decision. A folded paper fell out, and he unfolded it to reveal a detailed map of the entirety of Amphibia, with a lakeside cave in the mountains north of Newtopia circled in black ink. Then his attention caught on a small piece of paper caught in one of the folds.

He tugged it free and unfolded it. 

P.S. You may have to eavesdrop on their conversations to figure out which of the three humans present are the ones you need to target. This might help: their names are Anne and Luz.

Luz. The name echoed in his mind. Tim gaped at the paper, dropping it onto his desk. Then his fists clenched, and he knew what his decision was.

He left his office, tucking the letters and the map back into their envelope. “Someone prepare the wolf-moles,” he said. “I’ve got a job to do.”

Chapter Text

“Hey, Luz, there’s a mail fly message for you,” Anisa called from the kitchen. Luz heard the sound of the window opening before light buzzing filled the room. A letter rounded the corner, held up by a tiny fly.

Luz stood up, then her eyes widened. “Que lindo!” she gasped out at the fly wearing a miniature cap and overalls. “You’re so cute!”

The fly tipped its hat at her, a dopey grin on its face.

Luz held out her hands, and the fly dropped the letter into them before buzzing back to the kitchen. She unfolded the letter and scanned it.

Hi, Luz!

I have some really big news! So, remember when I accidentally stayed over a few days ago after we all met with King Andrias? Well, when I got back to the castle, Andrias invited me to search his personal wing of the library with him for any more information on the box. And guess what! We found something!

So, typical clumsy me accidentally spilled bugaccinos all over this one-of-a-kind ancient tapestry. I feel SO BAD about that! But then King Andrias spotted a button that had been hidden by the tapestry! Of course I pressed it and then, you’ll never believe what happened next! A secret door opened! That’s right, an actual secret door!

We went down the tunnel hidden behind it and, lo and behold, a secret wing of the library! One I doubt even Leo knows about! There was a giant book and it actually had information about the music box! And then– wait a sec. Look at me, forgetting what I was writing this letter for. I didn’t write this to spoil the story for you, I wrote it to invite you! To a sleepover! Tonight!

Long story short, King Andrias had to translate the book, but he said he’d be done by tomorrow morning. And I got permission to invite you, Anne, and Sprig and Polly for a sleepover! Just like I said! Tomorrow morning, we’ll meet with the king, but for tonight, let’s have fun!

Oh, and by the way, I’m testing out a different messaging system– the mail fly! Isn’t he so cute?

-Marcy ;P

Luz laughed fondly at Marcy’s typical rambling. “Hey, Anisa,” she called, folding the letter gently and putting it back in its envelope. “I’ve got a sleepover tonight! Can you please drop me off at the castle?”

Anisa poked her head out of the kitchen. “You’ve got a sleepover at the castle ?” She shook her head fondly. “I don’t know why I expected anything different.”

“So, will you?”

Anisa nodded. “When do you want to leave?”

Luz knocked on the front door of the castle, the guards on either side doing nothing to stop her. They were probably used to the three chaotic humans running around Newtopia at this point. She knocked again, then waited a bit.

Finally, Lady Olivia opened the door. “Welcome,” Lady Olivia said grandly. “Do step in, I’ll show you the way to Master Marcy’s room.”

Luz turned and waved at Anisa, who waved back before the door shut between them. She turned her attention back to Lady Olivia. “So…” she said awkwardly as the newt strode ahead. “Nice, uh, decorations? In the castle?”

“Thank you,” Lady Olivia said. “One of the earliest Leviathans, the one who built this castle, selected these decorations. They’ve served us well over the thousands of years.”

“Oh, uh…” Luz looked at the wall sconces and ornate tapestries with fresh eyes. “That’s… really old.”

“Indeed.” Lady Olivia started climbing a spiraling staircase, her skirts swishing.

Luz coughed. “Are the paintings as old as the other stuff?”

“The paintings are as old as the Amphibians they depict,” Lady Olivia replied. “For example, His Majesty King Andrias’s portrait is not nearly as old as the portrait of his great grandfather, King Eldrin Leviathan, third of his name.”

“Do you, like, memorize the names of all the rulers?”

Lady Olivia nodded. “It is the job of an advisor to know things, yes.”

Luz nodded, impressed. And I can’t even memorize the names of most of the people they teach us about in history class, she thought, cursing herself for having such an extremely selective memory.

 “We have arrived,” Lady Olivia said, snapping Luz out of her thoughts. She turned to face a door embossed with a mosaic of the Amphibian crest. She rapped on the door, which was moments later opened by Marcy, sporting her favorite ‘Roll Play’ pajamas.

“Good evening, Master Marcy,” Lady Olivia said. “One of your friends, Luz Noceda, has arrived for your sleepover.” Luz waved from behind her. “Now, if you don’t mind,” Lady Olivia continued, “I shall go and keep a watch for your other friends so I may escort them here when they arrive.” She turned and headed down the hall.

Marcy grinned at Luz. “Oh my gosh, you’re here! This is gonna be so much fun!”

“Yeah!” Luz found herself smiling just as wide. Marcy’s really pretty when she smiles. Well, she’s way more than pretty. She looks– 

Luz tapered off, painfully aware of how her smile had suddenly become awkward.

Marcy’s voice broke the silence once again. “You didn’t change into pajamas?”

“Oh, uh,” Luz rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. “I, well, I don’t actually have pajamas. I’ve been sleeping in my everyday clothes.”

“I figured,” Marcy replied. “I saw that one night I accidentally stayed over with you. So,” she turned and rummaged through her nightstand, “I asked Bernardo to make you some.”

“Who’s Bernardo?” Then Marcy turned around with a bundle of clothing in her hands, and Luz’s jaw dropped in surprise. “That… looks exactly like my pajamas back home.” She took the bundle from Marcy and unfolded the pants, then laughed. “You even got the cat faces right! But,” she glanced up again, “how?”

“It wasn’t hard, we’ve had enough sleepovers for me to remember what your pajamas look like,” Marcy said dismissively. “So I sketched them out in my journal and showed it to Bernardo, and told him what colors. He did the rest.”

“Who is Bernardo?”

“He’s only Newtopia’s best armorer!”

Luz glanced at the pajamas in her arms. “And he made you… pajamas?”

“Well, he did kind of give me this weird look, but yeah, he did!” Marcy clapped her hands excitedly. “You should totally go try them on! I wanna see if I got your size right!”

“Uh, okay,” Luz said. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“There’s a bathroom over there,” Marcy said, motioning to a door right across the hall. “Once Anne and, uh, what were their names–”

“Sprig and Polly?” Luz asked.

“Yeah, them! Once they get here, we can finally start!” Marcy jumped up and down in excitement. “Oh, by the way, if you give me your phone, I can charge it,” Marcy said.

Luz fished her phone out and left her bag on Marcy’s bed, handing Marcy the phone. “I’ll go change now,” she said, motioning to the door. “Be right back.”

Luz glanced at herself in the mirror. The pajamas Marcy had given her fit perfectly, and she glanced down, still shocked that they looked– and felt– just like the ones she had at home. They… kind of made her feel homesick, just a little bit. Her smile wobbled, then she took a breath.

“Let’s go, Luz,” she said. “Let’s get back out there. Tomorrow, the king is gonna tell us more about the music box, and then–”

Not like it went well last time, a tiny voice in Luz’s head said.

“Now, none of that! It’ll be great, and we’ll find a way to get back to Mami. To go home.” She exhaled, then picked up her clothes and left the bathroom, ready to have fun with her friends. But the nagging voice in the back of Luz’s mind wouldn’t let go of the idea that something was going to go wrong.

Luz saw Hop Pop walking towards the staircase, then flung open Marcy’s door, nearly knocking over Sprig and Polly. “Oh, sorry!” she said. “Did I hit you guys?”

“Nah, we’re fine,” Sprig said, rubbing his arm.

“Luz!” Anne called. “Hey, there!”

“Hi, guys!” Luz said, grinning widely and shutting the door behind her before walking over to them. “Are you all ready to have fun?”

“Woo-hoo!” Polly called. “Me and Sprig’s first sleepover!”

“Better make it a good one!” Sprig called excitedly. Then he lowered his voice ominously. “These will be formative memories.”

Anne’s eyes widened. “Woah. I just realized, we’ve never done a sleepover without Sasha.”

“Oh, you’re right,” Marcy said, scratching the back of her head.

“You think we can pull it off?” Luz asked.

Marcy nodded. “Sasha’s the sleepover queen, not us.”

Anne scoffed. “Who says there has to be just one queen?”

“Everyone,” Marcy replied flatly. “That’s sort of how the whole system works, Anne.”

Anne put her hands on Luz and Marcy's shoulders. “Marcy, Luz, the three of us have done tons of sleepovers. We know everything about them,” she said seriously, glancing between the two of them.

The three exchanged a grin before launching into their sleepover song. “Pajamas, junk food, and gossip galore,” they chanted. “Pillow fights, movies, and tearing up the dance floor. And listen up, 'cause this I won't repeat, never ever go to sleep!” All three of them giggled.

“Sensing some missing context here,” Sprig said.

“Oh, sorry,” Marcy replied sheepishly. “Sasha always said falling asleep early means total failure. A true sleepover goes till sunrise.”

“Enough setup,” Anne called. “Let’s get our sleepover on, baby!”

Everyone cheered.

From sledding down the grand staircase on a mattress to spraying Lady Olivia with an Amphibian version of Funny Floss™, the entire night was a blast.

Everyone collapsed on their sleeping bags. Polly yawned. “Wow, that was awesome,” she said delightedly.

“Best sleepover ever,” Sprig said, eyes closed. 

Anne peered over at Marcy and Luz. “See, told you guys we could pull off an amazing sleepover without Sasha,” she said slightly smugly. “What time is it anyway? Five a.m? Six a.m?

Marcy leaned down and fished her phone out of her pocket, then gasped. “Uhhh, only 9:00 p.m.?”

“What?” Luz and Anne yelled at the same time.

Sprig laughed, exhaustion clear in his voice. “That early?”

“But I’m so tired,” Polly said, sounding like she was about to fall asleep.

Anne leapt off her sleeping bag and picked them both up, shaking them. “No-o-o! Stay awake!”

“Hey, I have an idea,” Luz said. “What if we build a fort? That could be fun, and we don’t have to leave this room to do it!”

“Yeah, good idea,” Marcy said, nodding and standing up. “Alright, guys! This is what we’re gonna do. Sprig, Polly, go get those chairs. Anne, grab the blankets from the bed. Luz, you help me lift this rug to use as the roof.” Everyone nodded and split up to do their assigned tasks.

Luz knelt down on the ground opposite Marcy, then carefully got a grip on the edge of the rug. “When you’re ready,” she said to Marcy, who was doing the same.

“Ready,” Marcy replied. “One, two, three.”

On three, both of them lifted, the carpet heavier than Luz was expecting. They slowly began to move over to where Polly and Sprig had set up a few chairs. Then Marcy tripped, sending the entire rug into the air. 

Luz gasped, seeing where the rug was going to land. “Sprig, watch out!” she called, diving for the frog boy and shoving him out of the way. The carpet crashed to the ground where he’d been standing a moment earlier, and he stood there, eyes wide, as Luz stood there trying to catch her breath.

“Thanks,” he said shakily once he’d finally come to his senses. Polly hopped over and leaned on him, and Anne put a hand on his shoulder.

Luz nodded. “It’s no problem,” she said. “Glad you’re okay.”

“Uh, guys?” Marcy’s shocked voice startled everyone into looking at her. “There’s something here you might wanna see.”

They all walked over, and Anne gasped. “Is that a… secret trapdoor?”

“Man, this castle is full of secrets,” Marcy said in shock. “First a secret wing of the library, and now a secret trapdoor in my room ?” Then she gasped. “This was here the whole time. I’ve been standing on this for weeks, and I’m just now realizing this was here . So that’s why I always trip more than usual on this rug!”

“Are we gonna open it?” Polly asked.

“Tch, yeah dude,” Anne said. She crouched down next to the trapdoor. “There’s no handle though… Marmar, what do you think?”

Marcy glanced over the trapdoor. “Well, the hinges are visible over here,” she started, “so that probably means it opens outward. So if we just had a–” she snapped her fingers, trying to think, “a lever or something, we should be able to get in.”

“Um, what about that?” Luz motioned to a flat piece of metal sitting on Marcy’s nightstand. “Would that work? Actually, what is that even for?”

“Well, it was part of the charging system I rigged up for my phone,” Marcy said, motioning over to the desk by the door. “But I found a much better piece and never bothered to get rid of that one. And yeah, that should work.”

Luz grabbed it from the table, recoiling when Marcy’s Venus flytrap plant tried to bite her. She tossed the metal piece to Sprig, who gave it to Marcy, who wedged it into the narrow gap between the trapdoor and the stone floor. She began to press hard on the bit still sticking out. “Help me out here, guys,” she grunted. “This door is heavier than I thought.”

With the combined strength of the five of them, the door finally lifted enough for Anne and Luz to catch the bottom and pull the trapdoor open. A staircase spiraled into the darkness, moss and coral dotting the walls.

Luz, Marcy, and Anne exchanged looks. “Guys,” Anne whispered, “I think it’s time.”

“Really?” Luz asked. “Are you sure they’re ready?”

“Is anyone ever really ready, Luz?”

Sprig and Polly glanced between the three of them. “Ready for what?”

The three of them leaned close to each other, Marcy’s phone casting an eerie white glow. “The Scare Dare challenge,” they whispered ominously. “OooOoOoOo…”

Marcy leaned back and set her phone down. “Okay, so here are the rules,” she said. “One of us has to come up with a scary dare, and we all have to do it.” She turned around and started rummaging around in her bag.

Luz continued. “And whoever chickens out first gets their name added to…”

“The Book of Losers!” Marcy pulled out a composition notebook with ‘Book of Losers’ scrawled on the front in bright red ink.

Sprig and Polly gasped in fear.

“Yeah, and once your name is in the Book of Losers,” Anne finished, “it’ll be there forever.”

“Forever…” Marcy and Luz echoed.

Sprig and Polly stared blankly at the three girls for a moment.

Finally, they grinned. “Well, I’m sold!” Polly said.

“Let’s do this!” Sprig hollered.

“So all we need is a Scare Dare,” Marcy said. She turned and glanced at the open trapdoor. “And I think we all know what it’s gonna be.”

Everyone shivered as a cool breeze came out of the stairwell leading down into the depths of the castle.

“So,” Anne said, a slight quiver in her voice, “is it official, then? This sleepover’s Scare Dare challenge is to head down that creepy, dark–” She gulped. “Staircase? And find out what’s at the bottom?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Sounds about right.”

“I guess so.”

“Yeah, why not.”

“Who wants to go first?” Marcy asked.

Everyone gulped. 

Luz slowly raised her hand. “I’ll do it,” she said bravely. “It can’t be that bad.”

“Your sacrifice is much appreciated,” Anne said, the joke barely masking her fear. 

Luz stood up and slowly walked over to the staircase, shivering in the cool air from down below. “Let’s go, then,” she said, then took a small step down.

The staircase was surprisingly short; barely a minute after entering the stairwell, Luz had reached the bottom. “Guys, I found the end,” she called above, only to hear a series of thuds.

Marcy came flying out of the bottom of the stairwell, crashing straight into Luz. “Oww, sorry,” she said, grabbing Luz’s arm to steady herself. “I might have, uh, tripped.”

“You okay?” Luz asked, cheeks warm at how close Marcy was right now. Luz, stop thinking about that, she told herself. Has she ever told you she likes you? No? Good, then she’s just your friend. Deal with it.

Luz, more out of desperation than anything, decided to once again ignore the voice in her head.

Marcy nodded. “I’m fine.”

Anne rushed out of the staircase, followed closely by Sprig and Polly. “Marcy! Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” she said, letting go of Luz’s arm and holding her phone flashlight out. The bright white light illuminated a narrow hallway decorated similarly to the rooms in the castle above, albeit far more run-down.

“This place isn’t that bad,” Luz said, feeling herself start to relax a bit. “I was expecting far worse than an empty hallway.”

Sprig shakily pointed over at the far end. “Speak for yourself,” he said. “But someone really hated that painting.”

“Or some thing ,” Marcy said.

The group walked closer to the slashed canvas, and Sprig gently straightened the folded parts out. “Hey,” he said, “that frog looks like me! And isn’t that–”

Before he could finish, Marcy looked up and gasped. “Woah, is that a garden? Underground? How can it survive without sunlight?” She immediately raced off, Anne, Sprig, and Polly following in her wake.

Luz glanced at the painting before joining her friends. “That’s King Andrias,” she said quietly. “What’s a painting of him doing down here? And in such bad shape?” She couldn’t help but remember what Lady Olivia had said while Luz had been awkwardly questioning her. The paintings are as old as the Amphibians they depict. If that was true… this painting could have been a thousand years old. Who knew how long it had been sitting here, torn to shreds, gathering dust.

Suddenly, Anne screamed, and Luz looked up. “Debate later, find them now!” she told herself sternly, then ran off in the direction her friends went.

It only took a moment for Luz to find them. “What happened?” she gasped out.

“Nothing!” Anne replied. “I was just, uh, startled is all! This guy over here scared me.”

Beside her, Sprig and Polly were staring at something, their faces as white as a sheet.

“I told you the Moss Man existed, Sprig, Polly,” Anne said teasingly. Then she frowned. “Though I don’t know why it’s in chains down here.”

“Maybe it’s a different Moss Man?” Marcy asked.

Luz caught a glimpse of a creature made entirely of moss over Anne’s shoulder. Her heart sank when she realized the poor thing was chained. “Oh, no, we have to help it!” she cried. 

The Moss Man shivered as she pushed past her friends and reached out. “It’s okay,” she said soothingly, “I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.” 

The Moss Man nuzzled her hand, then held out its own hand. A pink flower grew out of it, blossoming in seconds.

“Thank you,” Luz said, taking the flower. She tucked it behind her ear. “Do you know how we can get you out of here?”

The Moss Man shook its head, then shrugged, as if to say it didn’t really mind.

“I think,” Marcy started, then hesitated. “I think it’s trying to say that it doesn’t really want to leave,” she finally said. “Who knows how long it’s been down here, and it’s been surviving just fine. It probably doesn’t know what it’ll find in the outside world.”

“Is that true?” Luz asked, looking at it. The Moss Man nodded, then stepped backward, disappearing into the bushes of the underground garden.

Luz stood up. “Let’s keep moving,” she finally said, her voice shaking, and nobody argued. Not even Marcy wanted to stay in the underground garden any longer.

They stepped through the garden to the other side, into a hallway filled with mirrors. “That’s a lot of mirrors,” Sprig said.

Luz glanced into a mirror lined with cracks, a dozen reflections of herself staring back at her. “Yeah,” she said.

“Uh, so, anyone wanna turn back and go in the book of losers? This is getting, uh…” Anne didn’t finish.

They all glanced at each other, then everyone let out a nervous giggle. ‘Definitely not’s and ‘as if’s echoed through the room.

“You know,” Marcy said, “some cultures believe mirrors can ward off malevolent spirits, or…” She grinned maniacally. “Or summon them.” Marcy cackled.

Sprig and Polly shuddered.

They finally neared the end, the hallway opening up into a room with ankle-deep water. Up ahead, Anne gasped. “Uh, guys?” she called. “You, uh, might wanna see this.” The last part came out in a strangled whisper.

Luz quickly caught up to everyone else, then gasped in shock. “Are– are those… coffins?” she asked.

“It’s some kind of creepy crypt,” Anne said.

“Woah-ho,” Polly said excitedly, “you mean like with dead bodies? Cool!” She and Sprig hopped deeper into the room.

Marcy grabbed Anne’s arm. “Guys? I, uh, I think we should turn back. We shouldn’t be here. This feels all sorts of wrong.”

“I think you’re right,” Anne said, voice shaking.

Sprig and Polly exchanged a look, then grinned. “I see,” Sprig said. “So, I guess you two are okay with going in…”

“The Book of Losers!” he and Polly chanted.

Anne waved it off. “We don’t wanna go back because we’re scared,” she said. “This place just isn’t our style.”

“Okay. Prove it.” Sprig turned and pointed across the room, at the one coffin standing upright against the wall. “Go take a picture by that coffin.”

“Are you guys sure this is a good idea?” Luz hissed.

“We can’t go in the Book of Losers again!” Anne whispered back. “You’re barely in there, Sasha’s not in it at all , but Marcy and I filled out the majority of the book!” 

Marcy sighed. “Besides, Sasha would totally do it.”

“If Sasha jumped off a bridge– Well, there they go. Good grief, I’m turning into Mami.” Luz watched as Anne and Marcy began to splash their way through the dirty water, heading straight for the coffin. Anne held her phone in front of herself and Marcy, and they snapped a photo. Then they both screamed.

Luz watched openmouthed as the water began to glow an eerie purple. “Let’s get out of here!” she called. Then she gasped.

Dozens of floating, ghostly jellyfish-looking beings, big and small, began to phase into the room through the walls, ceiling, and even the coffins themselves.

“What the heck are these things?” Anne and Marcy backed away, then screamed as another ghost fish came out of the walls behind them.

“Hey, they’re kind of cute,” Sprig said, reaching out to touch a nearby ghost fish. But Marcy yelled at him to stop. He turned to see them pointing at another ghost with several suspended skulls in its body. As he watched, the bones disintegrated into nothing but dust.

Polly screamed, Sprig following soon after. “I– I nearly touched that!” he gasped, staring at his hands.

“They’re gonna eat our bones!” Polly called.

Luz dashed into the room, the water splashing on her bare feet. “Guys! We have to get out of… here…” All around her, the ghost fish stopped and turned to look at her. “Uh, why are they watching me?” she asked nervously.

A tiny ghost fish flew closer, then nudged the flower the Moss Man had given her. Then all the ghost fish floated away, disappearing into the walls they came from.

Before long, the five of them were alone in the remains of the crypt. “What just happened?” Sprig asked. “Why’d those ghosts back off?”

Marcy scratched her head thoughtfully. “I think it was because of the flower the Moss Man gave Luz,” she said. “Maybe those creatures aren’t ghosts, but prisoners, just like the Moss Man. So when they saw that their fellow prisoner gave Luz a token of friendship or something, they backed off.”

“But if that’s true,” Luz asked, “what’s keeping them here? They can literally go through walls, it’s not much of a stretch to imagine they can just float away and escape.”

Marcy nodded. “Something must be keeping them here,” she said thoughtfully. “But what?”

“Uh, maybe it’s the mirrors?” Polly offered. “The hallway was covered in them, remember? And you said some cultures use them to ward off malevolent spirits…”

“You could be right,” Marcy agreed. “It makes sense.”

“Do you guys want to head back now?” Anne said shakily. “I’m fine with going in the Book of Losers if it means we can get out of here and stop encountering scary things. Besides, the other exit is closed,” she added, pointing to another archway blocked by a heavy wooden door.

Nobody argued.

Back in Marcy’s room, Marcy’s phone beeped an alarm as the rays of the sun started to shine through the window. “We did it,” Luz said. “We stayed up all night.”

Sprig grabbed the Book from the nightstand. “Just wish I didn’t have to add my name to the Book of Losers,” he said sadly. Polly agreed, jotting her name down under his.

“Scoot over,” Anne said, taking the pencil from Polly. “You’re not the only losers.”

“Same,” Marcy said. “I was scared outta my mind too.”

Luz nodded. “Agreed.” She wrote her name last, signing with a flourish.

“It’s not the first time, either,” Marcy added.

Polly gasped. “For real?”

“Have a look,” Marcy encouraged.

Sprig flipped to the previous page in the book. “Marcy, Anne, your names are on here so many times!” he said in shock. “Yours too, Luz, but less so than the others.”

“Sasha’s the only one who was brave enough to never make it into the book,” Luz said sadly.

Anne nodded. “We have to find her, guys.” She glanced down. “I need to make things right with her.”

“Me too,” Luz agreed.

Marcy put a hand on both their shoulders. “Don’t worry, we will.”

Before she could say anything else, a rapid knocking at the door alerted them to Lady Olivia's presence, and she shoved the door open, bursting into the room. “Rise and shine, kids,” she said, annoyance and anger dripping in her tone and paint all over her face. She blinked, revealing that Polly had scribbled ‘Polly wuz here’ on her eyelids. “Because of you, I barely slept a wink last night. Ugh, well, whatever,” she said, straightening up. “It’s go time. Your audience with King Andrias is about to begin. Get ready!” Her eyes widened, an almost crazed look on her face, before she slammed the doors shut.

Polly giggled. “Did you see the look on her face?” They all started laughing, a welcome feeling after the night they’d had. After a moment, everyone calmed down.

“So, who’s going to change first?” Marcy asked. 

Luz raised her hand. “I have my clothes, so I can go first. Then you, Marcy. Anne, Sprig, Polly, is Hop Pop coming with your stuff?”

Anne nodded. “He should be here soon.” She stifled a yawn. “Wow, last night is starting to catch up to me.” Her yawn was contagious, as a moment later Marcy and Sprig followed suit.

Luz grabbed her things and went to change in the bathroom across the hall. When she returned, Marcy walked past her to change while a yawning Anne, Sprig, and Polly talked with Hop Pop, who had just arrived. Luz stifled a yawn of her own and went to check on her phone, which was charging on the small desk beside the door.

She pressed the power button and the reboot screen showed, moments later switching to her lock screen with a picture of Azura. The time was wrong, set at around three in the afternoon, but it made sense, considering there was no way for the phone to connect to a network to check the time. She unlocked the phone and navigated to her photos, sighing with relief when she saw none of them were gone.

“Hi, did your phone work?” 

Marcy’s voice over her shoulder startled her so badly that she turned around, nearly yanking the makeshift phone charger off the table. “Marcy! You scared me,” she said, stabilizing the charger, her cheeks on fire.

“Whoops, sorry!” Marcy laughed. “But seriously, did it work?”

Luz nodded. “Here are the photos of the cave,” she said, carefully disconnecting the phone from the charger and handing it to Marcy, who scrolled through the photos with delight.

When she was done, Marcy looked up at Luz, grinning. “OMG! These are so cool! Man, I wish I could see these in real life!” She zoomed in on one of the photos, inspecting the now pixelated image. “Phones don’t capture detail nearly as well as real life,” she added sadly.

“You know, these weren’t even all the carvings,” Luz said, grinning as she watched Marcy’s eyes widen comically. 

Marcy took a deep breath, looking like she was trying not to burst from excitement. “Did you take a picture of most of them, at least?”

Luz shook her head. “Only a few nearby ones that Anisa told me to take photos of, and some that I thought you might like to see. I couldn’t even see most of them, because it was so dark in the cave.”

“Omigosh now we definitely have to go there! I wanna see this for myself!”

Luz shrugged. “I don’t know if we can,” she said, hating to see Marcy’s mood deflate. “It’s such a long journey that Anisa’s not going back for another few weeks, and we still have to find a way home.” And there’s the little, hopefully insignificant matter of who’s the– Luz shut that train of thought. She didn’t really want to know the answer.

Surprisingly, Marcy brightened upon hearing that. “That’s not going to be a problem! I received a message from Andrias that Joe’s armor is ready, so it’ll be easy to get to the mountains with him! Oh, and I almost forgot!” Marcy turned and walked over to her nightstand, leaving Luz wondering yet again who Joe was.

Marcy returned a moment later with a book, which she quickly flipped through. Finally, she stopped on a sketch of a crystal covered with lichen, the borders shaded to make it look like it was glowing. “Is that the same crystal your necklace is made of?” she asked.

Luz read through the paragraph underneath it– something about magical lichen growing on sunstones. “Yeah,” she said after a moment. “It is. Anisa has loads of sunstones at her house. Why?”

“So Andrias gave me this book a few days ago, and apparently there’s a special kind of lichen that grows on sunstone, which can be used with some very basic dark magic to create a pretty strong healing potion. And I really wanna try it out, not to mention it can be useful when we’re finding a way back home. So do you think you can convince Anisa to take us there?”

“Uhhh…” Luz looked at the adorably hopeful look on Marcy’s face, and couldn’t bring herself to say no. “Why not,” she said instead. “If you know a fast way to get there, sure.”

“Yes!” 

Marcy cheered, catching Anne and Sprig’s attention from across the room. They walked over. “Hey, guys, what’s the good news?” Anne asked.

Before either Marcy or Luz could answer, Lady Olivia shoved the door open again. “Come with me, everyone,” she said, looking slightly more composed despite the paint that was still all over her face. “King Andrias awaits.”

Chapter Text

The guards stationed in front of the throne room pushed the doors open, stepping back and letting everyone file through. One of the guards pulled a handkerchief out of their pocket and offered it to Lady Olivia, who immediately snatched it from their hand without so much as a ‘thanks’.

Surprisingly, Luz was the only one who didn’t yawn as she walked down the long room, squinting through the bright light streaming through the windows instead. “Wonderful to see you all again,” King Andrias proclaimed boisterously, walking over from his throne.

Various agreements and halfhearted ‘hello’s echoed his greeting.

“So, ask me if I found out anything about the box,” King Andrias said invitingly, hopping from foot to foot like a child who’d just won an award and wanted to share the news.

Anne did as he asked. “Did you–”

“Bingo!” the king interrupted, leaning so close that the force of his voice knocked Anne, Luz, and the Plantars off balance. He laughed heartily. “Ta-da!” He pulled his hands out from behind his back, revealing a huge book with a cover depicting the three gems from the music box. He opened the book and held it up in front of the group, and everyone was immediately intimidated by the sheer size of the thing. It was probably at least twice as tall as Luz was, and it was definitely taller than all of the Plantars combined.

They all stepped closer and gasped in unison. “It’s the music box!” Sprig said in awe.

“According to this book,” King Andrias started, “my ancestors used the box to visit entirely different worlds. They were peaceful explorers, scientists, if you will. And– here’s the good part– it tells us how to recharge the gems!”

“Really?” Anne asked. “What does it say?”

“The book mentions three different temples, one for each kind of energy in the gems,” King Andrias explained. “Each temple channels its specific energy back into the gem. And once the stones are recharged–”

“We’ll have a way home?!” Anne called, stars in her eyes as she realized what this meant.

“Steal my thunder, why don’t you,” Andrias deadpanned. “But yes!” He flipped the page, showing another illustration of a charged box, the gems glowing. “Eh? Eh?”

“Yes!” Luz called. “A way to get home!”

“Right?” Marcy said excitedly. She grabbed Luz’s hand, and Luz blushed as Marcy raised Luz and Anne’s hands above their heads. “Now let’s get out there and conquer those bad boys!” 

Anne and Luz cheered, but an outstretched hand from Andrias stopped them in their tracks. “Let’s rein in those snails for a sec,” he said. “The book only gives the location of one temple, and– what was that word you used, Marmar? Main quest? This ‘main quest’ is going to take quite a while and lead to the end of the… story, so to speak, so you may as well finish off any tasks or plans any of you had.”

“Augh, but Andrias,” Marcy protested, “there’s still so much preparation to do!”

Andrias laughed. “Don’t worry about it, we’ll handle that. Just leave a list of tasks with Olivia and she’ll get them done for you.”

“You’d do that? Really?” When Andrias nodded, Marcy gasped. “Do you know what this means, Luz? We can totally go see those ancient carvings! And get some of that lichen!”

“I still haven’t asked Anisa,” Luz reminded her.

Marcy nodded. “Well, if she says no, we’ll stay in Newtopia and help out with the preparations. But if she says yes…?”

Luz grinned, easily acquiescing despite herself. “Then we’ll go!”

Hop Pop cleared his throat. “Well,” he said, “ I hate to say it, but we really need to get back to Wartwood. The harvest is coming up in a few days and we can't miss it.”

Anne nodded. “Okay, guys, me and the Plantars will head back to Wartwood, and when you're both ready we can just meet up there.” 

Marcy’s face fell. “Do you really need to go back to Wartwood with the Plantars?”

“Uhhh…”

“Well, you see…” Sprig trailed off.

Finally, Anne sighed. “Do you really need me for preparations and magic lichen and stuff?”

Luz glanced back and forth between the two.

Marcy bit her lip, then sighed. “I–”

“If I may,” Andrias interrupted, “why don’t you at least take today with your friends? Then you can head back to Wartwood until everything’s done here in Newtopia!”

Anne glanced at Hop Pop, who shrugged. “Why not,” he said. “I’ll stay here with Polly to pack up the hotel room. You kids have fun looking for magic moss.”

“What?” Polly groaned. “Why do I have to stay back? It’s not fair that Sprig gets to go!”

“It’s too dangerous for you,” Hop Pop gently scolded her.

Andrias cleared his throat. “So, now that that’s settled, I suppose you’ll be heading out?”

The door shut behind the last of the group, and Andrias was once again alone in his throne room. He walked over to the balcony behind his throne, barely sparing a glance at the view of the sprawling city below. “My lord,” he said.

The city disappeared into the void, and the Core’s glowing eyes hovered in front of him, waiting.

“They’ve taken the bait. Our plan has been set in motion.”

Excellent job, Andrias. If this works, perhaps you’ll earn your place with us after all.

Luz knocked on the front door of Leo and Teora’s house, then stepped back, waiting. Anisa opened the door, and her eyes widened when she saw Marcy, Anne, and Sprig standing a little bit behind her. “So your sleepover is done, I gather?” she asked, stepping aside to let them in. “I thought you said to come for you at noon.”

She shrugged. “It finished early, I guess,” she replied. “Anyway, I have a question for you. Uh…” Luz glanced at Marcy, who gave her a thumbs up. “Can you take us to your house today?”

Anisa raised an eyebrow. “Why– You know as well as I that it is a journey that would take at least a week,” she said. 

Marcy spoke up. “Uh, I have a way to get there faster. I really want to see those ancient carvings you showed Luz.  And Luz also said you have sunstones in your garden. Do you have any glimmer lichen, too, then? I need it for a potion I want to try making.”

“What’s glimmer lichen?” 

Anisa’s genuinely confused expression threw Marcy off at first. “Wait, you don’t know what it is? It’s this iridescent lichen that grows on sunstones.”

“I got rid of all the lichen growing in my garden years ago,” Anisa replied, shrugging. “So I don’t really know what you’re talking about. If you want this glimmer lichen, you’re going to need to find a different deposit of sunstone crystals. There’s some in the caves near my home.” 

“Okay,” Marcy said. “Can you take us there, then?”

Anisa thought about it for a moment, then sighed. “It depends on how fast your way of getting to the mountains is,” she replied.

“We’re going to fly on my bird!”

“What?” Anisa looked shocked. “Fly on a bird ?”

Marcy nodded. “On my bird, Joe Sparrow!”

“You have a bird?!” Anne and Luz asked at the same time, then looked at each other. 

Sprig raised a shaking hand. “Uh, birds eat Amphibians, right?”

“Not all birds,” Anisa and Marcy said in unison. 

“Like sparrows.”

“And cardinals.”

They looked at each other. “You have a bird too?” Marcy gasped.

“I don’t have a bird, but I am friends with a bird,” Anisa replied. “A cardinal. I saved her life.”

“Uh, Marcy?” Luz asked. “When you kept mentioning a ‘Joe’, did you mean your bird?”

Marcy nodded. “Uh-huh. Wait, did I not tell you?” When Luz shook her head, she grinned sheepishly. “Heh, sorry.”

“So, how fast does your bird fly?” Anisa asked.

Marcy thought about it. “He flew from the Dawnblood Islands to Newtopia in a few hours, but I didn’t calculate the speed. Should I do that? What unit of distance should–”

“That’s okay,” Anisa interrupted. “Between the Dawnblood Islands and Newtopia in a few hours is fast enough. Though can your bird carry–” She counted everyone. “Uh, five people?”

Marcy shrugged. “He carried five of us back from the Dawnblood Island, so probably.”

Anisa watched her for a moment, then nodded. “I suppose I can take you, then. Let me just grab some lights for the rest of you, then we’ll go to your bird.” She disappeared into the back room, emerging with her own sunstone necklace and three of the ones that Luz had failed to sell. “You’re going to need these when we get there. Luz, you still have yours, right?”

Luz nodded and held it up. “Yep.”

“Then let’s go.” Anisa stopped and scrutinized Anne and Sprig. “Though you will need to wear coats.”

Tim tapped his foot, bored. He had sent the wolf-moles underground ages ago, and he’d just been sitting in this cave for hours , waiting for Luz and the rest of the people that the client had said would come. At this point, he was starting to doubt that this whole mission wasn’t a waste of his time.

One of the wolf-moles poked its head out of the ground, attracted by his tapping foot. He snapped his fingers and it dove again, docile and obedient. Holding his pack’s alpha separate from the rest was certainly a way to train them quickly. The creatures would do anything for their leader.

Suddenly, the flapping of wings outside the cave had him diving for the wall and scrambling up the rough surface, settling in the shadows a dozen feet above the ground. Voices drifted through the entrance. “…the cave,” an indigo axolotl was saying, stepping into the cavern with a glowing crystal in hand. “Stay close, you don’t want to get stuck down here. What was it you needed to find?”

“Just glimmer lichen,” another voice said, and someone else– some kind of black-haired version of Luz’s species ( human , Tim remembered from the letter)– walked in after the axolotl. Tim grinned. Maybe the request hadn’t been a trick after all. “But I also really want to see those carvings, and, um. How are we going to do this? You said this cave is really big, right?” The human pulled out another glowing stone from her pocket.

A second human with curly brown hair followed after, a frog snoozing peacefully on her head. She yawned. “How do you still have so much energy? I was out pretty much that entire flight!” 

A pink frog followed close behind her, rubbing his eyes. “Me too,” he said, voice thick with sleep.

“I’m way too excited to sleep!” the first human said. “Besides, I had to navigate.”

Tim’s attention was caught by a fifth figure standing at the entrance to the cave for a moment before stepping inside. He immediately recognized the short hair, the cloak, and the glowing necklace similar to the ones that her companions had. Luz. “This place is as dark as I remember,” she said, and her voice dissipated any lingering doubts. Tim’s fists clenched. Now to do my job; which of the two remaining humans is Anne?

“So, how are we going to do this?” the black-haired human asked. “Anisa, how far apart are the two parts of the cave we have to visit?”

The axolotl shrugged. “Uh, I’m not sure…” she said. “There are two branches of the cave that split off from this entrance. One is a straight path to the cavern with sunstone crystals, and the other is almost like a maze that leads to the cave with the carvings in it. They’re fairly far apart, and from what it sounded like you wanted to do, we’ll be in there for quite some time.” 

“What if we split up?” the black-haired human suggested. “Anne, Luz, Sprig, could you guys go down the tunnel and get some of that lichen? Then Anisa could take me to the carvings. We could meet up back here, at the entrance.”

So Anne is the curly-haired one, Tim thought to himself. And they’re already splitting up. I don’t even need to make it happen myself.

Then Luz asked, “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Is it safe?” and Tim realized he’d celebrated too soon.

“Of course it’s a good idea!” the black-haired human insisted. “Right, Anisa?”

The axolotl shrugged. “I suppose it’s safe. There wasn’t any danger the last time we came here either, not to mention all the times I’ve come here on my own or with others.” 

“Yeah, see?”

The curly-haired one– Anne– sighed. “If you’ll go, Luz, I’ll go,” she said.

Luz bit her lip. “I guess so,” she said. “If that’s what you want, Marce.”

“Okay,” Anisa said. “Just go down that tunnel, you can’t miss it. Do you have a bag for the lichen?”

“Oh!” The black-haired human pulled a pouch out of her satchel. “Here.”

Luz tucked it into her bag, then the group split up and disappeared down their respective corridors. Tim grinned, then started following the receding light from the group with Anne and Luz. This was becoming easier than he’d thought.

“Is… this it?” Sprig asked as the tunnel opened into a huge cavern lit up with sparse sunstone crystals, mostly covered with lichen. 

Anne nodded. “Looks like it.”

“Okay, so Marcy said to gather lichen and put it in here,” Luz said, pulling the cloth pouch out of her bag. Suddenly, she heard the sound of a pebble skittering across stone behind her and whirled around, only to see nothing. “Did you guys hear that?” she asked nervously.

“Hear what?” Anne asked.

“There was a– a sound. Like a rock hitting the ground or something.”

Anne and Sprig both shrugged.

Luz took a breath. “Never mind, then. Let’s just get that lichen and get out of here.” She handed the bag to Sprig. “Let’s grab as much as we can, so we don’t have to come back for a long time.”

“Hopefully never,” Sprig muttered, walking over to a wall and using his cling pads to climb up to a cluster of lichen-covered sunstone. He began peeling the fungus off the rock, dropping it into the cloth bag.

They split up, each taking a different part of the cave and grabbing as much of the sparkly glimmer lichen as they could. As Luz walked over to Sprig to drop off her second handful of the stuff, the ground started to shake.

“What’s happening?” Anne called, just as Sprig lost his grip on the wall and landed on the floor beside Luz.

Several creatures popped out of the ground near the entrance, all of them facing away. Then, almost as one, seven terrifying bug faces turned to look at them.

The bugs looked strangely familiar, and Luz’s eyes widened as she placed it. “Hey, those look like mole crickets! Some guy had one as a pet, and he brought it to Mami to look at it a little before we got here– it’s really hard to forget them after you see them. It looks slightly different, though.”

“Some guy had that as a pet?!” Anne yelled.

Luz shrugged. “Well, it was smaller, and it wasn’t quite so scary…” She trailed off as the one in the lead crawled the rest of the way out of the ground and started rushing toward them. “Get out of the way!”

Luz pressed herself to the wall as the insect raced past, breathing hard. “Should we, uh, get out of here?” she said shakily. Before Anne or Sprig could respond, though, one of the bugs turned and headed for the entrance, sitting its giant bug body right in front of their only escape route. “Great, now we’re stuck.”

“If we can’t run, we’re going to have to fight,” Anne said, pulling her tennis racket out and dodging as one of the bugs lunged at her. Beside her, Sprig held his slingshot out and sent a pebble flying straight at one of the crickets’ eyes. It screeched, falling back.

Luz pulled out her two knives, took a deep breath, and adjusted her stance. 

Anne giggled nervously. “Well. This can’t be that much worse than every other time we’ve had to fight giant bugs, right?”

Sprig’s eyes widened in fear. “Uh… we’ve never been so outnumbered before, though. Six giant insects to three people…”

Anne shook her head, grabbing her tennis racket. “We’ll be fine.”

“Yep,” Luz agreed, looking at the bug closest to her, which appeared to be nursing its friend’s eye. “We’ve got this!”

One of the other bugs sprinted towards her, just about to take a shot at her face. Luz whipped her knife out, nimbly dodging the creature, before making a hasty attempt to stab its eyes. The bug jumped back in the nick of time, and Luz instinctively took a few steps back to steady herself.

“Aim for the eyes!” she called, hoping Anne and Sprig were listening. “Or, like… the stomach? Do these things even have weak spots on their stomachs?” She took another shot at the bug across from her, this time barely scratching its face. “Anne! Tell Sprig to–”

“Aim for the eyes, got it!” Sprig finished, loading his slingshot. One of the insects charged at Anne, and Sprig hit it just in time, causing it to turn around in confusion. Anne spun around, readying her tennis racket, not quite knowing what would come out of this instance of her least favorite part of Amphibia: the constant attacks from various insect monstrosities.

What she definitely did not expect was a blast of crystal clear liquid to come out of the bug’s mouth, shooting at her like this was some kind of extremely cursed water gun fight. Instinctively, she ducked, pulling Sprig down with her. The liquid splashed on the wall behind them, scorching an unfortunate little plant growing in one of the tiny cracks in the cave.

“Uh, Luz, Sprig?” she said, shaken. “These things spit acid. Or something. How about we stay far away from that stuff?” 

Luz shook her head, startled, and turned back to Anne. “Yikes. Yeah, we do not want to get hit by that. Good call, Anna-banana.”

Anne made a hasty attempt at a thumbs-up before turning back towards the bugs. She swung at the bug closest to her, grinning at the satisfying thwack of her racket making contact. The bug reeled back in pain, and Sprig quickly fired another rock at its head, just narrowly missing. It made a beeline for Sprig, three of its friends gathering behind it, and Sprig gulped, frantically patting the ground behind him for another rock to launch.

Luz looked around, suddenly getting an idea. She held up her knife, quickly sliding it across the floor. It came to a stop at the small frog’s feet. “Sprig!” she called, steadying her grip on her other knife. “Use that!”

Sprig grinned at her, before grabbing the knife and setting its hilt on the band of his slingshot, pulling it as far back as it would go. The creature was almost a foot away from him by now, and it wasn’t exactly happy. Sprig glared at the monster, steadied his stance, and fired, watching as the knife sailed in a perfect arc, embedding itself on the side of the bug’s mouth. Sprig barely had time to appreciate his success, though, before the knife fell out of the wound and the bug charged at him, leaving a trail of its acid spit in its wake. Sprig turned around and scanned for more decently-sized stones, gripping his slingshot tighter as Anne whacked the bug flanking Sprig’s attacker. This time, she actually did manage to hit one of its eyes, and she was pleased to see that nightmare creatures, just like humans, did not particularly like getting slapped in one of their most important and exposed organs. 

The creature nearly keeled over, leaning on one of its brethren, who spat at Anne again, barely missing her arm. She dodged it as best she could, checking to make sure Sprig and Luz, who were respectively searching for rocks and trying to fend off two bugs of her own, were okay. Thankfully, they were both relatively fine, though Luz had a rather large scratch across her cheek. Anne briefly wondered if the scratch would ever become a “really cool scar”, as Marcy would have put it, before she realized that the remaining three bugs had unfortunately found a new target: Sprig.

The bugs ran at Sprig again just as he was about to grab a pebble off the ground. Anne turned around, horrified, realizing what was about to happen– and the bug she’d just injured was blocking her way, leaving her helpless to do anything. Even if Sprig did by chance look up, it would be far too late.

Anne called Sprig’s name, wishing that, after all this time they’d spent together, she didn’t have to see her newest best friend die, wishing that she could do something– anything– to stop it. At that moment, all she felt was fear, and rage– rage at whatever fate had set these things on them, rage at the stupid music box for saying that only three of them were destined to be together, and most of all, rage at herself for letting this whole mess get to this point. Somehow, in all her abject fury, she barely even noticed the fact that her hands were burning. 

Not just her hands. Her whole body felt like it had been lit on fire, as if it was consumed by whatever anger she had been feeling up until that point. Except, instead of this burn being caused by tension or pure adrenaline, it was something completely different. Something raw. Something powerful. Something… blue.

And, all of a sudden, she felt like she could save him.

Her thoughts were a blur. With a single-minded focus she hadn’t known she was capable of, she ran straight for Sprig– it barely took a moment for her to get to his side; she didn’t care how it happened, only that it did. She ran directly at the bugs targeting Sprig, ramming into them with as much speed as she could muster and knocking them over like a line of dominoes. One fell onto its back, legs squirming frantically in midair, and the other two turned and rushed away. And with the threat gone, Anne just about collapsed as the strange form of adrenaline that had taken over her body faded away. She briefly wondered why her hands were glowing before she felt Sprig grab her arm.

“Anne?” Sprig asked. “What the… what did you just… never mind! Luz is in trouble!” 

Anne shot up straight, feeling her energy slowly leaving her. “What? What’s happening to her?”

Sprig motioned wildly at the creatures. The five bugs that hadn’t been defeated and weren’t guarding the exit were now charging at Luz, whose look of shock soon morphed to fear. She ran as fast as she could, running in complicated paths and curves, trying to confuse the bugs, but she just wasn’t fast enough. Luz stumbled closer and closer toward the edge of what Anne quickly realized was a ravine against the back wall of the cave. Anne tried to get up, she tried to do something, but it felt like her limbs were frozen in place.

For his part, Sprig was desperately shooting pebble after pebble at the bugs, but he couldn’t aim for their eyes when they were facing away from him. It was easy for the creatures to ignore the barrage of stones and continue in their relentless pursuit.

“Luz!” Anne called, hoping that just one word could bring someone back from the literal precipice of disaster.

“Anne!” Luz yelled back, turning to face the bugs and desperately holding her knife out in a last-ditch attempt to defend herself, her feet inching closer and closer to the edge. “Use the knife!”

Anne barely had a chance to register what her friend was saying before Luz finally slipped off the edge and into the bottomless chasm below. “No!” she yelled, but she couldn’t do anything while the bugs were still there. She looked around frantically, finally spotting Luz’s second knife lying on the ground, the blade covered in a fair amount of disgusting-looking acid spit. Maybe she could scare the bugs off.

The bug which she had previously knocked over was still on its back, flailing its legs miserably, its squishy undersides exposed for all to see. She stumbled to her feet, grabbed Luz’s knife, and limped over to the bug, plunging the blade into the soft flesh of its underbelly. The bug twitched, and two seconds later, its muscles slackened, and Anne saw a small pool of blood oozing out from its wound. On the other side of the cave, the other bugs finally backed off, tunneling back into the ground one after another.

She collapsed beside the bug, feeling seconds away from falling unconscious.

“Uh– a little help here, please?” a strained voice called from the ravine, and Anne’s head shot up. Oh, thank frog, she thought to herself as she fought her way to her feet again. Somehow, Luz had managed to hang on. Now there was just the matter of getting her to safety.

Sprig helped her to the ravine, and they peeked over the edge to see Luz barely gripping onto a rock ledge a few feet below. “I can’t hold on much longer–” she grunted out, her fingers slipping an inch. “Is there anything you can do?”

Anne reached into the ravine to grab Luz’s hand, déjà vu gripping her even as her eyes struggled to stay open. “Just hang on,” she said, her adrenaline having run out after saving Sprig from near death. “We’ve got you.” But Luz was hanging just a few inches too low for her to reach, and she barely had the strength to stand herself up, let alone pull another person up with her.

Luz’s fingers slipped another few inches, and an unreadable expression crossed her face. “I’ll be fine,” she said quietly, her dangling hand tucking her knife into its sheath and reaching for the glowing stone at her neck. She unclasped her cloak, the fabric floating gently to the bottom of the ravine as she fished out her other necklace from under her shirt. 

“What are you–” Anne’s blood chilled when Luz cast a sad smile at her. “No. Whatever you’re thinking, don’t do it. I swear, please don’t–” Her eyes teared up.

“Anne, Sprig, just know. This isn’t your fault. Tell Marcy that, too. And, Anne? Be there for Marcy and Sasha; they’re going to need you. And tell Anisa I used the pendant. She’ll explain everything.” A small smile flashed on her face. “See you on the other side.” And with that, Luz let go.

Tears blurred Anne’s vision, Sprig burying his face in her shirt. There was a dull thud, a bright flash of light, and then silence. 

Tim glanced at the human girl and the frog boy kneeling at the edge of the ravine. He felt no small amount of satisfaction at the fact that the human with the strange powers had, in fact, turned out to be the Anne girl; which meant he could enact his revenge on Luz and get paid for it. A win-win situation, in his opinion.

He’d called off the wolf-moles the moment he’d seen Luz go over the edge of the ravine, but not before her friend managed to kill one of them. That was a decent amount of money, all down the drain. He hoped his mysterious client paid him enough to make up for the loss he’d suffered today.

Tim hopped down from his perch in the tunnel, checking back over his shoulder to make sure the human didn’t notice him walking away. He’d nearly been caught by Luz, having accidentally sent a spray of pebbles cascading onto the ground, but she’d thankfully passed it off as her imagination. If Anne or the kid saw him leaving now, though, there was no passing that off as the product of an overactive imagination.

Thankfully, he managed to make it to the mouth of the cave without incident, stepping into the late-afternoon sun. The wolf-moles had been his ride to the cave, having dug their way through the cliffs onto the beach. He considered calling one to take him back up the mountains, but realized that it might wake the armored bird sleeping with its head tucked under its wing beside the cave entrance. He started walking to the far side of the beach, hoping the vibrations there wouldn’t be enough to disturb the bird’s slumber, when voices echoed from the cave.

He froze, then dived behind the snoozing bird, hoping against hope that whoever was coming wouldn’t find him.

Marcy stretched, tucking her journal back in her bag. “There’s so much cool stuff here!” she gushed. “I could go on for days about how much lore is embedded in that cave wall!”

Anisa laughed. “There really is so much to learn here, and your insights into the possible meanings of some of these carvings certainly have merit. Shall we start heading back?”

“Yeah, I’m sure they’re done by now,” Marcy said.

The walk back was much shorter than the walk to the biggest piece of archaeological history Marcy had ever seen in person; though that was probably in part thanks to her anticipation on the way there and her constant chatter about the carvings on the way back. Anisa listened thoughtfully, occasionally interjecting with a statement of her own, but otherwise more than content to listen to Marcy speak.

It took a while, but Marcy finally saw daylight when she and Anisa emerged into the entrance cavern. Yet there was no sign of anyone. “Uh, where are they?” she asked, confused.

“Perhaps they’re still hunting for your glimmer lichen,” Anisa offered.

Marcy shook her head. “It shouldn’t have taken them this long… right?”

“Hmm…” Anisa thought for a moment. “They could be waiting with your sparrow, couldn’t they?”

“Maybe,” Marcy agreed absently as she walked closer to the exit. “Luz? Anne? Uh– Sprig? Are you guys here?”

There was no response. Joe stirred in his sleep, shifting the pebbles of the beach slightly.

“They’re not here,” she said, glancing back at Anisa.

The axolotl nodded. “Then shall we go check on them? We could also wait…”

Marcy was starting to have a sinking feeling something was wrong. “Let’s go check on them,” she said.

Anisa led the way through the other tunnel. The walk was long and charged with tension, and Marcy couldn’t stop her mind from jumping to various worst-case scenarios. But she forced herself to calm down. Luz and Anne could handle themselves.

“We’re almost there,” Anisa said. And true to her word, a huge cavern came into view only a few minutes later, lit with sparse clusters of lichen-covered sunstones scattered on the walls. Marcy took a step in, marveling at the size of this cave; the dim light illuminating this cavern made it feel so much bigger than the one with all the carvings in it.

Then she tripped on a pile of loose dirt and rock right at the opening of the cavern, letting out a surprised yell as she barely caught herself on her arms.

“Are you okay?” Anisa asked, helping her back to her feet.

Marcy brushed the dirt off of her Night Guard uniform. “I’m fine,” she said. Then she looked up, and gasped at the sight of the very big, very scary, and very dead bug lying twenty feet in front of her, one of Luz’s knives sticking out of its belly. “Uh… what happened here?” she asked, searching the cavern for her friends.

She spotted Anne kneeling alone by a ravine at the far end of the cavern. Then Sprig climbed out of the ravine, clutching a bundle of fabric. He handed it to Anne, who hugged it close to her chest. Sprig wordlessly leaned against her.

Marcy glanced at Anisa, who gently pushed Marcy towards Anne and Sprig. She quietly walked to the other side of the cavern. “Uh, guys,” she started, “what happened here? Why’s there a dead bug lying over there? And,” she added, realizing one of her friends was missing, “where’s Luz?”

Anne turned to look at her. Her eyes were filled with tears. “She-she’s gone…” she hiccupped, making a valiant attempt to dry her eyes. Her hands were shaking, and Marcy now recognized the fabric in her arms as Luz’s cloak.

The sinking feeling in Marcy’s stomach grew. “Wh-what do you mean, 'she’s gone'?”

Anne tried to respond, but before she could say anything, she covered her mouth like she was going to be sick. Sprig replied instead, his voice shaking. “There was– there was an attack. By a bunch of giant bugs. And… Anne saved me, but then all the creatures started targeting Luz instead, and–” He couldn’t finish. He didn’t need to. Marcy could imagine what had happened after that.

Sprig said something else, but the blood rushing in Marcy’s ears drowned him out. She stared uncomprehendingly at the cloak still in Anne’s arms.

Her legs shook and she fell to her knees. Luz was gone. Luz had only been trying to do something Marcy had asked her to do. Luz was only in Amphibia because of her. And now she was gone.

…This is all my fault.

“And… Anne saved me, but then all the creatures started targeting Luz instead, and–” Sprig couldn’t finish, and Anne hugged him.

“This is very important,” Anisa said from behind Marcy. “What did Luz say?”

“Wh-what?” Sprig asked.

“Did she have a message for me?” she clarified.

Anne cleared her throat. She still kind of felt like she was going to be sick, but the feeling was mostly gone now. She barely needed to think to remember her friend’s last words. “She, uh, she said it wasn’t our fault. That she was going to be fine.” Never mind. The feeling was back.

“Anything else?” Anisa looked nervous.

Sprig replied when Anne couldn’t. “She also said to tell you that she used the pendant. And that you’d explain.”

The axolotl gave a visible sigh of relief. “Then she’s okay. She made it out.”

“How can you know that?” he asked.

“See, the pendant was a gift–” 

Anisa’s explanation was interrupted by Marcy falling to her knees. “It’s– it’s all my fault,” she said quietly.

Anne swallowed down the feeling. She couldn’t let Marcy feel like– like Luz was gone because of her. “It’s not your fault,” she said, crawling over to Marcy and enfolding her in a hug. “There was no way you could have known.”

Marcy hadn’t seemed to hear her. Tears were streaming freely down the other girl’s face, and she let out another shuddering sob. “This is all my fault,” she insisted. “All of this. If it wasn’t for me– if I hadn’t found the music box–”

“Marcy. Listen to me.” Anne pulled Marcy to her feet, pushing down her own emotions and forcing her friend out of her daze, wondering why Marcy was blaming herself. “It’s not your fault. Luz said that herself. There was no way you could have known the music box would bring us here.”

“But–”

“She specifically said to tell you that it wasn’t your fault. So–”

“ That’s because she doesn’t know what I did! ” Marcy’s shoulders were shaking at her sudden outburst, and she clapped a hand over her mouth, as though she was shocked at what she had just said.

Anne’s eyes widened, and her blood chilled. She took a step back, unsure what to say. After a long moment, she spoke. “…What did you do?”

Marcy was frozen like a deer in headlights. When she realized Anne wasn’t going to back down, she finally replied, stuttering. “I… I swear, I d-d-didn’t know it w-would end up like this. I was j-just trying to–”

“Stop justifying it. Just tell me what you did .”

“It was– I did–” Marcy reached forward and grabbed Anne’s hand with both of her own, a desperate smile on her face and tears in her eyes. “They were going to m-make me move, and–”

Anne waited quietly.

“I– I saw the box at the library, and it– it was a coincidence, but I found it in that thrift store, a-and I didn’t know it would work– but I hoped, I hoped so much –”

Anne was starting to have a sinking feeling as to where this was going.

“I– I did it for us, so we w-wouldn’t have to be separated. If– if I’d known this would happen, I never w-would have brought us here…” She bit her lip, obviously trying to keep from digging herself an even deeper hole.

Anne pulled her hand away from Marcy’s, horrified at what Marcy had just confessed. “You knew? You brought us here on purpose ? You wanted this? ” she asked incredulously, her voice cracking. “How could you?! I’ve been missing my parents, my life. And Luz– Luz is gone ! All because of some insane fantasy you had about going on some kind of adventure !” From the look on her face, she could tell Marcy already knew how much she had messed up.

Marcy glanced down at the ground. “…I wish I could take it all back…” she mumbled. "I didn't think it would be like this. Please don't hate me, I just–" She abruptly cut off, looking equal parts mortified and devastated.

Anne glared at her. "So? I wouldn’t have wanted you to move away, either, but it's not like I was the one who trapped us on another planet !"

Tears spilled out of Marcy's eyes. "Anne– I didn't mean–" She stopped, unable to find the right words. Finally, she mumbled, “I just… didn’t want to be alone.”

Anne took a deep breath and glanced away. She couldn’t look at Marcy right now. “Anisa, what was that you were saying about the pendant?” At least one benefit from the anger humming through her body– she wasn’t crying anymore.

The axolotl glanced between her and Marcy, eyes wide; but after a moment, she cleared her throat. “Ahem. Right. So, long story short, that pendant can transport the user out of danger. Did you see a flash of light? That would indicate that it worked.”

Anne nodded. “So Luz is okay?”

“Ah, that’s the problem…” Anisa wrung her hands. “The pendant was a gift to me. I didn’t make it. So I don’t know where she teleported to. It could have been anywhere in Amphibia, or it could even be outside it, in another dimension.”

Anne was starting to feel light-headed. She was emotionally and physically wrung out. She was so, so… tired. “So, she could be anywhere,” she managed to say. “She’s not… gone, but she’s lost.”

Anisa nodded mutely. Marcy looked down at the ground, looking utterly ashamed of herself.

She sniffed. “Let’s go,” she said. “We can talk about this later. I feel like I’m going to collapse.” She strode to the tunnel entrance, Sprig following in her steps.

When Anne passed the bug carcass, her attention caught on the glowing knife buried up to the hilt in the dead bug. She reached over and pulled it out, wiping the bug guts off the blade with Luz’s cloak. “When we find her, she’s going to want this back.” Then she turned to Sprig, gesturing for the pouch that he had tucked into his jacket during the battle. Once he handed it over, she turned and gave it to Marcy, who fumbled with it and almost dropped it in shock.

“I hope this is useful to you,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I hope it’s worth what it cost.”

Sprig didn’t know what to do. After everything that had happened, Anne had pretty much shut down. He’d tried talking to her, but she wouldn’t respond beyond one- or two-word answers. 

“Hey, Anne,” he started when they were nearly out of the cave. “I don’t think I said thanks for saving my life. So, uh, thanks. For saving my life.”

She glanced at him, and her eyes softened. “Anytime, Sprig,” she said quietly, then turned and faced the front.

Well, that didn’t work. “Uh, when you saved me, you were glowing. Is that a normal human thing?” He frowned when she shook her head.

“Uh, excuse me for a moment,” he said, then slowed down until he was walking next to the other human in their group. Marcy was trailing back, having stopped crying, but she still looked like she wanted the ground to come up and swallow her whole. 

“Oh, hey, Sprig,” she said when she saw him. “Are you here to yell at me some more? I deserve it.”

“Uh… no?” he said. “I’m not really that mad at you. It was a pretty bad decision, sure, but if none of this happened, I never would’ve met Anne.”

She gave him a small smile. “At least something good came of it.”

“I actually had a question for you,” he told her. “So, remember when I said that Anne saved my life? Well, she was glowing. And I just asked her, and she told me that’s not a human thing. You’re the smartest person I know, so do you know what it was?”

“When you say glowing, what kind of glowing do you mean?” At Sprig’s lost look, she elaborated. “Like, happiness glowing, or–”

“How about literal glowing?”

“What?”

“Like, she gave off light. A really bright blue light. That kind of glowing.”

Marcy looked confused. “Ah… well, the only place I’ve heard of a person glowing like that is in, well, books. And TV, and games. Never in real life, though.”

“Oh.” Maybe he’d been imagining it. “It’s probably nothing.” He glanced ahead, to where Anne was walking just behind Anisa, one hand jammed into the pockets of her school hoodie, the other clutching Luz’s knife. “…Does she do that a lot?”

“Who?” At Sprig’s meaningful stare, Marcy’s eyes widened. “Oh, Anne. Does… what?”

“Just– I don’t know. Barely speak. She’s never done that before.” 

Marcy thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “…Sort of? Normally, when she’s mad at someone, she just… walks away, for a while. Or yells a lot. But she can’t exactly do that when I’m her ride, can she? So she’s avoiding talking to me instead, which kind of leads to her being short with everyone.” She looked sad for a moment. “I’d never been the one she was ignoring until today.”

“She probably just needs time to think,” Sprig said sympathetically.

Marcy sighed.

The group finally exited the tunnel, and Sprig caught sight of the feathers of Marcy’s bird through the cave entrance. “Finally,” he groaned. “I just wanna go home.” He hopped the rest of the way out of the cavern, racing around the bird to the small step in the saddle so he could jump onto Joe’s back. Only to bump straight into someone else, sending them both to the pebbly sand of the beach. He looked up to see a pale green frog rubbing his head. “Who are you?” Sprig asked.

“What’d you do that for?” the frog said instead.

“Sorry, it was an accident,” Sprig apologized. “Who are you, and why are you waiting next to Marcy’s bird?” He glanced over at Joe and saw that the straps holding the armor in place were half unfastened, swaying slightly as though someone had just let go of them. “Wait, were you gonna steal her bird?”

“What? No!” The frog glanced away. “Look. I was just–” 

His eyes widened when Marcy poked her head around Joe. “Hey, Sprig,” she said quietly, “we’ve– uh, who’s that?”

“He was trying to steal Joe, Marcy!”

Marcy looked aghast. “What?”

“No, I wasn’t–” The frog slapped his hand on his forehead, walking out from behind Joe. “Let me explain. I’m Fyn Lillyton, and I–” 

He was interrupted by Anisa, who gave him an inscrutable look. “Where did you say you were from?”

“…I didn’t,” he said. “I was getting to that. So, I’m originally from Frog Valley, but I moved to Newtopia a few years ago and joined the, uh, League of Explorers, Newtopia chapter. I was up here searching for– well, I’m not actually supposed to tell…”

“He’s lying,” Sprig said, and Fyn stiffened. “I bumped into him loosening the straps on Joe’s armor.”

Fyn sighed, shoulders relaxing. “I told you already,” he said, “I wasn’t stealing the bird. It was like that when I got here. I was just inspecting the craftsmanship.”

“So what, you just saw a random bird with armor and decided to go take a look?” Sprig squinted at him. “Call it a leftover from my ‘bad cop’ days, but I’m not buying it.” That earned a snort from Anne, though everyone else looked lost at his reference.

“‘Bad cop’ days…?” Fyn shook his head. “Never mind. I was robbed of my supplies, then the robbers shoved me down the cliff and into the water. Thankfully, years of practicing my swimming meant I was safely able to make it to this beach before anything rose out of the depths to attack me.” Then his eyes widened. “Say, you folks wouldn’t be headed to Newtopia, would you?”

“Um… yes…” Marcy said. “Why?”

“I could use a ride back.”

Sprig saw Marcy glancing at Anne, who shrugged. “Sure, I guess…” Marcy said. “If no one minds.”

“Great!” Fyn hopped onto the bird. “What are we waiting for?” At the sudden weight on his back, Joe sleepily blinked his eyes open, then got to his feet. The loosened armor slid to the side, sending Fyn back onto the ground as it flipped upside down. “Whoops,” he said sheepishly.

Marcy stepped up and began to fix Joe’s armor. “ That was what we were waiting for,” she said.

Luz’s absence was glaringly clear once everyone was settled on board Joe. Where it had been a tight fit with three humans, a frog, and an axolotl before, there was so much more room now that one of them was just… gone. Marcy patted Joe’s neck, letting him know he could lift off, and soon they were airborne.

She glanced over at Anne, who had insisted on sitting on the far end of the small seat, as far away from Marcy as she could get. Sprig had sat in between them, leaving Anisa to settle on Joe’s neck. After some convincing, they had gotten Fyn to let Joe carry him in his talons. From the occasional sound of his screams, the frog didn’t like that very much.

Between navigating and making sure they weren’t going to run into anything, Marcy kept glancing at Anne. She’d fallen asleep. Every now and then she stirred or mumbled something under her breath, her expression locked in a perpetual frown.

Marcy wanted to say something to mend the rift between her and her first friend in the world. But she knew that she’d messed up– badly. The best thing she could do for Anne was to give her space.

The flight dragged on, nobody speaking. Sprig soon nodded off as well, leaning on Anne’s leg. Even Marcy fought off the warm embrace of sleep, holding back a yawn. She had to get them back to Newtopia, so that– well.

There was no way Anne would want to stay in Newtopia with her now.

She heard Anne shifting in her sleep, but couldn’t bring herself to look at her.

Before everything, Marcy had wanted to try and convince Anne to stay with her and Luz while they prepared for the temples, sending a messenger to pick the box up from the Plantars instead. But now she’d seen firsthand just how strong the bond was between Anne and Sprig, not to mention Luz was gone, and the last thing Anne would want was to stay in Newtopia with her. She would be alone. 

“I deserve to be alone,” she mumbled. “Especially after all my efforts to avoid it only made it happen.”

“Don’t say that.”

Marcy jumped and whipped her head to the side to see Anne staring at her. “Wha– how long have you been awake?”

“Not long,” she said, her voice rough from sleep. “Maybe a minute.” Dark circles had formed like bruises under her eyes.

“Oh.” She scratched her head. “You’re, uh, talking again. To me. Yeah.”

Anne nodded. “I thought about it for a bit.” She didn’t elaborate, and Marcy didn’t ask. She didn’t think she had the right to ask, not anymore. Anne folded her knees up to her chest.

Marcy flinched. “I– I really am sorry, by the way,” she said quietly.

“I know.”

Marcy turned her eyes back to the skies in front of her and kept flying in silence.

The moment the giant bird dropped Tim onto the streets of Newtopia, his legs buckled and he nearly fell over, barely managing to scramble away before the bird landed. 

That… was the worst experience I’ve ever had , he thought to himself, fighting the urge to throw up. 

He glanced around, taking in his surroundings, and his jaw dropped when he turned around and saw the royal palace towering far above. “Woah…” He’d never seen anything like it in his life.

Tim’s eyes caught on an imposing figure standing in a window, shadows shrouding his face. King Andrias . The giant newt stepped back, disappearing from view.

Tim shook his head, bringing himself back to the present. When he’d realized, back at the cave, that the bird he’d been hiding behind was tamed, he wasted no time in sending the wolf-moles back to Stonewell and loosening the straps on the bird’s harness so he could take it back with him. Unfortunately, the young frog had caught him, and he’d had to spin a convincing enough tale to fool the surprisingly perceptive kid. Thankfully, in the end, everyone seemed to have bought it.

He walked off, not bothering to say goodbye to the group that had given him a ride. It wasn’t like he wanted to see them again, anyway.

So he didn’t notice the axolotl staring after him, a look of suspicion clear in her eyes.

If I just find somewhere to wait, eventually the client will send a letter, Tim thought to himself. He wandered the streets for a bit, taking in the sights of the city that he’d never seen before. And it took a while, about an hour of exploring, but just as he’d hoped, a messenger mosquito eventually found him to deliver a letter.

He took the letter from the mosquito and walked off, tossing the bug a berry that he’d bought from some random farmer’s stall in the marketplace for just this reason. He ducked into an alley and opened the letter, greeted with the same scratchy lettering from the last time.

“Ugh,” he groaned, then sighed, squinting and reading out loud as he deciphered the meaning.

“ Mr. Treller,

“ Well done. Just as I requested, one of the humans has been taken care of. How unfortunate for the one that is no longer with us.

“Your payment will be sent to Stonewell Town.

“Perhaps, in the future, I’ll hire–” Tim froze as he felt the cold press of a metal blade against his throat. He stiffened. 

“What do you want?” he said after a moment, figuring it was just some thief.

“I knew your name sounded familiar,” a voice said from the far end of the alley, completely ignoring his question. Tim slowly looked up, then gasped at the sight of the axolotl from earlier, the one who’d been with the humans at the cave. Her expression was twisted into one of disgust, but the most shocking thing was her outstretched arm, pointed straight at Tim’s throat– where a knife with glowing stones embedded in the hilt was hovering, so close that if he moved, the blade would cut him.

He glanced openmouthed between the blade and the axolotl. “What– where– how–”

“You’ve got a lot to say for yourself, Fyn Lillyton . Or should I say, Tim Treller. ”

He gasped. “How do you–”

“How do I know? Luz told me about what happened the day you tricked her. About your actual name, and your many lies. I didn’t think we’d ever see you again, but clearly , I was wrong.” She frowned. “Here’s a thought. Maybe don’t use the same false name every time; it makes it laughably easy to recognize you. Between that, the beasts that attacked–” She faltered. “And the letter you just read, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together.”

Tim scrambled backward, but the knife followed him. “How are you doing that?” he asked.

“None of your business,” she replied. “But what is my business is the fact that you were hired to kill Luz. And you went ahead and did it . What I want to know is who hired you. So, you’re coming with me.” 

The knife quickly spun around to his back and started prodding him, and he took hesitant steps forward. Now that all his lies and deception were revealed, now that he was in a situation he’d never anticipated, now that his life was on the line– he didn't know what to do. “I swear, I don’t know anything! It was an anonymous client!” he whimpered. “Please leave me alone!”

“Be quiet. Now, you’re going to come with me, and we’re going to walk as though nothing is wrong.” Now that he’d neared the axolotl, he noticed that her arm was shaking like a leaf in the wind, a look of intense concentration on her face.

She snatched the letter from him with her other hand, reading over it far faster than he had. Finally, she sighed. “Okay, it was an anonymous client. But now, you’re going to help me find them. Or would you rather I told the king about what you’ve done?”

Tim sighed and resigned himself to his fate. The king seemed pretty close with the humans, and considering that one of them was working with him– he’d seen the craftsmanship of the bird’s armor, so it was likely the black-haired one– he'd probably have wanted all three of them to return intact. So if the king ever found out what he’d done… “No, I’ll help you,” he said, hastily. He’d find another way to get away from here, and back to Stonewell. 

Then the knife prodded his back again, and he flinched. Maybe it wouldn’t be so easy to escape.

“See you on the other side.” And Luz let go.

She felt herself falling, Anne’s tear-streaked face watching with a frozen expression of horror. Her hand was wrapped around Anisa’s failsafe, and she squeezed it, right as she felt a sharp pain on the side of her head.

Then a flash of light, and nothing.

She closed her eyes. Isn’t this familiar?

Barely a moment later, the white started to recede, and she was dumped unceremoniously on the ground. The world was starting to go blurry. She pressed her fingers to her temple, felt a spike of pain, and pulled them away to see them coated in red.

She glanced at the failsafe still in her other hand, her vision fading at the edges just enough that she wasn’t sure if she was imagining the pendant disintegrating before her eyes, crumbling into a pile of dust that blew away with the wind. Her last chance of getting back to her friends, gone.

She needed to sit down.

She stumbled over to a tree with orange leaves, leaning against the knotted trunk gratefully. She just wanted… rest for a minute….

A tear streaked down her cheek as the world blurred to black.

Chapter Text

Marcy stood in front of the Hemisphere Hotel, watching the Plantars’ family wagon ride off into the sunset. It was barely an hour since they’d arrived back in Newtopia and Anisa disappeared into the city after Fyn, leaving a tension-filled atmosphere between Marcy and her best friend. Anne had wasted no time in walking to the hotel with Sprig to meet Hop Pop, and Marcy had followed, unsure of what to do with herself now that Anne was leaving. With little explanation, Anne had asked that they leave the city as soon as possible, and after a quiet farewell, the group of four had boarded the fully-packed wagon and started the drive out of Newtopia.

From their perch on the roof of the wagon, Sprig and Polly waved eagerly, but Anne didn’t look back from her place on the driver’s bench. Marcy didn’t know how long she stood there, just watching her friends disappear into the distance, but it was long enough for King Andrias to appear by Marcy’s side.

“Always sad to see someone go, isn’t it?” he said suddenly, and Marcy looked up at him. His face was shrouded in shadow from the setting sun.

She glanced down again. “Yeah…” she murmured.

“I have a proposition for you, Marcy,” he told her, hands folded behind his back. “And I think you’ll find it very interesting.”

Marcy cleared her throat, trying to hide the fact that she’d begun to tear up again. “Oh?” she managed to say.

“What do you say we discuss after dinner, over a game of Flipwart?” the king asked. “Like old times?”

“It hasn’t been that long…” Marcy said, sniffing and wiping her nose. “But why not? I could use a good meal.”

Willow dejectedly pushed her Abomination project home, taking her usual path through the woods. Her most recent assignment was folded up in her pocket– the D- inked in red felt like Professor Hermonculus was laughing in her face. She desperately wanted to rip the paper up, but it was still one of the highest grades she’d received in his class.

“You just need to practice more, Willow,” she told herself, trying to cheer up. She really wished Augustus was here. Unfortunately, he’d had to head home right after school for a trip he was going to take with his dad, and Willow had to stay back for half an hour for Professor Hermonculus to lecture her about ‘the importance of diligence in an academic setting’.

She trudged down the path, feeling worse the more she thought about her grade. It didn’t help that she was seated right behind Amity, either. The other girl was acing her classes, and to top it off, she was always so condescending to Willow’s pitiful attempts at creating anything that vaguely resembled an abomination.

Willow ruminated for a good few minutes before a bright flash of light nearly blinded her. She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, blinking the spots away from her vision before putting them back on. “What on the Titan was that?” she said to herself, wondering if she should take a closer look.

She cast a look at her Abomination project, sighed, then started pushing it in the direction of the light.

The farther she went, the more confused Willow got. For the bright light to nearly blind her so far away from the source… Willow couldn’t think of anything that could do that.

But all those thoughts flew away the moment she entered another clearing and spotted a girl slumped against a tree, a trickle of blood slowly rolling down her cheek.

Willow wasn’t squeamish. It was hard to be, considering how gross the Isles could be sometimes. But she’d never seen someone so much as unconscious before, let alone injured and so pale. It was enough to have her lunch threaten to resurface. With great difficulty, Willow swallowed that feeling down.

She needed to act fast.

The first thing she did was abandon her Abomination project and rush to the girl’s side, checking to make sure she had a pulse. Thankfully, it was steady, if a little weak– but for some strange reason, the girl’s heart had two beats, not three. She was certain something was wrong with the girl’s bile sac until she caught a glimpse of her ears. All of Augustus’s lectures about the subject left her certain of who she had in front of her.

What was a human doing on the Boiling Isles?

And where were her gills?

Willow shoved that thought to the back of her mind and traced a spell circle above the visible cut on the girl’s cheek. The blood vanished, but Willow could see that the cut was a lot deeper than it had looked, and there was a swollen lump on the side of her head. The human needed to go to a healer immediately .

Willow stood up straight and walked over to her abandoned wagon, shoving the pot of Abomination goo off the cart. She did a quick mental calculation, decided that Bonesborough was closer than Hexside, then pushed the cart over to the girl, carefully lifting the human girl and setting her in the cart. Then she took off in a mad dash through the forest, all thoughts of school and Abomination class forgotten.

“You brought the girl to us just in time,” Healer Tyra said, casting another spell circle and inspecting the side of the human’s head. “Any longer and the effects would have been permanent. While I doubt she would have died , it does look as though she hit her head on something, which can cause irreversible memory loss and brain damage if not treated properly. And the cut on her cheek could have gotten infected.”

“So is she going to be okay?” Willow asked anxiously.

Healer Tyra nodded. “She’ll be fine. She may have a concussion, experience dizziness, and have some memory loss, but nothing that won’t be fixed with time.” Then they put on a confused expression. “Though I did notice a concerning lack of a bile sac. She’s not a bug demon or a beast demon… is she human? I’ve only heard tales of them… How would a human get here?”

“Uhh…” Willow shrugged. “I don’t know. I just found her in the woods…”

“Perhaps you’ll have to ask her that when she wakes up,” Healer Tyra said, tracing another spell circle and switching on the light hanging above the patient's bed. “Miss Park, you can wait outside the room. I’ll call you back when she’s awake.”

Willow nodded. She could tell when she was getting in the way. “Okay,” she told the healer, opening the door and stepping outside. She had no intention of leaving until she was sure the human would be okay.

Luz slowly opened her eyes. A bright white light shined straight in her face, and she let out a groan of pain, shutting them again. 

“Oh! Sorry about that,” a soothing voice said, and then there was a sound Luz couldn’t place. She opened her eyes again slowly, and the light was gone.

“Whrr… m’i?” she said, her voice slurred. She blinked, then tried again. “Where am I?”

A blurry blue face leaned over her. “How much do you remember?”

“Remember?” Luz asked, though it came out all jumbled and mushed together.

“I’m going to let Miss Park back in. Maybe she can explain,” the face said, then disappeared. Luz heard a door creaking open. “Miss Park? The patient is awake.”

“Whozzat?” Luz mumbled.

There were footsteps, and this time there was a different face with round, shiny eyes. “Hi,” the new person said nervously. “I’m Willow. I found you injured in the woods and brought you to the healing clinic.”

Luz blinked again, then slowly tried to sit up, gripping the side of the bed. “I’m Luz. And, what? You found me injured?” she asked, confused.

“Yeah,” Willow said. “You had a really bad head injury. Do you remember how you got it?”

Luz slowly shook her head, then winced as the pain flared up. “Owww…”

“You’re human, aren’t you?” Suddenly Willow’s face was inches from Luz’s. “Your ears are so… circly….” She trailed off, captivated.

Luz yelped and lost her fragile grip, hitting her still-throbbing head on the pillow. “Ouch!”

“Oh, sorry.” Willow helped her sit up again. “By the way, where are your gills?”

“I… don’t have gills?” Luz rubbed at her eyes, then blinked, her vision finally focusing. She turned to look at Willow, her attention catching on the other girl’s ears. “And your ears are pointy,” she said. “How–” 

“I’m a witch,” Willow replied, adjusting her glasses. “You’re in the Demon Realm, on the Boiling Isles. How did you get here? What are you doing here? Also, you really don’t have gills?”

 Luz tried to recall how she’d gotten here. “I… I can’t really remember. Like, I remember my friend Marcy telling us about this thing she wanted to look for, but I can’t remember for the life of me what she wanted to find. And I remember it was in a cave, but that’s it. That’s all. And I most definitely do not have gills.” Then she realized what Willow had said. “Wait, you’re a witch? A real-life witch? As in The Good Witch Azura ?”

“Uh… yes? I mean, I don’t really know who that is…”

“Only the greatest book of all time!” Luz looked down, ignoring the sudden dizziness as she searched for her bag. “Where’s my stuff?”

“It’s over here,” the soothing voice said, and Luz looked up to see a creature with blue skin, curly horns, and four eyes holding her bag aloft. She gasped. “You’ll experience headaches for the next few days, and memory loss for a while longer,” they continued. “Because you came to the clinic slightly later than would have been best, due to your circumstances, we were only able to heal the worst of it, and you still have a mild concussion. So take it easy for the next few weeks, okay?” They turned around and rummaged through a drawer, pulling out a pouch of what looked like temporary tattoos and handing them to Willow. “Make sure to apply a fresh healing patch every day. Your memory will take longer to come back fully, and you may have a scar on your cheek, but there won’t be any lasting damage.”

Luz nodded quietly, half sure this was a bad dream and she’d wake up safe and comfortable at home, ready to recount the tale to her friends during lunch. Or back in Newtopia, explaining to Anne, Marcy, and those two frog kids that she needed to put her name in the Book of Losers because the Scare Dare challenge was so bad that it had given her nightmares.

Then she turned her head a bit, causing more pain to flare up in her skull, and all thoughts of this being a dream disappeared as fast as they came. Her heart began to race, and she started hyperventilating. “Oh no, oh, no…” She all but fell out of the hospital bed and grabbed her bag from the– doctor? And she raced out of the room, ignoring the throbbing in her head as she rushed down a long hallway and out a door.

Someone called her name, but she ignored them, too shocked at the sight in front of her. Purple sky… orange trees… buildings that looked almost alive… As she watched, a giant bug skittered down the street, then opened its mouth wide. A witch with the same pointy ears as Willow climbed out. The witch walked away, unfazed, as the bug scurried away. Luz stood still in shock, struggling to breathe. 

A tiny magenta fairy fluttered up to her, and she exhaled at the sight of something even remotely familiar. “A fairy,” she gasped out. “Please say you’re here to tell me this is some kind of nightmare.”

“GIVE ME YOUR SKIN!!!”

That was the last straw. Luz sank to the ground, knees shaking and head throbbing. “I’m dead, aren’t I? The failsafe didn’t work?” she said quietly. She reached for the necklaces– no, necklace– around her throat. Somehow, she’d lost the failsafe. That settled it. She had died. “Is this the bad place? I’m so sorry, Mami. I couldn’t come home.”

“You’re not dead,” Willow said from behind her, causing Luz to jump.

Luz grabbed the strap of her bag, then recoiled when something rubbed off on her hand. “Is that…” She scrambled to her feet and turned to face Willow. “Is this, uh–” She wordlessly held out her bag, gesturing to the patch of rusty red staining it.

Willow squinted at it, then made a circular motion with her finger, tracing a green ring in the air. The dried blood vanished as though it had never been. “Cleaning spell,” she offered by way of explanation. “Sorry, I didn’t see that! There wasn’t really a lot of blood, you just had a cut and my spell cleaned most of it anyway, but you were unconscious and weren’t responding and had a lump the size of a–”

“I, uh, think I maybe don’t want to hear about it,” Luz said, feeling slightly ill. She tried to remember what had happened. How she had gotten so badly hurt. “I… I don’t remember how I got here. Just falling. And a cave.”

“Falling?” Willow looked intrigued.

Luz shrugged helplessly. “I can barely remember the last couple of months. Just random details, mostly. Like, I can’t remember the name of the person who saved my life when I first got to Amphibia, but I can recall every single detail of her house.” And I can’t remember where any of my friends ended up. I can’t remember when I found Anne, or where Marcy was staying, but I remember how the libraries were all attacked by a bunch of cultists, and that we had a sleepover with Anne’s friends. And I remember that I was away from Mami for months, but I don’t remember how I left Earth. She closed her eyes, trying in vain to recall anything else.

“Amphibia?” Willow asked.

“It’s another world. I haven’t actually seen my mom for months,” Luz said. “I just want to find my friends and go home.”

Willow looked sad at Luz’s words. “You could stay with me,” she offered. “My dads wouldn’t mind. At least, I don’t think they would,” she finished. 

“Thank you so much,” Luz said gratefully, rubbing her temples to try and stop her headache. It helped a bit, and the previously throbbing pain was reduced to just a dull ache. 

“Though, we’re going to have to go back in the woods so I can pick up my Abomination project,” Willow said. “I left it there when I rushed you to the healing clinic.”

“Abomination project?”

“You’ll see.”

“You know, when you said ‘project’, I was expecting a poster, maybe a diorama or a presentation,” Luz said. “Not a giant pot of, uh, slime?”

“Abomination goo,” Willow clarified, hefting the biggest clay pot Luz had ever seen onto her wagon. It looked like an entire person could fit in it with room to spare.

“Yeah, that. What is it even for?”

Willow looked at the ground. “I would show you,” she said sadly, “but I’m not very good. My parents put me in the Abominations track because of all the good opportunities, but I’m pretty sure I’m failing the class. Professor Hermonculus doesn’t like me very much either. But enough of that! Keep telling me about the human realm!”

“It’s not that great,” Luz said. “We don’t have any magic in school. Just boring stuff like math. And science. Basically the opposite of magic.”

Willow nodded thoughtfully. “I’m sure it’s not that bad,” she said. “Although I can’t imagine living without magic, I mean, it’s less to do with the magic itself and more to do with our way of life. Like, I’m sure your realm has something you can’t imagine life without.”

“I mean,” Luz said, “there’s technology. Like computers and stuff. But I’m pretty sure I’ve been living without it for the past few months, so maybe it doesn’t count? Amphibia was very technologically regressed, from what I can remember.”

“Okay,” Willow replied. “But you get what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Luz admitted. “I get what you mean.”

“Also, what’s a computer?”

“Huh, I guess you wouldn’t have computers here, would you,” Luz mused. “A computer is like a larger version of a phone, I guess.”

“What’s a–”

Luz winced. “Guess I forgot you guys don’t have phones, either,” she said, pulling her phone out of her bag as they walked. She unlocked it, a curious Willow peeking over her shoulder as she demonstrated its capabilities. 

After a moment, Willow gasped. “Wait a second, it’s just like a scroll!” She spun another circle in the air and some kind of flat device fell into her palm. “See?”

“Oh, you guys do have phones! Well, scrolls,” she corrected herself. “A computer is a bigger version of that.”

“Like a crystal ball?”

“Uh– sure, I guess,” she conceded. “I’m sure you know more about that than I do.”

The conversation lapsed into silence as they walked out of the woods, back into the city. Now that she knew that she wasn’t dead and that this place wasn’t some form of eternal punishment, Luz was starting to appreciate just how diverse and unique this world was. “You said this place is the Boiling Isles?” she asked Willow. “What’s the town called?”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you!” Willow laughed. “I live in Bonesborough, in an apartment. Speaking of,” she continued, stopping in front of a wooden door in an apartment block. “We’re here.” She rapped on the door, then stepped back and waited.

A moment later it was opened by a kind-looking man with square glasses and short hair the same shade of green as Willow’s. “Hello, how can I– Willow?” he asked in surprise. “School ended two hours ago! I thought you’d gone to hang out with Augustus.”

“He had to go on a trip with his dad,” Willow explained. “Come on, Luz. Dad, I’ll explain everything when we get inside.”

“We?” Gilbert asked in confusion, then his eyes widened as Willow stepped aside to reveal Luz standing awkwardly behind her. “You made a new friend? Come in, come in!” He traced a glowing brown circle with his finger and the pot of abomination goo rose off the wagon, following him inside.

Willow parked the wagon in the alleyway next to the apartment building and returned a moment later. “Let’s go!” Luz followed her into the house, and Willow shut the door gently behind them.

Luz took it in. The door opened on a dining room, just across from the kitchen. The apartment house had a well-loved, homey look to it, as though someone had taken great care in selecting the decorations. A hallway opened off the side of the entrance hallway, which led to a staircase to the upper floor. Willow’s dad waved to them from the counter. “Do you want anything to eat?” he asked as Willow and Luz drew closer.

Luz’s stomach growled, and she blushed, embarrassed. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was. “Yes, please, Mr. Willow’s dad,” she said. “That would be great.”

“Call me Gilbert,” he said cheerfully, pulling something from a cupboard. “What’s your name? Do you go to Hexside, too?”

“I’m Luz. Also, what’s Hexside?” Luz asked

“That’s the school I go to,” Willow explained.

Luz nodded.

Gilbert glanced over at the two girls. “I’ll… take that as a no, then,” he said. “How did you meet Willow?”

Willow cringed. “Ah, well… that’s kind of what I wanted to explain, Dad. Where’s Papa?”

“He hasn’t come home from work yet,” Gilbert said. “I’ll explain whatever it is to him later. What happened?”

“So, I found Luz injured in the woods, and I brought her to the healer, and it turns out she’s a human, and so she doesn’t have anywhere else to stay until she finds a way home, so can we let her stay with us?”

If Gilbert had been drinking something, he would have done a spit-take. Even so, he dropped the plate he was holding. It clattered against the counter. “What?!”

Willow started to repeat her explanation, but Gilbert held a hand up. “I heard you the first time, Willow,” he said tiredly. “But– excuse my language– what the Titan is going on? And what do you mean she’s a human ? From the Human Realm?”

“Uh, yeah,” Luz awkwardly affirmed. “That’s where I’m from, I guess.”

Gilbert pinched the bridge of his nose. “So what I’m hearing is… you want her to stay with us until she finds a way home.” He glanced at the plate on which he’d been preparing a sandwich. “I… don’t know if this is edible for you, actually,” he apologized. “I’d assumed you were a witch, but you’re clearly not , and the stories I’ve heard from Augustus about the Human Realm–” His eyes widened. “Willow, does Augustus know?”

Luz raised her hand. “When you say you’ve heard things about the Human Realm… what did you hear?” she asked.

“A lot of strange facts,” Gilbert said absentmindedly. “But mostly that your realm is vastly different from ours. And I don’t know if the food you eat there is the same as the food here.”

“What are you making?” Willow asked.

“A PB&J.”

“Oh, we have that in the Human Realm too!” Luz said. “I can totally eat that.”

Gilbert sighed in relief. “Good to hear,” he said. “Though that doesn’t surprise me, since Augustus introduced me to this recipe. That boy is obsessed with humans.”

“So are you okay with Luz staying here?” Willow asked nervously.

He thought for a moment, then sighed. “I have nothing against it,” he said. “Other than having a fourth person under our roof and preparing copious amounts of PB&J, it’ll be pretty normal around here. I’m more worried about what your papa will say.”

Luz’s smile faded, though she wasn’t exactly surprised. After all, if she’d brought an alien from another realm home and asked to keep them, her Mami would probably be slightly concerned, to say the least. “Thanks anyway for the food, Mr. Gilbert.”

Gilbert set a plate each in front of Willow and Luz. “I really want to help you,” he explained, “but I have to check with my husband. I’m sure you can at least stay the night, though, and I doubt your papa will say no, Willow. I just need to make sure he’s okay with it first.” The last part was clearly targeted at his daughter, who looked like she wanted to interject.

Willow huffed and picked up her sandwich. Luz picked her own sandwich up and took an experimental bite of it. When nothing immediately happened, she took another bite. “This is good,” she told Gilbert.

Gilbert looked pleased. “Thank you! It’s been a while since I last made one, so I’m glad you like it.”

“Tastes just like the ones at home,” Luz told him. She took another bite before the pain in her head resurfaced again, causing her to wince. “Are you okay?” Willow’s dad looked worried. “Is that your injury?”

Luz nodded, squeezing her eyes shut and curling into a ball on the chair, waiting for the migraine to pass. After a moment, she felt the press of paper against her temple, then a rush of something cool and soothing. She opened her eyes to see Willow leaning back with the bag of the temporary tattoos from the healer in hand.

“What was that?” she asked. “It helped with my headache a lot .”

“A healing patch,” Willow said. “You’re only supposed to use one a day, two at the most, but they last a while.” She handed the pouch to Luz, who took it gratefully, tucking it into her messenger bag.

Luz turned back to her sandwich and kept eating, not paying attention to Willow explaining Luz’s injury to her dad. The massive gaps in her memories of the last few months bothered her enough that she spent a while just trying fruitlessly to remember something, anything of what had happened in that cave that had ended up with her stuck in yet another unfamiliar world.

Her thoughts drifted to before that, to a city filled almost entirely with newts, and family of the axolotl who’d taken her in. Teora and Leo. How was she able to remember their names, but not the name of the one who’d been with her since her first day in Amphibia?

It had been a long journey to get to the newt city, Luz remembered. The axolotl had passed the time by telling her a story. Of what , Luz couldn’t remember–

She gasped aloud as the healing patch on her temple suddenly grew cool to the touch, and that gap in her memory was suddenly filled– not completely, but enough that she could remember what the beginning of the story was. And her jaw dropped as she realized that the axolotl who’d taken her in had gone to the Boiling Isles. The same world Luz was in now.

“Are you okay, Luz?” Willow asked.

Which means that if I find the same people she did, I should be able to get back home no problem. The ending part of the axolotl’s story was still just a blurry haze, but she’d clearly found a way home, or she wouldn’t have been in Amphibia at all. Which meant she needed to find–

“Do you know someone named Eda Clawthorne?” Luz asked Gilbert. “Or Lily Clawthorne?”

“Eda… Clawthorne?” Gilbert asked. “Sounds slightly familiar, though I can’t say that I know someone with that name.”

Willow raised her hand. “I know of a girl named Lily in the Oracle track, but I don't know if her last name is Clawthorne. I mean, I can ask…?”

“I… maybe?” Luz shook her head. “Wait, no. Both of them have to be in their– hang on a sec. Does time pass here the same that it does at home? Or in Amphibia?”

Both Gilbert and Willow shrugged.

“Okay. Assuming it does, both of them have to be at least in their thirties. I think.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for anyone with that name,” Gilbert reassured. “But why do you need to find them?”

“Because they might have a way back to Amphibia.”

Gilbert glanced at his daughter. “Amphibia?”

“Long story,” Willow said hastily, pushing her dirty plate away and getting to her feet. “I’ll tell you later, but I’ll go get Luz situated first. Where can she sleep?”

“I just cleaned out the spare room a few days ago,” Gilbert said. “Luz, you can stay there for the night, and when my husband comes home we’ll see about extending your stay for as long as you need.”

Luz nodded, standing up. “Thank you so much, Mr. Gilbert,” she said.

“It’s nothing,” he replied, smiling. “Can’t exactly turn down someone in need, can I?”

Anisa prodded the frog forward all the way to Leo’s apartment. She and Tim Treller had passed by the square Marcy’s bird had landed in, but there was no sign of any of Luz’s friends. At this point, she was fully ready to leave the frog with Leo and Teora, then go looking for the humans herself.

“Ouch!” Treller said as Luz’s knife poked him a little too hard. “I won’t run, so you don’t have to do that, you know.”

Anisa wished she could stop. The more of her ability she used, the more likely it was that she would overextend herself; even now, she was starting to feel a little dizzy. But… “I can’t trust a single word you say.”

“Fair,” Treller admitted. He turned away, facing forward again.

Anisa finally led Treller to a wooden door, and she quickly knocked on it, hoping Leo and Teora wouldn’t be too concerned about the knife. Or the criminal, for that matter. Teora opened it, and her eyes widened when she saw an angry Anisa with a terrified frog. “Uh, what’s going on?” she asked, stepping aside to let them in.

The moment the door was closed, Anisa dropped her tenuous hold on Luz’s knife, and it clattered to the floor. Treller rubbed his back gingerly as Anisa’s knees buckled and she collapsed on the couch.

Leo came out from the kitchen at the sound of the noise. “Aunt Anisa? You’re back?” He noticed the frog. “Who’s that?”

“I think you’ve got some explaining to do,” Teora added.

After one very long explanation, both Teora and Leo had sat down in shock. “Luz is… dead?” Leo asked. “Because of this frog?”

“She’s not dead,” Anisa said, “but if I hadn’t anticipated that she would eventually get into trouble she couldn’t escape from, she would have almost certainly died today.”

“And you want us to… watch him. While you find her friends.”

Anisa nodded. “Right now they’re blaming themselves, and while there were some mistakes made, it would probably bring them great ease of mind to know that Treller orchestrated this whole thing.”

Treller spoke up for the first time. “I may have executed the plan,” he said, “but it wasn’t my idea. I was hired to–”

“It’s still your fault,” Anisa snapped, but it was clear from his blasé expression that he didn’t care in the slightest. “And you’re still helping us find your client.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “And?”

Anisa rolled her eyes. Treller was getting less and less likable by the second, and he hadn’t exactly been welcoming before. Arrogant, indifferent to the pain he caused– She forced herself to take a deep breath. There was no point in analyzing his character right now. She had far better things to do with her time. “So,” she asked Teora and Leo, “can you two please make sure he doesn’t escape while I’m gone?”

“Sure, Aunt Anisa,” Leo said hesitantly. “But where are you going?”

Anisa took a deep breath. “To the palace,” she said. “To speak to Marcy and Anne.”

“How much longer ‘till we get there, Grimesy?” Sasha groaned. “We’ve been walking for weeks now! Can we just, I don’t know, take a break or something? Or find some kind of ride?” Her feet were killing her.

“Do you want to be caught by that psychotic Newtopian glory hound again? We have to stay out of towns and villages,” Grime shot back. “And we’re nearly there, just another few days. Besides, Sasha, we’ve only been on the road for a week and a half.”

“Ughhhhh…” she griped.

Percy timidly raised his hand from the back of the group where he was walking beside Braddock. “Uh, Captain Grime?” he asked. “Why are we going to the Northern Toad Tower anyway?”

Grime gritted his teeth. “As I’ve said countless times already , the biennial Toad Summit is our one chance to speak to the other toad lords and secure their aid in overthrowing Newtopia. If we delay any longer ,” he added, pointedly glancing at the still-complaining Sasha, “we’ll miss it and our invasion will be pushed back further, if not become impossible without the support of the other toad Captains.”

That stopped her whining. “Once we have control of the capital, we’ll be able to find my friends, right?” she asked anxiously, purposely ignoring the fight she’d had with Anne.

“The resources we’ll acquire from Newtopia are more than enough to send search parties across the continent,” Grime affirmed.

Sasha nodded, and the group went back to walking in silence. The tension was broken a moment later by Braddock. “Percy, why don’t you keep telling me about why you suddenly decided to learn how to play an entirely new instrument?”

“Oh! So, basically, I had this really weird dream the other day, where…” Sasha tuned out Percy’s chattering, focusing on their surroundings instead. They were walking through a sparse forest, far enough from the meandering road that they wouldn’t be seen, but close enough that they could use it for navigation. 

She took a deep breath in, then sniffed the air, confused. “Hey, Grimesy, Percy, Braddock, do you guys smell smoke?”

“Smoke?” Grime asked in surprise, inhaling. He nodded. “Oh, yeah, I smell it.” Then a resounding clang echoed through the forest. “And that sounded like a blacksmith,” he added helpfully.

Sasha flinched. The sound of metal striking metal reminded her of the fight she’d had with Anne at the tower. It brought up uncomfortable feelings, though, so she squashed it down, glancing above the treetops instead. It only took her a moment to pin down the plume of grayish-white smoke rising above the canopy. “There!”

“Should we go check it out?” Braddock piped up. “Maybe they have food for us.”

Grime glanced at her and Percy, then back at Sasha, who shrugged. While Grime was right, and they really couldn’t afford to waste time, food was definitely important– and it meant they wouldn’t have to hunt or forage for dinner. Plus, if they didn’t take long, they could probably make up the distance lost by nightfall.

Finally, Grime acquiesced, and the four of them began heading toward the source of the sound.

It didn’t take them long to find a lone house in the middle of the woods, and the smoke pouring out of a smith’s workshop attached to the side. The overwhelming smell of burning coal filled the air, and Sasha wrinkled her nose.

Grime’s eyes widened. “It’s a rogue smith,” he said in a hushed whisper, and Braddock and Percy both gasped in unison. A loud clang from the workshop echoed after their words.

Sasha felt like she was missing something. “Rogue smith?” she asked. “What’s a rogue smith? Sounds like something Marcy would… wait, never mind. You guys explain it to me.”

“Do you remember the silversmith back at the tower? The toad who made your sword and armor?” Sasha nodded, and Grime continued speaking. “A rogue smith is someone like him, who worked at a tower but decided to leave for some reason or other. Kind of like a mercenary, almost, but a smith instead of a soldier.”

“Uh-huh,” Sasha mused. “So what I’m hearing is, this toad can make us new armor. Goodness knows we need it,” she added, gesturing to her chipped and cracked chestplate, Grime’s tattered tunic, and Braddock and Percy’s frayed boots. Making up her mind, she turned to walk to the workshop, only to be stopped by Grime’s hand on her arm.

“I’m a wanted fugitive, Sasha,” he hissed, “and you’re one of only four humans in all of Amphibia. Rogue smiths deal in coppers, not in demands from their captains. How are we going to pay them for new armor?”

“Will the smith turn us in?”

“Well, no, but…”

“What’s the name of this forest we’re in?”

Grime looked confused. “Broadleaf Forest… why?”

Sasha thought for a moment. “I need it to get their attention.” She pulled Grime’s hand off of her arm and walked around the house until she was looking into the workshop. A toad wearing a mask tapped away at a piece of glowing metal. Grime followed her, Percy and Braddock trailing behind him.

“She’s an armorsmith,” Grime whispered to her. “See the armor piled on that table?”

“That’s a lot of armor,” Sasha whispered back. Maybe she doesn’t get any customers. She raised her voice so she could be heard over the sound of the smith striking the metal. “Hey, are you the armorsmith of Broadleaf Forest? We’ve been looking for you.”

The toad tapped at the metal a bit more, then picked up a pair of tongs and used it to drop the piece into a bucket of water. Steam hissed into the air. “Who’s asking?” the smith said gruffly.

“Prospective customers,” Sasha said.

“Well then, welcome!” Pulling her mask up, the armorsmith turned around and, thankfully, she didn’t even blink an eye at Sasha. She could respect that.

“We were heading to Newtopia,” she lied, “because we heard good things about one of the armorers that work there. You were on the way to the city, so we decided to stop here and check out what you’ve got.”

“Ugh, the only decent armorer in the city is Bernardo,” the smith said, “and he don’t make anything by himself. He just hires me and other armorsmiths to make the stuff that he designs.”

Sasha raised an eyebrow at Grime. “We’re that close to Newtopia?” she whispered. Grime shrugged.

The armorsmith pulled the piece of metal she’d been working on from the bucket, and Sasha could see it was a buckle. She strode over to the red-tinted armor piled on the table and slid it onto a dangling strap. “I have armor for three toads already,” she said, “but nothing that’ll fit you without some adjustments, creature.”

Sasha feigned disappointment. “That’s okay. We’re close to Newtopia anyways, right? We’ll just head to Newtopia and get armor from the illustrious Bernardo,” she said, turning away.

“Wait!” The armorsmith looked desperate, and Sasha fought the urge to smile. She had pinned the toad’s problem correctly. “I can resize some newt armor for you,” she said. 

Sasha peered at her, wondering if she could push her luck. “I’d really like armor that was made specifically for me and not some newt,” she said. “I think I’ll pass.”

“I’ll give you a discount,” the toad added.

Sasha turned around, Percy, Grime, and Braddock following her example.

“I’ll give all of you discounts!”

She stopped, giving the appearance that she was listening.

The armorsmith was clearly panicking at the thought of losing the first customers besides Bernardo that she’d gotten in a while. “I’ll give you all discounts, and I’ll throw in the resized newt armor for free in exchange for the armor and materials you currently have with you!”

Sasha exchanged a look with Grime. She sent a silent question his way. Should we?

Grime nodded once, and Sasha turned back to the armorsmith. “We’ll take it,” she said. “You’ve got a deal.”

Chapter Text

Entry 63

I could barely eat during dinner. I just felt so guilty… It’s my fault that Luz is gone, and it’s my fault that Anne left with the Plantars. When Andrias asked me if I was okay, I couldn’t even talk about it, I was so upset. 

Eventually, I managed to tell Andrias what was bothering me… well, sort of. I didn’t mention that I had told Anne what I’d done… how I’d known the music box would bring us here. He was the one who’d advised me to keep that to myself, and I just didn’t want to see the disappointed look on his face. I’ve disappointed enough people today.

I hate this. I’m supposed to be the smart one. Even my principal said I was a genius. But where did that get me? My best friend hates me, I don’t know when I’ll see my parents again, Sasha’s still missing, and Luz is gone. I don’t even know why I wanted to bring us here in the first place. I just wanted my friends.

I just want my friends.

Andrias and I went to his personal chambers after dinner, and we set up a game of Flipwart. The distraction was just what I needed. I was so busy strategizing that my brain almost forgot to be sad. That was when King Andrias brought up the proposition he’d mentioned earlier.

He talked about how his ancestors believed there were COUNTLESS worlds to explore and discover – worlds even CRAZIER than Amphibia, worlds that one of the first of the Leviathans tried to access by making a royal artifact that opened portals– the music box. He offered to show us how to access the other dimensions. If Luz wasn’t in Amphibia, if she was in another dimension like Anisa said she could be, we could find her. We could explore other dimensions , have countless adventures together… it was everything I had ever dreamed of. And all I had to do was bring Andrias the Calamity box, fully charged.

I told him no.

Well, not quite like that, more like “I appreciate the offer, Andrias, but I can’t accept. After I reunite with my friends, I just want to go home. If Luz really is in another dimension, then maybe I’ll reconsider, but I think I’m done with exploring.”

He looked shocked. I think I really surprised him. Andrias asked me if I was sure, and when I said I was, he almost looked desperate.

I don’t have the slightest clue why. My refusal was fairly reasonable, wasn’t it?

After a bit, I tried to change the subject, so I asked him how the music box ended up in a thrift store on Earth if it was some sort of royal Newtopian artifact. He said it was stolen from him by a friend he thought he could trust. I asked why the friend stole the music box, and he looked kind of scared for a moment before steeling his expression and saying he “didn’t know”.

After my game with Andrias, Anisa came knocking at the castle gates. She wanted to talk to me and Anne about something important, in private, and that I couldn’t tell Andrias. Anne obviously wasn’t there, but I agreed, and so we walked into a random room in the palace (away from the guards), and she showed me a letter. Apparently the frog we’d helped out had actually been hired to kill Luz… 

I didn’t know what to say to that. There was someone who wanted Luz dead. But why?

I’m writing this entry up in my bedroom, after I said bye to Anisa. Jo, the more I think about it, the less it makes sense. Why would someone want to hurt Luz enough to hire an assassin? We have to find them— and Luz— before they get to her first. But how am I supposed to tell Anne? I guess I’ll have to sleep on this. Good night, Jo.

Entry 64

Okay. Jo. So I know it’s been like an hour since I last wrote in you, but I couldn’t sleep. Remember the book I mentioned, the one written in the runic Amphibian alphabet? I finished reading it. 

The end of the book doesn’t really make sense. I mean, it technically does… but according to this book, the Leviathan dynasty has been in power for over eight thousand years. A thousand of which belong to Andrias… how? Even the longest-lasting monarchies on Earth only survived for less than half a millennium. How did a basically medieval empire maintain the same rulers for thousands of years? I would have imagined they’d have been overthrown by now… well, clearly, they must have done something right.

So, to summarize what the book said, the gems were a gift from a higher power about ten thousand years ago. Wars were fought over the gems for about two thousand years, until the Leviathan dynasty conquered and united all of Amphibia under their rule. They had the gems turned into a music box, and basically unlocked interdimensional travel. 

Be right back, Jo. I just remembered the other stuff written in Amphibian runes that I copied into you or taped in you, and I figured I should probably translate those before making any theories.

Okay, I’m back, Jo. And I’m… well. You’ll see. Here’s what I found:

The first piece– the one I found in the ruins of the Emerald Coast Library– was a page from the same book I borrowed from the library. The second one (from the failed attempt at stopping Ernst’s goons from burning stuff in the Archives of Antiquity) was from another book, and it talked about the inventor of the box. Apparently she was a Leviathan too. But most shockingly, I found out that Andrias lied.

The page went on to detail how the Leviathan dynasty conquered other worlds. Andrias said his ancestors were peaceful explorers, but I did wonder. I mean, how could they have built an empire without, you know, conquering stuff? Turns out, I was right. The Leviathans were conquerors, and what’s more, the page talked about how the first Leviathan (the one who created the box, by the way), never intended for the box to be used for conquering other worlds to gain resources. Apparently her spirit still wanders, trying to make amends for what she accidentally started . What I want to know, though, is why did Andrias lie?

The second note, the one we found scratched on the wall on Dawnblood Island, talked about how the world fell into dark ages when the box disappeared to Earth , probably when Andrias’s friend stole it. Apparently they used to have technology a thousand years ago, but their civilization collapsed without the box. Pretty crazy, considering nobody here has so much as heard of electricity before, let alone known what technology was. 

The last scroll, the one I found in Ernst’s pile of treasure, talks about three people coming to either save or doom Amphibia. Apparently the author’s mother foresaw it. Or maybe the prophet’s name was Mother? The meaning of the word ‘Mother’ in that sentence could be ambiguous, considering it was at the beginning of the sentence, and a ‘mother’ was also mentioned in the wall carving… but I’m going off-topic. They talked about dark forces destroying history to try and confuse the saviors. Which is kind of what Ernst did, isn’t it? Does that make me and the girls the ‘saviors’? Or at least, whichever of us are connected to the gems? It does specifically mention three people…

So there’s clearly a lot more going on than meets the eye.

Here’s the evidence I have: 

• The carved message and various scraps of paper
• The weird foreseeing thing from ‘Mother’
• The thing about Amphibia falling into a dark age
• Amphibia used to have technology?
• The ghost trying to make up for creating the music box
• The library book.
• Andrias lying to us about his ancestors being peaceful explorers.
• The moss man trapped underneath the castle– speaking of, I really do need to go and free it. Luz took the flower with her, though…
• The strange ghost things, which kind of stick out in Amphibia. Could they be from one of the conquered worlds? Why are they trapped in that secret area?
• Anisa’s carvings: she told me about how the carvers added four bridges, does that mean they conquered at least four worlds? And the fifth world was Earth. Were they going to conquer Earth?
• Andrias’s thief stealing the music box, and Andrias’s scared expression when I asked why.
• Follow-up question: why did the thief steal the music box from Andrias if it was such an essential part of life in Amphibia, and why did they leave it on Earth of all places?
• Actually, what if the reason was to prevent Andrias’s family from invading another world, and Andrias didn’t want to tell me because he was ashamed? It kind of checks out.
• And if the Leviathans were going to conquer Earth next, it makes sense that the music box was left there– it was probably calibrated to that world. Or something like that, I’m not actually sure how the music box works. *Note to self: research that as well.*

I can’t really think of– no wait, scratch that. 

• The person who hired the frog to kill Luz, if they’re connected to all of this
• Also the super old coins used to pay Ernst to destroy the books. Maybe, if the type of coins used as payment for the frog is the same as the payment for Ernst, they were hired by the same person? I still haven’t heard back from Andrias on that one. Maybe I should ask for the coin back? Anisa might know something about it…
• Sprig mentioned Anne ‘glowing’ during the fight with those giant ants. At first I hadn’t taken him seriously, but if she really was literally glowing, could that be a sign of her being connected to the Heart gem and not Luz? The Heart gem was blue, iirc…
• But I’ve never glowed, or at least nobody’s told me I have… Guess I need to find Sasha and ask her if she started spontaneously glowing at some point to see if it really was connected to the gem or something different.

Wow, okay, guess there was a lot more than I thought. So much to investigate, so little time. Honestly, I hope most of the ideas about Andrias turn out to be false. Andrias was my first friend when I came to this world, and he’s been nothing but kind and supportive to me. I really don’t want to believe the worst of him or his family.

I… I need to tell all of this to someone. No offense, Jo, but I need to talk to someone who could give me some real advice about this. Not Andrias, because he’s obviously biased, not Lady Olivia, because she’s his advisor… I mean, I’m his advisor too, but she’s worked for him for *way* longer than I have, and I’m the one with the suspicions. Maybe Anisa? I don’t know her that well, but she seems like she knows her stuff, and she definitely cares about Luz. Plus, she was a history professor, so maybe she’ll know the answers to some of this. Especially the stuff about the coins.

Most of all, though, I need to talk to Anne. I messed up bad. And I know it. I need to talk to her, and I need to make it up to her, and we need to find Sasha and Luz and go home. I need to make it up to them, too… oh, boy. I’m not looking forward to that conversation.

I really should sleep, Jo. Good night, for real this time.

Emerald Coast Public Library and Archives:

“The three stones of power - we thought they were a gift, but they are more likely a curse. One was found in each of the three lands, and great wars were waged by nations hoping to possess all three. These great stones would make nearby crops grow better. They could heal wounds and cure the disease of those who touched them. Most of all though, they could destroy the foes of those who wielded them.” (Entry 21)

My notes:

This is literally part of a page from the book I checked out from the library. 

Archives of Antiquity:

“The inventor of the box, the wisest newt of them all. She managed to unite the kingdoms under one banner… A banner of interdimensional conquest and ambition. Peace came to Amphibia, and with it a golden age. However, this peace led to the conquest and subjugation of other worlds. The inventor of the box faded into obscurity, burdened by guilt and sadness. It is said that even death could not hinder her quest for redemption and that she still travels the world in spectral form alongside her winged purple companion to this very day. What is her duty? Will her soul ever find peace?” (Entry 31)

My notes: 

Andrias lied. I can’t believe it. Why would he lie to us? So much for ‘peaceful explorers’… Though I suppose it does explain how the Leviathan dynasty stayed in power for so long, if they directed their people to find a common enemy in the other worlds instead of in their rulers.

Scratched on the wall at Dawnblood Castle:

“What will happen to us? Ever since the box left our world, we have been plunged into a new dark age. The technology we once used to control wildlife is no longer available to us. Our cities are becoming overrun with beasts and monsters which have not troubled us for centuries. We cannot stay here, we must leave and find a new way to live. Oh stones, oh glorious mother… Why have you abandoned us? Is this our punishment? Did our greed bring us here?” (Entry 39)

My notes:

What technology? Controlling wildlife? Doesn’t sound anything like the Amphibia of today… How many major cities did Amphibia have before Andrias’s thief stole the box? What kind of lifestyle did the thief disrupt?

Could ‘mother’ be someone’s name? The author is clearly talking about a specific mother… maybe some kind of Amphibian deity? That also explains why the next lines are talking about punishment. But if Andrias’s thief stole the box, that wasn’t at the behest of some ancient god. Just Andrias’s thief being Andrias’s thief. At least I’m pretty sure it wasn’t because of religion…

In Ernst’s treasure:

“The three will come. It is only a question of when and how. Their coming will shake the foundations of this land and let us begin anew. Praise be to the three. Their choice shall reveal salvation or, indeed, punishment. But beware… Dark forces will destroy our history and try to confuse our saviors when they arrive. Mother has foreseen it.” (Entry 46)

My notes:

This basically just strengthens the idea of ‘mother’ being someone’s name, unless the author is talking about their own mother… Also, could ‘the three’ be us? Or at least the three of us connected to the gems? It makes sense, if you consider Ernst and how he was hired to destroy Amphibia’s histories and legends…

Hi, journal. Notebook. Whatever you are. Do you remember when Marcy told me it was a good idea for me to write a journal so I could ‘put my feelings and thoughts on paper’? Well, I haven’t actually written a lot in you… that’s not the point, though. Uh, what was– oh, right.

So some stuff happened. A lot of stuff. I just– I don’t– [scribbled-out words smudged with tears] ah, nuts. I’m crying now. I don’t think this was what Marcy meant when she told me to put my feelings on paper–

I can’t do this right now. [a hole is torn into the paper on the ‘w’]

[written in a pen instead of pencil] I’m back. My pencil broke, not gonna say why. I talked to HP, and he said that maybe I could write as though I’m talking to Luz, because I can’t exactly do that anymore until we find her. So, here goes.

Luz,

I’m sorry. I’m so, so, sorry. I should have protected you and Sprig both in that cave. I know you said it’s not my fault, but you were wrong it is. At least partially.

The other part goes to Marcy. I know you said it wasn’t her fault either, but it was her fault that you were even in Amphibia in the first place– her fault that all of us were even in Amphibia in the first place. I just can’t believe don’t understand why she did that. She said her parents were making her move, but was that REALLY worth trapping us in a world full of nightmare creatures? We would have kept in touch, there are plenty of really close friends who can only keep in touch through the internet!

[crossed-out words that once read ‘Maybe she was afraid she’d be left out because she lived a thousand miles away from us. Like I how I’m afraid of you three not being friends with me anymore if I don't repay you for your friendship– or at least, that was how I used to feel, before I met Sprig.’]

You also told me to be there for Marcy and Sasha. I already failed at that– Sasha’s still missing, and I left Marcy alone in Newtopia. I’ll see her again eventually, I just… I can’t look her in the eyes right now. I’ve been missing my parents so much [crossed-out words blurred with tears that once read ‘I can’t believe it took me being separated from them indefinitely to really appreciate them.’]. It hurts to find out one of my friends did that willingly. Maybe she didn’t consider the consequences, but still. [scribbled-out words that once read, “Sometimes I just get so angry—”]

I hope that wherever you are, you’re safe and we can find you again.