Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Evelyn didn’t know how long she had been here. It was hard to count days when she couldn’t see the sun. When she had never seen the sun. She only knew it existed in the same way she knew language without learning it first.

Instead, she had to count how many times He visited.

He was the only person Evelyn had ever seen. She didn’t count as a person, He had informed her, because she was made instead of born. That meant she didn’t have a soul.

He visited her sometimes. Evelyn didn’t like it when He visited, even though the rest of the time she had nothing to do and it was so boring. Boring was better than hurting.

That was what He did when He came. He hurt her. Evelyn wasn’t entirely sure why. He’d told her that her ortet was a bad person. That Evelyn – the real Evelyn – deserved punishment, so that was why Evelyn – this Evelyn – had been made. It was confusing, and she was usually hurting in the middle of these explanations so she probably didn’t take everything in.

Evelyn didn’t think she was very smart, honestly. Lots of things didn’t make sense to her. Things like why He hurt her, why He had made her, why she couldn’t ever be a person. All those things seemed to make perfect sense to Him. Evelyn thought once or twice about asking Him to explain it all to her, but even she wasn’t stupid enough to believe He would.

He hated her. Evelyn knew that. He had told her, very clearly, that He hated her. She wasn’t sure why – there was something about stealing? – but she had been hurting a lot at that particular time so it was all sort of hazy.

But anyways. Evelyn didn’t know how long she had been here, but she knew she couldn’t stay any longer.

He had visited her eighteen times, so far. He had hurt her, every single time. Sometimes a little. Sometimes a lot. Mostly a lot.

Evelyn wasn’t all that smart, but she was smart enough to know that He would kill her on one of these visits. Maybe soon. The injuries were piling up, and sometimes He didn’t even bother healing her.

So she had to escape now.

It wasn’t a particularly good idea. She was in a lot of pain. Her body wouldn’t be able to move very well. But Evelyn had no way to count the time other than His visits. Right now was just a little while after He left, and if she waited long enough for her injuries to stop hurting so much she would lose track of when He was due to come back. The times between visits were so monotonous she could only divide them up into ‘shortly after He leaves’ and ‘a long time after He leaves’, and then He would always come back. She needed to escape now.

The lab was dark, so dark she couldn’t see a thing. He never bothered to leave a light on for her. So this would be hard. Not impossible, but very hard.

Evelyn was chained to the wall, like always. Sometimes he took the chain off to hurt her more, but he always locked her up again before he left. Evelyn knew she couldn’t break the chain on her own, because she’d tried that already. She couldn’t pull it off the wall, either, and there were no tools in reach to help her.

She would just have to make her own tools, then.

Evelyn knew what magic was. She didn’t know very much about it, but she knew it existed. She knew that He used magic, sometimes, when He was hurting her. And even when she was in a lot of pain, she noticed the symbols on His skin light up whenever He used magic.

Before the last time He came, Evelyn had tried drawing one of those symbols – the smallest and simplest one she’d seen – in the dirt around her feet. It had taken a while, since she was drawing in total darkness and she’d only actually seen the symbols when she was hurting very much, but she’d managed it eventually. She knew because a sort of thing grew out of the symbol. It was a lump of something that was hard and cold, but it had grown smaller and wetter and then disappeared entirely. Evelyn wasn’t actually sure what it had been – maybe if she’d had light she would have been able to identify it – but she didn’t need to know what it was to make use of it.

Carefully feeling around in the dirt, Evelyn breathed in, and breathed out. She couldn’t do this halfway. If He realized she was trying to escape – if He realized she could do magic – then He would kill her. Simple as that. He would kill her, and make another Evelyn who might not think of this plan.

So this had to work.

Evelyn smoothed out an area of dirt, and carefully drew the symbol from memory, making it as big as her palm. She put one foot on the chain just outside the circle to hold it, and wrapped the other end around her hand so she could stretch the length over the symbol, hovering just a little bit above the dirt. She couldn’t see anything, and that made everything so much harder.

With one last breath to steady herself, Evelyn tapped the dirt where the edge of the circle was.

She’d drawn it correctly. The hard-cold thing grew out of the circle, and shot upwards. Evelyn held the chain taut, putting all her weight on her foot and pulling with her hand, and the cold-hard thing hit it –

And the chain broke.

Evelyn overbalanced at the sudden loss of leverage, and fell forward into the dirt. The end of the chain dug into her stomach, and her arm was pressed against the cold-hard thing, quickly growing cold itself.

Her injuries were hurting from the fall, but Evelyn didn’t care. She scrambled to sit upright, and felt at the manacle on her left wrist. It was still there, but a length of chain only as long as her forearm dangled from it, the end broken and jagged.

She was free.

She was free.

Evelyn held the end of the chain for a moment, feeling – disbelief? Happiness? Awe? She wasn’t sure. She hadn’t…she’d wanted this, yes, but apparently it was one thing to want and work for freedom and another to actually get it. Evelyn had no idea how to feel about this.

Then, a moment later, she shook her head. She was being stupid. It was still not long after He’d left, but she couldn’t waste any time. Evelyn had to keep going. This was only the first step.

Speaking of steps, Evelyn had to actually get up and walk now.

Slowly, carefully, she got to her feet. Evelyn had stood up before – the chain was long enough to allow that. It was even long enough to allow her to walk a few steps, so she wasn’t completely new to this.

After a couple steps, though, it became harder. The area she could reach when she was chained was all packed-down, mostly smooth dirt. But past that, the ground was more uneven. Not a lot, but it wasn’t like she had much practice with this. Also: still in total darkness.

But Evelyn had come this far, and she wasn’t going to quit now. She shuffled forward slowly, hands held out in front of her. If her memory was right, she should run into –

Her hand hit the edge of something, and she grabbed onto it. The feel was different from stone or dirt or metal, so it was probably the wooden desk that had all of His things piled on top.

Including one specific thing, which Evelyn absolutely had to take with her.

She ran her fingers across the surface of the desk, feeling her way across raspy-fluttery things – that was probably paper? – hard-smooth-held-together things – that might have been the scales, maybe – long-thin-metal things – definitely tools of some sort – and finally found a soft-malleable thing. It was fabric, like what He wore. And on the fabric was an arm.

Evelyn only touched the arm long enough to determine it was what she was looking for. There was still some flesh on it, but it was mostly bone. That was all He needed, to make another Evelyn. Another thing like her, who would never be able to escape, because He would never be this lax again.

She wrapped the fabric around the arm, bundled up tight, and held it close to her chest. The cloth was rough against her bare skin, and it rubbed against one of her injuries before she repositioned it.

If she couldn’t escape, in the end, maybe she could find somewhere to hide the arm, so He couldn’t make another her.

Evelyn made her way towards the door. It was a longer way than to the desk, so she went as fast as she dared. He probably wouldn’t be back for some time, but she didn’t know how long ‘some time’ would be. He brought her food, when He visited, but sometimes she’d only eat a little before He returned the next time, sometimes she’d eat it all. There was just no way to keep track.

Her hand, stretched out in front of her, bumped against the door. She startled a little, and nearly dropped the arm. Evelyn regained her hold on it, and tried to calm her breathing. Her heartbeat seemed so loud all of a sudden.

But she needed to keep going. Evelyn groped around for the handle, and pushed the door open.

Or at least, she tried to. It didn’t actually move.

No, Evelyn thought, suddenly terrified. No, it can’t be locked.

Except it was.

For one long, long moment, Evelyn was struck with the insane urge to make her way back through the lab, return the arm to the desk, and sit back down in the corner. Surely He wouldn’t punish her too much if it looked like she hadn’t even tried to escape? She’d broken the chain, true, but – but if she stayed then He might not –

Kill her. He would still kill her. Sooner or later, if she didn’t escape, He would kill her.

Evelyn wrenched her mind back to the problem at hand. She traced her fingers over the handle, and found the keyhole.

Okay. Okay, she could do this.

Evelyn was fairly sure that some of her wounds were still bleeding. Sluggishly, but usually it took longer to stop. She probed at one of the larger cuts, on her side. Sure enough, she felt a wetness alongside the stab of pain.

Carefully, Evelyn drew the symbol again. Smaller, this time, centered on the keyhole. She didn’t know if her blood would drip down and ruin the design, so she tapped it quickly.

The cold-hard thing grew again, and Evelyn let a breath of relief when she heard a sort of clack-clunk-screech from the door. That sounded at least similar to how the chain had, when it broke.

Evelyn turned the handle and pushed. The door moved slightly, then stopped. Evelyn bit her lip, quickly released it when she tasted blood, and pushed on the door again.

It took a little while to get the door open, but she managed it. Evelyn pushed the door open, and blinked at the space beyond it.

It was a…hallway? Evelyn thought that might have been the right word. More importantly, there were lights on the walls. Not many, but she could finally see.

Evelyn almost forgot herself and ran down the hallway, but at the last moment she remembered she was barely used to walking. If she tried to run, she would fall, and probably make her injuries even worse. So, despite the excitement bubbling up inside her, Evelyn walked down the hallway, careful and slow.

The hallway went on for a while. She wasn’t sure how far; she could only keep count of how many lights she passed. There were a couple turns, but the lights stayed constant, so it wasn’t so bad.

When she passed thirteen lights, she reached…stairs? Evelyn was pretty sure those were stairs. She stared at them for a moment, hesitating.

Well. No way to go but up.

It turned out that walking up stairs was more tiring than walking through hallways. Evelyn found that her breathing got heavier and heavier with every step. She also had trouble balancing sometimes, especially since she had to keep the arm held tight to her chest. At least one of her wounds had opened up again, and Evelyn noticed she was leaving behind smears of blood.

But this was the only option she had, so she kept going.

Evelyn didn’t know how many stairs she climbed before she reached another door. She stopped in front of it and leaned against the wall – her shoulder, not her back, because it probably wasn’t a good idea for anything to touch her back right now – trying to breathe normally again.

After a moment, Evelyn straightened. She couldn’t wait too long in any one place. Stepping closer to the door, she pressed her intact ear against it.

No sound. Evelyn counted to ten, in her head, and then counted again. There was still no sound.

She tried the handle. Locked again.

Drawing the symbol was easier now that she could see. The lock was sturdier, so it took two symbol-drawings to break it, and Evelyn noted that the cold-hard thing it produced was…ice? Maybe?

But that wasn’t important right now. Evelyn opened the door cautiously, and looked out.

It was another hallway. This one had more lights, though, and fabric on the ground. A…carpet, right, that was it.

But the important part was that no one was in sight. Evelyn clutched the arm tighter to herself as she stepped out into the hallway.

She stepped forward, and looked down in surprise as her feet touched the carpet. Wow, that was soft.

Then she heard a noise.

Evelyn’s head came up fast as she strained to hear the noise. It was coming from the left, steadily getting louder, and it was – it was someone talking.

Not Him – she knew what His voice sounded like – but anyone else was hardly any better. She had no idea what to expect from other people, how they would react to a non-person sneaking around the hallways. They might know what she was. They might try to take her back.

Evelyn looked around and – did not go back through the door she came through. It was the smarter option, because she knew no one was behind there and she didn’t know anything about any of the other doors around her, but she just – she couldn’t go back through that door.

The door on the opposite side of the hallway wasn’t locked, and so Evelyn barely hesitated before opening it and stepping through.

The room was empty. Evelyn couldn’t help but let out a breath of relief at seeing that. The room was empty, and even if the voices were growing closer, they wouldn’t know she was in here.

“– and so I said, ‘what, you looking for me?’ You should’ve seen his face!”

“Oh, damn,” another voice laughed. Evelyn tensed. “I wish I had, that sounds amazing.”

“It really was,” the first voice said. “…Say, you doing anything later?”

“Hm? You mean after work?”

“Yeah, I wanted to thank you for that paperwork help.”

“You already did, remember?”

“Yeah,” said the first voice, “But I wanted to do a bit…more, to thank you.”

“…Oh,” the second voice said. Evelyn could hear the sound of a throat being cleared. “Well. That, uh. That does sound nice. I’m not doing anything, really, so…sure.”

“Great,” said the fist voice. “That’s great. You’re great – ignore that. Uh, let’s keep patrolling!”

“Definitely!” the second voice said. The sound of footsteps grew fainter and fainter.

Evelyn opened the door a little, and made sure the two people were out of sight. Then she stepped back into the hallway and thought over the conversation she’d heard. It didn’t make much sense, to be honest.

People, she decided, were very strange.

Evelyn kept walking. She was mostly certain that she wanted to keep going up. She knew things like ‘underground’ and ‘surface’ existed, and she had figured out that the lab being surrounded by dirt probably meant it was the former, so if she just kept going up there was at least a chance of getting out of this building.

It wasn’t the best plan, Evelyn knew, but things were always going to get tenuous around this point. She just didn’t know enough.

So she kept walking. Sometimes there were different hallways branching off each other; Evelyn always picked one at random. It wasn’t like she knew this place at all, so random guesses were better than wasting valuable time trying to figure anything out. There were things in the hallways, but she could only name half of them, and couldn’t stay to look at any of them no matter how interesting some of them looked.

Three times, more people passed by. Evelyn hid behind some of the things in the hallways for two of them – a wall-carpet and a big statue. She only had to risk going into another room during the third time, and thankfully it was as empty as the last one.

She couldn’t keep this up for much longer, though. Her entire body was hurting now, almost as bad as in the middle of one of His visits. She wasn’t used to walking for so long, and she needed healing, and she was going to run out of places to hide eventually, and, and, and…

There were footsteps again. Behind her, around the corner. Evelyn almost hadn’t heard them, they were so light. That probably meant they were really close and she needed to hide now.

There was a sort of scooped-out section in the wall, and there was another statue sitting there, some person in a big robe. It wasn’t great, but it was something. Evelyn scrambled behind the statue, making sure not to let out a single sound even as the stone walls scraped against her injuries. She held the arm tightly to her chest and waited, heart pounding, for the footsteps to pass.

They didn’t, though. The footsteps grew closer, a strange sort of patter that sounded different from all the other footsteps she’d heard before, and then – then they paused. Right in front of the statue.

Evelyn didn’t even breathe.

There was a sort of snorting sound, and then a head peeked around the statue’s robe to look at her.

Evelyn blinked. It was a very small head. And, while she didn’t know how soft it actually was, it certainly looked very soft. Its eyes were wide as they looked at her, and it blinked several times. Its nose flared as it breathed in.

…She wasn’t actually sure this was a person. It didn’t look much like Him, at least, and he was the only person she’d ever seen. Evelyn looked more like Him than this…thing did.

If this was a person, though, she was in trouble.

“…I’m sorry,” Evelyn whispered. He tended to like when she apologized, so maybe it would help here. “I’m sorry, I don’t – I’m trying to leave. I’ll leave, I promise. I’m sorry.”

Those eyes blinked again, several times.

Then the head pulled away out of sight. Evelyn listened, but there weren’t footsteps going away. The maybe-person was waiting.

…Well. She couldn’t exactly stay hiding behind this statue. She needed to keep moving. And the maybe-person hadn’t immediately hurt her, so…maybe they still wouldn’t if she came out?

Slowly, Evelyn pulled herself out from behind the statue. It was hard when she could only have one hand free at a time, but she wasn’t going to let go of the arm now, when there was actually someone who could take it from her.

Once she was out in the hallway again, she looked at the maybe-person.

They were small. Very small. They barely even reached her knee, and that was standing up. When she looked down at them, they dropped their hands – paws? – to the ground, and became even shorter. They were covered in soft-looking hair all over their body, with some almost the same color as Evelyn’s hair and some a bit darker.

They had fabric on them. Clothes. Evelyn wasn’t sure if clothes were only for people or not. He wore clothes, and she didn’t, but she hadn’t looked at any of the people in the hallways to check if they had been wearing clothes. If she had, maybe she would know if this tiny thing was a person.

Well. If she couldn’t figure it out, she might as well ask.

“Are you a person?” she asked them.

They blinked at her, and let out a growl. Not a very menacing one, but Evelyn took a step back anyways, clutching the arm tight to her chest.

They stopped growling, and blinked at her again. Then they jerked their head, and walked a little ways down the hallway. They looked back at her, and jerked their head again.

“…Do you want me to follow you?” Evelyn guessed.

They nodded their head, and walked a little more.

“…Okay,” Evelyn said. It wasn’t like she had very many other options. “I can’t go very fast.”

They let out a little grumble-noise Evelyn didn’t know how to interpret. She still had no idea if they were a person, but as long as they weren’t leading her straight back to Him she didn’t think she cared much.

The maybe-person led her down several different hallways, and they seemed to know exactly where they were going. They never hesitated, and only went slowly when she needed to catch up. Evelyn also noticed their ears swiveling around a lot. Maybe they were listening for other people? The two of them somehow didn’t come across anyone else at all.

When they stopped at a door, it was so sudden Evelyn almost fell over. She swayed in place, forcing herself to stay upright. Everything hurt, too much activity and moving, but whatever the maybe-person was doing, she needed to be alert for it.

The maybe-person looked at her and made a sort of whuff-snort noise, and then motioned at her.

Evelyn shifted her weight on her feet uncomfortably. “I’m sorry,” she said, feeling nervous. “I don’t understand.”

Looking between her and the door, the maybe-person let out another whuff and reached up for the handle. They were so small they almost couldn’t reach it, but they hopped up and let their weight open it. They poked their head inside, made another noise, and pushed the door open.

They jerked their head again, and Evelyn followed them inside.

The room had a lot of things inside. A desk, some chairs, a very wide chair against the wall that could probably fit three or four bodies, a rug, bright lights, and several wall-things – shelves? – that held other things, another half-open door on a side wall. There was fabric hung up against the walls as well, draped to cover the bigger patches of stone.

The maybe-person jumped onto the big-chair, and grabbed the length of fabric that hung above it in their mouth. With a sharp yank, they pulled it off the wall. Then they walked over and offered it to her.

Evelyn looked at them, then at the fabric.

“…Is that for me?” she asked.

The maybe-person nodded, fabric still bunched in their teeth.

Not sure what else to do, Evelyn bent over and picked up the end of the fabric. The movement made spots appear in her vision, but she blinked them away and looked at the cloth. It was soft, even softer than the fabric that covered the arm she still held to her chest, and it was a light color. Purple. That was it. Light purple. Several other things around the room were purple too.

“Do you want me to…wear it?” Evelyn risked asking. He always hated when she asked too many questions, but she didn’t understand anything this maybe-person was doing.

The maybe-person nodded again.

Evelyn looked at the cloth again. She had no idea how to wear it. Maybe if she…wrapped it around herself…?

Then every single thought in her head was silenced all at once, as a voice came from the half-open side door.

“Is that you, mutt? Come to plague me again?”

The maybe-person let out a sort of growling chirp. Evelyn looked between them and the door, her eyes wide.

“If you’ve brought me yet another dead animal, mutt,” said the voice, and it was getting closer, no, no, no, Evelyn had to run but her legs weren’t moving, her entire body was stuck – “Then I swear to Titan I will –”

A person opened the door and stepped through, and then saw her. The words cut off as he stared.

He was a he, Evelyn was pretty sure. The only other man she’d ever seen was Him, but this person was probably also a he. His skin was dark, brown all over, like he’d been rolling around in the dirt. She hadn’t known skin could be like that. His hair was…strange, and didn’t actually look much like hair at all. Some of his clothes were purple.

Of course, Evelyn was mostly focused on his eyes. Which were looking at her. And she didn’t – she didn’t know what to do.

“…What,” the man said.

It didn’t even sound like a question. Just a word. Evelyn didn’t know how to respond to that – didn’t know what response would be safe – so she just stayed quiet.

She probably couldn’t have spoken anyways. She was trembling enough that she probably couldn’t run, either, so – so she’d just have to wait and see what this man would do to her.

The maybe-person made a number of sounds. Growls and grumbles and a couple chirps. They waved one of their tiny arms at Evelyn, though they seemed to be mostly focused on the man.

“…What,” the man repeated, looking from Evelyn to the maybe-person.

Who just clicked their tongue, and let out another barrage of growls.

The man opened his mouth, looked from Evelyn to the maybe-person again, and then closed his mouth. He closed his eyes, too, and then tipped his head back to let out a long, loud sigh.

It felt like Evelyn’s heart stopped, because she knew that kind of sigh. That was the kind of sigh He made when he was annoyed at something she’d done, when He was planning on hurting her.

The man opened his eyes again, and Evelyn blurted out, “I’m sorry.”

The man blinked. “What?”

Evelyn didn’t know if he was just saying that because he seemed very fond of that word, but it was probably best to answer.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. She couldn’t help but hold the arm closer to her chest, heart beating fast, which meant she dropped the fabric on the ground. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. I don’t know why they brought me here and I don’t –” no, wait, He hated when she tried to make excuses, that never worked, “– but I’m so sorry and I can leave right now, I’m sorry.”

The man’s eyes widened when she dropped the fabric, and suddenly Evelyn realized that probably wasn’t the best choice. The cloth was obviously his, and it had been hung up on the wall, and then she’d let it fall in the floor. She bent over to pick it up, and only stumbled a little as her head went very strange and dizzy. But she picked up the fabric and held it out to the man.

“I shouldn’t have dropped this, I’m sorry,” Evelyn said. Her hand was shaking. All of her was shaking, actually.

The man looked at her, then at the fabric, then at the maybe-person. The maybe-person growled at him.

Evelyn decided the maybe-person was probably an actual person, if they weren’t afraid to talk(?) to the man like that. She swallowed at the realization.

“…Put that on, if you would,” the man said, gesturing to the fabric. He glanced at her, and looked away again immediately. “Now.”

Evelyn wasn’t all that smart, but even she knew better than to disobey a direct order. She draped the cloth over her shoulders, ignoring the pain that came from both the movements and the fabric sliding over her injuries. It was difficult to do with only one hand, but she wasn’t going to let go of the arm when she was trapped in a room with two people.

She wrapped the cloth around her shoulders and around her front, so that it wouldn’t fall off. She looked at the man to see if she’d done it right.

He was looking at her again, but she didn’t know what his expression meant. He cleared his throat and gestured towards the big-chair. “Sit,” he said.

Evelyn sat. She barely managed to hold back a groan of relief at not having to stand anymore. The pain in her legs didn’t go away, but it did stop getting stronger with every passing second.

Of course, Evelyn didn’t take her attention off the man. The small person, either, but it was the man who was talking to her the most.

He pulled over one of the chairs, and moved it to face her. He sat in it. He wasn’t in arm’s reach, but Evelyn knew how much reassurance that was, so she didn’t relax.

The man stared at her for a moment, before he abruptly said, “What is your name?”

“Evelyn,” she said. It was what He called her, anyways, so – she supposed she was stuck with it. She wasn’t sure whether to be glad that this was a question she knew the answer to, or afraid that he would know where she was supposed to be right now.

“Evelyn,” he repeated, still staring at her. “…I see.”

The small person huffed at him. He shot them a look, before he turned back to Evelyn.

“My name is Darius,” he said, and then waved a hand at the small person. “And that’s Eberwolf.”

It was surprising to hear that they had names. Evelyn hadn’t been sure if names were a thing most people did or not. He had a name, but Evelyn wasn’t allowed to use it, so she wasn’t entirely sure if other people were the same. But she nodded, and repeated, “Darius, Eberwolf,” so that he knew she was listening.

“Eberwolf tells me that he found you wandering through the castle,” Darius said. Eberwold growl-grumbled a little, and Darius rolled his eyes. “Yes, you’ve complained many, many times about the stench of Graye’s lilac shampoo. Your trials are innumerable, truly.” He looked back at Evelyn. “Eberwolf wasn’t able to figure out where you came from, so…where did you come from.”

Evelyn flinched, and held the arm tight underneath the cloth. “…Please don’t send me back.”

It was a pathetic little whisper, and she hates herself a little for it. Begging never helped, sometimes made it worse, so why did she have to say it like that, he wouldn’t listen and it would just make Him angry –

“I have absolutely no intention of sending you back,” Darius said, interrupting her thoughts. “But I need to know where to avoid sending you back to.”

…Oh.

Evelyn hadn’t expected that.

…Well. Okay.

“I was…underground,” she said. She kept her eyes on Darius, waiting to see if anything she said changed his mind. “I broke my chain, and I got out. I just want to leave.”

Darius’ expression changed, and he looked annoyed. Evelyn instantly tensed, but then his face changed to something she couldn’t identify, and then went back to being neutral.

“Alright,” Darius said. “You were underground. And the Emperor was there?”

“Who?” Evelyn asked.

Darius blinked, then glanced towards Eberwolf, who made another noise. Then he looked back at her. “Eberwolf says that you have a trace scent of the Emperor on you.”

“I’m sorry. There was –” Evelyn had to force the words out. “There was a man. He came sometimes. I’m not allowed to say his name – it’s not Emperor, though.”

Darius’ expression flickered, but went smooth again. “Ah. Emperor is a title, it’s not his name. His name is –”

Evelyn flinched, echoes of pain running through her.

“– not important,” Darius said. He shook his head. “Tall, white cloak, long grey hair?”

Evelyn flinched again. “Y-yeah.” She breathed deeply, in and out. “Blue eyes, and small ears, and light skin with stripes.”

Darius blinked. “Stripes?”

“Yes?” Evelyn looked at him anxiously. “Um, he has – stripes all over him. From his curse. They’re all sort of…not flesh. They’re some rotting stuff.”

Evelyn hadn’t ever seen anyone look dumbstruck, before, but she was almost completely certain that the expression Darius had in right now was that.

There was disgust, too, but she was more familiar with that one. He – the Emperor, apparently – had that expression a lot when he looked at her.

But Darius didn’t lash out to hurt her, so Evelyn didn’t really mind that he found her disgusting. His face smoothed out a few seconds later, and she couldn’t tell he’d been surprised at all.

“…Do you know anything more about this curse of his?” Darius said.

Evelyn thought, she really did, but she had to shake her head. “No, I’m sorry.”

“Pity,” Darius said, a little quieter than before. Maybe to himself. Sometimes the Emperor did that. Darius shook his head a little and looked at Evelyn again. “Do you know where you came from before being underground?”

“…I wasn’t anywhere before that,” Evelyn said.

“So you don’t remember,” Darius said. He brought up a hand to rub at his forehead. “Well, at least I know where to start looking…”

Evelyn frowned, took a deep breath, and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t – I don’t understand.”

“Well, you had to come from somewhere,” Darius said. He flicked his fingers. “With your memories erased, that would normally be difficult to determine, but – well, let’s just say your appearance gives me a fairly large clue. Although I do have a lot of questions for the Clawthornes…”

“But,” Evelyn said, too confused to even be cautious about correcting him. “I haven’t had my memories erased. They’re all there.” No matter how bad they were.

Darius raised his eyebrows. “Ah, of course. How silly of me. Clearly you sprung into existence fully formed in that basement.”

“He said it took a few weeks,” Evelyn said. “The – the Emperor, I mean. So there wasn’t – springing.”

Darius blinked. He stared at her.

“…What,” he said.

Eberwolf growled for a moment, as well.

Evelyn looked between them anxiously. “It – took a few weeks to make me?” she repeated. “And I have all my memories since then. I think I do, anyways. I remember how I got all my injuries.”

“Wait,” Darius said. “Wait, stop. You’re saying the Emperor – made you. As in, he…constructed you? Like an Abomination?”

“Um,” Evelyn said, shifting uncomfortably. “I don’t know what an Abomination is, I’m sorry. And I think he – grew me? I had to dig myself out of the dirt.” She hugged the arm tighter to her chest. “He called me a…Grimwalker?”

This time, it was Darius who flinched. His eyes were wide, staring at her.

“A Grimwalker?” he said. His voice was the loudest it had been so far, and Evelyn’s breath stuttered. She pressed herself back against the back of the big-chair, despite how it hurt her back, and kept her eyes on his hands. If he lashed out she had to be ready to move with the hit, or else it would hurt even more.

Eberwolf growled, looking between Evelyn and Darius. His growls almost sounded…questioning?

“It’s –” Darius said, still staring at Evelyn, “High-level Abomination magic. Or it would have been, if it hadn’t gone extinct before the Coven system came into place – supposedly extinct. The knowledge of how to make them was thought lost long ago. But…apparently not.” He blinked rapidly. “How…how old are you, then?”

“I’m sorry,” Evelyn said, still trembling. “I’m sorry, I don’t – I don’t know. I couldn’t keep track. He – the Emperor visited me eighteen times, that’s all I know.”

“That’s all you know,” Darius repeated. “That…really is all you know, isn’t it?”

Evelyn gave him a tiny nod, terrified of saying something to provoke him again.

“Right,” Darius said. He ran a hand over his face. “Right. Alright.” He paused for a moment, and then nodded. “Right. I can’t deal with this.”

Eberwolf growled at him, loudly.

“No, mutt, I actually cannot deal with this,” Darius said, waving an arm towards Evelyn. She managed not to flinch back this time, but she didn’t even blink, ready and waiting for the hand to reach out and hurt her. “I am a Coven Head, not a – a therapist, for Titan’s sake! Moreover, I work here, in case you’d forgotten. If I try to hide her, Be-the Emperor will track her down, and perhaps you wouldn’t mind being executed for treason but it would throw off my entire schedule.”

Eberwolf growled again, louder this time, and gestured strongly at Evelyn.

“Yes, mutt, that is very clear, but if you remember, I am head of the Abomination Coven!” Darius said, as he also gestured wildly at Evelyn. “I know some very basic first aid, possibly I could stitch up a cut if required, but do you honestly think I know how to heal that? She’s missing fingers and teeth and an ear and – who even knows what else is wrong under all that filth!”

Evelyn flexed her hands underneath the cloth, and ran her tongue through her mouth. She remembered having all ten of her fingers when she was first made, but the first one was gone by the Emperor’s fourth visit. Her teeth had started even earlier. The ear was newer, only two visits ago, and it still stung if she forgot and tried to move it.

It was probably good that Darius couldn’t see the other injuries. Especially her back. He sounded annoyed enough already.

“She has to go,” Darius said firmly.

“I can leave,” Evelyn agreed quickly. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to cause trouble, I can leave. If – if you can tell me how to get out of the castle you don’t ever have to see me again.”

“Ugh, did I say I would be throwing you out in the cold?” Darius said, and Evelyn tensed even more at the annoyance in her tone. He noticed, and his expression changed in a way she couldn’t parse. He reached up to pinch the upper part of his nose. “This. This is why. Not a therapist.” He sighed. “But I can get you to some people who will help you.”

“You…can?” Evelyn said. She didn’t know how to respond to that.

“Almost certainly,” Darius said. “They’re opposed to the Emperor, openly so, and they – will want to keep you out of his hands, once they see you. And I’m sure they have more healing expertise than me.”

“Oh,” Evelyn said.

Part of her wasn’t sure whether to believe him. The rest of her desperately wanted to. The idea of helping was strange, something she’d never experienced, but even just the idea sounded…nice. It sounded like something she wanted. Maybe even needed.

“No, really, don’t thank me,” Darius said.

Evelyn blinked at him. Several seconds passed, and Eberwolf started to snicker.

“…That was your cue to thank me,” Darius said.

Evelyn startled, which made the fabric around her shoulders slip a little, and chided herself. Darius didn’t sound angry exactly – he didn’t even sound annoyed – but Evelyn knew he had to be. The Emperor was always annoyed when she missed a cue, and it always made things worse for her. So she said, “I’m sorry, thank you,” and her mind raced to offer further appeasement.

She remembered the conversation she’d overheard, between the two people. One had said – what were the words –

“Can I do anything…more, to thank you?” Evelyn said, a little awkwardly. She poked a hand out to unwrap the cloth from where it had slipped on her shoulder. She should probably secure it better, but she didn’t know how. This was proved when she accidentally knocked it off her shoulder completely. She might need to ask for help.

But that would have to wait, because Darius’ eyes went really wide, and his skin got a little lighter. Not much, but enough to notice.

Evelyn didn’t know skin could be like that, either. Did that mean her own skin could get darker?

Darius stood up, fast and sudden, and Evelyn flinched back.

“Clothes,” Darius said, and oh, no, no, his voice was clipped and tense, and Evelyn knew what that meant from Him, knew what was coming – “You need clothes. I’ll go get them. Wait here.”

Then he left the room through the side door. Evelyn was left with Eberwolf.

She didn’t move. She didn’t move, except to tremble, which she tried to stop doing but couldn’t quite manage. Darius said to wait, so she would. She didn’t want to make him hurt her more than he was already going to.

Eberwolf stared at her. Maybe he was thinking of hurting her, too. When he started to move, Evelyn stopped breathing.

He paused for a second, then kept going, more slowly than before. Something in the way he moved was different, though. Something in how he stepped, in how he tilted his head, was no longer making her afraid. He didn’t feel threatening in the way Darius did.

Evelyn watched Eberwolf approach. She didn’t…entirely…trust the idea that he wouldn’t hurt her, but she did think it was less likely than more.

Eberwolf climbed up onto the big-chair next to her, though he didn’t touch her. He looked up at her, slowly reached out to grasp the edge of the fabric that had fallen down, and delicately lifted it up to wrap it around her shoulder again.

“…thank you,” Evelyn said, and it came out a little softer than she’d intended. She pulled the fabric a little tighter.

…It did make her feel a little better, being wrapped up like this. No matter how much she knew that the cloth didn’t give her any real protection, hiding away her injuries was…nice. Like if no one saw them, they wouldn’t think of adding more.

Eberwolf let out a rumble, and laid down next to her. He still didn’t touch her.

And then they waited.

Darius came out of the side room a few minutes later. He wasn’t looking at her, instead staring at the opposite wall. He was carrying a bunch of folded-up fabric. Evelyn tensed again, but not as much as before.

Eberwolf growl-rumble-hissed at him for several seconds. Darius stopped and looked at him. He looked a little – surprised?

“I didn’t –” he started to say, but Eberwolf cut him off with more growl-hissing. Darius winced, just a little.

“Ugh,” he said. “Fine. Evelyn,” she startled, because she’d never heard anyone other than Him use her name, and it was a strange and – not entirely welcome sound, “I…apologize for leaving so abruptly. I don’t want…that kind of thanks. I’m not going to hurt you.”

…Evelyn didn’t know how to handle someone apologizing to her, and didn’t know what kind of thanks he was talking about, but the last sentence was more important than either of those anyways. She swallowed.

“Oh,” she said. “…Okay.”

She couldn’t interpret the expression on Darius’ face, but a moment later he held out the fabric in his hands. “Here’s some clothes for you to wear,” he said. “I tailored them as best I could with so little time.”

Evelyn blinked, and looked at the fabric. Then at Darius. She decided that if he wasn’t going to hurt her, it was probably safe to ask one question.

“I’m sorry, I’ve never worn clothes before,” she said. “Can you help me put them on?”

She had no idea what Darius’ expression to that meant, or why Eberwolf suddenly started to laugh.

**********

The goo fell away from Evelyn, and she sucked in a breath. She was getting used to the sensation, and it wasn’t like it actually hurt, but she still didn’t like it.

But Darius had said this was the last time, so that meant they had arrived. Evelyn took in their new surroundings.

She hadn’t been able to process very much, the previous times. Both because Darius moved very quickly, and because there was just so much in every location that Evelyn couldn’t take it all in at once. But now that they – or she, really – was staying put, Evelyn could look around.

There were trees. That was the first thing she saw. There were a lot of trees. The light was low – Darius said that it was evening, now – but there was still enough to see the ridiculous number of trees around them. Evelyn couldn’t count all of them if she tried, and that was an unsettling realization.

The ground was rocky, and dirty, and uneven. Like underground, but…wilder. And the space was incredibly disorienting. Evelyn’s eyes didn’t want to look so far. She had never seen further than several her-lengths ahead; there had always been walls. But there weren’t walls out here, and that meant her eyes had a hard time focusing.

A little ways ahead, the trees stopped, and there was a clearing. That was also disorienting to see, but Evelyn pushed that away, because in the clearing was a building.

Inside the building, there were people who would help her. At least, that’s what Darius promised.

“Alright,” Darius said. Evelyn latched her attention onto him gratefully. There was too much stuff around her, so no matter how hard he was to understand he was still the most familiar thing around. “Remember: do not tell anyone who I am.”

Evelyn nodded. Darius had explained to her that if anyone learned he had helped her, the Emperor would find out, and would hurt him like he’d hurt her. Evelyn couldn’t bear the thought of that happening. She would die before she betrayed Darius to Him.

“Here’s the letter,” Darius said, handing her the paper. Evelyn took it with her free hand, the other one still holding the arm to her chest. She hadn’t let go of it, not once, even when putting on her clothes. Darius had asked about it, but Evelyn couldn’t manage to make up her mind whether to tell him before he dropped the subject.

Both her arms were bare now, too. Darius had done something with a little bit of purple goo that had her shackle open up and let go of her arm. It was such a strange feeling, being free of it. Evelyn was a little surprised to realize she hadn’t really expected to get free of it.

But she was. She was, and now it was time to go to a place Darius had promised she would be safe.

“And I just – go and ask them for help?” Evelyn asked, looking nervously towards the building.

“Yes,” Darius said. “They’ll be confused, but the letter will explain. Hopefully. They might be…upset, but they won’t hurt you.”

Evelyn swallowed, and nodded. “Okay.” She looked at Darius. “Thank you. You’re – you’re a really good person, Darius.”

Darius’ expression looked strange for a moment, then it changed back to neutral. “Some days I try,” he said, and gestured towards the building. “Go on.”

Evelyn breathed in, breathed out, and stepped out of the trees.

She walked towards the building. Darius hadn’t had shoes that could fit her just lying around, so she could feel the grass through her socks. It felt sort of soft. The evening light made the building look warm, almost inviting. It had a window that looked like an eye, and Evelyn couldn’t shake the feeling that it was watching her, but it didn’t…it didn’t feel bad.

The door had a face-thing on it, and Evelyn didn’t think much about it until the eyes opened.

“Oh, hey, Eda!” it said. “Did you get another makeover?”

“Um,” Evelyn said.

“It looks great!” the face thing said. “Really creepy and gross! Luz is gonna love it!”

“I…” Evelyn said. She almost turned around to look back at Darius for instruction, but stopped herself at the last moment. No, Darius’ involvement was done. If she drew attention to him now he would be hurt by the Emperor, and she could not let that happen.

That didn’t leave her with a lot of options, though.

“Is it something else the Owl Beast gave you?!!” the face-thing asked. “That’s so cool, hoot hoot! You get Harpy Mode and Zombie Mode and who knows what’s next! Maybe they’ll set up a betting pool – HEY EVERYONE! COME SEE EDA’S MAKEOVER!”

Evelyn flinched at the loudness, but then, a few moments later, there was the sound of a handle turning.

“Hooty, we’re trying to have a discussion in he-” said a voice, and then the door fully opened and the speaker went silent.

They were a person, Evelyn was pretty sure. They had skin that was darker than hers, but lighter than Darius’, sort of light-bluish hair, and round things over their eyes – glasses? They blinked at seeing her, their expression completely blank.

Evelyn breathed in, and breathed out.

“Hello,” she said, the way Darius had told her to greet people. “I’m sorry, but I need help, please.”

Chapter Text

Frankly, Eda should have known everything was going to blow up in their faces.

It was bound to happen. That was just her life. Things had been going fairly well lately, so obviously something was going to pop up out of nowhere to trip them all (but especially her) into a big pile of ‘nope’.

All of Hooty’s bumbling machinations yesterday had been aggravating, but ultimately (and shockingly) helpful. Luz and Amity were dating at last, King and Hunter had finally started to warm up to each other, and Eda had actually managed to forge a tentative peace with the Owl Beast.

It was still hard to believe. The curse had been a thorn in her side for decades, a weight tied to her ankles and a sword dangling over the head of everyone she ever cared about. Eda had always thought of it more as a force of nature than something with a mind of its own.

Apparently, though, it did have a mind of its own. Eda was still wary – who wouldn’t be – but this was an opportunity she’d never even considered. Some measure of control over her transformation? Not having to worry about hurting anyone she loved? Fucking hell to the yes, she was going to grab onto that with both hands (though just the one would have to do).

Raine looked overjoyed when she told them, too. They’d grabbed her and spun her around in a fit of impulsive joy, and they’d blushed delightfully red when they’d realized. Also, she’d seen the gleam in their eyes when they looked at her new Harpy Form. She didn’t blame them. Her new look was scorchingly hot.

(Though if Hooty tried to matchmake her with Raine like he had with Luz and Amity, Eda was going to shut that down hard. She had a plan, dammit! Admittedly, it wasn’t a very detailed plan…but still, she had this handled.)

Things were looking to pick up in the rebellion front, as well. Raine’s little band of troublemakers were due to come over tomorrow morning, now that they’d escaped suspicion for helping Raine, and the BATTs were going to be back in business. Eda couldn’t wait to show them her contribution to the cause. It was going to let them take quite a few shortcuts, to say the least. Hopefully they wouldn’t ask too many questions…or any at all, really…but Eda was confident in her ability to bullshit if they did.

Yes, things were looking good.

So, naturally, it was when everyone was gathered together in the living room, eating dinner and half-watching some comedy movie on the crystal ball, totally relaxed for the first time in a good long while, when everything went sideways.

Eda didn’t pay much attention to Hooty’s faint ramblings that drifted through the door. The kids were talking about that ancient human’s journal, and how they could use it to send Luz home, and that was a little more deserving of her attention than Hooty’s endless weirdness.

“Echo mice are better-fed on older books, which is both good and bad,” Hunter said. He was on the floor, leaning his back up against the leg of the couch, bowl of stir-fried vice sitting in his lap. He waved his fork to illustrate. “Good, because it means the mouse will definitely display what it ate. The older the information, the stronger it retains that information. We’ll probably get the whole journal eventually. The bad part is that it’ll take more time to digest, and it might show some parts out of order. The contents of the journal were written so long ago, the mouse isn’t going to care if the entries get switched around.”

“Well, we’ll just have to do some detective work, then!” Luz said, ever the optimist. She was sprawled out over half the couch, idly drawing more glyphs for her stores in-between bites of her vice.

“I already have my own magnifying glass, so we’re all set!” King declared. He was sitting on Luz’s legs. Being the voracious little locust he was, he had already finished eating.

Eda was not looking forward to feeding him when his growth spurt finally came.

“HEY EVERYONE,” Hooty shouted. “COME SEE EDA’S MAKEOVER!”

Putting aside the fact that Eda wasn’t even within Hooty’s line of sight, she just…didn’t want to deal with whatever he was talking about now. She was comfortable, her kids were talking about something she really needed to know about, and Raine’s body heat was a constant, low-level warmth as they sat next to her. Eda did not want to move.

Raine did it for her, however. They got up with a quick smile and a, “I’ll go see what he’s talking about.” Eda missed their warmth immediately.

Oh, well. Eda refocused on her kids and threw in her two snails. “So it’s all well and good that this mouse is gonna give us leads,” especially since Eda was sitting on a particularly valuable one that she wasn’t quite ready to reveal yet, “but do we know how long we’ll have to wait?”

Hunter frowned. “Um…it should start spitting out more information pretty soon, I think. But I don’t know how long it’ll take to digest the whole journal.”

Eda nodded, and Luz opened her mouth – probably to suggest going to the library to learn more about echo mice, and coincidentally hang around her new girlfriend at the same time – when Raine called out, “…Eda?”

Her head instantly snapped around to Raine at the doorway, because Raine’s voice was – their voice was high and confused and Eda had never heard them sound so uncertain. She hadn’t even thought they could sound like that. And they weren’t looking at her, they were looking at something outside that Eda couldn’t see.

“Could you come here, please?” Raine said, and Eda was already halfway across the room. She spared a moment to register that the kids had gone tense and alert – well, Hunter had, instantly slipping into military-perfect bearing as he jumped to his feet, ready for anything. Luz and King looked similarly tense, but far more confused. Luz reached out to turn off the crystal ball, cutting off the background chatter.

Eda reached the door and looked out to see –

Herself.

“…What,” Eda said, because it was the only thing she could.

“…Oh,” said the person wearing Eda’s own face, staring back, apparently also surprised to see her. “Um. Hello.”

Eda kept staring, because it seemed to be the thing to do.

Her – double – looked incredibly similar to her, but also wrong. Like a really poorly-cast illusion, or one of those funhouse mirrors in the Human Realm. She had paper-white skin – Eda was already pretty pale for the Boiling Isles, but this version of her looked like she’d lived underground her whole life and never seen the sun. Her hair was the same bright orange of Eda’s childhood, not a grey hair in sight, but it looked brittle and unkempt. Her clothes were more concealing than anything in Eda’s closet except winter gear, but they were surprisingly fashionable regardless. Her eyes were completely unlike Eda’s at all, a shade of magenta that actually looked eerily similar to Hunter’s. Her face didn’t have the age-lines carved from decades of carrying the Owl Beast curse, but it did have several half-healed wounds on it: one across her left cheek, one going down from her forehead between her eyes to end on the right side of her nose, and one snaking up from under her collar to stretch across her jaw and nearly touch the corner of her mouth.

Also, her left ear was missing – and after a second Eda realized that, while she still had both her arms, her hands were missing several fingers each.

“…What,” Eda said, because it bore repeating.

“Wait,” Hooty said, his eyes wide, looking between the two of them. “Wait, what’s going on here?! I’m freaking out!”

Peripherally, Eda was aware of her kids creeping up behind her. Usually she would stop them, or give them one of her surprisingly effective Mom Looks, but right now her brain was still undergoing a reboot.

“…Um?” Hunter said.

“Wait,” King said, “What?”

“…Is this some other bit of Boiling Isles aleatoriedad increíblemente extraña no one’s told me about?” Luz asked.

The other-Eda seemed uncomfortable in front of so many people. She shifted on her feet, and turned her head a little before looking back at them. Eda noticed she was holding something against her chest, wrapped in a cloth.

“Um,” she said again, and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, but I need help, please.”

“Who are you?!” Hooty cried out.

“I’m – Evelyn,” the woman said, then winced. “But not, um…”

She looked at Eda uncertainly, and…

Okay, so Eda blamed the eyes. This woman, Evelyn, could not have been more surprising or, frankly, suspicious. Eda shouldn’t give her so much as the time of day. But for all her incredibly similar-but-subtly-wrong resemblance to Eda, her eyes really did look just like Hunter’s, and Eda had never been able to stand seeing those eyes of his look sad or afraid. Probably because it happened too often.

So now all of Eda’s ‘child is scared, must protect’ instincts were waking up, which was probably why Eda opened her mouth and said, “Well, come on in, then.”

Evelyn looked surprised, but the rest of Eda’s family looked at her like she was crazy. Which was fair, Eda had to admit.

“What is reality?!?” Hooty wailed.

Evelyn took a hesitant step forward. Eda pulled Raine to the side to give her a way through, and ignored the look they were giving her. It was her house; she could invite her weird doppelganger in if she wanted to. But just in case…

“Hooty, go on lockdown,” Eda said, as Evelyn stepped inside. Hooty’s eyes flashed at the order.

“OkaaAAayyYYY…” Hooty moaned, obviously still questioning his entire perception of reality. But he knew to go on lockdown when she said, and did so. In an instant, the doors were closed and locked, the windows barricaded, and Hooty wrapped himself around the house to watch for incoming threats.

Evelyn looked nervous, eyes darting around the room and obviously hyperaware of every movement from every person in front of her, but she didn’t protest the lockdown. Smart girl.

“…So, Eda,” Luz said at last. “You never mentioned a…twin sister.”

“That’s ’cause I don’t have one, kiddo,” Eda said, not taking her eyes off Evelyn.

“Yeah, that figures,” Luz nodded, not a trace of surprise in her tone.

It was King who broke the stalemate, because of course it was. He marched up to Evelyn, despite Hunter making a half-hearted grab to keep him back, and jabbed a finger up at her. “Who are you?” he demanded. “And why are you here? Where did you come from?”

“I’m Evelyn,” the woman repeated, which answered absolutely jack-all. She looked nervous, which meant she probably knew that. She hesitated, then pulled something from the bundle against her chest and held it out.

It was a letter. Eda eyed it.

After a moment, Raine reached out and took it. Eda was briefly annoyed before she remembered she couldn’t really open a letter with only one hand.

Raine inspected the letter, flipping it over to look at both sides. “No address,” they noted, before they opened it and unfolded the paper within.

“Owl Lady,” they read out loud, and Eda tilted her head. “This woman is known as Evelyn. Her story strains credibility, but it’s true to the best of my abilities to ascertain. Please keep an open mind.

“Evelyn is a Grimwalker.” Raine blinked and looked up. “A Grimwalker? What’s that?”

“Beats me,” Eda said. She glanced at Hunter, who could occasionally be counted on to know even more esoteric things than her.

But he just looked confused, and shook his head slightly. He didn’t know, then. Eda turned her attention to Evelyn.

She looked uncomfortable. “The – the letter should explain,” she said.

Raine raised an eyebrow, and looked back down at the letter. “I don’t know if you know what that is, so I’ll put it plainly: A Grimwalker is a –”

Then Raine cut off with a choked sort of noise. Eda straightened up.

“Raine?” she said.

Eda did not like the look on Raine’s face. Their eyes were wide, staring at the paper they held, and their skin had paled significantly. Their gaze drifted up to Eda, over to Evelyn, and back to the letter.

“Raine,” Eda said, with a note of command in her voice. “What is it?”

Raine swallowed, looked at her again, and then looked back to the letter. Slowly, they read, “A Grimwalker is a magically-created copy of a person.”

The silence was deafening. Everyone stared – first at Raine, then at Evelyn and Eda.

Eda blinked, and looked closer at Evelyn.

“…Well,” she said. “That’s…alright. You’re a copy of me?”

Evelyn swallowed, and glanced at the empty space where Eda’s right arm used to be. She was used to people staring – Mom had outright gone on the warpath when she saw it, and hadn’t that been a fun visit – but she supposed she could give Evelyn a pass, just this once. Being a copy of someone had to be weird as fuck, and then finding out you weren’t an exact copy had to be also, differently, weird.

“Yes,” Evelyn said.

“Someone made a copy of you?” Luz said, looking between them.

“She’s not even a good copy!” King said. “She’s missing pieces!”

And –

Evelyn flinched.

It wasn’t a self-conscious flinch, like someone who had been called out on their disguise looking terrible. It was a bad-memory flinch, a trauma-flinch. The kind Eda saw in Hunter, when someone moved too fast or spoke too sharply or reached for his face. The kind that made Eda want to storm the Emperor’s castle, tear Belos off that fucking throne, and beat him to death with her bare hands.

A shiver of ice ran down Eda’s spine.

“Evelyn,” Eda said slowly, “Who made you?”

She went still. “Um, I,” Evelyn said, and looked desperately at Raine. “The letter…”

“…Right,” Raine said. Their color was almost back to normal, now. The only remaining sign of their discomfort was how they cleared their throat before they looked down and continued. “She doesn’t have your memories or personality, as far as I can tell; just your looks. I wish I could tell you more, but I don’t know much about Grimwalkers myself, and I can’t start researching them immediately after she vanishes without drawing undue attention to myself.

“You’re undoubtedly wondering where she came from, and who I am. To the first, I’ll be blunt –”

And then Raine went silent, staring at the paper. They didn’t even make a noise, this time; they simply froze, utterly still, an instant petrification.

“…Raine,” Eda said, because she had a horrible, horrible suspicion building in her mind.

The writer of the letter hadn’t said that they were physically unable to research Grimwalkers. They had the resources to do so, or could obtain them. But they wouldn’t, because they couldn’t do so without ‘drawing undue attention’. From who? Someone they clearly didn’t want to figure out about this, someone who could commit reprisal without worrying about the consequences. Someone who had the surveillance necessary to find out. Someone who had the authority to order this kept quiet. Someone who had the resources to know what Grimwalkers – clearly a very niche, very esoteric sort of magic – were, and how to make them. Someone who was sociopathic enough to make them.

Raine opened their mouth, closed it, and quietly read, “The Emperor made her. He was torturing her.”

There was silence again. This time, everyone was just as frozen as Raine.

Well, everyone else. Eda just breathed in, and slowly breathed out. Then she walked over, feet padding against the carpet, and pulled the letter out from Raine’s unresponsive fingers. They looked at her, glassy-eyed.

Eda couldn’t look back at them, not right now. Instead, she looked down at the letter, and found where Raine had stopped reading.

The Emperor made her. He was torturing her. I think he made her shortly after the failed petrification. I’m not certain of it, but it fits. She said that he ‘visited’ her eighteen times. Eighteen times, less than a month, and she ended up as you see her now.

She escaped on her own, and I found her trying to make her way out of the castle. She needs help, and I can’t give her any more than I have. I work in the castle, and any unusual behavior on my part would be noticed. I don’t have any particular expertise in healing, either, and she needs that as well. The only thing I could think of was handing her over to you.

I promised her that none of you would hurt her. Don’t make me a liar.

There was no signature. Of course there wasn’t.

Eda reread the letter again, from start to finish. The writer was brusque, and obviously uncomfortable with the entire situation, but they’d still done their best to obscure their identity. Evelyn might not even be able to describe them; most people in the castle were members of the Golden Coven, and their uniforms were all nondescript and obscuring.

She lowered the letter. Everyone was still silent.

For a moment, Eda let herself feel annoyed about that. If anyone deserved to feel blindsided by this, it was her. If anyone was going to shut down and become useless over finding out Belos had made a copy of her just to torture, it was her. This was not something Eda should have to take point on dealing with.

…But then again, maybe that was why she should take point on this. It was weird to look at Evleyn and see her own face all mangled like that, but for everyone else – no matter how ‘off’ the details were, Evelyn did look like Eda.

If Belos had made a copy of someone else, like Raine, or Lily, or the kids…Eda didn’t think she’d be any better off than they were right now.

So. Ironically, Eda was probably the least emotionally compromised about this. Which meant she needed to be the one to do something about it. Woo.

Well. The letter had indicated a good starting point. Eda cleared her throat, and made sure her voice was perfectly even and calm when she said, “Hey, Evelyn. You got any injuries that need looking at?”

“Um,” Evelyn said. She clutched that bundle closer to her chest, and her one remaining ear flicked slightly. “Y-yes.”

Eda nodded, as if they were having a perfectly normal conversation about minor scrapes and bruises, and Evelyn wasn’t standing right there literally missing pieces of her body and displaying half-healed injuries on all her visible skin. “Well, then. Let’s do that. Follow me. Everyone else…” Eda tried to think of something to keep them busy, and realized it was doomed to failure. “Just wait here.”

“Eda?” Raine said. Oh, good, they remembered how to speak. Eda gave them a quick look, and deliberately slid her gaze over to the kids, who all still looked varying degrees of shellshocked. She couldn’t be the one to comfort them right now, so Raine would have to be the one to step up.

Fortunately, Raine understood. They swallowed, still looking a little pale, but their eyes regained their usual sharpness, and they nodded at her.

Good. Eda knew she could count on them. She herded Evelyn out of the living room and towards the stairs. The Grimwalker (and Eda definitely wanted to learn more about what, exactly, that meant) didn’t protest, instead following Eda’s lead without complaint. Then again, Eda doubted her life experience lent itself to being very outspoken.

They made it to the upstairs bathroom, where Eda kept the larger first-aid kits, plus her more heavy-duty medical potions. The first one she picked out was a light blue one, and she held it out to Evelyn.

“This one’s for the pain,” Eda said. She paused. “Did you drink any other potions?”

“No,” Evelyn murmured, as she took the bottle. She inspected it, looked up at Eda, and uncorked it. The liquid inside was drunk so quickly Eda almost missed it. First there was a full bottle, then it was empty.

Eda silently took the bottle back, and watched Evelyn’s face. She blinked after a couple seconds. She looked surprised, and confused. She looked down at her hands in obvious puzzlement.

“What is it?” Eda asked. Come to think of it, maybe she shouldn’t have given her the potion. Who knew if Grimwalker biology was the same as witch biology? “Something wrong?”

“I feel…strange,” Evelyn said. She pinched the inside of her wrist. “Or, more like I…can’t feel anything. Numb. I can hardly tell that I’m attached to my body. What…what did you say this potion was for?”

“It’s supposed to smother pain,” Eda said, after a moment. There was a sort of dull horror creeping over her. “But now that I think about it…have you ever not been in pain?”

Evelyn tilted her head. “I don’t think so? Um…maybe right after I was made. But that was a while ago.”

Eda nodded mechanically. “I see.” She wished she didn’t. “How long ago was that? Whoever wrote the letter thought it was less than a month.”

“I’m sorry,” Evelyn said, “I don’t know. He’s probably right. I just counted the times the Emperor visited me. Eighteen.”

Eda looked her up and down. “He hurt you each time?”

“Yes,” Evelyn said. There was some fear, but no anger. No righteous indignation, not even a tiny, battered smidge. No indication she considered this in any way abnormal.

And why would she? She wasn’t even a month old. It was normal, for her. It was all she knew.

Eda needed a drink. She needed to get so, so very drunk.

But Evelyn needed medical attention more, so Eda pushed that urge away after only a moment. This wasn’t like high school where she could go and beat up Philodendra Wiles for stalking her sister. Belos’ crimes were so much worse, his power so much stronger, and Eda so much weaker now. The most she could do was make sure Evelyn didn’t die of infection just days after escaping.

Eda nodded to the toilet. “Sit there. I’ll get out some more stuff.”

Evelyn sat obediently. Eda pulled out everything she had for treating injuries, which turned out to be way more than she’d thought. Having three kids in the house was so much more work than Eda ever anticipated, and she had gone in anticipating a lot, okay.

“I’m Eda, by the way,” she said. “I don’t know if you got that.”

“…Eda?” Evelyn said, a little unsure. “He…um, he said I was made from Evelyn. That’s why my name is…”

Eda paused in her rummaging, and looked over at Evelyn. She felt sheer disbelief bubble up in her throat.

“…Seriously?” she said, not even bothering to hide her incredulity. “He hates me enough to make you and do that to you, but he doesn’t even bother to get my name right?”

Evelyn looked uncomfortable, and also a little wary. It hit Eda that she maybe shouldn’t show a lot of strong emotion around the poor kid, because she couldn’t have good associations with that.

“Sorry,” Eda said, “You probably can’t answer that. But dear mother of Titan, that’s just…”

Eda trailed off, and took a deep breath. She forced herself to switch to another topic.

“You gonna put that down?” Eda said, glancing at the bundle Evelyn was still holding to her chest.

Evelyn looked down at it, as if she’d only just remembered she was carrying it. “…Oh,” she said.

“What is it, anyways?” Eda asked. She took stock of how many bandages there were. There were a lot, but she had the sinking suspicion that there might not be enough. Good thing she had two kits. Bandaging would be tricky with only one hand – what a time for Owlbert to be out – but she would manage, just like she always did.

“It’s yours,” Evelyn said.

Eda blinked, and looked over at her. “What?”

Evelyn hesitated, and lowered the bundle. It was moderately long and fairly thin, and Eda had no idea why Evelyn thought whatever was inside belonged to her.

Then Evelyn carefully used two of her remaining fingers to pinch the cloth and pull it open, to reveal –

– reveal –

“…Oh,” Eda said, her mouth dust-dry, her throat closed shut.

Her arm was almost completely rotted away, just a few scraps of desiccated flesh and ligaments left. The bones were a stark, gleaming white – almost exactly the same shade as Evelyn’s skin, in fact. Eda couldn’t help but notice that the arm ended at the elbow, whereas she was also missing half of her upper arm above that, and half-hysterically wondered what had happened to that extra chunk of bone.

Then, of course, she realized she didn’t need to wonder. She looked at Evelyn.

“This is how he made you from me, isn’t it,” Eda said.

Evelyn nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving the arm. “I took it,” she said. “I took it, so he couldn’t make more.”

“Right,” Eda said, feeling very distant from her body all of a sudden. “That’s good.”

Evelyn looked at her, then back down at the arm. She held it out to Eda. “Here,” she said quietly. “It belongs to you.”

Eda had held her own severed limbs before. She’d held her own severed head before. This really wasn’t any different. She reached out and took the arm from Evelyn, wrapped the cloth back over it, and set it on the shelf next to the spare toilet paper.

“Thank you,” Eda told Evelyn.

She nodded, and played with her (remaining) fingers in her lap, like she wasn’t sure what to do with her hands now that they weren’t holding the arm.

Eda took a deep breath, studiously avoided looking at the shelf where the arm was resting, and went back to looking through the first-aid kit.

“If there’s more injuries under your clothes, I need to get to those, too,” Eda said.

“Okay,” Evelyn said quietly. Then, “Could you help me get them off, please? I’ve never worn clothes before. I don’t know how.”

Eda looked at her. Weighed this new piece of information, and what it likely meant. Spared a long, long second to submerge herself in the bottomless depths of rage-horror-hate that roared through her, washing away any other thought.

Then she packed it all up, put it away, and said, “Sure.”

Eda felt vaguely disconnected, as she went through the rest of the process. She helped Evelyn get most of her clothes off, careful not to jar anything. Evelyn was less careful, probably because she could no longer feel pain. That was always the downside with that particular potion.

Evelyn’s injuries were…

There were a lot.

Wrapping up the lacerations was simple enough. Disinfectant, bandage, done. It was good that treating them was so simple, because there were a lot of them. More than any other kind of injury. There were the cuts on her face, but those paled in comparison to the ones on her torso. Some looked like claw marks, some looked like they were from a single large blade, some had ragged edges and some had clean, and all were in different stages of healing. Very, very few of them were totally healed. There were a few slashes on her legs – almost certainly incidental. There were quite a few cuts on her arms, especially her forearms, and Eda knew defensive wounds when she saw them.

Most of those were older. Eda studiously avoided thinking about what that meant.

There were burns, too – not many, but they were there. Eda applied burn salve to them, and carefully wrapped them in bandages and gauze. Most of them were more recent, and even if they hadn’t been infected yet it was always important to err on the safer side, with burns. She gave Evelyn an antibiotic potion, one of the really high-quality ones, and Evelyn drank it down.

The whip marks on her back were, somehow, not surprising. The only surprising thing was they hadn’t actually healed very much. Eda couldn’t help but stare, when she saw them.

“How did you even move, like this?” she asked.

“I had to,” Evelyn said. “So I did.”

And that was that.

Eda slathered on disinfectant, pain-numbing gel, and a salve that would regrow the skin Evelyn had lost. There wasn’t enough of the last one to cover her entire back, because it was an expensive concoction and Eda had never thought she would need more than the one little bottle, but once it did its work Evelyn wouldn’t have too many scars, and she would be able to twist her torso without much pain. Eda wrapped the whole thing in bandages and hoped it would be enough.

The rubbed-raw skin above her wrist was obviously where she’d been kept manacled. It was the freshest injury – or, to put it another way, it was the only injury that had never even been given a chance to heal. It was slowly oozing blood and pus, and Eda had to wipe that all away before she could bandage it up properly. It was going to leave a big scar, that was for sure, especially with Evelyn’s incredibly pale skin.

The missing parts were simple, but also not. That was the point where Eda began to suspect Belos had made sure Evelyn wouldn’t suffer from gangrene or something through sheer brute magical force, because none of the amputation sites showed any sign of care at all, but were all miraculously uninfected. So in technical terms, they weren’t so bad to treat. In emotional terms, however, it was hard to look at the four stumps where fingers were supposed to go, the holes in her gums where teeth used to be, and the ragged lump that was all that remained of her left ear, and not feel nauseous. Eda managed to apply the disinfectant and bandages without showing any discomfort, but it was a near thing.

The broken bones were similarly paradoxical. Nearly all of them were mostly, but not completely, healed. All Eda had to do was give Evelyn another potion, one for mending bone, and she would be just fine within a few days. It was just hard to see so many – several ribs, her left wrist, right shoulder, most of her remaining fingers, collarbone, left foot, left knee, and right leg.

Eda didn’t ask how she was able to escape with so many incompletely-healed breaks, especially the ones in her legs. She had already been given the answer.

(Eda didn't ask, either, how old Evelyn physically was. The phantom image of her shrine in the woods flashed through her mind before she pushed it away. That was - she couldn't think about that now. So she didn't.)

Once everything was bandaged, and Eda had checked to make sure Evelyn wasn’t hiding anything else, Eda sat down on the bathroom floor and leaned back against the sink.

“You’ll heal,” Eda said, closing her eyes. “Not all the way, but as well as can be expected. I’m not impressed with whoever brought you here, though. They could have patched you up a little.”

“D-he did his best,” Evelyn said immediately, with the most fire Eda had heard from her yet. “He really did.”

Eda cracked an eye open, and glanced at Evelyn.

She didn’t quite buy that. Lily had told her that everyone in the Golden Coven picked up at least some healing magic, if only to do triage in the field. Evelyn’s mysterious rescuer could have done, oh, literally anything to treat her wounds before dumping her on Eda’s doorstep.

…Unless he couldn’t? Eda tilted her head a little, and thought.

Evelyn referred to him as male. Her slip of the tongue revealed his name probably started with ‘D’. His letter had implied that his movements were watched, so odds were he was higher ranked than the average scout. He hadn’t healed her even a little, so when he’d written he didn’t have ‘any particular expertise in healing’ that might actually have been a drastic understatement. It was entirely possible he wasn’t in the Golden Coven at all (or Healing Coven). He…probably dressed her in his own clothes, since Eda doubted he’d gone out shopping for her, so he was either about her size or capable of tailoring them on the fly.

…And he knew Eda. Her bounty poster was plastered everywhere, but it was honestly not the best quality, which let her fly surprisingly under the radar for the Boiling Isles most-wanted criminal. Her most distinguishing features were the grey hair and gold eyes, and Evelyn had neither. But her rescuer had looked at her and known exactly who she was copied from.

So. A high-ranked non-Golden Coven man whose name started with ‘D’, either Evelyn’s size or knowledgeable about tailoring, who was at least passingly familiar with what Eda looked like.

Eda blinked. Huh. It was surprisingly obvious, when she laid it all out like that.

She wouldn’t have figured Darius as the type to rescue damsels, but she supposed everyone had a line in the sand somewhere. It was one thing to know your boss was – not to put too fine a point on it – a total asshole, but it was another thing to learn that he kept a woman locked up in the basement to torture.

And it fit with him knowing about Grimwalkers too, now that she thought about it. She and Hunter hadn’t known, and between the two of them they knew quite a bit about all sorts of weird shit, but Eda was willing to bet it was an obscure branch of Abomination magic.

“…Alright,” Eda said at last, tucking that little revelation away for later. She didn’t know what she would do with it, but there was always a chance it could come in handy at some point. She looked over at Evelyn. “I have a couple storage rooms around the house; you can pick which one you like best and we can clear it out.”

Hunter had claimed the basement, and Raine had chosen the room just off the side of the stairs on the second floor. All the rest of the closets were pretty full, especially after they’d cleared out Raine’s room, but Eda had been meaning to do some cleaning at some point anyways.

Evelyn looked confused. “You’re…letting me have a room?”

“Yeah, of course,” Eda said. “Why, what’d you think we’d be doing with you?”

Evelyn shrugged slightly, which took on a whole new dimension now that Eda knew her collarbone was still healing. Lily had been laid up for a while with that one, and even if she did her best not to complain, Eda knew her sister, and had known just how painful it was.

“Well,” Eda said, leaning her head back against the cabinet. “You can pick out a room and stay as long as you need. Not like my house isn’t already a refugee home.”

Between Luz, Raine, Hunter, and Lily, the house was the most crowded it had been in…ever. Eda found herself deeply thankful that Lily had left to live with their parents, because she had no idea where she would have put Evelyn otherwise. Plus, it was probably for the best. People had started to warm up to her somewhat, but there had still been a fair amount of tension between her and Raine and Hunter. Neither of those two were people who forgave crimes against Eda very quickly. It would be kind of sweet, if Eda hadn’t been driven ragged trying to keep everyone out of each other’s way.

“Okay,” Evelyn said, breaking Eda out of her thoughts. “That sounds…nice.”

“Sounds like you’re due for nice things,” Eda said.

“Maybe,” Evelyn said quietly.

Eda hummed slightly, then switched tracks. “So, can you tell me anything about Grimwalkers? Need different foods, or something? It’ll be expensive to fund another specialized diet, but I’ll make do.”

“I don’t think I eat differently?” Evelyn said. It sounded less confident than Eda would like. “He gave me food. I don’t know what all of it was. The lab was dark.”

“Hm,” Eda said. “Alright. We’ll…keep an eye out, then.”

There was a short silence.

“…You were kept in a lab?” Eda said, because she couldn’t not.

“Yes,” Evelyn said. There was that fear again, alongside the lack of knowing any different. “His Grimwalker lab. It was…it’s a bad place.”

“I’ll bet,” Eda said distantly. Both because there was an ocean’s worth of subtext beneath Evelyn’s words, subtext that Eda had read for herself in all the violence painted on her body, but also because – because there was something about that that niggled at her, a faint instinct that this was important information.

Then she realized.

“Wait,” Eda said, turning her head towards Evelyn. “You said lab. ‘Lab’ is – it’s a sciencey thing, meant for testing and making shit. I had to practice a lot in potions lab at school before I could reliably make a working end product. It’s the same for any other sort of magic. It takes time to get it right. But – but he only got my arm a little over a month ago. Even if you’re less than a month old, that only leaves a few weeks to make you. He couldn’t have set up an entire lab from scratch and tested unknown magic in that time. He –” and here Eda’s breath caught in her throat, the truth becoming horribly, starkly apparent. “He’s done this before.”

“Oh,” Evelyn said. “Yes, I think so. There were other plots of dirt. They were empty, but – but some had been used.”

“Oh,” Eda said, her head spinning. “That. That’s – fuck. Fuck.”

Evelyn looked uncomfortable. That was pretty fair. Eda wasn’t feeling so great herself.

Against her better instincts, Eda couldn’t help but wonder who else Belos had made a Grimwalker of. Surely not everyone he executed, because Raine had shared their suspicions that that number was much higher than most people knew. He just wouldn’t have the time.

But it had to be a lot. If Evelyn was any indication, he knew how to make a Grimwalker that could take a lot of punishment. He knew how to make her resilient, how to hurt her, how to patch her up so he could hurt her even more.

“How did you get out?” Eda said, because if Belos was experienced in making and torturing Grimwalkers, surely he’d patched any security holes ages ago.

“He has symbols on him,” Evelyn said. “I memorized one, and learned how to draw it. It makes ice. I broke my chain with it.”

“Symbols?” Eda repeated, blinking. She reached for her pocket and fumbled around until she pulled out a stack of glyphs. She thumbed through them until she found the one for ice, and showed it to Evelyn. “This one?”

She looked at it and nodded. “Yes, that one.”

“Oh,” Eda said, mind whirling, assimilating this new information.

Glyphs were wild magic. They were the wildest of wild magic – the kind that had been lost long ago, before the Savage Ages, before the Deadwardian Era, before their history books even recorded. Even Eda, wild witch extraordinaire, hadn’t known what they were before Luz rediscovered them. Glyphs were wild magic in its purest form.

And Belos used them. Used them very frequently, if Eda’s logic hung together. Because so much of Belos’ magic was strange and powerful, more so than anyone else, outside the context of any of the official Covens. He’d been able to yank her mind out of the mire of the curse with barely a flick of his finger, and Eda had never even come close to that.

He claimed his magic came from the Titan. It was how he gained and kept his authority – surely someone with such powerful and exotic magic was favored by the Titan.

But it was all a lie. He used glyphs. Belos used glyphs.

Eda barely remembered to breathe as she considered this revelation. Her nebulous plan to kill Belos – because it was the only way to make sure her kids were safe – had just become a lot more achievable.

She could use this. She could use this.

“I guess none of the others saw them,” Evelyn said, and Eda’s mind was wrenched away from plotting. She glanced over to see Evelyn looking down at her bandaged hands, a solemn expression on her face. “Or didn’t think to use them. Or something.”

Eda took a deep breath, pulled down to the ground again at the reminder of how much blood was on Belos’ hands.

“Yeah,” she said. “Guess not.” She put the glyph papers away and chewed on her bottom lip, turning over the tragedy of the Grimwalkers in her head. So many people, dead and gone, as if they’d never existed. It was – somehow – even worse than the wild witches that Belos ‘disappeared’, because those people must have been missed by somebody. Anybody. But no one besides Belos even knew the Grimwalkers had ever existed, and if he had ever mourned them Eda would make soup from her arm-bones and eat it.

“Did he ever say who they were?” Eda asked, without much hope. “The others?”

“No,” Evelyn murmured. “Not that I can remember. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Eda said. “I’m not them.”

“You aren’t,” Evelyn echoed. Then she glanced up at Eda, and looked down again. “I don’t know why he kept me alive so long. I don’t look very much like you.” She reached up and fiddled with the ends of her hair.

“You do, kinda,” Eda said, giving her a once-over. “The facial shape is mostly right, and that was the color of my hair, a couple decades ago. The eyes might just be a Grimwalker thing, I guess –”

And then Evelyn looked up, her eyes meeting Eda’s, and

the

world

stopped.

Her eyes.

Her eyes.

They looked just like –

They were the exact same color as –

No. No. No.

Except it made sense. It made so much sense.

Eda remembered Hunter confessing to her, one late night, that he didn’t remember his parents, that Belos never told him a single thing about them. She remembered Hunter sleeping upstairs as Raine hesitantly told her they didn’t think he was actually a witch, that he might be something else entirely. She remembered Hunter flinching and moving and acting like Evelyn was now, uncertain of when they’d be hurt but knowing that they would.

She remembered every time she met his eyes, that deep magenta like a fine wine, a shade she had never seen an exact match to.

Not until tonight. Not until now.

The world tilted, just a little bit, as this new revelation clicked into place, an irregular space finally filled by an equally irregular – but terribly, undeniably true – puzzle piece, found at last.

Hunter was a Grimwalker.

Her son was a Grimwalker.

Almost without her noticing, a thought flitted through her mind, quicksilver and eerily calm –

Well, at least this one isn’t another god.

Eda dropped her head into her hand and let out breathless laughter. She could tell that Evelyn was staring at her in confusion, probably at least somewhat alarmed by her strange behavior, but Eda couldn’t spare very much attention for her at this exact moment. She was too busy pushing back twin surges of hysteria and horror.

Because – well. Hunter being a Grimwalker wasn’t actually very shocking, in and of itself. She’d known since the failed petrification that he wasn’t a witch, and literally nothing could rock her more than King being an actual Titan. So Hunter was a Grimwalker – that didn’t matter. He was still her son.

But it did matter, because Belos had lied to him more thoroughly than Eda had ever realized – and she had realized that Belos had lied to him constantly. Eda had known that Belos never loved Hunter, used the promise of it to manipulate and abuse him, strung him along with the idea that ‘if you are useful, if you are worthy, if you are perfect – only then will you receive my affection. Only then will you deserve it.’ Eda had known that was a lie from the moment Hunter’s scattered hints formed into a coherent whole. Anyone who could do that to a child could never love anything at all.

Turned out, she was even more right than she knew.

How many had there been, Eda couldn’t help but wonder. How many Grimwalkers had Belos made and treated like Hunter, as opposed to Evelyn? How many times had he made a copy of someone he’d killed, and played his sick little game of pretending to care for them, of delighting as they fumbled around to please him when he was the one who’d killed their progenitor?

She remembered what Belos had said, when he revealed himself to Hunter and Eda as they tried to sneak out of the Conformatorium before the petrification.

Belos sighed as he stared at Hunter, who was terrified and frozen stock-still. “I really did hope you would last longer, you know,” he said, sounding disappointed.

How long did they usually last, Eda wondered. Because she had been meeting with Hunter for four years, but – but he might not actually be very much older. Evelyn was proof enough of that.

Eda had to stop thinking about this. If she kept thinking about this, she was going to start crying, or maybe screaming, or maybe both. And if she started doing that, she’d never stop.

“Okay,” Eda said. Her voice was rough, and her throat felt raw from holding back so much emotion. She tried to remember the thread of conversation that preceded one of the worst revelations she’d ever had, but failed. Whatever, just change the subject. “Okay. Let’s get you to someplace you can lie down and rest.”

“…Alright,” Evelyn said.

“You can take Raine’s room for now,” Eda decided. “They can bunk with me for a couple nights.”

Normally, Eda would have very specific ulterior motives for that arrangement. She’d certainly thought about it enough, over the past month. But right now, her motives were nothing of the sort. She just…she needed someone to support her while she processed all this shit, and she certainly wasn’t going to dump any of this on her kids.

Raine would help her. They always did, even if all they could do was just – be there. That was enough.

Eda levered herself to her feet, and motioned for Evelyn to follow her out of the bathroom. The first-aid stuff was still strewn around the room, not to mention the towels stained with various fluids and the severed, rotted arm sitting next to the toilet paper. But that could all be dealt with later. Eda had reached her limit for tonight.

They exited the bathroom, and Eda led Evelyn to Raine’s room. If she strained, she could hear the low murmur of voices downstairs. The kids hadn’t gone to bed yet, then, even though it was definitely past time for it. Eda didn’t really blame them.

“Here you go,” Eda said with a sigh, opening up the door. It wasn’t a large space, and the window on the far wall was fairly small, but it actually looked fairly welcoming all cleaned up like this. Plus, apparently it had ‘acceptable acoustics’. There weren’t many of Raine’s things, because they hadn’t managed to take anything from their home before the Emperor’s Coven raided it, so it looked more like a guest room than anything.

There was a mattress laid out on the floor – Eda certainly hadn’t had enough money for a bed, not with so many new mouths to feed, but she’d managed to find a couple mattresses squirreled away in the bowels of her house, so at least Raine and Hunter weren’t sleeping on the floor. Luz actually liked doing that, the weirdo. Said it was like camping.

“It’s late,” Eda said, as Evelyn looked around. “You can get some rest tonight, and we’ll figure out whatever’s left in the morning. Okay?”

“Okay,” Evelyn said.

“Great,” Eda sighed. “Good night, Evelyn.”

She almost didn’t see the flinch. Eda paused, her hand reaching out for the doorknob.

“Something wrong?” Eda said, even though she just wanted to leave already. She was so tired.

“I…” Evelyn said. She looked uncertain. She glanced at Eda before her gaze skittered away. “I’m sorry. I just…He called me that. The Emperor. It’s kind of – hard to hear. I’m sorry.”

“Oh,” Eda said. She probably could have seen that coming, if she thought about it, except she hadn’t because there were so many other, far more disturbing, things to think about instead. “Well. Do you want a different name?”

“…That’s possible?” Evelyn asked.

“Sure,” Eda said. “What do you like?”

From the look on her face, Evelyn had never once considered that question in her entire short life.

“…Right,” Eda said. She rubbed her hand over her face, and tilted her head. “Um…what about…Eve?”

“Eve?” the Grimwalker repeated.

“Yeah,” Eda said, rolling it around in her head. It had been off the top of her head, but now that she thought about it… “Yeah. It’s related to Evelyn, but it’s also a name in its own right. And you showed up here in the evening, so there’s that too. And there’s a human legend about a woman named Eve. It kinda fits you.”

“It does?” A headtilt. “How?”

“It’s about a woman who was made from the bone of another person,” Eda said. “A rib, in that case, but still.”

“Oh,” the woman looked hesitant, worrying at her bottom lip. “Did…what happened to her?”

“She was kept in a cage, after being made, and then some jackass came along and decided to make her life even worse,” Eda said. “But it backfired on him. She got out. And then she went on to be pretty damn awesome.” Being the mother of an entire species was Titan-level stuff. That was way better than staying in some garden, no matter how paradisical.

“…That’s an actual legend?”

“Sure is,” Eda said. She shrugged. “Ask Luz, if you don’t believe me. It’s been around for a while. Pretty famous.”

“…huh,” the woman in front of her said. She looked down for a few seconds, then back at Eda. “…Okay. My name can be Eve.”

Eda managed to summon up a smile from somewhere. She was tired, but Eve deserved a celebration for this, no matter how small. “Alright then. Nice to meet you, Eve. Good night, sleep tight.”

She didn’t add ‘don’t let the bloodsuckers bite’, because that had caused no end of confusion for Hunter, and Eve was even more removed from normalcy than him. She just stepped out of the room and shut the door with a nod.

Eda stood in the hallway for a moment, listening to the almost inaudible sound of voices from downstairs. She breathed in, and breathed out.

Then she walked down the stairs, and into the living room.

“Eda!” Luz said, jumping up from the couch. King followed suit. Hunter was already up and pacing, while Raine was standing in the corner, looking haggard. Wrangling all three kids couldn’t have been easy.

Eda couldn’t really think of that right now, though. From the moment she laid eyes on Hunter, there was no force in two realms that could stop her from walking over and pulling him into a hug.

He went tense, like he always did, completely unused to any sort of gentle touch at all. But his arms came up to return the hug, like he always did, holding onto her for dear life as he soaked up the affection he’d never been given before.

“…Alberta?” He asked. He was better at calling her ‘Eda’, these days, but he tended to revert to ‘Alberta’ whenever he was stressed or upset.

Eda buried her face in his hair and breathed in.

This was her son. He was her son. Eda was willing to kill for him, and had given it her best shot. She was willing to die for him, and only a miracle had saved her. She was willing to trade away an entire world for him, and very nearly had.

And Belos had made him just to throw away.

“…Mom?” King said uncertainly.

Eda held Hunter for one last moment, reveling in the fact that she could, that he was safe. Then she breathed out, and stepped back.

“I’m fine,” Eda said. “Just…Belos is a real piece of work.”

Hunter flinched slightly, and looked away. He swallowed. “So it’s true.”

He didn’t ask it like a question.

“Yeah,” Eda breathed. Eve’s wounds flashed through her mind again, and she just knew she was going to have nightmares about seeing them on Hunter tonight. “Yeah, it is. She’s…pretty badly off. I patched her up, and she’ll heal, but she’s just…not okay. In general.”

“…oh,” Luz said. She looked more hesitant than Eda had ever seen her. “Can – what can we do to help?”

“…Give her space,” Eda said, after a moment. “Don’t crowd her, okay? She’s not used to people yet. If she doesn’t understand something, explain it to her. Even if it’s ridiculously simple. She doesn’t know much, but that’s not her fault. And she wants to be called ‘Eve’. Not Evelyn, Eve. Got it?”

She got a round of nods.

“Good,” Eda said. She checked the clock, and wasn’t surprised at the time. Bandaging up Eve had taken a while. “Okay, time for you munchkins to head off to bed.”

“What?!” Luz said.

“You expect us to sleep after that?” King half-shouted.

“I can stay up longer,” Hunter said. “I can stay up the whole night, if needed. The Emperor is bound to send out search parties for her, and we need someone on watch.”

“That’s Hooty’s job, kid,” Eda said. “Your job is to get some sleep, so that we can all have a clear head when we deal with this tomorrow. That goes for all three of you, no arguments.”

There were some more protests, but Eda had nearly a decade of mothering experience, and they were no match for her. They were packed off to bed within a few minutes, with instructions to be quiet and avoid the upstairs bathroom.

Then it was only Eda and Raine left.

Something uncoiled within Eda, the need to stay strong for Eve and the kids melting away, and she found herself sagging against the living room doorway.

Raine came over to stand next to her, not quite touching but close enough that she could feel their warmth.

“Fuck,” Eda muttered. At what, she wasn’t quite sure. Everything, maybe.

“That sounds about right,” Raine said. They made an effort to make it sound wry, but there was a thread of the same exhaustion Eda felt, hiding under their words. “…That bad?”

“Worse,” Eda said, closing her eyes. Eve’s injuries were waiting there for her, so she opened them again. “A lot worse.”

“Right,” they said, like they were trying not to think about it. Eda didn’t really blame them. “Anything you didn’t want to say in front of the kids?”

There were a lot of things Eda didn’t want to say in front of the kids, but only one she didn’t think she could.

Staring at the far wall, Eda said in a monotone, “I think I know what species Hunter is.”

From the corner of her eye, Eda saw Raine’s expression go blank with incomprehension at the apparent non-sequitur, speed through confusion as they tried to understand, and then crash into stark realization.

“Oh Titan,” they said, skin paling. “Their eyes. They have the same eyes.”

“Yeah,” Eda breathed. “Yeah, they do.”

“Oh, Titan,” Raine said. “Oh, Titan help us.”

Trust me, he’s just as lost as the rest of us, Eda didn’t say, because now was not the time to drop that bomb. There had already been enough of that for the night.

“I’m tired, Raine,” she said instead. “I just…can we go to bed?”

“…Yeah,” Raine said at last. Whatever their panic level was internally, they seemed to realize that Eda couldn’t deal with anything else tonight. “Sure. Come on.”

“I put Eve in your room,” Eda said as Raine took her arm and steered her towards the stairs. “You’re with me tonight.”

“Ah,” Raine said. “Well. Okay.”

“’M gonna have nightmares,” she added. “Sorry.”

“That’s alright,” they said. “So will I, probably.”

“Yeah,” Eda mumbled, as they made their way upstairs. “That tracks.”

They reached her room, and Eda barely managed to make it to her nest before she collapsed into unconsciousness.

Chapter Text

Raine didn’t think of themself as particularly petty, but when they woke up in Eda’s bed and it wasn’t in the aftermath of the sort of night they’d been fantasizing about for weeks, they couldn’t help but add it to their mental list of ‘Reasons Why I Want To Depose The Emperor’.

There were many other, much more legitimate reasons on that list, and Raine had even added half a dozen of them last night. That didn’t mean this one didn’t count, though. Raine had really wanted to wake up in Eda’s bed one morning, exhausted and reeling from the previous night, and now that had happened in an entirely different way than they’d dreamed of. It was deeply annoying, and entirely Belos’ fault.

Eda was still asleep, which was no surprise. Even with her not being a morning person, she’d woken them up with her nightmares twice last night. Which was fair, because Raine had woken her three times.

Eve wasn’t precisely identical to Eda – there were some subtle facial differences, the way her hair had a bit of a curl at the ends, the lack of age lines, and of course the eyes – but she was still strikingly similar, especially to someone who had known Eda since her teenage years. Seeing her hurt like that…

Well. Eda hadn’t needed to ask what their nightmares had been about.

Just like Raine hadn’t needed to ask about her nightmares. She was the one who had actually seen the full extent of Eve’s injuries, the one who’d learned that her son had barely escaped the same fate.

Raine laid in the nest for a minute, watching the sunlight filter through the curtains. It was almost peaceful.

Then they sighed, inaudibly, and got up.

This early, Raine was fairly certain they were the only one awake. That suited them fine. The children didn’t need to face everything just yet, Eda deserved her sleep, and Eve –

Well. Eve could barricade herself inside Raine’s room for the next month and they wouldn’t say so much as a word.

Raine cooked breakfast. Eda certainly deserved a break after last night, which left Raine as the default Responsible Adult. They were an adequate cook, having lived alone for years, and had helped Eda out in the kitchen more than once since coming to the Owl House. Eda’s pantry could be somewhat…eclectic at times, but there was generally enough to feed everyone.

They had no idea whether Eve would come down for breakfast. They set aside a place for her anyway.

When they went looking for the children, they found that Luz and King’s bedrooms were empty. In hindsight, this wasn’t all that surprising. Raine went downstairs and stopped upon reaching the corner of the basement where Hunter had set up his bedroom.

It was sparse, though slowly accumulating more things as Eda determinedly introduced the boy to more and more childhood (it hurt, now, to know that Hunter had probably never actually had a childhood, metaphorically or literally). The mattress was in the corner, up against the wall, and three bodies were tangled up together on it.

Well, not completely tangled. As Raine approached, one of them opened their eyes.

Hunter, Raine couldn’t help but note, had placed Luz and King against the wall and himself on the outside edge of the mattress, slightly separate from their sprawled jumble of limbs. He was angled to see as much of the room as possible just by opening his eyes, and his new staff was laid out alongside the mattress within easy grabbing reach. Judging from how he hadn’t even tensed before opening his eyes, Raine suspected he’d already been awake for a while. In fact, judging from how he was still wearing the same clothes from yesterday, he might not have slept at all.

There was a hint of wariness as Hunter looked at them, which Raine didn’t take personally. The boy looked at every adult like that, except for Eda.

“It’s morning,” Raine said, pitching their voice softly enough that it wouldn’t wake Luz or King. “I made breakfast, if you want some.”

Hunter’s expression flickered slightly. Raine couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

But after a few seconds, he nodded slightly and maneuvered his way out of bed, careful not to wake the others. He grabbed his staff as he stood up, which made Raine internally raise an eyebrow, but they didn’t outwardly react. Once Hunter was upright, Raine pointedly turned their back on him and led the way upstairs.

“I made oatsteal,” Raine said once they were out of the basement, and hearing range of sleepers. “It was the only thing I could find that I can keep warm enough until everyone wakes up. There’s some fruit and nuts to put in it if you want, and I know there’s syrup somewhere…”

“Okay,” Hunter said. He sounded subdued, and his grip on his staff wasn’t tense or anything, so Raine wondered if it was just some sort of comfort item. They’d never had a palisman, even though they’d dreamed of it plenty, so they couldn’t say. Hunter gave them a sideways glance, and said, “Eda’s still asleep?”

“Yeah,” Raine said. They entered the kitchen. “I don’t know when she’ll be up, really.”

“Okay,” Hunter murmured, and then focused on collecting breakfast.

Raine filled their own bowl, and sat in companionable if not friendly silence with Hunter as they both ate. They took the opportunity to study the boy out of the corner of their eye.

They weren’t particularly close with Hunter, which wasn’t much of a surprise. Luz was the friendliest soul Raine had ever met and King was incredibly receptive to bribery, so it hadn’t been too difficult to get on their good sides. Hunter, however, had been raised (made) by Belos, and so viewed any adults he didn’t outrank as inherently threatening and suspicious, unless they spent years earning his trust first.

Which wasn’t to say their relationship was bad, exactly. As far as Raine could tell, Hunter had slotted them into a mental folder labeled ‘Helpful To Eda, Otherwise Irrelevant’, and acted accordingly. They could count on one hand the number of conversations Hunter had instigated with them over the last month, and most of those were some variation of Hunter asking if they knew where Eda was.

Looking at him now, Raine was fairly certain that if Hunter had slept at all, it hadn’t been for very long. The bags under his eyes could have carried the Owl House’s entire supply of groceries for the week. Either he’d spent the entire night plagued by more nightmares than Eda and Raine put together, or he’d forced himself to stay awake to protect Luz and King from whatever imaginary threat managed to make it past Hooty.

Titan, this kid needed professional help. If only any of those professionals weren’t all tied to the Emperor’s Coven one way or another.

Hunter finished eating quickly, but he didn’t move. He just kept staring into his bowl, expression distant.

His palisman animated, and hopped up onto his shoulder. It tweeted, sounding curious, and when it didn’t get an answer simply cuddled against the side of Hunter’s jaw.

Raine hid their smile by lifting up their bowl to their mouth. It was nice to see Hunter with his new palisman. The boy hadn’t even wanted to go to Palisman Adoption Day – in fact, he’d insisted on staying far, far out of sight of any of the creatures when Luz persisted in bringing him. Raine couldn’t blame him, now that they knew what Hunter had witnessed and participated in doing to other palismen, but that had just made Luz more determined to get Hunter to be okay with being around them.

No one had actually expected a palisman to choose him, but according to Hunter the little red cardinal had found him hiding behind the bleachers, and had just been so curious about him (Hunter wasn’t sure why, and Luz said that clearly the bird just had good taste) that Hunter had started talking about himself. Raine still didn’t know what he’d talked about, but whatever it was, it had been enough for the bird to decide to bond with him.

Eda had been so proud of him, when he’d brought the palisman home. She’d confessed to Raine, afterwards, that she wasn’t sure Hunter could bond with a palisman. If whatever species he was just wasn’t wired that way.

Raine was so very glad that he was. When it came time to break the news to him about being a Grimwalker, hopefully having a palisman would reassure him that he was his own person.

Hunter fed the bird – their bond hadn’t yet strengthened to the point where he could hear it, so its name was still a mystery – a few berries, which the palisman accepted happily. It twittered as it cuddled against Hunter some more, and Raine couldn’t stop their smile from widening.

It was nice to see something so…sweet. Uncomplicated. Especially now, after last night.

Raine finished their oatsteal and collected the dishes. They weren’t sure whose turn it was to do the dishes today, frankly, and doubted anyone else would know either. Eve’s arrival had thrown everyone for a loop.

“…Is there something I can do?” Hunter said. Raine glanced over at him. Hunter was running a finger over his palisman’s head, and wouldn’t look Raine in the eye. They weren’t actually sure if he ever had. “Before everyone wakes up? I just…I’m not sure what to do.”

Raine thought it over. “Hm…oh, you know what, I think the upstairs bathroom still needs cleaning. Eda was so tired last night she never got around to it. We can do that.”

Hunter swallowed, and nodded. “Okay.”

Only then did it strike Raine that maybe cleaning up the evidence of Eve’s injuries might not be the best thing for Hunter’s mental health, considering who exactly had inflicted those injuries, but they couldn’t really backtrack now. Hunter could be astonishingly stubborn when he was trying to make himself useful, they’d learned.

Not that Raine could really throw stones, there. Eda hadn’t exactly been happy about their plan to contribute to the house’s finances by going out in disguise and busking, considering that their level of skill was kind of distinctive, but they did it anyways. Raine refused to be a burden on Eda, and the selkigris money wasn’t going to last forever. So Raine made sure to go out and busk for several hours a day four or five times a week, and, well, no one had recognized them yet.

Hunter was much the same, honestly, though he’d found his niche in sorting through the endless piles of garbage that washed up onshore to look for things Eda could sell. And cleaning he house whenever possible. And cooking a fair number of meals. And working on creating new glyphs. And doing regular patrols around the house. It had gotten to the point where Eda had sat him down and threatened to have Hooty swallow him if he didn’t stop and sleep already, and Hunter had lessened his workload from ‘terrifying’ to merely ‘excessive.’

Raine agreed with Eda that this was probably the most they could reasonably expect from a traumatized former child soldier, so she had accepted that with weary grace.

So the most Raine could do was keep an eye on him as the two of them went upstairs. Hunter didn’t look happy, of course, but he did look resolute. Raine couldn’t tell what he was thinking. His expression didn’t change as they approached the bathroom. Raine hesitated when they reached it, glancing at Hunter again and wondering if they should make at least a token effort to get him to leave.

Hunter apparently didn’t notice their hesitation, though, because he reached out and opened the door without the slightest pause.

The inside was both better and worse than Raine had expected.

Better, because some small part of them had been terrified that there would be blood splashed everywhere, puddled on the floor and dripping down the walls like some terrible slasher movie. It wasn’t logical, because Eve had been walking around with a minimum of bleeding last night, but frankly logic had kind of gone out the window once Raine had learned that the Emperor was in the habit of making copies of people to torture them to death over and over. That was practically the entire plot of a terrible slasher movie right there, so they felt they could be forgiven for being a bit jumpy at the point where they were in front of a door they knew had Bad Things behind it.

It wasn’t like that, though. There was blood, yes, but not very much of it, and almost all of it was soaked into towels and some discarded bandages. Much better than they’d feared.

The part that was worse than they’d expected was just how many bandages there were – or, rather, how many there weren’t. There were so many empty wrappers strewn on the floor Raine couldn’t even begin to count them all. They hadn’t even known Eda had this many bandages.

There were other things, as well. Several empty potion bottles, crumpled tubes of salve, the ruined towels. There were two enormous first aid kits, and the first one was completely ransacked and nearly empty. The second one was looking pretty mauled, as well.

Eve had needed…a lot of treatment. Raine swallowed.

Hunter looked at it all with a totally blank expression. Raine had no clue what he was thinking.

“Hunter…” Raine said, not entirely sure what they were going to say.

“Let’s get to work,” Hunter said brusquely. His tone communicated very clearly that he would not be talking about his emotional reaction to any of this with Raine.

Raine sighed, almost soundlessly. In hindsight, maybe they should have prioritized building a closer relationship with Hunter. Somehow, they doubted he was going to talk to Eda about all this. Maybe Luz could get Hunter to open up through sheer persistent optimism, but that would put an unfair amount of emotional labor onto her. She was only fourteen, for Titan’s sake.

The two of them entered the bathroom and began cleaning up. The lack of slasher movie décor meant it went rather painlessly – mostly it came down to gathering up the wrappers and empty containers and throwing them out. Raine set the bloodied towels (there were three of them, and they weren’t sure whether that was good or bad) to the side, since they weren’t sure whether Eda would want to keep them. The thought of using them made their skin crawl, even if every last trace of blood was washed out, but they knew Eda’s budget was very tight these days, even with Raine’s busking money. She might not be able to afford replacements.

Hunter focused on repacking the first aid kits. Well, just the one, really, since the first one was so gutted. He moved everything to the second box, and organized it all with military efficiency. Raine glanced at him every so often, but his blank, neutral expression never slipped.

The palisman hopped around the bathroom, inspecting various things. Raine wasn’t sure how much the little bird understood about what had happened here. They sort of envied its innocence.

The bathroom was almost completely clean when Hunter’s palisman started chirping. Raine looked up to see it pecking at something on a shelf next to the toilet paper.

“Hey, buddy,” Hunter said, and for the first time since coming upstairs a light entered his eyes. Raine felt inordinately relived at seeing that. “What’s that?”

Raine rose to their feet, ignoring the twinge in their knees (Titan, they were getting old). They stepped over to look at the shelf as Hunter stood as well.

“Oh,” Raine said, tilting their head as they saw what the palisman had found. “Didn’t Eve have this?”

Raine hadn’t paid much attention to the cloth-wrapped bundle Eve had brought, what with the plethora of horrifying revelations she had also brought. This looked to be the same one, though. It was long and thin, and the cloth was a dull whitish color, clearly old and weathered.

“…Yeah, she did,” Hunter said. He hesitated, then reached out and poked at the cloth. “Do you know what it is?”

“I don’t,” Raine frowned. “Maybe something her rescuer in the castle gave her?” Somehow, Raine doubted she’d had her own possessions before escaping.

The palisman looked at them, and chirped. Raine wasn’t an expert or anything, but it sounded curious. It pecked at the cloth again.

And – well. Raine knew they came off as mild-mannered to most people, but they had been right by Eda’s side causing chaos back in high school, not to mention the whole ‘started a rebel group against the throne, infiltrated the Conformatorium, and went toe-to-toe against the Emperor himself on live television’ thing. They were a risk-taker through and through, which was why they reached out and flipped the cloth open.

And –

it was –

Oh Titan.

Raine was frozen, rooted to the spot. The palisman, on the other hand, cheeped in shock and tumbled backwards off the shelf. It managed to get its wings under itself and flutter upright, but its one intact eye was wide as it looked at –

at –

“Alberta,” Hunter choked out, and Raine whipped their head around in alarm. Hunter was pale and trembling, his eyes locked on the skeletal arm that could only belong to – “Alberta – that’s – that’s her arm.”

Raine opened their mouth helplessly, their own eyes unwillingly being drawn back to the gruesome sight. It was, unquestionably, Eda’s arm. The flesh was almost entirely rotted away, leaving stained white bone. Eda had removed her limbs in front of them over the last month – even her head a couple times – but looking at this was something else entirely.

They hadn’t really liked the thought of the Emperor having Eda’s arm as some kind of trophy, hadn’t liked the constant reminder whenever they looked at the empty space where it used to be, but she had a point when she’d said that it was better than him having the rest of her. Raine couldn’t help but wonder why Eve would possibly take the time to steal this back from the Emperor –

And then the realization crashed into them with the force of a tidal wave.

“That’s how he made Eve,” Raine said, before they could stop themself.

Hunter made a horrible, choked noise.

Fuck, Raine thought, and barely managed to stop themself from saying. They looked between the arm and Hunter’s bloodless face, and stepped forward to cover up the arm once more. It didn’t help as much as they’d hoped. They looked at the bundle and still knew.

“Hunter,” they said, not entirely sure what else they really could say.

They didn’t have the opportunity to, however, since Hunter abruptly turned around and dashed out of the bathroom. His palisman tweeted in alarm and flew after him.

Raine couldn’t do much else but follow them. The bathroom was mostly cleaned up, anyways.

Hunter had rushed on ahead, but a bit of searching led Raine to find him in the kitchen. Raine would have wondered about the location, but the faint scent in the air answered that for them. It was so very Hunter to make sure to throw up straight into the trash.

Now, Hunter was huddled miserably against the cabinets under the sink, knees pulled up to his chest. He looked smaller than normal. His palisman was on his shoulder, apparently determined to cheer him up through sheer snuggling alone.

Raine looked over this scene for a moment.

Then they went over and slid down to sit next to Hunter, their shoulders not quite touching. Hunter didn’t look up at them.

They sat in silence for a while. Maybe a few minutes. Raine didn’t bother counting.

“…I should’ve found it,” Hunter mumbled at last.

Raine glanced over at him.

Hunter’s shoulders hunched up slightly, but he didn’t look away from the spot on the floor he’d been staring at since Raine had come in.

“Her arm,” he said. “I should’ve – gotten it from U-Belos. It wouldn’t have taken very long. It was probably in his study or something. A healer might have been able to reattach it, even. I should’ve taken it back.”

Raine thought about that for a few seconds.

“I don’t think she would have let you,” they said at last. “It would have been a dangerous delay in your escape, and that was her first priority. Getting you out of there.”

Hunter let out a small sound that might have been a laugh, though without any humor in it. “She did say that. When I offered.”

“Well, then,” Raine said, making a ‘there you go’ gesture.

“Just…” Hunter’s fingers tightened on the fabric of his pants. “I just…I should have known. That he’d use it somehow. I didn’t know about Grimwalkers,” and Raine was very unsurprised to hear that, “but there are magics that use pieces of someone’s body to – to hurt them. Most of it is wild magic, but he…would. He would. If Uncle could do this…”

Hunter trailed off, and hunched over further, burying his face in his knees. His shoulders were shaking. Raine wasn’t sure if he was crying or not, but they hoped he was. If anyone needed a good cry, it was this boy.

And he didn’t even know the worst of it. Hunter didn’t know that the man he called Uncle was nothing of the sort. He didn’t know that Belos had created him to use and abuse and discard at a whim, that the family he imagined was only that – an imagining. He had no idea, and Raine felt their heart twist painfully at the knowledge that, eventually, he would find out.

“This isn’t your fault, Hunter,” Raine said. The words felt deeply inadequate, but it was all they could say. “None of this is your fault.”

Hunter made a garbled noise of protest, and his palisman chirped softly as it pressed itself closer against his hair.

“It’s not, Hunter,” Raine repeated. “You’re a child.” Probably even moreso than you look. “This sort of thing shouldn’t be your responsibility. Belos had – he had absolute power over you, and he used that to keep you in line. None of what you did or didn’t do is your fault.”

Raine bit their lip, looking over Hunter. The boy didn’t seem to react to their words, and they groped for more.

“…It’s alright if you can’t accept that yet,” Raine said softly. “I know it’s going to take time. But…even if you can’t accept that it’s not your fault, can you accept that none of us blame you?”

For a moment Raine wasn’t sure Hunter was even listening to them anymore. Then their heart leaped as they saw one magenta eye peek out from behind Hunter’s knees.

“…Are you sure?” Hunter asked, in a voice so small his palisman could have swallowed it whole.

“Very sure,” Raine said.

“…What about Eve?” Hunter said. His one visible eye blinked. “I don’t…”

Raine tilted their head a little. “I don’t know about Eve,” they conceded. “But I think she should get to speak for herself on whether or not she blames you for anything, not have it decided by you. She’s had enough of people deciding things about her.”

Hunter flinched a little, and Raine was momentarily worried they’d misspoken. But a very small bit of the tension left Hunter’s shoulders as he said, quietly, “…yeah.”

“Okay,” Raine said, and barely repressed their sigh of relief. “So. Whenever you start feeling guilty and blaming yourself, try to remember that none of us blame you. We never will. Got it?”

“…Okay,” Hunter said. He sounded less certain than Raine would like, but they figured that was as good as they were going to get.

The palisman chirped a little, and tugged on a lock of Hunter’s hair. He reached up and petted its head, uncurling from his fetal position until he almost looked at ease.

“…We should finish cleaning up the bathroom,” Hunter said after a minute.

“I’ll do that,” Raine said at once. “You can stay here.”

“What?” Hunter scowled at them. “No, I’m fine.”

“You are not fine and we both know it,” Raine said matter-of-factly. “You can’t convince me that you’d rather go into that bathroom than sit here and cuddle with your palisman. And there’s hardly anything left, really, it’ll barely take me two minutes. If you try to get up, I’m telling Hooty to swallow you for the afternoon.”

“…You know, I couldn’t figure out why Eda would date you,” Hunter said, a disgruntled look on his face, “Now I know.”

Raine chuckled a little and got to their feet. “I don’t actually think either of us told you kids that we ever dated. You all decided that on your own.”

Hunter gave them the most unimpressed look Raine had ever seen in their entire life.

Raine chuckled a little louder. “Fair enough.” Then they left the kitchen and went back to the bathroom.

Cleaning up, as predicted, only took a couple minutes. Raine studiously avoided looking at the arm, though they could feel its presence.

The moment they threw away the last of the wrappers, as if on cue, their scroll buzzed.

Raine jumped at the vibration, because they’d honestly forgotten they’d put it in their pocket when they came downstairs this morning. They hastily pulled it out, full of irrational worry that it would somehow wake Eda despite multiple walls and an exhaustion-induced coma.

They opened it up and squinted. The screen read: 1 new message.

Amber:
Heya, so we’re outside and the place looks all…locked? Something going on, teach?

“…Oh, damn,” Raine muttered.

They had completely forgotten that the BATs were scheduled to come over today. It was going to be the first time they’d all been together since Eda’s failed petrification – Raine had met with all of them one-on-one over the last couple weeks, but those had just been check-ins, making sure they’d all come out unscathed. They’d all been under some suspicion, since they were all known to be close to Raine, but the Golden Coven had left them alone after a cursory investigation. Now that the heat was off, the BATs had been all ready to reform and wreak more havoc.

Today was supposed to be their planning session, taking stock of their resources and goals and methods from hereon out. Eda had offered the Owl House as a base, and had hinted that she had a surprise planned for the meeting (her exact words had been ‘I can make sure this group is gonna go places, Rainstorm’ and Raine had a foreboding feeling about that, honed from long exposure to Eda Clawthorne). Luz and Hunter were probably going to want to join in as well, once they were informed of what was happening.

At least, that had been the expectation. Things were a little more complicated now.

Sighing, Raine quickly typed out a reply.

You:
Yes, something’s going on. Wait a second, I’ll come get you.

They slipped their scroll back into their pocket and gave the bathroom one last look-over. Aside from the arm, it was as if nothing had happened. Raine nodded to themself and went downstairs.

“Hooty,” Raine called out when they reached the door. “Are you awake?”

“I sure am, hoot hoot!” Hooty said, barreling in through a window just a moment later. Raine, having grown used to the owl demon’s habits over the past month, quickly jumped to the side. They observed as Hooty swung through the place where they had just been, apparently oblivious to the narrowly-avoided collision. “I’ve been awake allll night, making sure no one gets close! You can count on me!”

“Thank you, Hooty,” Raine said, with entirely unfeigned gratitude. Hooty could be…very annoying, but no one could say he didn’t care about doing his job. “You’ve been very helpful. I think you can raise the lockdown now, though, since I don’t think anyone’s going to attack.”

Hunter might have worried about Belos sending out search parties, but Raine doubted that was going to happen. His little habit of making Grimwalkers was obviously a very closely-kept secret, and even if he was willing to order some people to find Eve, it wasn’t like he’d know to send them to the Owl House. Without Eve’s mysterious rescuer in the castle, neither she nor anyone in the house would be aware of each other’s existence. There was no reason for Belos to believe she would be here.

But Hooty shook his head – well, his whole body, really. “Nope!” he declared. “Until Eda gives the okay, there’ll be no rest for me!”

Then, before Raine could react, Hooty whipped his head around and shoved his face at them, so close their nose was almost touching his beak. Raine took a startled step backwards.

“None at all,” Hooty said in the creepiest whisper Raine had ever heard. His eyes were wide and unblinking. Raine felt like they were staring into their soul, about to flay it alive.

“…Right,” Raine said, taking another few steps backwards. Very large steps. “Okay, then. Can I leave the house for a minute, though? There’s someone I need to talk to outside, then I’ll come right back.”

“HmmMMMMmmmmMMmm…” Hooty said, tilting his head. He undulated around Raine, and they pivoted to keep him in sight. They’d learned that lesson early on. “Well…okay!”

The door opened, and Raine was not at all ashamed to admit they hurried outside as quickly as possible.

They looked around, and their eyes caught on movement from the treeline. They glanced back to make sure Hooty hadn’t decided to…do disturbing Hooty-things, and went over to the trees.

Sure enough, Derwin poked his head out when they got there. “Oh, thank Titan,” he said. “Please tell Amber we don’t have to demolish the Owl House to rescue you.”

“That was a joke, I was joking,” Amber’s voice said, just a little too quickly. She moved out from behind another tree, and gave Raine an innocent smile. “Hi!”

Katya’s head popped up from a bush. “She definitely wasn’t joking.”

“Shush!” Amber said, her smile still fixed in place. Before anyone else could say anything she said, “So what’s up with the Owl House? Did the Emperor’s Coven attack or something?”

“No, nothing like that,” Raine said, unfazed. They’d long grown used to Amber’s penchant for chaos and destruction. Frankly, after growing up with Eda, it was positively nostalgic. “We just had…some excitement last night, I guess you could say. I think we’ll have to cancel today’s meeting. Sorry.”

“Cancel the meeting?” Derwin asked, tilting his head. “Wow, must’ve been some excitement. What happened?”

Raine started to answer – and then they paused.

“…Actually,” they said slowly, “I think I’m going to exercise some compartmentalization on this one.”

“What?” said the three kids. Well, they were late teens, but they were still kids. Which was why Raine decided against telling them. Not even their pleading, disappointed faces changed their mind.

“You’re not going to tell us?” Katya said.

“But we’re all in this together, aren’t we?” Derwin said.

“Yes,” Raine said. “We are. But I told you at the beginning; sometimes there will be sensitive information that can’t be shared freely amongst us all. What happened last night qualifies.”

Amber screwed up her face. “But –”

“No,” Raine said firmly, looking them each in the eye. “Amber, Derwin, Katya. I told you this won’t all be fun and games. When things get serious, I need to know you’ll listen to me. So I’m telling you now: what happened at the Owl House last night needs to stay a secret. You can’t know. Am I understood?”

The three kids did not look happy. But they swapped glances, and all three of them nodded after only a moment.

Raine was – incredibly relieved to see that. They’d tried to impress upon the BATs the sheer stakes that came with running a rebel group, but until this moment they hadn’t been sure how well it had sunk in. Despite participating in Eda’s rescue, the kids’ involvement had been well-hidden, and the investigations in the wake of Raine’s fall from grace hadn’t been too intensive. None of the kids in front of them had really internalized the consequences of rebellion.

But they could follow orders, when it was important. That was good. That was really good.

“…Is there anything we can do to help?” Derwin asked hesitantly. “With, uh, whatever it is. You don’t have to tell us why, just. We want to help.”

“Yeah,” Katya said, biting her lip.

“…Actually,” Raine said, their mind ticking through things. “There is. I need you to find out everything you can about Grimwalkers.”

“Grimwalkers?” Amber said, scrunching up her face. “What’re those?”

“That’s what I need you to find out,” Raine said, because if they explained what little they knew then the kids would probably guess the general shape of what had happened last night. “It’s…probably a branch of Abomination magic, though maybe it could be Beastkeeping or…a very weird kind of Construction…but probably Abomination. Or, frankly, it could be a type of wild magic that doesn’t actually fit into the Coven divisions. I just don’t know. That’s why I need you to look into this. I need you to scour the Isles for any sort of information you can find about it. But you need to employ absolute stealth on this. No one can know. The Emperor himself wants this information kept hidden, so you cannot draw his attention.”

The kids straightened up. “We can do that,” Derwin said.

“You can count on us,” Katya nodded.

“I know I can,” Raine said, giving them a smile. “Thank you.”

The kids all lit up like the praise was the best thing they’d heard all week, and they left with promises to find out everything they could. Raine watched them go fondly.

Fortunately, Hooty kept his word and allowed Raine back inside without incident. Well, there was the rambling story about a leaf he’d eaten from Eda’s potion stores, thinking it was a bug, but which made him sick enough that Eda had needed to go inside his throat and poke around until he vomited everything up, but that was just an occupational hazard when living around Hooty.

Raine made a mental note to take over cooking lunch from Eda, though. Even though that story had apparently happened a while ago, they just had to give her a break after that.

Hunter was still in the kitchen, when they looked. He was murmuring to his palisman, but cut off when Raine entered.

“That was longer than a couple minutes,” Hunter said.

“Yeah,” Raine said, shaking their head. “I had to take care of something. But no one else is up yet?”

“I don’t think so,” Hunter said. He tapped his fingers against the table, and looked away. “I thought about bringing some food downstairs.”

“Sure, that works,” Raine said. They rubbed the back of their head. “I guess I can bring some upstairs. We probably weren’t all going to get together for breakfast anyways. Last night was…”

They groped for words, and couldn’t find any, eventually just shaking their head. Hunter looked away.

Raine exhaled, and went over to the pot of oatsteal. They filled a couple bowls as Hunter got up behind them. Once their own bowls were full, they moved aside to give him room.

They glanced at him from the corner of their eye as they poured syrup into one of the bowls, just the way Eda liked it. Hunter hadn’t lost that drawn, tired look, but there was…slightly less of it, now. Leaving him to recuperate with his palisman had definitely been the right call.

“…What are you looking at?” Hunter said, hunching his shoulders. With a start, Raine realized their inspection had been less subtle than they’d hoped.

“Sorry,” Raine said. “I just wanted to check if you’re okay – well, not okay, but better than you were, before.”

“I’m fine,” Hunter muttered.

“You sound just like your mother,” Raine said with a sigh. “Eda never admits when she’s not fine, either. There’s no shame in it, you know.”

There was silence, instead of the expected continued insistence of ‘I’m fine.’ Raine looked over at Hunter again.

He had a…very complicated emotion on his face.

“…My mother,” Hunter echoed, and his voice sounded like his throat had been scraped raw.

“…Yes,” Raine said slowly. “Your mother. Eda.”

Hunter opened his mouth, and closed it again. He blinked several times, and his eyes were suspiciously shiny.

“…Is something wrong?” Raine asked, honestly at a loss.

“No,” Hunter said at once. His voice was still rough, but now it was firmer. “No, nothing’s wrong. It’s alright. It’s right.”

Raine couldn’t do much more than give a slow nod. They felt like they were on perilously thin ice, and below that wasn’t icy cold water but the much more dangerous lake of adolescent hormones. It wasn’t a good feeling.

“Okay, then,” they said, and scooped up their bowls. “I’ll just…take these upstairs.”

Maybe it was a little cowardly of them, fleeing like this. But Raine preferred to think of it as going for backup. Hopefully Eda would have a better idea of how to handle whatever Hunter was feeling right now. They’d handled the parts they were capable of, but some things required a child’s actual parent.

They shuffled upstairs, keeping an eye on both of the bowls they carried. One had a heartstopping amount of syrup in it, because Eda was apparently on a mission to rot all of her teeth before she turned fifty. The other was plain, because even if Eve did like additions Raine didn’t know if her stomach would be able to handle it.

The door at the top of the stairs was still closed, and Raine passed by it with barely a second of hesitation. Eve deserved to sleep as long as she wanted.

But maybe she already had, because when Raine approached Eda’s door, they heard the low murmur of voices. They slowed, their ears pricking up.

“– not mad, honestly,” Eda said. She was using her calmest, least-threatening tone. Raine had only ever heard her use that around Hunter, when he was particularly upset. “So you woke me up. It’s not a big deal.”

“If – if you’re sure,” Eve said. She sounded uncertain, and not a little afraid, but Raine was quite sure that she had been much more afraid not too long ago.

“Course I’m sure,” Eda said breezily. “Do I look like someone who cares about shit like that? It’s fine. People screw up sometimes, it’s not the end of the world.”

“I’m not a person, though,” Eve said.

She didn’t say it with any particular emotion. Not sorrow, or pain, or grief. She sounded like she was simply reminding Eda of a fact that had momentarily slipped her mind, like Eda had accidentally called her ‘Evelyn’ and Eve was simply pointing out the error, not a trace of offense or distress to be seen.

It was the most horrifying thing Raine had ever heard.

Raine couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. They felt sick.

There was a long, long silence.

“…Did he tell you that?” Eda said at last. Her words were careful, like walking on slippery-smooth ice, and her voice was very even and very, very calm.

“Yes?” Eve said. “I mean, um, yes, he did. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Eda said. Her voice didn’t change. “You shouldn’t be the least bit sorry, Eve, because you are a person. He was wrong.”

“…Really?” Eve’s voice was so uncertain. Raine had to lean against the wall, the bowls shaking in their hands. “Are…are you sure?”

“Very sure,” Eda said. Raine could picture her face now, that glint in her eyes that said, come hell or hot water, she would never back down. Not on this. “He was wrong, Eve. You’re a person, through and through.”

“…Oh,” Eve said. She sounded like she was experiencing roughly a dozen different emotions, and had no idea what to do with any of them.

“Hey,” Eda said. Her voice softened. “Hey, come here. Sit down here, okay?” There was a faint rustle. “Do you know what a hug is?”

“Um,” Eve said, still sounding unsteady. “No, I don’t. I’m sorry.”

“That’s alright,” Eda said, unconcerned. “I just thought you might like one. It’s pretty nice, actually.”

“Okay?” Eve said.

“Okay,” Eda repeated. “So you just sit there – like that, yeah. And I’m going to come closer, and I have to touch you, but if I hit one of your injuries you have to tell me, yeah? Hugs aren’t supposed to hurt. So I just do this, and…”

There was silence for several very long seconds, and Raine realized they were holding their breath.

“…Oh,” Eve said.

It was small – possibly the smallest noise Raine had heard her make, and from what little they’d seen Eve did her best to be as small as possible. It felt like their heart stuttered in their chest, stumbling at the sheer weight that one little sound carried.

“I’m – I’m sorry,” Eve said, stumbling over the words. She sounded choked, overwhelmed. “I didn’t mean to –”

“Hey,” Eda said. Her voice was firm, but unmistakably gentle. She sounded like she had the one time Raine had stumbled across her comforting Hunter just a few days after the failed petrification, when he had started to say but it was my fault and she had said, immovable as the stars, no, it wasn’t. “Hey, no, it’s alright. You can cry if you want to. I’m not mad or anything. I’m gonna keep you safe, okay? You can stay here, as long as you want, and do whatever you want, and I’ll keep you safe. I got you, okay? I got you. You can cry as long as you need.”

And so Eve did.

Sobbing. Great, unfettered, bone-shaking sobs, torn out of her throat like a splinter in her soul. The kind of sobs that Raine instinctively knew she had never allowed herself to let out before now.

Raine stumbled back down the hall, heart racing. This was private. This wasn’t for them to hear. Eve had been through so much – they shouldn’t lurk around and overhear the first thing she got to have for herself.

They had to set the bowls down on the floor, and decided to also sit down themselves, because if they tried to navigate stairs right now they’d probably trip and break their neck. Raine sat on the top stair, and focused on regaining their breath.

It took a few minutes, but eventually Raine felt – steadier. Calmer.

They didn’t think they were quite ready enough to go back downstairs, though, so they just…stayed there. It wasn’t so bad of a waiting spot.

Raine leaned against the wall and thought about music. Not Eve, or Hunter, or Belos, or even Eda. Just music. The only thing that had always, always made sense.

It had never failed them, and it didn’t now.

It was some amount of time later – three solos, six bridges, and a full aria – when Raine heard footsteps behind them. They set down their mental workshopping (they still couldn’t decide whether a G sharp or G flat would work better for an improved shield spell) and glanced behind them.

“I did wonder why none of the kids stormed the gates to my room when I overslept,” Eda said wryly.

She was still in her pajamas, loose clothes that hung off her shoulder in a way that would normally make Raine blush (and still almost did, despite the circumstances). Her eyes still looked faintly sleepy, and she sported some absolutely magnificent bed hair.

“It’s only half me, really,” Raine demurred. “Luz and King are still asleep down in the basement, last I checked.”

“And let me guess,” Eda sighed, “Hunter stayed awake all night to guard them?”

“I think so, yeah,” Raine admitted.

“Yeah,” Eda said. “He’s really something else.”

She shuffled forward, and Raine inched over to the side. Eda sat down next to them, her shoulder brushing theirs. She leaned against them, and they leaned back, a dance that Raine hadn’t forgotten even after all this time.

Eda was quiet for a minute, staring at nothing, and Raine let the silence spool out around them.

“So,” Eda said at last, “I think I just adopted another kid.”

Raine just nodded, because they could have seen that even without their glasses and concussed.

There was another silence.

Then:

“I’m going to kill him,” Eda said.

It wasn’t said like a threat. Not a curse, or an oath, or a promise or a vow. It was simply how the world would arrange itself. The sun would rise, the stars would burn, and Edalyn Clawthorne would kill the man who dared call himself their Emperor.

“Good,” Raine said, and didn’t say any more.

Chapter Text

Lilith Clawthorne was learning.

It was one of her favorite things to do. She couldn’t understand people who didn’t care about learning – even Eda, bright as she was, thought that many subjects were unbearably boring when Lilith saw them as anything but. She had never understood the concept that learning some things – any things – could ever be boring.

She understood the concept of forbidden learning quite well, though. The Emperor’s Coven had censored many topics, barred her from learning many things, and Lilith had convinced herself it was worth it so long as she had the prestige and the chance to undo her greatest mistake. If she sometimes felt a flicker of sorrow when thinking of the wild magic she couldn’t investigate, the history she couldn’t examine, the subtle wrongness permeating the castle that she couldn’t question, then – well, she just needed to work harder. The Emperor was wiser than she, and if he had decreed that certain kinds of learning were a malediction then Lilith just had to go along with it.

Now, though – now she was astonished to realize just how ignorant she had been, cooped up in the Emperor’s Coven like that. Lilith had thought of her position as the pinnacle of knowledge and wisdom, and now she was learning more in a day than she had in months when she’d been in the Emperor’s Coven. Wild magic, biology, ecology, geography, history – her wonderfully beloved history!

And potions too, of course – that was more re-learning, though. Lilith was pleased at how much potion knowledge had stuck with her, even though she hadn’t exactly kept her skills honed since joining the Emperor’s Coven. At the pace she was going at, she would be able to make Edalyn’s elixir within the next few months. She always felt a little guilty when she drank the elixir Edalyn made for her, but – well, academics wasn’t the only thing Lilith was learning about. Living with her mistakes, accepting her faults instead of refusing to face what she’d broken – she was learning to do that, too.

She was also learning about people. The Lilith of before – the Lilith that had been the head of the Emperor’s Coven – hadn’t understood why people would go against the Emperor. That Lilith had been surrounded by people who were utterly, fanatically devoted to the Emperor. Every moment of every day had been saturated with the Emperor’s presence, whether he was physically there or not. Every move she had made had been run past a mental version of the Emperor that lived in her head, and she had acted according to whether he had approved or not.

She couldn’t have imagined not living like that. That Lilith couldn’t understand anyone who didn’t live like that, and that was why she had viewed wild witches – including her own sister – as some sort of strange, alien creatures that needed to be brought to heel.

So that was why Lilith Clawthorne – no longer the head of the Emperor’s Coven, no longer the loyal servant of Belos, and all the happier for it – was still learning, one day at a time. Because there was so very much to learn.

Including about her own family.

“I still can’t believe you took up sewing,” Lilith marveled, running her hands over the mended tear in the dress laid out on the bed.

“Well, I lead a very active life,” her mother commented, glancing back from where she was putting on a cloak. “And beasts can be aggressive, of course, and more often than not I’m nowhere near a tailor, so I just…got into the habit of mending things myself. It’s only sensible.”

“It is sensible,” Lilith nodded, letting the dress drop back down. She chuckled ruefully. “I can’t tell you how many uniforms I ruined in the Emperor’s Coven that I just – threw out. I think Darius hated me just as much for that as he did for the entire rest of my personality, to be honest.”

“Well, Darius should keep his opinions to himself,” Mother sniffed. “I don’t see him committing treason just to do the right thing.”

Lilith looked away uncomfortably. “…I passed up a lot of opportunities to do the right thing, Mother. The only reason I did eventually was because Edalyn was on the line.”

Mother paused as she fastened her cloak. Lilith kept her gaze pointed downwards.

“I know,” Mother said after a moment. “You were so convinced you knew best, that your cause was worthy, that you ignored any criticism and kept on blindly charging forward on your chosen path until it led you right off a cliff.”

Lilith flinched. That was – very accurate. “Yes,” she managed.

“Well,” Mother said, and let out a sound that was a cross between a sigh and a chuckle. “You certainly are my daughter, aren’t you?”

Lilith blinked, and looked over at her.

“…Yes,” she said, her shoulders relaxing at the reminder. Lilith had fucked up, and fucked up bad, but it was perversely comforting to know that she wasn’t alone in that. It was half the reason she had come to live with Mother – Edalyn had offered to let her stay, but Lilith had felt so undeserving, surrounded by people she had wronged. She had been so keenly aware of her deficiencies while in the Owl House, but here there was someone who shared those same deficiencies, who knew what it was like to realize they were a horrible person. “Yes, I am.”

Mother sighed again. “Who would have thought Edalyn would be the most sensible of the Clawthorne women?” she wondered.

Lilith let out a half-hysterical laugh, at that. “None of us,” she said. “None of us at all.” She paused for a second. “She can never know.”

“Oh, Titan, of course not,” Mother said. “We’d never hear the end of it.”

They lapsed into a comfortable silence, and Mother continued getting dressed. Father was out tending to the palistrom trees, and Mother was about to go run some errands, so Liltih was going to have the house to herself for a while. Maybe she would be able to sit down with that book about Deadwardian-era fashion she’d found the other day…

“I’ll check the traps on my way back,” Mother said, as she finished lacing her boots. “Some fresh eyeball sprites would be just the thing for dinner tonight…”

“That does sound nice,” Lilith said.

“Mm-hmm,” Mother said absently, her eyes distant as she went over something in her head. “Alright, then. I’ll see you in a bit, dear.”

Lilith bid her mother farewell, and wandered through the house, eventually ending up in the study. Now, if she remembered right, that book was on the third shelf –

Naturally, the moment her fingers touched the spine, there was a tapping from the window. Lilith looked over and saw a messenger crow.

With a sigh, Lilith let go of the book and went over to open the window. Whoever this was, they’d better have a good reason for sending a crow. If it was someone who wanted to sell pesticides to her father or ask her mother about the best way to choke out a Cerberus, Lilith reserved the right to be very snippy about it.

“Hello,” Lilith said into the speaker. “Clawthorne residence, Lilith speaking.”

“You know,” her sister’s voice said, “You probably shouldn’t answer like that. You being a wanted criminal now, and all.”

“Edalyn,” Lilith said, feeling that familiar tangle of love-frustration-guilt-annoyance-fear. “To what do I owe the honor of a call from you?”

“What, I can’t call up my sister out of the blue to offer tips on criminal etiquette?” Eda asked. “And by the way, don’t think I don’t know that formality of yours is coated in sarcasm. I’ll have you know it is absolutely an honor to get a call from me.”

“Yes, yes, you’re a national treasure,” Lilith said, hoping her sister could tell that she was rolling her eyes. “What is this about, Edalyn? I was just about to sit down with a very good book.”

“Ah, yeah,” Eda said, her tone going a little odd. “You might have to…reschedule that.”

Lilith blinked and straightened up. “Edalyn? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“No, no, I’m fine, it’s just…” Edalyn trailed off for a moment. “Uh. Could you come over to the Owl House? There’s something here that you…should probably see.”

Normally, Lilith would be annoyed at Edalyn telling her to drop everything and come over. But there was a strange note in her sister’s voice, something Lilith couldn’t quite recall ever hearing before. It didn’t sound – bad, exactly, but it was an unknown, and experience had taught Lilith to be very wary of the unknown. Not to mention the alarm of something making Edalyn sound so…uncertain.

“I can be over in forty minutes,” Lilith said. If she flew at top speed and broke a few air regulations, but she was a criminal now and that was the sort of behavior that was expected of her. It occasionally came in handy. Sometimes it seemed like Edalyn could teleport, she appeared between places so quickly. Lilith had tried more than once to apprehend her on breaking speed limits, especially in the last few months when it had grown particularly egregious, but of course nothing had ever stuck.

“Great, great,” Edalyn said. Oh, now Lilith was worried. Usually Edalyn would tease her about breaking the law, but right now she didn’t even seem to notice Lilith would be doing so. “See ya.”

She hung up, and Lilith spent a moment staring at the crow.

She was at the Owl House thirty minutes later.

Absently running a hand through her windswept hair, Lilith hopped off her staff. She looked towards the Owl House. There didn’t seem to be any damage…but, of course, that didn’t mean anything. Dear Hootsifer could easily take care of any threats to his charges, as Lilith well remembered.

And speaking of her friend…

“LULU!”

“Hello, Hootsifer,” Lilith smiled, reaching out to run a hand through his feathers. He wriggled in joy. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Lulu, everyone’s been so weird!” Hooty said, looking up at her with big, dewy eyes. Titan, he was adorable. “I was on lockdown ALL NIGHT and there are too many Edas and I can’t keep all their limbs straight and no one’s explaining A-AAANYYY-THINGGGG!!”

“Lockdown?” Lilith said, alarmed. “And what do you mean, ‘too many Edas’?”

“I mean there’s too many!” Hooty wailed. “There’s Normal Eda, but she’s missing her arm now, and that’s ALREADY hard to remember, but now there’s Harpy Eda and she has WINGS, but she still doesn’t have her arm, and also Zombie Eda is missing other pieces AND wings, but she DOES have both arms, and WHAT IS GOING ON?!?!”

“I, uh,” Lilith said, completely bewildered.

“Hooty, what are you screeching about –!” Eda’s voice came, before she poked her head out and saw Lilith. She blinked. “Oh. Hey, sis.”

“Edalyn, what is going on?” Lilith said, as she petted Hooty. “You were on lockdown last night?”

“Ugh. Yeah,” Edalyn said. Her face twisted. “You’d better come inside; this is a ‘sitting down’ kind of conversation.”

Lilith was extremely alarmed and confused now, so her goodbye to Hooty was a bit more rushed than she would have liked. She promised to tell him everything once she understood herself, and went inside.

Edalyn was already sitting on the couch, tapping her fingers on the arm. Luz was in the armchair, fiddling with her notepad. There was no one else in evidence, which was mildly surprising. Raine and Hunter – mostly Hunter – had made a point of ominously hanging around whenever Lilith was in Edalyn’s presence. Lilith…couldn’t exactly blame them, but it had made her decision to leave the Owl House that much easier.

Lilith only hesitated a moment before heading over to sit down on the other end of the couch. Luz glanced at her, then went back to drawing. Likely more glyphs – Lilith had been meaning to talk to her about possible combinations, but judging from the atmosphere that wouldn’t be welcome right now.

The silence stretched out for several seconds. Luz coughed. Eda looked…awkward, in a way Lilith had rarely ever seen from her.

Just as Lilith was wondering if she should speak, Edalyn opened her mouth.

“So…” she said, “I have another kid now.”

“You – what?”

Of all the things Lilith could have expected, this wasn’t one of them. Edalyn had acquired another child? Titan’s beating heart, where did she get the time?

“Hey!” Edalyn said, and Lilith realized she’d said that last part out loud. “I’ll have you know that I’ve never gone looking for these kids! They all just threw themselves in my path, all of them! I can barely turn around without tripping over a new one!”

“It’s because you’re Mom-shaped,” Luz told her, matter-of-factly.

“Mom-sh – what does that mean!?” Edalyn said, sounding disproportionally outraged.

“You’re shaped like a Mom, duh!” Luz grinned mischievously. “Eve agrees, or else she wouldn’t be here.”

“Eve?” Lilith said, grasping into the name. “Is that your new daughter?”

Edalyn hesitated, then nodded.

“It’s a lovely name,” Lilith said. She tilted her head. “How old is she?”

There was a very heavy sort of pause. Luz coughed again.

“…Wow, you are just diving right into the deep end there, aren’t you,” Edalyn said. Her voice had that strained sort of humor that Edalyn employed when she didn’t want someone to know that they’d hit on a sore spot.

“I’m…sorry?” Lilith said, more lost than ever.

Edalyn groaned, flopping back against the couch. “Don’t be, Lily,” she said. “It’s just…complicated.”

“Then un-complicate it, Edalyn,” Lilith said, finally growing a bit annoyed. “What is going on? You gain children all the time and don’t feel the need to inform anyone or act awkwardly about it; there’s something else you’re hiding.”

“Oh come on, it’s not all the time –”

“Edalyn.”

“Ugh, fine,” Edalyn said. She grimaced. “So…you have any clue what a Grimwalker is?”

“A Grimwalker?” Lilith frowned. “I…maybe? I know I’ve seen the term before…I don’t quite remember where, but I’m fairly sure it was in conjunction with wild magic. Edalyn, what did you do?”

“She didn’t do anything!” Luz said hotly. “Belos was the one who made one!”

“Made a – Grimwalker?” Lilith said. She pushed back the instinctive defense of the Emperor that rose in her throat, the reflexive denial that of course he wouldn’t dabble in wild magic. He didn’t deserve it, she reminded herself, no matter what a lifetime of propaganda had taught her.

“Yeah,” Luz said, deflating. She rubbed her nose. “Yeah, she’s – that’s Eve. She’s upstairs.”

Lilith stared. “I think you need to – back up for a moment,” she said. “I don’t know what a Grimwalker is, I’ve just seen the term. But from what you’re saying, it’s…making something?”

“Someone,” Eda said. She sounded tired, and for the first time Lilith noticed the shadows under her eyes. “A Grimwalker is a copy of an existing person. Like – a belated identical twin. Very belated.” She paused. “I’m calling her my daughter, though, because this whole thing is already weird enough.”

“…What,” Lilith said.

“I know,” Edalyn said. She put her hand to her chin. “I’m kinda tempted to sue Belos for child support, honestly. You think I could win that? He did do all the legwork here, I was just an innocent bystander until I opened the door to find out ‘surprise, another kid!’ Ugh. Asshole.” She blinked, and looked over at Luz. “Uh, don’t repeat that.”

“Oh, no!” Luz said, giggling a little as she put her hand to her forehead and pretend-swooned. “My innocent ears!”

“Wait,” Lilith said, desperately trying to grasp onto what, beneath the patina of forced lightness and sarcasm, her sister was actually saying. “Wait, Edalyn, what – you’re telling me that – that the Emperor used wild magic to make a copy of you.”

“Yep,” Edalyn said.

Lilith just stared at her, too bewildered to react.

“I told you she’d be weird about it,” Edalyn complained to Luz.

“Well, I mean…” Luz trailed off, and gestured vaguely. Then she sneezed.

Edalyn sighed, long and loud and comprehensively expressing every iota of her exhaustion with this topic. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Wait,” Lilith said, yet again. She felt a brief but intense flash of déjà vudoo for when she was a teenager, struggling to keep up with Edalyn’s effortless mastery of absolutely everything. Time and distance told Lilith that she had probably exaggerated the skill gap between them, downplaying her own accomplishments and magnifying her sister’s, but that didn’t change the feelings behind it. She had struggled to keep up with Edalyn at every turn, and now it was happening again. “Edalyn, you – the Emperor – what –”

“Okay, okay,” Edalyn said. She reached out and put her hand over Lilith’s. The touch was grounding, and Lilith realized she hadn’t breathed in an inadvisably long time. She pulled in air as Edalyn squeezed her hand and looked at her with mismatched eyes. “Breathe, Lily.”

Lilith breathed.

“Alright, so,” Edalyn said, once Lilith was no longer spluttering. “Here’s the facts: because Belos is a witch with a capital B, he made a Grimwalker – that is, a copy – of yours truly. Her name is Eve, she’s my daughter now, and she’s hiding away upstairs in my bedroom.”

“But…why?” Lilith said. It was all she really could say, in the face of that.

“Well, however old you want to say she is, she’s still kinda young to be my sister,” Edalyn said. “And you, of all people, know how well-suited I am to being the baby of the family. Don’t wanna upset that apple cart. But kid? Heck, what’s one more?”

“No,” Lilith said. “I meant – why would the Emperor do that? What possible reason would he have…?”

There was another one of those heavy silences.

Lilith was getting very tired of those kinds of silences.

“…Actually, I was just gonna go see her,” Edalyn said. There was a note in her voice, one that kept Lilith from snapping at her for changing the subject again. “Why don’t you come with?”

“Really?” Lilith said. She frowned. The concept of seeing someone who looked like a younger Edalyn was…strange. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, Eda,” Luz echoed. “You sure?” She coughed.

“Eh, why not,” Edalyn said. Her flippancy was almost good enough to disguise her tenseness as she stood up. “C’mon.”

Lilith stood as well, and passed by Luz as she followed Edalyn. The human didn’t try to stop them, but Lilith felt her eyes on her back until they left the room.

Edalyn swung by the kitchen first, where Raine, Hunter, and King were apparently making lunch. Lilith stayed in the hallway, out of sight, because she didn’t think she could handle a confrontation with any of those three right now.

Thankfully, Edalyn kept the conversation short, and came out of the kitchen promptly, carrying a bowl of griffin noodle soup. For Eve, presumably.

They went upstairs, and Lilith was somehow not surprised to be led towards Edalyn’s room. She remembered, before they had cleared out a corner of the basement, that Hunter had slept in Edalyn’s nest-bed (which, to Lilith’s chagrin, had begun to seem more attractive than a regular bed to her over the last month. Blasted curse).

Edalyn knocked on the door, and Lilith tensed. Her newest nibling was behind this door, and was completely unlike the others. Granted, none of the others were like each other, or like any other child on the Isles for that matter, so Lilith really should have seen this coming.

“Eve?” Edalyn called. “It’s Eda. I have food, if you want. Can I come in?”

“…okay,” said a very small voice, so quiet Lilith almost didn’t hear it.

Edalyn glanced at Lilith, said, “Wait here a second,” and slipped inside.

Lilith would have liked to say she at least hesitated to put her ear against the door, but…well, she’d already broken the law a dozen times over. She didn’t need to think twice about it.

“Hey,” Edalyn said. There was a faint clink as she handed over the bowl. “How you doing?”

“Better,” Eve said. She sounded hesitant. “Um. I think.”

“Well, good,” Edalyn said. Her voice was gentle; it was the one she used to talk to her children in vulnerable moments. “That’s good – you ever eat soup?”

“No,” Eve said. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Edalyn said easily. “So here’s a spoon, you remember this from breakfast, right? And you scoop up some soup in it, and – careful, it’s hot – and you blow on it a little to cool it down, like this.”

There was a faint breath of air.

“And then, when it isn’t steaming so much anymore, you eat it,” Edalyn said.

A pause, presumably where Eve did just that, and then a little, “Oh. Oh, it’s warm.”

Eve sounded wondering about that, nearly in awe, and Lilith blinked. It was one thing to be told that her new niece was new in every sense, but it was another thing to hear her surprise at such mundanity.

“Sure is, kid,” Edalyn said. “You like it?”

“I think so,” Eve said, and then there was another faint puff of air. Her voice remained quiet and small. Lilith could not conceptualize someone this soft-spoken and shy as genetically identical to her sister.

“That’s great,” Edalyn said. “We made it because it’s pretty simple stuff – easy to digest, not too many flavors – but still pretty healthy. You need that right now, so if you like it we can give it to you more often until your body’s ready for more complicated stuff.”

“Oh,” Eve said, “Okay. That makes sense.”

“I’ve been known to do that sometimes,” Edalyn said wryly, and Lilith was struck by the thought that Edalyn was actually a fairly good teacher.

True, some of the methods Luz had spoken of sounded rather unorthodox, and she could stand to be a bit more cautious. Or cautious at all. But she was brilliant, of course, and passionate about the things that interested her, and detested pretensions or gatekeeping, and never thought less of anyone who didn’t understand something, and anyone who had known her as a teenager would be flabbergasted by the amount of patience she could muster up for her children. Lilith had known teachers with none of that, which was how she could tell that Edalyn could…actually be good at teaching, if she wanted.

It was a strange thought, jarring and foreign to the point where Lilith never would have even considered it six weeks ago. Even now, it felt absurd. Edalyn, a teacher? Maybe a teacher of wild magic, she supposed, but that would be a different world entirely.

And that was the snag, honestly. A world where Edalyn was a teacher of wild magic – a proper teacher, not the haphazard mentorship she had with Luz – was, by necessity, a world without the Emperor. And six weeks ago, Lilith couldn’t have even conceptualized that.

“Hey, Eve,” Edalyn said, wrenching Lilith back to the here and now. “You remember I told you about Lily? My sister?”

“Yes,” Eve said. There was a faint clink that indicated she was still eating.

“Well,” Edalyn said. “She’s outside the door now, and she’d like to meet you, if that’s alright with you. If you say no, she’ll go away.”

“Oh,” Eve said. “I…”

Lilith found she was holding her breath.

“…I think that’s alright with me,” Eve said at last.

“Okay,” Edalyn said. There was the sound of shifting fabric followed by footsteps, and Lilith realized she was coming towards the door. She pulled back and made herself look presentable. This would be the very first of her niblings that she would meet on good terms; she had to make a good impression.

Edalyn opened the door a crack, and gave a sort of half-smile, half-grimace to Lilith. It was – it was a surprise to see, because Lilith recognized that expression. It was the same one she had seen a lot of when they were younger, when Edalyn was stuck in a situation she knew would end badly, entirely as a result of her own actions, and yet she couldn’t see any other path available besides barreling forward to the end. Lilith hadn’t seen that expression in years – decades, really, because somewhere along the line Edalyn had had her sense of shame surgically removed. It was not an expression Lilith expected to see in this particular moment.

“Don’t freak out,” Edalyn murmured, so quietly Lilith almost couldn’t hear her. “Just – don’t freak out, okay?”

…What?

And then Edalyn opened the door further, finally allowing Lilith to see her new niece for the first time, and –

and –

Oh.

Oh, that was why he made her.

It was a punch to the gut, leaving her breathless. It was a jolt to the heart, leaving it stuttering in shock. It was a fall into ice-cold water, leaving her frozen and numb. There was no moment of confusion or incomprehension to allow her to dwell in blissful ignorance just one second longer. Lilith looked at Eve and knew, instantly and without a doubt, what the Emperor had done to her. What he had made her for.

It was hard not to, with how many bandages she had.

She was sitting in Edalyn’s nest, bowl perched on the edge, wrapped in a blanket. She was older than Lilith had expected, perhaps around twenty or so. She did look like Edalyn, though with several odd differences that almost made her look like a poorly-cast illusion. Her skin was shockingly pale, for one, and her eyes were a deep pink. But the rest of her was remarkably similar to how Edalyn had looked about twenty-five years ago.

Except for the bandages, of course. And the missing pieces. And the look of apprehension on her face that Edalyn had never had when looking at Lilith, even at their most acrimonious.

“Hello,” she said. She looked down, then back at Lilith. “I’m Eve.”

Standing behind her, Edalyn looked at Lilith and mouthed, soundlessly, don’t freak out.

“…Hello,” Lilith managed. She wasn’t sure how. “I’m Lilith.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Eve said. The words were recited like she didn’t quite know what they meant, or maybe like she didn’t quite know how to mean them.

“I…” Lilith said. She swallowed, and tried to ignore the growing nausea in her gut. “I have to say I didn’t expect to meet you today. Are you – okay?”

It was a stupid question. A stupid question with an obvious answer. But Eve didn’t show any scorn or exasperation at Lilith’s blunder. Instead, she just shrugged slightly.

“I’m better than I was,” she said.

“Ah,” Lilith said hoarsely. “Yes. I expect so.”

“…You’re Eda’s sister, right?” Eve said. She fidgeted, and scooped up more soup.

“Yes, I am. Her older sister,” Lilith said, and her mind stalled at the reminder. She was the older sister, meant to protect Edalyn, and she had done anything but. She had cursed her, and chased her, and captured her, and delivered her to the man who was willing to do this oh Titan –

“That means you have the same parents,” Eve said, like she was recalling something. She ate more soup.

“Sure does,” Edalyn said. She leaned against the wall. “I’m not planning to inflict them on you just yet, though. Mom would…”

She trailed off, and Lilith winced. Yes, Mother would. Lilith still vividly remembered her reaction to Edalyn’s missing arm. She genuinely could not imagine the hurricane that would ensue if Mother saw what had happened to Eve – what the Emperor implicitly would have done to Edalyn.

“Okay,” Eve said, unaware of the flaming Grudgby ball she’d just dodged. She leaned forward to eat more soup, and the blanket slipped off her shoulder.

Her bare shoulder. Lilith blinked.

“Eve, are you not wearing anything?” she asked, before she could stop herself.

“Oh, come on, Lily, she has tons of bandages,” Edalyn said. “That’s basically clothes! And we don’t want to jar them or anything.”

Lilith grimaced slightly. While it made sense, there was still propriety to think of. Lilith had long ago given up any hope of her sister caring about that, but maybe her children weren’t quite such lost causes yet –

“Clothes are strange,” Eve nodded. “Eda says I don’t have to wear them until all my injuries are healed, especially the whip marks. She said I can maybe go shopping later, once I’m more used to things.”

“The –”

Lilith couldn’t finish forming the words.

She felt odd.

Sort of – weightless. Distant. Like she was floating underwater, a very long way from her actual body.

“Shit,” she heard Edalyn mutter, and then, “Alright, Eve, thanks for talking to us. Eat up, there’s more if you want it. Come on, Lily.”

Lilith felt Edalyn take her by the elbow and maneuver her out of the room. It didn’t seem very important. Nothing seemed important at all, really, save for the reality of what Belos had done to Eve.

He had tortured her. He had tortured her, he had whipped her, and Eve said so in the most horrifyingly offhand manner possible, and Lilith was – she had worked for him, she had idolized him, all but worshipped him when he was capable of this, when he did this to an innocent girl, when he would have done this to Edalyn if given the chance –

“She’s not there anymore, y’know,” Edalyn said.

Lilith stared at her blankly.

“Eve,” Edalyn elaborated. “He doesn’t have her anymore. She’s safe now, Lily.”

Lilith opened her mouth. “She…”

“Say it.”

“What?” Lilith blinked.

“You heard me. Say it,” Edalyn put her hand on her hip and looked at Lilith, raising her eyebrow. “Say ‘Eve is safe, Belos can’t hurt her anymore, and it’s not my fault.’”

“Wh-I can’t say that, Edalyn!” Lilith took a step back, placing her hand on the hallway wall. She still felt dizzy. “It’s not true. It’s – it’s not true. I helped him –”

“So?” Edalyn said. “Sister, you ain’t special. Practically everyone on the damn Isles has helped him, and still helps him, because he’s convinced them he’s the holy messenger of the Titan and all that crap. I’m a damned good conwoman, but Belos really takes the cake. He has them all wrapped around his finger so they don’t know which way is up, and that’s what you were like too. This isn’t your fault.”

“But I was the leader of the Golden Coven!” Lilith cried. “The average citizen doesn’t know what he’s like in private, but I did! I saw everything – every indication of sadism, every disproportionate punishment, every petty bit of cruelty – and I still helped him, I still supported him, I – I’m just as much to blame –”

“What about Hunter?” Edalyn challenged. “All that can apply to him as well. You saying he’s as bad as Belos?”

“Hunter is a child,” Lilith said. It had taken her far too long to see that. “I’m a grown woman, Edalyn, I can’t go blaming my failings on anyone besides myself.”

“Seems to me you’re blaming Belos’ failings on yourself, actually,” Edalyn said. “Look, do you want me to go in there and ask Eve if she’s upset with you over any of this? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure she’ll say no. She’s a sweetie like that. You’d never know she’s made from me, honestly.”

“Edalyn,” Lilith said, helpless and frustrated and exhausted all at once.

“Lily,” Edalyn mimicked. Then she sighed, her face softening into seriousness. “Look, Lily. You know me. Did I let you off easy for the curse?”

“Yes,” Lilith said at once, because she really had.

“Okay, let me rephrase,” Edalyn said, rolling her eyes. “Did I ever say the curse wasn’t your fault? Or act like you weren’t to blame?”

“…No,” Lilith had to admit.

“So you know that when something is your fault, I won’t sugarcoat it,” Edalyn said, pressing her argument ruthlessly. “The curse was your fault. That one’s on you. But this? This isn’t. This is Belos, and Belos alone.”

“I…” Lilith said, trailing off. Edalyn’s argument was sound, and she normally didn’t hesitate to call Lilith out on her mistakes. But there was still that insistent little voice in the back of her mind that kept pulling her back to take the fault.

…Actually, come to think of it, that little voice sounded identical to the imaginary Belos she kept in her head.

It was that detail that finally allowed Lilith’s shoulders to slump. “…Very well,” she said.

Edalyn reached out and patted her shoulder. Lilith would never admit to taking comfort from it. “Good,” Edalyn said. “If you ever need reminding, I’ll be here, okay?”

Lilith almost went to nod, before she blinked.

“…Edalyn,” Lilith said, as realization dawned. “Are you trying to mother me?”

“What? No,” Edalyn said. She pulled her hand back just a bit too fast.

“Oh Titan, you are,” Lilith groaned. “You’re out of control!”

“I am not,” Edalyn said, exactly as wet-cat offended as she had been when Lilith had accused her of having an Apple Blood problem as a teenager.

Lilith, in turn, gave her the exact same disbelieving stare she had back then. “How similar is this conversation to one you’ve had with Hunter?”

Edalyn twitched. Lilith rested her case.

“You have a problem,” Lilith informed her.

“Well,” Edalyn said, rallying quickly, “If you all would quit leaving me as the most emotionally competent person in the room, that might help.”

…Alright, point. But still. Lilith grasped for a rebuttal.

“I refuse to believe Raine Whispers is less mature than you,” Lilith said.

“Oh please,” Edalyn said, as she rolled her eyes. “They’re just as fucked up over Eve as you are. They’re probably going to sneak off later and play sad music on the clifftop, gazing mournfully out to sea.”

“…Really?” Lilith asked. She didn’t know Raine well enough to guess whether Edalyn was joking or not.

“Probably, yeah,” Edalyn shrugged. “You know Bards. Very dramatic.”

“You once blew up a fountain because your ex-boyfriend told you the statue looked like an overweight depiction of you,” Lilith said flatly. “Then you blew up your ex-boyfriend.”

Edalyn blinked at her. “What’s your point?”

“My point is –” Lilith said, and then rethought it. She had never won an argument with Edalyn without a very long debate, because her sister could out-stubborn a strangling vine. This just wasn’t worth the effort. Lilith rubbed her forehead. “Ugh, just forget it. Is meeting Eve the only thing you called me over for?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Edalyn said, watching her carefully. “If you want to stay longer, though…”

Lilith huffed. “I doubt anyone would appreciate that. No, I’ll be going now, and take some time to myself to…process this.”

Edalyn sighed, and once again Lilith noticed the bags under her eyes. “Fair enough. It’s – a lot.”

“It is,” Lilith said. “Are…are you okay, Edalyn? This must be hard for you as well.”

“I’m fine, Lily,” Edalyn dismissed. “Hasn’t been fun, but I’m probably the most functional person in the house right now, y’know?”

“Still,” Lilith said, “You should make sure to rest.”

“Now who’s mothering?” Edalyn rolled her eyes. “Go on, get outta here. Talk to Hooty on your way out; he’s been moping ever since you left.”

“Of course I will,” Lilith said, smoothing out her dress and turning to go back down the hallway. “Talking to Hootsifer is always a delight. He was going on about zombies and harpies earlier; I couldn’t quite understand it, but I can’t wait to hear more.”

Eda blinked.

“Oh, right,” she said. “About that.”

**********

So. Apparently her sister had made nice with the Owl Beast and could become a harpy-woman now.

…That would probably hold more of an emotional impact on any other day but this. Lilith basically just nodded and moved on.

**********

Luz was coughing, when they re-entered the living room. Raine was standing by her and frowning as they rubbed her back.

“Eda,” they said, and blinked as they saw her as well. “…Lilith.”

“Hey Raine,” Eda said, drifting over to the two of them, eyes resting on Luz. “Everything okay?”

“Y-yeah!” Luz said as she finished coughing. She rubbed her nose and gave a wobbly smile. “Just fine, Eda!”

“I think she might be coming down with something,” Raine said.

It was Lilith’s turn to frown. That didn’t sound good. Human biology was so different from witches; it was anyone’s guess how their ailments would affect Luz. “Do you have any idea with what?”

“Too early to tell yet,” Raine said. They put the back of their hand to Luz’s forehead, and she made a face. “Maybe the common mold?”

Lilith saw Eda relax. “Oh, well, that’s not too bad,” she said. “Geez, Rainstorm, you got me all worried there for a second.”

“No, you should be worried,” Lilith said. She walked closer to peer at Luz. Her face looked slightly flushed, and Lilith didn’t think she was imagining the mild glassiness in her eyes. “How many healing potions do you have? – or perhaps healing magic would be better, she might have an adverse reaction to a potion’s ingredients. Are there healers who work in the Night Market?”

“Eh, just let it run its course,” Edalyn waved her hand. “So the kid gets a couple sick days. It’s about time she skipped some school. Shame it has to be for legitimate reasons, but we all start somewhere.”

“Edalyn, will you be serious?” Lilith said, a little testily. Luz blinked, looking between the two sisters. Raine made a small noise and she settled down again, their hand still against her forehead. They were frowning. “Luz is human. We have no idea how she’ll react to our illnesses. We have to do everything we can to nip this in the bud as early as possible.”

“Lilith,” Edalyn said. She stepped in front of Lilith and patted her on the cheek, looking her in the eye. Lilith blinked. “Lily. Sis. You wonderfully uptight worrywart. If I ever spent an appropriate amount of time worrying about the potential dangers of my kids’ unknown biology, I’d never get anything else done.”

…Lilith wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so it was a good thing when there were the sound of footsteps from the hallway, and Hunter and King appeared in the doorway, each bearing a bowl of soup.

“Hey, didn’t you hear the soup’s ready? Come bask in my – I mean, our awesome culinary achievement!” King said. Then he noticed Lilith. “Ew, what’s she doing here?”

Lilith didn’t feel hurt about that reaction. She didn’t.

It was Hunter who noticed Raine checking over Luz, and he straightened to attention. “Luz? Is something wrong?”

Luz stared at him for a moment. Then she smiled, and said, “You know, Hunter, you’re super white!”

“…Uh?” King said. Hunter looked similarly confused, glancing down at his skin and back to Luz.

“We think she’s sick,” Raine explained. They stepped back from Luz, who was looking around with a slightly befuddled expression. “We’re going to take all feasible precautions, of course.”

Hunter’s eyes widened, and darted around at all the adults in the room. “R-really? What precautions?”

The reaction was probably opaque to everyone else, but Lilith found she could read his thoughts perfectly. He was worried about what would happen to Luz, if she was incapacitated for long enough that she started to be a drain on resources. The Emperor’s Coven wasn’t kind to those deemed to be a burden.

“She’ll receive the best care, of course,” Lilith said. “Worthy of a Coven Head. We won’t allow for anything else.”

“I always got the impression that Coven Heads were expected to work through illnesses, actually,” Raine said dubiously.

Lilith had, in fact, done exactly that on more than one occasion, but she certainly wasn’t going to say so now. “Don’t be ridiculous. Who would be intimidated by us if we neglected ourselves so much that we were visibly ill?”

“You say that like I could be intimidated,” Edalyn said. “Let me tell you, when you have blackmail on multiple Coven Heads, you sort of don’t care anymore.”

“You have blackmail on multiple Coven Heads?!” Hunter blurted.

“I don’t count anymore, Edalyn,” Lilith reminded her.

“I know that!” Edalyn said indignantly. “I meant what I said!”

…The thought that Edalyn might actually have blackmail on Coven Heads – Coven Heads plural – was actually somewhat terrifying, so Lilith was deeply grateful when King spoke up.

“So is anyone going to try this soup?” King demanded. “I worked hard on this! And these guys did stuff too, I guess. Soup is the best thing for when you’re sick!”

“Who’s sick?” Luz wondered.

“You are, kiddo,” Edalyn said, reaching out to pat Luz on the head. From the way her hand lingered, she was also discreetly checking for fungi spores. “You just eat some soup, okay? I think King’ll cry if you don’t.”

“Yeah!” King sprung into action, jumping forward and offering up his bowl to Luz. “I made it just for you! These guys helped, like, a little, but it was mostly me.”

“Aw, thanks King!” Luz beamed as she took the bowl. “You’re so…fluffy!”

“Intimidatingly fluffy!” King said. He hopped up and sat next to Luz.

“King,” Lilith said, her heart leaping in her throat, “I don’t think you should sit next to Luz, you could catch her illness –”

“I do what I want!” King said, glaring at her. “And don’t underestimate me! I’ll outlive you all!”

Edalyn’s face twitched.

There was – something – in her expression, something strange and jarring and unexpected, something that looked like grief and horror and pain, so much so that Lilith blinked at the sight.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have blinked, though, because that meant Edalyn’s face was back to normal in the split-second it took to open her eyes again. Lilith half-thought she’d imagined it.

“That’s the spirit, kiddo,” Edalyn said, and her voice was almost, almost convincing. She turned abruptly and walked towards the door. “I’ll get more soup, just hold on a second.”

“I’ll help!” Hunter said immediately. Lilith looked at him, and their eyes met.

He saw it too, she realized. The two of them had been the only ones who had been looking at Edalyn in that exact moment, so they were the only ones who saw it. Not that either of them knew what, exactly, ‘it’ was. But they had both been taught, over and over again, to ignore their instincts at their own peril.

The stakes weren’t as high as they had been in the Emperor’s Coven, where ignoring some small warning sign could end in backstabbing, a fall from the Emperor’s favor, or even death. This was the Owl House, which was the exact opposite in so many aspects it made Lilith dizzy sometimes. No, this was a place of safety, and warmth, and love.

In some ways – the most important ways – that made the stakes even higher.

Lilith watched Hunter follow Edalyn out of the living room, and prayed to the Titan they were overreacting. They did that, sometimes, the two of them. Saw dangers and disappointment where there were none. It was inevitable, after the lives they had led. She hoped this time was the same.

“¡Eres tan esponjoso que es como si fueras una araña!” Luz said to King.

“Uh…you’re welcome!” King said. Luz blinked at him.

Hunter returned a few minutes later, as Edalyn took more soup upstairs to Eve, and Lilith caught his eye. He shook his head, very slightly, and once he’d passed out the soup he quickly flashed the hand signal for ‘inconclusive’. Lilith held back a grimace.

…Well, then. There was nothing else for it.

“Edalyn,” Lilith said, once her sister returned to the living room, “It strikes me that, what with Luz falling ill and – Eve – that you might need an extra set of hands to help out around here. If – if your invitation still stands, I’d be happy to stick around for a day or two.”

“What, seriously?” Edalyn said, glancing at her and raising her eyebrows. Lilith couldn’t tell whether she liked the idea or not.

Raine made a neutral noise. “It might be helpful,” they said.

“What, no way!” King said. He squinted at Lilith. “We’re doing just fine on our own!”

Luz gasped. “Are we having a sleepover?”

“No!” King said.

“I think she should stay,” Hunter said.

Nearly everyone swiveled to look at him, and Lilith couldn’t really blame them. Hunter didn’t like her, and hadn’t made a secret of that when she had been living here before. Their animosity had cooled to a chilly ceasefire, more for Edalyn’s benefit than any reconciliation, because even if he was only a child that didn’t mean Lilith had to like him. He was her nephew, yes, but she’d spent years seeing him as the world’s most annoying, stuck-up little obstacle in her path, and that didn’t go away easily.

But in this, they could cooperate. When it came to Edalyn, they could agree.

“…Alright, then,” Edalyn said, looking vaguely stunned. “Sweet sexy mother of Titan, I did not see that coming.”

“Woo!” Luz said, throwing her hands up. “Sleepover!”

Chapter Text

Amity had a palisman, a girlfriend, and a life of her own, and she had literally never been happier.

Ghost was a sweetie. Amity hadn’t expected to like her so much, if she was being honest. Mom had had such high expectations – not that she ever didn’t. But she had bought three hunks of freshly-harvested palistrom wood, hired the Boiling Isles’ premier carver, and told each of her children that this decision would define them, their family, and Blight Industries for the rest of their lives.

No pressure, right?

Amity had expected that pressure to weigh down her mind when she woke up Ghost, to think of it every time she looked at the little cat, an eternal reminder of all the things Amity hated about her life. It wasn’t fair, but when was Amity’s life ever fair? When was anything?

Except that hadn’t happened. Amity had been able to wake up Ghost once she realized she didn’t want that to happen. Once she realized she didn’t want to just be the youngest Blight, her mother’s precious prodigy and spitting image. She still didn’t know what she wanted, to be honest, except that she knew she wanted to decide for herself.

It turned out to be easier than she expected. Amity had spent so long bound by the strings of her parents’ expectations that she hadn’t realized just how flimsy they really were. And now…now she was more free than she’d ever been.

There was going to be retribution, Amity knew that much. Probably not from Dad, because that would require he actually notice something about her, but Mom? Absolutely. Mom would realize what had happened eventually, and that…wasn’t going to be a pleasant day.

But it was worth it. Now and forever, it was worth it.

Especially now that she had the absolute best girlfriend in the world! In two worlds, even!

Amity couldn’t stop herself from grinning like a total dork as she flew through the air on Ghost. The wind whipped at her face, branches occasionally batting at her feet, but it was still exhilarating to be flying on her palisman. And even more exhilarating to be flying on her palisman to go and visit her girlfriend!

Hopefully this wasn’t too needy. Amity had done extensive research on new-relationship etiquette, and every source agreed that going over the day right after was generally considered clingy. A day or two of breathing room was required, to prove that she wouldn’t try to infringe on her new girlfriend’s (!) independence. So even though it was hard, Amity had spent the past two days respectfully giving Luz her space.

Also filling her diary with more exclamation points than she had used in her entire life, and occasionally doodling ‘Amity Noceda’ in the margins surrounded by hearts, but that was neither here nor there.

But now that the customary grace period was over, Amity couldn’t wait to see Luz (her girlfriend!) and get started on planning their very first date (!!!!)

As if on cue, the Owl House came into view through the trees. Amity’s heart leapt into her throat, and she flew down to land in the clearing.

She petted Ghost’s wooden head for a good flight, feeling her mouth quirk up. “Thanks, girl,” she said. “You’re going to love Luz; she’s amazing. And I know she’s going to love you.”

Amity had only been talking up Luz to Ghost ever since the palisman had woken up. It would probably be embarrassing once Amity came down from the high of getting together with Luz, but for now she didn’t care.

“HEYYY!” Hooty shouted, unspooling from the door. Amity grimaced as he loomed over her. “You’re Luz’s girlfriend! And who’s responsible for that, hmmmmmmmmmmm? Wink wink!”

Amity wasn’t all that inclined to deal with Hooty on a good day, and right now he was in the way of getting to her girlfriend. She felt absolutely no compunction about shoving him aside.

She was pretty sure he didn’t even notice, since as she strode away he exclaimed, “Oh look, it’s another one of me! GET OFF MY TERRITORY!! – oh wait, that’s a tree. Never mind! Do we need firewood?”

Amity didn’t look back. She didn’t want to know.

Pushing the door open, Amity peered inside. Sitting in the couch, Hunter looked up at her.

“Oh,” Amity said, as she stepped inside. “Hi. Is Luz here?”

“Yeah,” Hunter said. “She’s upstairs – but she’s sick. Came down with the common mold last night. Lilith’s on watch duty right now.”

Amity straightened up. “Oh, no.” She hadn’t prepared for this. The fluttering panic was almost enough to wash away the weirdness of someone not much older than her using terms like ‘on watch duty’ with total sincerity. That’s why she generally tried to avoid interacting with Hunter – sometimes he acted more like one of her Dad’s high-level Abominations than a normal person. “How is she? Should I call in Gus and Willow?”

Hunter frowned slightly, then shook his head. “There’s plenty of people around already,” he said. “We can handle her. It doesn’t look like it’s affecting her any differently so far from a normal witch, so we just need to watch her.”

“Okay,” Amity let out a breath. “That’s good, at least – you said she’s upstairs?”

“Yeah, in her room.”

Amity didn’t waste any more time. She headed towards the door, sending one last glance at Hunter as he settled back into the couch. He had a book open on his lap, that cardinal palisman of his peering at the pages. She caught a quick glimpse of the illustrations, and – huh, was that a demon compendium? Why was he looking at that? And on the table in front of him was a list, where the items she could read were things like ‘horns – like ram but not?’ and ‘fur: Grimhound, but not curly’ and ‘no magic – ask about dancing fluency’.

…Weird. Why was Hunter researching demons so intently?

Well, it wasn’t any of her business. And, frankly, Amity didn’t care about that nearly as much as her sick girlfriend. Amity put Luz’s weird quasi-brother out of her mind and took the stairs two at a time.

Amity knocked on Luz’s door – quietly, in case her girlfriend was sleeping. There was a soft murmur of, “Come in,” though, so Amity eased the door open.

Coven head Clawthorne – Miss Clawthorne? Lilith? – Amity’s former teacher was the one who had spoken. She was sitting on a folding chair, a book open in her lap. Luz was in her sleeping bag, blinking blearily at the ceiling.

“Ah,” Lilith said. She closed her book, and she looked…no, that was probably just a trick of the light. Lilith Clawthorne did not look awkward – not now, and not ever. “Hello, Amity.”

“Amity?!” Luz said, shooting upwards. Her eyes were wide, but they went even wider when she saw Amity standing in the doorway. “Oh…am I hallucinating again?”

“No, dear,” Lilith said, and Amity almost did a double-take at the endearment. “That really is Amity.”

Luz gasped. “Oh, wow!” She waved at Amity. “Hi! – what.”

Amity blinked as Luz stared at the mittens on her hands, looking panicked. The fabric moved in a way that probably meant Luz was wiggling her fingers, and she looked even more panicked.

“My fingers are gone!” Luz wailed, looking between Amity and Lilith, near tears in her eyes.

…Oh no, she was too adorable.

“You’re just wearing mittens, Luz,” Lilith said patiently.

Luz frowned. “But Amity is Mittens,” she said.

…Sometimes Amity really hated having older siblings.

“No, Luz,” Amity said, making a mental note to get back at the twins later. She went over and knelt down next to her girlfriend. “The common mold makes spores on your scalp, and they’re pretty itchy, but scratching just makes them airborne and infects more people. That’s why you’re wearing mittens, because it can be hard not to scratch.”

She had certainly scratched a lot, when she came down with mold last year. She’d infected both the twins on her first day in bed, so Dad had made a special Abomination to take care of her. Amity tried not to take the impersonal nature of it so…personally.

Luz looked blank at her explanation, though. Maybe Amity should have spoken more slowly. Titan knew the common mold could make everything seem kind of…weird.

“Your hair is nice,” Luz said, reaching out and petting Amity’s hair.

“Thanks, yours isn’t so bad either,” Amity said.

Or at least, that’s what she imagined herself saying. Instead, what came out was, “Hpghff.”

Her girlfriend was petting her hair, okay? Luz was petting her hair. Amity was surprised she managed to avoid passing out. The blood that she felt rushing into her cheeks was definitely putting that to the test.

“Oh, for Titan’s sake,” Amity heard, and she managed to piece together her mind long enough to glance over at Lilith. The woman was holding the echo mouse up with a severely unamused expression. “Will you stop trying to nest in my clothes.”

The mouse chittered, and –

Luz gasped. “It’s projecting!”

Lilith hurriedly put the mouse down and faced it towards the wall. Amity stared, transfixed, as the words of a long-gone human filled the room.

“After five years, I have finally found it,” Philip said. Maybe it was just her, but Amity thought his voice was a little grating. Luz definitely won the contest when it came to human voices.

“A power source that can pierce through realms,” Philip continued, oblivious to her judgement. “Titan’s Blood.”

“Oh,” Lilith gasped softly. Amity glanced at her, and saw she was blinking at the projection. “Oh, of course.”

“There are old tales of lakes reflecting green trees and blue skies,” Philip said. “The Titan’s veins run through the land, and many believe that these wild portals are created when a little of its blood leaks into the water.”

Huh. Amity hadn’t known that.

“That is how I came here,” Philip said, and oh, Amity hadn’t known that either. Somehow, she had never actually wondered how this other human came to the Boiling Isles in the first place. “So that is the first place I shall look. I will journey back to Eclipse Lake.”

The image showed a place on the Knee, before cutting off.

“Eclipse Lake!” Luz repeated, her eyes wide. “We can go there and get Titan’s Blood! Come on!”

Luz lunged out of her sleeping bag, and Amity yelped as she tried to stop her.

“Luz, you’re sick,” Amity said. Luz stuck her tongue out, and Amity pulled the cork from her bottle of Abomination ooze. Free-shaping was practically the embodiment of ‘easy to do, difficult to master’, but Amity wasn’t the top Abomination student for nothing. Luz was quickly restrained. “You can’t go running off to the Knee right now.”

“Amity is quite correct, Luz,” Lilith said, coming over to kneel next to them. “And that’s assuming there even is any Titan’s Blood there. I’m fairly certain I would have heard of it, if there was. I looked all over the Isles for it.”

“The Emperor’s Coven looked for Titan’s Blood?” Amity asked.

“Yes, of course,” Lilith said, negligently waving a hand. “It’s only the most magical substance known to witchkind. The Emperor was keen to get ahold of some, so we investigated whenever there were any rumors, but – well, they never panned out. It’s quite likely that there’s none left.”

“But it’s not impossible,” Luz said, eyes shining bright with excitement. Or maybe fever. “Did you ever look in Eclipse Lake?”

“…No,” Lilith admitted. “But really, Luz, it’s not like Eclipse Lake is some unknown hidden glade. It used to be a mining town, if I remember correctly, but it was abandoned – Titan, it must’ve been centuries ago. Possibly even before Philip’s time. If he came to the Isles through some leftover Titan’s Blood that was there, that’s no guarantee there’s still some now.”

“But you don’t know for sure!” Luz pressed. She leaned forward, and Amity hurriedly shifted the ooze so she wouldn’t overbalance.

“No,” Lilith said. “But…”

Amity bit her lip, and looked at Lilith. She saw the same kind of hesitance there, which was what made her bold enough to say her next words.

“…She has a point,” Amity said. “I mean, it’s not like the Emperor could ask Philip if he found any Titan’s Blood at Eclipse Lake, so for all we know there could still be some there.”

Lilith was silent for a moment, and Amity was excruciatingly reminded of those few lessons when she waited, frozen, for her mentor’s approval.

“I suppose it would only be responsible to check…” Lilith said at last, picking over every word.

“Woo!” Luz did something that might have been trying to throw her hands up, but the ooze meant she almost overbalanced again. Amity righted her, and pulled the ooze back with a sigh. It was too troublesome.

She rethought that decision a second later, when Luz tried to scramble for the door. Amity yelped and tackled her girlfriend to the ground because oh no you don’t.

“Luz, you are sick!” Amity said, for what felt like the tenth time.

“You are not coming, Luz,” Lilith said sternly. “We can take care of this all on our own. Trust us.”

Luz blinked at them.

“Oh,” she said. “Okay. I trust you.”

Amity did not blush. Not at all.

“Okay!” She said, in a totally normal and regularly-pitched voice. “That’s great! That’s totally great! You’re great – I didn’t say that. Uh – Miss Clawthorne, let’s go?”

“Alright,” Lilith said, getting up. She patted Luz on the shoulder as she did. “You just wait here and get better, Luz. We’ll be back soon.”

“Okay!” Luz said, waving. She gasped. “Wait, Amity! Here!”

She thrust out her hand, and Amity took the little…cat thingy? It might have been some kind of human scroll?

“Uh, thanks!” Amity said. Luz laughed and waved goodbye. Amity waved back as they left the room, and Luz smiled as she closed the door.

Titan, she was so adorable. Amity was going to be the most awesome girlfriend ever, just so she could see that smile as often as she could.

Which she could get a start on by going to get Titan’s Blood. Sure, it had been four hundred years since Philip had gone, but who knew? There could still be some, hiding in some forgotten corner. Stranger things had happened.

The little thingamabob beeped, and Amity looked at the screen to see…a bunch of random icons. Well, Luz was sick. She slipped it into her pocket.

“So,” Amity said, gripping tightly to Ghost’s staff, turning to Lilith. “How soon can we leave?”

Lilith hesitated. “Very soon. The more important question is who should come along.”

“Oh,” Amity frowned. “Right. Well, I’m Luz’s girlfriend, so I should definitely come. And…you know a lot about Titan’s Blood, right?”

“As much as anyone can, really,” Lilith said, though she was preening a little. It was different from how she reacted when Amity used to compliment her knowledge in their lessons, though. Before, she had simply accepted the praise as her due, so clearly secure in her position as one of the most powerful people on the Isles that Amity had always felt like she had just been pointing out the obvious. Now, though, Lilith actually looked flattered by the comment, and Amity felt a little proud of herself for evoking such a response from her former mentor.

But she had to focus. Luz’s ticket back home was on the line here, and Amity’s chance to prove her suitability as a girlfriend. “Okay, so there’s you and me…should we bring Eda?”

“Oh Titan no, she can’t leave E-” Lilith cut herself off, and shook her head. “Ah, no. No, she…won’t be available for a while.”

Amity blinked in confusion, but Lilith continued hurriedly.

“We can’t bring Raine, they’re the only reason the house hasn’t collapsed yet,” Lilith said, “King…no, he’d want to, but he’s too young. Hooty needs to keep guard, just in case. Hunter…”

She trailed off, and Amity tilted her head.

“He might be helpful,” Amity said. “He knows a lot, like you.”

Lilith made a very, very slight face, the same one she had made when Amity had once mentioned that she used a training wand. “Yes, I suppose he does.”

“Do you not…want him to come?” Amity asked. Now that she thought about it, Lilith and Hunter must have known each other in the Emperor’s Coven. Was there some sort of hostility between them? Mom had told her about how cutthroat the higher echelons were.

“No, no, it’s – fine,” Lilith said. “It’ll be good to have more eyes, and he’s at least competent. I’ll go collect him. Find King and tell him to stay with Luz, will you?”

“Sure thing,” Amity said. “Where’s Eda? Should I tell her where we’re going or will you?”

Lilith…paused.

“Actually,” she said slowly, “Maybe we shouldn’t tell her.”

“What?” Amity said, and felt her face slip into a frown. “Why?”

“She…” Lilith looked away and sighed. “Eda has enough to worry about, right now. If we tell her we might have a lead on Titan’s Blood, she’ll just get distracted, and she’s already running herself absolutely ragged over –”

Lilith cut herself off again. She shifted on her feet, and Amity was suddenly reminded of Edric, when he was trying to avoid spilling some secret he’d come across.

“Regardless,” Lilith said with a cough, “Right now we only have a slim hope of a lead. If we go to Eclipse Lake and we do find Titan’s Blood, then we can return in glory and a slight misdirection won’t matter. But if we tell everyone and then don’t find any, then we’ll have gotten everyone’s hopes up for nothing. They’ll be so disappointed.”

Amity couldn’t help but picture Luz’s smiling face as she said “I trust you,” and flinched.

“You’re right,” Amity said, swallowing. “Yeah, let’s – let’s grab Hunter and leave. We need to do this fast.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Lilith said with a nod. “Now, let’s go find some Titan’s Blood.”

**********

The wind whipped at Amity’s face as she flew on Ghost, but it was less enjoyable now.

Not completely, because flying in Ghost wasn’t going to lose its shine anytime soon, but it was hard to be as happy as she’d been when flying to the Owl House to see her girlfriend.

The first reason for that, of course, was that she was now flying away from her girlfriend. Automatic flaw, right there. The second reason was because Amity didn’t know whether she would live up to Luz’s trust in her. She was bound and determined to prove herself an awesome girlfriend, but…what if she couldn’t?

The third reason was because of the other two witches flying on either side of her. Hunter had agreed to come along, and on the need for secrecy, but Amity couldn’t shake the feeling there was something else going on with him. More than there usually was, anyways.

Then again, Amity was pretty sure there was something going on with Lilith as well. She hadn’t forgotten those instances when the woman had cut herself off from speaking.

Amity found she didn’t care about the mystery very much right now, not with Luz counting on her to deliver the Titan’s Blood. But she did make a mental note about it for later. If nothing else, Luz would probably want to know something weird was going on with her weird quasi-brother and…aunt?

Titan, the whole dynamics of the Owl House were so incredibly bizarre and twisty they were almost worse than the Blights.

Amity remembered her mother’s expectations regarding Ghost and reconsidered. The Owl House might have been twisty, but at least it was loving. Amity…couldn’t say the same for her birth home.

This line of thought was depressing. Amity didn’t want anything more depressing right now. She needed a change of subject.

“So…” she said out loud, studying the trees as they went by beneath them. “Did you two ever…work together, in the Emperor’s Coven?”

There was a very tense silence, and Amity thought for a moment that neither was going to answer.

“Occasionally,” Hunter said at last.

“Very occasionally,” Lilith said.

“Right,” Amity said. Titan, this was awkward. “I guess I don’t actually know much about the Emperor’s Coven. I was being trained for it, and I knew I had to be strong to get in – everyone knows that – but…I guess I don’t know much about the dynamics of it.”

“I remember,” Lilith murmured, so low the wind almost snatched it away before Amity could hear it. “You’re quite strong.”

“Oh, yeah,” Hunter said. Amity saw him turn to look at the two of them, from the corner of her eye. “You two were mentor and apprentice, weren’t you? Titan, your parents must’ve pulled a lot of strings for that.”

Amity’s shoulders crept up around her ears. It wasn’t like she didn’t know, obviously. She was a prodigy, but not so much that the Head of the Emperor’s Coven would want to take her on as a student unprompted when she was twelve. Even then, she had known that there must have been a lot of backroom dealing to get her that apprenticeship.

She tried not to sound bitter when she said, “Yeah, well, when Mom wants something, she usually gets her way.”

“Actually,” Lilith said, “It was your father who asked me to teach you.”

“My – what?” Amity whipped her head around to stare at Lilith.

The woman looked moderately surprised at Amity’s reaction, but she didn’t correct herself. Instead, she nodded. “Yes, your father. He made an offer if I would teach you, a good one, and you are a promising student, so I accepted.” She searched Amity’s face. “Is that…unexpected?”

“Uh,” Amity said. “Yeah, kind of. You’re sure Dad was behind the offer? Not Mom?”

“She was the one I spoke to about the scheduling, but the initial offer came from your father, yes.”

“What did he offer you?” Hunter asked.

Lilith shifted uncomfortably on her staff. “Ah…a Vudoll.”

“A Vudoll?” Amity said, almost losing control of her staff. She stared at Lilith, eyes wide. “But he – really?”

“For Eda’s curse?” Hunter asked. When Lilith have a tight nod, he hummed. “Wow, don’t those take like a year to make?”

“Eleven months,” Amity said softly.

“Yeah, eleven months.” Hunter nodded, then made a face. “Well, it didn’t work, and he’s one of the few people on the Isles skilled enough to make one that would so…huh. What kind of curse is this thing, anyways?”

“I’ve spent thirty years trying to answer that question,” Lilith said tiredly.

Amity didn’t say anything, just turning over this new information in her head, trying to fit it into what she knew about her dad.

It wasn’t surprising that he knew how to make a Vudoll, because Hunter was right that he was one of the few people Amity would think skilled enough to make one. The real mind-boggler was that he had made one at all. A Vudoll was an obscure, highly-specialized type of Abomination. It was made in the image of a specific person, and if done correctly it could resonate strongly enough with that person to absorb any curses or maladies afflicting them, whereupon the Vudoll could be safely destroyed and the person freed from their curse.

Considering it took eleven months to make, had to be tailored to a specific person from the start, could only be used once before being destroyed, had a frankly terrible shelf life, and was so maddeningly difficult to construct that the only other person Amity was certain could make one was Darius Deamonne, Vudolls were vanishingly rare. Their usage had plummeted once healing magic got advanced enough to handle most curses, and from everything Amity had read people were happy for the switch. They were honestly mostly a curiosity nowadays.

Amity remembered that Dad had disappeared into his workshop for an entire year after she started her apprenticeship. Three months in, Edric had actually asked their mother if he had died, and Amity didn’t think he’d been joking. Mom had said no, but it had still been two more months before Emira reported that she’d caught a glimpse of him in the hallway. Amity herself hadn’t seen him until seven months in, when Mom had dragged the whole family to some stupid party. Dad had been extracted from his workshop and stuffed into a suit, even though it couldn’t really disguise the vaguely corpse-like pallor of his skin or the eyebags that could rival Hunter’s.

He had spoken to her exactly once, to ask how her apprenticeship was progressing. She had said it was going well, because what else could she say? Dad had nodded, said something vague about her getting taller (of course she’d gotten taller, it had been seven months) and then he’d left the party, just fifteen minutes in. Back to his workshop, once again. She hadn’t seen him again until about a year into her apprenticeship.

That was when Amity had accepted that Dad would always choose his Abominations over his family, because nothing said it better than spending an entire year without contact just to keep working.

And now, it turned out he’d been making a Vudoll. He had made one – spent an entire year making one, on top of his work for Blight Industries – all so that Amity would get an apprenticeship with Lilith Clawthorne.

Why would he do that?

Amity was interrupted from her thoughts by a chirping noise. After a few seconds, she realized it was the little keychain thingamabob Luz had given her. She pulled it out and squinted at the tiny screen.

“What’s that?” Hunter said, craning his neck to look.

“Uh,” Amity said, staring blankly at another row of icons, just as incomprehensible as the first. “I have no idea.”

“You don’t think…” Hunter trailed off, then shook his head. “No, she wouldn’t.”

“What?” Amity said, a spike of worry shooting through her chest. She saw Lilith frown from the corner of her eye, and the woman also leaned in to look at the little screen.

“I just,” Hunter said. He looked uncomfortable. “Those icons don’t look very…nice.”

Amity looked back at the thingy. That was…true. Some of the symbols were kind of…pointy.

“So?” she said, trying to push down the worry in her chest.

Lilith made a noise in the back of her throat. When Amity looked at her, she gave what was…probably intended to be a reassuring smile. She wasn’t very good at it.

“What is it?” Amity demanded, gripping tightly onto Ghost. The wind suddenly seemed much colder.

“Nothing!” Lilith said. “I’m sure it’s – nothing. This is Luz we’re talking about, of course she wouldn’t make any – demands, or anything. That would be ridiculous.”

“She’s sick, though,” Hunter muttered. It was ambiguous whether he meant them to hear. “People can be – different – when they’re sick.”

Lilith flinched at that.

Amity…didn’t know what to think. She swallowed and looked back at the icons. They…did kind of look…demanding-ish. There were a couple of graph icons, with upwards arrows. Amity was very familiar with reading those types of graphs. Mom showed her the profit reports from Blight Industries every month, and always gloated whenever they showed an increase. And the arrow set before the graphs was curved, like it was returning…

It was very, very possible Luz was telling her ‘come back with results’. And the icons after that…

Amity swallowed again.

“Well – that’s fine!!” Amity said, stuffing the thingy back into her pocket and forcing herself to look ahead into the distance. “That’s fine, because we’re going to find that Titan’s Blood. No doubt about it.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Hunter said quickly.

“Absolutely,” Lilith said.

The rest of the flight was very quiet and very, very tense.

Amity was definitely a normal amount of relieved when Lilith spoke up to say they were nearly there. The Knee loomed in front of them, fearsomely high, and they swooped around to where the entrance to Eclipse Lake was.

Except there seemed to be a problem.

“That…is definitely the Emperor’s Coven,” Hunter said, peering down at the camp below. “Quick, get out of sight!”

They retreated, and Lilith pointed ahead. “I see a clearing up there, we can touch down and assess the opposition.”

The wind whistled through Amity’s hair, and she bit her lip. They hadn’t considered what to do if the Emperor got to Eclipse Lake first. Seriously, what were the odds? Fifty years on the throne, and he chose now to send forces here?

Well, they’d just have to improvise. Between Hunter and Lilith’s inside knowledge of the Coven’s standard procedures, surely they could come up with something that let them find the Titan’s Blood before anyone else.

“Wait, is that –” Hunter said, sounding shocked and disbelieving. He halted in midair, staring downwards.

Amity snapped to attention and looked down into the clearing below them. Then she stopped just as suddenly as Hunter had, vaguely noting Lilith do the same. She was too busy blinking at the sight below her to notice much else, though.

Because standing in the clearing beneath them, hand on her hip and looking back at them with a deeply unamused expression, was Eda.

“What,” Lilith said, and Amity had never heard her sound so bewildered. “How did…”

Eda tilted her head, in a way that managed to communicate an unmistakable air of ‘well, are you going to come down here already?’

For lack of anything better to do, Amity directed Ghost downwards. Her feet hit the grass and she hopped off her staff. After a beat, Hunter and Lilith did the same.

“Anyone care to explain what you’re doing here?” Eda said, in the most Disappointed Mom voice Amity had ever heard. She winced, and saw Hunter doing the same.

Lilith was apparently too confused to be affected, though, because she said, “Edalyn, how did you get here?”

“Luz started babbling a little while after you left, and it wasn’t hard to figure out things from there,” Eda said. On her shoulder, Owlbert hooted softly. “More importantly, why are you here? Going off on some ridiculous quest to find Titan’s Blood is generally the sort of thing you tell people about. Especially since the Emperor apparently had the same idea!”

“We just wanted to help!” Hunter said. “You’ve been so stressed lately since Eve came, but this could help! If we find Titan’s Blood there’ll be one less problem to deal with, and you need a break –”

“Eve?” Amity asked, but she was ignored.

“No, Edalyn, I mean how did you get here?” Lilith said. She swung her staff around to indicate the clearing for emphasis. “We took the most direct route here, and I certainly never saw you on our tail! But you got here before us? What in Titan’s name did you do?”

“Tricks of the trade, Lily,” Eda dismissed. “Hunter, it’s not your job to worry about me, I’m fine. Or at least I was, before my kid suddenly ran off chasing shadow-sprites right into where the Emperor’s Coven would catch him! Good gorgeous mother of Titan, did you even think?”

“It’s not a sprite hunt!” Amity said desperately. “Luz needs Titan’s Blood to get home, and this might be the only place we can find it!”

“It’s not here, kiddo,” Eda said.

“You don’t know that!”

“She’s right, Edalyn,” Lilith cut in. “We can’t know for certain until we at least check.”

Eda rolled her eyes and reached up to Owlbert on her shoulder. He went into staff form, and she twirled it idly. “Yeah? And how were you gonna check, exactly? Because I looked over that place and it looks like there’s a little too much gold to see any blue beneath it. Did you know that little bootlicker Kimidora or whatever is here?”

Lilith blinked. “You’ve already scouted? Seriously, Edalyn, how did you get here?”

“Lilith and I know the Golden Coven inside and out!” Hunter said. Amity was glad that they seemed to be on the same wavelength there, at least. “And if Kikimora is here, that’s even better. We both know her and how she thinks; it won’t be hard to sneak inside!”

Amity decided to put in her two snails. “Why don’t you join us?”

“Yes, that would be for the best,” Lilith mused. “You have decades of experience in this sort of thing, after all. Your expertise would be invaluable.”

“Usually, I’d be wildly flattered and fall prey to your blatant manipulation,” Eda said, “But not in this case, sister! You three are coming back home with me, end of discussion. I can’t have you running around causing problems when there’s so much else going on.”

…Well. This was the most unexpected obstacle yet. The concept that the Titan’s Blood wasn’t there was terrifying but formless, the Golden Coven being here was difficult but not insurmountable, but Amity couldn’t have foreseen the Owl Lady acting like a reasonable adult.

From the looks on Hunter and Lilith’s faces – especially Lilith’s – they hadn’t seen this coming, either. And they weren’t really sure how to deal with it.

But Amity thought about Luz, and the way she said “I trust you.” The icons on the little thingy in her pocket, vaguely threatening in the way Amity only ever felt when her mother was particularly displeased. The fear that she would come back empty-handed, and Luz would wake up and realize Amity wasn’t so great of a girlfriend after all.

“Well,” Amity said, “Too bad. We’re going anyways, and you can’t stop us!”

Eda raised her eyebrows, and looked at Lilith and Hunter.

Lilith hesitated, then straightened. “Edalyn, I understand your concerns, but this may be the only chance we have. The longer we wait, the greater the chances of Kikimora finding the Titan’s Blood first.”

Hunter hesitated longer, looking between Eda and the other two. Amity saw his grip tightening and relaxing around his palisman’s staff, over and over. He looked deeply conflicted.

He looked at Eda, visibly uncertain. “I…Eda, Luz needs this. Can – can you please just help?”

Eda tilted her head, and Amity held her breath.

Then she shook her head. “Nope,” she said. “Sorry, kiddo. Not with this. I’m taking you home, okay?”

Amity winced, but straightened up. “Well,” she said, “You can’t take me back. Lilith, are you in?”

Lilith looked uncertain. Hunter looked downright nervous.

“We can do this,” Amity told Lilith. “We can! They’ll never see us coming!”

“Mm, about that,” Eda said, and Owlbert turned back into a bird. She used her free hand to rummage around in her hair, and pulled out – glyph papers? She used her thumb to flip through them.

“Edalyn?” Lilith said, politely puzzled. “What are you doing?”

Eda sighed, and pinched a few papers out of the stack. She handed them to Owlbert.

“Fixing this,” she said.

Then Owlbert, papers in his little beak, shot straight up into the sky. He flew above the treetops and let go of the papers, speeding away.

A heartbeat later, the papers exploded in a burst of light and sound. It was incredibly loud for such a small source, and undoubtedly eye-catching.

Even this far away, Amity thought she could just hear the exclamations of the Emperor’s Coven.

She stared at Eda. Eda stared back, unflinching.

“Wh-Edalyn!” Lilith cried.

Eda sighed, something like regret on her face, but she stood firm. “Sorry,” she said, “But it just wasn’t worth the risk. Come on, we’d better leave before they get here.”

Hunter instantly hopped onto his staff, hovering a few feet above the ground. He looked spooked, glancing between Eda and the direction of the entrance to Eclipse Lake every few seconds.

Lilith stared at Eda, then got on her staff as well. “…We’re going to talk about this, Edalyn.”

Eda just looked tired. “Yeah, yeah,” she glanced at Amity. “Up and at ‘em, Boots.”

“…No,” Amity said.

Everyone stopped, and looked at her. Eda arched an eyebrow. “What?”

“I said,” Amity repeated, feeling oddly distant from her body, “No. I’m not leaving.”

“Kid, the Emperor’s Bootlickers are heading straight for us,” Eda said.

“Which means that they’ll be drawn away from the entrance to Eclipse Lake,” Amity said, the plan coming together in her mind. She whirled towards Lilith and Hunter. “This is our chance! We can sneak in and grab some of the Titan’s Blood while they’re distracted! We don’t have to go back empty-handed!”

But Hunter and Lilith didn’t look convinced. Hunter looked at Eda again, swallowed, and drifted over to float by her side. He looked at Amity apologetically. “Sorry, Amity,” he said, quietly.

Lilith looked conflicted a few seconds longer, but eventually shook her head. “The risk is too high now,” she said, shooting a sideways glance at Eda. “I’m sorry, Amity, but I can’t approve of this plan anymore.”

“No,” Amity said, but it was weaker now. Not a declaration, but a plea. “No, please, we have to keep going. I can’t – I can’t go back without –”

“Over here!” a voice called. “They’re over here! It’s the Owl Lady and her sister!”

“Amity, get on your staff!” Lilith snapped, with the same sharp, commanding tone she had used moments before Amity’s cauldron had exploded because she had accidentally used armakillo scales instead of panicgolin scales.

Amity obeyed instinctively, the way she had back then. She was in the air before she knew it, and a Golden Coven scout leaped into the clearing where she had just been standing.

Eda threw the remaining papers in her hand at the scout, and they went down under a sudden mass of flaming vines. Owlbert zipped over to her, changing to staff form midway, and Eda jumped up onto him as he swept by.

“There they are!” came a female voice. Amity vaguely recognized it as Kikimora from occasional news broadcasts. “Catch those criminals!”

“Time to beat feet, everyone!” Eda shouted, and flew up into the sky.

Amity swallowed and flew after her, along with Hunter and Lilith. She twisted to look behind her, and watched as more Coven scouts raced into the clearing. A few threw bolts of fire or wind after them, but they were easy enough to dodge. The four of them raced away, wind whipping at their faces, and Eclipse Lake grew smaller and smaller behind them.

“Well, that was bracing,” Eda said. The wind nearly stole her words away before Amity could hear them, but at least some of that was probably due to the low buzz building in her head as well. “I’ve missed fleeing from the long arm of the law; it’s been awhile. Couple weeks, at least. Ugh, I’m getting all domestic and slow in my golden years.”

“You ruined our chance,” Amity said lowly.

The wind must have snatched the words away before anyone could hear them, because Eda didn’t respond to her. Instead she just kept chattering away, oblivious. “Hey, Lily, did I tell you about stealing palistrom wood for Luz? Very thrilling, let me tell you. Felt like I was twenty-nine again. Not that I ever stole palistrom wood when I was twenty-nine, you can’t prove anything.”

“Of course not,” Lilith said with a sigh.

“Heh, yeah. So now the kid has everything she needs to make her own palisman! She hasn’t started carving yet, but –”

“You ruined our chance!”

Eda heard her that time.

Amity gritted her teeth as the Owl Lady twisted around to look at her. She felt tears stinging her eyes, and wasn’t sure whether they came from the wind or the rising emotion in her throat. She glared at Eda.

“We almost had it,” Amity said. “We could have found the Titan’s Blood, but you ruined it for no reason.”

Eda pressed her lips together. “Actually,” she said, “I ruined it because you were all going to get yourselves killed for no reason.”

“No we weren’t!” Amity snapped. “We could have done it! We could have found the Titan’s Blood and brought it back and Luz – she – she’ll be so disappointed now –”

Like the thought of her had summoned it, the little thingamabob in her pocket beeped with a new message. Amity didn’t want to look at it, but – but it was best to get it over with, right?

Amity pulled the thing out of her pocket, and checked. The tiny screen showed a new slew of icons, all of them similarly incomprehensible and foreboding. Amity stared at the screen, willing them to change, but they didn’t. All that happened was that her vision grew blurrier.

She was definitely crying now. Great.

Through the blurriness, Amity could just see Eda tilting her head.

“…Okay, what’s going on?” she said.

Amity scrubbed at her face, looking away. She didn’t want to talk to Eda, not when the woman had just destroyed any chance Amity had of keeping her girlfriend.

Lilith apparently took the silence as an invitation to speak, though. “Luz has been…sending strange messages to Amity, ever since we left. They’re not very clear, but what we can figure out is rather…ominous. We had hoped that bringing back Titan’s Blood will be enough appeasement, but now…”

Amity hunched her shoulders, staring down at the passing trees.

“…We’re talking about Luz here, right?” Eda said, and her voice sounded so baffled that Amity couldn’t help but look up. Eda’s eyebrows were almost at her hairline. “Ridiculously positive, insanely forgiving, literal ray of sunshine Luz?”

“See for yourself,” Amity snapped. She shoved her hand out to Eda.

The Owl Lady drifted closer and took the message-thing. Amity wasn’t sure how she kept her balance on her staff, with her only hand occupied, but she managed. She blinked at the icons, and tilted her head, further and further, until it was almost at a ninety-degree angle. Amity wondered if the Owl Lady was actually too owl-like, because that just looked kind of disturbing.

Then Eda sighed, and handed the message-thing back to Amity. “Turn it sideways, kid.”

Amity blinked at her. “What?”

Eda just raised her eyebrows.

Amity looked down at the message-thing, and turned it sideways. The first message Luz had sent to her was glowing up at her, and –

“U R pretty,” Amity read, the icons resolving themselves into letters.

Heart suddenly pounding, Amity flipped to the next message.

“U R rad.”

Next message.

“…Fool’s Blood Bad?”

Amity blinked. “Fool’s Blood? What’s that?”

“Did you say Fool’s Blood?” Lilith said, her tone colored with alarm, zipping over to hover by Amity’s side.

“Yeah?” Amity said, tilting her head and re-reading the icons. “Um, Luz just sent it a minute ago. What’s Fool’s Blood?”

“A very dangerous substance,” Hunter said, coming in closer, his eyes tight with worry. “It looks like Titan’s Blood at first glance, but it’s actually very volatile. Even the slightest touch can make it explode.”

“And…Luz was warning us about it,” Amity said, a sinking feeling growing inside her stomach.

“Uh huh,” Eda said. “So she was. Isn’t that interesting. Now, why would Luz be warning you about Fool’s Blood? Could it possibly be connected to the fact that you heard Philip’s diary entry from before he went on the same journey, but didn’t wait to hear what his entry was after he came back, I wonder?”

None of the three of them could quite manage to look Eda in the eye.

“…I really should have known better,” Amity told the hills passing underneath them. “I mean, this is Luz.”

“Ya think?” Eda said. Amity winced, and Eda rolled her eyes and let out a theatrical sigh. “Well, you wouldn’t be the first witch to panic over weird texts. Between you and me, it took me weeks to ask Raine to explain music terminology.”

Amity tried to imagine Eda the Owl Lady as a teenager panicking over her partner’s texts. It didn’t really click.

“…I should have known better as well,” Lilith said. “I was the adult in this situation, and I got carried away. I’m sorry, Edalyn.”

“Eh,” Eda said, waving her hand negligently. Seriously, how did she stay in her staff when she did things like that? “It happens. You should see some of the stuff I’ve done when I got carried away. I know you know some of it but trust me, there is so much more hiding behind the curtain.”

“No, Edalyn, I –” Lilith paused, and glanced at Hunter and Amity. She flew around them, and gestured at Eda with her head to fly down a little. Eda raised an eyebrow, but complied. Amity and Hunter were left to fly alone together.

Amity looked awkwardly at Hunter. Hunter looked awkwardly at her.

“I’ll just…make sure out path is clear,” Hunter said, and pulled forward. Amity watched him go with a faint sense of relief.

Then she looked down at the Clawthorne sisters. Amity had always hated it when her parents shut her out of hearing important discussions. If only…

No, she really shouldn’t.

But…

Amity drew a spell circle, calling on her sparse knowledge of wind manipulation. The air twisted, and she couldn’t do anything fancy, but the two sisters were only about twenty feet below her…

“- truly am sorry, Edalyn,” Lilith’s voice said. The quality wasn’t great, but it was audible. She sounded genuinely remorseful. “I came back to the Owl House to help you, but…”

“Lily, it’s fine,” Eda sighed. “No harm done, right?”

“But there is harm done,” Lilith persisted. It was kind of a head trip, honestly. The Lilith who had been Amity’s teacher would never have apologized even once, let alone repeatedly. “I was so excited when I saw the diary entry. You’ve been dealing with so many burdens lately that when I finally saw a chance to alleviate one, I didn’t even think. Instead of helping you, I forced you to – be the most emotionally competent person in the house. Again. I’m so sorry.”

“And I said it’s fine, Lily.”

Lilith made a noise of frustration. “Edalyn, you shouldn’t just brush this off! I fucked up, okay? I fucked up again and nearly pulled two children along with me, and that’s not something that can be forgotten in five minutes! Aren’t you angry with me? Aren’t you going to do something?”

There was a short silence. Eventually, Eda sighed again.

“…I’m not mad, Lily. You can – make dinner for the next week or something, if you’re so upset about it, but I’m not going to punish you because Belos taught you to expect that when you fuck up.”

There was a much, much longer silence. Amity very pointedly did not look ahead at Hunter.

“…Titan, there I go again,” Lilith said, and let out a bitter chuckle. “Putting the emotional labor on you. I really did resolve to be better than this.”

“I mean,” Eda drawled, “spending most of your life in a cult run by a psychopath is a pretty good excuse for being kinda fucked up, I would think.”

Amity very pointedly did not look ahead at Hunter.

“…And being the only emotionally competent person in the Owl House has to be exhausting, I would think,” Lilith said softly.

“Eh, Raine’s pretty good about everything besides Eve,” Eda said. “I woulda just burned everything down weeks ago without them sharing the weight, trust me.”

There was that name again. Amity frowned. Who in Titan’s name was Eve?

Lilith gave a small chuckle. “Well. Do you mind if I share some of that weight as well? I – I want to help, Edalyn.”

“…Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

They lapsed into silence, and a quick look down revealed they were pulling up again. Amity quickly dismissed the wind spell and tried very hard to look like she hadn’t been eavesdropping.

She must have been successful, because neither sister looked suspicious. Hunter glanced back, and slowed a little until they caught up with him. When he was within earshot, Eda clucked her tongue. “You know, I expected more chaos when I left you kids alone together. A little arson, at least.”

Hunter blinked at her. “We’re in the sky? There’s nothing to burn.”

Eda looked deeply aggrieved. “Nothing to – ? Great beautiful mother of Titan, I have failed as a parent.”

Amity exchanged glances with Lilith, united for a moment in shared exasperation over Edalyn Clawthorne. She looked back in time to see spots of color appear in Hunter’s cheeks, though that might have just been the wind.

They got back to the Owl House a while later. Amity hopped off her staff and approached the door.

Even though her new realization of what Luz’s messages said centered her somewhat, Amity couldn’t help but hesitate. What if Luz took it back? What if Amity was misinterpreting things again? What if –

The door flew open, and Amity found herself with an armful of girlfriend.

“Amity, you’re back!” Luz said, squeezing her. “I’m so glad my awesome girlfriend is okay!”

…Oh.

Amity hugged back, burying her face in Luz’s hair. She didn’t have Titan’s Blood, and the trip had been a total waste, and they weren’t any closer to getting Luz home.

But, well. Today was a pretty good day, regardless.

Chapter Text

Hunter stood outside the door to Eve’s room, paralyzed.

He was holding a bowl of griffon noodle soup, the heat warming his hands. It wasn’t what everyone else was having for dinner, but Eve probably couldn’t digest the spicy human dish Luz had made, even after she’d had to substitute for several ingredients not found in the Demon Realm. Griffon noodle soup was Eve’s main staple for now, though she would probably start eating more adventurously in the next couple days.

Eve was still taking her meals separately for now, as well. Eda had said that she might get more social at some point, but it was important to let her go at her own pace. Apparently, the only person she was even moderately comfortable around right now was Eda.

Which really begged the question: why had Hunter thought it was a good idea to offer to bring Eve’s dinner to her?

“Titan, what am I even doing?” Hunter muttered under his breath.

His palisman twittered on his shoulder. Hunter shot it a half-hearted glare. It was surprisingly nice to have a palisman, but Hunter just knew it was making fun of him sometimes. As much as he wanted to know what it was saying, he was resigned to eventually hearing a lot of judgement.

Not that he didn’t deserve it. But still.

Hunter took a deep breath and refocused on the door. Which Eve was behind. Right.

He shifted the bowl to one hand, and used his other to knock hesitantly.

“Um, you can come in,” Eve’s voice floated out.

Hunter took one more deep breath, and entered.

Eve went still when she saw him, and he stopped a few steps into the room. She looked like she hadn’t been expecting him – obviously, because until now Eda had been the one delivering her meals and Hunter had volunteered on the spur of the moment.

She also looked better than she had when she first arrived, but that wasn’t hard. She was mostly wrapped up in a blanket, but most of her visible skin was swathed in bandages, hiding the injuries that had been on full display before. Though, even with the bandages on her face, she still looked strikingly like Eda.

“Uh,” Hunter said, shifting on his feet. “Hi. I’m Hunter.”

Eve stared at him, and it felt like her eyes were boring into his, deep into his very soul.

Then she blinked, and tilted her head a little. “Hello,” she said. “I’m Eve.”

“Uh, yeah,” Hunter said awkwardly. “I know. I, uh, brought your dinner.”

“Okay,” Eve said, holding out her hands. The bandaged stumps of her fingers looked bulky and ungainly, and Hunter was careful not to touch them as he handed her the bowl.

He wondered if she was in pain, or if she was on a potion for it. He hoped she was on a potion.

Hunter stood awkwardly for a moment, before his palisman gave him a pointed nudge. Mentally grumbling, Hunter cleared his throat.

“I –” he said, and briefly faltered as Eve looked up at him. He looked away and managed to continue. “I’m, um, Eda’s – son.”

It was strange to hear it out loud. To say it himself. Hunter couldn’t help but expect someone to say ‘what are you talking about, of course you aren’t,’ even though he logically knew no one at the Owl House would. They all accepted Eda’s declaration that Hunter was her son, even though no one had even known about him two months ago.

Hunter still couldn’t understand it. He was starting to think he never would.

“You are?” Eve said. She tilted her head slightly. “That means…Eda is your parent.”

“…Yeah,” Hunter said softly. “It does. She is.”

Eve nodded, then said, “Um. What is a parent?”

…Oh. Right. Grimwalker.

“It’s…” Hunter said, fumbling for words. “Um, she – she takes care of me whenever she can, and teaches me how to do things – not just fighting or magic, but just…life things. How to live and do normal-person things. And she –” Hunter swallowed as he remembered the order to run, “She protects me. She always does her best to protect me. Because she loves me.”

Hunter’s throat felt raw, for some reason. He stared at the wall as Eve seemed to mull this over.

“Okay,” Eve said at last. “That sounds nice.”

Hunter couldn’t seem to speak, so he just nodded.

“How did she become your parent?” Eve asked.

“I’m…not really sure, myself,” Hunter admitted.

“Oh,” Eve said. She looked…sort of sad. “Okay.”

Hunter swallowed, and looked at the floor. He thought about what Eve’s life had been like so far. Uncle Belos had made her, and hurt her, and she had broken out because any sort of life had to be better than the only one she’d ever known, and now she was safe but she didn’t even know what a parent was.

“I’m sorry,” Hunter managed. “For what – happened to you. What he did to you.”

Hunter looked back at her to see that she was studying him with unblinking eyes.

“…He did it to you too, didn’t he?” Eve said.

Hunter’s hand came up to touch the scar on his cheek without much thought. He knew it was eye-catching, knew that most people who knew what Uncle the Emperor was actually like would guess what had happened, but even Eda hadn’t said it so directly.

“Not –” Hunter swallowed. “Not as much as he did to you. But…yeah.”

Eve nodded slowly. She ate a spoonful of soup and looked back at him.

“How did you get out?” she asked.

“Eda,” Hunter said. “She – she saved me. More than once.”

Every time he’d gone to that place by the stream, in fact. Every time he had almost been suffocated under the weight of Uncle’s expectations. Every time he’d felt afraid, or alone, or worthless. Every time, Eda had been there to tell him, both in word and deed, that she wouldn’t leave him.

Hunter wouldn’t know what unconditional love was like without her. It was – it was terrifying, and confusing, and frankly most of the time Hunter still couldn’t quite believe it, but…he was starting to. He was starting to.

She wasn’t even angry with him for fucking up over Eclipse Lake. Disappointed, yes, but – she wasn’t going to hurt him, no matter what his instincts tried to insist, no matter how terrified he’d been in the moment. She was like that. She never punished him when he made mistakes and that was terrible discipline but he – he couldn’t help but be grateful for it.

“She’s…good,” Hunter said, failing completely at the task of conveying just how much Eda had done for him. “She’s just – really good, Eve. I promise she’s the best person to help you. And she will help you, as long as you need it. Just like she helped me.”

Eve gave another slow nod. “Okay. I’m…glad? I think? I don’t know what glad is like. But I think it might be this.”

“Okay,” Hunter said, lamely. His heart was beating fast, for some reason, and his palisman nestled against his jaw. The point of stability let him forge forward. “It’s good that you – can feel those things now.”

Eve ate more soup, then looked back up at him. “How long did it take for you, to feel okay most of the time?”

“I…”

Hunter couldn’t breathe, for some reason. He was – he was trying, but his lungs weren’t cooperating, and for some reason he kept flashing back to earlier in the afternoon, when Eda had said that they were going back to the Owl House and he’d wanted to bolt, fly away as fast as he could, and it had taken everything he had to go near her and accept his punishment and I’m sorry Uncle –

“Oh,” Eve murmured. It was just enough, along with his palisman’s insistent snuggling, to pull him back to the present.

He looked at Eve, and wished he hadn’t, because her expression was so understanding it all but flayed him to the bone.

“I’m sorry,” Eve said. “For what he did to you.”

There was a lump in Hunter’s throat. He had to swallow twice before he managed to say, “It’s not – you – you had it a lot worse than me. You don’t have to be sorry.”

Eve hesitated.

“…I want to be sorry, though,” she said after a few moments. She glanced at him, and seemed to take courage from that somehow. “Eda says it’s okay for me to want things now. So I want to be sorry for you. I think there’s enough for both of us, even if I did have it worse.”

Hunter was shaking.

He was shaking, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to stop.

“I –” Hunter said, his voice cracking, barely aware of the soft feathers brushing against his neck, “I have to go.”

Then he turned around and sprinted out of the room.

Hunter wasn’t entirely sure how he managed to get to the basement, but that’s where he wound up. He was curled up on his mattress, desperately trying to get his breathing under control, barely aware of anything else.

It was just too much. Looking at Eve, Hunter couldn’t deny the cruelty of the man he called Uncle. Every wound was wrong, undeniably so, inflicted to cause pain and suffering on an innocent woman who wasn’t even allowed to know anything else, all because she looked like someone Uncle hated. Everything he had done to Eve was horrible, and cruel, and wrong.

…So why did part of Hunter still care about him?

He couldn’t tell anyone. He couldn’t. Everyone in the Owl House despised Belos, and with good reason. Hunter couldn’t admit that part of him still loved the man. They would never, ever trust him again.

It took a while – he wasn’t sure how long – before he realized (or, really, remembered) that he wasn’t alone.

His palisman was cuddled up next to him, brushing softly against his face. Occasionally it would run its beak through his hair, as if grooming him.

“Oh,” Hunter mumbled. His throat felt dry, and he had to swallow before he spoke again. “You stuck with me this whole time, huh, bird?”

“Yes!” The cardinal tweeted.

Hunter stilled, eyes locking in the bird.

“That,” he said, barely able to believe it, “I think I understood that?”

The palisman straightened up, and puffed out its – no, his, Hunter could tell without learning directly, somehow – chest. “Good! My Hunter can understand me now! I am Flapjack!”

“Flapjack,” Hunter repeated. What a strange word. He had no idea what a ‘flapjack’ was. “That’s your name?”

“Yes!” His palisman – his palisman, for real now – bounced in place a little. “Love you!”

Hunter choked on air. “You – what?”

Flapjack twittered in a way that sounded suspiciously like laughter. “Love you. My Hunter, I love you.”

“I, uh,” Hunter stuttered. He could feel the blush rising in his cheeks. Eda was the only other person who had ever said that to him, and even then it had taken her years to warm up to him enough. But here was Flapjack, who had only known him a bare few weeks, and he was just – saying this.

Flapjack let out another twittering laugh, but it didn’t sound mean. It sounded fond. “My Hunter very lovable.”

…Hunter was starting to regret looking forward to understanding his palisman so much. At this rate, he was going to burst a blood vessel within the next hour.

Thankfully, he was saved from having to come up with an intelligent reply by the clatter of feet on the basement stairs.

“Hunter?” Luz said. She reached the bottom a moment later, and beamed when she saw him. “Hey! You coming to dinner?”

“Oh,” Hunter said. Right, that was a thing that was happening right now. “Um, maybe not yet.”

“Okay,” Luz said, and Hunter hoped that would be the end of it.

He should have known better than to hope when it came to Luz of all people, though. She strolled over and sat down next to him on the mattress, tilting her head at him, expression open and curious. Sometimes Hunter wondered if she had ever said a single falsehood in her entire life.

“Whatcha doing?” Luz asked.

“…Talking to Flapjack,” Hunter admitted. He held out his hand, and the cardinal hopped onto it. “I can understand him now.”

“Oh gosh, Hunter, that’s great!” Luz gushed. She put both her hands on her cheeks and bent down to get a better look. “And Flapjack? That’s his name?”

“Yeah,” Hunter said, petting Flapjack’s head with a finger. “I don’t know what it means.”

“You don’t?” Luz glanced at him curiously. “It’s a kind of pancake.”

“What’s a pancake?”

“A – food? Do you not have pancakes in the Demon Realm? I know you have waffles…”

“What’s a waffle?” Hunter asked, increasingly bewildered.

“Oh come on, Eda makes them all the…” Luz paused, and then tapped her finger on her chin. “…Actually, Eda could’ve gotten that waffle press of hers from the Human Realm. Maybe you don’t have waffles or pancakes here.”

“Pretty sure we don’t,” Hunter said.

“Huh,” Luz said. Then she brightened. “Well, that just means I can introduce you to them! They’re really good. And I can make flapjacks for you to eat with Flapjack!” She stopped, and blinked. “Wait, how is he named Flapjack when there aren’t flapjacks in the Demon Realm?”

“Uh, I don’t know,” Hunter said. He looked down at Flapjack. “Buddy?”

Flapjack looked up at him, then looked away.

“My Hunter not my first bonded,” Flapjack said, after a moment. “My Hunter…please not ask more.”

“Oh,” Hunter said, his chest squeezing a little. He’d more or less known that Flapjack had had a witch before him, because that was basically the entire point of the whole Palisman Adoption Day event, but it was always some nebulous concept before. Now, though, it was obvious that Flapjack had loved his witch dearly, and just as obvious that they – weren’t around anymore. “Yeah, of course. Sorry.” He glanced at Luz. “He doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“Huh, okay,” Luz said. “But I can still make you flapjacks, right?”

“Sure?” Hunter said, glancing at his palisman. There was no objection, so he nodded. “Sure, I’d like that.”

“Great!” Luz said, smiling. Then she – paused, and looked away. “That’s great.”

“…Something wrong?” Hunter asked.

Luz gave a small sigh. “…I just miss the Human Realm.”

“Oh,” Hunter said awkwardly. He couldn’t really relate. He didn’t miss the castle at all.

“Well, more like my mom,” Luz said, pulling up her knees to her chin. “I miss her, you know?”

“What? No, I don’t,” Hunter said at once, his heartbeat kicking up. “Who would I miss?”

“Oh, yeah,” Luz said with a wince. “I guess you don’t know. Not like you’d miss Belos.”

“Definitely not,” Hunter said. Somehow, he managed to keep his voice at an even pitch.

“I guess it’s like – imagine you got separated from Eda,” Luz said. She laid her arm on her knees and pillowed her head on it, looking at him. “And the place you end up in is great – actually, it’s really great, so much better that what you left in almost every way.” She paused, and swallowed. “But there’s still that almost. So you want to get back, because she’s not there. Just because your mom isn’t there.”

“…I guess that would be pretty rough,” Hunter said, trying to imagine that. The closest he could come was picturing if Eda worked in the castle, somehow (she would leave it a smoking ruin by the end of her first week, but if he ignored that), and if the Owl House existed separately from her. If he still managed to escape and end up here…yeah, he would absolutely try to go back for her.

“Yeah,” Luz sighed. Then she took a deep breath, straightened up, and put on a determined expression. “But it will work! We’ll find Titan’s Blood somehow, and we’ll get that portal working!”

Hunter could only nod. He wished he could be as sure of it as Luz was.

After another few minutes where Luz cooed over Flapjack, she went back upstairs while promising to tell everyone he was exploring his new bond. Hunter was left alone with Flapjack.

He saw no reason not to do exactly as Luz said, so he spent most of the next hour getting to know his palisman. Flapjack was tight-lipped (tight-beaked?) on a few subjects, like his former witch and his exact age, but Hunter could hardly throw stones there. He didn’t know his own exact age, either – the day he’d claimed as his birthday was actually just the day he’d woken up from the coma resulting from the attack that had claimed his parents. Belos hadn’t known his birth date, either, so they just used that day for convenience. It wasn’t like it was important, or anything.

But back to Flapjack. The bird had lived with the Bat Queen for a long time, and had a lot of stories to tell. He explained how the Bat Queen had managed to produce her children (Hunter had always wondered about that), what a typical day in the forest was like, and the reaction from all the palismen when Hexside reached out to set up Palisman Adoption Day. Flapjack had actually only attended out of curiosity, and hadn’t expected to find a new witch, but…he had. In the end, he had.

“Very happy I went,” Flapjack said, nuzzling Hunter’s wrist. “Love my Hunter.”

“Oh,” Hunter said, and he would deny to his dying day that his throat was choked up. “Um. Okay. I, uh. I guess I also…um, I mean –”

Flapjack let out another one of his twittering laughs, but again, it wasn’t mean-spirited. “Okay if my Hunter can’t say it yet. Not bad. My Hunter is good.”

Hunter’s throat closed up again, and he looked away.

“…I’m not, though,” he said, very quietly, like the rest of the house would hear him if he was any louder. “I’m really – really not.”

Because Flapjack didn’t know what he’d done. Oh, he knew the broad strokes, but he didn’t know everything. Not even close. All the lives Hunter had destroyed, all the witches he’d helped imprison, all the palismen he’d helped kill. All at the behest of a monster he still had the audacity to miss.

Flapjack puffed up, and he looked ready to say something emphatic, but then there was the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

“Hunter, if you’re doing something illegal down here,” Eda said as she came into view, “I’m very proud but you have to let me have a cut too – aw, nothing?”

Despite himself, Hunter’s mouth tugged into a smile. “No, sorry. Just talking to Flapjack.”

“Yeah, Luz told me,” Eda said. She came over and sat down on the mattress next to him, where Luz had been just an hour before, and waved at Flapjack. “Hey there. Glad to finally have a name for you.”

“Hello!” Flapjack said, turning to peer at her with his one good eye. He hadn’t said what had happened to his other one, and Hunter hadn’t asked. Not like he wanted to explain how he got his scars. “Nice meet Owlmother! Thanks for taking care of my Hunter.”

That startled a laugh out of Hunter. “That’s what you call her?”

Flapjack tilted his head. “Yes? Owlmother is good mother, also owl. Obvious name.”

“Oh blushing mother of Titan, what does he call me?” Eda asked. “Do I want to know?”

“Uh,” Hunter said, averting his eyes and feeling a burn rising in his cheeks. “…Owlmother.”

“Huh,” Eda said. She tilted her head, before nodding. “Well, he’s not wrong. And it’s better than I expected, honestly. I’m pretty sure Lily’s palisman still calls me ‘Hothead.’”

“Well,” Hunter said, emboldened by the relaxed atmosphere. “He’s not wrong.”

“Quiet, you,” Eda said, but she said it playfully, not at all like Uncle someone else would.

Hunter made himself laugh to take his mind off things he’d rather not think about. “What does Owlbert call everyone?”

“Well,” Eda said, “Lily is Nestmate, King is Softfur, Eve is Bonedaughter, Luz is Linespeaker, and you, mister, are Woodson.”

“Ah,” Hunter said. “Because we kept meeting in the woods?”

“Yep,” Eda chuckled. “Little outdated now, but Owlbert can be stubborn when he wants. No idea where he got that from.”

“Of course,” Hunter said dryly. He considered the other names. Lilith and King’s were obvious, Eve’s was something he understood but didn’t particularly want to think about, but… “Why ‘Linespeaker’?”

“The glyphs,” Eda explained. “Owlbert’s pretty impressed with them, even if he doesn’t have the patience to draw them himself.”

“Right, of course,” Hunter nodded. He was learning glyphs himself, and it really was a fascinating subject. Luz had been incredibly patient as he scrambled to catch up to her. He petted Flapjack, who nuzzled into his hand, as he continued. “She’s amazing with them. She keeps coming up with new approaches for the portal; I can barely understand some of them.”

“Right,” Eda said, and there was – there was a slightly off note in her voice. “The portal. She’s really working hard on that.”

Alarms started going off in Hunter’s head.

He and Lilith hadn’t made much progress on figuring out what was wrong with Eda. Well, there was the obvious problem of needing to do too much for everyone, which they were helping to obviate somewhat, but sometimes it felt like there was something else going on, as well. They had tried to investigate, but clues were thin on the ground.

The initial indication that had prompted Lilith to temporarily move back to the Owl House had been prompted by King’s comment about his longevity, which implied that Eda was worried about his lifespan. Hunter couldn’t exactly blame her, given that apparently, no one knew what King’s species was. He wasn’t in any demon compendium Hunter had looked through, and neither he nor Lilith had ever come across anything like King. Which was incredibly fascinating in an academic sense, but also actually kind of terrifying in the sense where they basically knew nothing about him. No wonder Eda worried about him so much.

They had exactly one piece of evidence to go on – or Hunter did, anyways. He hadn’t told Lilith that Eda had managed to make a magic-enhancement potion out of King’s blood and fur, because Hunter wasn’t stupid enough to spread that around. Eda had asked him not to tell, and as far as Hunter knew they were the only people who knew about it. Even King didn’t know.

And Hunter would be inclined to think that the reason for Eda’s stress was the secret of what unscrupulous people could do with King, except that sometimes her reactions indicated a completely different secret she was hiding. Such as now.

“…Eda?” Hunter said carefully. “Is something wrong?”

Eda tilted her head. “Well,” she said, “Aside from Luz running herself ragged to make that portal, the whole Grimwalker thing, deprogramming you and Lily, keeping certain potion ingredients secret, not having magic anymore, figuring out what’ll actually happen on the Day of Unity, and the Emperor personally wanting everyone in my house dead – not really, no. Why d’you ask?”

“…Okay, dumb question,” Hunter admitted. “But…is there anything else? Something you’re not saying, I mean. Sometimes it – it seems like there might be?”

He didn’t mean to make it sound like a question, really, but that’s what it came out as. He managed not to wince.

There was a flicker of something on Eda’s face, almost too fast to catch.

“Nope,” she said.

“I –” Hunter said, and swallowed. He pulled Flapjack closer to his chest, taking comfort from the softness of his feathers. “I think there is, though. And I want to help. Not just to make things easier, but to make things easier for you. You’re – Alberta, you’ve helped me so much, and whatever it is, you can trust me, I won’t tell –!”

“I said no, Hunter!” Eda snapped, and Hunter –

flinched.

It wasn’t on purpose. It wasn’t rational. It was just that Uncle’s voice had that exact timbre when his patience was finally stretched to the breaking point, when Hunter realized he’d gone too far and crossed the line from ‘annoying’ to ‘insufferable’. It was often the only warning he got before Uncle lashed out, and so it was instinct to brace himself for the strike –

Only to remember, a split-second later, that this wasn’t Uncle. This was Alberta Eda, who had never hurt him even when he deserved it, who loved him like he was her own son, who had nearly died to protect him.

Who was staring at him, eyes wide and body utterly still, as he braced himself for a blow from someone who wasn’t here.

The silence hung, heavy and tense, poised on the edge of a knife.

Very, very slowly, Eda let out a breath.

“Hunter,” she said, very carefully, like he was a wild animal about to bolt, “I…I’m sorry I scared you.”

Hunter realized his body was still tensed, and hastily drew back. He felt his face burning, and clutched Flapjack closer to his chest.

“My Hunter scared?” Flapjack chirped, sounding concerned. “Keep my Hunter safe. Safe now, safe.”

“It’s not your fault!” Hunter hurried to assure Eda, ignoring Flapjack for now. “It’s really not – I overreacted, I’m sorry, I –”

“Hunter,” Eda said, gently but firmly, and Hunter’s mouth closed like a fairy trap. “I scared you. I shouldn’t have done that. I didn’t think, and – I scared you. I’m sorry.”

Hunter swallowed. “It’s okay. Really.”

“It’s not, actually,” Eda said. Her eyes were luminous gold and cool silver as they looked at him with breathtaking intensity, and her only hand worried at the edge of her dress. “Because you thought I was going to hurt you, and that’s – horrible, but you were – you were going to let me, weren’t you?”

Hunter hesitated for long enough to be an answer in itself.

“…Fuck, Hunter,” Eda said, and she sounded so choked up that Hunter had to say something.

“It’s not your fault,” he repeated. “I promise, it’s not your fault, I just – it’s just –”

“Oh, I know exactly whose fault it is,” Eda said, her voice black as pitch, an undercurrent of an animalistic growl lurking below. “If I ever see that shitstain again…”

If Uncle and Eda were ever in the same place again, Uncle would kill her easily and they both knew it, but Hunter didn’t say anything. Sometimes Eda needed some time to rant before cooling off.

It took several seconds for Eda to visibly wrestle her temper back under control. Hunter avoided looking at her and focused on petting Flapjack. It was soothing. He could see why people liked having a palisman (he could see, now, what he’d helped destroy all those years).

“…Hunter,” Eda said, and he looked at her. “I need you to promise me something.”

“Of course,” Hunter said instantly. Whatever Eda needed, he would do it. Simple as that.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Eda said. She paused, and swallowed. “I don’t want to hurt you, and I don’t ever intend to. But we both know what intentions count for, when shit hits the fan. So if I ever look like I’m going to hurt you – if I lose control of the Owl Beast, if I’m hit with a bodyswap or possession or mind control or whatever – or if you even just think I’m going to hurt you, I need you to promise that you won’t let me. Run away, if you can. Fight, if you have to. Just don’t let me hurt you. You got that?”

Hunter didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure he could.

“Hunter,” Eda said, and she looked so serious, he’d only ever seen the this serious when they were in front of Uncle and she told him to leave her behind, he hated that she was this serious, “Do you understand?”

“I –” Hunter managed, “I understand.”

But her face didn’t change. “I need you to say it.”

“What?”

“Say it, Hunter,” Eda closed her eyes briefly, before opening them again. “Please say it.”

“I…” Hunter said, and swallowed. He looked down. “If you…if it looks like you’re going to hurt me, I’ll run away. If I can. And if – if I can’t run…I’ll fight.”

He felt more than saw Eda slump in relief. Hunter kept his eyes down, mindlessly petting Flapjack. The little bird peered up at him solemnly, before rubbing his head against Hunter’s chest.

“Good,” Eda said. “That’s good, Hunter.”

“Yeah,” Hunter mumbled.

There was a sort of hesitant pause, and Hunter saw Eda shift from the corner of his eye.

“…You wanna talk about anything, kid?” she said.

“…No.”

“Okay,” Eda said. She paused, then continued. “Thanks for promising me that. It’s – important.”

“I know,” Hunter said. He resisted the urge to look at her. “It’s a good thing.”

“Yeah,” Eda said. “It’s really – I love you a lot, okay? So I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then why did Uncle –”

Hunter snapped his traitorous mouth shut, but the words were already out.

There was a very, very long moment of silence.

Hunter didn’t move. Couldn’t move. He’d stopped petting Flapjack at some point. He wasn’t sure when that had happened.

He couldn’t believe he’d just – blurted that out. He knew why Uncle had hurt him – it wasn’t like Eve, who was tortured for no reason. With Hunter, it was always either discipline or due to the curse. It wasn’t like he’d wanted to hurt Hunter. No matter how often it happened. Or how much it hurt. Or how many scars he gained.

And the question veered far too close to implying that Hunter still cared about the Emperor. That he missed him. Hunter shouldn’t miss him. He knew that. He knew that.

At last, Eda let out a long, tired sigh.

“…Hunter,” she said. “Can you look at me?”

Hunter would do anything Eda asked of him, which would have included dying if he didn’t know she would absolutely never want that. But at the moment, he almost felt like dying would be easier than lifting up his eyes to meet hers.

That was being melodramatic, though, so he went ahead and did so.

Her eyes looked just as tired as her voice sounded, but her tone was gentle as she spoke. “You were right, y’know. About me having some secrets I haven’t told people.”

Hunter’s interest sharpened, and he straightened his posture a little.

“Oh?” he said.

“Yeah,” Eda said. She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “One of them is about you.”

Hunter blinked, caught completely off-guard. “It…is?”

“Yep,” Eda said. “Sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. It was just…a lot to take in. But you deserve to know, so…”

Hunter absorbed that. He felt Flapjack shift in his hand, and he glanced down at the bird. Flapjack looked almost tense, glancing between Eda and Hunter with his one good eye. Hunter petted him a little in the hopes of calming him down, before returning his attention to Eda.

“…Okay,” he said. “Um. What is it, then?”

Eda pulled in a breath, and held it for a few seconds. She looked like she was on the edge of a cliff, gathering the courage to jump off, her staff nowhere in sight.

It was an incredibly disconcerting look on her. Hunter couldn’t remember ever seeing her like this before, not in all the years he’d known her. Eda, for all that anyone could say about her, had never lacked in confidence.

“Eda?” Hunter said uncertainly.

“Belos isn’t actually your Uncle; you’re a Grimwalker just like Eve,” Eda said, all in a single breath, words rushed out like they could race past him too fast to hear.

And for a moment, they actually were. Hunter heard them, but they didn’t make any sense, just a collection of syllables all strung together and unable to convey any information.

Then he processed the meanings held within the noise, and he –

He was –

“…What?” Hunter heard someone say. It might have been him.

Eda looked exhausted, and guilty, and sad, all at once. “I’m sorry, kid,” she said.

“I,” Hunter said. There was a distant sort of ringing in his ears, and it felt like his voice was coming from far away. “I don’t – what are you talking about?”

“You’re a Grimwalker, Hunter,” Eda said, as if that made any sort of sense.

“No?” Hunter said. He wasn’t sure why it came out as a question. “No, I’m not.”

“You are,” Eda said. “I’m sorry, but you are.”

“No, I’m not,” Hunter repeated. It felt ridiculous that he had to repeat it, that he had to say something so obvious not once but multiple times.

“Hunter –”

“I’m not!”

Hunter didn’t realize he’d scrambled to his feet until Flapjack chirped in alarm as he tumbled out of Hunter’s hand. Eda was eyeing him warily from her position still on the mattress.

Carefully, Eda levered herself up onto her feet, and held out her hand in a ‘wait’ gesture as she straightened up. “Hey,” she said, “I know this is a pretty big shock, but –”

“You’re lying,” Hunter interrupted. He felt too hot, all of a sudden, like he was standing too close to a bonfire. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not –”

“Yes you are!” Hunter shouted. Flapjack fluttered around him, twittering worriedly, but Hunter didn’t pay him any attention. Couldn’t, really. All he could focus on was his own too-fast heartbeat, and Eda, Alberta, who kept trying to say the most nonsensical thing Hunter had ever heard, because – “Of course he’s my uncle, he’s always been my Uncle!”

“He’s not.” Eda said. “Hunter, I’m sorry, but he’s not your –”

“Shut up!”

Hunter couldn’t seem to catch his breath, heart beating irregularly, and he was still much too hot. Maybe he was shaking, too? He wasn’t – he didn’t –

Eda muttered something under her breath – maybe a curse word – and then said, a little louder, “Hunter –”

“I said shut up!” Hunter yelled. Everything was too much, too loud even though they were insulated from the rest of the house and too bright even though the light was all but swallowed up by the dimness of the basement. “He is my Uncle, he’s my family, he loves me and I love him and you – you’re not my mother, my mother is dead –”

Eda flinched at that, very slightly. Part of Hunter hated that, seeing that he’d hurt her with his words, but the rest of him, carried along in the storm of rage-fear-pain, growled in vicious satisfaction.

“I hate you,” Hunter said, the words flung at her, meant to hurt more because how dare she try to say his blood family didn’t even exist, “I hate you, I hate you, I wish I’d never rescued you, then I’d still be with Uncle and –”

And he would kill me if I ever yelled at him like this.

The thought struck him like a frightening bolt out of a clear blue sky. It wasn’t a shout, but a murmur. Nevertheless, it stopped every other thought in his head, crashing into a sudden wall. Hunter went utterly still, arms falling to his sides, all the frenetic energy from just a few seconds ago lost entirely.

If I ever yelled at Uncle the way I’m yelling at Eda now, he would kill me. He would kill me.

He would. He actually, genuinely would. Hunter knew that. He knew it in his bones, in his soul, so thoroughly it was undeniable. If Hunter had ever possessed the terminal stupidity to scream at Uncle that he was wrong, he would be dead now.

Eda, on the other hand, didn’t make the slightest indication that she wanted that. She looked like Hunter had stabbed her, actually, like he had ripped out her heart and stomped on it, but not like she wanted to hurt him for it.

She swallowed, and said, unsteadily, “Hunter.”

Hunter turned and ran.

**********

The creek was the same as it ever was.

Some part of Hunter had expected it to be different. So much of his life had changed since he’d last come here. He had learned Alberta’s real name, betrayed the Emperor to save her, moved to the Owl House, gained actual friends, and started to live instead of just survive. He wouldn’t have known the difference, before, but now he did.

Hunter’s entire world had changed so much, but this place hadn’t. There was something comforting about that, and also something off-putting about it as well. It felt like this was a liminal space, separate from the real world, a place where nothing could intrude and drag him back to reality.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t drag reality into it, though.

Hunter sat in front of Alberta’s Eda’s shrine. It was even more run-down than when he’d first found it, but she never once mentioned wanting to fix it up. The objects inside glinted in the last rays of evening light. Even now, with the clear disrepair, it was obvious how much care Eda had put into it, how much she’d loved the child she’d never even gotten to meet.

Hunter wondered if Belos would have made even a tenth as much effort for him. Him, a Grimwalker who had been entirely disposable in the end.

It made sense, was the thing. Once he stopped and sat down and actually thought about it, it made so much sense.

Belos had never spoken about ‘their’ family in detail – had never even given the names of his ‘parents’. He had always rebuffed Hunter’s efforts to learn more, to the point where Hunter had gradually stopped trying. Hunter had long ago settled into thinking of any blood relatives outside of Belos as a vague, indistinct concept. At this point, it would have been more of a surprise to actually learn any concrete facts about them.

Hunter had cursed the fact that he couldn’t remember them, because he had only actually started to live in the castle when he was around eleven. He’d woken from his coma, and Belos had said that his memory must have been damaged in the ‘wild magic attack’. Hunter knew that most people didn’t retain much of their childhoods, but he didn’t retain anything. It was like – like he hadn’t even lived before his time in the castle, with Belos. Like his life before didn’t just not matter, but not exist.

Because it hadn’t.

Belos had sometimes spoken of how much trouble it would be to replace Hunter, and often that would be a comfort to him – but sometimes, he couldn’t help but hear the underlying implication that he could be replaced. He had always thought of that as normal – because Hunter was only really exceptional in terms of what he could do for his age. Plenty of adult Coven members could do what he did, and could do it better because they had their own magic, so Hunter had to work ten times as hard on absolutely everything because he could not fail at anything. If he failed, that would make Belos want to replace him with someone better.

A better version. A better Grimwalker.

That’s what he was. A Grimwalker.

Hunter huddled in front of Eda’s shrine to her lost child, and couldn’t deny it any longer.

He was a Grimwalker. Belos wasn’t his uncle, he was his creator. Hunter wasn’t important or special or loved by Belos – he was simply a passing amusement, a copy of some wild witch long executed, a private joke told whenever Hunter would prove pathetically loyal and biddable when his progenitor probably would have been rebellious and independent and a far, far better person.

He didn’t doubt that, honestly. Hunter had learned that he wasn’t a good person – part of the realization was that it had taken him so Titan-damned long to learn it. He’d helped hurt and kill witches and palismen for years before realizing hey, maybe this is wrong? There wasn’t any doubt that he was a bad person.

The witch he was made from must have been good, though. They must have been. Belos couldn’t have made a Grimwalker out of every witch he executed – there were just too many of them, and most had been petrified besides. He probably only made Grimwalkers of those witches who had personally offended him.

Like Eda.

Eve was…very different from Eda. Similar in some ways, like her inexplicable compassion and understanding towards him, but in most ways they were total opposites. Where Eda was bold, Eve was shy. Where Eda was outgoing, Eve was deeply introverted. Where Eda was snarky, Eve was literal. Where Eda was confident, Eve was painfully uncertain. Hunter couldn’t be sure how much of that was intentional by Belos, but he had to assume it wasn’t none.

Which meant, logically enough, that whoever Hunter had been made from was his exact opposite. Kind instead of callous. Cautious instead of reckless. Intuitive instead of ruinously unobservant. Competent instead of not. Successful instead of an incurable fuck-up.

Appreciative of the people who loved him, instead of willing to throw them away the moment they said something he didn’t like.

Hunter had hurt Eda. He’d hurt her so much, refuted every bit of love she’d ever given him, told her he hated her, all because she’d told him the truth. The truth Hunter was too blind to see all these years, the truth he should have known by now: Belos had never loved him.

Eda had. Eda had loved him so, so much, and then he’d ruined it over a man who’d probably intended to kill him this whole time.

“My Hunter go home?” Flapjack said, hopping into view. “Getting late.”

Hunter looked wearily at the little bird. Flapjack had stayed silent up until now, letting Hunter stew in his own failures. Why couldn’t he have kept doing that?

“I can’t go back,” Hunter said.

“Can,” Flapjack said. He fluttered up to perch on Hunter’s knee, and tilted his head. “My Hunter go back, eat food, be with family. My Hunter be happier.”

Hunter flinched slightly. “I can’t, Flap,” he said, the nickname slipping out almost without thought. “I just – I hurt Eda. I yelled at her. She won’t forgive me for that. She shouldn’t.”

Flapjack peered at him. “Why?”

“Because!” Hunter said. “Because I’m not useful anymore! Anything I can do for her, someone else can, or she can do it herself. When I tried rescuing her from petrification, I made it worse, and she had to sacrifice herself for me! When I tried to get Titan’s Blood from Eclipse Lake, she had to come and drag us back before we got ourselves blown up! And now –” the words stuck in his throat, but he forced himself to go on anyways, “Now I destroyed the last valuable thing about me. All I had left to offer was being her son, because she wanted that for some reason, but I just – threw that away. I told her I wasn’t, and now she – she –”

“Still wants you, kid.”

Hunter almost fell over as he twisted around, eyes wide. He must have been hallucinating Eda’s voice, because there was nothing he wanted to hear more than that, but it wasn’t like she would say that. It must have been a hallucination.

Except – she was there.

Eda stood at the treeline, head tilted slightly, hand on her hip, like this was just another one of their bimonthly meetings. The look in her eyes was achingly soft, and it made Hunter want to curl up in her lap and fall asleep to the soothing sensation of her petting his hair. It had only happened once, when he’d been absolutely exhausted by running three different missions back to back, and she had practically ordered him to sit down and take a nap already, she was practically falling asleep just looking at him, really, Hunter, you’re going to trip on those eyebags of yours one day.

She had made him lie down despite his protests, and he had more or less passed out within a minute of doing so. But in his last moments of consciousness, he remembered toppling sideways onto her lap, being too exhausted to jump up and apologize like he should have. And instead of pushing him off, Eda had instead run her hand through his hair in the gentlest way possible.

It had put him to sleep very quickly – so quickly he could only actually remember a few seconds of the action, and occasionally wondered if he’d made the whole thing up. But it had lingered with him, all this time.

“Alberta?” Hunter said, and then winced. He didn’t deserve to call her that anymore. He threw it away. “Eda?”

“Either’s fine, Hunter,” Eda said, strolling forward. “Told you I’d always be Alberta to you. I meant that.”

“I…” Hunter said, feeling off-balance. That was…really not what he’d expected her to say. “But I said…”

“That you hate me?” Eda said, and Hunter flinched. But Eda just – shrugged. “Yeah, so what? You’re a teenager. I told my parents I hated them at least once a week when I was your age. Honestly, your responsible goody-two-shoes act was getting kind of weird. I’ve been waiting on your teenage rebellion stage for a while now.”

“Teenage rebellion stage?” Hunter repeated, utterly bewildered. “That’s a thing?”

“Sure is!” Eda said, winking at him. “Not so much for me, cuz I was born a rebel, but even Lily got a little wild in her teen years. What with the whole curse thing, and all. You got off to a great start with the whole ‘betraying the Emperor’s Coven and breaking out the Isles’ most wanted criminal from jail’, so I was kinda expecting this.” She paused, and her voice got a little softer. “And it was a pretty big shock.”

Hunter looked down at his knees again. That might have been a mistake, because Flapjack was still there. The bird looked up at him, and hopped closer to his hands. He rubbed against Hunter’s fingers.

“My Hunter scared, sad, hurt,” Flapjack said. “Not bad. Not bad.”

There was a lump in Hunter’s throat. The world was blurry, so he closed his eyes.

“He would have killed me if I yelled at him like that,” Hunter said.

Neither Flapjack or Eda said anything. He took that as a cue to continue.

“That’s what I realized, that made me run away. He would have killed me if he was in your place. He would have. Because he didn’t – he didn’t love me. He didn’t see me as family. He never did. Because I’m not his family. I’m not even a person.”

“…Oh tired mother of Titan, not you too,” Eda said.

Hunter blinked and looked up at her, because that wasn’t exactly what he’d expected her to say. “What?”

Eda pinched the bridge of her nose. She looked exasperated. “Hunter, do you actually believe that you and Eve aren’t people? Be honest.”

“I –” Hunter fumbled. “Well – obviously Eve is, but –”

“Nope,” Eda said, cutting him off. She chopped her hand through the air for emphasis. “Nuh-uh. No saying Eve is a person and you aren’t. You’re both Grimwalkers, so either you’re both people or you’re both not. Which is it?”

“Are!” Flapjack piped up, feathers bristling. He hopped up and down on Hunter’s leg. “Are people! My Hunter is person! Yes, yes!”

“I think Flapjack is pretty adamant about one of the two,” Eda said dryly. “And if you haven’t figured it out yet, so am I.”

“I…” Hunter said, before he realized he couldn’t fight both of them, not on this. He slumped. “Alright, fine, we’re both people. But that doesn’t change that I’m a bad one.”

“Not!” Flapjack said. “Already said. My Hunter not bad. My Hunter need listen better.”

“Hunter,” Eda said. “You were under Belos’ thumb from literally day one. If you’d done anything against him any sooner than you did, you’d – probably be dead now.”

“Yeah, well, maybe that’d be better,” Hunter sniped. “Not like anyone would miss a Grimwalker.”

“I would.”

He looked up to see Eda staring straight at him, firm and unwavering. His throat went dry at the sight.

“…Even if you knew?” Hunter asked. It came out small and uncertain. Weak. He couldn’t bring himself to care.

“Oh, Hunter,” Eda said, and he felt sudden tears prick at his eyes. Belos had said those words before, so many times, but Eda made them sound so unlike how he said it that Hunter couldn’t help but want to curl up and sob. “Hunter, do you remember that time you freaked out and didn’t show up here for six months?”

Hunter winced, because he didn’t like being reminded of that particular bit of idiocy. He’d purposefully missed two entire meetings with Eda, all because of a simple misunderstanding. And that had been when they only had a few stolen hours together every other month, so it had really just been…amazingly stupid of him. “Yes.”

“And,” Eda continued, because apparently she was determined to drag this out, “You remember why you freaked out?”

…Oh.

“…Yes,” Hunter admitted.

“You thought I was using you as a replacement for my lost child,” Eda said anyways. Maybe for Flapjack’s benefit. She sighed, and looked over at the shrine, then back at him. “But I got through to you that I wasn’t doing that. That you aren’t a replacement for anyone. Remember that?”

“…Yeah,” Hunter mumbled. The world was blurry again.

“That’s still true, Hunter,” Eda said gently. “Just because you’re a Grimwalker doesn’t mean you’re a replacement. Eve isn’t me, and you aren’t whoever had your face, either. You’re your own person, and I love you.”

“Yes,” Flapjack said, and Hunter’s vision was still blurry, but he could see the intensity in Flapjack’s eye. “Yes, my Hunter is himself. No one else. Did not choose for face, chose for you. Love you.”

Hunter found he was crying.

“Oh, kiddo,” Eda sighed, and Hunter felt a hand on his back. “C’mere.”

He was pulled sideways until he tipped over, the blurry colors that now made up the world shifting into a new configuration. He didn’t resist, and ended up landing in Eda’s lap. He was probably getting tears and stuff all over her dress, but she didn’t seem to care.

“It’s okay, Hunter,” Eda murmured. He felt her hand running through his hair. “You can cry if you want to. I got you.”

So he did. He cried, and Eda petted his hair, and he thought that it was just as nice as he remembered.

Chapter Text

Luz woke up to her phone buzzing to remind her about her Dad’s death.

So. Great start to the day.

Suddenly wide awake, she fumbled to press the ‘Ignore’ button. The reminder went away from the screen, but it was still there in her head.

…She really wasn’t going to get back to sleep, was she.

Okay, then. Time for working on the portal! And once everything collapsed for the twentieth time in a row and she needed a break before she set everything on fire, she could switch to planning!

There were a lot of plans that needed to be made, honestly. Everyone was really taking things one day at a time, which was fair enough because there had been a lot of stuff going on lately. But Eve was settling in, and Raine had reported the BATTs were making progress on learning about Grimwalkers, and the portal still wasn’t getting anywhere and Lilith was picking up the slack on some of what Eda and Raine had been shouldering by themselves, so they needed to get on top of things and start looking towards the future again! The Day of Unity was getting closer and closer, and they needed to know what was going on with that!

It was super weird how even Hunter and Lilith didn’t know what would happen on the Day of Unity. Luz was pretty suspicious about that. That threw up tons of red flags. Like, so many. All the red flags.

So Luz went downstairs, intent on making progress on the portal and working out the great mystery of the Day of Unity. Maybe she should ask Hooty if there was a chalkboard somewhere.

Except it turned out someone else was already in the living room. Luz blinked at the sight of Hunter, wearing only his pajama bottoms as he worked through some type of – combat drill? He was wielding his staff like he was preparing to fight someone, anyways.

He swept the staff to the side, turning, and caught sight of her. There was a flicker of surprise on his face, and he straightened up.

“Luz,” Hunter said, tilting his head a little. “You’re up early.”

“Speak for yourself,” Luz said, leaning against the doorframe. “Do you do this every morning?”

“Of course,” Hunter said. He looked bewildered at the thought that he wouldn’t. “I may not be in the Emperor’s Coven anymore, but that’s no excuse to slack on my training. But what I meant was, you’re not usually up this early. Did something happen?”

“What? No,” Luz laughed awkwardly. “Pshaw, of course not. I should be asking you that, really. What even happened yesterday with you and Eda?”

Because something had definitely happened yesterday. There had been yelling from the basement after Eda had gone downstairs to properly meet Hunter’s new palisman, though no one had been able to make out any words. Then Hunter had run out of the Owl House, and Eda had followed shortly afterwards. She’d brought Hunter back a couple hours later, after it had grown dark, and he’d been totally knocked out. Eda had put him down in the basement and refused to answer any questions, just pulling that ‘cryptic mysterious mentor’ act she liked to do.

It was a pretty good act, Luz had to admit. Very entertaining. But also aggravating when she actually wanted to know something.

But Hunter looked uncomfortable. “That’s, uh, private,” he said.

“Oh!” Luz said. Well, now she really wanted to know. But boundaries and privacy and all that, so she forced herself to say, “Okay, that’s cool. Totally cool.”

Before Hunter could say anything else, movement caught Luz’s attention from down the hallway. She looked over in time to see Lilith poke her head out of the kitchen.

“Ah, Luz,” Lilith said, coming over to her. “You’re up early.”

“Haha, yep!” Luz said, smiling. She hoped it didn’t come off as awkward as she felt. “Just a change of pace, you know!”

“In that case,” Lilith said, “Would you like to come shopping with me? I was going to prepare breakfast for everyone, but we’re low on groceries.”

“Sure!” Luz said. “I’d love to!”

“Have fun,” Hunter said, slipping back into some kind of martial arts stance, staff held at the ready.

“We’ll be back soon,” Lilith told him.

Luz hoped not. She hoped this would take a good long while.

**********

Shopping was not as much of a distraction as she’d hoped. Fortunately, it didn’t take much prodding for Lilith to launch into one of her rambling lectures on architecture.

“Oh, look there, you can see the influence of the Deadwardian Era in the slope of the roof and the bannisters, but it’s clear that it was built afterwards – there’s so little actual Deadwardian architecture still around, it’s such a shame.”

“Why isn’t there much left?” Luz asked, as Lilith stopped talking to inspect a basket of bloody oranges. “Is it because of the weather here? Eda told me about gorenadoes.”

“Partially,” Lilith confirmed. She moved on from the oranges. “But mostly it was the Savage Ages. The Night of Ashes alone saw the destruction of 54% of Bonesborough.” She sighed mournfully. “Such a waste.”

“Fifty-four percent?” Luz repeated, aghast. “Was it a fire?”

“Arson, but yes,” Lilith hummed as she picked up a cantaloup-garou and checked the fur color. “They never caught the instigator, sadly.”

“So they’re still at large?” Luz asked, her eyes round.

“Hardly,” Lilith said. “That was well over two hundred years ago. They’re probably long gone. Just like Deadwardian-Era architecture.” She sighed again. “What I wouldn’t give to see that! Maybe if I find Time Pools, but…”

“Time Pools?” Luz said. She picked up a carton of griffon eggs and put them in the cart.

“Pools of displaced time!” Lilith said. “Most people think they’re a myth, but there’s evidence that they do actually exist. They form very rarely, and you can’t control when they lead to, but you can go through them and see the past – or even the future.”

“Whoa,” Luz said. “I didn’t know the Boiling Isles had time-travel.” If she went back in time a century, she would get to see these Savage Ages everyone kept talking about. If she went back fifty years, she could defeat Belos before he ever took the throne and messed everything up. If she went back thirty years, she could meet Eda in high school and warn Lilith not to use the curse.

(If she went back ten years, she could use the portal to get home and see –)

“They’ve always been of interest to me,” Lilith said. “I have some data somewhere, tracking when they’ll form, but I, ah, left the castle in such a hurry I have no idea where it ended up.”

“Aw,” Luz said, wrenching her thoughts away from – distracting things. “That’s a bummer.”

“Indeed. There was a time when I hoped –”

“Is my eye deceiving me, or do I see that flower of beauty they call Lily?”

Luz watched as Lilith’s expression froze, and then smoothed out into nonexpressive blankness. It made her look startlingly like she had before leaving the Emperor’s Coven. She turned towards the voice. “Philodendra Wiles.”

A biped demon wandered out of the next aisle, sauntering over to them. She had dark blue skin, a single eye, a flat nose, and a shock of neon green hair. There was a smirk on her face that Luz didn’t like.

“Aw, Lily, I told you, you can call me Denni!” Philodendra said. “Wink!”

She blinked – or Luz guessed it was a wink. She’d never really thought about the logistics of winking when you only had one eye.

“And I told you not to call me Lily,” Lilith said stiffly.

Philodendra laughed, like this was an old joke between them. “Aw, Lily, that was ages ago! You can’t hold that against me now!” Her single eyebrow wiggled on her forehead, like a particularly energetic worm. “I can think of much better things I’d like you to hold against me, anyways.”

Oh, Luz didn’t like this woman. She didn’t like this woman at all.

“I’m in no mood for your antics, Philodendra,” Lilith said. “I’m shopping with my niece right now. I would prefer it if you leave.”

“But I barely get to see you anymore, Lily!” Philodendra said, pouting. “Ever since you left the Emperor’s Coven it’s been so boring. There’s no one left who’s as hot as you.”

Lilith’s jaw clenched, and okay, that was it.

“Hey,” Luz said, sliding in front of Lilith, tilting her chin up to glare at the demon. “Back off.”

Philodendra didn’t look impressed. Luz slipped her hand into her pocket and fiddled with a few glyphs. It was really tempting to throw a fireball into this woman’s stupid smug face.

“Kid,” Philodendra said, voice dripping with condescension, “Move aside, will ya? The grown-ups are talking.”

“I don’t think Lilith wants to talk to you, actually,” Luz said. She pulled her glyphs out of her pocket and brandished them. “So back off. Now.”

Philodendra rolled her eye. “Ugh, you sound just like Eda. She was such a buzzkill in high school, thought I was ‘stalking’ Lily or whatever. I just wanted to show my appreciation, seriously. Lily’s one fine girl.”

Luz narrowed her eyes. “I think Eda had the right idea, actually,” she said lowly. “So if you don’t go away in the next five seconds, I’m going to make you.”

“Pff, yeah, whatever,” Philodendra said, flicking her hand dismissively. “Hey, Lily, did you say this is your niece? Eda’s kid? Titan, and here I was thinking ‘hey, at least when the Emperor finally gets around to petrifying her there won’t be anything left’ –”

Luz drew back her hand to throw the glyphs because how dare she, but a split-second before she activated them a blur darted out from behind her and punched Philodendra in the face.

“Augh!” Philodendra shouted. She overbalanced and toppled to the floor, holding her cheek. “What the fuck!”

“Do not talk about my sister like that,” Lilith said, voice cold as the dead of winter.

Luz watched, mildly stunned, as Lilith towered over a cringing Philodendra. For a moment, it was like seeing the Head of the Emperor’s Coven standing on a retracting bridge, a bound and helpless prisoner at her feet, declaring “Go home to your world, human – this one is ours.”

“Lily, what –”

“Do not,” Lilith snapped, drawing herself up even more, and the aura of power around her had to be imaginary because she didn’t have magic anymore, but it sure did seem pretty real, “Call me Lily. My sister is allowed to call me that. You are not.”

Philodendra blinked up at Lilith, and for the first time, a sliver of apprehension appeared in her eye.

“Leave,” Lilith told her. “And do not ever speak to me again. Do not approach me, do not ‘compliment’ me, do not even look at me. If you do, then – well, I’m sure you’ve heard I’m a criminal these days. After defying the Emperor himself, I wouldn’t mind gaining a murder charge.”

Philodendra’s eye widened, and Luz couldn’t help a feeling of vicious satisfaction at the look on her face. Her eye darted around, and caught on Luz.

Luz made sure her grin was as unhinged as possible, showing all her teeth. She held up her glyphs eagerly.

Philodendra’s face turned a sort of lilac-ish color, and she scrambled to her feet and ran away, muttering about “fucking crazy-ass Clawthornes, Titan fucking –”

As soon as the woman was out of earshot, Luz turned to Lilith with stars in her eyes. “That was so cool, Tia!”

“Well,” Lilith said with a sniff, smoothing her shirt and glaring after Philodendra. The ominous aura had dissipated. “She deserved it. I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.”

“…Has she been harassing you since high school?” Luz asked. “She sort of implied she’s in the Golden Coven…”

“Yes, she is,” Lilith said. She went back to their cart and began pushing it again. Luz trailed after her. “Fortunately, she’s only a regular scout, so I could order her to go on long trips for various things – to the point where I didn’t see her ten months out of twelve – but she still proved…remarkably persistent at times.”

“Wow,” Luz said. “She needs to get a life.”

“Indeed,” Lilith huffed. “Now, what was next on the list?”

The rest of the shopping trip was uneventful. That was nice on one level, but not so great on another, because that meant Luz’s mind occasionally started drifting back to – things she didn’t want to think about. Like Dad. And Mom. And how Mami would be going through this day alone, missing both her husband and her daughter, not even knowing if Luz was alive and how could Luz do this to her mother –

Luz would never admit just how much of a relief it was, once they stepped outside the store, to see a Golden Coven scout turn the corner and stop dead at the sight of them. Instantly, Luz whipped out a fistful of glyphs and got into a fighting stance.

“Oh, hey Lilith!” said the scout, sounding – actually pretty friendly. Luz glanced at Lilith to see if this was another Philodendra, but Lilith’s expression relaxed upon hearing the voice.

“Steve,” she said warmly.

“Are you two friends?” Luz asked, looking between the two of them. It was kind of bizarre to think of Lilith having friends in the Emperor’s Coven. She hadn’t given the impression of being very approachable back then.

Lilith blinked, looking startled by the question. She regarded Steve for a few seconds, before saying, uncertainty, “…I suppose we are.”

“Woo!” Steve said, pumping his fist, apparently entirely enthusiastic about this. “Friends for Steve!”

Lilith smiled. “It’s good to see you again, Steve.”

“You too!” Steve said. “What’s being going on with you? Is that the kid you threw off a bridge?”

Lilith’s expression grew fixed. “Er.”

“We’re past that,” Luz brushed off. She held out her hand (the one without glyphs). “Hi, I’m Luz the Human!”

“Hi, Luz the Human,” Steve said, shaking her hand. He had a strong, firm grip, but not to the point of hurting. Luz instantly liked him. You could tell a lot of things about someone from their handshake, or at least that’s what Dad always said.

…And now she was thinking about Dad again. Quick, say something!

“Funny we ran into you!” Luz said, laughing. Wait, that was too loud. “Cause guess what, Lilith just punched Phil-”

“Luz, please,” Lilith said, a pained note in her voice.

“Come on, you’re proud of it,” Luz grinned at her. “I know I am! I wanna find a Time Pool just to see it again!”

Lilith cleared her throat primly. “That is neither here nor there,” she said, before looking at Steve. “How have you been, Steve?”

“Eh, kind of stressed, if I’m being honest,” Steve said, scratching the back of his head. “Things have been kind of crazy since you left – did you hear Kikimora’s the new Bard Coven Head?”

“She what?” Lilith said, sounding surprised. Luz blinked as well. Kikimora? Wasn’t that the little red demon woman who had announced Eda’s petrification? “But she doesn’t have any knowledge of Bard magic – I think she’s completely tone-deaf. Why would the Emperor –”

Lilith paused.

“…Ah,” she said. “Punishment?”

“Pretty sure, yeah,” Steve said. “Word is she screwed up big-time, though I don’t know the details. So…Bard Coven Head.”

“Well,” Lilith shook her head. “I can’t honestly say I feel sorry for her, but that’s certainly a…creative punishment. And speaking of Coven Heads, do you know who’s set to replace me?”

Steve shrugged. “No clue! I mean, normally the back-up Coven Head would be the Golden Guard, but the Owl Lady killed him and all, so…”

“What,” Luz said.

“What – Edalyn most certainly did not kill the Golden Guard!” Lilith said.

“Definitely not!” Luz said hotly. “Eda loves Hunter! She’d never hurt him! And he’s the one who rescued her!”

“Oh, cool!” Steve said. “They ran away together, then?”

“Uh, wait –” Luz said, realizing.

“Yes, they did,” Lilith nodded. Luz snapped her head around to stare at her. “So you can tell that to anyone who thinks Edalyn killed him. Honestly.”

“Um,” Luz said.

“Will do!” Steve said cheerfully. “And I’ll have to report this run-in, too, but of course you totally made a daring escape.”

“Haha, definitely,” Luz said, “But, uh, about Eda and Hunter –”

“That’s much appreciated, Steve,” Lilith said. “Have a nice day.”

“You too!” Steve said. He jogged backwards, giving them a little wave as he went. “See you, Lilith! See you, Luz the Human!”

Lilith politely waved back, until he turned the corner and was out of sight. She dropped her hand and looked at Luz.

Luz stared at her.

Lilith blinked. “Something wrong, Luz?”

“Uh,” Luz said. Maybe she was misinterpreting. Maybe the Demon Realm had different euphemisms for things. “…No, I guess not. Anything else we need to get?” Please say yes.

“No,” Lilith said, and Luz slumped. “Let’s get back home.”

Lilith didn’t take much prodding to elaborate about the architecture they passed on the way home, and Luz clung to her words like a life preserver in the middle of the ocean. She remembered absolutely none of it by the time they returned to the Owl House, but it was a successful distraction.

They bundled everything inside, where Hunter was wrapping up his combat drill stuff, and Luz debated how distracting it would be to help make breakfast. Probably not very. She’d done it a hundred times. What she really needed was a conveniently large problem dumped right into her lap –

“Luz!” Amity said, and Luz whirled around to blink at her girlfriend standing in the doorway of the Owl House, a panicked look on her face. “I have a big problem, and it could keep us distracted all day.”

Luz grinned.

**********

The rest of the afternoon was kind of a rollercoaster.

Learning Amity wanted to take part in what was basically a series of witch’s duels: cool!

Learning that she wanted to do it because it would make her feel closer to her dad, of all things: …less cool.

Watching Amity kick the ass of every opponent dumb enough to step into the ring with her: cool! (also hot)

Watching Emira patch up Amity and realizing that she, Luz, was actually kind of superfluous here and couldn’t really do much besides sit with her thoughts: …less cool.

Encountering the Abomination that Amity’s dad sent after her and taking care of that: cool!

Encountering the Abomination that Amity’s dad sent after her and failing to take care of that without setting off an alarm: …less cool.

Fighting alongside Amity in the Brawl and kicking ass with her: cool!

Fighting being interrupted by Amity’s dad because of the whole ‘alarm’ thing, followed by Amity realizing Luz had lied to her: …horrible. Completely horrible.

So when Amity ran off after yelling at her dad, Luz stared after her.

Amity had said she didn’t want to see Luz. But – Luz needed to apologize. Apologize, and also explain. If Amity was still mad at her then, that would be fair, but she deserved an explanation.

Luz hadn’t ever…actually told anyone about what she and Mom usually did on today. It wasn’t like she had many friends in the Human Realm. No one was interested in what the weird brown girl did, or why. No one cared that Papi was gone, besides her and Mami.

It was harder than she’d thought.

“…so that’s why,” Luz finished, staring at her knees. Amity hadn’t said a word, and Luz was afraid to look up and see her expression. “I just…I just can’t stop thinking about my Mom. She’s alone right now. She’s going through the anniversary of the worst day of our lives and I’m missing. She…she might think I’m gone, too…”

Amity hugged her.

“But you’re not,” Amity said, her voice thick. “You’re not, Luz. You’re still working so hard on the portal, and you’re going to get back to your mom. You will. And when you do, she’ll be so happy to see you.”

“I lied to her, though,” Luz said quietly. “And I ran away.”

“She’ll forgive you,” Amity said. “If she really loves you, she’ll forgive you.”

Luz swallowed. “…I hope so.”

They stayed there for another few minutes, soaking in the sight of the sunset.

“…Want to pick flowers?” Amity said, her voice shy.

Luz had to blink away the tears that sprung to her eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

There weren’t many flowers around them, but that was okay. Plant glyphs worked fine. They grew a little bouquet, and tied it together with some of Amity’s Abomination goop. Amity did something to make it float, and they sent the flowers off the cliff, drifting away in the breeze.

“Think it’ll make it all the way to the Human Realm?” Amity asked.

“I don’t think it works that way,” Luz said. If only it did. “But it’s a nice thought.”

She stared after the flowers until they were only a speck, and hoped that somehow, Mami would know what she was doing. That she was okay.

I promised I’d get back to you, Mami. I’m not giving up.

**********

When the flowers were out of sight, and Luz stepped back from the cliff’s edge, Amity took a deep breath. Luz looked over at her girlfriend, who squared her shoulders and looked back in the direction of the Brawl arena.

“Well,” Amity said. Luz thought she might have been talking to herself, because it sounded a little too quiet to be directed at Luz. “Here goes nothing.”

“Amity?” Luz said. “What are you doing?”

Amity took a deep breath, and let it out. “…I guess I’m seeing if my dad really loves me.”

Luz sucked in a breath, and reached out to grab her girlfriend’s hand without thinking.

“You didn’t do anything to forgive, Amity,” Luz insisted. “If he’s angry at you for this, he doesn’t deserve you.”

“…Thanks,” Amity said, squeezing Luz’s hand. “Come with me?”

“Like you could keep me away,” Luz said.

They walked back towards the arena, and Luz didn’t say anything about how Amity’s hand grew sweatier and sweatier. Her face, on the other hand, grew blanker and more aloof, to the point where the only difference from how Luz had first seen her in all her snobbish, star-student glory was her purple hair.

When they reached the arena, most of the people had left. Amity’s dad was talking to Emira on the edges – well, it looked more like arguing, really.

“– supposed to believe that?” Amity’s dad said when they got in earshot. He sounded skeptical.

“For Titan’s sake, Dad, I’m not their keeper,” Emira shot back. She, on the other hand, sounded deeply annoyed. “Ed’s somewhere in the woods, he left hours ago, and you heard what Amity said! She doesn’t want –”

It was at that moment Emira saw the two of them, and she broke off. Amity’s dad (what was his name, anyways?) turned around and saw them as well.

Amity stopped walking, and let go of Luz’s hand. Luz let her, with some slight trepidation.

“Amity,” her dad said, and several expressions flickered across his face, too fast to catch. He finally settled on stern disapproval. “Explain.”

Amity lifted her chin. “Are you going to listen?”

“I…” the man said, and he glanced at Emira very briefly, before folding his arms and letting out a long breath. “…Yes.”

Amity narrowed her eyes slightly, and then she squared her shoulders. “I don’t want to join the Emperor’s Coven.”

Her dad was completely taken aback at the declaration; he blinked, and his arms fell to his sides. “You…don’t? But that’s always been your dream!”

“No, that’s always been Mom’s dream,” Amity corrected him. Luz resisted the urge to cheer her girlfriend on. “And you just went along with it. You even made a Vudoll to get me the apprenticeship with Lilith Clawthorne, without ever even once just asking me if I wanted that!”

Amity’s dad winced. “…There were other factors involved in that.”

“What factors, Dad?!” Amity snapped, throwing her hands out wide. “Because you sure didn’t share them with me! You just disappeared for a year to give me a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity I never even wanted, which you didn’t know because you don’t talk to us!”

“She’s right, Dad,” Emira said, sidling up. “Did you even know Mittens is dating Luz?”

Luz, knowing a cue when she heard one, waved. Amity’s dad blinked at her.

“Edalyn’s kid?” he said.

“See?” Amity said with a huff. “You barely know us. You’re too busy making Vudolls for the Clawthornes and an army for the Golden Coven, and Mom’s too busy trying to kiss up to the Emperor and dye my hair green!”

“I –” Amity’s dad seemed lost for words, and rubbed the back of his head. He looked away, face contorting, before looking back. “I like your new hair color. It’s Abomination-colored.”

Luz blinked, and looked. Huh. So it was.

“Finally, someone gets it,” Amity huffed, crossing her arms. Luz winced a little. “Could you tell Mom that?”

“I’ll talk to her,” Amity’s dad said. He opened his mouth, and closed it. He looked away, and looked back.

He took a deep breath, and let it out.

“…Just like I talked to her about marriages,” he said.

The three teenage girls in front of him all stared at him as one. Luz was pretty sure they all blinked as one, also. It was actually kind of impressive.

“Wha-marriage?” Amity said. She didn’t look like an ice queen anymore. She looked just as rattled as when Otabin had been chasing them around the library, actually.

“What do you mean, marriage?” Emira asked.

Luz kind of wanted to know the answer to that herself, honestly.

Their dad winced, and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well,” he said, “You see…Emira, when you and Edric turned fifteen, your mother decided you were old enough to be set up with arranged marriages. And Mittens, you were already a prodigy by that age, so she decided to look for prospects for you, as well. I was…opposed, because –” he grimaced, “Well, for a few reasons. But she was set on it, so I had to offer her something else; something far more valuable than simply good matches for you all.”

“…Like an apprenticeship with the Head of the Emperor’s Coven,” Amity said, in tones of dawning realization.

“Yes,” her dad said. He shifted from foot to foot, not quite looking either of his daughters in the eye. “I got lucky, really – I thought I’d have to get Em and Ed apprenticeships with Graye as well, but your mother was so happy with yours that she let you all off the hook. And of course it wasn’t all that difficult to figure out what to offer Lilith, though I still don’t know why the Vudoll didn’t work…that curse is really something else…”

He trailed off, then noticed they were still staring at him. He coughed.

“Ah, well, anyways,” he said. “That’s why, Mittens. I’m…sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

Amity and Emira looked at each other. Luz shuffled her feet, feeling kind of like she was intruding on this very much family-oriented moment.

Finally, Emira looked back at their dad. “This doesn’t just fix everything, Dad,” she said.

“But,” Amity said, “It’s a start.”

Their dad nodded hesitantly. “Alright.”

There was a rustle in the trees a ways away, and Luz looked over in time to see Edric stumbling out, followed by – Eda?

Edric was beaming, bouncing on his feet as he walked. He was wearing one of Eda’s spare ‘Bad Girl Coven’ t-shirts, had mud and grass stains on his pants, and there were several twigs stuck in his hair. He was carrying a jar full of acid-green liquid labeled ‘POISON – NOT SHAMPOO.’

Similarly, Eda was fantastically disheveled, with several rips in her dress and faintly smelling of burned hair, though none of hers looked affected. She was carrying an enormous mace in her one hand, dragging it across the ground and ripping up the grass. As the spikes glinted in the sun, Luz saw that there was definitely blood on it, and possibly other substances.

Several seconds later, Raine followed the two. They looked much the same as they ever did, except for the inexplicable addition of a purple feather boa and the words ‘Party Monarch’ written on their left cheek in elegant Gothic script.

“Hey!” Edric said, waving. He held up the jar. “Guess what I found!”

“…Shampoo,” Emira said, deadpan. Luz covered her mouth to muffle her snort.

“No, see, I made that mistake at first too!” Edric said. “It’s actually undiluted hydra venom! It’s so much greener than in the books!”

Eda smiled at him fondly. “It sure is, Blight brother.” She glanced at Luz. “We got another wild witch in the making here.”

Luz grinned and gave her a thumbs up. “Great!” she said.

Then, when Eda looked away, Luz sidled up beside Raine.

“Did Eda adopt him?” Luz asked them, out of the corner of her mouth.

Raine sighed, and nodded.

“I thought you and Lilith were trying to hold her back from getting more kids,” Luz commented. “What even happened, anyways? Why are you two out here?”

“Ah,” Raine said. They adjusted their glasses, and looked slightly…sheepish? “Lilith told me the news about the Bard Coven, and I…didn’t take it well. So Eda decided to take my mind off things by going on an adventure. But we ran into Edric, and…” they sighed, and glanced over at the two of them, where Edric was proudly showing off all his grass stains to his sisters, and Eda was having a narrow-eyed talk with their dad. “Well, I managed to delay it a while, but then it turned out he liked the shirt.”

“Ah,” Luz nodded. “Fair enough.” She paused. “One more question?”

“Hm? Of course,” Raine said, glancing at her.

“Why do you have that?” Luz asked.

“Have what?”

“The writing,” Luz said, indicating her own face.

Raine blinked at her, and tilted their head.

“Because I’m the Party Monarch,” they said, managing to sound as if they were far too polite to ask if she had brain damage.

Luz nodded, taking this in. “…Alrighty then.”

“I want a T-shirt!” came Emira’s voice. Luz looked around to see Emira holding up her hand, having apparently shoved her brother aside. Eda, in front of her, looked very pleased.

“Oh no,” Luz said.

Raine made a noise like a dying cat, and took off at a dead sprint, calling out, “Eda, wait –”

**********

After saying goodbye to the Blights (and saying a personal goodbye to Amity), Luz accompanied Eda and Raine back to the Owl House.

Whatever adventure they had gone on, they had at least stocked up on the ingredients needed for Eda’s potion stores along the way. Eda would be able to keep up on her orders, which was good. Especially since the money they’d gotten from selling the selkiegris wasn’t infinite.

As if Luz needed even more reasons to finish the portal as quickly as possible.

She must have not hidden her disquiet as well as she thought, because when they were in sight of the Owl House, Eda handed the still-bloody mace to Raine and asked them to take it inside. They accepted it without blinking, and Luz had to wonder exactly what kinds of shenanigans those two had gotten into back in the day. Then, just as Raine turned and walked away, Luz had the head-tilting realization that the mace was too heavy to be lifted with just one hand.

…Alrighty then.

“So,” Eda said, once Raine had left them alone. She propped her hand on her hip and looked down at Luz. “What’s up with you, kiddo?”

“What?” Luz said, laughing nervously. “What do you mean?”

Eda looked unimpressed. “Look, this will be much less painful if you just spill. Lily told me you seemed kind of off this morning, and if I’m not mistaken you joined the Bonesborough Brawl for some reason besides just supporting your girlfriend. Now, do you want to tell me, or should I get my Blabber Serum?”

Luz winced, and looked away. “It’s…well, it’s not nothing, but…you don’t have to help me through an emotional arc or anything. I already did that. I’m okay now.”

“Believe it or not, kid,” Eda said dryly, “I don’t go down a checklist of my kids each day and ask myself ‘which one needs managing today? This one? That one?’ Sometimes stuff happens, and I have to help you out of some emotional crisis or another, but it’s not…” she made a vague, frustrated gesture with her hand. “I’m asking because I care, Luz. Not because I’m thinking I need to apply regular maintenance to keep you functional.” She paused, and frowned. “I mean, you kind of do, but everyone needs that, and I’m not doing it out of obligation, I’m doing it because you’re my kid. Even if I have way too many of those, these days. Wait – not that I’d get rid of any of you.” Eda paused again. “I’m explaining this wrong.”

Luz giggled, surprising herself. Eda snapped out of her rambling and raised her eyebrows.

“It’s okay,” Luz said. “I get it. You’re just looking out for me. That’s what parents do.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Eda said, looking pleased.

Luz sighed, her shoulders dropping. She looked down. “…My mom always looks out for me, too. Especially on today. And I look out for her. Because today is…well, my dad, he – today’s the anniversary. And I keep thinking of her being alone, you know? She has to be – so worried about me. I need to get back to her. I need to finish the portal and get back to her, because she’s – I can’t imagine what she’s going through right now.”

Luz took a deep breath, and let it out. She felt herself tearing up, but she blinked it away. Talking to Amity had been cathartic. Luz sniffled a little, regaining some control of herself, and looked up.

Eda looked like she had been stabbed, flayed straight to the bone.

Luz blinked. “Eda?” She stepped forward.

Eda flinched.

Luz froze. “Eda?”

Why did Eda flinch? Luz had never seen her do that, not for real – not when it looked like she was on the verge of being taken over by her curse, not when she was on the execution platform, not ever.

“Oh, Luz,” Eda breathed, and oh Dios mio, now Luz wasscared. She had never heard Eda sound like that, stunned and guilty and horrified. “Oh, fuck, I’m so sorry.”

“What are you talking about?” Luz asked, checking Eda for injuries out of sheer reflex. She didn’t look hurt, but then why was she acting like this? “Eda, what’s wrong?”

“I…” Eda sucked in a breath, and put her hand over her face. “I need to tell you something, kiddo.”

“What is it?” Luz asked. “Eda, you’re – kind of scaring me.”

“It’s –” Eda grimaced and lifted her head, looking in the direction of the Owl House. “Ugh, it’s not just – King needs to be here. I gotta tell both of you. I should’ve told you both a while ago, but I just – fuck, I’m so sorry.”

Luz opened her mouth, and closed it again. Eda generally tried to avoid swearing around the younger members of the house, so the fact that she was doing so now was pretty telling. And whatever she needed to tell them, it sounded bad. Like, really bad.

“…Okay,” Luz decided. Before she could talk herself out of it, she reached out and grabbed Eda’s hand. “You can tell us after dinner, how about?”

Eda shook her head. “No, you deserve to know now – you both do.”

“And you deserve to get yourself put together before you have to spill whatever this is,” Luz said. “Come on.”

“Luz –”

“I’m hungry,” Luz said. “And if this is as big as you say it is, I want to learn it on a full stomach. Okay?”

Eda looked at her despairingly. It was kind of disconcerting, actually – like she was seeing something else instead of Luz, something she dreaded and expected and mourned, all at once. Luz didn’t like that expression.

Yeah, Eda definitely needed some time to breathe before she divulged whatever this was.

“Come on,” Luz repeated, and pulled her towards the house.

Eda didn’t protest, which was either good or bad, depending on what she was thinking, exactly. Luz pushed open the door and led her inside.

“Hey,” she called out, “What’s for dinner? I really worked up an appetite today!”

Hunter looked up from where he was drawing glyphs at the coffee table, Flapjack on his shoulder. “It’s fried vice. Hi, Eda.”

“Hey, kiddo,” Eda said. Her voice was noticeably lackluster, and Hunter took note, eyes sharpening as he jumped to his feet.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Eh, it varies hour to hour,” Eda said, wiggling her hand.

“She’ll be okay after dinner,” Luz chirped, ignoring Eda’s wince. Luz couldn’t imagine anything that could make her as angry as Eda seemed to fear, so she would just have to be extra-cheerful to convince Eda of that. “Is it almost done?”

Hunter looked skeptical, but he accepted the blatant diversion. He went to the kitchen and there was the faint murmur of voices.

The person who came back with a couple of bowls, however, turned out to be Lilith. She clucked a little at Eda’s dishevelment, but didn’t say anything, just handing over the vice to both of them.

“Thanks,” Luz said. “Are we all eating together?”

“Of course we are!” King’s voice rang out. He popped into the doorway just a split-second later and pointed accusingly – at who, Luz couldn’t tell. “You can’t get out of family time so easily!”

“Hunter took a bowl up to Eve,” Raine said, following King. They stepped over him and went over to the couch. They’d washed off the writing, so that just a faint smudge remained on their cheek. “He’ll be back soon. Sit down, Eda, you must be tired from all that maiming.”

“The what?” Lilith said.

“You maimed someone without me?” King said, looking up at his mother with accusing eyes. “Traitor!”

Instead of bantering, though, Eda winced. She pulled a weak smile, fake enough that it probably wouldn’t even fool Eve. Luz bit her lip.

“Eda?” Lilith asked. Raine looked similarly concerned.

“Let’s eat!” Eda said. She dropped onto the couch and began eating. This didn’t make Lilith or Raine’s concerned expressions go away.

Alright, time to do damage control. Luz straightened up and cleared her throat. “So,” she said, “Amity and I fought in the Bonesborough Brawl today! Amity would have won, too, if her dad didn’t crash the party.”

“The Bonesborough Brawl?!” King said, perking up. He hopped onto a chair. “Neat! Once I get older, I’m going to enter that and crush everyone beneath my heel.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Luz reassured him. She looked at the adults. “Hey, have any of you ever fought in it?”

“Mother was against it, so I never did,” Lilith said. She glanced at Eda. “And Edalyn liked watching, but she always preferred her own fights to be less…structured.”

“How is it you can make ‘bar fights’ sound fancy?” Eda snorted. She still didn’t look completely back to normal, but she’d regained some of her composure. Luz would take it.

“I fought in it once or twice,” Raine volunteered. They shrugged. “I didn’t win or anything, but I held my own.”

“You could definitely win now,” Eda told them.

Raine gave her a sideways glance. “You think?”

“I know,” Eda said confidently.

“Hm,” Raine said, and took another bite of their dinner. There was a very faint blush in their cheeks.

Luz had no idea how those two weren’t together yet. She already had thoughts on wedding themes.

There were footsteps from the hallway, and Hunter appeared again, followed by –

“Eve?” Eda said. She sounded surprised, so at least Luz wasn’t the only one.

It was weird, seeing Eve again. Despite how a fair number of events over the past few days had revolved around her, Luz hadn’t seen her at all since she first arrived. Normally she would have tried to sneak a peek, but – Eda had a point, when she’d said that Eve deserved her privacy after what had happened to her.

So Luz hadn’t tried to pry, despite being insanely curious. She was very proud of herself for that. She deserved a gold star. Several, even.

And now, she was being rewarded. Eve stood in the living room for the first time since she’d come here, and Luz drank in the sight of her.

She really did look a lot like Eda, but also not. Luz knew Eda’s hair had been this color when she was younger, but Luz had only ever seen that in pictures. As far as her mind was convinced, Eda should only ever have grey hair, so Eve was really throwing her for a loop. The eyes were pretty jarring as well – they looked a lot more like Hunter’s than Eda’s, which was just all kinds of weird.

Then there were the bandages, which were…well, they were better than when she hadn’t had those. Luz clung to that. Eda said that Eve was healing well, so that was – good. That was really good.

“I wanted to eat with everyone,” Eve said, glancing around before pointing her eyes downwards. “It’s getting boring, being alone.”

“Okay!” Luz said at once. “That’s great! Come over here and sit down!”

Eve did so, and Hunter followed suit. Once she was sitting down, Eve shifted uncomfortably, picking at her food. Everyone pretended they weren’t sneaking glances at her.

Don’t make this weird, Luz thought to herself. So Eve is finally coming out of her shell and interacting with everyone, big deal! It shouldn’t be a big deal. Eve needs to be comfortable, and she won’t be comfortable if we make this into a big deal so it’s not a big deal.

“So Eve,” King said at last, “First time coming out of your room, huh? That’s a pretty big deal!”

Luz facepalmed.

Eve looked like she was considering several possible answers, before she settled on, “…Yes. It is.”

“We don’t have to talk about you if you don’t want, Eve,” Luz said hurriedly. “We can talk about other things! Like the Bonesborough Brawl! Warden Wrath was there, can you believe that?”

“But I want to talk about Eve!” King said. “She’s interesting, in a ‘your entire existence is bizarre and horrifying’ kind of way!”

“King,” Luz hissed.

Hunter hunched his shoulders and swallowed. “It – it doesn’t have to be bad, though. Right? Being a – a Grimwalker.”

“Course not, kiddo,” Eda said, and Flapjack cuddled against him with a soft chirp.

“Are you kidding?” King said. “It sounds like the worst thing ever!”

“King,” Eda said. “Do not give your sib-sister a complex.”

“But that’s another thing that’s weird!” King complained, pointing at her. “You say she’s my sister, but is she my older sister or my younger sister? She’s only like a month old, right? I’ve been doing just fine as the youngest, thank you very much, and I did not consent to give up my crown!”

“Yeah, about that…” Hunter mumbled, rubbing his arm. Luz was the only one sitting close enough to hear him, though, and she frowned. What about that?

“…How would I be older, though?” Eve asked. She sounded honestly lost. “Eda told me you’ve been alive for years already. I’m only a month old.”

“That’s true, Eve,” Lilith told her, “But while chronologically you’re the youngest here, your physical and mental age appear to be around twenty or so, modulo your lack of real-world experience. That would place you as the eldest of Edalyn’s children.”

Eve looked blank.

“She means you were made to skip straight to being an adult, so it’s hard to say,” Eda said. She brought a forkful of food up to her hair, and Owlbert poked his head out to nibble on it.

“Oh,” Eve said.

“But that’s what I said,” Lilith said, looking puzzled. Luz reached over and patted her arm.

“You don’t have to figure out everything about your age right now, Eve,” Raine said. “You can take your time.”

“What they said,” Eda echoed, pointing at Raine.

“Okay,” Eve said. She ate more of her food.

Hunter was staring silently into his bowl. He didn’t look very happy, for some reason. Luz bumped shoulders with him, and gave him a smile when he looked up. His palisman chirped and cuddled against him.

Before Hunter could do anything, though, Hooty poked his head in through the window. “Hello, friends!”

“Hootsifer,” Lilith said, her face lighting up. It was equal parts mysterious and heartwarming how much she liked Hooty. “Come in, come in! We’re having dinner – would you like some?”

She held out her bowl, and Hooty beamed. “Don’t mind if I do, hoot hoot!” He dove into the bowl and began eating.

“This is Hooty,” Eve said, watching with a nonplussed expression. “You told me about him.”

“Yep,” Eda said. “Apologies in advance.”

“HEY, it’s YOU!” Hooty said, after pulling himself out of the bowl. He wiggled in excitement, looking at Eve with unblinking eyes. “I thought I was imagining things for a while there, but you’re real! Or are you still a hallucination, hoot hoot?”

“She’s not a hallucination, Hooty,” Luz said. “This is Eve!”

“Of course you’d say that, hoot,” Hooty said.

“Hooty, why are you in here?” King asked, clearly annoyed. “Aren’t you supposed to be…guarding, or gardening, or something?”

“Funny you should say that!” Hooty said, “I was guarding the door, but then the lilacs started smelling delicious. But I couldn’t find any, so I came inside.”

“I didn’t know there were lilacs around here,” Raine commented.

“There aren’t,” Eda said, with a roll of her eyes. Luz muffled a laugh.

“…Wait,” Hunter said. He straightened up. “There aren’t?”

Lilith looked at him, and then her eyes went wide. “Hootsifer, are you sure that’s what you smelled?”

Luz blinked at her, and so did everyone else. Except for Eda who just raised an eyebrow. “What, you don’t like flowers, Lily?”

Lilith ignored her, though. She jumped out of her seat, and Hunter stood up so fast Luz wasn’t actually sure he didn’t do that teleport thing.

“Hooty, are you sure you smelled lilacs?” Lilith repeated urgently. Hunter held out his hand, and Flapjack transformed into a staff.

“Sure as my name’s Hooty, hoot hoot!” Hooty said.

“What does that mean?” Raine asked warily. They got up from where they were sitting and summoned their viola. Luz, disconcerted by the atmosphere, slipped a hand into her pocket to grab onto her glyphs. Damn it, she didn’t have that many on her at the moment, most were up in her room.

Lilith and Hunter locked eyes again.

“Adrian Graye,” they said at the same time.

“He’s not a frontline fighter –”

“But he can get them close enough –”

Eda didn’t waste a second. She twisted around and shouted, “Hooty, lock it dow-”

And then the windows exploded.

Chapter Text

King had never seen anyone attack the house.

Or, well, he had. Sometimes Lilith would lead a squad and try to get in to arrest Mom, or someone Mom pissed off would try to break in, or one of Mom’s exes would try to get in for a whole bunch of reasons. Plenty of people had tried to attack the house.

The important word there was try, though. King had never seen anyone succeed in attacking the house.

Mostly that was because of Hooty. He was weird, annoying, and definitely crazy, but he was also really good at his job, which was guarding the Owl House and beating up anyone who tried to attack it.

King had always just…sort of took it for granted that no one could get past Hooty. Seriously, it was Hooty. Plenty of people were stupid enough to try, but no one was stupid enough to try and strong enough to succeed.

Apparently, though, you didn’t actually need to be strong for that. You just had to be really, really good at illusion magic.

“Get down!” Hunter shouted, tackling Luz to the floor. An absolutely huge tree branch shot through where her head would have been just a second before.

That’s what broke all the windows, King saw after a second – a whole bunch of tree branches, all twisty and gnarled, and they were still moving. They shot through the air at random, filling up the living room in just a few seconds.

Then the world spun, everything blurring together as King was yanked up by someone. He was pressed against someone’s chest, and once he could see straight he looked up to find it was Lilith.

“Hooty!” She shouted, looking around, eyes wide, “This is Terra’s work, you have to –”

She was cut off when the ground started shaking, making everything rattle and King’s stomach heave at the motion.

“Mason’s here!” Hunter yelled, teleporting to catch Eve as she almost fell over. She was looking around, obviously terrified, and Hunter had to yank her to the side to avoid a whiplike branch striking out.

Raine was playing something, sending slashes of sound at all the branches, but that just seemed to make them a target. Mom was standing on the couch, pulling out potion after potion from her hair and throwing them at the branches around her. The bottle broke, and whatever was inside started melting the wood. Luz was throwing ice glyphs down to trap the branches. Hooty was shrieking, wiggling and darting around frantically. King wasn’t sure what he was doing – unless he was trying to get outside? All the windows were blocked by the branches, though.

The ground shook again, and there was a roar from outside.

“Eberwolf,” Lilith said. King looked up to see her face was pale. “Is every single Coven Head –”

A bunch of spirits flew through the wall, mouths gaping and letting out a long, low droning sound.

Mom dabbled on Oracle magic sometimes, which was how King knew this particular call coming from the spirits was paralytic even before Lilith stiffened, and his own limbs felt a lot heavier all of a sudden.

Brightly colored beetles started crawling inside the broken windows. King was pretty sure they were poisonous. And also carnivorous. And the ground was still shaking.

Lilith hissed and twisted to the side, wrapping her arms around King. A second later, something hit her, and they were both knocked to the ground. King let out an “oof.”

There were a few seconds where he couldn’t tell which way was up, head spinning at the impact even though Lilith had cushioned him. When things finally cleared up, he looked at the scene in front of him.

It wasn’t good.

For every branch that was cut down by Raine’s music, two more grew out of the stump, and Luz’s ice couldn’t hold them for long. Worse, they were starting to grow thorns, long and pointy-looking. Hunter was stuck in place defending Eve, who was frozen in terror. Luz must have run out of glyphs, because she was fighting the beetles by just stomping on them, no magic in sight. Mom was swinging Owlbert through the spirits, and King couldn’t tell whether that was actually doing anything. The ground was trembling, and Hooty shrieked as cracks appeared in the floor. Oh Titan, was that hurting him?

Lilith gasped, and King looked up in time to see one of the spirits lunging right at them.

King was wrapped up again, as Lilith covered him with her body. The edges of the spirit still brushed him as it phased through her, and his left arm grew numb and cold. Lilith let out a choked sort of noise, and her grip on him went lax.

“LULU!” Hooty shouted, and King looked up to see Hooty dive at the spirit and swallow it whole. He went a little pale, but shook his head and looked at Lilith.

King looked as well, and felt so relieved to see Lilith’s eyes moving. But that was the only part of her that was, the rest of her not doing anything. If King’s unresponsive arm was any indication, she couldn’t.

“I’ll save you, Lulu!” Hooty exclaimed, and turned around to chase after the other spirits. He was fairly successful, being faster and twistier than them, but with each one he swallowed he got a little paler, and moved a little slower.

Then King heard a sort of squelching, slurping sound, and he turned just in time to see a column of Abomination goo fall away from two people.

One was a man, with dark skin and a stupid-looking beard. The other was a – woman? Maybe? She(?) had most of her face covered, just her mouth showing, and wore blue robes.

They didn’t waste any time before jumping into the fight. The man lashed out with some sort of Abomination scythe-thing at Raine, who barely managed to deflect it. The woman ran straight at Mom.

King really wanted to go and help Mom, but the tide of beetles had almost reached Lilith, who was still paralyzed. He rushed forward to stomp on as many as he could. The shells crunched under his feet, and it felt really gross, but he kept stomping.

Except then the ground shuddered again, and King fell over. But a crack opened up in front of him and most of the beetles surged over the edge before they could stop, so at least there was that.

“King!” Luz said, and King jerked his head up to see her darting closer. She looked kind of scuffed up, shirt torn and white dust in her hair. It took King a second to realize it was plaster from the ceiling, and he also had some on him. These earthquakes were really annoying.

But that wasn’t important. “Luz!” King said, and gestured at Lilith. “Carry her!” Being so small seriously sucked sometimes.

Luz was Very Good, so she immediately pulled Lilith’s arm around her shoulders. A loud “Caw!” made them look around and see her palisman fluttering urgently next to their witch. Their white feathers were ruffled, and their eyes were wide. Right, they hadn’t been in the room when the attack started. They must have been so confused when everything started exploding and shaking.

“We need – we need to go,” Luz stuttered, looking around with wide eyes.

It suddenly hit King that she looked – young. King had known she wasn’t actually that much older than him, but ever since coming here Luz had been bright and bold and big in a way King was only really used to seeing in Mom. It was why he accepted her into the house so easily; she was pretty different from Mom, but also really similar in some surprising ways. It was why they got along so well.

Maybe that was part of why King had seen Luz as older than she was. King knew he could be childish, okay, and so anyone who acted even a little bit more mature was basically a grown-up to him. Luz was definitely more mature. Luz was also happy and confident and optimistic and – so many other things.

Now, though, she didn’t look like any of that. She looked scared and uncertain and small. King didn’t like that. He didn’t like that at all.

“Yeah,” King said, swallowing. “Yeah, we do.”

Luz looked around, and ducked as one of the few remaining tree branches took a half-hearted swing at her. There was the smell of smoke, chemicals and Abomination goo in the air.

“You go help Eda,” Luz said, “Eve can carry Lilith while I help Hunter fight.”

“Right!” King said, and jumped up to run over to Mom. The ground bucked underneath him as he ran, but that couldn’t stop him.

Mom and the blue-robed woman were fighting, and it looked pretty even at first glance. Mom was bleeding in a few places, but the woman had some gashes too, and it looked like she’d been clipped by some of Mom’s nastier potions.

Sure enough, Mom reached into her hair, pulled out a bottle of bright orange liquid, and whipped it at the woman. She dodged to avoid it, and the bottle exploded when it hit the ground.

The dodge put her closer to King, and he darted forward to sink his teeth into her leg. It was sort of his signature move, really.

She didn’t shriek, though, which was annoying. King knew his teeth were sharp. Instead, she just shifted her stance and – detached her leg?

Oh come on, that was Mom’s move! That was totally unfair!

It was then that King felt himself rising into the air. It took him a second to realize the leg he was biting was levitating, pulling him along with it.

It was surprising enough that King opened his mouth and let go, dropping back to the floor and landing on his butt. He hoped no one saw that.

King looked up just in time to see the woman’s leg come back down to kick him in the side. He yelped as it made contact, throwing him across the floor.

“Don’t you touch him!” King heard Mom yell. He pulled himself back up to see her glaring at the woman, who pulled her leg back to reattach it.

The woman just tilted her head, those horns(?) of hers making the motion look weird. “Interesting,” she said. She didn’t actually sound interested, though. She just sounded bored, like she was talking to a cashier about her groceries instead of in the middle of a battlefield. “I’ve never seen a demon like him before. This requires a closer look.”

Mom stepped in front of King and snarled. “Don’t even think about it, Cutburn.”

The woman – Cutburn, apparently – didn’t react to Mom’s threat, though. “And yourself, as well,” she said. “I’ve heard about your other form. Perhaps I can have a look after the Emperor is done with you.”

“In your dreams,” Mom sneered. The ground rumbled again, and part of the floor caved in.

“Probably,” Cutburn said, still sounding indifferent. “I’ll have to satisfy myself with the little demon.”

Mom roared, her vocal chords sounding halfway to Harpy Mode, and lunged forward. Cutburn dodged to the side, making several scalpels appear out of nowhere and slashing out with them. Mom ducked, but Cutburn detached her hand and sent it flying around to attack from behind.

King scrambled up and ran forward on all fours. Biting hadn’t worked as well as he’d hoped, but it had worked somewhat. She didn’t immediately shake it off, at least. So biting was probably a good way to go.

Easier said than done, though. Apparently Cutburn was really incredibly annoyingly good at dodging. And she didn’t seem to notice pain. Like, at all. It was actually kind of creepy.

Mom did most of the fighting, using Owlbert to deflect the flying, scalpel-wielding body parts, occasionally throwing a potion or two. King did his best to help by tripping or biting Cutburn whenever he had the chance.

Then the ground heaved again, and King tripped at exactly the wrong moment.

Specifically, he tripped right into one of the severed branches on the ground. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem. King could come out on top of some dumb branch any day.

Except this branch was one that had thorns on it.

King fell right onto them, and they were sharp. He screamed as they stabbed into him, and there was a twist inside his chest, something that wasn’t exactly physical, more like a sort of pressure.

“King!” Mom barked out, and he looked up to see her snap her head around to find him.

Their eyes met, and Cutburn struck out. Mom barely managed to dodge the swipe of the scalpel, but she was looking at King – she was looking at King and so she didn’t notice Cutburn’s other hand zipping through the air behind her –

King saw what would happen, saw it playing out in slow motion, and he opened his mouth to warn her –

The pressure surged in his chest as he saw the scalpel in the hand –

“Mom!”

And the scalpel stabbed Mom through the ear, burying itself all the way up to the hilt.

**********

Mom stiffened for a second, eyes going wide.

Then she collapsed.

**********

King couldn’t breathe.

**********

“Finally,” Cutburn said, stepping back. She sounded as bored as ever.

**********

The pressure in his chest was almost unbearable now.

**********

The hand let go of the scalpel and flew back to Cutburn, reattaching to her wrist. The rest of her parts followed suit. She looked down at Mom dispassionately.

**********

King couldn’t breathe.

**********

Mom was crumpled on the ground, not moving, not even a twitch or a breath or anything at all, and the end of the scalpel was still sticking out of her ear, and – and –

**********

“Mom?”

**********

Mom didn’t answer.

**********

“Now,” Cutburn said, turning to him. “Time for research.”

**********

Mom was –

**********

The pressure in his chest was suffocating, crushing, overwhelming –

**********

Mom was –

**********

“Hold still. This will only hurt for a moment.”

**********

Mom was –

**********

The pressure surged.

**********

“MOM!”

**********

The pressure exploded.

And so did everything else.

**********

The shockwave flung Cutburn back like when King threw Francois during a tantrum. The walls, already weak from the earthquakes, collapsed when the wave of force hit it.

The ceiling fell. Broken chunks of wood and plaster rained down, and King didn’t have time to think what did I just do because the ceiling was falling and Mom wasn’t moving, he had to get her out of the way, he had to –

“King!” Hunter said, appearing next to him. “What was that –”

Then he cut himself off with a sort of choked sound, staring at Mom. At the end of the scalpel that was still sticking out of her ear.

“Help,” King managed, reaching out to tug on Mom’s shoulder. She moved limply, grey hair sliding over his paws, and she wasn’t – she wasn’t moving – “Hunter, help her.”

“…Eda?”

King looked up to see Luz, frozen in her tracks, also staring. Behind her, Eve had Lilith’s arm around her shoulders, helping to carry her. They saw Mom too, and Lilith’s face went as white as the plaster dust in her hair.

“No,” Hunter said numbly. He reached for Mom, and put his fingers on her neck. “No, no, no –”

“Come on out, little sprouts!”

The voice was a woman’s, and sounded almost sweet if you ignored the little, tiniest bit of menace in it. King stepped in front of Mom’s – in front of Mom before he could think about it.

“We have to go!” Raine’s voice said from another direction. King turned to see them quickly limping towards everyone. They were splattered with Abomination goop, and looked pretty scuffed up. “We have to –”

Then they saw Mom, and stopped.

“Eda,” they said, eyes wide, face pale. “Is she –”

“She’s alive!”

King snapped his head around to look at Hunter. He was looking down at Mom, and his fingers were pressed into her neck so hard it almost looked like he was strangling her. But the look in his eyes was ecstatic, almost manic in its intensity.

“She’s alive” Hunter repeated, looking up at them, eyes huge and desperate. “We have to get her out of here!”

King felt dizzy, almost sick with relief.

She’s alive. Mom is alive.

“You can’t stay in there forever, sprouts!”

There was that woman’s voice again, but it wasn’t important. The only thing important was Mom, and the fact that she was alive.

Then a column of Abomination goo surged up just a few feet away, and the dark-skinned man stepped out. He looked just as scuffed-up as Raine, and very annoyed about it.

He didn’t get to say anything, though, because Raine instantly threw a slashing note at him. It cut the man in half – but he just oozed back together.

Seriously, why was everyone stealing Mom’s trick?

“Just surrender already,” the man snapped. “Whispers, for Titan’s sake –”

“HOOOOOOOOT!!!”

Just when King had totally forgotten about him, Hooty appeared out of nowhere and swallowed the Abomination man whole.

“Nobody hurts my friends!” Hooty shouted.

Eve made a sort of squeaky noise.

“…Good job, Hooty,” King said weakly.

“If you don’t come out by the count of ten,” came the woman’s voice again, “We’re all coming in! And I do mean all of us, dears!”

“Shit,” Raine said, looking towards the destroyed wall. They lifted their viola and glanced at everyone else. “Get Eda out of here. Hooty and I will hold them off.”

“Ten!” said the woman.

“We sure will!” Hooty said, puffing himself up.

“And leave me,” Lilith said. It was slurred, but understandable. “I’ll just slow you down.”

“Nine!”

“What?” Luz said, looking between Raine and Lilith in shock. “No!”

“Yes,” Lilith said. She twitched her hand, and her palisman flew to it. When they reached her hand, they transformed into a staff. She weakly offered it to Eve. “The palismen can’t carry us all anyways.”

“Eight!”

“But –” King said. He wasn’t sure how to finish that, though. But you can’t do that was wrong, because obviously they could. But you’ll be captured was dumb, because obviously they knew that. But Mom wouldn’t want that was cruel, because Mom couldn’t want anything right now.

But we can’t lose you was closest, but that didn’t actually matter.

“Seven!”

“Fine,” Hunter said. “Eve, put Lilith down and help me carry Eda.”

“Six!”

Eve did so with a glazed look on her face that said she wasn’t really processing anything right now. King would probably feel bad for her once he had space to breathe.

“Five! You should really surrender now, sprouts, the Emperor will be a bit more lenient with you! Four!”

“Get on the staffs,” Hunter said. He sat Eve down on Lilith’s staff and got on his own, with Mom stretched out between them. Luz screwed up her face, and looked at Hooty, Raine and Lilith.

“Three!”

“Luz,” King said, feeling a lump in his throat. “Luz, we – we have to go.”

Luz sucked in a breath, picked King up, and hopped onto Owlbert. King settled on the staff like he had so many times before. It was familiar. So familiar it almost brought tears to his eyes.

“Two!”

“We’ll rescue you,” Luz promised. “Eda will get better and we’ll come rescue you, okay?”

“Go,” was all Raine said.

“One!”

The staff lifted up, and raced towards the edge of the collapsed wall. They burst through into the clearing, the night lit up by a beautiful full moon.

The Coven Heads were right there in the open. King recognized some of them – that was Terra, who Mom said had been the Plant Coven Head for decades now, and that was Vitimir, who Mom always grumbled was hardly better at potions than her. Most of them were unfamiliar, though.

And he didn’t get that good of a look anyways, because they attacked the moment they all came into view. Spirits and plants and insects and pillars of rock shot forward, and King couldn’t help but flinch.

But then a golden shield rose up in front of them, accompanied by a haunting handful of notes, and Hooty streaked through the air.

“FEAR MY WRATH!” Hooty screamed, and fell upon the Coven Heads like they were a buffet of bugs.

King didn’t see any more than that, though, because Luz twisted the staff up to follow along the curve of the shield, and then they were shooting straight up into the sky like they were aiming for the moon. The wind whipped through King’s fur, and his eyes started to water at the speed.

“Right!” Hunter yelled, and they swerved right, out of the safety of the shield. King braced himself for an attack as they shot away into the night.

But there were no attacks – just the sound of chaos and carnage, growing fainter and fainter in the distance. At the speed they were going, the sounds faded within a minute.

“Where do we go?” Luz said, raising her voice to be heard over the wind. “Eda needs – she needs help. Maybe her mom’s place –”

“That’ll be the first place the Emperor will look,” Hunter said. His face was hard, jaw set and eyes sharp. King didn’t like seeing him like that. “We need someplace else – did Eda ever tell you about any safehouses she has? Any allies that aren’t common knowledge?”

“N-no, I don’t think so,” Luz said uncertainly. “King?”

King thought. “Maybe the Bat Queen?” he said. “Mom babysits for her sometimes, and she doesn’t like the Emperor.”

“That might work,” Luz said.

It was hard to tell because there wasn’t much light aside from the moon, but King thought he saw Hunter’s face go a little paler.

“No,” he said. “No, not there.”

“What?” King said, “Why not?”

Hunter just shook his head. “We can’t put the palismen in danger.”

“The Bat Queen likes Mom, and she even owes her a favor!” King argued. “Luz, tell her!”

But when he looked up, Luz looked kind of sick. She shook her head.

“He’s right,” she said. “We can’t lead the Emperor to all those palismen. There has to be somewhere else on the Boiling Isles we can go.”

“Well, I can’t think of any!” King said, beyond frustrated. Now that they were almost, sort of, a tiny bit safe, it was hitting him what had just happened.

All the Coven Heads just attacked us. The Owl House is half-collapsed. Raine and Hooty and Lilith are captured or worse. Mom has a knife in her head. Nowhere is safe. Nowhere is safe.

“Why does it have to be on the Boiling Isles?” Eve asked.

Everyone looked at her.

Eve shrank back a little. “Um. Just. Is there somewhere outside the Boiling Isles we can go? This is where the – the Emperor has the most power, right? Eda told me he can send his people anywhere on the Isles. So maybe we should…leave?”

“…It’s a good idea,” Luz said, “But I definitely don’t know anywhere outside the Boiling Isles.”

“I’ve gone on missions to some places,” Hunter said, frowning. “But most of them are – remote, unsheltered, no decent supplies or food anywhere. Not to mention he’s the one who sent me on those missions in the first place. I can’t think of anywhere outside the Isles he doesn’t know about.”

And then King realized.

“I do,” he said.

Everyone looked at him.

“I know a place,” King said, excitement rising as he considered. “It’s – it’s not perfect, but there’s no way the Emperor knows about it, and it has plants and animals and there’s even a building! And – there’s someone there. I don’t know if they’ll help us, but – we can at least ask?”

“That sounds great,” Hunter said. He leaned forward, eyes gleaming in the moonlight. “Where is it? Can you show us the way?”

“Yeah,” King said. “Yeah, I can. Mom made sure to show me on a map once. She wanted me to know where I came from.”

**********

When King had first asked about the island he came from, it had only been two days after learning the whole story about how Mom had found him.

It had taken that long to let things settle in his head. It was kind of strange, learning that he wasn’t even from the Boiling Isles, that even his species was a mystery, that Mom had no Titan-damned clue what was up with the whole abandoned-temple-and-psycho-golem thing. And if Mom didn’t know, King certainly couldn’t figure it out.

But he’d still wanted to know where, exactly, that little island was, so he’d asked Mom. She’d pulled out a bunch of maps, and they’d spent an afternoon figuring out where it was – Mom hadn’t exactly been keeping track of coordinates when she’d found it.

That had been two years ago, but King remembered where it was. Sometimes – not often, but just sometimes – he would take out the map and trace a route to the island, imagining that he and Mom would fly there someday and get answers. Even though he didn’t need to know, because Mom was all he ever really needed, sometimes he…wanted to.

Now he really was going back, with Mom and his siblings in tow, and it wasn’t exactly as great as he’d imagined.

Mom didn’t move the entire time they flew. The scalpel was still stuck in her ear, because as much as they hated looking at it, Hunter said that they couldn’t risk taking it out. King had to check on her at least once every five minutes, and no one else complained because they were all checking, too. King was terrified that the moment he turned away, something would go wrong and Mom wouldn’t be breathing when he looked back.

It was a long flight.

Eventually, though, they got to the area King was pretty sure his island was in. He told everyone, and they shook out of their stupor and started looking around as they flew.

It was Eve who first saw it.

“There,” she said, pointing to the left. They looked, and –

Well. There it was.

It was still the middle of the night, so they could only see the general shape of it. But the moon gave enough light to see that yep, that was an island alright.

“I can’t believe it,” Hunter said, awed. “All the maps say there’s nothing here.”

“Well, the maps are wrong,” King shrugged. He peered at the island. “It’s a lot…rounder than Mom described it.”

“Well, I just hope there’s a place to sleep,” Luz said. She yawned. “You said there’s a building?”

“Yeah, but the golem is in it,” King said. “And it can’t leave, for some reason, so the tower is the one place that’s not safe. Mom really didn’t know what was up with that thing.”

“I bet we can negotiate with it,” Luz said. She was such an optimist. It was adorable, and King meant that both genuinely and condescendingly.

They flew closer, and King saw that it was definitely very round. Like a big cylinder. Part of it was open – maybe crumbled away – and had a beach that led to a thick jungle. The tower stood in the middle of the island, and maybe it was just the way the moonlight fell, but it looked really ominous. All crumbled and old and mysterious.

Lilith would love it. King tried not to think about that.

They found that the trees were too thick to fly through, so they had to set down at the beach. Eve and Hunter carefully moved Mom to lie her down on the sand.

“No change,” Hunter said, looking her over. He let out a breath and looked towards the jungle. “If we can’t get the golem to help us, I can try to forage for medicinal herbs.”

“Well, what if we do both?” Luz said. “King and I can go to the tower, and you and Eve can try to help Eda.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be very helpful,” Eve said quietly.

“No, it’s a good idea,” Hunter said. “You can watch over Eda while I forage.” He looked at King and Luz. “Be careful. We don’t know what might have changed since Eda came here.”

“Don’t worry about us, Hunter,” Luz said, doing that thing she called a ‘thumbs-up.’ “We got this!”

“Yeah!” King said, punching the air. Everything might have been pretty terrible, but it was sort of exciting to be back here, at long last.

Hunter looked less than convinced, but that was just because he was a pessimist. He was adorable, and King meant that both genuinely and condescendingly.

King and Luz left the trio behind, and walked into the jungle. It instantly became much darker, with only a few tiny bits of light managing to peek through.

“Yeesh,” King said, looking up. He could barely make out his paw in front of his face. “Got a light, Luz?”

“Yeah, I do,” Luz said. There was a faint rustle of paper. “I used up all my combat options in the fight, but I have a few light glyphs left. And plants. Didn’t want to give that plant mage any more ammunition.”

“I think her name is Terra,” King said, and blinked as a ball of light appeared in Luz’s hand. “She’s been the Plant Coven head for decades now.”

“Well, I guess it stings less that we lost, then,” Luz sighed.

She didn’t mention that also made it less likely that Raine and Lilith managed to get away. She didn’t need to. King looked down, and neither of them spoke for a moment.

He heard Luz huff. “Come on, let’s get going.”

They set off, and King found out very quickly that he didn’t like this jungle. It was dense with plants and trees in a way that didn’t really happen on the Boiling Isles, and it felt like the place was throwing logs in his way just for him to trip over. Plus it was muddy, and kind of humid, which was never a good combination when you had fur.

“Does any of this feel familiar, King?” Luz asked as they walked.

“Not really?” King said, looking around. “I don’t remember much before Mom found me. I remember…falling.”

“Falling?”

“Yeah, just a little snippet of falling,” King said. He peered up through the trees, and managed to catch a glimpse of the tower ahead. “Maybe I fell from the tower?”

“Maybe,” Luz said. “Anything else?”

“Um…a roar,” King said, tapping his chin. “Probably some enormous beast that lives in these woods. Hope we don’t run into it!”

“Pff, we can handle monsters,” Luz said, puffing out her chest.

“You bet we can!” King said, as he jumped over a log. Take that, jungle, no one can keep tripping me for long! “Hey, maybe we can kill it and take its pelt as a trophy for Mom! She could use a blanket.”

“Nice,” Luz said.

They kept walking, until they reached the entrance to the tower. It loomed over them, and it looked old. Like, the oldest thing King had ever seen.

The doorway was huge, at least as high as the roof of the Owl House, and shaped like a keyhole. Which was…certainly a design choice.

It was also completely filled with boulders, not a sliver of the inside showing.

“…Huh,” King said. “This might be a problem.”

“I can see if some plants can move them,” Luz offered.

King squinted, moving closer. “Maybe…but wait a minute, I might be able to do something…”

He hopped into a crevice between the boulders. It was a tight fit, but he managed to squeeze forward. King had never been so happy to be so small.

It took a minute, but King managed to shift a few rocks, which made the whole thing rumble and collapse inwards. He popped back out, arms raised in triumph. Luz clapped, and he soaked up the admiration as was his due.

Then they went inside, glyphs held at the ready.

The inside was just as run-down as the outside, with rubble and vines everywhere King looked. Luz’s little light ball didn’t show every corner, but King didn’t think there was anything really…livable, in here.

Yikes. How had he survived long enough for Mom to find him?

“What are these?” Luz asked in a whisper. King looked at where she was pointing, and blinked when he saw –

“Towers,” he said, walking closer to look at them. “I used to build them, when I was a baby. Mom has photos where the living room is filled with, like, dozens of these little towers made out of anything I could get my tiny paws on. Food, lamps, pillows, cauldrons…I guess all I could find were rocks, here.”

“Why’d you build them?” Luz asked.

“Heck if I know!” King said with a shrug. “But they’re kinda cute, aren’t they? Just like me!”

“Yep,” Luz laughed as she walked over, “They sure…are…”

She trailed off as she got closer. King didn’t really blame her, and he had to take a step back himself.

Because as Luz brought the light over, it lit up more of the room. And more of the floor.

The floor that was covered in little towers.

They were everywhere. Surrounding them on all sides, stretching out to the corners of the room. Scattered and clustered together without any sort of harmony, some had fallen over, but most were still standing. Some pockets were as densely packed as the trees outside. There had to be well over a hundred, maybe several hundred.

“Whoa,” Luz said.

“…How long was I here?” King could only say.

“Looks like a while,” Luz said, slowly turning in a circle. The light revealed even more little towers. “A long while.”

King was about to respond when he caught sight of something on the wall.

“Wait, Luz – come over here,” he said, heading to the wall.

Luz followed him, and with the light he saw the mural better. It was some kind of battle, between an enormous, skeletal creature that couldn’t really be identified due to the dirt and ruin, and a clearer, smaller figure holding a spear.

The smaller figure looked like King, which made his heart skip a beat. It was a simplified picture, but the skull was unmistakable.

“King,” Luz said, “Do you know who that is?”

King shook his head, staring at the picture. “No,” he said, a little numbly.

It was weird, really. King had lived his entire life without ever seeing someone who looked like him. He’d thought he was fine with that. He’d never really thought about it, at least not much. He’d never longed to meet another member of his species.

But now, looking at this mural, seeing someone who was like him, woke something in him that he’d never known was there.

What species was he? What were his biological relatives like? That – that sonic screaming thing he did when Mom got stabbed, was that a normal thing? Could he do other things? Where did he come from?

“Maybe…” Luz said, “Maybe this was your home? Or your family’s home?”

King had to swallow a couple times before he could talk.

“Mom is my family,” he said. “Mom and all of you.”

“I know, buddy,” Luz said. She reached down and petted his head, and he leaned into the touch. “But before that, you had to come from somewhere, right?”

“I guess,” he said, looking up at the mural. “But what happened to them? Where…where’d they go?”

All of a sudden, a clacking, chittering sound cut through the air.

Luz sucked in a breath and whirled around.

“I don’t know,” she said, “But maybe he does.”

And King turned around.

The golem stood in the doorway leading deeper into the tower, at the very edge of the light. Mom hadn’t been able to describe it very well, since she admitted she hadn’t really gotten the best look at it, but King could see it clearly now despite the dim light.

It was tall, and gangly in a way that made it look thin despite not really being so. It had a sort of…boomerang-shaped head, which King only knew of because Mom found the weirdest stuff in human garbage. Its eyes were tiny and insect-like. The rest of its body sort of looked like bone and flesh, but not exactly.

It stepped forward, and tilted its head with a kind of clicky noise.

“Uh,” Luz said, and cleared her throat. King saw her slip her free hand into the pocket where she kept her glyphs. “Hi there! Sorry to drop in like this, but we…could use some help.”

The golem stepped closer, letting out another chitter. There was something wrong with the way it moved, too jerky in some places and too smooth in others.

King was very, very aware of the mural behind him, showing someone who was like him, someone who had probably at least been in this tower, if not lived in it. But they weren’t anymore, they weren’t here, and he didn’t know where they were or what happened to them, except that they were gone and this thing was here instead, and the Owl House was collapsed and none of the grown-ups were okay and Mom was hurt and she hadn’t woken up yet –

The golem came closer, and it was – it was looking at King.

“Whoa, hey there –” Luz said, sliding between them.

But the golem twisted around her, and reached out to King.

He stumbled back, but the golem moved forward, letting out another click-click. It bent down and held out its arms like it was about to scoop him up.

King had a very short list of people who were allowed to pick him up, and this thing wasn’t on it. And Mom had told him what to do if a stranger ever tried.

King lunged forward and bit the golem’s arm.

It tasted horrible, which King wasn’t really surprised about, but it still sucked anyways. What sucked even worse was that the golem didn’t even seem to notice it. Instead of screaming or flinching or doing anything, it just went ahead and picked up King.

“Oh no you don’t!” Luz said, and then there was a burst of green. Plants spiraled up from the ground and ensnared the golem. When its grip loosened a little, King wriggled free and jumped back to the floor.

King raced over to Luz, and she stepped in front of him. The golem tilted its head as much as it could, which wasn’t very much.

“Now,” Luz said, “You stay there and listen to us, because –”

The golem, however, did not stay there. Its body – liquefied, and oozed out of the plant prison. It reformed a few feet away and approached again. Faster, this time, and one of its hands reshaped into a blade like that Abomination guy back at the Owl House.

Luz said something in Spanish that was probably a swear word, and threw down another glyph. Plants sprung up, but the golem just chopped them down, barely breaking stride. It raised its arm up and –

“Wait, stop!” King blurted, desperately trying to think of any way to get the fighting to stop, because Mom was still on the beach and King didn’t want Luz to end up like Raine and Lilith and they were all wasting time –

Then the golem stopped. Its blade reshaped into a hand. It bent down on one knee, and bowed.

It was bowing at King.

“…¿Qué?” Luz said.

“Uh,” King said in agreement.

The golem didn’t move.

“Um,” King said. “…Stand up?”

The golem stood up.

“…Hold out your hand,” King tested.

The golem held out its hand. It didn’t even make another blade.

“Jump,” King said.

It jumped in place.

“Spin around.”

It did a perfect pirouette.

“…Huh,” King said at last.

“Well,” Luz said. She sounded just as bemused as King felt. “That’s convenient. And it also raises some questions…”

“Yeah,” King scratched his head and stared at the golem. “I guess it only attacked because it was…trying to protect me?”

“Yeah, looks like,” Luz said. “And…wait, if this is meant to be your guardian or whatever, does that mean Eda kidnapped you? On accident?”

King blinked. “Uh. Maybe?” Then he froze. “Mom! We can bring her here now!”

Luz lit up. “We can! I can go get the others and bring them here; will you be okay with this guy?”

“Sure I will!” King said, looking up at the golem. The golem who was apparently his minion. “We can get to know each other.”

“Alright, I’ll be back soon,” Luz promised, and gave him a couple light glyphs before running out of the tower.

King sat down on the floor, and looked at the golem. The golem looked back at him.

“Alright,” King said. He took a deep breath, and tried not to think about Mom, or Lilith and Raine and Hooty, or they would feed themselves on this little island in the middle of nowhere, or the mystery of his past, or his brand-new powers, or if he’d ever get to go home again.

None of that was helpful. King just…he needed to think about something else right now. Anything else.

“Okay,” King decided, and made himself comfortable. “Now, let’s figure out a name for you…”

Chapter Text

It felt like it took hours for Luz to come back, even if it was probably only like fifteen minutes. After the night he’d had, King had earned the right to be a little dramatic.

Hunter and Eve came with her, carrying Mom between them. King hurried over to check on her, even though he knew they wouldn’t have brought her if she’d gotten worse.

Sure enough, she was still the same. No change at all. King tried to convince himself that was a good thing.

“Put her down here,” Hunter directed Eve, and they picked through the little towers until they could lay Mom out on one of the few bare patches of floor.

Once they did, Eve looked around curiously, but Hunter remained focused on Mom. King approved of that.

“Okay,” Hunter said, “I don’t really recognize much of the vegetation here, so our best bet is this golem you found.”

“Jean-Luc,” King said.

Everyone looked at him.

“What?” Luz asked.

“His name is Jean-Luc,” King said patiently.

“Is he a person?” Eve asked.

“I don’t know!” King said, looking at Jean-Luc. “I don’t think so. But that’s no reason not to give him a name!”

Eve looked thoughtful.

“Whatever,” Hunter said, sounding impatient. “If Jean-Luc was your caretaker as a baby, it might have some medical knowledge programmed in. Or at least know where medical supplies are. Can you tell it to help Eda?”

King jumped to his feet, feeling energized. Finally, finally, they had a way to help Mom!

“Jean-Luc!” he said, and pointed at Mom. “Figure out how to fix her!”

Jean-Luc click-tilted his head, and for a moment King wondered if he couldn’t understand complex orders like that. But the next moment saw him kneeling down next to Mom, and his beetle-black eyes changed to white.

King held his breath. He was pretty sure everyone else did, too.

Jean-Luc’s eyes stayed white, and he looked over Mom really closely. Maybe he was doing some sort of scan? He let out several clicks, and whirs, and even a chirp. King felt his hopes rising.

And then, before anyone could stop him, he reached out and yanked the scalpel out of her ear.

“Mom!” King shrieked, because Hunter had been pretty clear about the possibility of worse damage if the scalpel was moved. Hunter let out a yell and dove forward. Luz threw down another glyph and Jean-Luc was once again imprisoned by plants. Eve jumped forward to pick up the scalpel from where it had dropped on the floor.

And then Mom shot upwards and shouted, “Give me Apple Blood or give me death!”

Everyone stopped.

Mom blinked, and looked around, expression falling into befuddlement.

“…Bwuh?” she said. She touched the side of her head, wincing.

“Mom!” King shrieked, and threw himself at her.

Mom caught him, just like he knew she would, just like she always did, even though she still looked really confused. He snuggled into her, and felt safe for the first time since the windows of the Owl House had exploded.

“Eda!” everyone else said, and also moved in to hug her. King had gotten there first, though, so he was the only one who got a hug back. It was very gratifying.

“Where are we?” Mom asked, “Why does this look fami-gah!”

Mom jerked back, and King glanced up to see she was looking at Jean-Luc.

“It’s okay!” Luz said, seeing the same thing. “He’s on our side now!”

“He’s what –” Mom said, before taking a deep breath. Her chest expanded underneath King’s cheek, and it was probably the best sensation he’d ever felt because it meant she was alive and okay. “Okay, what the frickety-frack is going on?”

It took a couple minutes to explain. King didn’t bother saying anything, because all of his attention was on hugging Mom.

Hugging her meant that he felt her flinch when she heard what happened to Raine and Lilith, though.

She was tense as they finished the rest of the story. When they stopped talking, Mom still didn’t speak.

King wiggled to look up at her. Mom’s face was blank, staring at something he couldn’t see.

He’d never seen her like this. King didn’t like it.

“…Eda?” Luz said at last, uncertainty. “What…what are gonna do?”

Mom didn’t answer.

“We can – we can fortify this place,” Hunter said when the silence stretched out. “The Emperor doesn’t know where we are. We can recover here, and build up our strength.”

“But what about Raine and Lily?” Eve murmured. “He…he’s going to hurt them.”

“We don’t know that,” Luz said weakly.

“Yes,” Eve said, “I do.”

There was another very long silence.

King didn’t know what to say. Two months ago, he would have said he hated Lilith, and he hadn’t even known who Raine was. No matter what Mom felt for them, King wouldn’t have cared if they were captured by Belos two months ago.

It was different now, though. Mom had told him that Lilith was trying to be better, and she had gone on and proved it. King couldn’t quite consider her his aunt yet, but he might someday. And Raine, despite their terrible first impression, had proved themself worthy of Mom’s heart.

King didn’t want them to get hurt. Either of them.

He just didn’t see what they could do about it.

“Well,” Mom said, “I’ll just go and rescue them, then.”

Everyone blinked. King could actually hear the sound of four pairs of eyelids closing and opening at once. It was a weird sound.

“You will?” Eve said.

“Heck yeah!” Luz said, perking up and pumping her arm. “We’re gonna rescue them! Never leave a man behind! – or woman! Or person!”

“That’s right!” King said, straightening in Mom’s lap. Right, of course, what had he been thinking with all that depressing stuff? Obviously they could rescue Raine and Lilith! They’d rescued Mom, hadn’t they? This wasn’t any different! “They won’t know what hit them when we swoop in!”

“Yeah!” Luz cheered.

“Me, not we,” Mom said, and nudged King off her lap. “I’m going by myself.”

Everyone blinked. Again.

“…What,” King said.

“Wait, Eda, what are you talking about?” Luz said. “Of course we’re coming with!”

“You – you can’t go back there alone,” Hunter said. “He – he’ll –”

“Hunter,” Mom said, “I’m not dragging you or Eve back there.”

King saw Eve relax when she heard that, which, okay, yeah. That was fair. Hunter looked like he thought he should disagree, but didn’t actually want to, which was also fair. The two of them shouldn’t ever have to go anywhere near Belos ever again.

But…

“That still leaves me and Luz!” King argued. “We can come with you no problem!”

“Well,” Mom said, and suddenly she looked…really tired. “That depends on whether you’re still speaking to me in five minutes.”

King blinked, and swapped glances with Luz. She looked just as lost as him.

“What do you mean?” King asked.

Mom closed her eyes, and for a moment she looked older than King had ever seen. Tired and worn and sad.

“I mean I’ve been lying to you two for a while now,” Mom said, “And now I have to come clean. I was going to tonight, I swear I was, but…”

“Wait, do you mean that thing you were going to tell us?” Luz asked. King tilted his head questioningly, and she said, “Eda said she had something to tell us after dinner, just us two.”

“Should we leave?” Eve asked, glancing at Hunter.

“Nah, you can stay,” Mom said. “Hunter already knows half of it, anyways.”

Hunter’s eyes widened. “Oh, is it about –” His eyes darted to King.

“Yeah,” Mom said.

King was confused, and he didn’t like it. Mom was being all dramatic and cryptic, and after the day he’d had King didn’t want to deal with riddles. He kind of doubted this was as big a deal as Mom was making it out to be, so that was probably why he said, “Well, let’s hear it then! What’s this big secret?”

Mom closed her eyes briefly, then opened them.

“I didn’t tell the whole truth about when the portal got smashed,” Mom said. “I left some things out.”

…Oh.

That…was kind of a big deal.

“…Like what?” Luz said slowly.

“Like the fact that Emperor McBraggart revealed that Titan’s Blood is necessary to operate it,” Mom said. She looked down at her hand in her lap and clenched it. “The key had some. You remember the eye on the key? It had some liquid behind the glass? That was Titan’s Blood.”

King sort of remembered that, yeah. He never really got a close look at the portal key, because Mom kept it close and he admittedly tended to break things. But he did remember there was a glass eye on that key.

“…Okay,” Luz said. She didn’t exactly look happy, but she hardly looked like she didn’t want to talk to Mom anymore. “So you knew we needed Titan’s Blood even before the journal told us? Why didn’t you say something?”

“Because of what I realized when I looked at it closer,” Mom said. She was still looking down. “He said that was the last of it, in the key. That he looked all over the Isles, but he’d never found any more.” She paused. “But I did. I had seen it before. I knew where to find it – I know where to find it. I know where to find – so much. More than enough to make a new portal.”

She looked up, and met King’s eyes.

“It’s you, King,” she said, and she sounded so tired. “The blood in the key was an exact match to your blood. You’re a baby Titan.”

There was a ringing silence.

King didn’t move. Couldn’t move.

“…What?” Hunter said. His eyes were wide and round. He was staring at Mom, then at King.

“What?” Luz said. She was doing the same.

King opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

“…You can’t know that,” he said at last. “That’s – my blood color’s rare, but some demons have blue blood. You don’t…”

Mom just sighed, and reached into her hair. She rummaged around, and pulled out –

King had honestly almost forgotten about that potion. It looked just as disgusting as the day he and Mom had made it together, a thick blue-brown sludge with visible hair. Hunter had been carrying it when they first met, and it had served to prove that he knew Mom, but King hadn’t given it much thought since.

Because it didn’t do anything. It was useless. At least, that’s what Mom had said.

“I lied about this,” Mom said, looking at it with something like melancholy. “Sorry about that, kiddo, but I had to lie about it. We put your fur and your blood into here and when I figured out what it could do, I knew I couldn’t do anything other than lie. Because I know what people would do, if they learned your blood can enhance magic.” She sighed, and looked at him. “Learning you were a Titan actually made a lot of sense.”

King could only stare at her. He didn’t – he didn’t know what to feel. What was he feeling? Everything was – too much. This was too much.

“…Why?” Luz said, her voice tight. “Why didn’t you…I’ve been trying to rebuild the portal for over a month. And you…”

“It was a mistake,” Mom said quietly. She looked at Luz. “I was scared. I was…so scared. King is a Titan, and if that ever got out there would be no end of people wanting to target him – for his status, for his blood, for a lot of things. And the Emperor would be first in line. You…you’re pretty-high-profile, Luz, so if you got your portal working people would know, and the Emperor would know you’d managed to find Titan’s Blood. He’d come after us then. He’d come after King. I was…I kept trying to figure out a way to have it all. Keep King safe and get you home.” She swallowed. “But I couldn’t. I don’t think I can. And it’s not fair to you or your mother to keep you apart because I’m scared of what might happen. I’m so sorry, Luz.” She looked over at King again. “And I’m sorry, King. For not telling you.”

King still didn’t know what to say. He tried to say something, anything, but he couldn’t get any words to come out. He looked over at Luz and saw that her face had so many emotions it felt like he was looking at something really private, so he looked away.

Eve looked blank, and King couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Hunter was still staring at him. King didn’t like that, but he couldn’t exactly say to stop. Of course Hunter was staring at him. He was a real living Titan, just standing right here.

He was a Titan.

He was a Titan.

“I…”

King looked back over at Luz. She had a complicated expression on her face, and seemed to be struggling with her words.

“Eda,” she said, “I’m…I don’t know if I can forgive this. This is…I miss my mom so much, and she has to miss me even more because she doesn’t even know I’m okay. You kept this from me – from us – and it’s…I’m really mad at you, Eda. I know it doesn’t sound like it, but I really am! I’m mad, and sad, and – and betrayed.”

“I know, kiddo,” Mom said.

Luz swallowed. She blinked a few times.

“That – that being said,” she said, “I can…see where you’re coming from. I don’t want to put King in danger either. I…understand why you didn’t tell me, even if I can’t forgive you. Not for a long time, at least.”

Mom nodded slowly. “…Yeah. Okay.”

She looked so small. King had never once thought of Mom as small, because she was so big in every sense of the word. Physically, and also metaphorically.

Before he could think twice, King walked forward and hugged her.

“…King?” she said.

“I’m kinda mad too,” he said, “Not like Luz is, but still. You shouldn’t have kept this from me. But you’re my Mom, even if I am a Titan, so…yeah. I forgive you.”

He glanced at Luz, to see if that was okay, and she swallowed before giving a little nod. Good. That was good. King didn’t want to have to choose between Luz and Mom. He didn’t see how he could.

“Oh,” Mom said softly. Then she brought up her arm to hug him back. “Okay. That’s…okay.”

King basked in the hug for a few long moments, because an hour ago he hadn’t been sure if he’d ever get one again.

Then he took a deep breath, and stepped back. He tilted his chin up.

“So!” he said, “How are we rescuing Raine and Lilith?”

Mom wiped her eyes, which everyone pretended not to see, and took a deep breath.

“Still just me, kid,” she said, and picked up the potion bottle from the ground. “After all, I’m the only one this will work on.”

King felt his heart stutter in his chest, and Hunter actually gasped.

“That can restore your magic?!” Hunter asked.

“I’m not sure,” Mom said, staring at the bottle. “Only one way to find out.”

Then she pulled the cork out with her teeth, spat it aside, and downed the potion in one long gulp.

When she was done, she lowered the bottle and shuddered. “Eugh,” she said. “Sweet sexy mother of Titan, it’s even worse than I remember.”

King blinked. “Mother of – wait, have you been swearing by yourself this whole time?”

“Obviously,” Mom smirked. “Who else would I swear by?”

King just spluttered.

“…Is it doing anything?” Luz asked.

Mom’s expression turned pensive. Then she stood up, and traced a spell circle in the air.

And for the first time since the failed petrification, King watched as Mom’s magic came alive.

A bolt of fire no bigger than Mom’s hand shot out of the circle and hit the floor. King sucked in a breath at the sight, and he was pretty sure he wasn’t the only one.

I did that, he thought, a little dazedly, as he stared at the charred spot on the floor. That potion was made from me. I can give Mom her magic back.

“Okay,” Mom breathed, but this time was different from before. This time, there was a light in her eyes, a set to her jaw, and a shift to her stance that reminded King that with her magic back, Mom was one of the most dangerous people on the Isles. “Okay, then. Time for a rescue.”

“We’re coming with you,” Luz said.

Mom looked at her. “Luz –”

“We are,” Luz insisted. “Eve and Hunter can stay behind –”

“Yes, please,” Eve murmured, almost too low to hear. Hunter looked conflicted again.

“But King and I are going,” Luz said. King stood up straighter and nodded firmly. “You’ll need someone to watch your back, and Raine and Lilith might – need help moving, when we find them.”

“…You want me to bring King close to where Belos is?” Mom asked.

“I’m going!” King said. “Titan or not, you can’t stop me! I’ll just steal Luz’s invisibility glyph and come along anyways!”

“It’s better to keep an eye on him, right?” Luz said.

“…Fine,” Mom said, looking annoyed that she couldn’t argue against any of that. “But you stick to me, got it? Do not leave my sight. I’m going to do the fighting, you just focus on helping Raine and Lily.”

King swapped glances with Luz, and they nodded. That was fine.

“…I can come too,” Hunter said.

“No, kid,” Mom said, turning to him. “You stay with Eve. It’s too dangerous for you there.”

“But –”

“No, Hunter,” Mom said firmly, but not unkindly, like how she’d once scolded King for running off in the marketplace and getting lost. She reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. “If he caught you, he would kill you. I’m not risking it. Period.”

Hunter swallowed, and after a few seconds he nodded. He stepped back to stand next to Eve.

Eve looked between them. Then she looked Mom in the eye.

“Come back,” she said. “All of you. Come back.”

“Count on it,” Mom said. “Trust me, we will.”

“I’ll have to,” was all Eve said.

“You should start flying,” Hunter said, looking towards the doorway to outside. “How long does the potion last, again?”

“Hours,” Mom said, “But why fly when we can get there in five minutes?”

Everyone looked at her.

“What,” King said, because someone had to.

Mom smirked, and picked up her staff from the floor, twirling it around in her fingers, and it wasn’t until now that King realized how long it had been since he’d seen her this confident.

“Don’t you remember, King?” she said, with a bright, wild gleam in her eyes, “We made a couple of these potions. I already drank the first one to test it out, months ago.”

Her smirk widened.

“Did you think I just sat around and wasted all that magic?”

“…Mom,” King said slowly, because she so clearly wanted someone to ask it, “Mom, what did you do?”

Mom’s eyes danced with glee. “This.”

And then she spun around to draw a spell circle.

It was enormous, the line of light trailing from Owlbert’s tip even though Mom was holding onto the very end, her arm fully extended. Mom spun in place, and the circle was the biggest King had ever seen.

When the circle was complete, it glowed, and then blazed. Mom ducked down as the inside was filled with light, and the disk rose up. It slowly rotated to stand on its edge, the light steadily growing brighter and brighter until it was hard to look at. It flew over to the wall, and stuck there, pulsing with light.

Then the air shivered, and King could almost taste the magic in the air. The disk burned brighter and shrunk, changing shape, wavering in place – and then it blazed bright as the sun for a second, so intense King closed his eyes on reflex.

When he opened them again, afterimage burned into his eyelids, he saw that where the light had been was now a rectangle on the wall.

A rectangle that showed something else.

It was a room. A room that was bare of anything except a couple doors on the walls, two that King could see, and a ramp that soared upwards. The doors and the room didn’t look particularly special, except for the fact that they absolutely hadn’t been there just a minute ago.

“…The Room of Shortcuts,” Luz breathed.

“Sure is, kid,” Mom said, letting out a long breath and looking at the rectangle – the doorway. “But the one at Hexside was a prototype. Only covers the building. I always meant to make one that could cover the whole Isles – the whole Isles and more – but the curse dragged me down. The potion finally let me be me strong enough, so…here it is.”

“…That’s how you got to Eclipse Lake before us,” Hunter said. He sounded as stunned as King felt. “You used this.”

“Guilty,” Mom said. She spun her staff and straightened up. “Alright, let’s go. Hunter, Eve, we’ll be back soon. Take it easy.”

“…Alright,” Eve said, possibly because Hunter was still staring.

Wordlessly, King fell in beside Luz, and they walked through the doorway after Mom.

Inside, King looked around and saw that there were a dozen doors scattered around, not counting the one Mom had just made. Half, including the new one, were on the lowest level, and the others were higher along the ramp. The room wasn’t very big, but it was tall, the ceiling up so high that there was enough space for dozens, maybe hundreds more doors.

“The potion lasted a while, but not long enough to make more than a dozen doors,” Mom said idly, as she led them towards the ramp. “I have to connect it at the place I want to add, so I was rushing all over the Isles that day.”

They went up the ramp, and Mom led them to one of the doors, a wooden square painted white.

“But oh, me, was it worth it,” Mom said with undeniable satisfaction, and pushed it open.

Luz and King looked at each other, and followed her though.

They stepped out into an alley. King looked back and saw the door swing closed, disappearing like it was never there. The wall it had been on looked just like a normal brick and mortar wall. He looked towards the mouth of the alley, and it only took a few seconds to recognize the street – they were less than a mile from the Conformatorium.

“Oh,” Luz said. She sounded kind of stunned. King knew the feeling. “Wow.”

“Like I said,” Mom said, “Worth it.”

She took a deep breath, and changed to Harpy Mode. She glanced at them, and gestured for them to get on her staff. They did so.

“Now,” Mom said, her voice becoming more serious, “Let’s go rescue Raine and Lily.”

**********

The flight to the Conformatorium didn’t take very long. They debated whether Raine and Lilith would be taken there or to the Emperor’s castle, but couldn’t decide either way. The Conformatorium was closer, so they decided to check that first.

Most of the flight was spent with Mom drilling them on what they would be doing – namely, not fighting unless absolutely necessary. King was annoyed, but he had to admit that Mom was the most powerful of the three of them right now by a pretty big margin. He still wasn’t sure how to trigger that soundwave effect on purpose. So he guessed he could stay in the background for now. Just this once.

Mom put an illusion over them, too – King was used to that, because Mom usually put one on him when he went on errands with her. She generally didn’t want people to know about him, in case they decided to target him to get to her. In this case, that was a bit more literal, so Mom made sure no one would be able to see him or Luz trailing after her. Once it was cast, Mom made them promise again that they wouldn’t draw attention to themselves.

King had wondered whether Luz would be able to work with Mom after the whole – Titan bombshell, but she seemed to be shoving all her emotions about that to the side for now. Which was fair. King was kind of doing that too. He could freak out later.

No one really looked up as they flew over Bonesborough. King wasn’t surprised; it wasn’t like anyone outside the Owl House would recognize Mom in her Harpy form. They got to the Conformatorium and touched down in front of it without anyone noticing a thing.

They probably noticed when Mom tore the wall down, though.

“Whoah!” Luz blurted, jumping backwards at the cloud of dust. King could feel the vibrations in the ground as the wall hit the ground, reminding him of the earthquakes from the attack on the Owl House.

Mom didn’t hesitate, just walking forward into the new hole in the Conformatorium. Alarms were blaring, and King saw that witches were either running away or getting out their scrolls to take pictures.

King hurried forward after Mom, because even if she hadn’t been insistent on them staying with her, he wasn’t going to let her out of his sight now. The memory of her being unconscious with a scalpel in her ear was still really fresh in his mind. Probably because that had been less than twenty minutes ago.

Maybe they should have waited to do this. But it wasn’t like Mom would have waited. That wasn’t really something she did.

They had barely stepped into the Conformatorium when a bunch of guards ran around the corner. The lead one pointed and shouted, “Attack –”

They didn’t get to finish their sentence, because Mom drew a circle and threw the entire squad backwards. A couple managed to twist around to land without getting hurt; most didn’t. The two that were intact drew their own circles – one spat out fire, and another made spikes grow from the floor, racing towards Mom.

Mom leapt into the air to avoid both, and threw up a shield around King and Luz, shimmering so faintly no one would see it if they didn’t know it was there. Then she sent out a shadowy version of Hooty that filled the hallway, mouth opened wide. The guards tried to dodge, but Shadow Hooty swallowed both of them and then faded away. The guards dropped to the ground, unmoving, and Mom walked over to them.

She casually picked one up by the front of their uniform, and asked, in the same pleasant and untroubled voice she asked King to please pass the salt at dinner, “Where are Raine Whispers and Lilith Clawthorne?”

“I –” the guard stuttered. “I’m not telling you.”

“Alright,” Mom said, and dropped them. They let out a muffled yell when they hit the floor face-first. She stepped over to the other guard, picked them up, and repeated, in the same tone, “Where are Raine Whispers and Lilith Clawthorne?”

“Whuh – what’ll you do if I don’t tell you?” the guard asked.

“Well,” Mom said matter-of-factly, “If no one tells me, I’ll probably have to tear this place apart brick by brick until I find them. Bring the whole place down. And I probably won’t have time to bother with evacuating anyone while I’m at it. The paralysis you’re under lasts for at least an hour, by the way.”

The guard let out a whimper. “Okay, okay! They’re in the lowest level, East side – I think the demon tube is being kept there, too.”

“Hooty?” Luz whispered to King. “He’s here too? I thought he was attached to the Owl House?”

“He can come off, but it’s really gross,” King whispered back. “Like, really.”

“Thank you for your cooperation,” Mom told the guard, then dropped them. They let out a yell identical to the first guard when they hit the floor.

“Where are the stairs?” Luz asked, looking around.

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Mom said, and blasted a hole in the floor. “Come on.”

King blinked. “Oh. That works too.”

He and Luz followed Mom through the hole, and Mom blasted another hole in the floor that greeted them.

Apparently, they were just going to take the most direct route there. Well, that was okay with King! The sooner they got this done with, the sooner they could get Mom looked at by an actual healer! King didn’t think weird golem-guardian-creatures counted as accredited medical professionals.

When they went down to the next level, though, there were more guards. They didn’t seem to be expecting anyone, but they attacked as soon as Mom came into view.

Mom threw up a shield that had all the attacks bouncing off, and a few actually reflected back. The hallway was filled with shouting as people dodged and attacked again.

That didn’t last long, though, because Mom did that teleporting thing Hunter insisted was called ‘flash-step’ to appear behind everyone, and let off a couple blasts of light. The guards yelled and tried to re-orient, but Mom had them all knocked out before they could so much as realize where she was.

Then Mom blasted another hole in the floor, and they went down again.

“This is a lot faster than when we came here,” Luz said.

“Yeah,” King said, watching as Mom took out a single very unlucky guard in about half a second, before ripping the ground open again. They dropped down to the creepy cavern that they had come to the first time, still full of statues and vines and terrible lighting. “I’m a fan!”

Obviously, that was when the Coven Heads teleported in.

There were four of them this time – the Abomination guy, some little furry demon, Terra, and a stocky man with a beard and hammer. King wasn’t sure whether to be relieved Cutburn wasn’t here or angry at the missed chance to pay her back for what she did to Mom.

“Oh mierda –” Luz said, before everything happened all at once.

Mom didn’t waste a moment – King was pretty sure she started casting right as Luz spoke – before throwing a blast of energy at the four Coven Heads. A wall of earth rose up to shield them, and even though the blast hit it full-on it cracked to reveal them unharmed.

Mom didn’t seem too upset about that, though, because she had already grabbed her staff from Luz, thrown up another nearly invisible shield around Luz and King, and flash-stepped around to the side of the quartet to let another blast loose. This time, the vines on the cavern’s walls lashed out, and Mom had to flash-step away again at the last second, sending her blast to the side.

There was a slorping noise, and a column of Abomination goo rose up halfway across the cavern. It fell away to reveal the Abomination man and the little furry demon. Terra and the hammer guy remained behind.

“Hello, sprout, lovely to see you again!” Terra said. King realized this was the woman who had called out to them during the Owl House attack. Mom flash-stepped again and sent out a spectral Hooty, but Terra whisked herself and Hammer Guy away on the back of a huge plant. “Did you get your magic back? You must tell me how you managed that, the Emperor was very firm on the fact that that would never happen!”

Mom didn’t answer, and instead spun her staff in a circle. The circle multiplied, and split into a dozen littler circles that started firing blasts. She flash-stepped again, and when Hammer Guy pulled up spikes from the ground, she ripped them free before they hit her. The spikes shattered in Mom’s magical grip, and the shards started spinning around her in a storm of flying knives.

There was a roar, and the little furry demon – who wasn’t nearly so little now, wow that was a lot of teeth – practically flew through the air at Mom. A hand of Abomination goo came from the other side. Mom managed to dodge both of them, but the goo caught the demon and threw them after her.

Mom batted them to the side with her staff, and the demon smashed into Hammer Guy, sending both of them tumbling across the floor. Mom dove at Terra, shards of stone still whirling around her.

King really hoped that would wipe the smirk off Terra’s stupid face, because it wasn’t like plants did very well against really sharp stuff, but Terra threw up a wall of green that took a couple seconds for Mom to slash through. When she did, it fell away to reveal Terra had bought enough time to cover herself in armor made of some kind of dark wood. There was a sound almost like hail, as the shards of stone whirling around Mom repeatedly hit Terra’s wooden armor and failed to break it.

Mom dodged to the side when Terra shot spikes out of her armor at her, and threw a blast towards Abomination Guy on the sidelines. He did that really annoying becoming-goo thing, and was unaffected.

There was a sound like an avalanche, and King spotted Hammer Guy crouching down, his eyes glowing, right before two of the enormous statues started moving.

They stepped forward with an unfair amount of speed, considering how stupidly huge they were, and tried to hit Mom out of the air. She ducked and weaved, flying like she’d had wings her whole life, and twirled her staff as she went. The vines that still clung to the statues shuddered to life, and snaked around their limbs. One of the statues tripped immediately, and Abomination Guy warped across the room to scoop up Furry Demon right before it fell on them.

“Give up, sprout!” Terra said, as several more vines detached from the walls and lashed out at her. “Magic or not, you can’t hope to beat all of us!”

“She’s right,” Luz hissed, and King saw that her hands were clenched so tightly her knuckles were nearly white. “We have to help her.”

But then Mom whirled around as she sent another shadow Hooty towards Hammer Guy, dodging Terra’s vines and the remaining statue’s hands, and King saw –

She was smirking.

“Wait,” King said, “I think she’s planning someth–”

And then Mom started to whistle.

It shouldn’t have been audible. Mom’s little circles were still firing, the storm of stone chips was hitting everything around her, the statue shook the ground with every step, and Terra’s plants were making noise as they grew and moved around the cavern. It really shouldn’t have been possible to hear a whistle underneath all that.

But it was. And more importantly, it was possible to see what it was doing.

The air felt kind of hazy, like the moments before falling asleep. Objects around the cavern started to blacken, like some sort of rot was spreading through them. King couldn’t see the rot very well, not from the very edge of the fight, but he could tell what it was. It would be hard not to.

After all, he knew very well what Mom’s gem looked like, these days.

“The curse,” Luz breathed, her eyes wide.

“…Yeah,” King said, also staring.

He’d never really had a high opinion of Bard magic. Living with Raine had let him see that it wasn’t completely useless, but still. King had never seen Mom use it, not once in his entire life, so he had always thought it just wasn’t very powerful.

He’d never thought it might be powerful enough, in the right hands, in the right circumstances, that using it casually would be like swatting houseflies with a bomb. That it needed to be held back until she was really, truly in a life-or-death fight, the kind of fight most people never even dreamed of. A fight against four Coven Heads at once.

The bubbling black rot crept over every surface, spreading and multiplying with terrifying speed. The Coven Heads all yelled, since it was on them as well. From the look of it, they didn’t even realize this was Mom’s curse.

They did realize why it was happening, though. Terra doubled the size of the plant she was standing on to get closer to where Mom was flying, and Hammer Guy rocketed up on a similar column of rock, leaving the statue to go still again. Furry Demon sprouted wings, and was everyone stealing Mom’s tricks?

But Mom dodged their attempts to catch her, still whistling, and the rot grew further. It crept up the legs of the Coven Heads, chewing on the edges of their clothes, and King didn’t think he was imagining when it started to bubble on their skin.

They were moving slower, and their magic was faltering, the same way Mom’s had near the end, the rot eating away everything that made them strong. Their attacks were feebler, less precise, and they were distracted by the foreign feeling of weakness.

Because that was Mom’s real advantage. King could see that the rot was on her too, leeching her magic just like the rest of them, but she was used to that. She had lived like that for thirty years. She had said, once, that she barely remembered what it was like, not feeling the curse’s pull every second of every day, and King had never really forgotten those words.

Mom was used to feeling weak, being weak, and pulling through anyways.

The Coven Heads were not.

It was obvious as the seconds ticked by, as their attacks grew more erratic in strength and accuracy, their magic failing them like it had never failed before. They tried to hide it, but they were panicking, and Furry Demon stopped attacking entirely to try and claw the rot off of themself. Abomination Guy did the same just a couple seconds later while Terra and Hammer Guy kept trying and failing to hit Mom.

Mom’s attacks were accurate as ever, though, and now her targets were worse at dodging. A blast hit Hammer Guy, and threw him across the cavern. A shadow Hooty wound itself around Furry Demon, pinning them in place, and they snarled as it wound around their neck and squeezed. Abomination Guy tried to reach them, but his column of ooze sloshed back to the floor as he tried to bring it up. Mom sent a pale blue Hooty at him, and he couldn’t dodge in time. It phased through him, and he dropped.

“No!” Terra snarled, her eyes wide, her wooden armor falling away in pieces. The rot was covering her skin in patches now, and she uselessly tried to pull it off. She tried to draw a circle, but it fizzled out and the panic in her eyes grew. “No, this is wrong, you can’t do this! The Titan’s will –”

Mom shut her up with a huge blast of light, and Terra went flying to hit the wall of the cavern with a crack. Almost at the same time, Furry Demon dropped, finally choked into unconsciousness.

Silence fell, at long last. Mom had stopped whistling.

She sucked in an audible breath as she dropped back down to the ground, her feet thumping as they hit the packed dirt.

“Yeah, well, it’s also the Titan’s will that he gets to have eye scream before bedtime,” Mom huffed. “Doesn’t mean I let him.”

(King spared a second to pout about that.)

But then he jumped out from the shield and the illusion and ran over to her. The ground was churned up and charred in places, which slowed him down a little, but he reached Mom soon enough.

King latched onto Mom’s leg as tightly as he could. Now that he was touching her, he could feel little tremors going through her, shaking from just the effort of standing up.

Well. She had just beaten four Coven Heads at once, literally single-handedly. As cool as it would’ve been for her to not even be out of breath, King knew that this must have been probably the hardest fight she’d had in…ever, maybe. It wasn’t surprising that she was exhausted.

…But it was still really cool. Mom had just beaten four Coven Heads at once. King doubted anyone else had ever done that. He doubted anyone else could do that, not even the stupid Emperor.

King looked up at her and said, very solemnly, “That was the coolest thing ever.”

Mom huffed out a faint laugh, and bent over a little to rest her hand on his head. She was also still holding onto her staff, and he could feel the trembling stronger now, but it was still nice.

“It was pretty cool, wasn’t it,” Mom said, looking around. “But I don’t think I have much left in me, so we’re gonna have to go with Plan B.”

King looked up questioningly, and she brushed her knuckles against his head again before stepping back from him. She took a deep breath, turned, and marched over to where Abomination Guy was collapsed on the floor.

A flick of her staff lifted him upright. He was still limp, head lolling forward, which actually looked kind of creepy, honestly.

At least, it looked kind of creepy until Mom bonked him on the head with Owlbert and barked out, “Darius! Enough with the beauty sleep; we need your help!”

Abomination Guy – Darius, apparently – woke up with a snort. He looked disoriented for about half a second before his eyes sharpened, sweeping across the scene.

“Eda the Owl Lady,” he said. He glanced down at himself, and his eyes widened. “Was I lying in the dirt? This is silk, you absolute barbarian!”

“Yeah, yeah, add it to my list of crimes,” Mom said in a bored tone. “But more importantly, I need you to do your helpful little warping trick and get us to Raine and Lily, and then get us out of here.”

King blinked, and swapped glances with Luz. She looked just as confused as he did.

Darius looked blank. “And you expect me to help you…why? You just ruined my favorite cloak!”

“Oh, I don’t expect you to help me for my sake,” Mom said. “But I left Eve – sorry, Evelyn – alone, and she’s got to be worried by now. I gotta get back to her.”

King blinked again. Mom hadn’t called Eve by that name that since the very first night she’d arrived. Why –

Darius’ face remained blank. “Who?”

“You can drop the act, Dari,” Mom rolled her eyes. “If you didn’t want anyone to know you were the one who helped her out of the castle, you shouldn’t have tailored her clothes.”

Darius’ face flickered, and King jolted in sheer surprise.

“Wait, he got Eve out?” Luz blurted.

“He sure did,” Mom said, not looking away from Darius. “So now I’m politely requesting that he do it again for all of us. I’d hate for Belos to find out just how his shiny new Grimwalker disappeared from under his nose.”

Darius’ eyes widened, very slightly. “You wouldn’t.”

Mom leaned in closer to him. “Darius, let me explain something to you. Raine, Lily and Hooty are somewhere in this building right now, and if they haven’t been tortured already they’re not very far from it. So I want you to look me in the eyes and believe me when I say there is nothing I wouldn’t do right now to get them back.”

King hugged himself, feeling a chill in the air. Whether that was from what Mom was saying or how she was saying it wasn’t exactly clear, though. Because when she said it like that…King believed her. He really did.

It seemed like Darius believed her, too, because his expression puckered for a moment before smoothing out. He gave a very small nod.

“Fine,” he said. “Now put me down already.”

Mom stopped levitating him, and he dropped to the ground, landing on his feet. He brushed himself off, grimacing at the dust and dirt on his clothes.

“I’m sending you the cleaning bill for this,” he said.

“Aw, Darius, you know I’d be happy to pay for it,” Mom said insincerely, “But my budget’s been pretty tight ever since someone dumped another kid on me.”

“And yet you still managed to find a way to restore your magic,” Darius said. King stiffened. “How did you do that?”

“Tricks of the trade,” Mom said. “And it’s not permanent, I can tell you that, so let’s get moving. Time’s a-wasting.”

“Very well,” Darius said. His eyes swept around the cavern, and lingered on the Furry Demon, who was back in their smaller form. He watched them for a few seconds, until King saw their chest move as they breathed, and then a little bit of tension left Darius. He straightened his clothes again and huffed. “Gather closer, but if you touch me I’m leaving you behind.”

King trotted over, and after a moment’s deliberation reached up to grab the hem of Mom’s dress. Luz stood on his other side, so he reached up and grabbed her hand as well. Her palm was sweaty in his.

Abomination ooze surged up under their feet and wrapped around them, and King was very glad he was holding onto Mom and Luz. This was way creepier than it looked. He held his breath, because inhaling did not seem like a good idea right now, and squeezed his eyes shut so he could pretend the darkness was by choice.

Thankfully, it was only a few seconds later when the ooze fell away, and King was quick to open his eyes.

They were in a small, dimly-lit room. There were three people in front of them, who were all looking at them in surprise.

“Edalyn!” Lilith blurted out, jumping to her feet. She had a bunch of chains on her that clanked pretty loudly and looked kind of heavy, but she didn’t seem to notice them. “You’re okay!”

“Eda,” Raine rasped, and…oh, yikes.

While Lilith looked mostly unharmed, with just a cut on her head that King could see, Raine was a lot more beat up. They had quite a few cuts and bruises that King could see (including a huge black eye), one of their legs was in a splint made of torn cloth and rusted old rod(?), a couple of their fingers were sort of crooked-looking, and they were holding their side kind of gingerly.

Next to them, Hooty (in his portable form) only looked better because there was less of him to be hurt. Even so, he had two black eyes, several nasty cuts and bruises, and a pretty painful-looking crack in his beak that was wrapped shut with a strip of cloth. He made a muffled squeaking noise at Mom.

“…Oh,” Mom said, very softly, and that pretty much said it all.

She went over to the three of them and knelt down to look at their chains. Raine looked up at her like she was the last sunrise they would ever see, while Lilith looked nervously between her and Darius.

“What is he –”

“I’m blackmailing him, he’s our ride out of here,” Mom said absently. “Raine, are you too hurt to move?”

“No,” Raine said. They weren’t blinking as they stared at her. “And you? Are you okay?”

“Of course I am,” Mom said. “When am I ever not?”

“Do not joke about this, Edalyn,” Lilith said. “You were – we thought you were dead for a moment.”

“Of course she wasn’t dead,” Darius said. “The Emperor gave orders to take her alive.”

There was a very short pause, as everyone took that in.

“…You mean so he could treat her like Eve,” King said, very flatly.

Darius shifted. He looked uncomfortable. Good.

“Ugh, whatever,” Mom said. “Luz, you still have some plant glyphs, right?”

“R-right,” Luz said, and let go of King’s hand. He let her go reluctantly. “But aren’t some chains magically durable?”

“Sure, but I think those are only on Raine, and I have a solution for that,” Mom said. “You get Lily free. Darius, get Hooty.”

“I am not your maid, Owl Lady –”

“That’s too bad; you have the legs for it,” Mom said. King had no idea what that meant, or why it made Luz let out a squeak, “But dear tired mother of Titan, just unlock him already. If you want to be back in that cave by the time the others wake up we need to move fast.”

“Ugh,” Darius said, but he went over to Hooty, changed his hand to Abomination goo, and stuck a finger inside the lock.

“Okay,” Luz muttered. She pulled out some glyphs – King really needed to learn more of those – and pressed one to the lock on Lilith’s chains. She tapped it, and plants grew and made the metal give out a very nice screechy, crunchy sound.

“What are you doing to get Raine out, Edalyn?” Lilith asked.

“Oh, oh, I think I know!” King said.

“I think you do,” Mom said, and then she ripped out the part of the wall that the chains were attached to.

“Woo, I was right!” King said, punching the air.

His victory was overshadowed by the way Lilith and Raine yelped, though. What party-poopers.

“Eda?!” Raine said scratchily. Yeesh, did they gargle with gravel before getting locked up or something? “Is that your magic?”

“You have your magic back?” Lilith said, eyes huge. “What – how –”

“Questions later, escape now!” Luz said briskly, and broke another of Lilith’s chains.

“Here,” Darius said, holding out Hooty like he was some sort of disgusting sludge creature. King was kind of offended on Hooty’s behalf, even if sometimes Hooty inspired him to act the same way. “Your…tube.”

“Hootsifer, oh thank the Titan,” Lilith said, holding out her arms for Hooty. The demon looked up at her, starry-eyed, and let out what was probably a muffled ‘Lulu!’ behind the gag. She quickly started working to untie it without hurting him.

King felt kind of awkward at hearing Lilith swear by…him. Oh, wow, this was going to get old fast, wasn’t it.

“Got it!” Luz said, and Lilith’s last chain clattered to the floor.

“Finally,” Darius said. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Drop us off in the alleyway behind the old theater on Aberration Road,” Mom told him.

“Whatever,” Darius muttered.

Abomination sludge rose up around them again, and this time King didn’t manage to grab onto anyone in time. He closed his eyes and held his breath and tried not to feel scared. He was a Titan, right? Titans probably didn’t feel scared.

…Oh, who was he kidding. This was terrifying and he hated it! He never wanted to do this again!

When the ooze fell back again, King gulped down air and opened his eyes, greedily looking around.

They were back in the alleyway they first came through, though King couldn’t tell where the doorway was. But even just the knowledge that it was there was incredibly comforting. They weren’t far from his birth(?) island, which honestly felt like the safest place in the entire world right now. Heck, it probably was.

Faint sirens and alarms could be heard drifting through the air, and the mouth of the alley showed that the street looked more deserted than it should be. That was fair. King had participated in more Conformatorium break-outs than the average person, but even then, it didn’t happen every day.

“Alright,” Darius said. “That’s it, I’m done playing taxi for your ridiculous rescue mission. You’re on your own from here. Goodbye.”

Mom looked up from where she was holding Raine upright. “Oh, you don’t want to say anything to Eve?”

Darius paused. It was very slight, but it was there.

“Eve?” Lilith said, looking between them. “Why…oh. Oh. Darius, you were the one…”

“…That hardly matters now,” Darius said stiffly. King raised his eyebrows, unimpressed. He gave the deflection a 1.9 on the convincingness scale.

“She’s doing alright,” Mom said. “Well, I mean, she was before last night. Now it’s kind of up in the air. But she’s better than she was, I know that much.”

Darius didn’t say anything.

“You know,” King said, hit with a sudden brainwave, “We have a rebel group! You wanna join?”

“King!” several people said.

“What?” King asked, looking around at everyone. “I think if anyone was going to have a rebel group, it’d be us. It’s not hard to guess.”

“It’s really not,” Darius said.

“See?” King said, gesturing at Darius.

“…Do you want to join, then?” Luz asked.

“I…” Darius said, and looked towards the direction of the Conformatorium. “…can’t answer that right now. I’ll meet you here this time tomorrow and we’ll talk. Alright?”

“Fine,” Mom said. She made a shooing motion. “Get along, then.”

Darius glared at her, but Abomination ooze rose up, and he was gone.

“Okay, Edalyn,” Lilith said, clutching Hooty. “Now, where are we going?”

“Don’t think I can walk very far,” Raine rasped. They sounded vaguely apologetic.

“Yes, there’s that,” Lilith said. “I presume you had us dropped in this alley for a reason. Is your safehouse near here?”

Mom grinned as she propped Raine up better, their head tucked into the crook of her neck. “…Not exactly.”

**********

It took maybe twenty minutes for Lilith to stop nerding out over the Room of Shortcuts. King was pretty sure Raine was impressed, too, it was just that their injuries took priority. Hunter patched them up, along with Hooty, with a bunch of medical supplies Mom stole from a hospital in Latissa.

Yeah, the Room of Shortcuts was pretty cool.

Eventually, Lilith noticed that the temple they were in was also weird and old, and started nerding out over that instead. King tried to ignore her, because he…didn’t really want to explain to her yet just why it was like that.

Instead, King just focused on leaning against Luz as she drew more glyphs. It was nice and peaceful, after the events of the past six hours or so.

Sometimes Luz would pause in her drawing for a few seconds. King wasn’t sure what she was thinking, when that happened, but…he could maybe guess.

During one of those pauses, King decided to speak up.

“You can have as much as you need, you know,” he said. “I mean, my blood.”

Luz was still for a second.

“…Thanks, King,” she said.

“Sure,” he said. He burrowed his face into her leg. “But, uh, could we take out as much as you need all at once? Any more than one needle and I’m gone.”

Luz let out a soft chuckle, and she petted his head. “Sure thing, buddy. I don’t think I’ll need much, anyways.”

“Oh,” King said, relieved. “Good.”

There was the sound of footsteps, and King looked up to see Mom, Hunter, and Eve come over. Hunter looked tired – even more than usual, anyways. Eve looked a little better than when they’d first gotten to this place, which probably wasn’t hard. Mom was back to her usual form, and looked him and Luz over before she spoke.

“Alright,” she said. “Hooty and Raine are resting, and Lily’s still writing a thesis on the walls or whatever, so I figure it’s time to talk.”

“Talk about what?” King wondered.

“Well,” Mom said. “For one, this island. I’d suggest making this tower our base of operations, but I think Lily would kill me for it, so that’s out. But that doesn’t mean we can’t stay on the island. We can scout out good places to set up another building in a little bit, how does that sound?”

“Okay,” Luz said, not looking up.

“I can do the scouting,” Hunter said.

King and Eve nodded.

“I’ll go in a few minutes,” Hunter said, looking towards the doorway. “Eda, are you – how’s your ear?”

“It’s fine, kid,” Mom said.

“You’re turning your head more,” Hunter said. “Like your hearing is damaged, and you need to compensate.”

“What?” King said, alarmed. “Mom?”

“…Ugh, fine, it’s maybe a little damaged,” Mom said. She looked annoyed. Not like she might be half-deaf now, but Mom hardly ever made a fuss about the injuries that were bad. “But it’s fine, kid, really. I got off pretty lightly, all things considered.”

King did not like that deflection. He didn’t like it at all. He got up and ran over to hug her leg. She reached down and ran her fingers over his skull, and he peered up at her.

“Go to a healer,” he half-asked, half-demanded. “Promise you’ll go to a healer.”

“…Fine,” Mom said. She didn’t even try to argue, which was how King knew he made the right decision to insist. Then Mom shook her head, and said, “But not until the potion wears off. I don’t want people getting a good look at me while I’m like this.”

“How long until that happens?” Hunter asked.

“At least six hours, I’m pretty sure,” Mom said. “I can whip up a house in under one, so take your time.”

“Wow, that long?” King said, perking up a little. “That’s great! My blood is the coolest!”

“Yeah,” Luz said. “It’s pretty powerful.”

Mom winced. “Luz…”

“I’m going outside for a while,” Luz said. She stood and picked up her notepad without looking at anyone, especially Mom. “I just – I need some time. Okay? Now that everything’s settled down…I need time.”

“…Okay,” Mom said softly.

No one said anything else as Luz walked out of the tower. King watched her go with a heavy sort of feeling in his chest. He didn’t like it.

“Um,” Hunter said, fiddling with his staff. “So – food. What are we doing for food?”

Mom breathed in, and breathed out. “Food,” she repeated. “Okay, yeah, that’s easy. I’ll just go to Latissa again. Maybe we can grow some stuff here with plant glyphs, too; I don’t know if I can steal enough to feed all of us forever.”

“I think I’d like to make a garden,” Eve murmured. “It sounds nice.”

“Sure thing, kiddo,” Mom said. She rubbed her hand on her face. “Ugh. Anything else?”

“…Do you need more of my blood?” King said hesitantly.

“Nah,” Mom said. “I’m good.”

“You said the potion runs out in six hours, though,” King shifted on his feet. “If you need more –”

“King,” Mom said, and she crouched down to put her hand on his shoulder. King found himself looking into her eyes, both the familiar gold and the grey that still tripped him up sometimes. “No. I don’t need any more.”

“I mean,” King trailed off. “It’s useful, right? Titan’s Blood is really magical, and we can use all the magic we can get right now.”

Mom looked serious – like, really serious, the kind King had only seen a handful of times before. She squeezed his shoulder.

“You’re my son, King,” Mom said. “Not a walking blood bag. I kept this secret because of people who’d want to use you for that, so like fu-frick am I going to. You can give some blood to Luz, but no more than that, okay? Not to me or anyone else.”

“But…” King said.

“No,” Mom repeated. “You may be a Titan, mister, but I’m still your mother. And I say no.”

“…Okay,” King said, and his voice was smaller than he meant it to be.

Mom’s face softened. “C’mere, kid.”

King let himself be scooped up in a hug, and clung to her. He buried his face in her shoulder, and it was as comforting as it always was. He knew Mom-hugs better than any kind of hugs, and they were by far the best. He would stand by that to the end of his days.

“…Eda,” Eve said. “May I ask a question?”

“'Course you can, Eve,” Mom said. She shifted King a little, but she kept on hugging him, so he allowed it. “I told you, you can always ask me stuff.”

“Okay,” Eve said. “So. Um…what’s a Titan?”

Chapter Text

Eve didn’t know how to feel about the new island.

Granted, this wasn’t exactly new for her. She didn’t know how to feel about a lot of things. Even now, so long after leaving the place she was made, she was still encountering so many new things it was hard to keep track of it all sometimes, much less decide how to feel about it.

That might have been because she still thought of a week or so as a long time, though. Apparently, that wasn’t actually very long at all. Eve would probably get used to larger timescales after a while. Eventually.

It would help if things stopped happening. Eda had told her that most people didn’t go through nearly as much as she had in so short a time. Most people, in fact, lived very boring lives. That sounded nice.

At least things were slowing down, now. Sort of. Really, anything would seem slow compared to last night. Eve still wasn’t entirely sure she could repeat everything that had happened last night. It would feel embarrassing, but she was actually pretty sure the same was true for everyone else.

So. Here she was, standing outside the new house and figuring out where to put a garden.

The new house was nice. Eda said it wasn’t actually very good, since it wasn’t like she’d ever actually made a house before, but Eve thought it was nice regardless. It was made of stone, and dirt packed so tightly it was almost like stone, and it was very solid and blocky because Eda didn’t know much about things like ‘foundations’ and ‘load-bearing walls’ (which was fair; they sounded very complicated) so she’d just done her best to make everything as sturdy as possible. She hadn’t even tried making it higher than one floor.

It was also big, which was helpful because that meant everyone got their own room. Eve had sort of felt guilty about taking Raine’s room in the Owl House for so long. Now they didn’t have to share with Eda anymore – though they had looked kind of disappointed about that? Odd.

But anyways, there were enough bedrooms for everyone, plus a couple more because who knew whether they’d collect more people, and rooms that could be put to other uses with a bit of work.

It was kind of hard to be in the few rooms that didn’t have windows, because of the whole thing where it was made of stone and dirt, but Eve kept quiet about that. Everyone was dealing with more important things than Eve being reminded of the lab, and it wasn’t like it was hard to stay out of those rooms.

Including now. A faint breeze ruffled her hair as Eve looked over the cleared space in front of her, and tried to think about how much it could fit. It would be helpful if she knew…anything about plants, but she had done more with less.

Maybe…big plants near the back, up against the wall of the house, and smaller plants near the front? That way they would all get enough sun, and people could see what was growing without having to walk through everything. Hm, but depending on how small plants got, maybe she should put a buffer of larger, hardier plants around the edges, because the wild growth of the jungle could creep in and destroy things…oh, what she needed was a fence, that would keep animals out! Eve would have to ask Luz if her glyphs could grow a fence or if they’d have to build one some other way. And now that she thought about it, there should be a path through the garden, so that they could walk through and harvest things without trampling anything.

The door to the house (which was one big solid block of wood that Eda had made and attached through brute magical force) opened, and Eve glanced back to see King come out, rubbing his eye.

“Hey, Eve,” King said, and yawned. “…What time’sit?”

“I don’t know,” Eve said. “Mid-afternoon, I think?”

“Wow,” King said, peering up at the sky. “I slept for a while – but after last night I deserved it.”

Eve nodded. They had only really gotten to sleep when the sky was just starting to lighten. Most of them had slept in until noon or even later, even though their beds had mostly just been a bunch of enormous leaves gathered from the jungle. Eve hadn’t had a problem, because she’d slept on much worse, but for people used to mattresses she was a little surprised everyone else had slept so well.

“Where is everyone, anyways?” King asked.

Eve held up her hand and counted off on her fingers. “Eda left to go check out what’s left of the Owl House, and then meet up with Darius. Lilith and Hooty are out in the jungle getting food.” She ran out of fingers, and switched to her other hand. “Hunter and Luz are in Latissa, stealing more medical supplies for Raine. Raine is still inside, sleeping because they have to heal.” She ran out of fingers again and switched back to her first hand. “I’m figuring out how to make a garden. You just woke up and are now talking to me.”

“Huh,” King said. “Okay. You’re really making a garden?”

“Yes,” Eve said. “Do you want to help?”

“Sure!” King said. “I know nothing about gardening, but how hard can it be?”

It turned out to be harder than they thought.

First, King wanted to plant meat trees, but it took close to ten minutes of Eve figuring out where to actually put trees for him to admit he made those up and just wanted them to be real. Then Eve realized she didn’t know how much food they would need, so she had to do math about that, but neither of them really knew how to do more than addition and subtraction, plus King got bored a couple minutes in, so they had to abandon that. King tried to fight a monster that came too close to the house, except it turned out to be an oddly-shaped rock and kicking it made King stub his toe. Then Eve checked on Raine like Lilith had told her to, and they said they loved her, which she wasn’t sure how to respond to. Then they woke up completely, turned bright red, apologized, and asked that she please never mention this to anyone, ever, especially Eda. Eve promised and then went back outside, only to find King was missing. It took a while to find him at the tower, whereupon she had to pick him up and run away from an aggressive bird trying to nest in the ruins, which Jean-Luc drove off while they watched.

Apparently, Eve wasn’t going to have a nice, peaceful day after all.

“It’s weird that I was here for so long,” King said as he jumped down from Eve’s arms. She was glad about that, because even though she was healing, it was still hard to carry things. He looked around the tower. “Is this, like, the Titan version of a nursery?”

Eve shrugged slightly. Even though King being a Titan was apparently a Very Big Deal, it didn’t really hold much meaning to her.

“It doesn’t look very baby-friendly,” King said dubiously, eyeing the stone floor and squinting through the darkness. “Sleepovers would be terrible.”

“Sleepovers?” Eve asked.

“Where a bunch of people all sleep together!” King said. “I used to have sleepovers with Mom all the time, and it was great! – it was mostly because she couldn’t afford a bed for me for a while, but it was still fun!”

“Oh,” Eve said, nodding and looking around again. “Yes, I think that would be hard here.”

“Yeah,” King said, deflating a bit. “Yeah, it…would.”

There was silence for a minute.

“…I wonder what happened to them,” King said, a little quieter.

“The other Titans?” Eve asked.

“Yeah,” King said. He scuffed his foot on the floor. “I mean…there could be others, right? Probably not full-grown ones, because that would be…pretty noticeable. But there could be other kid Titans, like me.”

“There could,” Eve nodded. “Maybe something killed all the adult Titans, but they hid the babies.”

King hugged himself, and looked up at her. “You think so?”

Eve shrugged. “It sounds logical, right? It’s important to protect babies.” It was what she had been prepared to do, when she stole Eda’s arm from the Emperor’s lab. Though that had been more about making sure there weren’t babies.

“Yeah,” King said. “Yeah, that tracks. I…there’s no reason for me to be the only one.”

“Right,” Eve said. She looked around the gloomy, dim building. She didn’t like it much. “Let’s go back. Eda will be upset if we’re missing.”

“Alright, alright,” King sighed. He took one last look around the room, waved goodbye to Jean-Luc, and went towards the door. Eve waved goodbye to Jean-Luc, too, because there was no reason to be rude just because she didn’t like his home.

When they got outside, King looked around. “Which way do we go to get back to the house, again?”

“Um,” Eve said. She would have said more, but she stumbled over something and nearly fell over. Walking was still kind of complicated sometimes.

Eve steadied herself and looked down. She saw that the thing that had tripped her was a…rock?

Or, no, she realized as she crouched to get a closer look. It wasn’t a rock. It looked a lot more like bone. Eve had only ever seen the bones of Eda’s arm before, but this looked very similar.

King was muttering to himself, so Eve picked up the bone – chunk? She wasn’t entirely sure what most bones looked like, but this was shaped very differently than the ones that made up Eda’s arm. One end came to a rounded point, and the other was kind of wedge-shaped, and the surface was much rougher, like it had broken off something else –

Oh. Oh. Eve looked up at King, and yes, it fit perfectly.

“King,” she said. “I found –”

“ONWARDS!” King yelled, and charged into the trees.

Eve stuffed the horn bit into her pocket (wearing clothes was worth it just for the pockets, honestly) and hurried after him. Titan or no, he was very small and could get lost.

He did get lost, because Eve wasn’t very good at running yet. It took a while to track him down, which she eventually accomplished due to hearing him shouting at a rock. Once she caught up with him, and convinced him this particular rock wasn’t in cahoots with the rock that had stubbed his toe on (Eve didn’t actually know whether that was true, but she figured it probably was? Even if someone forgot to tell her that rocks were people, how would they get around to talk to each other enough to be in cahoots?). Then they wandered around until recognizing a landmark that led them back to the house.

King rushed ahead, but Eve took her time. Walking to the tower and back was tiring. Her legs hurt. She couldn’t wait to get back to her room and sit down on her leaf-bed.

As she got closer, Eve heard King talking.

“- did you bring interlopers here?”

“Unfortunately, it was necessary,” Eda said. “Some people still question my skills, even though I whupped their butts just yesterday.”

“Not your skills, your resources,” another voice said, and Eve almost stumbled and fell on her face.

Because that was Darius talking.

“…Though I admit this is convincing,” he went on. “And explains a few things about your movements over the past few months.”

“Yeah, the perks of instant travel,” Eda said. “I can see why you do that goop thing so much.”

“Goop thing?” Darius said. He sounded offended.

Eve lurched forward again, and came out of the trees to see the house. Darius was indeed standing there, along with Eberwolf, while King hugged Eda’s leg off to the side. They all looked at her as she came into view.

“Oh,” Eve said. She stopped again. “Um. Hello.”

Eda had told her last night that they knew Darius had saved her, so she didn’t have to pretend not to know him, which was nice. But maybe she had to pretend not to know Eberwolf? Eda hadn’t said anything about him.

“…Eve,” Darius said. “You look…better.” Eberwolf rumbled something that might have been a greeting as well, though he seemed busy investigating the forest.

“Yes,” Eve said, glancing down at herself. She wasn’t even slightly bleeding, and the pain was barely noticeable these days. She looked back at Darius. “I’m glad you’re okay. I was – worried, when Hooty swallowed you.”

“Hooty what,” Eda said, and Eberwolf’s head whipped up. Eve still needed practice at understanding facial expressions, because somehow Eda’s expression read as ‘delighted’ to her. And Eberwolf was making a noise that sounded oddly similar to laughter.

“Hooty swallowed him,” Eve said, because Eda was always very patient when Eve needed something repeated and it was nice to return the favor now.

Eberwolf’s noises increased. Eda was – grinning? For some reason? Eve looked at Darius, who was…well, Eve pushed away the immediate comparison to the Emperor, because she knew Darius wasn’t going to hurt her.

He did look annoyed, though. She wasn’t sure why.

Maybe he would stop being annoyed if Eve repeated her well-wishes. King had taught her that sometimes you needed to repeat something before it really set in.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Eve said. She looked down and swallowed, remembering that horrible moment in the fight full of horrible moments. “That was – scary. Seeing that.”

Eberwolf’s noises cut off. There was quiet.

“Oh,” Eve heard Eda mutter. “Right. Itty-bitty baby.”

Eve had no idea what that meant, but that wasn’t anything new. There was a really unreasonable number of things to keep track of, outside the lab. She tried not to worry about the small ones.

“Mom,” King said, breaking the silence, “I assume from the fact that these two are here that you beat some sense into them – literally! – and they’re joining the rebellion?”

“That’s about the size of it, yeah,” Eda said. “Eve, c’mere.”

Eve obeyed. When she got close enough, Eda reached out and squeezed her arm.

“How about you three get caught up?” Eda said, glancing towards Darius and Eberwolf. “Me and King can go check on Raine.”

Before anyone could protest, Eda picked King up and went inside. Eve was left alone with the two people who had rescued her.

She looked at them. They looked at her.

Well. Most importantly…

“Thank you for sending me to the Owl House,” Eve told them. “You were right. They did help me. And they didn’t hurt me at all.”

“…Of course,” Darius said. She couldn’t quite read his expression. She really needed more practice with that. “The attack last night was…regrettable. The Emperor ordered it very suddenly, and there was no time to arrange other courses of action.”

“And if you said no, he would have hurt you,” Eve nodded. She hugged herself. Hugs were nice, and sometimes Eda just wasn’t available, so Eve had to do it herself. “It’s okay.”

Eberwolf grumble-growled something. Darius flicked an annoyed glance and a “Quiet, mutt,” at him, before refocusing on Eve. “Essentially, yes. I did hold back as much as I could.”

Eberwolf growled again. Darius paid him no attention.

“Okay,” Eve said, nodding. “And everyone lived, so it’s all okay now.”

Darius blinked, and stared at her for a very long few seconds.

“…Yes,” he said at last. “Everyone lived.”

Before Eve could say anything, Eda came out of the house.

“So!” she said brightly. “Now that Cutburn is dead and Terra is halfway to it, what’s our next move? Are we ganking more Coven Heads, because I’m always down for that!”

Darius closed his eyes and sighed.

“Eda,” he said.

“Aw, don’t worry, Dari,” Eda said with a wink. “I’ll save you for last!”

…Eve was pretty sure that last part was a joke. She was getting better at understanding those, at least, if only because Eda liked them so much.

Except – “Cutburn is dead?” Eve asked, because that part was probably true.

“Yep,” Eda said. “Looks like a big chunk of the house fell on her, particularly her head. Wasn’t much left of it then.”

Without any prompting, Eve’s mind brought up the image she had seen the last time she had looked at the Owl House while flying away from the attack: the Coven Heads, standing on the lawn, throwing attacks at Raine and Hooty, who stood strong and fought for every second, the two sides completely focused on each other and the threats they represented –

And Lilith, almost hidden from the angle Eve was looking at, still half-paralyzed but dragging herself across the floor towards something out of sight with one hand, and the other hand holding what was almost certainly a broken half of a brick.

“Oh,” Eve said, and privately resolved to be very polite to Lilith from now on.

“Eda,” Darius said with gritted teeth, and gestured to Eve, “She is literally weeks old.”

Eda looked at him. She raised an eyebrow.

“Hey, Eve,” she said. “You upset about Cutburn dying?”

“Um,” Eve said. She shifted on her feet uncomfortably. “That was the person who stabbed you, right?”

“Right,” Eda said.

“Okay,” Eve said. “Then I’m not upset.”

And she wasn’t. Death wasn’t something new to her. It was a companion as old as her first breath – older, even. Eve doubted she was the first Grimwalker to be made in the dirt she woke up in.

Eve had expected to die down in that lab, ever since she realized why He had made her. She had done her best to get out, and succeeded, but that didn’t take away that endless length of time when she had every reason to believe she would never manage it.

Death was something she felt sad about, and scared about, and would fight against, but she wasn’t going to get upset over it. That would be like getting upset over the ground, or air.

Eberwolf laughed, and rumbled something. Darius sighed.

“Yes,” he said to Eberwolf.

Eda snorted, and rumble-growled something herself. Eve tilted her head at the sound. Darius and Eberwolf regarded her with open surprise, and something that looked oddly like…horror?

“You can talk like Eberwolf does, Eda?” Eve asked.

“It’s called Wildtongue, kid, and yeah,” Eda shrugged. “I could understand it after I got cursed. Most people can’t pronounce it, but my vocal chords got changed just enough to let me. I’m told I have an accent, though.”

Eberwolf hissed at her.

“He’s right,” Darius said. “That was not an accent. That was butchery. Do not ever assault our ears like that again, or I will not stop Eber from doing his level best to rip your tongue out.”

That was a very alarming statement, but Eda just rolled her eyes. “Everyone’s a critic,” she said.

Darius glared at her briefly, then sighed. Then he returned his attention to Eve. “At least you’re settling in.”

“Yes, I am,” Eve nodded, deciding to let the tongue-ripping comment go. It probably (hopefully) wasn’t serious. She tilted her head. “Is that why you sent me here? Because this is where Grimwalkers go when they escape? Or is it just because I’m made from Eda?” She blinked as a new thought occurred to her, and turned to Eda. “Is that why the Emperor made me? Because you rescued Hunter?”

It held together, especially when she pulled up her hazy, pain-riddled memories of the Emperor ranting that she had ‘stolen’ something. That did seem to suggest Hunter, though he was also a person and not a thing. Eda had been very firm that Grimwalkers were people and He was wrong to say otherwise.

Eve pulled herself out of her thoughts when she realized several seconds had passed. She looked up to see everyone staring at her.

“…What?” Darius said blankly. “The little prince?”

Eberwolf let out a snuffle and rocked back on his feet.

“Wait,” Eda said. “You know Hunter’s a Grimwalker?”

Eve blinked. “…Yes? Why wouldn’t I?”

“That, uh,” Eda said. She looked kind of stunned. Eve had no idea why. “That was kind of a secret, kid.”

Eve stared at her as if she had never heard something so preposterous in her life, because she hadn’t.

“Um,” she said, “How is it a secret? We have the same eyes. You said yourself that they’re a Grimwalker thing.”

“…So I did,” Eda said, as Darius froze. “Uh, okay. Could you – maybe not point it out to anyone else, though? He’s still adjusting.”

“Alright,” Eve said, bemused.

“Wait,” Darius said.

Eve looked at him. He…didn’t look so good, actually. He actually looked kind of like Eve imagined she herself did when the Emperor came up with another way to hurt her.

Eberwolf let out a small exhalation. It sounded exactly like a faint “oh.”

“…His eyes,” Darius said faintly. It seemed like he wasn’t actually looking at what was in front of him. “His eyes were the same. He was a Grimwalker. Oh, Titan, Hunter was a Grimwalker.”

“Pretty sure we established that, bud,” Eda said.

“No,” Darius said. His eyes were still distant and horrible. “No, I mean – Hunter. The previous Hunter. The former Golden Guard.”

“…Oh,” Eda said. “Him.”

Eve tilted her head.

“You knew one of the previous Grimwalkers?” she asked. “That’s nice. I didn’t think any of the dead ones had anyone who missed them, so it’s good that you do.”

Darius looked at her blankly. His eyes were still distant, and kind of – glazed? Was that the right word? She thought maybe it was.

“Right,” Eda said, and stepped over to nudge Eve. “Let’s – go inside, okay, Eve?”

Eve was fairly sure she’d missed something, but she weighed whether she wanted to actually go through the effort of finding out what, and decided against it. She waved goodbye to Darius and Eberwolf, and followed Eda inside.

“Oh tired mother of Titan,” Eda said, when they were in the room Eve thought might become the kitchen one day. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

“I’m full of blood,” Eve corrected her. It was weird that she could do that without expecting to be punished. “I’ve seen it enough to know that.”

“Surprises and endless horror.” Eda muttered, as if she hadn’t even heard.

…Eve decided to change the subject. “Eda?”

“Hm?”

“I found this,” Eve said, pulling the bone-chunk out of her pocket. “I think it’s the broken part of King’s horn.”

Eda blinked, and took it from Eve’s hand. She looked it over.

“Huh,” she said. “So it is. I never thought I’d see this again. Thought it was lost in the jungle. I didn’t exactly have time to stop and look for it when I was running for both of our lives.”

“Jean-Luc wasn’t trying to hurt King,” Eve reminded her.

“Well, it’s not like I knew that, did I?” Eda inspected the horn-chunk, and smiled a little. “Damn, this is great. Thanks, Eve. Maybe giving this back to him will spark some memories. He deserves to know more about this place.”

Eve nodded as Eda pocketed the chunk. She briefly considered something that had been on her mind lately. Eda always answered her questions, which was nice, so she’d probably answer this one too.

“Eda?” Eve said, “You’re King’s mother, right?”

“Hm? Definitely,” Eda said, straightening up. “Him being a Titan doesn’t change that. He doesn’t think it does, does he?”

“I don’t think so?” Eve said. “He didn’t say anything about that. Um. What I meant was…before the attack, you said I was his sister. And sister means we have the same parents. Does that mean you’re my mother?”

“Well,” Eda said. She looked away, then back at Eve. “Uh. I mean.”

Eve waited patiently. She was good at waiting.

“…I pretty much adopted you within twelve hours of meeting you, so – yeah,” Eda said. She laughed awkwardly, and put her hand behind her head. “If you want me to be, I’m your mother.”

“Oh,” Eve considered this. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Eda repeated. She blinked at Eve, and then she smiled. “Okay! Good. That’s good. That’s great, Eve. I’m happy to be your mother.”

“Are Luz and Hunter my siblings, too?” Eve asked.

“Hunter, definitely,” Eda said at once. Then she looked away. “Luz…that’s more complicated. She has her mom at home, so…and I really hurt her with the Titan’s Blood thing.” Eda blinked a couple of times and shook her head. “But that doesn’t concern you! Even if Luz doesn’t – she can still be your sister. If you both want it.”

Eve nodded slowly. “Okay. Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me, kiddo,” Eda said. She gave a softer-than-usual smile to Eve. “You deserve family. Everyone does.”

Eve didn’t know what to say to that.

She kept mulling it over, for the rest of the day. When Luz and Hunter came back from Latissa, she looked at them, and tried to think of them as siblings. She couldn’t quite manage it, no matter how hard she tried.

Possibly that was because she didn’t quite have a clear idea of what siblings were. Or what they did for each other, aside from bash in the head of anyone who stabbed them. Eda and Lily’s interactions were subtly different from how they interacted with everyone else, but Eve couldn’t quite identify how. It was a bit of a puzzle.

And there was a lot to do that took priority over a puzzle.

The next few days were busy. Luz worked on the portal every spare moment she had, so Eve didn’t get a chance to get to know her very well. King dedicated himself to helping Luz, though Eve wasn’t exactly sure what he was contributing, other than his blood and a lot of commentary (he may have been trying to avoid Lilith, who was acting very strangely ever since she and Raine had been told he was a Titan. Raine’s reaction had been much more subdued. They had simply sat and stared for so long Eve had started counting the seconds, and she’d gotten to thirty-seven before they just sighed and said “Of course he is.”).

Eda had apparently decided to distract Lilith from being weird around King, so she ordered her sister to accompany her on her errands. They split their time between obtaining food for everyone, working with Darius and Eberwolf on rebellion-related things, and tending to Raine, who was spending most of their time recovering. Hunter was…actually, Eve wasn’t entirely sure what Hunter was doing, but he seemed uncomfortable around her so she didn’t try to seek him out.

Eve hadn’t been told to do anything in particular, so she decided to make their new house more welcoming.

It was no Owl House, for all that Eve hadn’t actually seen very much of the Owl House. There was nothing that could really disguise the fact that this house was made in a hurry with unpracticed hands, and Eve could only recognize the general feeling of lived-in-ness in hindsight.

But there was potential in this new house, and Eve was determined to bring it out. Not just for everyone else, but for herself as well, because she didn’t think she could stand to look at the bare stone walls for much longer.

Her first idea was to pick a lot of flowers and plants and bring them inside to decorate, but it turned out plants died when you picked them, so that didn’t work. Her next idea was interesting sticks, which worked better but didn’t exactly provide a lot of color. Then she made a comment about it at dinner, and the next day Hunter showed up with several buckets of paint. He left immediately, so she had no idea how he got them, but that didn’t matter very much. Eda had explained to Eve in great detail how the concept of ‘ownership rights’ was a myth.

The paints were brown, black, white, tan, and neon orange. Eve didn’t really know how to paint, but that had never stopped her from doing something before.

It turned out to be more interesting to learn as she went, anyways. Maybe even fun, though she still wasn’t very certain how to identify fun. She would have to ask Eda later.

Eve splashed paint on the walls, and drew in it with her fingers. After her incredibly terrible first attempt to draw a face, she decided to draw glyphs instead. Then, after she accidentally bumped into one and it sprouted a block of ice almost as big as her, she decided to just draw patterns.

Patterns turned out to be much easier. Eve even got the idea to pick some of the larger leaves from the jungle – the smallest were as tall as King, the largest bigger than her – put paint on them, and press them to the walls to leave an imprint of the leaf. It turned out very nice, after she got the hang of it. Those prints, along with some line patterns here and there, made the rooms look much nicer.

Hours and hours in, there was a shuffling from the hallway. Eve heard Raine’s voice coming closer.

“Eve?” they said.

“In here,” Eve called out.

“The house looks amazing, Eve,” Raine said, and she heard them shuffle closer. It was good that they were walking again. Eve knew how hard that could be when you were injured. “Do you think you could paint my room ne-ghk!”

Eve looked up in alarm, because that didn’t sound like a good noise. Raine was in the doorway, eyes wide and expression of shock on their face. When she turned to fully face them, they made another noise – squeakier, this time – and whirled around to stare at the wall.

“Raine?” Eve asked, now very concerned. They didn’t look more hurt than usual, but maybe something had gone wrong?

“Eve,” Raine said. Their voice was much higher than normal, too. “Eve, why are you – where are your clothes?”

“In my room,” Eve said. “Are you okay? Is something wrong?”

“I’m fine!” Raine said, even though they sounded very much not fine. “Could you please put some clothes on? Please?”

“I’m painting, though. I don’t want to get paint on them,” Eve said. She went over to Raine. “You don’t sound okay. Do you need help with anything?”

“No, I’m fine, now will you please put clothes on,” Raine said.

Eve wasn’t convinced. She hesitated, then reached out. “Are you sure I can’t help you –”

When she touched their arm, though, they jumped back and nearly fell. Eve immediately stepped back, because even if nothing else made sense, she could recognize when someone didn’t want to be touched.

“Y-you,” Raine stuttered, still determinedly looking away from her. “I, um. Here.”

They took off their shirt, a little slowed by their injuries. Eve felt this was very bizarre behavior for someone who had just been overly concerned with wearing clothes. But they held the shirt out to her, their eyes shut.

“Please put it on,” they said.

This was getting a little ridiculous, so Eve just gave in, took the shirt, and put it on. It was very large – Luz called it a sleep shirt, King called it a blanket, Eda called it her Sunday best – so it hung down almost to her knees.

Raine still didn’t look at her, though. They just said, “I’ll go get more clothes,” and shuffled quickly down the hall.

Eve stared after them.

This. This was why she didn’t bother with the small stuff. Even if she wanted to know, nobody would explain anything.

A moment later, there was a faint sound. Eve frowned, looking around, and realized it was coming from outside. It sounded like…yelling, but happy yelling.

Eve went towards the door. As she got closer, she could hear that it was Luz, and she was yelling “Yes! Yes! I did it! I did it!”

“Did what?” Eve asked, stepping outside.

“The portal!” Luz said. She whirled around, an enormous grin on her face. “Look, look!”

Eve looked. Sure enough, the place where there had been a whole bunch of random things tied together had vanished, and now there was a doorway standing there instead, showing…some sort of swirly, starry place. Wow, Luz’s home was much stranger than Eve had guessed.

“Woo!” King said, throwing his hands in the air. “It works! Take that, physics! You are no match for the combined might of a Titan and Luz the Human!”

“Okay, okay,” Luz said. She hopped over to a rope lying on the ground, and tied it around her waist. “I’m going in. There’s no telling how long it’ll stay stable; we had to substitute a few materials after losing access to Eda’s apocalypse hoard. If it starts to fall apart, pull me back.”

“Okay,” Eve said. She picked up the other end of the rope, because it seemed like the thing to do.

“You can count on us, Luz!” King said, also taking up the rope.

“I know I can,” Luz smiled at them. Then she turned and dove into the portal.

Eve and King waited for a minute. There was no change.

“Hey,” King said, looking up at Eve. “Why are you wearing that?”

Eve looked down at herself. “I’m not really sure.”

“Huh,” King said. “Okay.”

They fell into silence again.

A minute or two later, Raine poked their head out of the door of the house.

“There you are,” they said, stepping outside. They had a new shirt on, plus a bundle of clothes in their arms. “What’s going on?”

“Luz got the portal working!” King cheered. “She’s in it right now, and we have to pull her out if it starts trying to kill her.”

“She what,” said Raine.

**********

Apparently, they shouldn’t have activated the portal, or allowed Luz to go in, without adult supervision. Eve did not count, because she didn’t have much experience being an adult. Eve had to admit that was fair.

Raine helped hold onto the rope, carefully watching the portal. They didn’t even insist Eve put on the clothes they’d brought, which was sort of confusing since they’d went to so much trouble, but okay.

It was very boring, waiting for Luz to come back, but Eve was used to boredom. She didn’t mind the wait.

After a while, though, something other than Luz coming back happened – the portal let out a very ominous creeeeak. A heartbeat later, some sort of black sludge dripped from the top.

Raine sucked in a breath. “Pull her back.”

There was a note of command in their voice, one Eve probably wouldn’t have managed to disobey even if she wanted to, so she pulled with all her might.

King jumped up from where he’d been lounging in the grass for the past ten minutes, and rushed over to help pull. Eve wasn’t sure how much help he was actually contributing, but it was a nice gesture.

The three of them pulled, and the rope gradually came out of the portal, though very slowly. It was like it was tied to a heavy rock, rather than a medium-sized person. Eve’s muscles were burning, because even though she was as healed as she would get, it was all still recent. Raine was even worse off than her, and Eve could tell that the strain was hurting them quite a bit. Several of their fingers were broken, after all, and Eve knew from direct experience how painful that was.

But Raine didn’t make a sound, and didn’t falter, and after it became clear that something was making this more difficult than it should have been they started a low hum.

Eve wasn’t entirely sure what kind of magic they were doing, but the result was clear – the rope started glowing, very faintly, and it suddenly became a lot easier to pull. Their steps backwards became larger.

The portal groaned again, and shuddered. It dripped more black sludge. Eve bit her lip and tried to pull harder.

With a very faint pop, Luz was yanked out of the portal. She rolled across the grass and let out an “oof.” She blinked up at them.

“Hi,” Eve said. She dropped the rope. “Sorry to pull you back. The portal is collapsing.”

The doorway let out a crack and a groan, and as they watched, it sort of…melted into black sludge, and then sucked itself into a little ball and disappeared.

Was that normal? Eve had no idea.

Raine let out a breath as they looked Luz over. “Luz, I’m glad you’re okay. Please don’t do that again.”

“Luz, Luz!” King said. He jumped into her arms. “Did you find your mom? Did you tell her about me? What’d she say?”

Luz blinked at him. Her face was kind of…weirdly blank.

“Um,” she said, and she swallowed. “Yeah! Yeah, I told her about you, and she…she can’t wait to meet you.”

Eve tilted her head as King cheered. She was…still not the best at reading people, but something told her Luz wasn’t telling the truth.

Hm.

**********

Eve decided to organize a sleepover.

It had sounded interesting when King had told her about it, and after mulling it over Eve decided she wanted to experience it for herself. Upon being questioned, Raine had told her that the point of a sleepover was to have fun, relax, and get to know the other participants better, and Eve had to admit she really did want to do all that with her new siblings. Now that Luz’s project was done with, maybe she could focus on other things.

King accepted the invitation immediately. Hunter stared at Eve for several seconds, before simply nodding. And Luz, despite looking a little uncertain, said yes as well.

Things were off to a good start. Eve was optimistic. Maybe she would finally figure out how siblings were supposed to interact with each other.

Eve looked over her room one last time. She now had a mattress and several blankets, as did everyone else, because Eda had led a raid on a few stores after Lilith said Raine should probably be more comfortable if they were to recover completely. Eve had chosen a room in the corner of the house, which let her have two windows, and the wooden coverings (made after much trial and error with plant glyphs) were cracked open a little, letting the night air in. There were balls of light scattered around, enough to see by and show off the new patterns on the walls.

Everything was ready.

“Eve?”

Eve turned around to see Hunter in the doorway. “Hi,” she said, giving him a little wave.

“Hi,” he said back. He looked a little awkward. Eve hoped that would change as the night went on. Sleepovers were supposed to be relaxing if you did them right.

“I, uh, I brought my mattress,” Hunter said. He pulled it into view. Flapjack was perched on the top, and chirped something that might have been a greeting. “I don’t think yours is big enough for everyone.”

“Oh,” Eve said, pleased. “That’s good thinking. I can help you set it down…”

They brought it in, and put the two together. It did indeed look large enough for everyone to sleep on, now. Eve was pleased about that.

“I can go get Luz and King,” Hunter said awkwardly.

“Okay,” Eve said, and watched him go. She glanced back at the mattresses and saw that Flapjack was nestling down on the corner of a blanket. He looked up at her and chirped.

Eve wasn’t sure what he was saying. But it couldn’t hurt to be polite.

“Hello,” she said. “Eda said palismen are people.”

Flapjack bobbed his head up and down. His one eye blinked at her, and Eve’s gaze couldn’t help but catch on the scar that ran across the other one.

“…Does that still hurt?” Eve asked, motioning towards it. “I don’t know if mine will, once they finish healing completely.”

Flapjack tilted his head, and chirped again. He hopped out of his makeshift nest and fluttered over to her. He pressed himself against her hand, and he was surprisingly soft for something carved out of wood.

Eve wasn’t sure whether that was a ‘yes’ or not. She supposed it didn’t really matter. What would happen, would happen.

“I’m sorry you got hurt,” Eve told him. She meant it, too. Eve had a better understanding of pain than most, and she knew what most injuries felt like. Flapjack’s looked particularly painful, and it made her sad to think of that happening to him.

Flapjack looked up at her solemnly. He shook his head, and pressed it against her wrist

Eve blinked. “You don’t want me to be sorry?”

Flapjack nodded.

“Why?” Eve asked. “I want to feel sorry for you. It must have hurt, right?”

It was a few seconds before Flapjack nodded again.

Eve frowned to herself and thought.

“You got hurt, but you don’t want me to feel sorry for you,” she said. “That…oh, it’s like Hunter. He didn’t want me to feel sorry for him, because I got hurt worse. Is it like that?”

It took another few seconds, but Flapjack nodded again.

“You must have been hurt a long, long time ago, though,” Eve said. “So I don’t think you’re thinking of me who got hurt worse. Was it someone else?”

A very, very slow nod.

“I see,” Eve said. “…Was it the Emperor who did the hurting?”

Flapjack huddled up close to her hand, and Eve could feel tiny shivers running through him.

“Oh,” she murmured. “I’m sorry.”

Flapjack tucked his head under his wing, and Eve didn’t talk again.

Hunter came back barely a minute later, Luz and King in tow. Flapjack flew over to Hunter and nuzzled up against him, chirping happily, and Hunter’s cheeks went a little pink. Luz cooed at that until King demanded they all sit down and start the sleepover.

They did so, and there was an awkward moment where no one quite knew what to say. Thankfully, Luz put forward the topic of glyphs.

Eve had to admit, she was very interested in glyphs. It was what had allowed her to escape from the Emperor, after all. So she gladly participated in the conversation, which was what led her to finding out it was possible to combine glyphs.

This was honestly one of the most amazing things Eve had ever heard, and apparently the others liked her enthusiasm (Luz called her a ‘cinnamon roll’. That was apparently a good thing, even though cinnamon rolls were apparently a kind of food? Eve just nodded, because this was just another one of those small things). They sat down and started showing her all sorts of glyph combinations – invisibility, a floaty one, halving the weight of something, a cleaning one, a slowburn one, a shield…

Hunter was the one who’d come up with most of them, since Luz had been focused on the portal. He talked about them at length, and it was very interesting. Eve felt like she could listen to glyph theory for hours.

However, King felt differently. He insisted they play games, too, and also insisted on including Francois. Eve wasn’t sure if the bunny was a person, and King and Luz gave conflicting answers on that, so she decided to be safe and assume he was.

If Francois was a person, he was absolutely terrible at cards. Eve was just saying.

Eventually, things wound down. They all moved over to the mattresses and pulled up blankets, though they didn’t go to sleep. Apparently, it was traditional sleepover behavior to stay up and talk about things before going to sleep.

“Talk about what?” Eve asked. “We’ve already talked a lot tonight. It was very nice.”

“It was!” Luz said. “It’s just nice to fall asleep after lying in bed and talking about feelings with your friends…I think. I’ve never, um, done this personally, but…it looks really fun in stories.”

“…We’re friends?” Hunter asked, very quietly.

“I thought we were siblings,” Eve said. “That’s what Eda said. Well, she said King and Hunter are my siblings, and Luz can be too if she wants too, even if Eda isn’t her mom.”

There was a very long silence.

“…Luz?” King said at last. “Are…you still mad at Mom?”

“…Yeah,” Luz said. Eve looked over at her, and she was staring up at the ceiling, holding tightly onto her blanket. “I mean, wouldn’t you be? She…she lied to me. For weeks. She knew how to get me home, but she kept it a secret. And – and I know she wanted to protect you, King, and I would never want to put you at risk, but it still hurts so much and it’s – it’s complicated.”

Eve didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t very good at complicated things.

“…You didn’t say what happened with your mom,” Hunter said hesitantly. “Not in detail. Was it – bad? Was she angry with you?”

There was another very long silence, and a bad feeling grew in Eve’s stomach. It was never good to be around someone who was angry. The Emperor had been almost always angry, and Eve had the scars to prove it. The thought of Luz being the target of her angry mother was – Eve didn’t like that thought. She didn’t like it at all.

“If she hurt you, you don’t have to go back,” Eve said. That was the most important thing. Luz was determined to go back, but they couldn’t let her if she was going to get hurt.

“What?” Luz snapped her head around to stare at Eve, wide-eyed. “No, no, she didn’t hurt me! Mami would never hurt me!”

Oh. That was good.

“Are you sure?” Hunter asked, quieter than before.

“Yes,” Luz said. She sounded firm. She propped herself up on her elbows and looked over at both Hunter and Eve. “Yes, absolutely. She may not understand what’s best for me, sometimes, but she would never, ever hurt me. I promise, she’s nothing like him.”

“That’s good,” Eve said. “That’s very good. So she wasn’t angry?”

Luz’s face drooped. She flopped back onto the mattress.

“She was angry,” Luz said. “She was angry, and worried, and scared, and…it was a lot. She’d never hurt me, but letting her down always feels horrible.”

“Oh,” Hunter mumbled. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” King said, a little distantly. “I remember disappointing Mom once and it was the worst thing ever.”

Eve tried to imagine doing something that made Eda feel disappointed in her. It was horrible. No wonder Luz was feeling bad.

“And on top of that, I have a new sister!” Luz said, sounding aggravated. “I thought Eda was the only one who did things like that!”

“Wait,” King said. “Your mom brought home a secret sibling too?”

“Yes!” Luz said. “Or – sort of? So, apparently, when I came to the Demon Realm, a basilisk went through the portal –”

“A basilisk?!” Hunter yelped.

“Whoa, plot twist!” King said.

“Yeah, her name’s Vee,” Luz said, waving a hand. She glanced at Eve and must have seen the question on her face, because she said, “Basilisks eat magic, and can shapeshift. So Vee shapeshifted into me and took my place and went to summer camp and came home and – pretended to be me for a long time. She actually found the portal key at the house, and it gave her a lot of magic to feed off of – well, duh, Titan’s Blood and all – so she was pretty much set. She just wanted a home, and my life sort of fell into her lap, so…yeah.”

“So, wait, did your mom not even know you were gone this whole time?” King said.

“She did know, eventually,” Luz said. Eve heard her take a deep breath. “Vee came clean about a week ago.”

“Why?” Hunter asked. He sounded suspicious. “What happened a week ago?”

“It was – there was an anniversary – it doesn’t matter,” Luz stuttered. She shifted, and Eve felt the mattress dip as Luz curled up. “The point is, Vee was really brave, because she expected Mom to throw her out, but she told the truth anyways. And Mom didn’t throw her out, obviously, but it was…pretty hard on both of them. So things were still kind of tense when I showed up.”

“What happened?” Eve asked. “What did your mom say?”

“She was really upset,” Luz said. Her voice wavered a little at her next words. “She cried.”

Eve tried to imagine making Eda cry, and her entire body rebelled at the thought. If that ever happened, Eve would – she didn’t know what she would do. That would be the worst thing. The absolute worst thing, worse than anything He could ever do to her.

“Oh,” Hunter said, sounding choked up. Eve suspected he felt the same way.

“Yeah,” Luz said. “That was – it was hard. She thought I was…it was hard. So when she asked me to come back home, I…I said yes.”

“Wait,” King said. “Going back home, like – for good?”

“Uh-huh,” Luz said in a small voice.

“No,” King said. “No, no, you can’t! You can’t just leave!”

“I promised,” Luz said, in an even smaller voice, an apology and an explanation and an attempt at appeasement, all at once.

“If you can’t come back here,” Eve said, “Can we go visit you? Would that be okay?”

“I don’t think so,” Luz said. She sounded miserable. “Mami doesn’t – she doesn’t like this place. It stole me from her, and Vee didn’t…really give the best impression of it. She, um…she was made by Belos too.”

Eve blinked.

Belos?

She opened her mouth, but before she could say anything King let out the most exasperated sound she had ever heard.

“Seriously?” King said. “Her too?”

“Yeah,” Luz said. “He – yeah.”

“Is anyone else going to turn out to be a Grimwalker?” King demanded. “Hunter! You’re not secretly a Grimwalker, are you?”

There was a very awkward pause.

“…Um,” Luz said. She sat up, and stared over at Hunter. “Hunter?”

“…I was going to tell you,” Hunter said. There was a shift in the mattress, and Eve looked over at him. He was huddled up in a ball, and she couldn’t see his face. Flapjack chirped worriedly, and tugged on his hair. “I was. I just…wanted to get used to it, first.”

“Wait, what?” King said. “You’re a Grimwalker?”

“…yes,” Hunter said quietly,

“Oh,” Luz said. She sounded surprised. Stunned, even. Eve was faced with the fact that people actually hadn’t noticed. What a strange experience. “Um. That’s. Okay. That’s…do you want a hug?”

There was a faint shift that was probably a nod, because Luz twisted around and leaned across the mattress to sort of…fall on top of Hunter. Well, he didn’t seem to be complaining. And Flapjack’s chirping sounded happy now, so that was probably good.

“Hey, Eve,” King said. Eve turned her head to look at him. He squinted at her. “You don’t seem very surprised about this! Did you know?”

“Yes,” Eve said. “I thought it was obvious.”

King spluttered. “Weh – well, it’s not!”

“Okay,” Eve said, rather than argue.

“Eda told me you figured it out,” Hunter muttered. “Sorry for avoiding you these past few days.”

“That’s okay,” Eve said.

“I didn’t know,” Hunter said. “I woke up from a ‘coma’ when I was – about a year or so before I met Eda. He told me I was his nephew and I lost my memory, and…I believed him.”

“Wow,” King said. “That’s horrible!”

“King!” Luz hissed.

“No, no, it’s…pretty horrible,” Hunter said.

“It really is,” Eve nodded.

“Well…” Luz said. “It doesn’t change anything! I mean, uh, it sort of does, but – it doesn’t change how much we care about you! Not one bit!”

“…Thanks,” Hunter said. “That helps.”

There was silence for a few minutes.

“I’m scared he’ll try and get me back,” Hunter said quietly.

“Me too,” Eve said. It kept her up at night, especially since the attack on the Owl House.

“…I’m scared he’ll find out I’m a Titan,” King admitted. “I mean…if he wants to make a new portal, I’m pretty much the most important ingredient.”

“We won’t let that happen,” Hunter said firmly.

“I believe you,” King said. “But Eve and I were talking the other day, and…what if I’m not the only Titan? Even if all the adults are gone, it looks like they hid at least one of their kids. Why not more? And that means there’s a chance that he doesn’t need to find me.”

“…Then we’ll just have to stop him before that happens,” Luz said, like it was obvious. Eve supposed it was.

They fell silent, and Eve found her blinks were growing longer. It was getting harder and harder to stay awake.

Eve would have thought it would be hard to fall asleep with other people in the room. It turned out not to be.

This, Eve decided. This must be what having siblings is like.

**********

The next day was different than what Eve was used to. The adults were still out doing things, but Eve’s siblings decided to help her paint the rest of the house. It went well, with all four of them adding their own ideas and designs, and Eve was glad about it even when their paint ran out just a couple hours in.

Hunter volunteered to go off through the Room of Shortcuts to acquire some more, and took down a list of colors they wanted. Eve couldn’t wait to paint with yellow. It seemed like such a cheerful color, and they could all use more cheer in their lives, she felt.

Not ten minutes after Hunter left, Lilith showed up and pulled Luz away to talk about something. They came back and asked if anyone was interested in experimenting with half of the remaining Titan’s Blood. Lilith had regained a few of her instruments during a rebel raid on an imperial storehouse, and wanted to see what they could do with it all.

Eve wasn’t interested. She’d had quite enough adventure – possibly enough for the entire rest of her life – and was entirely content to stay at the new house. She said no (politely), and wished them well.

King was interested in going, until he learned they would mostly just be wandering around the woods outside of Bonesborough and looking at instruments. Then he decided it would be boring. Which might have been for the best, since Lilith still had a habit of bowing to King every few minutes. Eve didn’t know a lot about doing experiments, but she was fairly sure getting distracted from them so much wasn’t very optimal.

They gathered the Titan’s Blood from Luz’s room, careful to leave enough for at least two more portal activations, and left.

When Hunter came back, he was sad to have missed the chance to do Titan’s Blood experiments, but the new paint colors were helpful distractions. Raine was feeling well enough to help out by then, and they added interesting symbols (‘musical notes’, apparently) alongside all the other designs, carefully holding the brushes so they didn’t jar their fingers.

It was a very good day.

Eda came back late afternoon, and told them about her raid on a transport full of wild witches headed for the Conformatorium. Apparently, her attack had led to a lot of unrest, and the rebellion was taking full advantage. Eve didn’t really understand everything that was going on, but Eda seemed cheerful about it all, so she supposed things were going well for them.

They made dinner out of something Eda had caught in her traps set out in a random patch of forest. Eve had no idea what kind of meat it was, and she was fairly sure no one else did either. Eda’s traps were very lethal when she wanted them to be.

Raine showed Eve how to cook, which was nice. And necessary, because King decided he wanted to play around with glyphs, Hunter had to supervise him so he didn’t blow himself up, and Eda had to crawl inside Hooty and clean him out after he ate a suspicious bug. Eve agreed with Raine that she deserved a break after that, so between the two of them they cooked dinner.

It was only when the sun was setting and everyone had just been served – sitting out in the little ‘yard’ on a bunch of logs rolled over from the forest, because it was a nice night – when Lilith and Luz came stumbling back through the rock on the edge of the clearing that held the Room of Shortcuts door. They looked frazzled, and disgruntled, and not a little upset.

“Hey, you two!” Eda said. She waved at them. “You almost missed dinner – which is a shame, because this mystery meat and suspicious vegetable mixture is to die for.”

“It tastes like griffon,” King said cheerfully, “But with a slight hint of berserker rage!”

Eve nodded. The rage was really quite distinctive.

“Ugh,” Lilith said. She plucked a twig out of her hair. “Well, I could use a good meal after the day we’ve had.”

“Definitely,” Luz said, taking a seat on the log next to Hunter. He passed her a plate. “Let’s just forget today ever happened.”

“Awwwww!” Hooty said, winding around Lilith and ruffling her hair. “Did you have a rough day, Lulu? Here, why don’t you sit down, put your feet up, and tell your best friend Hooty alllll about it!”

Lilith let out a sigh as she followed Hooty’s instructions. “Thank you, Hootsifer, you are a gem. And, well, it really was an eventful day.”

“We found Time Pools!” Luz said.

“Time Pools?” Eda said, her eyes lighting up. Hunter looked very interested, too, and leaned forward.

“Those are real?” Raine asked. They sounded deeply intrigued.

Eve glanced around, and was relieved to see that King, at least, looked just as clueless as she felt.

“Time Pools?” Hooty said. “Oh, that sounds exciting!”

“It was!” Lilith said. She looked a little more animated. “We put a bit of Titan’s Blood on that old thingamabob – Eda, you remember, I made it when we were children – and it gave enough power to actually find the Time Pools! It was magnificent! We got a glimpse into so many different periods of history, oh, it was wonderful. We saw the Deadwardian Era! I now have firsthand sketches of Deadwardian-style bannisters!”

“That’s – nice?” Eve tried.

“Deadwardian, huh?” Eda raised an eyebrow. “Hey, isn’t that around when –”

“Don’t,” Luz said with a scowl. “Don’t mention him. We found him, he’s a jerk, the end.”

“Oh, no,” Raine said. “That bad?”

“Worse,” Lilith muttered.

“Lilith punched him,” Luz said proudly.

“You did?” Eda said, clearly delighted. “Hot damn, Lily!”

“He deserved worse,” Lilith said, a slight blush in her cheeks. “Really, that – man had no business being around decent people. I mean no offense against humans, Luz, but –”

“Yeah, no,” Luz waved a hand. “Philip was a terrible example of humanity, no lie.”

Eve startled so badly her plate fell off her lap.

“You visited the Emperor?” she blurted out in shock.

Every single head swiveled to look at her. They all blinked.

“…What,” Luz said, staring at Eve as if she had said something totally out of the ordinary. Eve was no stranger to that look, because half of everything she said seemed to be out of the ordinary, but in this case – in this case –

“You went to see the Emperor?” Eve repeated, because she couldn’t believe they would be so stupid, but they had just outright said –

“Kid, they didn’t go see the Emperor,” Eda said. “They just swung by the past to visit this crusty old human.”

“Yeah,” Luz said. She was using a soothing voice. Eve usually appreciated when people used that voice, because it was soothing, but right now it felt vaguely…condescending. Yes, that was the word. “We never went near Belos. We met a human, named Philip Wittebane.”

Eve flinched again. “Yes,” she gritted out. “The human Philip Wittebane. The Emperor.”

“What?” Hunter asked. He sounded – just as clueless as everyone else, which was – why was everyone acting like this was no big deal –

“Eve, I think you’re misunderstanding something,” Raine said carefully. “Emperor Belos isn’t –”

“I have no idea who this ‘Belos’ is!” Eve snapped. And then, finally tired of everyone acting like she was being stupid and wrong, she kept going. “If you’re saying he’s the Emperor, fine, I guess Belos is another name of his! But his real name, his first ever name, is Philip. He told me that, he told me his name was Philip Wittebane and I wasn’t fit to say it, not ever, and the one time I did he cut off my ear and broke my fingers and whipped me bloody and that’s when I knew I had to escape, that’s when I decided to get out no matter what, because I called him Philip and don’t you dare say he doesn’t have that name because my scars say otherwise.”

There was a deafening silence. Once, Eve wouldn’t have understood what that phrase meant. She did now, though. She didn’t understand many things, but she was learning. With each day, she was learning.

“…Oh,” Eda said at last, and her eyes were distant, looking at something far away. “He uses glyphs. He uses glyphs…because he can’t use anything else.”

Eve let out a shaky breath, and felt something deep inside her unclench. Something she hadn’t even noticed was there until now. Something that had been tightening just a little bit, at every ‘little thing’ she’d had to let go.

Today, it was everyone else’s turn to learn something.

**********

Tarak shuffled his feet a little, trying to get them to warm up. His cell wasn’t exactly freezing, but there was a persistent chill that just had to be deliberate. Tarak hadn’t felt warm since he’d been thrown in here.

He huffed slightly. It figured. These people worshipped Titans. Tarak doubted anything was beyond them.

The sound of footsteps came from the hall, and Tarak looked up despite himself. The sound was subtly different from how the guards walked, and he was intrigued, despite himself.

He was bored, alright? He wasn’t sure how long he’d been imprisoned, but it had been at least a few days. None of the guards ever spoke to him, so he was a little starved for interactions.

Whoever was coming to see him probably wouldn’t be good company, but at least it was company. Tarak would probably never see his village again, so – he had to take what he could get.

The person came into view, and Tarak studied them through the bars.

His first thought was that he wasn’t impressed. The person was tall, sure, and their robes were admittedly fancy, but their mask was wooden. Tarak’s people held their Titan skulls as their most precious heirlooms, the symbol of their holy crusade, and only rarely took them off. The skulls were an eternal reminder of their most sacred vows and fealty towards the Grand Huntsman, and frankly, some silly wooden mask couldn’t really compare.

Then again, Tarak’s own skull had been taken from him. These barbarians couldn’t have known just how much of a dishonor that was, but that was a cold comfort. Tarak was hardly in a position to judge anyone now.

“It’s unfortunate that it’s taken so long for me to visit you,” the person said, in a masculine voice. “Patrols don’t usually go to the area you were found in, but there was a devastating attack a short while ago, so we increased security around the Isles. Once the scouts realized you weren’t part of the attack, they forgot about you. They didn’t inform me of your imprisonment. They’ve been punished.”

Tarak merely lifted his chin and glared.

“My people tell me that you profess to be a ‘Titan Trapper,’” the man tilted his head, very slightly. “And that you worship a being you call the Grand Huntsman.”

Tarak continued to glare. Even if his skull had been taken from him, even if his village would never know of his fate, he would uphold his faith to the end. “I do.”

“Hm,” the man said. “I find myself rather curious about your god. Tell me about them.”

Tarak snorted. “So you can mock me for it? I know the people of this place worship Titans. The Grand Huntsman is the natural enemy of the Titans, the ultimate hunter of their kind. We follow in his footsteps, and I won’t give away our secrets to you.”

“Perhaps not to me,” the man said. “But my companion, on the other hand…”

Tarak opened his mouth to say he would never reveal anything to anyone, but then a childish giggle rang through the hallway.

The sound was so incongruous that Tarak stumbled over his words – and then, a moment later, he forgot how to speak entirely.

Because the shadows were moving.

We beheld the shadows, full of mystery, laden with secrets, and when we became worthy, they spoke to us –

A constellation of light flickered into being, racing across all surfaces, shadows dancing to an unheard tune. There was another giggle.

O child of the stars, He who walks in a body of light and shadow, He who is eternal, unfading, forever young –

The wooden-masked man brought out a hand from his robes, and he held onto a perfect, polished circle of glass, reflecting light but showing nothing.

Unjustly imprisoned, we strive to free Him, to revel in His true glory –

The shapes coalesced into an image on the wall – small, simplified, but dripping with unmistakable power.

The Grand Huntsman.

“Hi there!” said Tarak’s god. “What’s your name?”

“T-Tarak,” he gasped, ears ringing, unable to believe his eyes. “I am Tarak. Grand Huntsman, is that you?”

“Ummm…oh, I remember that name!” said The Grand Huntsman. “There were a bunch of people who called me that, once…hi, Tarak!”

“You,” Tarak breathed, overcome with the experience of the Grand Huntsman greeting him by name. “You’re here. Grand Huntsman, you’re here!”

“Yep!” The Grand Huntsman laughed. The stars swirled around him, the most beautiful sight Tarak had ever seen. “You found me!”

“I found you,” Tarak repeated in awe. But then his brain kicked in, and he blinked. “You – you were lost? But we have – we have your prison! We –” he looked at the circle of glass that was held by the masked man. “We’ve been trying to free you for centuries!”

The Grand Huntsman gasped. “You have? That’s great!”

“If I may interrupt,” the masked man said. “The Grand Huntsman – or, as I know him, the Collector – has been with me for the past four hundred years. We’ve been working together all this time. He is my dearest friend.”

“Awww, you’re my bestest friend too!” the Grand Huntsman said.

Tarak’s mind stuttered. “But – I thought the people of these Isles worshipped the Titans?”

“Most do,” the masked man said. “It is a necessary deception to say I do the same. I wouldn’t want anyone to learn of the Collector and try to harm him, if they knew his true nature.”

“Philip’s really nice,” the Grand Huntsman said to Tarak. “He’s kept me safe this whole time…even if he can’t play with me very much…”

“I…” Tarak said, and shook his head. He bowed to the masked man – Philip, apparently – as well as he could when he was chained like this. “Then my people owe you an incredible debt. We – we didn’t even know the Grand Huntsman was missing. We just thought he was displeased at our offerings, that he refused to speak to us until we could free him…”

“Hm,” Philip said. He turned to the Grand Huntsman. “Collector, what happened to separate you from the Titan Trappers?”

“Ummmmm,” the Grand Huntsman said. His shadow-form tapped his chin, and a few stars and moons burst into being and twirled away behind him in mesmerizing patterns. “Oh, I remember! They kept trying to get me out, and they sort of managed it a couple times, but I told them only a Titan could do it for real, so they said they would find one. And they started looking, but then a while later Ganaar came and took me away and said we were going on an adventure! She took me to the Boiling Isles and put me in that cave and said we were playing hide and seek!” The shadow shrunk a little. “I don’t…um, I don’t really like hide and seek very much…but then you found me, Philip! So that part was fun.”

“Ganaar?” Tarak said, straining to remember the history of his clan. “That’s…the wife of Chief Rick, who started our Trapper ways. She – she supposedly went on a hunt and never returned. It was a tragedy, because she wasn’t there to celebrate when we caught our first ever Titan shortly afterwards, and…that was when the Grand Huntsman stopped speaking to us.” Tarak felt horror and rage swell inside his chest. “She…lied. She stole you, and replaced your prison with a decoy, and we’ve been worshipping an empty mirror!”

“Betrayal is never an easy burden to bear,” Philip said gently. “You and your people have my deepest sympathies…incidentally, what do you mean, Collector, when you said the Trappers managed to ‘sort of’ free you?”

“They let me possess them!” the Grand Huntsman said brightly. He shifted his form to look like a Trapper, though Tarak couldn’t tell from the simplified design which of the Honored Vessels he was portraying. “It didn’t work great, though…”

“The Grand Huntsman’s power is too great to be contained within a lowly mortal form,” Tarak said sadly. “The Vessels were burned to ash, no matter how strong their faith. Even Chief Rick’s son Abe, the clan’s most devout, could not survive more than five seconds. We were grateful to finally see our Titan trapping efforts bear fruit, but then that didn’t work – seemed not to work – either.”

“A tragedy,” Philip said. “But now that the deception is uncovered, and you’ve been reunited with the Collector…”

“We can free him, at long last!” Tarak felt like his heart would burst – the sharp sting of betrayal clashing with the euphoric reverence of finally, finally getting to fulfil his clan’s purpose. “Grand Huntsman, you can finally be freed of your prison!”

The Grand Huntsman laughed, the most joyous sound Tarak had ever heard. He could listen to it forever. “Now we’re talking! You said you found Titans, right? They can get me out!”

“Yes, about that,” Philip said, and he moved his other hand out of his robes to show – Tarak’s skull.

Despite himself, Tarak’s heart skipped a beat. Even though he knew being in the Grand Huntsman’s presence – being spoken to, even complimented, by his god – was a sublime experience incomparable to any other, he couldn’t help but be disproportionately relieved to see his skull. He’d spent his entire life cherishing it as the ultimate symbol of his faith and ancestry, so old habits died hard.

“The Collector tells me this is a Titan’s skull,” Philip said.

“Yes,” Tarak said, trying not to look like he desperately wanted it back. Philip was the favorite of the Grand Huntsman, that was clear – if he wanted the skull, who was Tarak to deny him? “Every Trapper wears one, trophies of hunts long past.”

“You’ve found many Titans, then,” Philip said. He sounded pleased.

“Woo!” the Grand Huntsman said, doing loop-de-loops on the wall. “That’s great! You can get me out of here in no time, if you have that many Titans on hand!” They laughed, and darted across the wall to poke at the shadow of Tarak’s skull. “Get it? Hand? Cause they lended you pieces of themselves!”

“Huh?” Tarak said.

“What the Collector is saying,” Philip said, “Is that, with you having so much success in your hunts, you must have large stores of magical supplies. Such as Titan’s Blood, perhaps?”

“Er,” Tarak said, shifting a little uncomfortably. “Well, our ancestors did. They created wonders of magic, like the teleportation platforms we use to travel all across the world. The Titans hid their children well, but not so well that we couldn’t find them, and we reaped the benefits. But…I hate to say it, but we were careless with our wealth. We didn’t realize the true number of Titan children out there, and so we were caught off-guard when they dwindled, and couldn’t adjust our proliferation in time. We…don’t have much, anymore. Our Titan’s Blood was run dry. All of our skulls are heirlooms now. Only one of our elders has ever personally seen a Titan. We’ve done divinations, and our most powerful ones suggest…there’s only one living Titan left in the world.”

“What? Just one?!” the Grand Huntsman cried out, and Tarak shrunk back in shame. “Oooo, I bet it’s the son of the Boiling Isles, he was so paranoid, and he even managed to hide his egg from me…”

“Truly?!” Tarak said. “Then my search is even more fruitful than I could have ever imagined. I can hardly believe it – a Titan and the Grand Huntsman…”

The enormity of it was overwhelming. Tarak found himself blinking back tears.

“I see,” Philip said softly. He brought up Tarak’s skull level with his own, and stared at it. “So there’s one left, and it’s around here somewhere…”

“We just have to find them!” the Grand Huntsman said, bouncing up and down. “Oh, it’s like hide and seek! I’ve never been the seeker before! This is gonna be so much fun!”

“Yes,” Philip said distantly, still staring at the skull. “Yes, I think…”

“And hey!” the Grand Huntsman twirled closer to Tarak, and Tarak’s breath caught in his throat as he came face-to-face with his god. “You can bring your Trapper friends, and we can all play together! How does that sound?”

“It would be the highest honor, Grand Huntsman,” Tarak said at once, unable to believe his luck. And to think, just ten minutes ago he’d been expecting to never see his village again. Now, not only would he get to return, he would return as a holy messenger, delivering their god’s summons and undoing Ganaar’s horrific hidden crime. To think that he would live to see this day!

“Especially once we find this last Titan,” Philip said. He was still looking at the skull. “Which…may not take too long. This shape is somewhat familiar…”

Tarak sucked in a breath. “You’ve seen the last Titan? You know where it is?”

“I’ve seen many things,” Philip said. He stared at the skull, as if the answers would inscribe themselves on the forehead if he glared long enough. “I’ve lived a long life. As I said, this shape is familiar, but I need to think a little longer as to where I’ve seen it…”

“Well, don’t take too long!” the Grand Huntsman ordered. “And don’t go away and do your boring dumb work when we’re in the middle of a game! It’s just mean when seekers take too long to find the hiders!”

“Rest assured, Collector,” Philip said, running a thumb over the skull, “I have no intention of procrastinating in this hunt. Even the Owl House will have to wait –”

Then he fell silent, going still. Tarak saw the light of his eyes flicker, locking onto the skull.

“…Oh,” Philip said, very softly. “Oh, of course.”

Tarak couldn’t help himself.

“You know,” he said. “You know where it is. The last Titan. The son of the Boiling Isles.”

Philip tilted his head up, very slightly, to meet Tarak’s gaze. Holy righteousness glittered in his eyes, the same that filled Tarak from head to toe.

“Yes,” Philip said. “I do.”

“Woo-hoo!” the Grand Huntsman said, throwing up his hands. “We’re gonna have a blast, everyone!”