Archive of Our Own ^beta

Amity has to hate me. It’s all Luz can really think, even now, hours later, where Eda’s brought her and Mari inside and wrapped a blanket around them both. She’s not getting much from her daemon, mostly just muted quiet even though they’re sharing the couch, and for the past little while she’s just been listening to Eda recount the weird dream she had that ended with her and Beastie like, talking things out? Or something? Because that’s easier than listening to the big thoughts swimming around her head and Amity and Alma really must hate me.

…but the thoughts won’t go away and Luz didn’t want Amity-Alma to leave! She wanted them to stay! Because they know, now, and Luz wants that to be like—like when she told Willow-Clover and Gus-Bailey, this breathless exhale of everything heavy because her friends were still there and still cared and that means something! But she can’t…grab that. It’s too far and she can’t lift her arms without something pinning them back down. Instead she just sort of wants to bury herself under the blanket and never come out again. Or something.

Next to her, Mari curls into a tighter ball, hiding her nose under the feathery plume of her tail.

Mari, Luz wants to send down their bond, why didn’t you move when that big heavy stone was going to crash on you? They already saw. Why did you keep running? What if King wasn’t there, and…

“Luz? Mari?” It’s Eda’s voice that makes Luz jump, nearly losing her blanket but she grabs it before it can slide onto the floor. King, curled up atop it, grumbles and presses his face harder in the sheets. “You look like you’re falling asleep. Want to call it a night?”

Luz rubs at her eyes. “No! No, I’m…I don’t…” She stares down at her lap and mumbles out, “I don’t wanna be alone.”

The Owl Beast warbles something high-pitched and stands from where she’s settled herself next to the couch, climbing onto Luz and trying to crush her. King shrieks out something and dives away before he can get trapped, leaving just Luz with the entire mass of the Owl Beast roosted atop her and Mari.

“Yeah, what she said.” Eda nods to the Owl Beast. “We can all sleep down here, tonight. It’s probably the most stable part of the house, anyways, it’s been…a day.”

Luz sniffs. “Yeah.” Ever since Eda managed to calm Hooty down—mostly, she was told, by shaking him and demanding him to actually look, until he realized oh, hey, that house falling apart is something only he can stop—Luz hasn’t seen him around, though King said at one point muffled into the couch he was around and fixing the house, and Eda agreed, so. “Hey, Eda?”

Eda hums an acknowledgement.

“How did you and Beastie…I mean, you just watched her sit on me and went oh, what she said. Can you guys like—talk to each other now?”

“Eh.” Eda wobbles her hand. “Like, maybe? I’m not sure. When we went harpy mode—that’s what I’m calling it now, thoughts on the name?”

Luz considers. Harpies are pretty cool and Eda looked the part, so she offers a thumbs-up. Eda grins and continues.

“Yeah, so, harpy mode, I could…hear her? It wasn’t really like talking, per say, it was more…thoughts? Emotions? But I could piece them together into somewhat coherent ideas. But now I’m pretty sure she’s still trying to talk to me but I have no idea what all the owl noises mean. I’m going to call it a process.”

“How did you do that, though? Like, you had a dream, but…” Luz glances over to her daemon, who hasn’t moved once this entire conversation. “You weren’t really on the same page, how…”

“Luz, it’s—” Eda cuts herself off and stands, comes over to join her and King on the couch. She shoves the Owl Beast until she huffs but scoots over to give Eda some space, and King stands just long enough for Eda to sit down before crawling into her lap. “Okay. It’s…we sort of were on the same page, in a weird way. We just—or, I just, can’t say what she was feeling—didn’t know that. We both wanted to keep you guys safe.” Eda pets King’s horns, strokes Luz’s hair. Luz wants to melt into the sensation and stay there forever, safe and happy and home. Mari is stiff down their bond. “I saw that she was just as trapped as I am—that she was a person, too. Not just some manifestation of the curse.”

“Well duh,” King says, stretching out. He’s got François on his back, but when he rolls over he moves so his rabbit is underneath him, careful not to spill any stuffing.

“King?” Eda asks, amused. “You have something you want to share?”

“I mean.” King’s voice wavers. “It’s. Like. The Owl Beast is—alive. Like how you are. But when Lilith went all curse-mode that one time, it was just…her and Burkit but really mad. But when you and the Owl Beast get really mad it just gets really loud and cluttered and everything is hard to look at. But.” He huffs. “Obviously that only affects me. ‘Cause apparently I’m not even a beast demon!”

King growls and throws himself off of Eda’s lap and onto the floor, leaving François behind, his tail lashing. Mari’s ears twitch, but she doesn’t pick her head up off her paws. Luz grips the edges of her blanket a little tighter.

“King, what happened?” Eda asks, reaching out a hand to poke King as he passes her in his pacing, and he freezes. “I know Hooty did…something. I mean, you weren’t up on that tower for no reason, and I’ve certainly never seen you do something like that scream-power of yours. What do you mean you aren’t even a beast demon?”

The Owl Beast leans forwards and croons something.

“I mean.” King ducks out of Eda’s grip. Luz nearly tries to make a grab for him herself, but he’s scrambled to the opposite side of the living room before she can, and there’s a whole table between them and she can’t exactly get up. It still doesn’t stop her from aching, because…he doesn’t just leave François behind for no reason. And she found him torn on the floor. “It wasn’t—it wasn’t anything. Not like you or Luz I mean, you guys are just mad all the time and. Well.” He squints at Eda and the Owl Beast. “Actually you two look okay. But Luz-Mari don’t.”

“Look okay?” Eda repeats. Beastie warbles a questioning note, tilting her head. “King, was Hooty…what, trying to figure out what type of demon you are?”

“Well he didn’t so who cares!” King’s fur is prickling, and at his yell Mari finally stands, her paws flailing out underneath her, enough so that she slips right off the couch and onto the floor, smashing her muzzle to it. King doesn’t spare her a glance. “I’m not a bug demon and sure yeah that makes sense, I’m not a beast demon because there’s some blood thing which whatever, I’m not bipedal ‘cause—‘cause—because, and you’d think it’d be easy enough to just look at me but I guess that’s just something else wrong with me! What, do I not—do I look like I’m dead! Is—is that what it is?” King’s voice breaks. “I have to be…I have to be something.”

“King,” Mari says, shoving herself to her paws and running to him, and Luz is hit with a flood of emotions so strong her vision goes white for a second and she thinks she might actually pass out for a second because when she can see again Eda’s got her head in her lap and the Owl Beast is alternating sniffing her and giving worried little chirps in the King and Mari direction.

No, Mari’s thinking, and it means I have to fix things, and it means but I can’t even do that right, and it’s how when Luz looks at King he’s just a little guy, and she’s dealing with all of this, with being Unsettled, and Mari can dig her teeth into that and pull it but she can’t do that for King, because he’s not of her. It’s Mari planting her paws and licking King’s skull and the way Luz feels it like a hug.

I don’t understand you, Mari is saying, underneath everything, and that one is only to Luz, but I think I’m starting to understand this.

“You shouldn’t be…” Mari presses her nose to King’s skull, and finally the Owl Beast moves aside to let Luz tumble off the couch and throw herself into the hug, wrapping her arms around King and her daemon both. “…you shouldn’t have to hurt like us.”

King sniffs. “Are you kidding? That’s all I can do. I can’t even fix it.”

“But I fix it.” Mari scuffs a paw against the ground. “Not you. Never you. You’re just…a kid.”

“You can’t even fix yourself,” King mutters, before going white. “I mean—”

Mari whuffs, looking downcast. “No, you…” She spares a half-glance at Luz, ducks again. “You aren’t wrong. I’m.” Her whine catches in her throat. “I didn’t want to show her. I just…couldn’t. I didn’t even realize I wasn’t a pug until I wasn’t, it was like.”

Mari shakes herself out of the hug, leaving Luz and King still grabbing each other, while Mari pads over to Eda, slumps against her legs and presses her head into Eda’s hand. Her sorrow is heavy on Luz’s heart, so much so Luz can’t bring herself to move. What would she say?

“Nevermind,” Mari mutters. “It was stupid.”

“It doesn’t look stupid,” King says. “This is…sort of the first time all week you and Luz haven’t been fighting about something.”

“Ha!” Mari barks out a laugh. “We’re still fighting.”

King shakes his head, extracts himself from Luz’s arms. That hurts, a bit, but Eda’s watching all this and her concern is clear in her hand on Mari’s head, petting back-forth. Luz sinks into that feeling, nearly tips over onto the floor.

“You aren’t,” King says. “Not like you were earlier today. You were all…apart. Only Luz had all the sorrow. But now it’s…” He looks between Luz and Mari. “Now you’re a bit more like Eda and Beastie. All tangled up.”

“Tangled up?” Mari’s voice is dull. “Ha. That’s one way to put it.” She thumps down onto the floor, shaking Eda off of her. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

King looks like he’s about to say something, narrowing his eyes, but Eda cuts in with a, “that’s okay, Mari,” as Luz stands up. “Look, it’s been a day. King, I’m…I wish I could give you answers about what sort of demon you are, but I don’t have those. But whatever it is, you’re still King, and that’s the important part, okay? Plus if there’s anything I’ve picked up from Lilith’s foray into the realm of demon taxonomy it’s that there really isn’t any clear answer. You’re someone, okay? Even if it takes a while to figure out a specific species.”

King grumbles, “what if I want to know now?”

Eda smiles, a bit, picking François up off the couch as she stands, passing him to King who hugs him close. “Well, you discovered some new power of yours, right? That stone-shattering scream? I’m sure that’ll narrow it down, a bit.”

King ducks his head but there’s a hint of something excited in his eyes. “I guess.”

“And Luz, Mari—you don’t have to talk about this right now. But you should one day, okay? And it’s just like what I told King—even if you don’t know the specifics, I’ll be here to help you. The Owl Beast too.”

“I know, Eda,” Luz says, and Mari just grunts, which is basically the same thing. “…thank you.”

“‘Course, kid,” Eda says. “Alright. I’m gonna go grab some stuff to make this a bit more comfortable for sleeping. You two stay put.”

Luz flops face-first on the couch and offers a thumbs-up. Mari rolls her eyes but hops up next to Luz, and, after a moment, King joins them, as well.

Maybe in the morning, Luz tells herself and Mari, flipping over to watch her daemon, so much larger than she ever was as a pug, and Luz’s heart flutters at the thrill, at Amity-Alma knowing, terror at the unknown but there’s a part of her—and she’s that part—who wants to believe this will all be okay, that it has to be okay, all of this will feel okay, again.

Luz isn’t sure which of them wakes up first, her or Mari, but either way she ends up rubbing her eyes and yawning. She can hear Eda snoring, her having taken the chair to give Luz and King the couch. The Owl Beast is slumbering right in front of the couch, her massive bulk blocking Luz’s view of the door. Lifting her head Mari glances to the window, where it’s still dark out. So, middle of the night.

She feels…okay. A little less like the world is falling apart, though most of that is coming from Mari, to be fair.

Shut up, Mari huffs down their bond, with the mental image of her tossing her head, and Luz snorts, quiet amusement that they can have this, still, lingering are we okay from the day before.

…yeah, Mari says, turning owl to flutter over and tap her beak to Luz’s nose. We’re okay. I don’t like that it happened, but…it did. I’ll figure out some way to fix it. She fluffs up her feathers where she’s perched on Luz’s chest. Where’s King?

At the foot of the couch, what do you, but the thought dies as it dawns on Luz exactly what Mari saw, as she was flying over: no lump in the blanket that was King, and when Luz prods at his side of the couch with a foot she doesn’t find anything.

“King?” She whispers it, hoping not to wake Eda or Beastie—seriously, they haven’t slept in like a week, they need this—and other than the Owl Beast twitching her wings seems to be successful. If King’s in the room he doesn’t answer, and Mari spreads her wings to take into the air, so silent Luz only knows where she is by that tug in her chest.

He’s not here. Mari lands on the windowsill, squints against the dark. Upstairs, maybe?

She’s turned maned wolf and is padding up the stairs before Luz has even sat up. That tug in her chest goes sharper, but whatever it is that’s stretching Luz’s range—she’s pretty sure it’s the whole Unsettled thing, though if Mari can get all the way upstairs it’s…a large one—doesn’t get so sharp it hurts. While Mari does her thing and Luz mostly gets disappointment from her at not finding King, Luz slides to the end of the couch, carefully folding the blanket over and getting off without waking anybody.

By the time Mari’s come back downstairs shaking her head, Luz is grabbing her hoodie where it’s hanging near the door, pulling it over her pajamas and slipping on her shoes. If King isn’t inside he’s outside and Luz is not about to leave him alone at…

Mari bumps against her leg, whispers, “nearly 4 am.”

At nearly 4 am. Making sure not to open the door so fast it creaks or wakes Hooty, Luz slips outside.

“King!” The door nearly slams shut behind her, only stopped by Mari throwing herself in the way, and Luz thinks a thanks before darting over to King, leaning against the side of the house with François in his lap and staring up at the stars. “Why’re you all the way out here? It’s cold.”

King doesn’t even look at her, though Luz sits next to him and wiggles one arm out of her hoodie to drape half of it over him. “Not so bad.” His fur is all fluffed out so that’s a lie, and it’s windy enough even Luz is shivering. “Plus, the house is warm.”

“Not that warm.” Luz scoots to give Mari a spot to lie, in front of both of them. “What’s up?”

“Nothing.” King is messing with François’s ears, moving them back and forth. With the stars there’s enough light to see by that the cut on his rabbit’s chest is still visible. “Just couldn’t sleep.”

“Well, neither could I,” Luz decides. “…do you want to talk about your, uh. Demon stuff?”

King still won’t look at her. “Do you want to talk about Amity-Alma?”

Mari’s tail hits the ground hard. “No.”

He nods. “Exactly.”

“Okay, but like—”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Luz.” King’s gaze drops to stare at the ground. “Does it matter? I already knew François wasn’t really…wasn’t really alive. It’s my fault for just. Getting my hopes up.” He scoffs, shoving off against the house to stand. “Like Hooty was going to know what I am.”

“It’s really…weighing on you, isn’t it.” Luz does King the solid of not looking at him when he’s tearing up, staring at the stars instead, all bright and far-away. “Not knowing.”

Mari’s tail flicks as King says, “what, like your thing isn’t weighing on you?”

“I don’t want it to be.” Luz twists her hands together, nails pinching the thin skin between them. It’s Mari who finishes the thought, pressing her head hard enough on her paws Luz can feel the pressure on her jaw, “but it is.”

“Exactly.” King tilts sideways so he’s leaning into her, his horns poking somewhat uncomfortably into Luz’s gut, not that she’s going to tell him that. She rests her hand atop his head, scratching his skull. “It’s just stupid.”

“I don’t think it’s stupid.” Here Luz can feel the rise and fall of King’s breath, in time to the steady thump-thump of Mari’s tail hitting the ground, a yawning contentness that’s a bit too stiff to be true, but it’s better than nothing. If there’s anything the pair of them can agree on it’s that King doesn’t deserve to deal with any of this stuff, and if they could, if they knew more about demons—but all they know is the stuff they’ve been told, mostly in letters from Lilith as she hunts to learn anything she can about what might have caused her and Burkit to Unsettle, none of which is particularly useful since it tends to all end up on the man, demons are weird side of things.

“You’re thinking about it again.”

Luz jerks. Mari says, “thinking about what?”

“Your thing.” King sits up, and Luz misses his warmth like she’d miss her heartbeat. “You always return to it. Like you don’t know how to think about anything else. It’s all…stuck through you.”

“That’s not true,” Mari says, twitching her ears. “Luz is stuck thinking about it. I know what’s right. I’m trying to get us home.”

King snorts. “No, it’s both of you.” He sighs. “…I wish I had that.”

“Had?” Luz prompts, as Mari stands to bump against Luz, her fur prickling.

“A something.” King tracing a claw across his palm. “Like how you and Mari are always fighting and keeping all these heavy things from each other but you have something that ties you together, or how Eda and Beastie were always stabbing into each other but now they aren’t, they’re like, like, they’re overlayed and right, or Hooty and the house and how I never know when he’s coming because he’s always everywhere, and, and.” King’s breaths come quick but when Luz tries to reach out for him he’s already shaking her hoodie off and pacing, François lying discarded in the dirt. “And François is so faint he may as well be dead and nobody ever tells me and Hooty didn’t even know if I was alive I think and maybe my dad is just one of those old dead thoughts in the air and I don’t know why I care so much!”

King’s last word is yelled out and with it comes an explosion of sound, a brilliant blue wave tinged gold that sets Luz’s hair on-end and Mari’s ears pinned flat. It ripples out until it dissipates into the sky and King’s standing in front of her with his paws clenched fists and tears in his eyes.

“This is just like that stupid fire glyph all over again!” His voice cracks, dropping down to poke at François with his nose. “Why can’t I just…why can’t you just be real?”

Luz’s heart breaks, her and Mari for once echoing in unison: I don’t want him to be sad. Mari pads up to King and he wraps his arms around her and breathes shakily into her chest, and Luz reaches out for both of them as Mari carefully picks King up by the scruff and sets him in her lap, wrapping around the both of them like the warmest blanket. That part of their bond that was always a fight, teeth dug in and replaying the events from earlier, goes dark. This is more important, now.

“You…say that, a lot,” Mari says, tilting her head. “Alive. Dead. François is…”

A stuffed toy, she’s thinking, how could he be alive? Why is that tearing at you so much? But Luz pushes that isn’t going to help, so she doesn’t say it.

Luz picks it up. “François is important to you,” she says, using one arm to pick the little rabbit up off the ground and lay him gently across King. King curls into a ball and doesn’t try to get him. “He may as well be dead? What does that mean?”

King sniffs. “You know.” His words come out muffled and Luz strains to hear him, Mari nuzzling his back. “Alive things have thoughts. They’re everywhere and get all over the place but they’re new. Dead things are just…empty. They don’t have that. If they do it’s just old thoughts that settled there, and François…”

“Thoughts?” Luz frowns. “You’ve…King, how did you know me and Mari were fighting? Like, now, sure, but—even at the beginning, like, when we went to the island Eda found you on? You knew we were fighting then, too. Like you saw it, even though we were trying to hide it from you.”

“You’re really bad at hiding things.” King sniffs, lifting his head to look at her, blinking. “You’re…loud. You, uh, wear your heart on your sleeve? Like with your invisibility glyph. You were so proud even though it just hides your body.”

Luz glances to Mari, who sends back a mental shrug of yeah, I have no idea what that means. Luz says, “isn’t that…all it needs to hide?”

“No?” King, too, sounds confused, frowning up at Luz. “The thoughts? I know you know what I’m talking about, you see it, like, uh, when Eda goes immaterial! How Beastie’s—well, I was pretty sure they’re the Owl Beast’s, but harpy-Eda-Beastie is way weirder than I thought so I’m sort of not sure anymore—thoughts like, sorta stab through her? Like thorns?” His tail wags with something Mari feels as too-much, thoughts spilling that need to get out, and Mari steps off of King to let him hop onto the ground, absently tucking François between his horns as he does.

“…when Eda goes immaterial before she vanishes entirely, she’s just—not there. Like, there are parts of her I can’t see anymore. I don’t know what…” Luz trails off as King’s fur poofs up, freezing. “Uh, King?”

“No,” he says, “no, I know—like, look! Up there!” He grabs Mari’s paw and uses it to try and prod up at the sky, though Mari twists her paw free and follows his instead, Luz and her both tilting their heads back to see the sky. “The river of old thoughts? They’re a bit too far away to read them, but…I mean, you can see them.” He goes quiet for a second. “You can see them, right?”

Above them are stars that shine, a few clouds drifting. When Luz looks behind them she can even see the sliver of the moon, but…nothing that reminds her of a river. At her and Mari’s silence King’s eyes go wide, and he stumbles backwards, as though he’s trying to run from her, and—

He can’t. Luz isn’t entirely sure what this is about, but she’s not leaving King to figure it out on his own. He’s King! He’s just a kid, and he shouldn’t…shouldn’t have to have something like this weighing on him. Not like her and Mari.

You shouldn’t have it, either, Mari says, her voice like stones sinking, but Luz ignores her. King is more important, now.

“King!” Luz snags his arm as he passes. “King, I believe you! I just—okay. Describe these thoughts to me. What do they look like? C’mon, breathe. We’ll figure this out.”

“O—okay.” King takes a few shallow breaths. Mari, after looking at Luz for a long moment with a mess of thoughts Luz cannot begin to piece into something coherent, turns owl and flutters over to perch on King’s shoulder, and he pets her feathers. “They’re, um. Golden. And like—I guess sort of like your light glyph? But…way smaller and they sort of drift through the air. I don’t think they weigh that much and I can’t really carry them around, they just…keep drifting. If you’re alive they gather all around you because they’re, like, yours? You make them. Mari is made of them I think but they’re solid for her. You and her are—connected. By them. Like Hooty is connected to the house and Eda and Beastie to each other, but, but rocks don’t have them, and François’ are so faint, and…”

He trails off and looks down at the ground. “I thought you all could see them too. It’s—it’s everywhere, on everything, and it’s…pretty. Nice. Like. Like you aren’t so alone in the world, ‘cause…here’s something that felt at one point.”

“I can’t,” Luz says, “I don’t think—I don’t think anybody can, I.” She frowns. “I’ve never heard of people seeing weird golden particles, but…” Little tiny particles that stick to things, why is that ringing a—OH. School. History class. Mari, I know what these are!

I know! Mari flaps her wings so hard she nearly knocks King over. “I know what you’re seeing!” she says, toppling into the air as Luz laughs, stumbling to her feet to catch her daemon. King watches them with narrowed eyes. “I—okay, this might be a really bad explanation but in the human realm, like, 100 years ago or something, there were these scientists. And—it’s sort of been known for a really long time that daemons, we aren’t made of flesh and blood like humans and animals, right? Because when humans die they leave behind a body but daemons unspool into this golden glowy stuff.”

“Thoughts.” King’s voice is quiet. “That’s—you can see them, that’s what…”

“We can see it if someone dies,” Luz says, “or if Mari was bleeding, or something. When palismen bleed I think they bleed the same stuff she does, but it’s more…together. But…that’s the only time.”

“But,” Mari says, “King, listen. These scientists, they wanted to figure out what, exactly, daemons were made out of. And they did a bunch of experiments and made a bunch of stuff and Luz really was not paying attention in this class so I’m sure there’s a lot of details I don’t remember, but…they developed this film, and it was able to…see these particles. And they took pictures of daemons, and saw that they were made of it. But—they also saw that it wasn’t only daemons. It surrounded humans. It was on all the scientific tools. It was in the air. And they ended up calling them Rusakov particles after the person who made the film, and, and, I mean…here they’re called magic or Dust, which is way easier to remember, and…you’re seeing this thing that is around people and stuff people touch. And it collects on things. And…that sounds a lot like Dust to me.”

King doesn’t say anything. Luz—wants. Her entire head is spinning, just a bit, learning this: even Eda didn’t really know all that much about Dust, just that it made magic happen, and back in the human realm their class ended with a ‘so, this is what Dust looks like on these black-and-white pictures, and we know it’s generated by human-daemon pairs, but there’s still a lot of research to be done to truly understand it.’

“King, I think…” Luz chews her lip. “I think maybe you’re right in that…that you don’t really know what sort of demon you are. But I’m not really a demon, either. Me and Mari—we’re something else, right? Since we aren’t from this world. Maybe you’re like that. Something else.”

“Hooty actually says you’re a bipedal demon.” King sniffs, rubbing at his eyes with one of François’ paws, “but I think I get what you mean.” He creeps up to her. “You don’t—you don’t think it’s weird? That there’s this, this thing nobody else can see, but I can?”

Luz shrugs. “This entire world is weird! I’m weird! I think it’s great. And, hey.” She grins at King. “Us weirdos have to stick together, right?”

Mari returns to her maned-wolf form to prod her nose to King’s chest, and adds, “it sounds…pretty.”

“It’s mostly just really loud when everyone is mad all the time.” King pets Mari’s nose. “But. um. Thanks. I guess it’s…I dunno. I guess it makes me feel a bit better that I don’t look dead, probably. Since—Hooty can’t see it. So. He was just guessing. He didn’t…see there was something wrong with me.”

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you.” Luz tugs King into a hug and he groans but flops into it anyways, his tail wagging against her arm. “I love you very much.” She kisses his skull.

“Urgh, gross!” But King is laughing, and Mari presses love against his back, tackling him out of Luz’s grip with a playful tilt to her ears. “Mutiny! You dare try to take me on!”

“Yes,” Luz says, very seriously. “I do dare!”

King squirms out from Mari’s grip, pauses, for a moment. “Hey Luz? Mari?”

Luz hums.

“Can you…” He looks to the Owl House. “I think—I think Eda and Beastie are going to be better, now. But…is there any way you can be better, too? Like—like not fight so much. I don’t know how to help you, and it just…hurt.” He frowns, claws scuffing at the ground. “I don’t—I don’t like it when you and Mari fight.”

“I—”

It’s King, Luz is telling her daemon, it’s KING, he’s—he’s been stuck seeing our fight the whole time, hasn’t he. Since he can…see that stuff.

Luz… Mari’s tail droops. I really, really didn’t want her to see.

But she did. Luz swallows. If—okay. I wanted to tell Amity-Alma. You wanted to figure out the echo mouse. What if…she already knows. So. You stop being so sad about it, and…we ask her to help us with the echo mouse. We both win.

Mari looks to King, fidgeting with François’ paws. Can he see this, somehow? What do they look like, to him? Luz vaguely remembers those pictures she was shown in class, how this pale mass of particle covered the figures shown, but not…it didn’t block them. She didn’t know what it meant but it felt big, like some small part of the world that was previously closed had been opened up, and she knew just a little bit more about it all, now.

Is that what they look like, to King? What magic looks like?

“Okay, King,” Mari says, aloud. “We’ll do our best.”

“But you tell Eda about this,” Luz adds. “She might be able to help you more.”

King snorts. “Okay. Fine. Deal.” He holds out a paw.

Luz giggles, but takes it, and they shake on it. Mari places a paw carefully over François, doing the same. When she lifts it back up one of her claws snags on the loose thread, and Mari tilts her head.

“Want us to help you find the sewing supplies?” Mari offers.

King perks up. “Yes please.”

So they do. They nearly wake up Eda twice, in their frantic rush to hush each other, but in the living room with the starlight spilling in, whispering as to not make it a third time, Luz-Mari and King all press together, and struggle to find thread colors and needles and remember stitches to sew up François, until the little rabbit is good as new.