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Chapter Text

"Maybe we could trade him for Augustus. I'm sure the emperor would want him back."

Hunter flinched violently, his whole body going rigid and eyes widening as he took in a sharp, terrified breath. He wouldn't go back. He couldn't go back. Belos was going to kill him and he wasn't ready to die– he'd barely done any living yet at all, his whole life had been a lie and now he wasn't going to get to try again–

"I won't go back!" he yelled, as blind panic overtook his judgement, and he bolted for the door.

He almost made it there, too, before abomination ooze flared up from beneath him and around his legs. He fell forward and hit the floor, knocking the wind from him and sending his head spinning. He gasped for air and clawed at the carpet, trying frantically to pull himself free and crawl away.

"You're not going anywhere, Golden Guard," said Principal Bump sharply, holding a spell circle in one hand. His face was terse, harsh, filled with disdain. "I don't think you should be leaving just yet."

"We're not… really going to trade him, are we?" asked Viney uncomfortably. 

"I haven't decided yet," the principal replied. "I am bound to protect my students though. Not him."

"Principal Bump–" Willow interjected. "They knocked him out and were dragging him away– I don't think he's on their good side anymore. Who knows what they'll do to him?"

Hunter felt hope flare in his chest. Of course the captain would stick up for him. She was kind, and brave, and refused to compromise her morals. She wasn't going to let him get taken away.

"He's lying," said a familiar voice.

Hunter froze, blood running cold. From the corner of the room, a girl he hadn't noticed stepped forward.

Amity.

"How can you know that?" Willow challenged. 

"Because that's what he does," the other witch answered, crossing her arms. She looked down on him like he was dirt. Less than dirt. He could see hate behind her eyes. He'd probably earned that, too, which made it all the worse. "I fought him at Eclipse Lake. He sussed out my insecurities, he manipulated me into sympathizing with him, he made me think I could trust him. And then he tried to kill me."

"I wasn't trying to kill you!" Hunter cried. "I just wanted the key!"

"And you would have killed me to get it," she dismissed. "You were fighting with everything you had. You were using lethal force. You didn't care if you killed me or not. Don't forget you left me behind before that, for one of your scouts to try and kill me. Twice that day you would have let me die!" She clenched her fists at her sides. "And worst of all, even after I helped you, you threatened Luz!"

Willow's eyes widened. Hunter's breath caught in his throat. He couldn't deny any of that. He didn't have a defense. She was right, and he wished so dearly right now he had let her help him then, that he had never gone into Belos's mind and seen what he'd seen. That he'd been able to figure out how evil his uncle was without having to be told.

But it was too late.

"Either he's still with them and trying to trick us," Amity went on, "Or he did ditch them, and he'll still betray us the second it benefits him. We don't have to protect him. We do have to protect Gus."

Principal Bump set his jaw sternly.

No, no, no, no! He looked up desperately at Willow, close to hyperventilating. "Captain?"

She looked at him, conflicted and concerned. His galdorstone heart beat rapidly in his chest.

And then she turned away.

Something inside of him snapped like a twig. Like palistrom wood. Something that would probably never be fixed.

But maybe it had never been whole to begin with.

"It's decided, then," said Principal Bump. "Viney, put him to sleep. I will find Adrian Graye myself, and hopefully trade the Golden Guard in exchange for Augustus. With some luck, he may decide taking him back to Belos is more important than continuing his operation here."

"No!" Hunter screamed, frantically scrambling at the ground again as his vision swam. "No, please! Please, don't send me back!"

"I'm sorry, Caleb," Viney said guiltily.

And then everything went dark.

Gus blinked his eyes open blearily, uncertain where exactly he was. The world was still spinning a bit as he sat up.

"Careful!" Willow gasped, "Don't stand up too fast, Gus!"

"What… happened?" he asked, shaking his head. "Where am I?"

"The healing homeroom," Willow answered. He blinked a few times, vision clearing, and realized the room was full of students and teachers. Principal Bump stood behind her. "You cast that big illusion over the school, remember? We had to put you to sleep to make it stop. I was so scared for you, Gus, I didn't know if you were going to be okay!"

"The last thing I remember…" he said distantly, searching through his murky memory, "Me and Hunter were being captured by those coven scouts." He suddenly woke all the way up as panic shot through his chest and he snapped his head up. "Hunter!" he cried. "Where's Hunter?!"

The room went silent.

"...Why?" asked Willow hesitantly. She seemed incredibly apprehensive, as if she were afraid of his answer.

"He saved me from a bunch of coven scouts and was trying to rescue me again when we got cornered. He fought off a bunch of them and told me he ran away from the Emperor's Coven and I think– I think they want to kill him!" He stopped at the looks of horror most of the room's occupants suddenly took on. "Where is he?"

"Oh, no," Willow breathed. "He really was with you."

"Yeah!" Gus insisted. Why was everyone looking at him like that? "He's been living at Hexside for days– I think he's homeless? He was terrified. I had to talk him down from a panic attack and everything!"

"He really left the coven?" Amity said in a small voice a few paces away. "He saved you?" Her face was pale.

"Why are you– why are you all looking at me like that?" Gus asked, anxiety rising in his throat. "Where is he? Is Adrian gone? What happened?"

"Oh, Gus," Willow warbled, tears in her eyes, "We made a huge mistake."

Hunter woke feeling cold, laying on his back against stone. He stayed motionless, because he could hear shuffling movement and knew that wherever he was, he was not alone.

Where was he? He smelled rot and decay and it burned his nostrils all the way down to his throat. It smelled like dead flesh and human decomposition. It also smelled like stale air and wet stone. He was pretty certain he was indoors, maybe even underground. Somewhere dank and dark and decrepit. 

"Oh, good, you're awake." 

Hunter's breath caught in his throat and his eyes opened as he immediately tried to scramble to his feet. His wrists were bound open at his sides and his ankles together– he could barely move other than to thrash against them in abject, blinding terror. 

The emperor leaned against a potting bed of red soil, casually sharpening a dagger against a whetstone. He didn't look up at Hunter as he spoke. 

"Belos," Hunter choked out in a small, pathetic sounding voice. He felt like his throat was closing up. Like his chest was on fire. Like his world was ending. 

"Good to see you again, nephew," Belos smiled pleasantly.

"I'm not your nephew!" Hunter burst. "I never was!"

"No, I suppose not," Belos sighed. "Though, I've never tried that one before with one of you. I must admit, I quite liked it. It was a lot more work, pulling you up so young– I usually don't bother, you see, it's much more convenient to let you mature first and skip all the pesky useless years– but it paid off in spades. Well– not now, I suppose, but how could I have predicted such a bizarre fluke to make you privy to the truth?" He set the whetstone down and inspected the blade. "You've done so well up until now. Been so loyal. You never questioned anything I said and always followed my orders, no matter what. Other than the last few weeks, Hunter, I've been very proud of you. My greatest work yet."

"I'm not a thing!" Hunter snarled, still struggling, even though he felt exhausted. "I'm a person! Just because you made me doesn't mean I'm not! You're sick! You're evil! I hate you!" He could feel tears welling in his eyes and he hated it. Part of him was ashamed to be weak in front of his uncle and part of him hated himself for caring. 

"Yes, yes, you all say that in the end." Apparently satisfied with the blade, he stepped around the table to his side. "I do my very best to keep you on the path of holiness, but you always get influenced somehow. You get tempted, and then I have to start over. I'd try raising the next one from scratch again, but the Day of Unity is just too close at hand. I think I can still get one finished in time, but it'll be a rush job."

Hunter's breath caught in his throat. A new one. A new one. A new one.

"B– but–" he tried, scrambling for something, anything, "You need me for the Day of Unity, right? You– shouldn't you just– you don't have to kill me, you can– you can just hold me until then–"

"Oh, no, I don't need you," Belos dismissed with a wave of his free hand. "To be honest, Hunter, you were always going to die on the Day of Unity. Every witch will."

Hunter froze. "What?"

"I suppose this is for the best," he sighed. "This one will be new enough I won't have to kill it."

"You were always going to kill me?" Hunter repeated weakly. "Why?"

Belos quirked an eyebrow at him. "Why not?"

"Why are you telling me this?" Hunter warbled, shaking uncontrollably. "You're going to kill me. You were always going to kill me. Why won't you just kill me?! I don't want to listen to this! I don't want to know this!"

"I don't know," Belos hummed. "I just like talking to you, I think."

Hunter's gut twisted and he felt nauseous. He didn't want to puke when he couldn't get up though and he fought to keep it down. 

"In any case," Belos handwaved, "I can't kill you outright. Grimwalkers are so tricky to make, and the parts are so tricky to come by. I don't have time to collect them all at the moment, I have far too much to do. I need you to destabilize and break down into your component parts so that I can reuse them." He turned to look down at Hunter with a smile, the same one he'd given him as a child. Profound fondness, and what he'd thought was love. "Don't worry. It will only take a few days."

Hunter's breath hitched again. "Uncle," he choked, "Please. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'll come back, I'll be good, I promise."

"I'm not your uncle." Belos sighed. With that, he turned and held down Hunter's forearm with his free hand, raised the blade with his right, and brought it down above the elbow with more strength than Hunter had ever known he had.

And then he did it again. And again. And on the fourth blow, it hit the table, having fully severed the limb.

Hunter had known pain before. It was an old friend. He'd spent more time training himself to endure pain than he could possibly begin to even estimate. He had once held his hand in the fireplace for as long as he could stand, flesh turning black and cracked, sloughing off the bone while sweat poured down his forehead and his whole body began to shake. 

But he didn't scream. He didn't cry. When he went to the medical wing of the castle for healing, he didn't tell anyone what had happened, and no one asked. 

From the first strike he was screaming like every cry of pain he hadn't made in his entire life was coming out at once, too great to suppress anymore. He thrashed and sobbed and wailed, but it changed nothing. 

"Oh, do be quiet," his uncle groaned as he unshackled the severed limb and picked it up. "I raised you better than this."

"I'm sorry! Uncle, I'm sorry!" he cried, and it felt like he was saying the words before he could even think them. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry, please, I'll never question you again! I'll do whatever you want! I won't ever leave again, I promise!"

"Of course you would." Belos crossed to the potting bed and held the arm over the soil, letting the blood flow out freely. "You're going to die, Hunter, at least do it with some dignity."

"Uncle, please, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!"

"Unbelievable," Belos mumbled in annoyance. "Sixteen years and he still acts like this."

"Uncle," he sobbed pitifully. He'd never sounded so pathetic and small in his life. He usually felt furious at himself when he showed weakness, especially in front of his uncle, but right now he wished he was five years old again and his uncle was tucking him back into bed and telling him he was special, destined for greatness.

"I'm not your uncle." Belos gave the arm a little shake, blood slowing to a trickle. "In any case. The bone I used to make you is in this arm. Without a piece of your ortet, the rest of your body will destabilize and fall apart. Then I can recycle the galdorstone, the stonesleeper lungs and at least some of the palistrom wood that I used. You brought me some fresh selkidomus scales already, so no worries there." He left the potting box and moved to another table where a cloth was waiting. He set the arm down and began to wrap it calmly, like a present.

"I don't want to die," Hunter sniffled, his voice breaking. He could barely see through his tears and the black spots in his vision. 

"No one wants to die, Hunter, I already know that," Belos said testily. He picked up a hot iron.

He returned to Hunter's side, grabbed what remained of his arm and pressed it to the open wound. Hunter went back to screaming mindlessly. 

"I don't want you to bleed out before you crumble. It never takes more than a week. With any luck, it will be in time. Unfortunately, I won't be able to babysit you, though, I have too much to do. But don't worry, I'll be returning later. Until then– again, try to die with some dignity, won't you?" 

"Y– you can't just leave me–" Hunter fought to choke out, "S– someone will come looking for me."

"Who?" Belos bubbled with startled laughter, as if the question genuinely surprised and amused him. "Everyone hates you, Hunter. They think you are a cocky, spoiled, insolent brat. Even the little witchlings you ran off with turned you in the second it benefited them. Who would ever want to save you?"

He picked up the packaged arm and tucked it away beneath his cloak, retrieving his mask from where he'd set it down on the desk. Without another word, he left Hunter begging and pleading at the top of his lungs, completely unphased by his sobbing.

And then Hunter was alone.

Chapter Text

"Don't touch me!" Gus yelled through his tears, slapping Willow's hand away. "How could you turn him over?! To them?"

"I'm sorry!" she cried, tears welling up in her eyes, "I thought he was–"

"He saved the flyer derby team!" 

"After he captured us in the first place!" Skara insisted weakly. 

"He did, but he wasn't trying to trick us," Viney said, shrinking into herself, "He did it, and then he changed his mind, and he went against another coven head to undo it. He didn't benefit from that at all."

"Didn't you see the way he flinched when he thought the abomination coven head was going to hit him?" Gus sniffled. "That wasn't fake. You can't fake that."

Willow hiccuped and finally she buried her face in her hands and started crying, overcome. "I thought– I thought he might have hurt you, and–"

"And now the emperor is going to kill him," Gus snapped. He looked miserable and frightened and absolutely wracked with guilt. "He tried to help me and now he's going to die because of it."

"I didn't want– I didn't think that–"

"This is my fault," Amity said, voice barely above a whisper. She stared forward blankly into the middle distance, expression haunted. "I… said we couldn't trust him. I said he was a liar. You all just listened to me. You trusted my judgement."

"Can we go after them?" Viney asked.

"And do what?" Skara snapped, getting emotional herself. "A bunch of kids against a whole company of coven soldiers? We barely survived here when they were confused by a massive illusion!"

"We don't even know where they went," Willow added, wiping her eyes and trying to get a hold of herself. "Other than probably the castle."

"And we can't possibly save him from there either," Skara shook her head.

"Even if we have sent him to his death," Principal Bump spoke, voice grave, "I cannot allow dozens of children to risk sacrificing their own lives in an attempt to save one."

"Allow?" Gus yelled, leaping to his feet. "You don't allow me to do anything! You can't stop me!"

"You're staying right here," Bump said sharply. "Unless you want to be in detention for the rest of your life."

"I don't care if you expel me!" Gus said, clenching his little hands into fists. "I'm not leaving him behind to die! You can do whatever you want to me, but you cannot stop me from doing the right thing." 

He turned sharply to make a run for the door, but he didn't make it a single step before Principal Bump caught the second boy by the ankles with abomination ooze that day. Gus struggled to pull his legs free, but there was no hope of escaping the solidifying substance.

"I'm sorry, Augustus, I truly am," the principal said in earnest, "But there is nothing you can do. You're just a child."

"So is Hunter!" he argued furiously. He put all the strength in his body into getting even one leg out, fighting the sludge that struggled to hold him down. "You can be a coward and stay here if you want, but you can't make me stand by and do nothing while one of my friends gets murdered!" 

Suddenly, his leg pulled free surprisingly easily, and then so did the other as he stumbled forward and turned back, baffled. 

Principal Bump looked just as confused, until both of them noticed Amity standing behind him, both her hands in the air holding spell circles. Her arms were trembling with the exertion of fighting the other witch for control of the ooze, sweat on her forehead and grief-regret-ferocity in her eyes.

"Go!" she yelled. "Go save Hunter!" 

Gus trembled for a moment as the urge to help Hunter and the urge to help Amity slammed into each other. Then he nodded sharply, and sprinted for the exit. Behind him, he heard rapid footsteps and pushed himself to run faster, refusing to allow anyone to stop him now.

"I'm coming with you!" Willow cried as she caught up with him. Gus was filled with a wash of relief, both that he wasn't being chased and that he had Willow on his side. In truth, the idea of doing this alone terrified him, but doing the right thing was more important than doing the easy one. He'd rather die with his conscience intact than live and never be able to sleep at night again. He might live, but he'd never be able to live with himself.

He stopped when they burst through the front doors of the school, panting desperately for air. He'd already done a lot of running today, already burned a lot of energy. He leaned forward on his knees to catch his breath. 

"You're right," Willow sniffled, her voice cracking. "I shouldn't have let them take him. I knew it was wrong but I– I second guessed myself and I– I'm so horrible, I can't believe I–"

"You're not horrible," Gus interrupted, heaving himself back to his feet. "Hunter tried to force us to join a coven, and I can forgive him for that, because he knew it was wrong and wanted to fix it. You're fixing it too, because you're a good person. You just made a bad call."

She straightened up and took a long, deep breath, counting in her head. "Thanks, Gus."

"It's okay," he reassured her. "I love you, you know? You're my best friend. Even if I'm upset with you, Willow, I'd never think you were horrible."

She wiped her eyes and smiled weakly. "Okay. Alright. So…" She frowned in thought, expression growing serious. "Where do we go now? The castle?"

"That's definitely where they would take him," Gus agreed. "With the amount of scouts, they left a lot of footprints. It would be easy to follow the path they took."

"I don't know if we're fast enough to catch up before they get there…" Willow chewed her lip. "Do… you really think we can do this on our own? Just the two of us?"

For the first time, Gus's confidence seemed to falter. "We should get Luz."

"She wasn't at school today," Willow reminded him, "She wouldn't skip with no reason. What if she's sick? Or not home?"

"Then– then we can ask Eda to help!" Gus burst. "She hates the emperor as much as we do. And she knows Luz would want to help him– and if Luz found out she didn't she'd be upset. So she'll help."

"You're right," Willow nodded sharply. "After the emperor tried to petrify her? She would never stand back and let Belos kill a teenager because she was scared. Eda isn't scared of anything."

"C'mon, Emmiline," Gus said decidedly. His palisman scurried out of his collar and down his arm to transform and he hopped onto his staff feet-first.

"Let's go get the Owl Lady!" Willow agreed.

Hunter was not sure how long it took before he was too tired and dehydrated to keep crying. It felt like there was nothing else left in him to expel. He'd been hollowed out with a spoon and left empty and aching. But maybe there had never been anything in there to begin with.

Small comforts; with his right arm missing it was no longer bound to the opposite side of the table, allowing him to roll onto his side and tuck what was left of it against his chest. In the past, he'd been able to power through pain, crush it down beneath his boots until he felt like he was outside of himself, and he couldn't even feel it anymore. He could keep going until his body physically couldn't anymore.

He couldn't crush this down. It hurt, and it kept hurting. 

He was going to die here, in this cold, dark, wet place where he was probably born– made– in the first place. He was going to lay here alone until his body festered and rot around him and he died. No– not even died, really, something else. Ceased to exist entirely, maybe. 

His breath hitched thinking about it. Belos had talked often about the afterlife. Hunter knew about Heaven and Hell and that there was something else, something bigger than a titan even, in charge. Belos never said what, but he knew it was something. Good people went to heaven and bad people went to the other one. Belos had pointed out a lot of people he knew were going to Hell. It seemed like most people went there. It sounded horrible, but at least he wouldn't be alone. 

Where would he go? Would he go anywhere at all? He wasn't even real, he was a walking mirror, a second hand copy. Did he even have a soul? When he was gone, would he just… stop? Or would he go some other third place, somewhere dark and empty, just him, alone, forever?

He'd thought he was out of tears, but apparently not. Not that his throat wasn't too sore to keep crying, thought. They came in silence, too exhausted to do anything but let them come. He didn't want to die. He hadn't even gotten to live. He'd found out his life was a lie a little more than a week ago, and he'd been terrified and miserable since then. He wanted to be like other people. He wanted to study wild magic, and learn to carve palismen. He wanted to go to Hexside and play flyer derby with his friends. He wanted to live.

But Belos was right. They weren't his friends, and no one was going to save him. Nobody would even want to. Maybe no one would even really notice he was gone– or if they did, they'd be glad he was. Kikimora would be happy she could take his job. Darius would be relieved he didn't have to look at him anymore. Amity would be happy she didn't have to worry about Luz getting hurt by him anymore, and Willow and Gus would both feel safer with him gone. He'd given them every reason to. And Flapjack–

No. Hunter's death would only hurt him more. The little bird had only told him a little, but he knew his first witch had made him a long time ago, and that she had died. He'd never taken another, not until him. Flapjack loved him unconditionally. He was always offering him soft reassurances when he was miserable and stern scoldings when he was being a jerk, guiding him toward being the kind of person he so longed to be.

I am your bird and you are my boy, his palisman had puffed firmly, I will protect my boy, even from himself!

Flapjack had been the only living thing that had ever loved him, in his whole entire miserable life. And now Hunter was going to repay him by leaving him alone, again, to grieve for a second witch he couldn't save.

Hunter hurt everyone and everything that he'd ever touched. His whole existence had been toxic, a poison that seeped into anything that stood near him too long. Like a curse. 

Shivering in the dark, face wet and puffy and arm screaming in his head, he wondered if maybe the world was better off without him in it.

Gus and Willow stood in frozen horror in front of the Owl House, a familiar bastion in a world that constantly changed, the ever present home of the most powerful witch in all of the boiling isles. 

It had been gutted like a fish, left haunted and empty in utter devastation. The door hung ajar and even from here they could see that everything inside what had once been a cozy living room was gone. 

"What could have happened?" Willow breathed. "Who would do this?"

"I don't know. The Emperor? But they've never taken her down before, and– and he pardoned her and everything, it–" Gus stumbled, mind racing. "I don't know. Luz said she has a lot of enemies? It could have been… anyone. I don't know."

"Is this why Luz wasn't at school?" Willow said in a small voice. "Oh, no. Gus, what if she's hurt? What if she's captured somewhere, too?" 

"I… I don't…" Gus swallowed, and then wrung his hands together to stop them from shaking. "If we have to rescue Luz, too, then we'll rescue Luz, too."

"...Right," Willow agreed, seemingly bolstered by his own false confidence. He wondered distantly if both of them pretending to be strong was the only thing keeping the other from falling apart. "We don't know where she is– or Eda, or Lilith, or King, or Hooty– but we know where Hunter is. Or at least, we have a good idea. If we rescue him first, then he can help us find Luz."

"Is it really just us?" Gus asked, suddenly feeling very small. "No Eda, no Lilith, King, Hooty, Luz, Hunter, Amity– is it really just us two? Can we do this on our own?"

Willow straightened up, face shifting into something deadly serious as she summoned her staff and held it tightly. "Yes," she said in a confident voice that still warbled with an undercurrent of fear, "We can. Because we have to."

Chapter Text

Hunter was not sure when he had passed out, or how long he'd been unconscious for. Returning to the waking world, however, was no blessing. He woke to pain, to his body damp and cold and sore, and to so much anguish in his chest that it physically hurt. It felt like someone had poked hot irons in between each of his ribs and he wanted to reach in and tear them out with both hands, and–

Oh. Right.

He tilted his right arm up to peer at it in the dim light. Bright red, burnt and scabbed and smeared with blood. It didn't even look like his own arm anymore, just some horrible thing attached to him against his will. Arduously, he shifted his shoulder to wave it, trying to connect the act of moving it to the visible proof of it moving, hoping it would make it feel real. It didn't. 

He settled again with weary resignation. Die with dignity, at least. Yeah, right. Belos hadn't even left him a way to go to the bathroom with his dignity. One more test he was always meant to fail. He didn't know how he had never recognized before that all of them always had been– he was supposed to fail. His uncle had wanted a justification to hurt him. He always had.

He glanced up at the rows of potting beds lining the walls. A rotting, decrepit hand was reaching out from one of them, blue-black and stiff. He shuddered and looked away again. He wondered if that one had ever been alive. Had it been a failure that never came to life in the first place? Had it been left so long that it withered and died without being picked? Had it been alive in there, just sleeping and waiting? 

He wondered morbidly how many of his not-quite-family-and-not-quite-not-family had died here. Had been fully born and then culled for coming out wrong, maybe. Found this place and seen the truth, only to be murdered for it. Dragged back here to fall apart and recycled. Maybe this place was haunted, and maybe he'd haunt it, too.

He shut his eyes and lay on his back again, taking a deep breath of stale air. 

He could save a life by ending his. Belos had said if he died before he fell apart he wouldn't get the components back, and that would mean he didn't have time to make another grimwalker he was going to murder. Was that giving up? He didn't want to die, but he didn't want to be a part of letting his not-uncle create and take another innocent life. 

It made his head and his heart hurt to think about, and everything already hurt so much . 

He eyed the knife Belos had left on the other table. 

Willow swallowed thickly and then turned away from the Owl House to march back the way they'd come. If they had to go to the emperor's castle, then so be it. They'd go to the emperor's castle.

The sound of familiar, frantic chirping halted her feet. She turned around.

A one-eyed cardinal had landed in the open hole in the front door that had once been occupied by Hooty. He looked bedraggled and exhausted, like he had flown far longer than a little bird should. 

"Flapjack!" Gus exclaimed, sprinting forward toward the door. He held both his hands out for the palisman to hop into. He immediately laid down, chest heaving rapidly. "Oh, no, Flap…"

"Is he okay?" Willow fret, jogging to his side. "He looks exhausted…"

"He must have followed Hunter," Gus surmised. Flapjack looked up and nodded. "He came back here to find help. He knew that we were serious about wanting to help Hunter– you, and me, and Luz, all of us." Flapjack looked relieved and tweeted an affirmative.

"Good job, Flapjack," Willow told him, awash with a similar relief. "You really love him, huh?" Flapjack puffed up his chest and sang a long and lovely tune. Willow knew that was a yes. Yes, yes, more than anything, yes.

"You were right, Flap. We are going to save Hunter," Gus asserted. "I wish we'd made choices that meant he didn't need saving now. But we will save him. Can you show us the way?"

Flapjack nodded and opened his wings.

"Are you sure you can keep flying?" Willow worried, "Flapjack, you look exhausted."

The bird gave a solemn nod. He didn't make a sound, but Willow could tell what he wanted to say. For him, I can. I have to.

"Alright," she said softly. The palisman needed to rest, but like her, and like Gus, there was no living with yourself if you didn't do everything you could when you had the chance. She would not take away his right to die trying.

Flapjack lifted out of Gus's hands and took off into the treeline. The two of them grabbed their own palismen and followed him as fast as they could fly.

Hunter squeezed his eyes shut and balled his remaining hand into a fist. No. No, no, no. He was not going to kill himself. His whole entire life has been stolen from him, and he wasn't going to let anyone take one more wretched second away from him, especially not Belos. If he was going to die in a few days, fall apart at the seams and cease to exist, then so be it. But he was going to live until the very last breath was wrenched from his body, and he was going to fight until the bitter end no matter how much it hurt. No matter how miserable every moment of life he stole from this moment on was, he would not let anyone take them from him again. He would not give up and go gentle into that good night.

Eyes shut, he tried desperately to remember the glyphs from Luz's little papers that he'd seen while they were trapped in his uncle's mind. He'd been so panicked at the time, the entire memory was clouded and frenzied and hard to pick details out of. 

He opened his eyes.

Hunter turned his head toward the right side of the table he was on, where his severed arm had bled the worst. Gingerly, he touched it with the burnt skin and found it still wet, most likely due to the dampness of the room. He ignored the fresh lightning bolt of pain it sent up his shoulder, and grit his teeth, smearing the end through it. He felt like he blacked out for a second, but soon enough he could roll over onto his side again, chest heaving, and shakingly navigate his way through drawing a half remembered glyph with only half of his upper arm. 

He wasn't sure whether this or cutting it off was worse. Maybe this, because it was taking much longer. It was hard to say. He finished his wobbly circle, took a deep breath, and then tapped it with a wince.

Nothing happened.

Hunter let out a sob and thunked his head back against the table in frustration, laying on his back as he fought to breathe. When he'd finally steadied, he rallied against every iota of his brain screaming at him to stop, smeared more blood on, and rolled over to try again.

On the fourth try, he tapped the glyph and this time, vines shot from the floor in a torrent, through the links in the chains holding his ankle cuffs, and the sheer force of it burst the old metal apart. 

He laughed hysterically at his success, bordering on manic as he flopped onto his back to throw his legs in the air and wave them triumphantly. 

Then he looked over at his hand and realized the lock holding it shut had a keyhole.

He groaned in frustration again, letting the sound peter out into a whine. No one was here to hear it. He sat up and fought against his only remaining restraint, even wringing out some blood from his shirt onto his wrist in the hope that it would make it slicker and easier to free.

It did not.

All of his struggling had only made his wrist more swollen and thus more trapped. Finally, he stopped struggling and took a moment to breathe.

In, 1-2-3-4. Out, 1-2-3-4.

Even though he was here, even though he was going to die now, even though he was the most miserable he'd ever been– he could still be glad that Gus was okay. Adrian Graye had not only handed Gus over in exchange for him, he'd abandoned their attack in the school entirely, turning right back around to return him to Belos as soon as possible. He was likely correct that the emperor cared significantly more about getting his Golden Guard back than getting a few more sigils on a couple of witches, especially when they could always try again later. 

But they'd left. Hexside was safe, and so was the closest thing he had to friends. His flyer derby teammates had not stopped them from taking him, but… could he really blame them for that? Of course they wanted Gus back more. Gus was a good person, and Hunter wasn't. They barely even knew him, and he'd caused suffering and pain while they had. Turning him over had been the logical choice. But at least… they all felt bad about it. The captain especially looked wounded by the decision. That was more than most people felt about him. 

And Gus had been nice to him. He'd talked him down from a panic attack. He'd all but promised to help him, if they made it out of that mess. Even after all the trouble Hunter had caused, he'd still wanted to help him. He'd still wanted to be his friend. A few weeks ago he would have said the only person in the world who cared about him was his uncle.

Now he didn't have an uncle. The only people that cared about him were the human, whom he'd fought and threatened to kill on multiple occasions, and a couple of people he'd spent one day with and then tossed into a prison cell against their will. He wasn't a very good friend to have, but they'd still wanted to befriend him. So despite this, all of this, one good thing had come from it:

Gus, and Willow, and Skara and Viney were all safe. At least for a little longer. 

With that steadying, grounding thought in mind, he sat up, shifted his hand awkwardly over the table, raised his leg, and then slammed his foot down on his hand.

Gus had heard once that palismen grew more powerful as they aged, their connection to the land allowing them to absorb more and more magic. When he was a child, and before his mother had passed away, she'd told him a bedtime story about a palisman so old that it had seen kingdoms rise and fall, and searched the whole time for a new witch after the one who had carved it died. Kings and scholars and captains of industry had all tried to win the creature's affection, but it refused them all, until one day it picked an ordinary child, barely old enough to start learning magic at all. The child was filled with love and hope and wonder for the world, kind to everyone around them, and wanted to grow up to make the world a better place to live. The old palisman saw the child's bright spirit and chose them as their witch, and the palismen and the child loved each other very much. But the kings and scholars and captains of industry were enraged that a poor commoner child had been chosen over them, so they sent an assassin to kill the witchling. When the palisman's witch died it became consumed with grief and despair, because it knew that if it had not chosen them, they would never have been killed. So the old palisman, who'd lived so long that no one had any records of a time where it had not been alive, gave all of the magic in its body to the child, and traded its life for theirs. The child woke up, given their life back, but the old palisman had vanished, returning to the natural magic that bore it.

The people were so enraged by those in power killing an innocent child out of spiteful jealousy, only to lose the palisman who had always lived on the land they called home and watched over its people rose up and took back their kingdom. They changed things for the better, and the palisman's child was able to live in a much kinder world than they had been born into. 

The palisman may have died, but all of its love and kindness lived on in the world through those that had loved it back. 

That had always been his favourite bedtime story. He knew it was just a story, and probably didn't really happen, but he wondered if a palisman really could be strong enough to do something like that. He hoped that when he died– and he understood that he would, someday, everyone died eventually– he too could leave behind enough love and kindness that it would live on without him, through those he loved.

Like his mother's did through him.

"This isn't the way to the castle," Willow said suddenly. 

Gus looked up and realized she was right. He frowned. "Graye definitely went back towards the castle. Why would Hunter be somewhere else?"

"I don't know," Willow admitted, "But I have a very bad feeling about this." 

Gus set his jaw. He did too. 

When Flapjack finally came to a stop, it was so sudden and unexpected that Gus actually flew right past him and had to double back. He stood on his staff and looked around, but he didn't see anything. How could Hunter be here, in the middle of nowhere?

"Are you sure this is the right place, Flapjack?" asked Willow uncertainly.

The bird tweeted confidently and then swooped down toward a boulder set deep in the soil and covered in moss. He tapped his beak against it insistently. Gus approached it with a frown, and then realized there was something there. 

It was the faint, smeared imprint of chalk circles. Something had been drawn here, and recently, only to be wiped away again. He touched it, as if that connection might share with him its secrets.

"That looks like a glyph," Willow observed. 

Gus's eyes widened. She was right– it was a glyph. Or at least, it had been. It was too distressed now to see what it really looked like. Was there… something here?

"Damn," Willow cursed. Gus's ears swiveled up in surprise. She didn't swear very often, saving it for when it counted. "If Luz was here, she could probably figure it out."

"Maybe we don't have to figure it out," said Gus. He pulled his hands away from the stone and took a few steps back. "Don't get too close."

"What are you going to do?" Willow frowned. 

"I've been teaching Matthomule some illusion magic," Gus informed her, holding his staff in front of him to draw a circle. "In exchange, he's been teaching me construction spells."

He finished the circle and the stone warbled and rolled like lava, bowed outward and then split open like a water balloon, sagging open and revealing a chasm that descended down a corridor into darkness. 

"There is something here!" Willow cried.

"Yeah, Hunter!" Gus added. 

Flapjack sang a joyous note and then fluttered up to land in Willow's outstretched hands. He was visibly exhausted, past exhausted. 

"Rest now," Willow said softly, "We'll take it from here."

The bird gave her a profoundly grateful look, and then laid its head down, turning to wood. She tucked it into her uniform where it would be safe, and then stepped into the corridor, Gus trailing behind. 

The hallway was not long, and when it opened it did so into a much larger cavern, one that had Willow jerking to a halt and throwing an arm out to stop Gus from stepping past the threshold.

"What?" he balked, "What is it? Is it Hunter?"

"It's– it's not Hunter," she swallowed, voice shaky. "Just– prepare yourself. This is a graveyard, Gus. There are… there is a lot of dead people here."

Gus felt cold. "What?"

Her arm fell and he stepped forward beside her. His breath hitched in his throat.

The room was full to bursting with skeletons and golden guard masks, torn cloaks and red stains. The piles seemed endless, thrown into heaps like garbage to rot. It made him sick.

"What is this place?" Gus breathed in abject horror. "Why… are there so many golden guard masks? Why would there be so many golden guards at all?"

"I don't know," Willow admitted for the second time. "All I know is that Hunter is priority number one. We can come back with Eda later, if we find her, and figure out what's happened here."

Gus nodded. "Hunter first. Let's go."

There was only one other exit from the room and a path between the two doors was the only space free of bones and debris. They trip-toed it carefully to its end and down a second corridor, before it, too, opened up to a larger space, though much smaller than the last one.

Potting beds of red soil lined the walls, and in the center of the room was a stone slab with shackles chained to its sides. Vines grew into the ankle cuffs, having rended them apart. Hunter's blue cloak lay folded neatly beside the door, and Gus picked it up with a frown before he stepped up beside Willow and froze.

The slab was absolutely drenched in blood.

It covered the table, it covered the floor. There was spray against the walls and even the ceiling. There was so much blood it was hard to believe the body it had come from could still be alive. It was worse than she could have ever imagined.

And Hunter was not there.

Chapter Text

Beneath the force of his boot, Hunter's thumb cracked and crumpled, broken, into his palm.

He didn't stop himself from yelling at the top of his lungs. No one could hear him. No one could judge him. He let himself indulge in the anguish for a few moments, and then wrenched his hand out of its restraint now that it could fit. 

He held his broken hand against his chest with his severed arm and focused on breathing. He just needed to breathe, and then he could move on. One step at a time. He just needed to get through one problem, and then the next one. He considered the knife left behind for another moment, but then dismissed it. He couldn't hold it anyway, not like this. He only had one hand, and he'd just mangled it.

Standing shakily to his feet, he stumbled in the direction that Belos had gone, down a dark corridor that opened into a larger chamber.

He froze, blood running cold. His legs began to tremble, and then his knees buckled and he fell to the floor. He willed his body to keep moving, but it wasn't listening. His entire brain was consumed by what he was seeing:

Dozens and dozens of Golden Guard masks in piles of bones stacked as high as the ceiling. The hall of death in his mindscape hadn’t been a figurative representation of his sins. It had been literal.

He took in a shaky, wheezing gasp. Belos really had always meant to kill him. He had always meant to kill him. Decades and decades, maybe centuries before he had been born, Belos had made the decision to kill him. He'd done it dozens, maybe hundreds of times. There were so many.

He wondered who they all were. Did they look like him? Were they all a little bit different, or would people never suspect they'd been copied from the same person? Had they had their own names? What about feelings? Was he so close a copy that he was exactly what all of them would have been, raised the same way? Or were they unique, full of their own interests and thoughts and feelings?

He suspected he would never know. All of them were going to lay here as forgotten and unmourned as he would. Missed by no one. 

He shut his eyes and struggled back to his feet and forward, trying to reach the end as fast as he could, unable to look at any of it any longer. 

When he reached the end, it was a wall, with no apparent exit, but an unfamiliar glyph had been carved into the stone. He tapped it with his knuckles, the spot that hurt the least to do so with and then could have cried with relief with the wall opened up like a door and forest and birdsong greeted him on the other side.

He stumbled outside into the sunshine and away from that horrible place, step by step, kicking detritus over the blood trail he left behind when he could. He could barely see where he was going and his feet threatened to give out on him with every step. 

But he kept going. 

Maybe he would die in twenty minutes from exhaustion. Maybe an over-excited coven scout would shoot and kill him if they spotted him. But one way or another, he would do everything he could to make it mean something. If the only thing he could do with his remaining time and strength was inconvenience his uncle just a little bit, then that's what he would do.

Finally, exhausted, miserable, still losing blood along with his will to fight, he could not continue. He collapsed first to his knees and then to the ground, world spinning.

Maybe he was going to die. But he was going to do it with dignity. 

"Oh, Titan," Willow gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. She stared shell shocked at the blood covered stone slab in this dark and terrible place, and not even the sound of Gus retching beside her could tear her eyes away from it. 

What had happened? Could someone survive losing that much blood? What could have occurred to make him lose that much blood? And why make him bleed at all? She'd expected to be rescuing him from petrification, not– what, torture? 

Her legs began to shake. "We're too late," she warbled. "Oh, Titan, we're too late and he's gone."

There was a weary cheep from beneath her capelet and she was startled from her reverie by Flapjack emerging once more to glide to the slab, hopping about and inspecting it with intense focus. 

"Flapjack, you have to rest," Gus fret. "You'll hurt yourself." 

The cardinal sang a long and mournful note, before he spread his wings and swooped across the room and right past them both. With only a lingering glance behind her, Willow turned and followed him back through the strange graveyard and into the forest they'd entered through. 

She had already lost sight of Flapjack, but she could hear him, soaring through the canopy as he sang as loud as a cardinal could. The way he flew in a circle made it sound like his song came from everywhere, floating through the forest as he sought out his partner. 

Willow felt her heart fall. Hunter could be anywhere by now. It looked like he had escaped, but that didn't mean he hadn't been recaptured, and even if he hadn't, he could have gone in any direction, and who knows how long ago he left. She had to prepare herself for the very likely reality that… they were not saving Hunter today. Or any day.

Flapjack's song was quite suddenly joined by its own long, desperate whistle. 

Willow had not known she could move so fast, but as soon as she heard that sound, she was on her staff and weaving through the treeline toward it. It only lasted a few seconds before it faded and cut off, and for a moment she was terrified that she might not be able to find him now. A moment later, Flapjack began calling rapidly, and relief washed through her. That relief quickly washed right back out of her, however, when she finally passed a tree and skidded to a halt.

"Hunter…" she breathed in abject horror. The sight stilled her and left her frozen in shock, failing to process exactly what she was looking at. Then it all seemed to slam into her at once and she nearly fell off of her staff at the sudden surge of woozy nausea that overcame her, but she bit her lip and grounded herself with the sting of pain that it caused. She hopped off of Clover and rushed to his side, dropping to her knees.

"Oh… hey, Captain…" Hunter mumbled.

He lay on his back, half cocked sideways in a way that suggested he had collapsed and then moved no further. His expression was dazed and his eyes glassy and distant. He was looking at her, but staring through her. He trembled faintly and it frightened her the way his chest stuttered as he breathed. 

His arm had been severed just above the elbow, the end of what remained of the limb burnt, scabbed and oozy. His remaining hand curled inward at an impossible angle.

And he was absolutely covered in blood.

It seemed like it came from everywhere, soaked into his clothes and dried in chunks across the back of his head. His whole back was red and she wondered if that was bleeding, too. 

Her mouth felt dry. She needed to say something. She had to respond. She had to tell him that she came back for him, that she was so sorry, that they were going to fix this, that he was going to be okay. The words locked up in her throat and she could barely breathe through them, hands shaking as she sat frozen.

She heard Gus sprint up behind her and skid across the dirt to join her. "Hunter! Oh, Titan. I'm so sorry. We weren't fast enough."

"What?" he wheezed in an odd, almost bemused way. "M'not dead yet." His expression brightened momentarily. "Ohh. Hey. You're okay. Awesome."

"Willow, you know a little healing magic, don't you?" Gus asked. 

"I– I know first aid," she stammered, "I don't– I can't fix this."

"S'okay," Hunter slurred, "M'fine." Flapjack sat in the crook of his shoulder and leaned against his cheek miserably. 

"Hunter, you are so not fine," Gus burst. "Stay with me, man. You're right, you're not dead yet, and you're gonna stay that way."

"I can– I can stop the bleeding, I think," she decided. She couldn't regrow a limb or even heal the wound, but she could push the blood to finish congealing and scab the whole thing over. It was burnt and dark red in places, but other spots still oozed stubbornly. She drew a very careful spell circle and had to close her eyes in focus, moving very slowly as she recalled the spell. Steadily, the blood dried and scabbed, and she released the breath she'd been holding with a gasp.

"That'll have to do," Gus decided. "We have to get out of here. Who knows who or what might come after him? Belos could be out here for all we know. This place could be crawling with coven scouts we missed."

How was he handling this so well? Willow was sure she was still in shock, the world spinning around her as she chugged sluggishly through each thought. He was younger than her. Shouldn't she be in charge, here? Shouldn't she be able to be?

"Willow," Gus said carefully, "You stay with me too, okay? I can't do this by myself."

She snapped into focus and shook her head rapidly. "Yes! Yes, I'm here! We need to– we need to take him somewhere. We need to find a healer, or– or a potion or something. We have to get somewhere safe."

"Where is safe though?" Gus fret. "The emperor is looking for him. Or– he was, and he will be again as soon as he knows he's gone. What about your house?"

Willow winced at the idea of bringing home the delirious and blood covered Golden Guard and she wondered what her dads would do. Would they be frightened of the repercussions of harbouring a fugitive from the emperor? 

A cold chill washed over when she realized they should be. If she brought him home she put her parents on the chopping block. They'd be punished as much as she would be, if any of them got caught.

"I– I don't know if my dads can even do anything," she said, "Neither of them are healers, and I don't know how they'll react, and– and I'm scared of what the emperor might do to them." She swallowed. She desperately wanted her dads right now. 

"I definitely don't trust my dad not to turn him over…" Gus admitted with an undercurrent of guilt. "And he's not a healer either."

"The only healer I know is Viney," Willow grimaced, "But she's probably– I mean, everyone from Hexside is probably hiding. I can message her on Penstagram and maybe she'll see it, but we still have to get him out of here first."

"...Let's bring him back to the Owl House," Gus decided. "The emperor's coven has already cleared the place out. They have no reason to go back. No one is there, so we can at least hide him."

"If we think of something better we can move him," Willow agreed, "But we have to get out of here now."

"M'sorry," Hunter mumbled distantly, "I've made a mess've things…"

She gasped. "Hunter, you didn't make a mess of anything! You're the one that's hurt!" She bit her lip again as tears welled in her eyes. It was not the time. "I am so sorry, Hunter. I should never have let them take you. This isn't your fault, it's mine."

"S'okay, Cap'n," he dismissed deliriously, "I understand."

"How are we going to carry him?" Gus asked nervously. 

Clover appeared beside her shoulder and buzzed rapidly. "Use vines to make stretcher between me and Flapjack," she suggested, "Fly with Emmeline."

Willow gasped. "Clover, you're brilliant!" 

"What did she say?" Gus asked. 

Flapjack tweeted approvingly and fluttered over beside her own palisman on opposite sides of Hunter before they both transformed. She drew a spell circle and grew lashings of vines beneath him and around them, securing him safely in a safe sleeping bag he could be flown in. 

"Oh," Gus said, sounding impressed, "That is brilliant. Good job, Clover."

"I'll have to ride with you," Willow reminded him. "Will the weight throw you off?" Gus had a particular style of flying that wasn't exactly typical. 

"No, it's no problem," he dismissed. "C'mon, Emmeline, let's go."

Chapter Text

Willow sniffled, but her tears had long since dried up. Distantly, she thought she was probably becoming pretty dehydrated, and she should really do something about that before it became a problem.

Actually, they were all probably getting pretty dehydrated. Especially Hunter, because he had–

She swallowed thickly and looked back down at him. Small miracles; there was still a nest in one of the upstairs bedrooms, one of the few things that remained in the hollowed out house. The scouts seemed to have left behind anything they thought was garbage. It was surprisingly comfortable, much closer to a bed than it appeared, and so they’d laid Hunter down in it with his head in Gus’s lap. They wanted to keep it elevated in case he threw up, and Willow wanted to be able to leap to her feet if anything happened or anyone showed up. Vines were much more effective weapons than illusions, but Gus would be able to hide himself and Hunter if he needed to, or at least disguise their identities.

Her stomach twisted. This was her fault. Amity might have been the one that convinced everyone it was the right decision, but based on the information she had, she couldn’t blame her. No, Willow knew him. When he had revealed his true identity after the flyer derby game he’d been so excited. When he had told them they’d be joining the Emperor’s Coven, he’d said it like he was doing them a favour, giving them a fantastic opportunity. He’d been so confused when they didn’t want it. He’d spent a little time flummoxed and off-put, but it hadn’t taken very long for him to turn around. He had thought he was doing something nice, and when he realized he hadn’t been, he came back. He came back swinging. He leapt onto the airship and started fighting a covenhead. Someone on his own side. He’d freed them at great risk to himself as soon as he’d realized he’d wronged them.

And then he’d thrown himself between them and the abomination covenhead. He’d stood up for them and refused to back down, and then he’d scrunched his eyes shut and flinched, and she knew what he was doing. It was the same thing she’d done during the worst periods of bullying at school. Whenever anyone moved too quickly around her she would flinch. But not even at the apex of it had she ever been that visibly prepared to be hit and stood completely rigid, ready to take it. She’d made several realizations about him all at once, and few of them were good. One: she was certain that Hunter was very accustomed to being hit. Two: she was certain it wasn’t limited to combat against enemies, but against people he wasn’t willing to hit back.

Three: Hunter was not a bad person.

And she had still known that when she’d turned away and let them take him back in the healing home room. She’d known that, and she’d known he was terrified, that he was wearing his flyer derby jersey and not his Golden Guard get up, and most importantly, she had known that he didn't deserve to be traded away like an object when he had looked to her for help.

And she had turned away.

She would never forgive herself. Not for as long as she lived.

“Please, uncle, I’m sorry…” Hunter whined in his sleep. He was deathly pale and moved restlessly, and she wished she could do more for him, but she wasn’t a healer. They needed a healer.

“I’m going to try Viney again,” she mumbled, pulling out her scroll.

“Hey, Willow?” Gus prompted suddenly. Willow looked up. “You know it’s not your fault she hasn’t been picking up, right?”

“Well, duh,” she laughed nervously, swallowing down her guilt.

“Seriously. Willow.” Gus gave her a very knowing look. She should know by now she couldn’t get anything by him. They’d been friends for too long now. “It isn’t your fault.”

Willow grimaced and couldn’t think of an answer that wasn’t pitiful or a lie, so she just looked back at her scroll and pulled up her messages with Viney again. She pressed call.

It rang. And rang. And rang.

And then it picked up.

“Willow?” Viney burst, her face appearing on the screen. Behind her, Puddles was leaning in curiously to inspect her scroll. “You’re alive! Did you find Hunter?”

“Yes!” Willow cried, relief washing through her. “Where are you? Are you safe?”

“Yeah, those coven scumbags tied up Puddles and hid her in the gardening shed,” she snarled, “She must have sussed them right out when they got here. You can trick a person with a good illusion, but animals can sense things we can’t. Also, they have a great sense of smell. If she scented way more people around than she could actually see, she definitely would have started putting up a ruckus. I’m so sorry I missed all your calls, I was so busy looking for her–”

“No, it's fine, I understand!” Willow cut her off. That did explain a lot. “Viney– Viney, we found Hunter, but…” She choked on the words. “Viney, he’s hurt.”

Her friend paused. “How hurt?”

Willow swallowed, and then swiveled her scroll around so that she could see him.

Viney took in a sharp, horrified gasp. “Where are you?”

“We’re hiding at the Owl House,” Willow told her, “The Owl Lady is gone, and Luz isn’t here either– I don’t know what happened, this whole place is empty, but I– we didn’t know where else to go. I didn’t want to go home and get my parents in trouble, I–”

“Don’t worry, Willow,” Viney said firmly, “I’ll be there as fast as I can. Keep his head up, if you can find a blanket or something to keep him warm, give it to him, and if he wakes up, try to get him to drink some water.”

Willow nodded fervently. “I can do that. Viney– thank you.”

“I never should have let them take him,” Viney said thickly, scowling, “I shouldn’t have helped. If I’d known this was going to happen to him– If I’d known this is why they wanted him back so badly, I– I would have had a fist fight with Bump myself to stop it. Just hang on, Willow, I’m on my way.”

She hung up, and Willow let her scroll roll closed and turned to look at Gus.

“Do you think she’ll get here in time?” she asked.

“Of course she will,” Gus said immediately. “She has to.”

Luz stared forward blankly, as if her brain could simply not accept what she was seeing.

Her home was unrecognizable. It was dark, the windows looking in on empty rooms. It was as if the house itself had died. 

"Luz," King said hesitantly. "Do you think… Eda is okay?"

Luz jerked back into herself quite suddenly. "Of course she is!" she exclaimed, reaching down to pick him up. He immediately clutched anxiously at her arm, tail tucked. 

Luz took a hesitant step forward, paused, and then approached the Owl House and the empty hole in the front door. She wondered if Hooty was okay. Was he hurt? Was he captured? Would she ever see him again? Or Lilith? Or Eda?

She pushed the door open and stepped inside the dark room, floorboards creaking beneath her steps. It seemed smaller, somehow, no longer a home but a hollowed out shell. 

Just as her anxiety was beginning to rise up into her throat, threatening to consume her, she noticed a piece of paper on the floor with bright red letters written on it. She leaned down and picked it up.

HELP. PAIN. It said in block letters. Luz frowned and drew a light glyph from her pocket, and then swelled with joy and relief when the words changed. HERE → KNEE it read now.

"I think I know where to find them," she sighed, and King began to wag his tail. 

Sudden, rapid footsteps from upstairs made her freeze, and when they hit the stairs she scrambled to pull out a pile of glyphs from her pockets as King scrambled up onto her shoulders and into her hood.

"Hands in the air, or– Luz!" cried Willow, skidding into the doorway with her staff at the ready.

"Willow??" Luz balked. "What are you doing here?"

"It– it's–" Willow let her staff drop to her side where it fizzled out. "Oh, Titan, Luz. It's Hunter." Her eyes began to well with tears, but they were already so puffy and red it was clear she'd been crying a lot and for a while. 

"Hunter?" Luz repeated, her stomach dropping. She had a very bad feeling about this. "What about Hunter?"

Willow sniffled and then ran forward to grab her in a hug. She seemed terrified, and that only terrified Luz, but she quickly hugged her back, automatically offering as much reassurance as she could.

"It's all my fault," Willow sniffled, "I messed up so bad, Luz, and now he's– he's–"

"He's what?" Luz pressed.

"He's– upstairs," Willow said, and Luz got the distinct impression she had wanted to say something else and faltered. "Come on. You have to see. I can't– I can't say it."

Luz froze. Was Hunter… dead?

She locked down that thought immediately. That was too terrible to even consider. Hunter was not dead. Nothing could kill Hunter. He was too strong, too fast and too bold. 

But she hadn't seen him in weeks. Not since they escaped Belos's mind.

Luz bolted passed her as if launched from a spring and up the stairs. The door to Eda's room was ajar, and she ran straight to it, grabbing the door frame as she reached it and went as rigid as a board. 

"Dios mío," she breathed. 

They'd left Eda's nest for whatever reason, and in it sat Gus, looking up at her in a confusing mix of surprise and misery. Hunter lay with his head in his lap and a blanket cast over him that he seemed to have mostly kicked off, eyes closed and much too still, whole body soaked in blood. 

He was missing an arm. 

"I did what I could," said Viney from where she sat beside the nest. She looked exhausted. "But he's really hurt… I could mostly grow scar tissue around his arm, but he lost so much blood…" She swallowed. "He broke his hand, too. It's mostly okay, but I splinted it anyway because it's fragile. He could break it again really easily."

"What happened?" she breathed.

Viney immediately looked away guiltily and she heard Willow approach behind her.

"We–" she began, voice warbling.

"I found him living at Hexside," Gus interrupted her. "He was eating food from the trash and hadn't showered in weeks. He looked awful, Luz. And then the Illusionist coven head showed up, and a bunch of crazy stuff happened, but the important part is that Hunter didn't run away. Even though Belos has apparently been looking for him and he was terrified of getting caught, he came and found me and rescued me from some coven scouts. He really tried to keep me safe, but we got captured anyway." He shook his head. "The flyer derby team managed to rescue him but not me– and then Principal Bump decided to trade him to get me back. They took him right back to Emperor Belos. We found him like this."

"Gus…" Willow warbled.

"It's okay," Gus replied. 

"You found him like this?" Luz repeated. "Did… did Belos do this to him?"

Gus nodded. "I think so. We found…" His eyes widened for a moment, looking distant and haunted. "Luz, we found… something. Something horrible. It was full of all these bones, like dozens of skeletons, and all these golden guard masks, and– and some kind of lab, with all these boxes full of dirt like he was growing something, and there was a rotten hand reaching out of one and it was all just…" He'd started to shake and he squeezed his eyes shut with a shudder.

"You found his grimwalker lab," Luz gasped, before she clapped her hands over her mouth.

"Grimwalkers?" Viney burst. "Grimwalkers are extinct! And illegal!" 

"They… they're not extinct," she said. She didn't want to say, it was his to tell or not tell, but he was hurt and who knew if he needed special help now? They'd found the place where he made grimwalkers, they'd found a graveyard with dozens of them, dozens… "Hunter… Hunter is a grimwalker."

"What?" Viney exclaimed. "No. No way."

"What's a grimwalker?" Gus asked. 

Luz shook her head and finally entered the room, sitting down next to the nest to really look at him. Willow joined her and they made a sad little circle there, with Gus keeping his head up and his chest moving shallowly. Flapjack rested beside his shoulder, worriedly pressed against his cheek. 

"It…" she began, swallowing around the lump in her throat. "We found out while we were in Belos's mind, and it… A grimwalker is a clone. Belos has been making them for years… every Golden Guard is a grimwalker, and he's made… so many of them, and–" She stopped as the words lodged in her throat, too terrible to speak. "He killed all of them. Every single one. He said that eventually they all turned on him, because they realized how evil he was, and when they did, he– he murdered them. And then he tried to kill Hunter."

"Oh, Titan," Willow trembled. "Oh, Hunter."

"He's been carrying that by himself for two weeks?" Gus balked. "That… I can't imagine if that were me…" 

"Oh, Hunter, I'm so sorry," Willow warbled. "I messed up so bad."

Luz opened her mouth to ask what that meant before Viney spoke.

"His eyes…" she murmured. "They're pink. That's not normal. We learned about grimwalkers in healing history, only briefly. There was a horrible incident where a group of healers made dozens of grimwalkers to do medical experiments on. They didn't care how much they hurt because they didn't think they were real people. It was so horrible to read about what happened to them, and my teacher said we had to learn about things like that so that they never happen again." She swallowed, refocusing. "Grimwalkers always have pink eyes."

"Is that why he can't use magic?" Gus asked.

"That can't be," Viney shook her head. "The grimwalkers we learned about could use magic." She paused. "He might have… been cloned from a witch that didn't have magic."

Luz bit her tongue. She had already told them enough that she would have to apologize to Hunter for it, but she didn't need to tell them about the man he'd been cloned from. She wanted to leave that, at least, for him.

"Who cut off his arm?" Luz asked. "Was it actually Belos?"

"He said so, before he passed out," Willow nodded. "Or at least, I think he did. He was pretty out of it, it was hard to get straight answers out of him. Oh, Luz, there was… there was so much blood. I've never seen so much before. It was just… everywhere."

Luz's stomach churned. She'd known Belos was evil, but…

Hunter twitched and whined pitifully in his sleep, squeezing his eyes shut. He looked frightened or in pain. 

Gus's eyes softened. "He's been having nightmares, I think. He's come around a bit but he's been so delirious that he just mutters and doesn't really seem to know where he is. He's been sleeping since Viney healed him, though. I think maybe it was just pain waking him up."

"Why did you bring him here?" Luz asked suddenly.

"We didn't know where else to go," Willow admitted. "Both our parents are… We didn't want to bring them into this, and I don't want to get caught by the Emperor's Coven, not when they're trying to force sigils on everyone before the Day of Unity."

"This was the only place we could think to go," Gus admitted. "At first we were hoping you or Eda could help, but… It was just us, on our own."

"What about Amity?" Luz fret. "Is she okay?"

"I– we've been so busy, I don't– I don't know," Willow admitted.

Luz looked very anxious about this news. "I need to call her."

"Is Hunter going to be okay?" King asked in a small voice, finally speaking up. He peered over Luz's shoulders fearfully.

"We're gonna do our best to make sure he is," Viney said gently. "Now we're just waiting for him to wake up on his own."

"Okay," Luz said slowly, filing all of that away. "I found a note downstairs. I think I know where Eda, Lilith and Hooty are." There was a look of relief and hope from everyone in the room.

Well. Except for Hunter. 

"We should all go there," Gus suggested. "It would be way safer with them. And maybe they can help Hunter more than we can!" 

Viney looked nervous. "Eda is the owl lady, right?"

"Don't be scared," Luz reassured her, "She's really nice."

"She's my mom," King added. 

Viney seemed surprised by that. "Oh. Okay, that's… Okay. Yes. We should go there."

"Should we wait for him to wake up first?" Willow asked her.

"It won't hurt him to move him," Viney shook her head. "But he will get hurt if coven scouts find us here."

"Do you want to make another stretcher?" Gus asked.

"Puddles can carry him,” Viney suggested.

“Alright, sounds like we have a plan!” Luz announced, hopping to her feet. “Let’s blow this joint and get to the knee!”

Chapter Text

Hunter woke feeling warm, wrapped in blankets and without any pain. He sighed, sinking into the soft pillows. The whole horrible thing must have been a dream. He was really okay.

He shifted and his heart sank as he felt his right arm move incorrectly, and picked up the blanket to look. His hand trembled at the sight– it had been healed and wrapped in gauze, but it was still gone. His stomach churned and nausea rose in his throat. For a moment he was certain he would vomit, but he squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath, forcing it down as he curled into himself.

"Hunter? Are you awake?"

His eyes snapped open. He recognized that voice.

Hunter reached up to tug the blanket down from over his head, but he did so with the wrong arm. He grit his teeth in frustration and shifted to use his left instead.

Willow looked down at him with worried eyes, her hair askance and pulled loosely into braids. She looked tired, like she hadn't slept enough, and had spent all the time she was awake being very stressed. Above him the ceiling was strange and dark, and he squinted at it uncertainly before he realized it was stone. He was in a cave. He was still in the grimwalker lab–

He sat up with a gasp, tense and terrified and ready to leap to his feet and start fighting, remaining hand clenched into a white-knuckled fist. 

Oh.

No, he wasn't in the grimwalker lab anymore. He was in a cave where he could see the opening and snow falling gently beyond, and a fire burning between him and it. Stacks of boxes littered the space around him, and sitting on them, several people who turned to look at him with swiveled up ears and bright eyes. Eda, Lilith, King, Hooty, Luz, Gus, Viney, and of course, Willow, all dressed warmly and visibly relieved, for whatever reason, to see him awake. 

"Where… am I?" he asked.

"You're on the knee, kiddo," Eda replied, waving the stick she was holding with a marshmallow on the end. "Emperor's Coven raided my house. I'm as slippery as always, though, and we got out first."

"Why am I here?" Hunter frowned.

"We found you in the woods," Gus replied.

"You were so hurt, Hunter," Willow added. "I was afraid you were going to die."

"So she called me," Viney finished. "I'm sorry– I did my best with your arm, but I– I can't regrow a limb, and… and if you heal it over the way I did, you… can't… regrow it later." She stared down at her lap, looking terrifically guilty. "I… we would have brought you to a real healer, but– but we're all in hiding, and so are you, and we didn't know who we could trust, and you– you lost so much blood, I was scared that if I didn't fix it right then, you might not make it long enough to see a real healer." Her eyes watered. "I am so sorry, Hunter."

He waited for the grief to wash over him, to be horrified and upset at the idea that his arm was really, truly, permanently gone. Unfixable. It didn't come, though. Maybe because he'd already been under the impression that it was permanent. Maybe it was because he was in shock. Maybe because he had reached his limit for feeling entirely.

"It's fine," he mumbled. "Thanks for not letting me die."

"Hunter, Titan, I am so sorry that I didn't stand up for you," Willow burst suddenly, "I– I don't think I'll ever regret anything so much for the rest of my life. I let them take you and– and this happened." She sniffled.

"I did too," Viney added, lips wobbling and pulled back. "I… I didn't know this would happen but I… I should never have let them take you. I knew it was wrong."

He stared forward blankly. He didn't understand why they were apologizing. It had been the logical decision. 

"Hunter?" Gus prompted. 

He shook his head. He'd been silent too long. He cleared his throat. "I, uh… it's fine."

"No, Hunter, it's not fine," Willow insisted. "You're our friend. You don't do that to friends."

Friends? Were they friends? He honestly had no idea. He'd never had friends before. What did they do? How did they treat each other? What were the expectations? What did they expect from him?

"What do they do?" he asked distantly. 

"Friends care about each other," Willow answered. 

"Me and Willow like hanging out together, doing homework or watching movies. It's just nice spending time with each other," Gus added.

"When my friends are in trouble, I'll do anything to help them!" Luz piped up, looking very excited to tell him so. 

"My friends always make me smile," Viney said thoughtfully, "It's important to them that I'm happy. And it's important to me, too, that my friends are also happy."

"I like doing work and studying with friends," Lilith mused, "We can help each other with our projects and our research. Two heads are always better than one."

"I love giving my friends shit," Eda chuckled. "It's way more fun teasing somebody who knows you're just playing around than somebody who takes it really personally."

"I like hugs!" King burst, throwing his hands in the air.

"Everyone is my friend!" Hooty cooed. 

"Because you are a delight, Hootsifer," Lilith smiled.

"Huh," Hunter hummed distantly. A sudden burst of joyous birdsong drew his eyes upward to one of the box towers where his palisman had just hopped up from a little nest. "Flapjack!" he cried, eyes lighting up.

The little cardinal leapt off the tower and swooped down toward him as he reached up with both arms and one hand for him to land in. He immediately pulled him in close to press his cheek against the bird’s side, feeling his rapid little heartbeat against his skin. Something bubbled up through his passive, dull emotions and exploded outward as he brought his knees up to his chest and burst into tears. 

"Flapjack, Flapjack, Flapjack," he warbled, somewhere between misery and joy. "Oh, titan, I was so– so worried about you. I'm so glad you're okay!"

"Scared for you more!!" Flapjack cooed, opening his wings against him protectively. "So scared to lose witch again, heart would break and never fix." 

Hunter's own heart ached. He knew it would have hurt him if he'd died. "I'm so sorry, Flap. I love you."

"I love my boy! More than all of anything!! In whole world!!" He hopped onto Hunter's shoulder but continued to lean against his neck. "He is good boy even if he does not think he is. He is loved."

Hunter sniffled, heart swelling with pain and joy. His palisman had been kind to him when no one else was. He would do anything for him. Living was worth it, if only to spare Flapjack the pain of losing him.

And then he remembered that he still wasn't going to live. His body was going to fall apart and he was going to die. He was still going to leave him.

…Or was he? Belos could have been lying… He was still alive now. Nothing has happened yet. Maybe it wouldn't– maybe this, like everything else Belos has ever told him, was a lie.

He'd have to hope so.

"Yeah," said Luz softly, drawing his attention to her where she was watching fondly. "That's what having friends is like."

Hunter sniffled, wiping tears from his face on the blanket. They wanted that with him? He couldn't fathom why, but they had saved his life. They really didn't want him to die. He could trust that, if nothing else. 

"Belos really is a sick bastard," Eda cursed, pulling her marshmallow off her stick. "Torturing a kid? I shouldn't be surprised, especially knowing about the draining spell, but I am."

Right… torture. He looked askance. "He's always been sick," he hissed venomously with a scowl. "It's not like hurting me is new for him. He's been doing it my entire life."

There was a moment of silence that brought his gaze back up. They all seemed surprised by this. Hunter frowned.

"What, is this news to you?" he snapped. "I kind of figured it was obvious. You know, from literally everything about me."

"N– no, Hunter, I'm sorry," Luz stammered. "It– it didn't. I haven't– Hunter, I've never met anyone whose parents have hit them before. It didn't even occur to me."

His stomach churned. Great, one more thing about him that wasn't just not normal, but really not normal. Every time he revealed anything about himself it only further solidified his status as a freak.

"Yeah, well, good for you," he mumbled.

He was being mean. He knew he was being mean. He was doing what he always did, pushing people away as hard as he could. But every bitter word he threw at them dulled the pain in his own heart, and smothered his suffering with someone else's. It freed him of just a little bit of hurt every time. 

"It's okay, Hunter," Willow said gently, as if to a frightened wild animal. "You don't have to talk about anything you don't want to." 

Hunter grimaced, feeling bad. He opened his mouth to say something, maybe apologize– he'd been trying to do that more, but then–

Willow touched his arm, and for one moment he was tied to that table again, and her hand was a blade slicing through his flesh. He shrieked in an unhinged panic, scrambling away from her and flattening himself into the opposite wall as he kicked frantically against the floor. His chest heaved and his eyes widened, the whole room spinning and shifting in and out of the cave on the knee and the one in the woods. The blankets turned to blood and every pair of eyes watching him were behind a mask that haunted his nightmares. 

"Hunter!" said someone. He wasn't sure who or where they were. "Breathe, Hunter!"

"Don't touch me!" he screamed. "Get away!"

"Kid, calm down–"

"It's okay, Hunter, no one is going to touch you–"

Something tugged sharply on the bit of hair that always fell in his face, and he snapped back to reality, breathing heavily.

"Breathe," Flapjack cooed from his shoulder, "Safe now."

Right. Right.

He was with his friends. Right.

"Breathe, Hunter," Willow urged him, "Don't worry about anything else."

"The– the thing–" he choked out. "The counting thing–"

"Oh!" Gus perked up from where he'd obviously jumped to his feet. He held up a hand like he had earlier, when they were still at Hexside. Hunter followed along, shoving everything else screaming in his brain out of the way. It took him a few tries to get himself back under control. 

"Are you with us, Hunter?" Willow prompted. He nodded sharply and swallowed around the lump in his throat, forcing his body to relax no matter how much it didn't want to.

"I'm sorry," he said through gritted teeth, shaking his head to dispel the demons still lingering there. "I– I don't know why I did that."

"Hunter, you just got tortured," Luz balked, "No one blames you for not being immediately okay after that."

"Honestly, it was kind of worrying me how well you seemed to be doing," Eda added. "Repressing your trauma only makes it worse when it explodes later. Usually literally. Trust me, I have blown up a lot of stuff because I didn't want to talk about my feelings."

"We know," said Lilith dryly.

"I– I don't want to talk about it," Hunter said firmly, though his voice shook unbecomingly. 

"You don't have to talk about it right this second," Luz said, glaring at Eda with a frown, "You don't have to talk about anything until you're ready."

"Okay," he panted, "Okay. Cool. Sounds good."

Flapjack cooed soothingly and he shifted away from the wall where the stone was biting into his back. The way the fabric moved, soft and pliant, not at all like it was stiff with dried blood, made him look down and frown.

"Where's my shirt?" he asked.

"Oh, uh," Luz stammered, "Some of my stuff is here, so I gave you one of mine. Sorry if it's a little small, it's baggy on me, but…"

It wasn't too small. He might be strong, but he didn’t have an ounce of fat on his body. Just slim muscle stretched tight over bones. He knew he was skinny. The hem was a little high though, he liked tucking his shirt into his pants. It let him move a lot more easily without being worried about it getting in the way. 

His ears flattened when he suddenly realized that if someone had changed his shirt, they'd also seen what was under it, which was a lot of scars that he did not want to explain. Not today. He grimaced. At least he was still wearing his gross, bloodstained pants. Those he could change on his own and avoid being completely humiliated.

"Hunter," said Lilith, clearing her throat. He looked up at her. He wasn’t sure how he felt about her being here. On some level, there was comfort in seeing a familiar face– someone he’d known for more than a couple of months, at least. On another level, he’d known her his entire life, and for all of that time she had hated and despised him, called him a selfish, spoiled brat, sent him on frustrating and pointless missions, and in general done anything she could to make his life miserable. He didn’t like her, but she also wasn’t acting like herself at all. He was having trouble deciding if he was glad she was here or resented that she was here.

"What?" he asked tersely. He was leaning toward resentment.

"We’ve been waiting until you woke up to ask you about something," she answered, "It’s about the draining spell."

"Yeah? What about it? Luz was there, I don’t know any more than she does," he snapped. Lilith grimaced.

"That’s the thing, Hunter," Luz interrupted, clearly realizing he did not want to talk to the woman, "Even if you don’t know, he could have said or done something that can help if you just think about it for a second."

"Probably not, but fine. Shoot."

She took a deep breath. "On the Day of Unity, when everyone is together including all of the covenheads, the spell is going to siphon away everyone's magic. And everyone will die."

"Everyone with a coven sigil," Gus corrected. 

"Right," he said cautiously.

"...You have a coven sigil, Hunter," Luz said carefully. "We wanted to ask when you… How you thought Belos was planning to stop it from killing you. We thought maybe we could use that to stop it from killing everyone else."

Hunter's blood ran cold. He felt a little floaty, like a deep dark chasm was opening up to swallow him. "He wasn't," he choked. "He said it was going to kill me, too. He said the Day of Unity was always going to kill me. He knew he was going to kill me from the day I was branded." He took a shuddering breath. "From the day I was born."

He was glad when the response was not more horrified, humiliating silence, and instead Luz rambling off a furious diatribe in that otherworldly language she spoke. He'd heard her use it in passing before, but never seemingly an entire conversation with herself. 

"I'm going to kill that pinche petero!" she yelled at the end of it, jumping to her feet and stomping her foot against the ground, hands balled into fists.

Hunter flinched.

"Oh!" she cried, throwing her hands back down to her sides with a look of alarm. "I'm so sorry, Hunter!"

"It's fine," he mumbled, though he could still feel his heart had begun to race. "I'm fine."

"...So what's the backup plan, Eda?" Luz asked hopefully. 

Eda smiled, just a little bit too wide. "It, uh… it's a secret."

"What!" Luz pouted. "Why?"

"It's, uh… not ready yet," the old woman answered lamely, looking askance. "I'll tell you when it gets closer to time."

"...Oh!" Luz said, brightening. "So if we get captured, none of us can spill the beans!"

"Yup!" Eda burst, "Yup! You got me. That is exactly it."

Hunter glanced quickly between his friend's faces. All three of them seemed unperturbed, even a little relieved.

They were all completely buying this.

Hunter knew that he was a freak. He knew there were a lot of things wrong with him. He knew that normal people didn't react to being shaken awake by attacking whoever had done it. He knew that other people didn't test their food for poison before they ate it. He knew that other people didn't automatically distrust everyone they met and assume they were lying.

But he did. He'd had to.

So maybe it was normal to believe something when someone you cared about said it. He'd certainly believed everything Belos had ever told him in his entire wretched life.

But he didn't believe her one bit. Not about this. 

While everyone was turned away from him to stare at Eda he felt something wet dribble down above his upper lip and wiped it on the back of his hand, assuming it was just his nose running from all the crying he'd been doing.

When he looked down, what had come away was a thick black substance like tar that smelled of rot and made his stomach roil. He frantically wiped it off his face as hard as he could and then hid his hand behind his back as people turned back toward him, probably because of the sudden and quick movement. 

Willow gave him a questioning, concerned look, and he gave her a weak smile in return that seemed to placate her. She smiled back.

He rubbed the substance between his fingers out of sight, feeling how sticky and sludgy it was. It felt deeply unnatural. Something that was not supposed to be coming out of him.

First time in his entire life he'd ever doubted anything Belos had told him.

It figured.

Chapter Text

Luz stared forward into the crackling flames, firebees buzzing happily around the charred wood. On some level, she knew that she could see the fire, but at the same time, she wasn't looking at it. She was looking through it, into the middle distance and beyond that. Into nowhere. 

Hunter was not going to be okay.

Viney and Gus and Willow had saved his life, sure. But he'd been through something terrible in the short time he'd been gone. He was missing an arm. That kind of thing changed a person.

Like everyone else but her in the cave, Hunter was asleep, wrapped up in blankets and a sleeping bag and most of the pillows they could find. It had been unanimously agreed that Hunter needed them most. It would have been impossible to see that he was missing an arm beneath all that if she didn't already know it was gone, but as it stood, she could see the way the fabric fell and it made it impossible to forget.

His uncle had strapped him to a table and tortured him. 

His uncle had strapped him to a table and tortured him.

She couldn't even cry. She was dumbfounded, maybe in shock, unable to look away but desperate to. In his sleep, he cried and whined miserably. It was incredibly out of character for him. Gone was the cocky, gunsure Hunter she'd known. This boy was a stranger. 

"Uncle," he croaked pitifully. He tightened his body almost fully into a ball and breathed heavily in his sleep, as if he were running from something.

Her heart clutched in her chest, wound tight like a spring. She could hardly consolidate the Hunter who had hunted down wild witches and palismen for his uncle to kill with the one who had just screamed and hyperventilated at a touch, the Hunter who had just cried while gently holding his palisman to his face. Away from his Uncle it seemed like he had transformed so quickly into someone so much softer, and she wondered if he'd always been that way, at his core. She wondered how much it had taken to beat every ounce of kindness out of him for so long. 

She heard someone move behind her and looked up. Gus wriggled out of his blanket burrito and stood, silently moving to sit down beside her and pull his knees to his chest, holding his palms out toward the fire. 

"Hey," he said eventually.

"Hey," she replied.

"He's not gonna be okay, is he?" Gus asked quietly.

No. "I don't know."

"This is all my fault," he said hoarsely. "He wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me."

"How is it your fault?" Luz frowned. "I thought you were unconscious when they took him."

"Every single time anybody has run into Hunter until today," he said, barely above a whisper, "He's put himself above everyone else. He betrayed you, he betrayed Amity twice– "

"Well, yeah, but–"

"He has always, always protected himself and done his job above all else," Gus continued. "Until today. Today I was a little nice to him, for like, two seconds, and then he threw all of that away. He ran away from the Emperor’s Coven. Belos was looking for him. A coven head showed up at our school, and they weren’t there for him, they didn’t know he was even there. He should have run away, he should have hid, he should have immediately put himself first and gotten out of there before he got caught, because he knew this was what was going to happen to him." He put his arms around his knees and took in a harsh, shuddering breath. "And he didn’t. He came looking for me. He fought his own guys and got recognized. He did everything he could to save me from getting captured and when I did anyway, they traded him for me. They were going to use me as leverage to get coven sigils on everyone, but him? They were going to kill him."

"...Gus," she said, heart aching.

"All I did was give him a sandwich," Gus sniffled, "And that was all it took. He almost died because I gave him a sandwich." A tear rolled down his cheek. "Is that the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for him or something? Why didn’t he run?"

"That’s not your fault," Luz dismissed, scooting closer so she could put an arm around his shoulders. He leaned greedily against her side, obviously starved for comfort. "You didn’t make him do that. He chose to. He knew the risk and he did it anyway. It’s no one’s fault other than Belos’s."

Gus was quiet for a long moment, both of them watching the crackling fire, and beyond it, their new apparent friend.

"He protected me," Gus said finally. "I don’t think anyone has ever protected him in his life, Luz."

Her heart sank, but she couldn’t disagree with him. It seemed like everyone hated him. Even Lilith had hated him. Luz couldn’t wrap her head around that, either. How could her cool aunt Lilith have ever worked beside a kid in a soldier’s uniform and done nothing? How could she have seen a teenager with so many scars and hated him? Why had so many adults been right there and done nothing?

"I think you’re right."

Across the room, Hunter whimpered again and curled into himself in his sleep. "Please," he mumbled, "It hurts."

Her eyes and her heart burned and she clenched her hands into fists as her sorrow turned into anger and then into rock-solid determination. "So we’ll just have to be the first."

Idly, Viney ran a hand over Puddles' neck, smoothing down feathers that kept ruffling with anxiety. She usually had two settings: asleep, and loud. She only got like this when she could feel how serious things were. 

Still, the griffin could be very picky. She only let a few people ride her, only Viney's friends, really, and not even all of them. She'd only met Hunter one before, when he'd stepped on her tail. After that less-than-ideal introduction, she hadn't expected her oldest friend to ever take much of a liking to him, let alone lay curled around him in their dark cavern hideout, tucked protectively under one wing. 

The entire time she'd been here, if he was unconscious, he was having a nightmare. This was the first time he appeared to be sleeping easily, face slack and breathing even. He was tucked in against her side and looked so peaceful that she could almost forget all the horrible events of the past day and a half.

Puddles huffed out a cooing sigh, feathers rising again. She was still a juvenile, not yet old enough to lay a clutch of her own, but somehow she'd still turned into a broody old hen over Hunter, anyway. It was as endearing as the pile of lollipops she'd covered him in, because it was the only way she knew to help a patient. 

Viney pet her feathers back down again. Animals were so much simpler than people. Animals didn't know how to lie. Animals did everything with their whole hearts. She could understand animals. People were different. people were so much more complicated.

Puddles churred a low note and blinked her eyes open, but laid still, tilting her head to peer at her curiously.

"Sorry, girlie, did I wake you?" she asked, twirling a spell circle with her finger.

"Wake-wake," Puddles cooed. "Kitten sleep still."

"He's still asleep," she assured her, "You're doing such a good job, Puddles. You're helping a lot."

The griffin's tail flicked happily. "Fear-scent no more!"

Animals were smarter than people gave them credit for. They sensed things that people couldn't. Animals could naturally tell when someone was in distress, sick or sad or hurt, and they were compelled to do something about it. Only fear could override it, but if the fear was gone? If they trusted you? They couldn't stop themselves from trying to help however they could. Purring or licking or preening or cuddling, animals took no delight in suffering. Even when they killed, they did it to eat, and sometimes for sport, but even then, it wasn't out of malice. They didn't really have the ability to understand abstract concepts like that. They were so much simpler than people. She much preferred them.

"No more," Viney agreed with a laugh. "You're being such a good mommy." 

Puddles cooed proudly and laid her head back down. "Hurt-kitten stay warm. Help-help. No more fear-scent."

When her old friend went quiet again, chest moving steadily, she drew her scroll from her pocket and opened Penstagram.

@DrBirdbrain: are you there, Skara?

@Rainey.Day.Stan: Viney! I thought you guys might be dead

@DrBirdbrain: not far off. Things are getting scary.

@Rainey.Day.Stan: Even scarier than the day of unity being like a mass genocide?

@DrBirdbrain: I mean. I guess on the same level

@Rainey.Day.Stan: Yikes

@DrBirdbrain: you should see what belos did to hunter. It's awful.

@Rainey.Day.Stan: Oh no

@DrBirdbrain: he's missing an arm, Skara

@Rainey.Day.Stan: Oh. Oh no

@DrBirdbrain: I feel awful. It feels like it's my fault.

@Rainey.Day.Stan: It's not your fault. It's all of our faults. 

@DrBirdbrain: I'm the one that put him to sleep, though.

@Rainey.Day.Stan: If it hadn't been you, it just would have been someone else. And they probably wouldn't have been as nice about it.

@DrBirdbrain: yeah. Yeah, you're right. 

@Rainey.Day.Stan: Is it just you and hunter? Who are you with? Are you safe?

@DrBirdbrain: Luz and Gus and Willow. And uhhhh the owl lady and Lilith who used to run the emperor's coven i guess.

@Rainey.Day.Stan: Uh. What lol

@DrBirdbrain: yeah. I don't know. I'm still kind of reeling from that

@Rainey.Day.Stan: Wow. You know you have two ex-coven heads from the emperor's coven with you? That's crazy

@DrBirdbrain: wow. Yeah, I guess it is kind of crazy.

@Rainey.Day.Stan: But you're safe, right? 

@DrBirdbrain: yeah. I'm safe. And I think I'm where I'm supposed to be. Things are getting so dire. But I can help. Im right where I need to be to do that

@Rainey.Day.Stan: Then you're exactly where you're supposed to be.

@Rainey.Day.Stan: I'll see you again when this is all over, Viney. 

@DrBirdbrain: you will. Because it will be over. We're going to stop it.

@Rainey.Day.Stan: I know, Viney. If anyone can do it, it's you.

“C’mon, c’mon…” Luz mumbled, shaking her leg where it sat on the floor, eyes locked on her scroll. Her anxiety was reaching its peak and she needed to know her girlfriend was safe, or she thought she might lose it. And she couldn’t lose it now. Willow and Gus were both one tragedy away from losing it, too, and it seemed like Hunter had already lost it. At least Viney was holding it together. One of them had to.

“Luz?” Amity cried, face filling the screen.

“Amity!” Luz exclaimed, so relieved she thought she might burst into tears. “You’re okay!”

“I’m alright, batata,” Amity assured her. “I’m in more trouble than I’ve ever been in my life, but I’m alright.”

“I was so worried,” Luz sniffled, “You haven’t been answering.”

“My mom took my scroll,” Amity explained, “Emira switched hers with mine and gave it back.”

“Tell her I would die for her,” said Luz. “We’re hiding out on the knee. Where are you? Willow told me you took on Principle Bump.”

She looked quite proud of herself. “I did. Aaaand I managed to hold him for, like, thirty seconds. Then he overwhelmed me and tied my feet to the floor so I couldn’t follow. Then he called my mom.”

Luz winced. “She must have been furious.”

“She’s locked me in my room,” Amity sighed. “The doors and windows are warded. The only way in or out is the space under the door.”

“That’s horrible!” Luz gasped. “She can’t just keep you there!”

“Well, she is.”

“Where’s your dad?” Luz asked. “After the brawl– he wanted to be a better dad, right? Can he help you?”

Amity looked very worried and sad suddenly, eyes averted.

“Amity?” Luz prompted. “What’s wrong?”

“I… don’t know where he is,” she said hesitantly, swallowing. “Last I saw him he had fire flu, and then… I don’t know. I haven’t seen him. Neither have Emira or Edric. They even checked his lab. He’s not anywhere in the house. And he never leaves the house, not unless my mom makes him.”

Luz had a bad feeling. That didn’t sound good at all. “Doesn’t he have a scroll? Have you tried calling him?”

“...He left his scroll in his lab,” Amity said quietly.

Luz’s eyes widened. “He left without it?”

“I don’t… know if he left,” Amity admitted, lowering her voice. “Ever since the Bonesborough Brawl he’s been… weird. And Mom has been way nastier than usual. She’s not usually very nice to him– but she’s not nice to us either.” She looked back at Luz. “This is different, though. She’s been way worse than usual. Luz, she’s just been so angry.”

“...Where are you going with this, Amity?” Luz breathed.

“...Luz, I think… I think my mom might have done something to him,” Amity said with a slight tremble. “I think she might… I think she might have hurt him.”

Luz gasped. “No way. Do you think she’s capable of that?”

Amity stared at the floor.

“Amity?” Luz prompted.

Slowly, Amity nodded. “I… Yeah. I think she is.”

A chill went up Luz’s spine, a chill that went white hot with anger and settled on determination. “I’m not leaving you there. Not with her. I’m coming to get you.”

Amity looked alarmed. “It’s not safe, Luz! She’s definitely capable of hurting you!”

“If she’s capable of hurting your dad, she’s capable of hurting you,” Luz said fiercely, “Amity. I am not leaving you there.”

Amity looked conflicted, but then nodded sharply. “Please. Luz, I am scared of her. I don’t want to be here.”

“Hang on, Amity. We’re coming to save you.” She took a deep, steadying breath. “I love you.”

“I love you,” Amity mirrored. Luz closed her scroll and stood up, jogging back to the cave with everyone else. Their numbers had dwindled somehow during the day. She didn’t know where Eda or King had gone, leaving Gus, Willow, Viney, Lilith and Hooty behind.

And Hunter. Hunter was still here, too. As much as he could be anywhere.

“Amity needs help!” she announced from the mouth of their hideout. “I have to go rescue her. Can anyone come with me?”

“I can come,” Viney said, standing up. “You don’t have a staff. Puddles can help.”

“Someone should stay with Hunter,” Gus said, “I might not be useful if there’s a fight.”

“But you might be super useful if it’s a stealth mission!” Willow argued. “Let me stay with Hunter. You’ve been watching him like a hawk for ages.”

“I think I should stay as well,” Lilith said hesitantly, “I don’t feel comfortable leaving Willow and Hunter alone here.”

“I think that sounds good,” Luz nodded. “I don’t think they should be alone, either. Me and Gus and Viney can do it ourselves.”

Lilith smiled at her niece, but it held a sadness there. “I know you can.”

“Alright, guys,” Luz said, turning about and putting her hands on her hips, “Let’s go save my girlfriend!”

Chapter Text

Amity paced back and forth in her room, heart thrumming fast in her chest. Everything felt so wrong. She desperately wanted out. She wanted to know where her father was. She wanted to know what her mother had done. She wanted to warn her mother about the Day of Unity. She'd told Emira and Edric, but they had refused to tell their mother. They agreed with her that she'd done something to their fathers but they also thought she might know more about the Day of Unity that she let on. Amity thought that was a little paranoid, though. She hated their father, and she could see her getting angry enough to do something to him– but to help with mass genocide? Not even she was that heartless.

Her father, though? Yeah. She could see it.

She could only hope what she'd done wasn't… permanent. Maybe she'd locked him somewhere so she didn't have to bother with him anymore. Maybe she'd threatened him and he'd left on his own. Or maybe…

She jolted when she heard a soft rap at her window and looked over, but there was nothing there. She squinted and stood up, crossing the room to peer through the glass.

Only to leap back as Gus dropped his illusion spell and revealed Luz on a hovering griffin with Viney and Gus behind her. Luz waved. 

"Batata!" Amity gasped in relief. She could almost cry. 

"Sweet potato!" Luz smiled back fondly, before her expression grew serious and she leaned forward, hands on the window. "Okay. What kind of ward spell is it? How do we get you out?"

"Enchanted lock," Amity answered, "My mom has the key. That's the only way to deactivate the spell."

"Hm," Luz frowned, tapping her chin in thought. "Where do you think she would keep it?"

"She's probably carrying it around, unfortunately. She knows the twins would probably take it if she didn't."

"Alright… sneak into Amity's house, steal her bedroom key, get outta dodge. We can do that."

"You have to be careful," Amity fret, "My mom isn't afraid to hurt you. She hates you."

"I know. Come on, Amity, it's me! Better folk than your mom have tried to stomp on me before." She gave Amity a confident wink that did, actually, make her feel better. 

Luz nodded at Gus, who drew a spell circle, pulling them all back into hiding. She turned around to pace again, wringing her hands together. She hated being trapped here while her girlfriend and her friends were putting themselves in danger, for her, and she couldn't do anything about it. She wanted to help more than anything, she wanted at least to know what was happening, but trapped in her room all she could do was wait and listen.

Luz spent more time arguing with him than Gus thought she should have, but he figured that's just what you did when you had a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. Or whatever. 

He suddenly hoped Matthomule was okay. He didn't want to read too much into that.

It made more sense for him to go than her. Sure, she had invisibility glyphs, but Gus didn't have to hold his breath to stay hidden. He was smaller than her, quieter than her, and less impulsive than her. She'd pouted at that one, but finally admitted he was right. He worked under the assumption she was going to leap into action any moment she thought she should, though, so he just hoped that he didn't give her an excuse.

He cast an illusion on the front door before he opened it to make sure it still appeared closed and slipped inside, scanning the foyer with Emmeline in hand. 

Empty.

He was getting really good at disguise spells like this, though it was much easier to make a person look like a different person than it was to make them invisible. As good as he was getting at it, it still took a certain amount of focus to keep it up as he crept through the uncomfortably large home, testing floorboards for creaks before he put his full weight on them.

It was genuinely unsettling how empty the place was. It was such a big house, and he'd always assumed there were other people here, like cooks or butlers or something, but so far he hadn't seen anyone. It made the house feel like a corpse the way the owl house had, even with all the furniture and chintz still in place. In fact, that made it worse. All the evidence that people lived here without any people to prove it. It felt haunted by memories of people that should have been there, and weren't. 

It was creepy, is what it was.

"She did?" said a voice somewhere, muffled through the walls.

Gus raised his ears and tilted his head, slinking in the sound's direction. He leaned around a corner to look into a dimly lit kitchen and two twins with worried expressions. Emira sat on the table and Edric leaned back in a chair nearby.

"I didn't know what to tell her," Edric sighed. "I just said… I guess. Maybe."

"You can't do that," Emira fret, "If you don't say no, she takes it as a yes."

"I know."

"She told me to drop healing track, too," she sighed. 

"She said I could pick whichever I wanted, but it has to be one of the three." He leaned his head in his hand against the armrest. "She's been on the warpath since the Brawl."

"She's never been this bad before," Emira said in a hushed breath, "I mean, locking Mittens in her room? Warding it?"

"...And Dad," Edric added. Emira winced and looked away.

"...Yeah. And Dad."

Gus passed the open doorway and continued on, leaving them be. He needed to find their mother and that key, and he needed to do it quickly, before his stamina ran out. 

He approached the stairs and rather than risk the noise, carefully navigated up to the second floor on his staff. Looking around he located what must have been Amity's door, a red glow coming from the doorknob where a ward lock was affixed. It was definitely a tough one. He couldn't break it, he absolutely needed the key. 

He checked the rooms carefully. He'd never been in Amity's house before– he'd only ever seen the foyer from the doorstep. The first room he looked in was a bathroom, and the second, a guest room. The rest of the doors were closed, so he needed to be careful.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when one of the doors slammed open and Amity's mother stomped out with a crow phone to her ear and fury in her eyes.

"Well I don't care about your supply chain problems!" she yelled into the poor bird, "We agreed on a price and I expect you to honour it!" She paused and then scowled. "I don't see what you want me to do about that."

She set a hand on her hip and turned to walk down the hall. Gus cast her a quick up and down, but she wasn't holding the key and she didn't have it around her neck like he was imagining she might, which would be awful to deal with. She'd left the door open, though, and he scurried inside what he discovered was the master bedroom.

And what a bedroom it was. Huge, lavish, and far more green than he'd anticipated. One side of the room held a lavish vanity with an ornate mirror and silver filigree detailing, while the other had an open door to a walk-in closet as big as his own room. Something about the whole place felt weird and off, and he couldn't put his finger on quite what it was until it occurred to him that everything he could see looked like it belonged to Amity's mom . He couldn't see any evidence her dad lived here at all. Did they have different bedrooms? 

He snuck across the carpet– and thank Titan for carpet finally, and found a flash of red on the nightstand. His ears swiveled up in delight when he recognized a ward lock key. Without thinking it through first, he reached forward and grabbed it. 

The response was immediate as a wispy little alarm banshee flickered into view on the side table, bouncing back and forth and wailing so loud he had to cover his ears.

It also broke his concentration.

"Emira!" Amity's mother yelled in the hallway, and Gus snapped his head up just in time to see her enter the room. "What did I tell you about–"

Amity's mother froze. Gus froze. They blinked at each other for a moment.

And then Amity's mother drew a spell circle in the air and summoned a massive, furious spirit that launched itself at him like a wild animal. 

"What are you doing in my house, you little instigator?!" she cried. "How did you even get in here?!"

"Sorry, Mrs. Blight!" Gus yelled in a panic as he threw himself at the floor and out of the way of his attacker. "I, uh– it's not what it looks like, I–"

"It looks like you're trying to break my daughter out of being grounded!" the woman exclaimed furiously. The spirit slammed into the ground as Gus rolled sideways, only for Emmeline to scramble down his arm and into his hand. 

"Okay, maybe it's exactly what it looks like!" Gus kicked his legs to throw himself back onto his feet and held onto his staff as Emmeline flew for the door and over his friend's mother's head. She touched her brooch again and her summoned spirit barreled past her and into the hall. 

"Oh, no you don't!" she called after him down the hall as he beelined for Amity's room.

The spirit grabbed the end of his staff and it stopped mid-air, but he did not, tumbling head over heels onto the rug and down the corridor until he hit the other wall and saw stars. He heard banging begin on the other side of Amity's door.

"Luz?!" she yelled, "Luz, is that you?!"

"Uh, almost," Gus replied, scrambling back to his feet. He watched Emmeline transform back into her chameleon form and wiggle her legs wildly as she tried to escape. His breath quickened when she squeaked in pain, its huge claws tightening around her tiny body. "Stop! Stop, please don't hurt her!"

"If you weren't prepared for the consequences of trespassing, you should have considered that before you did it," the woman said sharply as she approached him. She held a hand up to tell her spirit to pause. It did, but his palisman continued to squirm uncomfortably. 

"I'm sorry," he said frantically. "Mrs. Blight, I'm sorry. Please let her go."

"I don't think I will be," she dismissed. "I'll be calling your father, and until then I think I'll just hold on to her. Now, if you would return what you stole."  

Gus looked down at the key in his hand and swallowed. He looked back up at the angry eyes of a woman he could tell was not afraid to hurt him or his palisman. He didn't have much of a choice. He took a step forward to comply.

Only for a glass full of bubbling gold liquid to appear between him and his friend's mother, strike the floor, and explode.

"Luz!" he cried in relief. He'd been hoping she wouldn't follow him in, but he was glad now that she'd decided to be impulsive and heroic anyway.

Only to blink in confusion when Emira and Edric appeared in front of him, both holding fading illusion spell circles in each hand. Whatever had been in that potion caused their mother's summoned spirit to burst into a cloud of smoke and Emmeline to drop to the ground with a squeak, scurrying back between the twins to jump on her witch's leg and return to his hand as a staff. 

"What–?" Gus asked, confused and alarmed.

"Go!" Emira yelled at him, "We can handle her!"

"Go get Mittens out of here!" Edric added. 

"You two are in so much trouble–!"

"What about you guys?" Gus hesitated anxiously.

"We'll be fine," Emira dismissed. "She's not going to hurt us."

"She might have hurt Dad, though," Edric grimaced, "And she'll definitely hurt you!"

"Thank you," Gus warbled, "Be safe, guys."

They both flashed him peace signs before drawing fresh spell circles and summoning dozens of copies of all three of them, scrambling about in the halls and taunting their mother. She summoned a new spirit that began swiping wildly at all of them.

Gus launched himself at Amity's door and wiggled the ward key into the lock, yanking the door open and grabbing her hand. Her surprise quickly melted into determination and she followed, Ghost in hand, the both of them leaping on their staffs to fly dangerously down the stairs and through the halls, past portraits that rattled off the walls and the sound of breaking glass and vases.

Just before they reached the door it burst open, Puddles skidding across the floor from the force of the strike and Luz standing on the doorstep with a handful of glyph notes.

"Batata!" Amity cried, reaching forward as she sped past her. Luz grabbed her hand and swung up behind her on Ghost, arms around her waist.

"Time to go!" Viney exclaimed, hopping on her own staff.

"What about the twins?!" Gus fret.

"They can handle themselves!" Amity dismissed. "We can come back for them later, but we need to go now!"

"You're not going anywhere!" Amity's mother yelled as she skidded out the front door and began to draw a spell circle in the air.

Gus watched in slow motion, as one watches a train wreck, as Puddles spun about toward her, took a deep breath, and then vomited spiders all over her. 

She was still shrieking by the time they made it out of earshot.

Chapter Text

Eda prodded the fire with a stick, her chin in her hand as she leaned on her knee. Things had really gone tits up. 

She glanced over at where her sister was resting. She'd never seen her sleep in the middle of the day before, but all their sleep schedules were totally fucked. They'd been up and down like crazy, had slipped away in the middle of the night in the first place, and then Titan below, they had Blondie hollering in his sleep all the time to worry about.

She looked over in his direction with a grimace. For someone in such a bad way, the current picture of him was far too cute. Like a drawing in a kid's book. 

He was asleep again– he was sleeping a lot– and maybe physical and emotional injury just did that to a person. He was covered in a whole gaggle of palismen, Owlbert, the bee, even Lily's raven was sitting next to his own little red bird. King, too, had scurried over to sleep on his legs. 

Palismen were real friendly critters, but she'd never seen someone simply attract every single one of them in a room to her like a palisman magnet before. She thought animals were real good judges of character, so if so many of them were so worried about him, he must be something special. Maybe she'd get to find out why if he would wake up for five minutes and not immediately panic or disassociate. Good luck with that, though.

She looked up at a sound outside of their hideout and stood up immediately, her hand dipping into her hair to grab a glyph note tight between her fingers.

The kids touched down in the snow outside with Boots in tow, Luz clutching her like she was afraid if she let go she'd disappear. Or she would fall off her staff and die. Either or.

"Eda!" Luz cried in relief as soon as she saw her. Her feet hit the ground and she practically sprinted in her direction for a hug. The kid was a real big hugger. Not that Eda minded.

"Glad you're safe, kiddo," she said, letting go of the glyph note. "You all okay?"

"We're all okay Ms. Owl Lady," said the griffin girl. "But weeeeee… might have caused a ruckus."

"Okay, one, drop the Ms, call me The Owl Lady, and don't forget the 'the,' or Eda." She set a hand on her hip. "Two, what kind of ruckus?"

"I think my mom has done something to my dad," said Amity, and the expression on her face was so genuine in its fear she couldn't help but take her seriously. "And my brother and sister got in her way so that we could escape, and now I'm scared for them, too!" 

"We got in a fight with Mrs. Blight," Gus added guiltily. "It was my fault."

"No it wasn't!" Luz puffed defiantly. "It was her fault! She even threatened Emmeline!"

"Whoa," Eda balked, "That's low, even for her." 

"And she– wait, where'd she go?" Gus began spinning around as he looked for his palisman. Eda rolled her eyes and pointed back toward their sleepy little friend in the back of the cave.

Emmeline, Ghost, and whatever it was that the beast girl's palisman was had beelined right for him to join the pile. They all watched as Puddles lumbered over and plopped down next to him, extending a wing to cover all of them like a mother hen.

"Aww," said Luz.

"Is that normal?" asked Gus.

"Hey! I know it's adorable, but focus, kids!" Eda said, waving her hand to get their attention again. "So you pissed off the she-bitch–" Oops. Not in front of the kids. "Uhhh. I mean. The she-witch. No, that doesn't work, I'm a she-witch. Um, she-female-dog?"

"Eda!" Luz snapped.

"Right, right," Eda handwaved. "You pissed off Boots's mom. You think she's gone black widow on her dad and now you're worried about your siblings. I got that straight?"

They all nodded.

"We have to do something," Amity pleaded. 

"Oh, we're gonna do something alright," Eda agreed. She turned inward for a moment.

What do you think, buddy? Are you up for a rescue mission?

Mother would hurt her own chicks!? The Owl Beast burst. She could feel shock and anger rolling off of it in waves. 

Sounds like, pal. I know this cretin, and she's a real piece of work. I wouldn't put anything past her.

Bad!!!! We are agreed! Rescue chicks!

Eda opened her eyes as feathers rippled along her body and she exploded into her harpy form, wings unfurling. Yeah, that was never getting old or less cool.

"I'm going to stay behind in case Hunter needs me," the beast girl fret, "I can't believe he's still asleep…"

"That's okay, Viney," Luz assured her, "Keep him safe." Viney nodded.

"Ghost!" Amity called.

Eda spread her wings. "Let's go kick some ass. Wait. No," she corrected immediately. "Some butt. Let's go kick some butt."

Hunter stared into the flames blankly. He wasn't even sure what he was looking at. Orange. Yellow. Smoke. Heat. Light. 

There came a sound, a distant gurgling as if he were hearing it underwater. He didn't look up. 

Within the flickering colours he felt like he could see the green-black rot of his uncle's face where it twisted around his smile. It shifted and warped into his old mask, the one he'd thrown away and refused to wear again. Then it was a broken palisman, and finally, a lunchbox with a sandwich in it. That one he turned his eyes away from.

"–ter, can you hear me? Hunter, you're scaring me." 

"What?" he asked, shaking his head and orienting toward the speaker. 

Willow was giving him a look of very serious concern, one hand wavering near him like she wanted to touch but knew better. He frowned and looked at her floating hand for a moment. She seemed to notice and lowered it before speaking again.

"Are you with me, Hunter?" she asked. It didn't sound like it was the first time she had.

He shook his head again, but the cottony fog that made everything bright and blurry didn't abate. "I'm here. I'm fine."

She looked as if she was prepared to argue, but then thought better of it. "I'm sorry to bother you, I know you have a lot on your mind but–" She gestured toward what he assumed was his missing arm, but he refused to look at it. "You've had that bandage on for over a day now. Viney said it needs to be changed. The skin is still growing back."

"Oh," he said distantly. He continued to stare at her, blinking slowly.

"Do you want to do it?" she asked, when he said nothing more, "Or do you want help? I know you don't want to be touched right now."

He looked around the cave again and noticed that Luz, Eda and Gus were all absent. He wondered if they were outside, and if not, where they had gone. "Only unexpectedly," he answered finally. "It would be better if you helped. I don't think I can do it one-handed."

Willow swallowed and nodded. She picked up a first aid kit she'd apparently already brought with her and picked out a roll of gauze and an antiseptic enchanted ointment. She closed the box and set them on top of it. "Okay, I'm going to take it off now. Are you ready?"

Hunter nodded.

He still flinched when her fingertips touched his skin, but he didn't feel the rising panic that he had the previous evening and she blessedly pretended not to notice. He kept his eyes forward and away from what she was doing as she unwrapped the current bindings, cleaned the area with a rag, used the ointment and rewrapped it. Outside was a little snowman shaped like a rabbit. He wondered who had made it.

"Where's Gus?" he asked distantly.

"Getting more firewood!" Willow informed him a little too cheerfully.

"Ah." He chewed his lip absently. "Luz and Eda?"

"They brought Amity back, but then they left again to get her siblings." 

"Oh." He wasn't looking forward to seeing her. She was the one that had so fervently argued for them to trade him in the first place that they'd actually done it. She hated him, and it wasn't like he hadn't given her a good reason to. He didn't really want to see her.

"Okay, all done," she said, apparently satisfied. "Does that feel okay?"

"No," he replied. "It still hurts. It's hurt since it got cut off."

Willow looked concerned and glanced back at Viney, whose ears flattened.

"Don't look at me," she said, appearing cowed, "He shouldn't be able to feel anything there."

"I can still feel it," he mumbled, "Four strikes to break through the bone."

Willow winced. "Well… is there anything that might make you feel better? Even just a little bit?"

"No," he answered.

Her face fell, the mask she'd clearly had up to try and raise his spirits slipping as her fear and anxiety began to show. 

All of a sudden the cloudy thick sludge that had been weighing down his feelings seemed to ripple and make an opening for some to slip through. He looked up, eyes clearing as he seemed to really understand where he was.

"I'm sorry," he sighed, "I don't mean to be difficult. I'm just feeling… kind of checked out."

"You don't have to be sorry!" she exclaimed, "You're allowed to be not okay, Hunter! No one is holding anything against you for being pretty out of it. You– Hunter, you got tortured."

Tortured. Right. 

"Alright," he replied. He thought very, very hard. "Eda was making marshmallows last night."

Willow's ears swiveled up. "Oh, yes! She was. Mallow bushes grow up here where it's cold."

"...Can I have one?" he asked. She wanted so badly to do something for him, anything. He could at least do that.

"You can have as many as you want!" she burst. "Just hang on for a second, I'll go get some."

"I should come with you," Viney said, pushing herself to her feet, "Snow crabs like them and they can get really nasty if you try to pick from their favourite bush."

"Great! Just hang on, Hunter, we'll be right back!"

With that, his teammates practically sprinted out of the cave and toward the treeline nearby, leaving him alone with Lilith and a sleeping Hooty and King. Hunter crossed his legs and stared at the fire, stubbornly keeping his eyes on it and away from her.

"We're all so glad you're alive, Hunter," Lilith said eventually, when the silence apparently became too much for her. "Willow and Gus told us about how you used glyphs to escape on your own. It sounded very impressive."

"Shut up," he murmured.

Lilith appeared startled. "What?"

He raised his voice and looked back up at her with fiery eyes that cleared away the last of the fog that had shrouded them. "I said shut up."

"I–" She appeared at a loss for words, fumbling for a reply. "Is that– do you– I'm sorry," she settled on.

"No, you're not," he hissed venomously. "What are you sorry for?"

"I am sorry that I never helped you," she said emphatically. "You were suffering so long, and someone should have done something–"

"And you didn't," he snapped. "Why weren't you sorry then? You think that I care that you're sorry now when you can't do anything about it? When you used to look down at me and my little uniform with contempt even though I barely reached your waist? When you sent me on grueling, humiliating and difficult missions just to torment me? When you called me a spoiled brat and a lazy nepotism baby and told me that if I wasn't the emperor's nephew you wouldn't even know my name? You don't get to be sorry now. I don't accept your apology and I never will." He turned back toward the fire, nose wrinkling in disgust and resentment. "We've both done things that we're going to regret for the rest of our lives, and I won't absolve you of one iota of yours. Learn how to live with it, same as me."

She was deathly silent, and even without looking up he knew he had stunned her into horrified stillness. Good. He'd wanted very much to hurt her feelings. One good rant was nothing compared to years of her ire directed toward him. 

"I… I need a moment," she choked, before she stood and left. He smiled to himself, pleased that he'd gotten to her. 

And then his smile vanished as he began coughing, hard and violent and wet. He doubled over, covering his mouth as he desperately tried to muffle the sound. When he finally stopped, he panted for air, chest heaving and throat sore. He pulled his hand away.

It was covered in a thick black sludge that clung to his palm. It reeked of death and blood and had a chunky, sticky texture that made his skin crawl. His breath quickened as he stared at it, galdorstone heart thumping in his chest. That wasn't normal. That really wasn't normal. 

"Hunter! We're back!" Willow cried, jogging back into the mouth of the cave with an armful of marshmallows. Hunter snapped his head up and quickly wiped his hand off on the floor behind him. Viney followed behind her, looking annoyed and sporting several red pinch-marks.

"Oh, thanks," he replied. He was feeling much more clear-headed now, and able to stomp down all of the anguish in his heart like he always had. "Do you have a stick?"

"Yes!" she announced, plopping all of her spoils down on a blanket and retrieving a few sticks from her belt where she'd tied them. She put a marshmallow on the end of one and held it out toward him.

He accepted it quietly and held it over the fire to cook.

"Whoa, Lilith, are you okay?" Viney asked suddenly. 

"Hm? Lulu? Who's talking about Lulu?? What's wrong?!" Hooty burst as he awoke. Hunter kept his eyes down.

"It– it's nothing," she said. He could hear her walk back to where she'd been sitting before. Her voice was strained and hoarse. 

"Are you sure?" Willow pressed. "You look really upset–"

"Just worried about Eda and Luz," she said, laughing a little too loudly, "Won't feel better until they're back safely, you know!"

"Yeah," he mumbled vaguely. "They need to hurry up. We have to focus on the Day of Unity."

"Well, it's not the Day of Unity just yet!" Willow said a little too cheerfully. "That's when we'll really need to be on our A-game for Eda's big plan! 'Til then, we just need to, y'know, not die, right?"

Hunter blinked slowly and then looked away. "Yeah. Sure."

His marshmallow was burning.

Chapter Text

Amity had lived her life in her mother's shadow, a ghost of her own ambitions. She'd spent a great amount of time believing that was all she would ever be, so she needed to be the best she could ever be at it. She needed to be perfect.

She wasn't going to let her mother take anything else from her. Not her confidence, not her self-esteem, not her girlfriend or her siblings and definitely not her father. 

She tightened her grip around her staff and shot forward past her entourage to land first, Luz yelping against her ear. She skid to a landing on the helipad behind their home where an airship was already parked and several abomatons were filing on board one by one. 

"I'm back!" Amity yelled, pointing Ghost at her mother who turned with a raised eyebrow from where she was watching the airship being loaded. "And I brought the Owl Lady with me. You have to listen to me now, Mom!"

"Do you think that Eda would add to your credibility?" her mother said. "Amity, dear, you're smarter than that." 

There was a whump as the Owl Lady landed behind her and spread her wings wide.

"C'mon, Dolly, you know me well enough to know I only lie when it's in my best interest to do so," Eda dismissed, ruffling her feathers and inspecting her claws. "And I don't bother sticking my neck into anything I don't have to. If this wasn't for real, I wouldn't give a rat's ass. Butt."

"Hello again, Edalyn," Amity's mother said dryly. "It's been awhile. Not long enough."

"Same back at'cha!" Eda cooed with a flirty little wave. "Now, for realsies. The emperor is about to pull the trigger and kill everyone in the Boiling Isles, and you're handing him an army to help him do it. You're a real beeeee– badger, Dolly, but not even you're a murderer."

"Unless she is!" Luz interrupted. 

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Amity's mother dismissed. "And I don't know why you think there is anything you need to stick your neck into, 'Owl Lady.' You aren't branded."

Amity stiffened. "What?"

Her mother frowned and then gave her one of her fake, consolatory smiles, diminutive and riddled with pity and implication. "Amity, darling, don't worry about it, Mommy has taken care of everything for you."

"What did you do?!" Amity burst in horror. "Mom, what did you do?!"

Her mother sighed and set a hand on her hip. "This human has been such a terrible influence on you, dear. Ever since you met her your grades have been slipping, you lost your job, you've been getting into trouble and now you're yelling at your mother. What happened to my perfect little Mittens?"

"Don't talk about my girlfriend!" Amity yelled, throwing an arm sideways protectively over Luz.

Her mother's eyes widened and her face fell. She rarely saw her so surprised. "Your what?"

"Uh," Amity said, mouth suddenly dry. She'd forgotten she hadn't actually told her that yet. "Yes. My girlfriend. Luz. Luz is my girlfriend. Now stop talking about her! Because she's great!"

"You little cretin," her mother snapped, locking her eyes on Luz. "How dare you corrupt my daughter!"

Amity barely had time to react to the spirit her mother had summoned before it slammed into the ground beside her, just enough time to shove her away so that it could smash into the ground between them and send a shockwave through the floor that knocked her to her knees.

"Listen, Amity, sweetheart, you know that I love you, you know that everything I do, I do for you!" her mother called over the noise as a row of abomatons stopped walking up the gangway and turned around to glare at them, eyes shimmering. "We're not like them! You know that! Only ordinary people are going to die tomorrow, and you, my love– you're extraordinary!"

"What?" Amity gasped. She froze as the realization washed over her:

Her mother knew about the Day of Unity. Her mother had known about the Day of Unity. 

Her mother was helping a genocide to come to pass.

She was still reeling beneath the weight of that realization when the spirit tried to tackle her, only for the Owl Lady to grab her in her claws and yank her up like a limp sack of potatoes.

"Odalia, you bitch!" Eda yelled. "You're worse than I ever gave you credit for!"

"I know you think you're upset now, but you'll be so happy when this is all over!" her mother continued. Amity stared forward in abject shock as a wall of abomatons launched fists forward that Luz weaved through in quick darts, slapping down glyph notes. "You're going to be a princess, Mittens! And don't worry about your girlfriend, we can find you a new girlfriend! A better one!"

"You don't understand the first thing about me!" Amity exclaimed, ripping herself out of the Owl Lady's grip as she landed on her staff and drew a wide spell circle in the air, grabbing the abomination ooze within the row of abomatons to stop them from moving. The amount of effort it took was shocking, leaving her frozen in midair beneath the strain. "And you never will! I hate you!"

"Yes, well," her mother sighed, "You'll grow out of it."

Amity reeled backwards as a shockwave struck her and when her vision cleared she found herself entrapped in a bright pink energy bubble, tingling against her hands. "No!"

Amity banged her fists against the bubble uselessly as the Owl Lady dove forward with a screech and glanced off one of her mother's deflection spells, then slashed again, sending sparks of stray magic raining down. They moved quickly in a brightly lit dance of talons and spell circles that flared and burst, while behind them, Luz fought off way too many Abomatons, but she was quickly losing ground.

"You can't do this, Mom!" Amity yelled, tears brimming in her eyes, "To the world! To our family!"

"You're the one who– oof– you're the one who abandoned your family, sweetheart!" her mother snapped at her.

"What did you do to Dad!" Amity sobbed, banging her fists again, "Where are Emira and Edric??"

Her mother paused to look at her in befuddlement. "What?"

Eda's fist collided with her face and knocked her flat on her ass.

There was a great moment of triumph before her mother's guardian spirit collided with the Owl Lady and pinned her to the ground. Amity watched in terror as the woman's eyes darkened angrily, like a wild animal. Behind her, Luz was trapped in abomination ooze and held to the ground. 

Her mother stood back up, wiping her front off with her hands. "Now," she said, turning back to Amity. She could practically feel her heart stop. "Where were we, Mittens?"

"Right here!" called a pair of familiar voices as smoke burst forth in front of her and covered the platform. A moment later the bubble burst and she hit the ground with a squeak, fumbling for her staff and scrambling to her feet. The smoke cleared and she found her siblings standing between her and her mother. 

"Emira! Edric!" their mother cried in surprise and alarm. "How did you–"

"Get out of our rooms?" Edric finished for her.

"We knew Mittens would be back," Emira added, raising her chin. "We called in our own backup."

Their mother narrowed her eyes at them before they snapped open and she straightened up, staring at something behind Amity.

She whipped around, just as her mother stammered, "D- Darius?"

Gus returned to their hideout with an armful of sticks and branches that he'd collected, wobbling beneath the weight. When he crested the bend around to the front, he found Hunter standing outside in the light snowfall.

"What are you doing?" he asked as he came to a stop.

"Training." Hunter was holding Flapjack's staff in his one hand and spinning it before he jabbed forward. He looked wobbly, off-balance, and Gus knew from experience that his strike should have had a lot more power behind it. 

Gus opened his mouth to say something, but Hunter moved to swing his weapon and theoretically grab it with his other hand. Not being there, he instead simply flung it away and snapped his head sideways in alarm.

"Flapjack!" he cried. Gus thought his eyes looked just as frightened as they had during his panic attack the previous evening.

Flapjack easily transformed in midair and fluttered back over to him, unperturbed. Hunter's tension did not fade, though, and he still looked terribly stressed and frustrated, hand gripped in a white-knuckled fist at his side.

"Gimme a sec," Gus said, and then jogged past him and inside their hideout. He set the firewood down in the corner and stood up. He glanced over at Lilith, who was staring blankly forward with a haunted look in her eyes. "Whoa. Are you okay?"

Lilith nodded blankly without looking at him.

"...Alright then," he said uncomfortably. He had no idea what to do about that, and just hoped Eda and Luz would get back soon. For now, he moved to his sleeping bag and dug around in his tiny backpack containing the few things that remained in his possession.

He returned back outside to Hunter.

"Hey," he said.

Hunter looked back at him, face full of frustration and anger, before it shifted suddenly into surprise. "Oh. Hey."

Gus held up the blue cloak that Hunter had been wearing while he hid at Hexside. Gus had taken it with him from the grimwalker lab without even realizing it– his hand had been on it when they started running after Flapjack, and he'd simply held it in a clenched fist until he was outside and noticed that he was still carrying it. 

"I've never seen you without a cloak on before," Gus told him, "I figure you're used to wearing one, and maybe it might make you feel better to have one again."

Hunter blinked at him slowly, staring at the cloak before he nodded and stepped forward, holding out his hand. Gus let him take it.

"...Thank you," he said eventually. He pinned the clasp first before pulling it on over his head. It took a bit of wriggling, but Gus refrained from offering to help.

"Better?" Gus asked.

Hunter pulled down the hood and tugged one side so that it fell neatly over his missing arm, letting it vanish from view. Some of the tension drained from his shoulders. "...Yes," he said softly. He looked back up at him. "Really. Thank you."

Gus flashed him a smile. "No problem, man."

Hunter smiled hesitantly for a moment, and Gus swelled with pride at having managed to pull it out of him.

"When all this is over," Gus added, folding his arms behind his back, "You don't have to be homeless anymore."

Hunter winced. "Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah, absolutely," Gus nodded emphatically. "You've got friends now. Whether it's me or Willow or Eda or Viney or even somebody else, we're going to make sure that you have somewhere to stay. And, y'know, somebody to take care of you. You're still a kid like we are."

"I don't think I've been a kid for a long time," Hunter mumbled. He looked away at the view out over the Titan, the rest of the world appearing distant and small from this height.

Gus stepped up beside him. "Or maybe you never got to be. So you should get to make up for lost time now, huh?"

There was a flicker of deep sadness in Hunter's eyes before he swallowed. "Yeah. That would be… nice."

"It totally will be!" Gus puffed. "You can come to Hexside, and make new friends! And play flyer derby with us!" He grinned. "And I will personally show you how to do a bunch of dumb kid stuff. Like selfies and sleepovers and birthday parties!"

"...I don't have a birthday," Hunter frowned.

Gus would describe the feeling that passed through him as 'abject horror' or 'vicarious grief' or perhaps 'mortified anger.' "Seriously? How do you not have a birthday?"

"Belos said my family was killed by wild witches and that I was found in the rubble," Hunter said absently, eyes still toward the Titan, but looking somewhere else. "He said he didn't know when my birthday was, and it was frivolous to make one up. So I just don't have one."

"That's messed up," Gus said venomously, "First thing after we kick Belos's butt? Your first birthday. No, no. That's not enough. Sixteen birthdays. In a row. Half a month of birthdays!" He set his hands on his hips confidently. "You've got friends now, Hunter! And in the hexsquad, friends are ride or die, as Luz would say. We are going to do everything we can to make up for the last sixteen sucky years with the power of aggressive and unrelenting friendship!"

He turned to look at the older boy, smiling proudly, but his face fell in surprise when he realized that Hunter was crying, wiping his eyes with the back of his glove, shoulders trembling. 

"Hey…" Gus said, hands floating in front of him uncertainly. "I'm sorry. Was that too much?"

"N– no, it–" Hunter sniffled. "It– that sounds nice."

Hunter pulled his glove away from his face and Gus couldn't help but puff startled laughter. Hunter squinted his moist eyes at him. Gus pointed at his face, which was now covered in black soot or oil or something.

"You just rubbed dirt all over your face," he chuckled. "You gotta clean your gloves, man."

Hunter let out a shaky, nervous sounding laugh-sob. "Glove," he corrected.

Gus's heart sank. "Yeah. Glove. Sorry."

"No, it's– it's fine," Hunter said, staring down at the back of his hand. It was smeared with black. "Those, uh… birthdays. What do you do at them?"

"Cake, ice cream, games, friends, presents, funny little hats," Gus rattled off, counting on his fingers. "Whatever you wanna do, honestly. It's a party about you, to celebrate living another year! So your friends can all show you how glad they are that you're in their life. It's nice."

Hunter's lips trembled and another tear full of soot-or-oil rolled down his cheek. "Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great. After– after this is over. I can have my first birthday."

"With all your friends!" Gus added.

Hunter hiccuped another sob, unable to stop himself from crying. "With all my friends," he repeated.

Chapter Text

"Now," Darius said, wiping his hands off on a silk handkerchief as he cast a dry look around the platform. Several destroyed abomatons lay in ruins and ooze was everywhere, including restraining his childhood friend. "We have some things to discuss, Odalia."

"Don't give me that crap, Deamonne, you're a coven head, you're getting the same benefits I am," she snapped. 

"No, Mrs. Blight, I am not. Because there is not going to be a 'new world.' I have been working against our dear Emperor's plans for some time now. So I am intimately aware of what you were promised, and rest assured I fully intend to hold you in violation of crimes against the Isles when we've finished here." He tossed the handkerchief aside and let a bit of abomination matter absorb it and moved it elsewhere. 

"Now tell us what you did to Dad!" Amity cried. 

Odalia stared at her. "What? I didn't do anything to Alador."

"But… you must have," Amity said, less confidently. 

"Sweetie, I have no idea what you're talking about," Odalia continued, appearing legitimately confused. "I haven't seen your father since he had the fire flu. He was supposed to be here helping me load merchandise and didn't show up. I assumed he was wasting his time downstairs."

The three Blight children exchanged looks.

"Well… where is he, then?" Edric asked. 

"I have no idea," Emira said, throwing her hands out. "Where would he even go? It's not like he has any friends."

"I think I might have an idea," Darius interjected with a deep sigh. "Leave that to me. For now, I need to get all of you into hiding and out of danger."

"But–!" Luz began to argue.

"Seeing as the rest of your little party is not present, I must assume they're hidden somewhere else, and seeing as very few places are safe right now, they probably aren't well hidden." Darius looked down at the little human. "Speaking of. Have you seen the Golden Guard?"

"Hunter?" Luz blinked at him. He nodded. "Yeah. He's with us. He, uh… he got hurt."

"He has a tendency to do that, yes," Darius mumbled. He summoned his scroll and hit call. "Raine?"

"Raine here," his scroll replied. "What do you need, Darius?"

"I have a gaggle of children– and Edalyn– here at Blight Manor who all need to be picked up and taken back to the safehouse." He glanced over at the Owl Lady, who was spitting out feathers into the ground, and wondered if she really wasn't counted within 'a gaggle of children.' "I have something else I must take care of. Can you escort them?"

"Sure can."

"Lovely. I'll see you soon."

He shut his scroll and scanned the haggard looking group before him. 

"What do we do about her?" Amity asked weakly, pointing at her mother. 

Darius looked down on the woman with disdain. They'd been friends, once, as children. He felt no love for her now. "Leave her. We have more important things to deal with than a bitter, hateful old hag." 

With that, he summoned a translocation circle of abomination matter and vanished.

Hunter fumbled with the Hex Mix packaging, trying to open it one-handed before he gave up and grabbed a corner between his teeth and pulled.

It burst open and sent Hex Mix flying everywhere. 

"Dammit!" he snarled, throwing the packaging to the ground. His eyes started to burn and he couldn't believe something so small and stupid had upset him so much. 

"Whoa, careful there, Destructor!" Willow giggled at him, brushing Hex Mix off of herself. "Do you want some help?"

"I don't need any help," he snapped.

She gave him a less than impressed look. "Everybody needs help."

Almost like he would have bled out and died in the woods if her and Gus hadn't helped him. "Not me."

"Why not?" 

It took him a moment to process the statement before he frowned and looked back up at her. "What?"

"Why not?" she repeated. "Why don't you need help?"

"Because I can take care of myself."

"Well, yeah," she mused, "Asking if you need help doesn't mean I don't think you can do it yourself. It just means you don't have to."

His face twitched. He wasn't completely sure how to respond to that. 

"If I can–" She paused, eyes lighting up before she drew a spell circle and a tiny tree burst through the ground in front of him, one branch extending out toward him. "If I can go out on a limb, here," she giggled, "I get the feeling you're afraid to look weak in front of other people."

He was trying to keep his expression sour, but the joke was a little bit funnier than he could resist puffing some laughter through his nose at. "Nobody likes looking weak in front of other people."

"I do."

He gave her a dubious look.

"Let me explain, okay?" She crossed her legs and picked up a new bag of Hex Mix from nearby. "Not everyone. There's a lot of people I would never feel comfortable being weak in front of. But with my friends? It feels really special to be vulnerable with people who love you, knowing that when they see you weak and frightened they don't think you're any less strong or brave. And they can lend you their strength when yours is failing. In the end, it makes you stronger."

She opened the bag and held it out toward him.

Hunter stared at it for a long moment, absorbing her words before, hesitantly, he reached out and took it. She smiled wide at him, cheeks warm and rosy from the cold. He wasn't used to people being so happy when they looked at him.

They both looked up at the sound of approaching paws and cooing, just before Puddles rounded the corner and barreled toward him. Willow managed to snag the bag of Hex Mix just in time before the griffin hit Hunter like a sack of bricks and bowled him over.

"Puddles!" Viney cried as she jogged after her, "Puddles, he's a patient, remember?!" Puddles did not seem to remember, and had already coiled around him and begun preening his hair with her beak. 

"Are you okay?" Willow prompted. 

Hunter's head was spinning, but he couldn't find any reason not to be delighted by the attention. He grunted ambiguously and let the beast pick through his hair.

"Animals really like you," Willow observed with a lopsided smile as she handed him back the bag. He accepted it and shoved a handful greedily into his mouth.

"Do they?" he mumbled through a mouthful.

"Uh," Viney puffed as she sat down to join him. "Look at yourself."

Hunter raised an eyebrow. He was still sitting in a coil of Puddles, surrounded by comfortable looking Palismen. He looked around at all of them dubiously. "I don't know why."

"Maybe they just think you're cute," Willow offered. 

He rolled his eyes at her.

"He's putting up a grumpy front," Willow pretended to whisper to Viney, "But he's really sweet. Don't tell him I said that."

Hunter pouted, but his chest felt warm. It was the first time in days that he wasn't completely miserable. "Yeah, well," he said. Rubbing his nose self-consciously as he looked away, "I like plants, too."

There was a brief beat of silence where he was worried he'd embarrassed himself, before they both chorused a high pitched "Ooooh!" and he knew he'd embarrassed himself. 

"That was smooth, Hunter," Viney giggled. "I didn't think you had it in you."

He wasn't sure what it was she thought he had in him. He was pretty sure there was just organs in there.

And sludge. And a galdorstone. And stonesleeper lungs. And selkidomus scales. And more sludge.

His face fell and he swallowed thickly, looking away. He was wasting time here. The Day of Unity and his own day of reckoning were on the horizon. Both of them required him to leave the safety of friendship and to go find Belos himself. He had taken his arm with him rather than leave it there to plant later– there had to be a reason. If he'd taken it with him, he probably still had it. It was his only chance. 

"Hunter?" Willow prompted.

"I…" he trailed off. Before he could say anything else, everyone in the room looked up suddenly at the sound of a nearby translocation spell going off.

Hunter was the first on his feet, and Flapjack had already transformed before his hand even reached him. His boots hit the ground for only a step before he teleported forward and through the mouth of the cave, spinning his staff in a wide circle to summon a threatening ring of fire that he held outward, shifting his feet into a combat stance. 

"Identify yourself!" he snarled at the clearing smoke. 

"Hunter?" a familiar voice asked, sounding confused. "I wasn't expecting to find you here. I've come to–" 

He didn't let them finish. He knew who Raine Whispers was. They had only been the head of the Bard's Coven for a little while, but a coven head was a coven head. They were as in league with Belos as the rest of them, and he wasn't going to let them hurt his friends. 

He fired off the spell he'd been holding and watched them yelp in surprise and scramble out of the way, summoning their viola with a whistle. He brought his arm back to swing forward, only for a hand to grab his elbow.

"Hunter, stop!" Lilith cried, grabbing his arm.

He glared at her in outrage. "Let go of me!" 

"Hunter, it–" she began, but his temper didn't have any time for her.

He teleported sideways out of her grip and spun his staff up to knock her over with a concussive blast– but he had the foresight at least to make it a weak one, just enough to put her on her ass but not enough to actually hurt her. 

Before he could turn around again, he heard a long and beautiful note from a viola and sticky red strings of magic swirled around his body and pulled tight, locking his arm to his side. He wriggled desperately, but he was caught. He shut his eyes to teleport again, but before he could, he felt his staff yanked from his grip.

"Flapjack!" he yelled, snapping his eyes open.

It was Willow that had taken him. 

"What?" Hunter said weakly. "What's happening?"

Flapjack transformed and flew up to land on her shoulder with a guilty expression. Hunter looked at him in confusion. 

"Well! It's good to see you're doing well, Hunter," Raine said as they waved their viola away and patted out a bit of smoldering fabric on their shirt. Hunter sagged as the strings released him and caught himself, stumbling. "They brought your staff back to the castle after your little trip into the emperor's mind, so it's good to see you've not lost your access to magic completely."

He flattened his ears. "What?? How do you know about that?"

"Why, it was my spell you interrupted," they said proudly, straightening their back with a smug smile. "Are you surprised?"

Flickers of terrifying memories passed across his eyes before being blotted out by paradoxical outrage. He'd been trying to catch the mole in the high ranks for months. "That was you?!" he burst.

They took a bow.

"Wow, okay, you should not be jumping around like that," Viney puffed as she caught up with them, "But I gotta say, Hunter. That was hella cool."

Hunter frowned, looking around. He watched Lilith push herself to her feet and found himself actually feeling kind of guilty, but he wasn't about to admit that. He turned sharply away back to Willow and then stared down at the ground.

"I apologize," he said tensely. He had been trying to protect them, but he'd made things worse. He hoped they wouldn't get rid of him over it.

"It's okay," she said gently, "It makes sense you were scared."

He frowned and looked back up. "I wasn't scared."

"But you–"

"Listen, kids," Raine interrupted, then paused, "And Lilith. Eda sent me to come and get you and bring you to the rebellion safe house."

"There's a rebellion safe house?!" Viney burst. "Oh, thank Titan!"

"Is there a shower?" Lilith asked. Raine nodded. "Oh, thank Titan."

Hunter fidgeted nervously. He glanced at Willow. "Are you sure we can trust them?" he asked.

Willow gave Raine a long, hard look. Hunter could tell she wasn't accepting this at face value either, and felt deeply relieved that he wasn't the only one. He might be paranoid and his perception warped, but the captain seemed to know what she was doing, and if she said to go, he'd go.

"You went into Belos's mind?" she asked him, without looking away from Raine. He nodded. "Who else knew about that?"

"Luz. Eda. King and Hooty, I guess? And the rebels that were originally trying to cast the spell. I heard about it from rumours, but I didn't have time to put it into a report. I didn't even have backup when I went after them."

"Then they either were a rebel, or Eda or Luz had to tell them about it, right?" Willow asked. That made sense to him. "I think we should go with them."

 He sagged in relief. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was nice to trust people. To let them be strong where you weren't. What a nice idea.

"Alright," he said finally, and held up a hand for Flapjack to land in. His palisman looked just as relieved as he felt before he returned to him happily with a chirp. Hunter set him on his shoulder. 

"Eda sure did bring a lot of stuff with her into hiding, didn't she," Raine hummed as they peered into the cave. "Where did she get a griffin?"

"Oh, that's mine," said Viney.

"Hm."

Hunter adjusted his cloak to make sure it fell correctly to keep hiding his injury. He didn't want to talk about it. Not to this near-stranger. He noticed Willow's eyes follow the gesture, and while Raine's back was still turned, she reached over to pull the opening closed and fix the clasp. It fell much more cleanly than he'd been able to get it without her help.

"Thank you," he mouthed at her, and she smiled back with a wink.

Chapter Text

Darius stepped out of his translocation spell, brushing dust off of his overcoat as he did with a frown. He didn't know why he always had to pick up debris when he did this. It wasn't fair.

He looked up and his frown deepened when he saw that he'd been right.

When he and Alador had been children, they had played in this park many times. It was close to Alador's house, and with his parents being what Darius might politely refer to as 'inattentive' it meant that he wandered off on his own to play there quite often. It was where he had learned to mix with the 'riff-raff' like Darius, to make friends with people who didn't have any money, friends who actually he liked and who liked him just because they liked him and not because one or both of them benefited from the relationship as if it were a business transaction. 

And then one day he had decided he was done with riff-raff. He'd dumped Darius in a text message and simply stopped talking to everyone else. He'd changed his school schedule to avoid him and began wandering around with Odalia hanging off his arm. Once, the three of them had been friends. Odalia might even have been the person Darius would have confessed his hurt about the breakup to.

But then he saw Alador kiss her and he understood. Rich people married rich people. Of course he had always meant to marry a rich person. Darius had just been a fun distraction, until Alador had gotten bored of him.

Now he sat in the same swing he always had when he felt like the world was ending and he wanted to go with it. His feet trailed against the ground and he rocked miserably back and forth, hands on the chains and shoulders hunched.

Darius narrowed his eyes at the display. Once he'd looked at the behaviour with a bone-deep sympathetic sorrow, the boy he loved so moved by his own distress the only place he felt any kind of safety or solace was the one place he had any happy memories at all. A swing set in an old park he hadn't played in since he was a child. 

Now it seemed pathetic. Grow up, Alador. The rest of us had to.

Darius cleared his throat. Alador sat up sharply and turned about. His eyes fell on Darius, widened for a moment, and then filled with so much sadness it almost moved Darius to feel bad for him.

Almost.

Alador turned back around and slumped once more. Darius sighed and approached him, standing beside him between the two swings. 

"Your children are looking for you, Alador," he informed him sharply.

Alador flinched, but remained silent.

"They've been working under the assumption Odalia has done something to you. Amity believes you've been murdered."

Alador, for whatever reason, let out a weak, bitter sounding chuckle.

"...Maybe that's for the best," he mumbled.

Darius rolled his eyes. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Your children need you, so come along."

"They don't need me," Alador dismissed. "They need a real father. They need a real family. They need someone capable of giving them the love they deserve, and that person isn't me."

"Really, Alador?" Darius said in disgust. "I know you don't care about anyone else, but you can't even care about your own children now?" He shook his head. "How did I ever love a man so consumed by selfish apathy? Fine. I will tell your children that you are alive, and that you didn't want to see them."

"Alright," said Alador quietly.

That only made Darius angrier. "Alright? Alright? How is that alright?"

"Actually, if I could ask you one final favour," his oldest friend asked, barely above a whisper.

Darius opened his mouth to ask him why he thought he had the right to ever ask him another favour as long as he lived. He was stopped, however, by the next words.

"Just tell them that I died."

Darius was silent, processing slowly before he furrowed his brow. "Pardon?"

"Please tell my children that I have died," Alador reiterated. "Removing myself from their lives is the last kindness I can do for them."

"Pathetic. You're probably right." Darius moved to leave in disgust.

"Goodbye, Dari," Alador said softly.

Darius hesitated. Something in the way he had just said that did not sit right with him. He turned around. "Alador?"

Alador was silent.

Darius felt something cold prickle up his spine. "Alador. What do you mean 'goodbye?'"

"I mean 'goodbye.'"

"...I'll see you around, Alador," he said carefully.

Alador chuckled weakly. "Probably not."

Darius's stomach dropped through the floor. "You don't mean that."

"You said the same thing when we broke up."

Anger swelled in Darius’s chest. He strode forward to grab the other man by the shoulder and force him to face him. "You can’t keep running away from everything, Alador! You’re a grown man, stop acting like a child and face the world with some digni–"

Alador’s face was streaked with tears, eyes red and puffy. He had not seen him cry since the day after he went on a hunting trip with his father. He froze in alarm and confusion, some leftover loyalty to the boy he'd once cared so much about bubbling up through the decades of resentment.

"...What happened?" he found himself asking.

"I ruined my children’s lives as much as I've ruined mine," he laughed a little manically, pulling his shoulder away. "I left you to save you from my own misery and now I’ve done exactly what my father did. I pushed my daughter into living a life she hated, and now she hates me. And she’s completely right to do so. I’ve made her just as unhappy as I was."

Darius frowned. "You left me to marry Odalia."

"I left you because my parents threatened to disown me and ruin your life if I didn’t marry Odalia," he said, as emotionlessly as he said everything.

A chill went through Darius's entire body at the weight of such a revelation. A tremble briefly washed over his hands. "What?"

Alador was silent, staring at the ground. Darius frowned, brow furrowing, before he hesitantly stepped forward and then sat down in the swing beside him.

"Al," Darius prompted, "What are you talking about?"

Alador huffed a laugh through his nose. "There were a lot of things I didn’t tell you. I was so terrified of my parents that I was afraid to even speak about them. I was sure if I breathed a single word against them they’d find out somehow, and it would get worse."

"What would get worse?"

Alador gave him a weak, bitter smile. "My mother was in the Healing Coven, Dari."

Darius stared at him. The implication behind that was too terrible to dwell on. To put it into words was to make it real, and it couldn’t be real. He didn’t want it to be real. He didn’t want to live in a world where that reality existed and he hadn’t seen it, hadn’t done anything about it.

But he wasn’t a kid anymore. He had to face things he didn’t want to.

"Al," Darius said slowly, "Did they hit you?"

Alador laughed, full chested, and then tilted his head to the side, peering at him with a sort of bemusement that implied he thought that was cute. "Dari. My mother was in the Healing Coven."

Darius took in a sharp breath. "What did they do?"

"Well, they certainly hit me," Alador mused bitterly, "But that was on the good days. When they told me I was marrying Odalia, I actually stood up for myself for once– I know, hard to believe– and said no, I have a boyfriend and I wasn’t going to leave him. My father set my hands on fire."

"He what?!" Darius recoiled in horror. "Al, tell me you’re joking."

Alador offered him a joyless smile and raised an eyebrow. "I’m terrible at jokes."

"Why didn’t you tell me?" Darius asked in an uncharacteristically feeble voice. "Al. I cared about you."

Alador pushed against the ground with one foot, shifting the swing idly. He’d always had trouble sitting still. Darius briefly wondered how absurd it was for two forty year old men to be sitting on a park swing set talking about a time they had dated as teenagers decades ago. "Yeah, I know. You used to love me. I knew even then that you’d have done something. Probably suggested running away, I think, and I would have done it, too, if you’d asked."

"Then why didn’t you?"

Alador waved a hand at him. "C’mon, Darius. You’re a coven head now. I always knew you had it in you. You were brilliant. If we’d run you’d have lost your chance. Titan knows what we even would have done without any money in some faraway place where no one even knew us. You’d have lost your mom. Never graduated. Wouldn’t have gotten that apprenticeship. And then my dad threatened to make sure you didn’t even get into the Abomination Coven. Beating me couldn’t get me to back down, but that did. The second they realized that they could hold you over my head, that was it. Game over. I never said no again."

Darius thought he might be sick. 

"And you know the rest. I got married to a woman I didn’t even like, I was stuck running a business I hated, and our breakup was so nasty and I was so clearly the villain that all our friends sided with you. Checked out and never really checked back in, not even when I had kids. Now I barely even know them. My daughter won’t even hug me, and I can't even blame her. I would never have hugged my father. It feels like everything I’ve ever done was a mistake. My kids hate me, you hate me, my parents hated me." He looked away wistfully into the middle distance and smiled wearily. "I hate me."

Darius, for once, was at a loss for words.

Alador shook his head and looked back down at the ground, face falling. "It would have been better if I’d never been born. If I’d died young. Before my parents realized I would never be what they wanted. Before I met you. Before I married Odalia. Before I had kids. Before I made an army for the emperor. The world is worse for me living in it." He cast his gaze away. "And I’m sure that pattern will continue. It’s better that–"

Darius snapped to his feet, hands clenched into fists as his heart beat in his chest. "Shut up. Don’t you dare finish that thought."

Alador was silent.

"How dare you," Darius said, and realized his hands were shaking. "You don’t get to decide how I feel. How I felt."

"You hate me. You’ve said so a hundred times."

"I hated the Alador that used me before he married a rich woman in his social circle because I wasn’t good enough for him!" He was raising his voice. He shouldn’t be raising his voice. "Not the Alador that left me because his parents threatened him and set his hands on fire!"

"They’re the same Alador," Alador dismissed. "There’s only one Alador. You knew me. If you could believe that I would have used and abandoned you, then it’s because I’d shown you that I was capable of doing so. And if you believed I was capable of it, I must have been. You knew me better than I knew myself."

"You hid half yourself away from me!" Darius exclaimed, scrambling for something, anything that would be enough. "You didn’t tell me any of that! If you had, I never would have stopped trying to help you!"

"I know." Alador rocked lightly on the swing, eyes still on the ground. "I didn’t want that for you." 

"That wasn’t your choice to make!"

"Well, I made it."

Darius stepped forward and grabbed Alador’s coat and dragged him to his feet, but the man stubbornly kept his eyes down, refusing to look at him. "Alador Blight, if you kill yourself, I will never forgive you."

"I already didn’t have your forgiveness," Alador mumbled. "I don’t need your pity, either."

"You idiot," Darius growled, "You stupid, stupid, stupid bastard." He yanked him forward to pull him into a hug, arms tight around his back as if he might never let him go again. "I’ve missed you so much."

Alador trembled hard, before the tension washed out of him and he set his head against the other man’s shoulder. "I’ve missed you, too."

"Come with me. Your children need you."

Alador sighed. "Alright."

Chapter Text

Amity wished she had something to do with her hands. She wished Ghost would get up off of Hunter and come back over so that she could pet her, but he'd gone back to bed once he and the others had arrived at the safehouse shortly after them and every palisman in the room had immediately taken up residence in his bunk if not directly on top of him. She was starting to think it was something she should actually worry about. That and how much he seemed to be sleeping. 

"Mittens!" Edric gasped, "Your shirt!" 

"Huh?" she blinked, looking up as she was stirred from her thoughts. She'd been a little lost since they left the manor, stuck in her own head, especially with Luz still talking to the adults. 

"Oh, wow, yeah, you really did a number on it, didn't you," Emira added as she sidestepped her sister to tilt her head and inspect her back. Amity twisted to see.

"What?" she asked. "What are you looking at?"

"You got a huge hole in it," Emira informed her, "You must have torn it fighting Mom."

Her heart sank and she felt frustrated. "Great. I love this shirt."

"Loved."

"Ugh."

"I've got you, Mittens," Edric asserted, and bent over to shimmy awkwardly out of his shirt. He held it out to her proudly and she regarded it for a moment the way one might a live slug they were being offered, but then a cool breeze passed by and she shivered as it touched her skin. The way it stung she suspected it had torn more than just her shirt.

"Fine," she sighed, accepting it. "Thanks, Eddy."

"Ugh, Titan, you know I hate it when you call me that." 

"I do."

Emira rolled her eyes. "Come on, Ed, let's go find you a new shirt."

"I've got a jacket!"

Emira rolled her eyes and dragged him away toward Eda. Amity sat back down on her bunk and stared at her brother's shirt for a moment, warm in her hands. 

Not too long ago her siblings had been ruthless bullies. They could be nice when they felt like it, sure, but they didn't even really feel like her friends. They made fun of her and called her names and put gum in her hair and stole her diary. She wasn't sure when things had changed exactly. 

No, she did know. It was when Luz had showed up. Luz who had looked at her home life and immediately realized it wasn't normal, wasn't healthy, and who hadn't left her alone since. She could befriend just about anyone, and she'd done more than befriend her.

But even Edric and Emira were affected by it. Not just Luz around being a good influence, but everyone Luz was around became a better person for it, and then everyone they were around did too, and on and on… it almost seemed like the whole Isles had become different since she got here, that people had become so much more determined to be their best selves, to be kind and filled with love and strength, to demand better for and of themselves. 

Could one person really change so much and so many people around them? Could she?

"Check it out, Mittens!" Edric bubbled as he grabbed her from behind in a bear hug and spun her about to face him. She squeaked in surprise and fell back on her bunk as he skipped back and threw his arms wide. "The Owl Lady gave me one of her Bad Girl Coven shirts!" 

She had. Edric was beaming in that and a flashy black leather jacket, sunglasses on his head. Amity stared for a moment before she giggled madly.

"You're not a girl!" she tittered, unable to stop smiling. Her brother looked utterly delighted by his new look, and she was so unused to seeing the twins do anything to differentiate themselves from one another that she couldn't help but be too. Amity thought that their mother had always liked the twins acting that way, like two halves of a whole.

In retrospect, maybe she just liked the aesthetic of it. The showmanship. She shivered minutely at the thought.

"The Owl Lady said 'girlhood is a state of mind' and 'some of the best girls I know are boys,'" he said proudly, popping his collar. "I'm officially a wild witch now."

"Well, you are triple tracking!" Emira bubbled, poking him in the stomach to make him squeal. "Besides, look at us! We're in a rebel hideout and we just beat up our mom! We're totally criminals now. We're all dangerous wild witches."

"Yeah, but I'm the wildest Blight kid. I've got the shirt."

"Edaaaa!" Emira called as she turned to jog away, "I wanna be in the Bad Girl's Coven!"

"Hey!" Edric whined as he ran after her, "Quit copying me!"

Amity smiled. She hadn't realized how much better things could be until they were. Having her siblings be her friends? Being glad to see them happy, and knowing they had her back? That they would fight their mother not once but twice to protect her? They'd gone and gotten a covenhead to rescue her!

She frowned. Speaking of…

"Hey," she said, as the twins returned sporting matching shirts but different jackets, "How on earth did you get Darius Deamonne to come save us?" 

Edric and Emira exchanged bemused glances before turning back to her.

"Don't you know?" asked Edric.

"Know what?"

"Him and Dad used to date in high school," said Emira.

"What!" Amity gasped. it had never occurred to her that her parents might ever have been with anyone else before they got married to each other. It was strange to imagine suddenly. "No, I didn't know that!"

"That's why mom hates him so much," Emira giggled, "She is so jealous."

"I thought they hated each other," Amity said dubiously, "They always get into fights at coven events. It's so embarrassing."

The twins shrugged. "Grown-ups are weird."

Amity had to give them that. Grown-ups were weird.

"Anyway, Dad left his scroll in the basement," Edric went on, "And he still had Darius' private number in it."

Emira whistled suggestively. "We took a gamble that if we told him Mom might've hurt him he'd show up and kick up a Titan's worth of trouble. We were so right."

"That's so weird," Amity mumbled, "Why would he do that?"

She thought back to when she had thought she hated Luz, when she couldn't wait to upstage her or yell at her or hurt her, feelings all mixed up in her gut. Maybe it wasn't that weird after all.

The three of them looked up when they heard the sound of bubbling liquid nearby and a pillar of abomination ooze rose from the ground. When it cleared, it left Darius Deamonne and their father standing together.

"Dad!" she exclaimed and bolted across the room. 

A week ago she'd refused a hug from him and offered a handshake instead. She was proud of herself for setting her boundaries, for standing up to her parents about how she deserved to be treated, but this was different. She was so relieved. Abusive, neglectful, complicit, whatever term she was going to eventually pick in therapy, dead was not one she wanted to apply to, frankly, either of her parents. Not even her mother. 

She hit him like a ton of bricks and squeezed him like she was terrified he would vanish like an illusion if she let go. She didn't even shift when the twins joined her. 

"We were so worried about you!" Emira cried. 

"I was so sure Mom had hurt you," Amity sniffled. 

"You really thought that?" her father asked. He sounded shocked. "I'm sorry I scared you."

"Of course we did!" Emira burst as she pulled back. "Dad– Mom knows about the Day of Unity!" 

"What about the Day of Unity?" he frowned.

Amity pulled away. "It's a trap. The emperor has a spell he's going to cast during it that's going to drain everyone of their magic– Dad, if we don't stop it, everyone will die."

His eyebrows raised and he stiffened in alarm. Amity realized his eyes were red and puffy like he'd been crying. Edric didn't let him go. 

"What? Are you sure?"

Amity nodded frantically.

"Your mother is– that's a lot, even for her."

"She said so herself!" Emira exclaimed, cutting a hand through the air. "He promised her that if she helped him he'd let her live and afterward we'd get to rule the new world– after they murdered almost everyone on the Boiling Isles!"

Their father stared at her with eyes like dinner plates.

Amity wiped her face on her sleeve. Edric's sleeve. "I told you. Mom isn't just strict. She's cruel. She's hateful. You've spent so much time hiding that you– you didn't see it, but Dad, she's– we just fought her and she didn't even hesitate to attack me."

"She attacked you?!"

Amity pulled up Edric's shirt to show her lower back where the hole had been, her skin red and inflamed beneath the roadburn. 

He took in a sharp gasp. "I didn't think she was capable of that."

Amity let her shirt drop. "Why not? She was never afraid to let your machines hit me during demonstrations."

He stiffened.

"Or lock her in her room until she'd do what Mom wanted," Emira added, crossing his arms, "Or scream at us until we cried."

"She's slapped me for talking back," Edric sniffled into his shirt and they all looked down at him in surprise. 

"She what?" Amity burst.

"You didn't tell me that!" said Emira.

"She told me not to," Edric went on. "She said if I told anyone I'd regret it."

"You really didn't know your wife was treating your kids this badly?" Darius prompted, the first thing he'd said since they arrived. 

"No," their father swallowed. "I… I really have let you all down."

"You did," Amity agreed, her heart aching. "You just let her torment us our whole lives."

Her father grimaced and closed his eyes, taking a long, deep breath. He opened them and then began rubbing Edric's back in a soothing gesture. "I know. It's not an excuse, but your mother and I… were never close. I didn't want to marry her, and I've spent a lot of time…" His eyes slid sideways to Darius for a moment and then returned. "Depressed. And I let you all suffer because of it. And I am so sorry."

Amity had never heard her father talk like that before. He almost never talked about himself and she couldn't recall a single time he'd ever talked about how he was feeling. "Did you not want us either?"

He looked startled by the question. "What? You? No, I've always wanted you. Odalia and I might not have been happy, but I was so glad when all of you were born. At least something good came from our marriage."

Something fell off her shoulders she hadn't known was there. Something heavy. 

"I didn't know she'd crossed from strict to abusive," he mumbled. "Listen. You don't have to see her again if you don't want to. I'll make sure of it."

"Can you even promise that?" Emira asked dubiously. "She's got connections."

"So do I," Darius interjected. "After all of this, she's going to prison for collaboration. She's complicit in attempted genocide."

"We really don't have to see her again?" Amity asked hopefully. Darius shook his head. 

"Your father and I will make sure of it," he said confidently. Amity was so overwhelmed with relief she did something she never would have a few months ago.

She surged forward and hugged Darius Deamonne.

He stiffened for a moment in shock and then, hesitantly, awkwardly, patted her on the back.

"Uh," he said, "Yeah. There there."

"Sorry," Amity sniffled, "I'm just– really relieved." She pulled away and tried to regain her composure, wiping her eyes. "I'm just… I'm thinking about after the Day of Unity, if… if we make it through this, how good things could be. All of us being friendlier. Mom not being around."

"I'm going to do everything I can to make it happen," her father said, and she dared against her bitter instincts to believe him, "I promise."

Viney ran her hand over Puddles' head gently as she purred, then looked down at the little sliver of Hunter that she could see beneath her wing and his other guardians. 

This was weird. It was one thing for animals to like someone– animals liked her– but this kind of overwhelming protective instinct? From all of them? 

She drew a spell circle with her finger that glowed orange.

"Puddles," she asked, "What's gotten into you? What's got you so worried about him?"

The griffin opened one eye to peer at her. "Bad thing feeling."

Viney frowned. She could use a spell to translate Puddles' thoughts, but that didn't mean she was suddenly of the same intelligence level as witches and demons. She was an animal with the comprehension of an animal, and sometimes translation wasn't enough.

"What bad thing feeling?" she asked.

Puddles fidgeted nervously. "Dirt-smell, bleeding-hurt and missing."

"He's not bleeding anymore," she reminded her, "I healed it, remember?"

"Hurt-missing," Puddles insisted. Well. He certainly had been hurt and was missing something because of it. "Crumble-melt pieces, wet-filled by bad smell."

She had no idea what that meant.

Puddles seemed frustrated and ruffled her feathers, lashing her tail. "Broken palisman!" She chirped, with surprising urgency.

"Broken palisman?" Viney blinked, straightening up. She counted the palisman on the bed quickly. They were all accounted for, and none of them looked broken to her. "What broken palisman?"

"Broken-broken breaking," Puddles huffed in annoyance, "No fix wet-smell. Melt-crumble broken palisman. Missing missing missing pieces, wet-wet-wet. Broken magic!! Missing missing, palisman sharing."

"Sharing what?" Viney asked.

"Little bit-little bit," Puddles cooed, "Spill magic, refill little bit-little bit. Stop wet-smell. Fill broken."

"I don't understand," Viney groaned, "Refilling what magic? What's broken? What does wet-smell mean??"

Puddles growled and finally laid her head back down, apparently too annoyed by her inability to convey her meaning that she was done with the conversation.

Viney had an overwhelming feeling of dread boiling in her gut. She didn't know what Puddles was trying to tell her, but she knew it was bad.

She glanced back down at where Flapjack was silently preening Hunter's hair, ice rising up her spine.

Chapter Text

Hunter was a light sleeper, had always been. He woke to a commotion and tensed, but when it wasn't followed by yelling or fighting, only laughter and excited, muffled conversation, he decided that he didn't care what it was about. He tugged the blanket up over his head and tried to go back to sleep.

That was until he heard a familiar voice that sent a bolt of ice cold fear through his body and had him throwing off the comforter to leap to his feet, hand in the air. He didn't even have to look to know that Flapjack would transform and land in his palm the second he needed him, without a word. Flapjack had never and would never let him down.

He spun his staff to aim at the abomination coven head standing across the room, dangerously close to one of his friends. He didn't hesitate to fire, and though he knew that Darius would be fast enough to block it, the attack would draw his attention in that direction. He teleported behind him, four feet above the ground to bring his staff up above his head and swing down hard. He wasn't surprised when another splash of abomination ooze stopped his second strike, too. Darius was a powerful witch, one Hunter had seen in action and knew never to underestimate. He'd never fought him before, and he wasn't sure he could beat him, but with his friends here, he was willing to die trying.

He bounced again, this time low, aiming for a leg sweep that his enemy just barely managed to dance backward and out of the way of. Hunter's ears went straight up in alarm, though, when he felt abomination ooze of a slightly different consistency grab his ankle. He'd dealt with abomination witches before, and he knew that every witch’s goo often had differences in their composition that one could detect if they were paying attention. He snapped his head around to find Alador holding a spell circle in his direction. Amity had thought he was dead, but apparently not– of course he was still in league with Belos, after creating an army for him.

Hunter whipped his staff in the other witch's direction and fired again before jumping for a third time, out of the ooze on his ankle and above his second attacker, too preoccupied with stopping the blast in front of him to worry about what was behind him. Hunter's next swing struck the metal pack he was wearing and knocked something out of alignment that made it hiss steam and shriek, abomination ooze bubbling out of it. 

The man stumbled from the force of the strike and fell forward onto his knees. Hunter landed on his feet and raised his staff again to finish him off, when another wave of ooze hit him in the arm and dragged it back, blast firing upward into the ceiling and knocking down debris. He didn't hesitate to teleport out of his restraint and forward a pace to spin around to fire again in the direction of the caster.

Only to find Amity's terrified face looking back at him as yellow light from the approaching blast lit up her eyes. 

"No!" he yelled, but he was powerless to stop it now. 

Another wall of ooze flared up just in time to catch it, and he watched purple goo burn and crackle. Darius had transformed into his abomination form and caught it one-handed.

Hunter took in a sharp gasp, chest heaving and legs shaking as he spun wildly around, looking at all the frightened and confused faces staring at him. No one was moving. Darius wasn't attacking him back. No one was trying to fight him either. It was just Hunter, standing in the center of a room full of eyes, breathing hard and trembling.

"I don't– what's–" he stammered. 

"Hunter!" Willow called and he turned toward her, cape fluttering behind him as he spun. "It's okay! It's okay, please stop!"

Hunter was still panting, ears pinned back and whale-eyed. He looked uncertainly around at the others. Luz had a glyph note in her hand, Gus and Willow both had their staffs ready, Viney was trying to calm down Puddles, and–

And Amity was kneeling next to her father, eyes full of worry. 

"Dad!" she cried. "Are you okay? Tell me you're okay."

"I'm fine, Mittens," he grunted, but it didn't sound like he was being completely honest. 

"I don't understand," Hunter said weakly. 

"Darius is one of us," Raine said, and Hunter spun his head toward them. "He's been with me and Eberwolf and the rebellion since the beginning. He just brought Alador back."

"Eberwolf?" Hunter mumbled.

"Yes, Eberwolf," Raine said gently, "He's on guard duty right now."

"You're okay, kid, you don't need to fight anybody yet," Eda added. 

"Just put the staff down, man," said Gus.

Hunter frowned and looked down at where he was still clutching Flapjack in a white-knuckled fist, glowing threateningly. 

He dropped it as if it had burned him before immediately regretting it. "Flapjack!"

The little bird transformed before it even hit the ground and fluttered up to land on his shoulder, rubbing soothingly against his scarred cheek.

"I'm– I'm sorry," he choked out. It felt like the floor was spinning and the world was getting smaller, walls pulsating like blood vessels. 

"You should be sorry!" Darius snapped as he reverted to his regular form, dusting himself off. Hunter noticed that his hand was burned. "What in the boiling seas has come over you?!"

Hunter took another step back as he approached, fear rising to a panic in his chest at the same rate that the coven head's volume was. 

"Darius, wait!" cried Lilith distantly, but he either didn't hear her or didn't care, because he reached out for him and Hunter ducked his head and covered it with his arms, shaking uncontrollably. 

Nothing happened. Hunter breathed heavily for a few seconds, eyes scrunched shut and waiting for the hit that didn't come. Slowly, he raised his head to peek out. 

Darius had frozen solid, hand still wavering in the air but expression horrified.

"What… what happened?" he asked.

Hunter stared at him, blinking in confusion. "Uh… I attacked you?" he answered uncertainly. 

"To your arm!" he exclaimed. Hunter flinched again.

"Don't yell at him!" Willow yelled as Luz and Gus both darted in front of him protectively.

"You're scaring him!" Luz snapped defiantly. 

"Scaring him?" Darius balked, "He attacked me!" 

"And I'm sure he's sorry!" Gus replied. "But he's done now! So back off!" 

Hunter only glanced briefly at what remained of his arm before he felt nauseous and grabbed at his cloak to pull it back down and fall safely over it again. He breathed a sigh of relief. 

"Fine," said Darius, looking somewhat ruffled. "Fine, fine. I'm backing off." He raised his hands palms-out in a show of surrender.

"He really has been through a lot, Dar-dar," Eda added, sliding a glyph note back into her hair. "Belos did that to him."

Darius straightened up, looking stricken. "What?"

Willow strode around the coven head and Luz and Gus let her pass between them. "Hunter, how do you feel? Do you want to go sit down?"

"I– I want–" he stammered. His heart was in his throat, but it was finally starting to slow down, the room beginning to rock more slowly. 

Darius's face shifted from anger to alarm and then to genuine concern as he stepped forward to peer at him over the tiny wall of furious children. "Little prince," he asked, "What did he do to you?"

The calm that he had been starting to re-attain was washed completely out of him the second that stupid nickname left his mouth. Hunter felt every hair on his body stand on end and his heartbeat skyrocket. He jerked forward and through his friends to shove the coven head as hard as he could, knocking him back on his ass.

"Don't call me that!" he shrieked as the room warbled red-black. "Stop calling me that! I'm not a prince! He's not even my uncle!"

"What?" asked Raine.

"He doesn't care about me at all!" Hunter continued unabated. "He never did! He took every excuse he could find to hurt me and punish me. We aren't family- he killed anyone I could ever have called family! He's made my life miserable for as long as I can remember and I'm not a prince to his stupid stupid fucking throne!"

Darius had no response, staring at him in complete shock from the ground. 

"Hunter," Luz prompted behind him, but he wasn't done.

"He knew he was going to kill me from the day I was born!" he yelled. "He tried to kill me– no, he did kill me, and it's not even the first time he's done it! He's spent my entire life manipulating me and hurting me and making me hurt other people and you– you didn't do anything!"

He could feel the air being sucked out of the room as the adults all went stone-still.

"None of you did!" He spun around wildly, pointing at Lilith and Darius and an approaching Eberwolf and even at Raine. "You all saw me and you didn't do anything! Why did you let him do that to me?! You saw, you knew! I was a kid and I came back from that throne room bleeding and you just looked at me!" He was breathing hard again, so hard he was starting to feel light-headed. "Why didn't you help me?!"

"It– it was more complicated than that, little– Hunter," Darius responded, voice uncharacteristically faltering. "The rebellion–"

"Screw the rebellion!" Hunter yelled. "You've known me for years!" He pointed at Lilith. "You have known me my entire life! I've been so miserable and so lonely since the day I was born because you all hated me and you made sure that I knew it- even if you couldn't help me, even if you knew that Belos would kill you if you tried, why couldn't any of you at least just be nice to me!"  

"That isn't fair, I–" Darius started.

"Stop, Darius," Lilith said, her voice firm like it had been years ago. "It's more than fair. Leave him be." 

Hunter's chest kept heaving, and he crossed his one good arm over it. His anger was beginning to be overwhelmed by grief and despair and misery again and he shrunk back, averting his gaze and sniffling. 

"Are you done?" Willow whispered beside him. He nodded. "Do you want to go somewhere quiet?" He nodded again.

She moved slowly to touch him, making sure that he was watching her do it, so when she put her arm around his shoulders he was ready for it. She walked him away, Luz and Gus following behind at a tight heel like a pair of bodyguards, glaring back at the adults with a look that could spoil milk.

He'd spent his entire life as a punching bag, and the only thing he could do was punch back. He'd been feared by those below him and hated by those above him. He'd never had friends to hold him and protect him and worry if he was healthy or happy. He'd never been led away to someplace safe and soft by gentle hands and quiet promises that he was okay.

Hunter had never been loved before.

He'd never felt so wanted and so cared about in his entire wretched life, and he was glad that he'd survived that awful place if it only meant that he got to feel this way, even just one time.

They took him back to the farthest and most secluded bunk, and Luz vanished for a moment before returning with his things from the one he'd been sleeping in prior. Willow dragged an extra blanket over from another bed for him to wrap himself in and shake miserably. In the distance he watched Viney heal Darius's hand, before pointing at him and saying something angrily that he couldn't hear. She immediately crossed the room with her griffin, and Puddles huffed angrily at the end of the bunk before she crawled on top of it and curled around his body protectively, laying her head in his lap.

Hesitantly, he stroked her feathers with his one hand, smoothing them down, and felt the gentle thrum of her purring rumble against his ribcage. It was soothing, and he began to feel himself come down, the spinning in the room draining away like passing rain.

"I'm sorry," Hunter mumbled, "I overreacted. I'm so sorry."

"Forget it," Luz dismissed immediately. "You got scared."

"That's not an excuse." Hunter took in a deep, steadying breath. "I could have hurt someone."

"Screw him," Gus huffed, "He's a coven head. He can take care of himself."

"I'm a coven head," Hunter reminded him bitterly.

"Not since you left the coven," Willow reminded him. He gave her a sour look.

"He's fine," Viney shook her head. "He got a little tiny burn on one hand that even I could fix. He can handle it."

"Amity's dad–" he started.

"Is also fine," Viney interrupted. "He's just got creaky old bones. All you hurt was his pride. And maybe his backpack."

"...Amity," Hunter breathed, not daring to say it above a whisper. "I almost hurt her."

They all cast each other worried looks and grimaces. 

"Not on purpose," Willow fielded. "She knows that."

"Does she? I've tried to hurt her on purpose before."

"She knows that," Luz said softly. "Even if she's upset, she knows what a panic attack looks like. I'll talk to her first and make sure she's okay."

Hunter sniffled and tightened his one-handed grip on his blanket. "Tell her I'm sorry."

"Of course I will," Luz began, but then Hunter noticed Amity leave her father and approach them. All the colour drained from his face and Luz must have noticed because she turned to see what he was looking at. They were all silent as Amity sat down on the edge of the bunk.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

Hunter nodded mutely. 

"Are you okay?" Luz asked.

"I'm fine," Amity dismissed. 

"I'm so sorry," Hunter said hoarsely. "I saw him and you were– you were standing right next to him and I just– I didn't even stop to think. I'm sorry."

Amity blinked. "Because he was standing next to me?"

Hunter nodded mutely. He felt like he was doing that a lot lately.

"You are–" Hunter stopped. "My… friend's friend. Friends with my friends."

"Are we not friends?"

Hunter tugged the blanket around his shoulders and looked down. 

"Hey," she prompted, and he winced, finally looking back up at her. "Consider us even. You almost shot me, I turned you over to Adrian."

His stomach churned. 

"I want to be friends," Amity added. "I think we're friends."

"We're all friends!" Luz burst, throwing her hands in the air.

"You might have been wrong, but you were still trying to protect us," said Gus. "You woke up and saw what you thought was a coven head attacking and your first instinct was to fight him instead of run away? I think that's pretty cool."

"If he had been attacking us, you could have totally saved our butts!" Willow added. "I mean, you were cool as the Titan, Hunter! You just zipped in and around blasting, I was like, in awe!"

"It was pretty sick," Amity admitted, "You were really holding back at Eclipse Lake."

"I wasn't holding back," he said with a bitter smile, "That was the first time I'd ever used a palisman staff. Also, I hiked like fifteen miles that day on an empty stomach."

"Still. You have to teach me how to teleport," she grinned, "It's such a cool move."

"Me too!" Luz gushed. "I so want to do that!"

"Me three!" added Willow.

"I think we all want to learn how to do that," Gus laughed.

Hunter's lips twitched. "Yeah. Okay. Maybe."

"There we go," Gus grinned.

"Feeling better?" Willow asked.

"A little bit," Hunter admitted.

"Okay," Willow said cautiously, exchanging a look with Luz, "Now can we…?"

"Yeah," Luz replied. "Hunter…" she began carefully. He looked up at her. "Do you know why… You're crying something black? From your eyes?"

Fear shot through him again and he sat up straight. "Huh?" He pulled his hand away from Puddle's feathers and brought it to his face. It came away black and sticky. His stomach sank. "Uh…" he swallowed.

"Can I take a look?" Viney asked. 

"N– no, it's–" he stammered, trying to think quickly, but it felt like his brain was as sludgey as his tears. He looked desperately up at Luz. "It's a… you know."

She straightened up. "Oh, Hunter. I'm so sorry. I told them."

His ears flattened and he shrunk back. "What?"

"We don't care that you're a grimwalker!" Willow dismissed immediately. "You're our friend first."

"Luz is human, and that's weird too!" Gus added. "So who cares?"

"Oh," he said in a small voice.

He'd been terrified of anyone knowing, certain that they would hate and despise him when they realized that he was a monster that someone had made specifically to hurt people. He'd been so sure that they'd never trust him again, that they'd want nothing more to do with him, that they would realize saving him had been a mistake. He'd been terrified to tell them that he was going to fall apart and why he was going to fall apart, because he was so afraid that once they knew– once they understood– they'd be relieved.

"See? Nobody cares," said Luz. "Real friends don't care about stuff like that. And we're your real friends."

"Y– yeah…" He swallowed around the lump in his throat. "Thank you."

"So… you think it's related to that?" Viney prompted. "Has it ever happened before?"

Mutely, he shook his head.

"That's really concerning, then," she grimaced. "Any idea why it's happening?"

He looked away, feeling guilty. They'd been so kind to him. Could he really lie to them?

Could he really tell them the truth, though? That they were investing all this time and effort into someone that wasn't going to last the week? The Day of Unity was coming. They couldn't afford to worry about him when there wasn't even a plan to stop it. He was just one life against thousands of others. There was nothing they could do about it. Caleb died four hundred years ago, and Belos had said point blank that he needed the bone back because he didn't have any more. Even if something could be done, there was no way it could be done in time.

And selfishly, he didn’t want to spend whatever time he had left being pitied. He just wanted to be normal, and he wanted to be loved, even for just a little while.

He shrugged uncomfortably. 

"Does it hurt?" Willow asked.

He shook his head.

"You don't feel sick or anything?" Viney prompted.

His stomach churned and twisted, and not just from all the conflicting emotions and stress. He shook his head again.

His friends all looked at each other dubiously. 

"We'll figure it out," Luz said, throwing on her trademark confidence, "You just worry about you for now, okay Hunter?"

He nodded mutely, and tried not to throw up when they all smiled at him.

Chapter Text

"What did he mean by 'he's not my uncle?'" Raine whispered, casting a nervous glance back toward the kids. Even King and the twins had retreated to the other side of the safehouse by now, splitting them all down the center in a way they found concerning. They didn't need to be fighting amongst themselves with so little time left.

"I have no idea," Darius balked. "Belos was always vague about his direct family that he lost– I suspected whoever Hunter's parents were, one was not actually a sibling of his, but perhaps something a bit more distant. A cousin, perhaps?"

"I don't know if 'he's not even my uncle, he's my uncle once removed!' justifies that outburst, Dar-dar," Eda replied dubiously. 

"No, I don't think so either," he murmured. Raine could tell he was really upset when he didn't snap at her about the nickname.

"I don't believe they're related at all," Lilith said finally. Several pairs of eyes turned to look at her.

"Excuse me?" Darius prompted. 

"I've known Belos longer than any of you," she sighed. "I've done extensive historical research on restricted materials in the castle. I've never found any evidence that the emperor has any blood relatives."

There was a rush of icy silence. 

"That doesn't make sense," Raine said first. "What about his parents?"

"I don't know," Lilith admitted. "He's been emperor for half a century, but I've found evidence that he's much older than that. Much older than he claims to be. But I've no idea where he comes from. He just appeared one day."

"That's… very strange," Alador said, when no one else spoke. "And very suspicious."

"So, what is Blondie, then?" Eda prompted. "If he's not his nephew, who is he? Why did Belos take him on as a ward?" 

"I have no idea," Lilith replied. "I've always wondered that myself."

"He's not exactly known– well, he's not known within his inner circles, at least– for his generosity or his affectionate nature," Raine grimaced. 

"He's beaten that boy nearly to death more than once," Lilith murmured quietly, her eyes drifting toward him across the room. "Paternal instinct was definitely not his driving motivation."

"So he was right, then?" Raine asked. "You did know?"

Lilith swallowed, her eyes still cast away toward the topic of conversation. "Yes. I did."

Eberwolf growled.

"Lily," Eda balked, horrified, "You knew he was beating his kid and you just let him?"

"If we'd tried to intervene, he'd have killed us," Darius interrupted.

"That's not an excuse, Darius," Alador snapped.

"Oh, that's rich coming from you."

"It's because I failed my kids that I can say that you did, too!"

"He's not my kid!"

"I can't wrap my head around it," Lilith said, as if they hadn't spoken at all. "I see it now. It's as plain as day. How could I look away? How could I have been so unkind to him? But then, when I was there, it made so much sense. Belos is a manipulator. I think he pitted us against him, encouraged us all to hate him so that he would never seek out anything from anyone else. No one would ever help him. No one would ever suggest to him that he wasn't being treated well."

"So it's not your fault because Belos manipulated you?" Alador asked, unimpressed.

"No," Lilith shook her head. "My actions and choices are my own. Understanding why I made them does not excuse that I made them. We all have to take responsibility for our failures."

"...Yes," Darius said eventually. "We do."

"Away from the Emperor's Coven I've come to realize quite a bit about the person I used to be," Lilith said, turning back to the circle. "He is not the only person whom I have wronged." Her eyes moved toward her sister. "We cannot change the past, but we can still change the future. Belos is a monster, and he must be stopped. When we have accomplished that, we must all face our responsibility to that boy. He needs a home."

There was a chorus of silent nods of agreement.

"...What do you think he meant by," Darius fielded hesitantly, "'He killed me and it's not the first time?'"

They exchanged thoughtful and concerned looks. 

"...Maybe he meant it metaphorically?" Eda suggested. "You know. 'He killed who I used to be slash might have been?'"

"Maybe," Darius mumbled. 

"The coven sigil?" Lilith suggested. "He has one. Belos had always meant to kill him on the day of unity. Perhaps he's referring to that?"

"Well," Alador replied dubiously, "He doesn't have a coven sigil anymore."

There was an uncomfortable silence.

"Will that do anything?" Eda asked finally. "D'ya think it's that simple? Cut your arm off and get Day of Unity Immunity?"

"I doubt it," Raine frowned. "Losing the limb your sigil is on doesn't suddenly give you access to all types of magic again."

"I thought that was because all that other magic actually got removed when you got branded. That seems different from the spell going off and hitting anyone that has a sigil. He doesn't have a sigil. Is he still marked?"

They all exchanged uncertain looks.

"We have to hope we don't find out," said Darius eventually. 

"We're going to find out, Dar-Dar," Eda narrowed her eyes at him, popping off one of her arms and wiggling her fingers at him. "Even if my curse works at corrupting the spell, the spell is still going off."

Darius groaned. "Sickening that the old man resigned that boy to die a decade ago."

"If we don't stop this, he's going to be the youngest casualty of the draining spell," Alador scowled.

"That's incredibly morbid, Al," Darius said, giving him an unimpressed sidelong look. Alador shrugged. 

"We'll have time to deal with Blondie after the Day of Unity," Eda said finally. "For now, stopping that has to be our focus. The best way to save him is to save everyone else, too. Once that's dealt with, we can deal with everything else."

The circle all nodded gravely.

Luz leaned into her girlfriend's side, oozing with relief to know she was here, she was safe. The last few days had been such a rollercoaster of emotion and she felt like she'd been running on nonstop adrenaline the whole time. It was such a relief to finally relax.  

Well, until Hunter leapt out of bed and started attacking people, but that hadn't lasted very long, at least, and for once, he hadn't fought anyone who was trying to help him. It had been nice to see him accept a few kind words and some hugs. Maybe she'd been wrong. He'd been through a lot and hadn't let it destroy him. Maybe he would be okay, eventually.

"Things are getting so crazy," Amity murmured, brushing a bit of hair from Luz's face. "It's all been so much and so fast."

"I know," Luz sighed. "I feel like I've run a marathon. Ten marathons. I want to sleep for a week, but we're not even done yet. Tomorrow… tomorrow is the Day of Unity, and I still don't know what the plan is." She paused. "I'm scared, Amity."

Amity squeezed her hand. "Me, too."

"Everyone," Luz warbled, "Everyone is relying on us and we don't know what to do. We're barely holding it together as it is. Gus is on the brink of an anxiety attack, Viney is exhausted, the adults won't tell us anything and– and Hunter is missing an arm and crying black goo and I have no idea what's going on with him." She threw her hands in the air. "Why can't I just figure out what to do!"

"You're just one person," Amity reminded her. "You can't carry the weight of the world on your shoulders by yourself. Nobody can."

Luz sighed miserably. "I know."

"You know what we need?" Amity asked suddenly. Luz looked at her expectantly. "We all need a good meal. We're tired, we're hungry, we're yelling at each other– we all need to sit down and eat something."

Luz brightened. "You're a genius! That will definitely help raise everyone's spirits, and that'll help everything else!"

She hopped to her feet and jogged over to where the bards were playing.

"Raine!" she burst. "Is there any food here? We should all sit down and eat something. Together! Everyone is so stressed out and me and Amity think it will help."

Raine's face split apart in a smile. "That's a great idea. We have plenty of food stocked away, but– your friend is a fantastic plant witch, isn't she? Some fresh ingredients could really make something great."

"Yes!" Luz cheered. She jogged away. "Willow! Willow, we need your help!"

Willow ended up making a variety of rich vegetables and Eberwolf produced a fresh juvenile roc carcass from somewhere to add to a cauldron that they found amongst Eda's things. Darius revealed a surprising aptitude for cooking that no one but Alador seemed to know he possessed, and Raine worked their magic adjusting the flavour of the broth to something amazing. By the time they'd finished, they had a stew that smelled like heaven, and a roomful of watering mouths.

While Eda and King dug bowls out of their boxes, Luz turned away to jog back over to where she'd left Hunter, quietly petting Puddles surrounded by even more palismen than he had been in the cave. He looked up at her in surprise when she approached and she wondered if he actually knew they'd been cooking at all.

"Hey, Hunter! Do you want to eat something?" she bubbled.

He blinked slowly before the glassiness passed from his eyes and he sat up. "Oh… right. Yes. Food."

She hesitated. "Do you want to eat over here by yourself? I can bring you a bowl if you want."

He looked away in thought and then shook his head. "I want to eat with my friends."

Her heart swelled and she bounced on her feet. He'd called them friends. He wanted to eat with his friends. "Yes! Okay, c'mon!" She offered him a hand up.

He gave Puddles a pat on her head and she sat up. He accepted Luz's hand and stumbled to his feet, wobbling like he hadn't stood up for awhile. He smiled weakly and followed her over to the big table they'd made by pushing together several smaller tables. Luz stepped up as Gus ladeled himself a bowl and skipped out of the way to sit down. Hunter picked up a bowl and frowned down at the cauldron, ears flattening. Luz filled her own and went to find a seat when Hunter cleared his throat and she stopped.

"Hey, uh…" he said uncomfortably, holding a bowl in his one hand. "Can you give me a– can you help me with this?"

Luz straightened up in surprise. "Yeah! Totally! One second." She set her bowl down on the table and jogged back over to grab the ladel from the cauldron. He looked massively relieved. "Lemme grab you a spoon."

He kept his eyes averted but smiled weakly. "Thanks."

Luz thought she might start singing. The bad but sad boy himself was asking for help! He was saying thank you! Where was Hunter and who was this guy!

"Hunter! Come sit over here!" Viney called, waving as Willow and Gus patted a seat between them encouragingly. His ears swiveled up and he took his dinner over to sit with them.

Luz sat between Amity and Eda opposite them, and when she blew on the spoon and took her first bite she couldn't help but curl her toes and pap her feet against the ground in delight. 

"This is delicious!" she burst happily. "You guys did amazing!"

"As if there were ever any doubt," Darius puffed, but she thought he looked pleased anyway. 

"Hey, it's Rainstorm you should be thanking," Eda chuckled, "They cast the make-it-taste-good spell."

Eberwolf whined in protest.

"Everyone did a good job," Willow said decisively. 

"I dunno, these cabbageshrooms are pretty great," said Hunter. Viney ooohed at him again and patted the table. He rolled his eyes. 

"What are we ooohing at?" Emira asked. "Does someone have a crush?"

"What? Who?" asked Hunter. Everyone laughed.

Luz couldn't stop smiling. Amity had been right, food was exactly what they'd all needed. Everyone was in much better spirits already. The food itself was good, but working together had been good, too. It was nice seeing everyone smiling for a moment. 

Then Hunter's eyes widened, his body went rigid, and he doubled over to puke black and dark green sludge all over himself. 

Everyone around him leapt to their feet and skittered backward in alarm before he swayed dangerously and Willow scrambled back to catch him before he could fall over. 

"Oh my god!" Luz cried in horror. It felt like all the joy had been sucked out of the room along with the air. Everyone was talking suddenly and the words were mixing together in a sludge not unlike the sludge that was now all over the table and the bench and the floor.

"Hunter! Hunter, man, can you hear me?" Gus cried, waving a hand in front of his face. Hunter's eyes followed it in a confused daze, still boneless in Willow's strong arms. She pulled him free of the bench and set him down on the floor to lean back against her. Viney flat-out scrambled over the table and onto the other side to drop to her feet and draw a spell circle over him. 

Suddenly his eyes refocused and he snapped an arm up to grab her wrist before she could finish it.

"N– no," he croaked. Viney winced in pain and he took a sharp breath, snatching his hand away as he let her go. "Titan– I'm sorry, Viney, I'm so sorry."

"It's okay, you didn't hurt me." She started to draw a spell circle again and this time he waved his hand frantically in front of himself instead of grabbing her.

"Stop– don't, don't," he pleaded. She stopped, looking confused.

"What?" she asked. "Why not?"

"It– I don't– just please, don't," he said pitifully. Viney balked at him in confusion. 

"Hunter!" Gus exclaimed. "Look at you, man!" 

"I'm just a little sick!" Hunter insisted. "I'll clean it up! Don't worry about me, I– I can take care of it."

"Are you kidding?" Willow balked.

"I'll clean it up!" Hunter repeated, wriggling in her grasp as he tried to sit up, reaching forward as if to wipe away the bile with his own hand.

"Hunter!" Luz yelled. He flinched and she knew she should lower her voice, but couldn't force herself to. "You have to stop! Look at you! Something is wrong!"

"Is he okay?" King asked weakly, shrinking into himself where he sat on the table. 

"Hey, uh, how about we go over here for a second, kiddo," said Eda, glancing at Luz as she picked up King in her arms. 

"This stuff reeks," Emira commented, frowning at the black fluid coating the table. "What is this?"

"I'll clean it up!" Hunter repeated uselessly. 

"Hunter!" Darius interrupted, striding past the other witches present to kneel down beside his once and former coworker. His silk capelet dragged through bile and his knees smeared streaks against the ground, but if he noticed, he didn't acknowledge it. "You will not be cleaning it. That is for someone else to do. You need to calm down and allow yourself to be helped."

"I don't need help," Hunter warbled. "I'm okay."

Darius took his chin in his hand, black liquid staining his glove, and turned his face toward him. "Be still, child. Not an hour ago you yelled at us for not helping you when you needed us to. You clearly need our help now. It would be hypocritical not to accept it."

Luz watched Hunter's face shift and change through a variety of emotions, before he finally sagged and nodded weakly. 

"Can I soothe your stomach, at least?" Viney asked.

Hunter drew his legs in and sat up, looking guilty. He looked down at his hand, dripping with bile. He turned his eyes away and nodded.

She drew a new spell circle and the tension in his shoulders drained away. 

"Can you fix this?" Darius asked Viney.

"I don't know," she admitted, "I don't know what's wrong with him."

"Can you figure it out?"

"Maybe?" 

"I can help," Emira offered, "We have, uh…" She looked at the table. "We have a material sample to study."

"I still don't feel well," Hunter said in a small voice. "I want to go back to bed."

"Are you going to throw up again?" Willow asked him.

"He shouldn't," Viney replied, before stopping. "Unless his anatomy…"

"What anatomy?" Darius interjected. 

"None of your business!" Luz burst before she could stop herself. He turned to raise an eyebrow at her and she clapped her hands over her mouth.

"Come on, Hunter, let's go get you some new clothes," Willow said, throwing his good arm over her shoulder to haul him to his unsteady feet.

"And maybe a shower?" Gus said dubiously, looking around the room.

"Ah, hang on," Darius said, turning back toward him. He drew a spell circle and Hunter yelped as a thin layer of abomination matter slid up his leg and over his clothes in one quick, fluid motion, taking the dark bile along with it and leaving him clean.

"That's weird," Hunter mumbled vaguely, "Why can you do that?"

"That's a silly question to ask," Darius scoffed. "Go lie down. For now."

"But– the Day of Unity–"

"Will be handled by the rest of us," Darius said firmly. "You are not well, Hunter. You dying because you've pushed yourself too hard doesn't help anyone."

Hunter mumbled something that may have been a vague affirmative and let Willow and Gus escort him back to his bunk. 

The rest of those that remained at the table were uncomfortably quiet.

"Well," Eda said eventually, "Ain't that great for your appetite?"

Darius turned to glare at her.

Chapter Text

Emira frowned at the black liquid coating the floor. It was starting to become tacky, but the vile smell hadn't changed. If anything it had only become worse.

"I've never seen anything like this," she murmured, rubbing it between her thumb and forefinger.

"Eugh, I can't believe you're touching it with your hands," Edric grimaced. 

"This is why you're not in healing track," Viney commented, "You don't have the stomach for it."

"I really really don't."

"I thought it might be digested blood," Viney sighed, "It turns black and smells awful. This seems really similar, but the texture is all wrong, and I don't know where the green is coming from."

Emira sniffed it again, closing her eyes in thought. Vile as it may be, her Intro to Healing Magic class had crash-coursed her through far worse. 

"It smells like decomposition," she noted, "And a little like… pine?" 

"Pine?" Viney frowned. She ran a finger through it to sniff it herself while Edric mimed gagging. "Hm… I don't think it's pine. It's definitely a tree, though." Her eyes widened. "Oh no. I know what it is."

"What is it?" asked Emira.

"It's palistrom wood," Viney gasped.

"Why would it be palistrom wood?" Emira balked. 

Viney opened her mouth and then shut it, glancing around until she was satisfied no one was within earshot– not difficult, since everyone had immediately gotten as far away from the stench as possible. "This is kind of a secret," she said finally.

"We can keep secrets," Edric replied. Viney narrowed her eyes at him. "We can!"

"If it's a secret, are you sure you should be telling us?" Emira asked. "Is it Hunter's secret?"

"Yes," Viney said uneasily, "But I don't know what's wrong with him. I need your help. None of the adults know any healing magic, and– I'm the most experienced healer here and I don't know if I can handle this."

"That's a lot of pressure," Emira said gently.

"Promise not to tell, okay?" Viney prompted. The twins nodded. "Hunter is a Grimwalker."

"Hunter is a what?" Emira burst.

"Hunter is a what?" Edric squinted.

"They're such old magic most people consider them a myth," Viney explained. "No one has seen a Grimwalker in centuries. We don't even know how they're made anymore."

"Made?" Edric repeated.

"They're like clones," Emira interjected. "It's sort of like an advanced palisman. You use the spell components and a piece of bone from the person you want to copy to grow them. Like a plant."

"I know they're made at least partially of palistrom wood," Viney added, "And most texts are pretty confident that one of the ingredients is a galdorstone, but it's not really known what else."

"So he's like…" Edric fumbled for words. "Is he not a person then?"

"Ed!" Emira gasped, punching him in the shoulder.

"What!"

"He's still a person," Viney dismissed sharply. "That's something we definitely know about Grimwalkers. They might be different physically, but a Grimwalker could theoretically go their whole life without even knowing they were one. We did a unit on them at school and I remember a sort of fairytale where a man took care of his aging mother until on her deathbed she confessed that she'd had a miscarriage half a century ago and he was the Grimwalker she made from the remains."

"That's so sad, though," Edric said, ears flattening.

"Most Grimwalker tales are sad," Viney admitted. "They're clones of dead people. People who clone dead people are usually not happy."

"...Do they have to be dead?" Emira wondered out loud.

Viney flicked her ears. "You need a bone."

"Well, yeah, but you don't have to die to get a bone," Emira huffed. "And you could even theoretically grow it back if you had the magic for it. You could just cut off a finger or something."

Viney narrowed her eyes and looked away in thought. "I have no idea."

"We're getting off topic," Edric interjected. "So Hunter is a Grimwalker. What does that mean with regards to–" He gestured broadly toward the bile, "–this?"

"That's why the scent of palistrom wood worries me," Viney replied. "Grimwalkers are animated. The same way palismen are. And palismen don't smell like palistrom wood, not unless they're broken."

Both twins eyes widened.

"Not unless they're broken," Emira repeated under her breath. "Could he be broken?"

"Maybe? But if so I don't know how–" She groaned in frustration. "When I treated his arm it was bleeding. That's animation. Have you ever seen a broken palisman before?"

"Oh," said Edric, ears lifting, "Yeah. In my beast keeping textbook."

Viney nodded. "Palismen don't bleed. They crack. And they glow when they break! As far as I can tell, Hunter isn't doing any cracking or glowing. And he was bleeding. So he might be palisman adjacent, but he is not a palisman."

Emira tapped her chin with her clean hand in thought. "Ed, can you make a deconstruction potion?" 

Edric blinked. "To break something down into its material components? That's the first one we learn in potions track. Do you think that will tell us something?" 

"Well, we don't have much else to go on," Viney admitted. 

"Okay," Edric agreed, standing up. "I'll dig around in the Owl Lady's stuff and see if I can't find everything I need. It'll take a few hours to brew, though."

"That's the best we can do for now, then," Viney sighed. "Once we know exactly what all this is, maybe we can find something that will let us help Hunter."

"I hope so," Emira nodded. "From what Mittens has told us, he's been through a lot."

"Yeah," Viney agreed sadly.

"My first patient," Emira said wryly, "And he's a Grimwalker."

"Life's weird like that sometimes, huh?" Viney laughed wearily. The twins joined her in a joyless chuckle before they all went silent.

"I'll go get a cauldron," Edric said finally, and the three of them nodded, leaving the mess behind for later.

Hunter lay quietly in his bed, far from the others in his distant corner. Despite the dim lights he could still see everyone else awake and speaking in hushed voices to one another. He wondered how many of them knew there was no hope, that they all were going to die soon. How many of them knew there was no plan to stop the Day of Unity, that it was going to go ahead and take all of their lives from them as if they didn't mean anything at all.

He looked over at where Gus sat beside Willow in her bunk, his head in her lap and his expression mournful.

"I just hope he's okay," he choked out. "He's not… he's not a good dad, but I want to see him again. I'm so scared he's hurt, or…"

"I know," said Willow. "I'm so worried about my dads… I still haven't heard from them, and I'm just… I hope they're okay. I hope I didn't get them in trouble by running away. I don't think I can live with myself if they did."

"Same," Gus trembled, barely above a whisper.

Hunter looked away from that to where Alador was speaking to his kids. 

"I am so sorry that I frightened you," the old man apologized. "If I had realized how dire the timing was I would not have taken some time alone without letting you know first."

"That's not your fault," Amity dismissed, "You couldn't have known. There's a lot of stuff that's your fault, Dad, but that's not one of them."

He nodded gravely. "I'm just so glad the three of you are safe. I'm– I'm shocked your mother would go that far. I know she's capable of a lot, but I never would have thought her capable of that."

"She didn't want us multitracking, either," Edric added uncomfortably. "I kind of think she wanted us branded early."

Alador frowned. "You're multitracking?"

Edric looked hurt. "Yeah. I picked up potions and beast keeping weeks ago."

"Oh. I'm… so sorry, I didn't realize." Alador swallowed. "That's great, though. I didn't know you were interested in potions."

"I wasn't," he admitted, "Or at least, I didn't realize I was. Or that I liked beast keeping, either. I liked animals but I didn't really think… The Owl Lady actually suggested it. I haven't been taking classes for long, but it's been really great. I'm learning so much and it's all so interesting!"

"I'm multitracking, too," Emira added with a smile.

Alador blinked. "Really! The both of you! What are you taking?"

"Guess."

"Hm… Bard magic?" he fielded. "You've always loved music."

Emira looked delighted. "I have! But I'm terrible at playing it, haha. No, I'm taking healing track."

"Healing!" he gasped. "That's amazing!"

She puffed up proudly. "I know."

Amity elbowed her with a smile. "Don't be so humble about it, huh?"

Hunter turned away again. 

Viney sat with Puddles, brushing out her fur as she rested peacefully. She was chatting idly with Katya, but they were too far away for him to hear about what. They were laughing though, and smiling, and they looked so happy about whatever it was they were talking about.

He looked away.

Raine sat on one of the tables, playing their viola quietly with Derwin and Amber. Little ribbons of red magic floated gently through the air around them like dandelion seeds, soft and airy. He wondered if he could touch them, and if they would melt in his hands.

He cast his gaze away from them, too.

Darius stood near the exit with Eberwolf, his face screwed up in deep, serious thought. He never did that. He always said he didn't want the wrinkles. 

Eberwolf growled back at him, ears flattening as he shook his head. Darius cast his eyes downward and let them shut with a long, tired sigh. 

Nearby he saw Lilith cooing softly at Hooty as if she were singing a lullaby to a child. It put an ice cold needle through his heart to see it. She'd never sung to him when he'd been a child. She'd stood up straight as a rod and looked down at him like an insect she wished that she could step on, her cold eyes narrowed and thin lips pressed into a line. She'd spoken to him only in harsh words, never gentle lullabies. 

He turned over and covered his head in his blanket. 

It was sort of surreal to sit in a room full of people he actually knew. He was so used to being surrounded by strangers, scouts and diplomats and soldiers and rich people. And even then, those that knew him didn't often know his name. Most of his life he could count on his fingers how many people did. 

Always the Golden Guard. Very rarely Hunter.

But so many people here loved him. Luz, and Gus, and Willow, and Amity and Viney– they all worried for him, he'd seen the very real and genuine concern in their eyes. They wanted him to be okay. They wanted to be around him. They wanted him to spend time with them and come to their birthday parties and play flyer derby and go to class, they wanted to do those things with him.

And they never would.

He curled tightly into himself and bit down on his lip hard enough to bleed, focusing on the sharp pain to stop himself from letting out a choked sob. His heart hurt. It hurt so bad. He'd never known it could hurt so bad. Nothing physical had happened to him, not there, but the anguish was so great that it felt white hot and angry, seeping out of his ribs and burning through his flesh like molten lava. It made him feel like he was going to puke.

And it wasn't fair.

He'd lost his whole life. It had been stolen from him. He'd finally found the strength to tear himself away from his chains, to rip them out of the walls and scream I deserve better than this! and the universe had laughed at him. Stupid, stupid boy. It doesn't matter what anyone deserves. Life is cruel, and unfair, and ungoverned. No one is balancing the scales to reward goodness and love in the world and to punish cruelty and evil. There was only him.

And he was going to die.

Beneath the covers he pulled his glove off with his teeth to stare at his hand. His lips trembled as he forced them to stay shut, not to let a whimper pass through.

His hand was black like pitch, creeping up past his wrist in tendrils through his veins. His fingers were numb, though he could still move them, and his palm prickled with pins and needles that stung and burned. There was a dampness to the cold skin there that frightened him.

He balled his hand into a fist and clutched it against his chest, squeezing his eyes shut again.

Too young to live, but not too young to die. He didn't know what lay beyond the mortal coil for him, but he knew he didn't want it. He wanted here, he wanted now, he wanted friends and flyer derby and birthday parties. 

He peeled back the blanket again to look out into the darkness and found Luz sitting in her bunk with Eda, holding a piece of wood. He recognized the colour immediately. He'd seen it in all the books he'd read at Hexside about Grimwalkers.

It was palistrom wood.

He shivered, a chill going up his spine. Had he really been carved from that? Had Belos done it? Had he held a blade to the wood and carved out the shape of him, every finger and toe and tooth gap? 

He watched as Eda spoke to her in soft words, all crinkled eyes and smiles, and Luz carved slivers out of the piece of wood in her hands. With each pass of the blade he wondered if every shred of bark had the potential for life in it, if one of those ribbons could breathe and be and love and want.

He would never get to know. He would never get to know most of the things he wanted to know. He had a hunger to learn everything he could about anything he could. He wanted to read a million books, wanted to memorize histories and facts and stories, to bury his hands in life and pull out all its beauty, and he wanted to do it with his friends. His friends who loved him. His friends who were going to miss him now because he'd made them care about him, selfishly.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair.

But life wasn't fair. He didn't deserve to die, he didn't want to die, but he was going to die anyway. And that was that.

He'd wanted to fight it. He'd wanted to take every last second and hold it against his chest. He'd wanted to claw at life until his fingernails bled and refuse to let go. But now he wanted something much more:

He wanted his friends to live longer than he would.

He waited until everyone but Luz and Eda had gone to sleep to write a note. He wouldn't leave them with nothing, he knew that not knowing would make it worse. They loved him, and so it would hurt when they lost him. Love had a way of doing, as he was rapidly discovering. It felt incredible to be loved, but the despair that followed in its wake was equally powerful. 

But he'd been trained to evaluate acceptable losses. Triage. Damage control. What can be sacrificed for the good of the mission. 

He extracted himself from the pile of sleeping palismen and replaced the space he'd occupied with a pillow. He briefly wondered if this was some kind of allegory for his life, the deceptive image of a person where one was not. A life that wasn't lived. 

He shook the thought away and cast a sad glance at Flapjack, mouthing a silent 'Goodbye, I love you,' before he tapped himself with an invisibility glyph and slipped away, tip-toeing across the room and through the exit.

He took a breath outside and let it out, puffing out white against the cold air. He cast one last, miserable, mournful look back the way he'd come, and grieved for the life he wasn't going to have, choked out one final lament in his soul for the boy he might have been if he had lived in a kinder world. Then he stuffed all of his feelings into a box and crushed it beneath his boot, casting it into the interminable aether, never to be seen again. 

With that, he pulled his hood up and left.

Chapter Text

"Do you remember Jasper?" Darius asked.

"The previous Golden Guard?" Lilith blinked. "Yes. I knew him."

"What did you think of him?" 

Lilith squinted at him. They were sitting alone away from the others, their little corner wracked with more self-pity than she wished it were. "He was…" she began, and then bit her lip. "...I remember him," she corrected, "But I didn't know him. The same way I didn't know Hunter. He was the emperor's right hand and my direct rival." She looked at the ground. "I was… happy, when he went missing. It meant I got to replace him as coven head."

She expected Darius to be mad at that, but he merely looked pensive, lost deeply in thought as he leaned on his knees and stared forward into the distance. "I don't think many people really knew him. Or Hunter."

"You did," Lilith replied. "I know the two of you were close."

"I was so sure he was older than me when I met him," he said ruefully. "He mentored me for over a month before I realized we were the same age."

Lilith chuckled. "He called everyone 'kid.' Even me. Drove me mad."

"Oh, he was so cocky," Darius snorted. "He could be a truly vile little shit when he wanted. But he was brilliant. A good teacher." He turned to look down at his hands. "I think I was in love with him, a little bit."

Lilith straightened. "Were you together?"

"No, not really," Darius sighed. "He went missing before I worked up the nerve to say anything. But… I know he would have said yes, if I'd asked." His expression grew strained. "I wish I'd asked."

"...I'm sorry," Lilith said gently.

Darius shook his head. "It doesn't matter anymore. Jasper has been gone for a long time. The thing is… I've always suspected Belos did something to him. He… changed, right before it happened. Something was different. I think he was hiding something from me, something that frightened him. The last time I saw him, he said to me 'trust your heart and nothing else,' and then something I've never quite figured out. He said 'goodbye' and then 'one way or another, you'll see me again.' He was so sad when he said it."

"That's a strange thing to say," Lilith murmured.

"Isn't it?" Darius groaned. "It's haunted me ever since. What did he mean? I'll see him , but he won't see me? I didn't understand, and I still don't."

"The last thing he ever said to me was 'I hope you get everything you ever wanted,'" Lilith added. "He was furious when he said it. I almost thought he wanted to fight me."

"Strange…" Darius murmured. 

"Why do you bring up Jasper?" Lilith inquired.

"Did you ever see him under the mask?" 

"A few times."

"Do you think… do you think that Hunter looks a bit like him?" Darius asked. "I think I've been trying to convince myself I was seeing something that I was looking for, but… the older he gets, the more uncanny it feels."

Lilith looked over at the little lump in the bedsheets in the far corner. The palismen had finally dispersed and returned to their witches, all but for his own little red bird, sleeping on the headboard. "Now that you mention it… yes. He does." She paused. "Do you think they're related?"

"I suppose it would make sense, with their positions and all," Darius murmured. "Especially with your skepticism about his backstory."

"Strange, for him to have replaced Jasper, if so."

"That's the thing– I've spent his entire life looking at him as Jasper's replacement, as if he was the reason that he was gone. Jasper had to go to make space for him." Darius shook his head miserably. "But that wasn't his fault. He was only a baby when Jasper vanished. I don't know why I thought… that it wasn't horrible of me to be mad at a child for something he didn't even do."

"Grief can be strange like that," she murmured.

"I can't believe I didn't do anything," Darius sighed. "I thought I was a better person than this. He's right. Why couldn't we have just been nice to him?"

"Were you ever nice to anyone in the Emperor's Coven?" Lilith asked dubiously. "I certainly wasn't. Even allies I was cordial with at best."

Darius was pensive. "Lilith," he said at length, "Do you suppose we've been in a cult?"

Lilith sat up ramrod straight, eyes wide. She swallowed. 

"Um," she said, mouth dry. "Hm."

"Titan," Darius sighed, hanging his head. "If Jasper could see how I've treated this kid because he wasn't him he'd never forgive me. He always has a soft spot for kids and animals. He would have been nice to him."

"If he ever had the opportunity to speak to him at all," Lilith said, rolling her hands in and out of fists as she chewed on the previous thought. "Both of the Golden Guards were kept on a tight leash by Belos. I think you might have been Jasper's only friend."

"Oh, I know I was his only friend. He told me enough."

"That's very sad."

"He would have," Darius asserted distantly. "Jasper was the type to break, not bend. He was unfailingly loyal to the emperor– to a point. I always knew one day there would be a line he wouldn't cross. If he'd been here, seeing a ten year old put through scout training would have been the line. I know it."

"...You think he found that line?" she wondered. "That Belos did something to him?"

"Yes." Darius narrowed his eyes and tightened a hand into a fist. "I've always known it. More than a gut feeling. Jasper might have loved the emperor at one point, but I knew him. He was terrified of him. More than any wild witch I ever met." He shook his head. "We'll probably never know what he did to him. But it was him. I know it."

"...Yes," Lilith said sadly, "I think you're right."

"I'll take responsibility for the boy," Darius said, sitting up straight with a sigh. "I can arrange accommodations for him. Whatever he wants. He deserves some peace after all of his suffering."

Lilith sighed. "I wish I possessed the financial stability I once did to help."

"You have connections that I do not," Darius suggested. "Hunter is brilliant. Do you still have contacts at St. Epiderm's?"

"A few. Some more amicable with me than others. Though, perhaps, with the fall of the emperor I may regain some of my good favour."

"They have a dormitory, do they not?"

"They do, though rooms are extremely limited."

"Can you secure one for him?"

"Between my favours owed and your deep pockets? Yes."

Darius let out a sigh of relief. "At least there is that."

"And what if he wants to go to Hexside with his friends?" she inquired. 

Darius frowned. "I suppose… he could live with me."

Lilith raised an eyebrow. "You?"

"I know I am not the…" He grimaced. "Not the most… paternal of men. But I have also not been… the most admirable of men, either. Things cannot persist as they have. They must change, and so too, must I. We." His eyes softened. "Should I meet Jasper again in the next life, I'd like to be the man he thought I was."

Lilith nodded gravely. "Perhaps I–"

"Lily! Dar-dar! Get over here!"

Both of them looked up in surprise. While they'd been distracted, the other occupants in the room had converged in one spot near the table. The one that smelled terrible. Whatever had gotten them to go near it had to be important. They exchanged worried glances and then rose to join them.

"What's all this about?" Darius asked as he joined the circle. 

"Me and Emira and Edric have been analyzing all this–" Viney gestured at the bile. "–stuff that Hunter threw up. We've figured out what's wrong with him."

"That's great!" Lilith burst, relief flooding through her. "What can we do to help him?"

Viney shook her head. "You don't understand. Something is seriously wrong with him."

The relief washed back out, replaced with ice. "What do you mean?"

Viney glanced sideways at Luz and the other kids, who all suddenly looked very nervous. Luz stepped forward and clasped her hands together. 

"I'm gonna say something," she began, "And you're all gonna promise not to freak out and also not to be mean to him." She paused. "Or else. Or else us kids will do something about it. So you better not."

"Don't be ridiculous, why would we be mean to him for being sick?" Darius scoffed. 

Alador elbowed him in the ribs. "You're being mean right now. You gotta work on your attitude. Don't be so snotty."

"Snotty?"

"Nobody is gonna be mean to the kid!" Eda rolled her eyes. "C'mon, he's already the Golden Guard, what could you possibly tell us at this point that would be a bigger deal than that?"

The kids exchanged more looks.

"You didn't promise not to freak out," said Luz.

Raine sighed. "We promise not to freak out, Luz."

"Hunter's a Grimwalker," she said finally, throwing her hands down by her sides.

There was a pause, and then all of the adults burst "He's a what?" at once.

"You promised not to freak out!" Luz pouted. 

"He's a Grimwalker?!" Lilith thought her eyes might pop out of her head. "Grimwalkers don't exist! Not anymore!"

"Say that to the Grimwalker sleeping in the corner," said Gus, pointing in the direction of Hunter's bunk. "He definitely exists."

"Are you certain?" Alador prompted. "How can you know that?"

"We both saw it when we were in Belos's mind," Luz answered. Lilith noticed the hairs along her arms rise with gooseflesh. "He's… he's been making Grimwalkers for centuries. All of the Golden Guards were Grimwalkers. He made them over and over again and every time one betrayed him, he– he killed them." She swallowed thickly. "In– in his mindscape we saw– piles of bodies, dozens of them, all these bones and masks and torn up cloaks and broken staffs and–" She sniffled, her shoulders beginning to shake. "That's why Hunter ran away. Because we found out about the Golden Guards and Belos tried to kill him. He– he always meant to kill him and then just make a replacement when he did, even before he was born, and–" With that, the tears began and she had to cover her mouth to force herself to breathe.

"Hey, hey, it's okay, you're alright," Willow hushed quickly, grabbing her other hand as Amity touched her shoulder. "Count with me, okay?"

Lilith looked over at Darius, who was as still as if he'd been petrified, eyes forward. 

"Darius?" she whispered. 

"He looks just like him," Darius murmured, gaze still locked somewhere far away. He took in a sharp, shuddering breath. "'One way or another, you'll see me again.'"

Lilith shivered. She crossed her arms over her chest and turned back to the kids. "She's right. I can't believe I didn't notice it before, but– but Hunter and the last Golden Guard could have been twins. I always thought… they had the same voice. I would have recognized it anywhere, even after all this time."

"This is insane," said Katya, "Grimwalkers aren't real. They're just fairytales!"

"Grimwalkers definitely aren't fairytales," Lilith dismissed. "They did exist– or, do. I thought the knowledge of their creation had been long lost. No one has seen a Grimwalker in centuries."

"Except they have," Raine interjected. "We've all seen the Golden Guards."

"Belos probably scrubbed the world of anyone or anything that knew how to make them the same way he did anything else he didn't want people to know," Eda spat. "What a sick bastard."

"Eda! Don't swear in front of the kids!" Lilith gasped.

"The kids know what cuss words are!" Eda snapped. "We're talking about child soldiers and mass murder here, I think that's a little worse than cussing!"

"It's pretty fucking grim," Willow added, looking over at her with a sour, weary expression.

Lilith shut her mouth.

"Alright," Raine said steadily, "Hunter is a Grimwalker. Fine. So what does that mean for his health? Is he alright?"

"He's not alright, Mx. Whispers," Viney shook her head. "He's dying."

"What?" chorused a round of voices.

"Edric was able to break this stuff down to its material components," Viney explained. "It's made of blood, keratin, fat, bone, muscle tissue, stone, some kind of scales, and palistrom fiber. His insides are rapidly deteriorating and partially reverting back to their original component forms. That's why it smells rotten– he's decomposing."

"Why?!" Darius cried suddenly. "What's causing that? How do we stop it?"

"Emira has a theory." Viney stepped aside.

"We don't know much about Grimwalkers, but we know they're animated similarly to palismen. Which explains why he's still alive even if his insides have already rotted to the point he's puking them up. He's a little bit like an abomination, though– a way way more advanced one, a sentient one, but abominations need materials. And eventually you can pull the materials together to make one with the same spell, but your first abominations you basically always have to brew like a potion. Once it's made, though, if you use a spell to remove one of those components– like if you use a construction spell to separate all the mud from it, or something– it rapidly destabilizes. It falls apart."

"You think he's missing a component?" Lilith asked. "We don't know everything they're made of. He doesn't look like his heart has been ripped out so I doubt it's a galdorstone, and you said he still has palistrom fiber and stone and scales in him so it's not those, either– what else could it be?"

There was a sudden deathly silence as they all seemed to realize at once what it was.

Darius snapped his head over toward Hunter's bunk. "His arm," he breathed. "Titan below us, he took his arm."

"An ortet bone," Lilith added.

"If that's what it is," said Viney, "If that's what he's missing, if we can find it, we might just be able to save him."

"Hunter!" Darius yelled as he suddenly sprinted away from the group toward the only occupied bunk. 

He came to a stop beside him and tore back the blanket, only to freeze, before slowly turning back toward them as the colour drained from his face.

Chapter Text

Dear everyone

Thanks for being so nice to me. It might sound kind of crazy since I got an arm hacked off and I've been crying a lot, but the last couple of days have actually been really great. The best in my life, honestly. Nobody has ever cared so much about me before and I'm really grateful. You guys mean the world to me.

I'm sorry I lied to you. I do actually know what's wrong with me. I'm a Grimwalker, which means I'm not a real person, so you won't need to miss me so much. Belos took part of what he used to make me, so I'm getting unmade, I guess. I feel like I'm rotting from the inside out, and I think I'm going to fall apart soon. Belos didn't think I would make it to the Day of Unity tomorrow, so I guess I've actually been pretty lucky.

I know none of you guys have a plan to stop him, but I do. I only have a little time left and if I get to use it to make sure you guys get to live, then I'll die happy. So please don't be sad. I'm not throwing my life away or anything. I was going to die no matter what. 

I'm just sorry I made you think there was going to be an after this for me. And I'm sorry I didn't say goodbye. I'm sorry I can't go to school with you guys or play on your flyer derby team or go to your birthday parties or be your friend for real. I wanted to. I really wanted to. 

Goodbye. I'll miss you.

Hunter 

Hunter took another step forward, scowling at the sound of his feet shuffling through detritus and cracking branches beneath his boots. He was supposed to be better than this. Even beaten, broken and exhausted, he shouldn't be making this many mistakes. He only needed to keep it together a little bit longer, and he should be able to do that. If not, then what was the point of his whole awful life? How could it have possibly failed to harden him enough to tough out just a few awful days?

He stumbled and leaned hard against a tree, taking a deep, wheezing breath. His insides felt like they'd been put through a blender, all soft and rotten and sickly. He turned his hand over to look at it again.

The ichor beneath his skin had continued to travel up his arms through criss-crossed veins, and his flesh had holes rotted right through it in places where it had become thin and soft. The whole limb moved in an uncanny, boneless way, oozing out thick, dark, decaying liquid that was cold to the touch.

He curled and uncurled his fingers, watching the sludge push out with more force, and then frowned, focusing his eyes on it as he concentrated.

Slowly, steadily, he compelled it to slough back up and into his arm. He marveled at the way it moved, then remembered the way his uncle had lashed out at him with it in the past, with spikes of rotten goo. He grit his teeth and wrinkled his nose, clenching his hand into a fist and thrusting it forward.

A whip of decomposing flesh struck out and snapped against the air, before receding back into his body. He noted with an amusing amount of numbness that the black rot had moved further up his arm, and fairly quickly. 

He laughed, at first mirthfully and then manically, hysterically, until he doubled over and puked up green-black all over the forest floor. When he finally pushed himself back to his feet he felt profoundly emptier. 

He stared at the bile on the ground blankly, then pushed himself away from the tree and continued walking. 

"Too little, too late," Darius rasped distantly as he leaned over the table, both hands trembling as they held himself up. "Jasper, I am so sorry."

"It's all my fault!" Willow wailed, face in her hands where she'd collapsed to the floor on her knees. "I killed him! He trusted me and I killed him!" 

"We have to go after him," Luz gasped, "He's going to get himself killed! On purpose!"

"Who knows how long of a head start he's had," said Raine, "He could be at the castle by now."

"So?!" Luz demanded. Flapjack flit around the room twittering in distress as he picked up blankets and looked under them, searching uselessly for his missing witch. "We still have to go after him!"

"The castle is impenetrable from an actual frontal assault," Lilith argued, "Hunter will know how to sneak in, they couldn't possibly have reset all the ward spells to keep him out yet— but there's no way we can, and even if we do, there's no way out again."

"This isn't a debate!" Luz yelled, stomping her foot. "Our friend is going to die if we don't do something, so we have to do something! That's how this works!" 

"It's more complicated than that," said Raine.

"No, it isn't!" Luz snapped. "Adults make everything seem so complicated when it's really not! He's our friend, and you don't leave your friends behind. Not ever!!"

"One way or another, you'll see me again," Darius repeated distantly, gaze and mind both somewhere else. 

"We're never going to see him again," Willow hiccuped miserably. "That was it. That's not fair. That's not fair!"

"I promised him a birthday party," said Gus in a hollow voice. "I promised him we'd play flyer derby and do dumb kid stuff. I promised him."

"I should have seen it sooner," sniffled Viney, "I've been with him for days and I didn't figure it out. What kind of healer am I?"

"You guys can't fall apart on me now!" Luz argued, "We have to do something!"

"What can we do?" Willow sobbed. "He's right! We don't have a plan! The Day of Unity is going to kill everyone and there's nothing we can do about it!" 

"That's not true," Raine interjected. "We do have a plan."

"Raine!" Eda snapped.

"No, Eda, we have to tell them," Raine said firmly. "Look at them! We can't protect them from the world they have to live in."

"What are you talking about?" Luz pressed. "What's the plan??"

Eda sighed in defeat. "It's me. My curse corrupts magic– the plan is for me to take Raine's place today, and let my curse corrupt the draining spell."

"But you don't have a sigil," Luz said, scrunching up her eyebrows. "The spell won't even work on you."

"It will," Eda shook her head. "Because I'm going to take a bard sigil first."

Luz gasped.

"This is our best shot," Raine added. "Eberwolf and Darius will be there in case something goes wrong, and I will be nearby, too. If all goes right, we will be able to corrupt the draining spell before it can do too much harm."

Luz deflated. "But what about you?"

Eda forced a weak smile. "I'll be fine, kiddo."

"We don't know," Raine dismissed. "We hope that we can weaken the draining spell enough to stop it before it harms her permanently, but we don't know what will happen."

"Eda!" Luz gasped.

"Raine!" Eda snapped.

"I'm sorry, Eda, but we can't lie to them anymore. Hunter lied to protect his friends and look what happened? We aren't protecting them by hiding them from the truth. They have to live in this world as much as we do and they have a right to participate in its future."

Eda looked so grief stricken by the thought that she might collapse beneath its weight right then and there.

"Eda…" Luz said just above a whisper. "Are you… are you sure you want to do this? You could die."

Eda stared at the ground for a moment before she took a deep breath and straightened up, regaining her composure. "I could. But today, everyone could die. Thousands of innocent people. You. King. Everyone." She shook her head. "If I can stop it, I have to. Even if it costs me my life. That's a price I'm willing to pay."

"There has to be another way!" Luz cried. "We shouldn't have to sacrifice anyone! Not you or Hunter!"

"We shouldn't," said Amity, putting a hand on her shoulder. "But life isn't always fair. I think… She has a right to decide to make that kind of sacrifice as much as we have a right to know the truth. We can't make decisions for other people and their lives." She gestured at the letter clutched tightly in Luz's hands. "Look what happens when we do?" 

Luz was completely distraught. It wasn't fair. No one should have to suffer anymore because of Belos. They'd all already suffered enough.

She sniffled. "But I don't want you to die."

"I know, kiddo," Eda said softly, crouching down to pull her into a hug. "I'll try my best."

"Hunter has a plan," said Willow. They all looked up at her as she wiped her eyes. "He said so in his letter. Maybe there's another way?"

"One where he dies?" Luz asked miserably. "That's not any better."

"We have to go after him," said Gus. "He doesn't know what he's doing. He doesn't know we have another plan. Either we help him stop the Day of Unity or we find a way to keep him from dying when he tries. But we go after him."

"It's too dangerous–" Eda started, but Luz pulled backwards and stood up straight.

"No, it's not. We're stronger than you think! And if you get to risk your life, I get to risk mine, because it's worth it! If I stay here and do nothing, if I sit back while my friend gets killed and I did nothing about it– if you make me– that's the worst thing you could ever do to me!" she burst. "I would never be able to live with it!"

"These are our lives and we get to decide what we do with them!" Willow added. "I know you think we're kids so you have to protect us, but you can't! Belos doesn't think we're too young to kill just because you do. If I'm old enough to die, I'm old enough to fight back against someone who wants to kill me!"

"Luz–" Eda started, expression pained.

"I'll go with them."

There was a beat of silence before the room turned toward Lilith. For the first time in a long time she held her staff, and looked again like the powerful witch who had once run the Boiling Isles with an iron fist. 

"Lily–"

"They're right, Eda," Lilith dismissed. "You cannot ask them to sit back while the world they live in is irrevocably altered, you cannot deny them the right to participate in it. You do not need me for your plan. I can go with the children to rescue Hunter."

There was another beat of silence.

"Are you three going?" Alador asked, looking at his children. They nodded firmly. "Then I'm going, too."

"I can go with you," Katya said, straightening up.

"No," Raine dismissed. "You, Derwin and Amber need to be with the people when things happen. There must be someone to control the crowd once things start happening, or people are going to die down there climbing over each other to escape. We've spent too much time practicing– no one else can take your place."

Katya stepped back looking guilty. 

"She's right," Luz agreed. "We all have jobs to do." She looked up at Eda. "Hopefully you won't have to do yours." 

"I'll do my best," said Eda softly, pulling her into one more hug, as tight as she could. "I promise."

Nearby, Darius set a hand on Lilith's shoulder and squeezed. 

"Save him," he whispered in a hoarse breath, "Please."

"I'll do my best," said Lilith sharply, balling her hands into fists, as tight as she could, "I promise."

Chapter Text

"Be quiet," Hunter growled, dragging the bound and struggling coven scout toward the back of the gardening shed. "I'm trying to save your life, believe it or not."

The scout snarled against the gag he'd stuffed in his mouth. 

Hunter leaned him back against the wall and looped the end of the rope around a pipe, tying it off. Then he grabbed a nearby saw and watched the scout tense and go suddenly quiet. Hunter sighed and shoved it between the pipe and the wall so that it wouldn't move.

"There," he said, standing up and setting his hand on his hip. "You can use that to cut the rope and free yourself. You'll be fine."

The scout balked at him in visible confusion.

"Oh, come on, if I was going to kill you, I wouldn't have tied you up." He pulled his new cloak up to wiggle his lack of arm at him. "Do you have any idea how hard that was one-handed?" He let the fabric fall again. "You'll be thanking me later."

The scout rolled his eyes at him.

"Fine, sure, whatever," Hunter mumbled, pulling his scout mask down over his face. "Not like it matters anyway. I won't be around to bask in any bullshit heroic glory after all this."

He shut the gardening shed door behind him as he slipped quietly behind the castle in the direction of a rear entrance and toward where he knew a guard shift would be rotating soon.

He'd made that schedule himself, of course, and he knew it by heart. The castle was his home, and he should have known that for all he'd lived here, he was always going to die here, too.

"You have to listen to me!" Skara begged, tears in her eyes, "You can't go! You'll die!"

"Skara, darling, enough with this!" her mother groaned as she continued to walk briskly through the crowd toward the Titan's skull. "It's unlike you to get so caught up in the paranoid ramblings of your peers."

"They're not paranoid ramblings!" Skara sobbed, "The Golden Guard told me himself!"

"The sixteen year old criminal wanted for treason?" her father asked dubiously. "Forgive me if I'm not convinced."

"Adrian Graye came to our school and tried to force sigils on us!" she insisted. "Why would he do that if there wasn't something else going on!"

"The emperor doesn't want you to miss out on the Day of Unity just because you've not graduated yet," he sighed. "Please, Skara. You're going to make us late."

"Ever since you joined that flyer derby team you've become so difficult!" her mother bemoaned. "Those hooligans have been a terrible influence on you. I feel like I don't even know who you are anymore, sweetie."

"No they haven't!" she yelled, grabbing her mother's wrist and physically stopping her from stepping onto the bridge to cross the moat toward the colliseum. "For the first time in a long time I have real friends who like me for who I am! And I like me for who I am!"

"Skara!" her father gasped. "What's come over you?"

Her mother pulled her wrist away. "After today, I don't want you playing on that team any longer."

"You know, Odalia had those children expelled after they had the same influence on her daughter," her father said sternly as he began walking again. "We should talk to Principal Bump about that."

"I agree," her mother nodded. "This is becoming untenable."

"No!" Skara cried, but she took a step back. Her parents stopped and stared at her. "I won't go! You can't make me!"

Her father narrowed his eyes before he swirled a finger in the air. Skara gasped as an abomination rose up behind her and grabbed her about the middle, pinning her arms to her sides and lifting her up.

"We're going to have a very long talk tonight, miss," her father said harshly. 

"No!" Skara yelled, struggling against its tight grip. "No, no, no, Daddy, please!"

"I don't know what's come over her," her mother sniffled as Skara was carried over the threshold of the bridge and toward the courtyard, "What happened to our sweet, well-behaved little girl?"

"I don't know," her father sighed.

"No!" Skara sobbed, "No, no, no, please!"

Eda stared at the fresh sigil glowing dimly on her wrist. There was something beautiful about it, but something ugly as well. She'd spent her whole life avoiding being branded like this, and now she'd allowed it to happen. She'd taken it willingly. 

She didn't know who she was anymore. She was not the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles. She wasn't a wild witch. She wasn't the most wanted criminal, either. She wasn't the cold and cool Owl Lady who would never have kids or get attached to people, and she wasn't the beautiful temptress that everyone wanted but no one could have. She wasn't even the person she had come to know herself as recently– a witch who loved her children and would never allow anyone to harm them. 

She'd let Luz go. 

"Eda?" Raine prompted softly. "Are you alright?"

"No," Eda answered honestly. "I'm so worried about them. Even if they make it back– what if I don't?" Her voice trembled. "Who will take care of King and Luz? How badly will losing me hurt them? Will they be okay? What if they get hurt and I'm not there to–"

"Shh," Raine hushed her, pulling her into a hug. Eda collapsed into their arms for a moment like a terrified child, burying her face in their shoulder as they rubbed her back in soothing motions. "They're both strong kids. Luz will be alright. I know it. Nothing can stop her." They paused. "I'll take them, if I need to. I hope I won't need to."

"What if something happens to you, too?" Eda sniffled. 

"Luz has so many people that love her," Raine whispered, "And she would never let anything happen to King. Even if neither of us make it to see tomorrow, that girl will. And she will find a way forward without us. I believe that."

Eda laughed weakly, face wet. "You're right. I know you're right. She's a special kid, y'know?"

"She reminds me of you," Raine said with an upward tilt of their lips. "Brave and powerful and filled with more love than she knows what to do with."

"And so stupid sometimes it makes me crazy!" Eda barked with laughter. "Now I know how my mother felt when I was her age. I don't know why I thought I could stop her from doing anything when my mother couldn't stop me."

"You were a terrible little shit," Raine agreed with some amusement. "Devious and smug and beautiful."

"You!" Eda pulled away to wipe her face, lips trembling in a weak smile. "Between us and Dalador over there, we're halfway to a sappy high school reunion romance flick."

Raine brushed the hair from her face. "Is it a good one?"

"The best," Eda whispered, "My favourite."

Raine leaned forward to kiss her, one hand on her cheek, thumb rubbing gentle circles against her pale skin.

"You did the right thing," they said as they pulled away. "You let her go because you love her. Forcing her to stay behind, to do nothing while her friend died? You would have forced her to live with that guilt for the rest of her life. It's a fate almost worse than death. A kind of hurt you can't live with. A wound that never heals." Their eyes looked pained as they continued to rub her cheek. "I wish I could have protected you when I had the chance. I wish you would have let me."

"I should have," Eda warbled, "I could have saved us both so much pain."

"Living is learning," Raine murmured. "And we can prevent them from making the same mistakes we did."

Eda nodded, set her head back down against Raine's shoulder, and let herself sob.

Amity had not always been someone she had been proud of. She'd been someone her mother had been proud of, once. And she'd learned the hard way how to live with regret that could be forgiven but never forgotten. 

When she had met Hunter she had tried to help him. She had reached out to him with compassion even after he'd betrayed her trust once, and he'd thrown it in her face. She didn't owe him anything after that. She had tried, and she was under no obligation to keep trying for someone who wouldn't even help themselves.

But Luz hadn't owed her anything, either.

In a world where her girlfriend had not been so filled with love and forgiveness and a passion to force good into the world no matter how much it struggled to retain its evils, she would have fairly made herself Amity's enemy and never seen her as anything but a hollow vessel of anger and bitterness. A bully who wasn't worth helping. She'd rejected every attempt to reach out for her again and again.

She hated that world. It was the one she'd lived in before Luz had come to the Boiling Isles and changed everything, and it had been horrible. The world where people kept trying was so much kinder. 

If she wanted to live in that world, she had to be a part of it. She had to keep reaching out when it was hard, when she knew her hand would be slapped away time and time again until it wasn't. She had to accept the pain that came alongside love, because the alternative was just pain, with no love in sight. 

Willow had not forgiven her and would not, and she shouldn't. Instead, she had accepted that Amity was not who she had been, that she, like all of them, was capable of change and with it deserves an opportunity to be that changed person. To put more good in the world than bad. She could not fix what she had done, could not wash it away, could not atone for it. She could only accept it, and be better than it. Willow had chosen to accept it, and allow her to be a better friend now. To believe in her. To reach out again when it hurt to do so, because it was the kind thing to do, and there is nothing more powerful in a cruel world than kindness.

She had held a hand out to Hunter only once. 

And then he'd lost one because she wouldn't a second time. She might not owe him anything, but she had been given so many opportunities by the universe and those around her to lurch upward out of the darkness one stumbling step at a time that she had not been owed, either. If she wanted that bright and kind world she had been given the chance to live in, she had to reach back into the blackness and continue pulling those behind her out.

Amity swallowed as they landed outside the castle moat, Gus and the twins holding an illusion spell over their group as they did. She took a deep breath and looked at Luz, her girlfriend and their fearless leader, and her hard, focused expression soothed the terror in her heart. Nothing had managed to kill Luz or anyone that fought beside her yet. Today would not change that.

Gazing at Luz with Flapjack's staff in her hand and the wind in her hair, bright brown eyes narrowed intently at her target, Amity couldn't help but think that she was beautiful.

"Are we ready?" Luz asked. She received a chorus of nods in response. "Alright. Let's go save our friend and the Boiling Isles, everyone." 

With that, Gus and the twins released their illusion spell and the rest of them returned to their staves, skimming overhead of the crowd on the bridge for the gate.

Amity wasn't particularly surprised when it smashed down before they reached it and she had to rear back to avoid slamming into it. She'd hoped they'd make it, but planned for the alternative. 

She gripped her staff with her legs and raised both hands, drawing quick spell circles to fire abomination matter at guards in the parapet readying their own ranged spell attacks. They both slammed back into the stone wall behind them, pinned by hardening goo.

Beside her Luz cast a fire glyph toward the closed gate that bounced off a powerful ward spell with ease. She cursed, just before a massive purple arm reached up and knocked her out of the sky.

"Luz!" Amity cried, spiraling into a nosedive to catch her just in time. She pulled her onto her staff behind her as Flapjack caught up and returned to her hand. Now that she was no longer riding the palisman, she had access to his spellcasting abilities.

She twirled him in midair and fired off a volley of flaming missiles toward the row of abomatons that were approaching them below and quickly filling the space, even as regular citizens began to panic and disperse. 

"Why did you make these things so powerful!" Emira snapped.

"I'm sorry!" she heard her exasperated father yell, "If it's any consolation, I wish I hadn't now!"

"Not really!"

She grabbed Flapjack with both hands and a yelp as Luz spun into a barrel roll and out of the way of a blast of abomination matter. She heard a curse and looked back to see her father was standing in the center of the bridge, spell circles around both his hands as he fought to control the quickly multiplying army of abomatons that were surrounding them. She could see the strain on his face and the sweat on his brow.

Her father was a great abomination witch. One of the best. 

But not in the field. He did his best work in the lab, with careful testing and research. He was not a man who spent much time making quick decisions and punching enemies out of the sky. 

"Do you trust me?" she cried over the shrieking wind.

"With my life!" Luz gasped.

"With Hunter's?" Amity added.

Luz didn't hesitate. "With all of the Boiling Isles."

Amity leaned forward and grabbed her face to mash their lips together, careless of the risk of distracting the driver, and then she grabbed Flapjack one-handed, stuck her hand in Luz's pocket, swung her legs over the side and dropped to the ground. She heard Luz cry out above her, but she tapped herself with the hover glyph she'd stolen and stopped just short of the bridge, landing on her feet like a cat.

"We'll handle the Abomatons!" Amity yelled at the rest of her friends, looking back at her father as she spun Ghost in a circle, grabbing the hulking beasts that he could not, "Go! Save Hunter!" 

She watched as Luz gave her one last glance, hesitating for only a moment with wet eyes, before she nodded firmly and waved at the rest of them, leaning forward as they left the bridge and dodged through the temporarily frozen army towards the front gate.

"I– I can handle these on my own–" her father grunted, but she could see his legs and arms shaking from where she stood beside him. 

"Not without dying, you can't," she dismissed. She let go of her circle and held out the end of her staff toward him. "You're going to be a good dad, remember? You're going to help me with my homework and eat dinner with us and tell me how much you love me every day, remember?" Her throat caught on the words and she thought for a moment she might cry.

His eyes widened before filling with emotion. He grabbed the staff she offered him and together they spun a new, much stronger circle together, pushing the army back. 

"I remember," he told her, "I love you so much, Amity."

She sniffled, then set her eyes forward again toward the task at hand. "I know, dad."

Chapter Text

Puddles reared to a stop in midair, screeching loudly as the gate slammed shut in their faces. She beat her wings hard to push herself backwards and Viney squeezed her griffin's sides with her thighs as tightly as she could.

There had been a time, many years ago, when Puddles had been small enough to ride her, clinging to her shoulders like a cat and wrapping lovingly around her neck. 

When she had found her, the little kit had been laying beside her mother. For how long, Viney did not know, but it must have been some time, because her mother's body was not fresh. Neither was the body of the Spidren that had killed her. Puddles was small and emaciated and unconscious and likely to die soon if she wasn't rescued. The story was clear– the little kit had run into the beast and been poisoned, and its mother had killed it before falling victim to its venom and her wounds. 

But her sacrifice had not been in vain. She had saved her baby. 

As Viney had wrapped her in a towel and carried her home she had wondered if the mother had known that. Had she known that her daughter would not succumb to the venom in her veins, that someone would find her and save her in time? Had she known the little time she had bought her would extend beyond years, or had she thought that the few days she had until she passed were worth her own life?

Viney would never know, but she thought about it often. She returned a few days later when she had time to speak to the flesh-eating slugs  that lived in the nearby marsh. They had limited intelligence, but she had helped move their colony when the river a few blocks away had dried up and taken the wildlife with it. Without her help carefully picking them up and moving them one by one, they would have died. That had been three years ago now and though they lived less than one, she had learned they must be more intelligent than the books said, because the children and children's children of the slugs she had moved recognized her and knew her as friendly. They rose from the water at her approach and nuzzled against her hands harmlessly. 

People hated it when she showed them the slugs, and she'd stopped the last time she had with a classmate who had squealed and crushed one beneath her boot. She had cried for hours and buried its little body in the mud.

So when she arrived at the marsh with a bucket and carefully filled it with slugs they let her, cooing and chirping. She brought enough water to last the trip and carried them back to where the griffin and Spidren had died. They hadn't been touched, likely because very few things could touch Spidren venom and survive.

The slugs could, though. She gently poured them out on the two carcasses and waited patiently while they fed, and by nightfall all that remained were bones and carapace.

All creatures ate to live. All things eventually returned to the world that brought them life in the first place, and to her, the greatest gift one could give at the end of their life was more life to another. Now that the slugs had eaten their fill, it meant they would not need to hunt a creature that was still alive. Some fangdeer or dragon would live another day because of these two animals. She returned the fat slugs home that night, and in the morning returned to bury the bones and carapace. Both creatures deserved to rest in peace, after all. 

And finally, she spent weeks with Puddles, feeding her mashed up voles and worms with a syringe and dribbling water into her mouth until finally, finally, she woke and chirped for the first time. 

Today, she and Puddles were fighting for another's life together. Another dying creature that deserved to live a little longer, but this one with no brave mother griffin to fight for him. 

Only his friends. 

"Up, up!" Viney yelled above the roar of chaos around them. Puddles didn't need to hear anything else as she beat her wings and carried them higher, up to the parapet above and the coven scouts holding the gate turnwheel. Puddles' claws hit his chest and threw him to the ground as Viney leapt from her back and grabbed the wheel, grunting with the effort it took to reel it backwards and draw the gate back up. Behind her she heard Puddles roar and felt the wind across her back as she leapt forward against another scout. She kept pulling, even with her back to the encroaching enemies.

She knew that Puddles would not let a single one of them hurt her. Not before she did what had to be done. 

Arms straining and teeth grit she looked over the edge of the parapet at where Luz was looking up at her in alarm, hesitating.

"Go!" Viney grunted, "Save Hunter!"

Luz swallowed, nodded sharply, and then shot forward and vanished from view.

Viney let the gate fall and spun on a heel, drawing a spell circle in the air as she snarled alongside her oldest friend against the wave of foes that had fallen upon them. 

Hunter looked up at the sound of a huge bang in the distance. That couldn't be good. It wasn't quite time for the eclipse to start. Whatever it was, it wasn't going to make it to him before he was done. 

He continued his brisk walk through the halls, the click of his boots echoing off the walls. He'd already checked the armoury and there was only one other place he thought his staff would have been stored after it was returned to the castle without him. 

It was not a room that he ever wanted to set foot in again. One of many rooms that he never wanted to set foot in again. 

He opened the door to his old bedroom and his eyes softened despite himself. He sighed as he stepped over the threshold.

The bed was made just as neatly as it had been when he had left. Every object in its place on his desk and his shelves. Undisturbed. As perfect as a museum.

His staff lay on the floor just in front of the doorway, as if whomever had been tasked with returning it here had simply opened the door and thrown it in as carelessly as possible. But of course they had. No one wanted to be here, not even him.

He picked his old staff up and spun it one-handed, testing the weight. It felt heavier now somehow. It was strange how quickly he'd become accustomed to the much lighter wood of Flapjack's staff– it felt so natural in his hand, even after a decade of training with a much heavier weapon. He'd trained on the same staff for the last three years, this staff, and it should feel like an extension of his own body. It had before. Now it felt like a stranger.

He was glad for the glove, certain his bare hand would be too slippery to keep hold of it. Even with it, though, his fingers felt sloshy, squishy, struggling more than they should with his grip. He frowned and swung it wide, rolling it over the back of his hand to catch again. 

It didn't slip. 

Even with the severe handicaps he was dealing with, he was still good enough to get this done. Perhaps his uncle's torturous training regimen had been a gift after all. The suffering he'd forced Hunter through for so many years would be his own undoing, in the end.

He'd succeeded in creating the monster he'd set out to.

Emira wished that she had a palisman of her own. Her mother had gotten her a piece of palistrum wood on her fifteenth birthday, and done the same for Amity. Whereas her little sister had brought the cat she'd had carved to life within a matter of days, Emira's refused to move a year later.

She hadn't known what to carve when she had gotten it– not that she would be carving it herself. Her mother had commissioned the finest woodworker on the Isles to do it for her. Each day that she had not chosen something, though, her mother had grown more and more irate, and eventually she'd simply whispered to the woodworker to pick something for her and not tell her mother.

He had carved a winged snake with kind eyes and Emira had thought it was beautiful, but her mother had hated it. She hadn't said so, but she had curled her lip at it like it sickened her. She'd asked three times if Emira had really asked for such a creature, and she'd said yes all three times. 

And nothing she'd said to it had moved it. Not one thing. She had given it every wish she could think of, but it would not budge. She hadn't been entirely surprised, though. She had barely known who she was at the time and certainly didn't know what she wanted for her life or her future. All she knew was that she did not want to be her mother.

She had kept it in her cloak with her since she had gotten it. She hoped every day that it would wake and give her something, just one thing different from her brother. Something to make her real. 

She clung to Lilith's back as they flew past the gate and into the castle, massive yawning inner chamber swallowing them all up, and she had no idea if it would ever spit them out again.

But she would not let Hunter be digested by this thing.  

Dozens of guards stopped them, raising up spears and spell circles toward them, blocking the path forward. Emira had waffled on a great many decisions in her life, but not this one.

She dropped off of Lilith's staff, her feet hitting stone as she raised both hands. It felt like magic moved through her without thinking, like she had known since before she knew how to know anything what she would do today. 

She snapped her hands sideways as her and the rest of their group vanished, replaced by a red flash of light and the image of the Golden Guard and his glowing staff. The strain it took on her body was more than she'd ever taken on before, hiding so many people, but she knew like she knew she would do it that she could do it.

The room erupted into chaos as the guards scrambled to avoid someone they knew to be far more powerful than any of them. A spear flew past her head and left a slash in her cheek.

"What are you doing?!" she heard her brother yell.

"What I have to!" she called back. "Go! Save Hunter!"

"No!" Edric cried. "Hang on, if you're staying, I'm staying with you!"

Emira focused on her illusion, sending the image of the Golden Guard skipping through their ranks, twirling and jumping and teleporting, cloak fluttering behind him.

"No," she said firmly. "Go. Save Hunter. I can handle this by myself."

"Are you sure this is what you want?" he asked.

She lowered her eyes at her opponents, hands up and glowing. "Yes. I love you, Edric, but I don't need you this time." She touched her chest and the wooden carving beneath her cloak. "I know what I want now. I want to be good. I want to help people. I don't want to be just a sister or a daughter–" She had the guard leap into the air, staff held above his head. "I want to be myself, for myself!"

She brought him down to the ground, leaving an illusion crater in the floor and sending scouts scattering, leaving the corridor that led deeper into the castle open. She felt a rush of air pass her as the others moved on, and a sudden warmth against her sternum as light burst forth beneath the fabric. She drew her palisman from where she has carried it for over a year, cold and lifeless, as it burst into motion, wings flared and eyes bright, coiling around her wrist and into a staff.

She spun it in a huge arc, tears in her eyes that she would deal with later, and summoned a dozen more Golden Guards, the most moving objects she'd ever controlled at once. She raised her free hand to pass a spell circle over her cheek, the fresh cut there knitting back together. 

"C'mon, Caduceus," she told her new friend, "Let's show these guys who Emira Blight really is!"

Chapter Text

Darius had been scowling a moment before he burst into laughter and scrambled away from tickling fingers at his sides, stumbling forward to wave his hands defensively at his attacker.

"Jasper!" he snapped, mortified as heat bloomed across his face. "How old are you?!"

"Older than you," the Golden Guard teased, sticking his tongue out at him. He wiggled his fingers threateningly.

"Yeah, right," Darius scoffed. He tugged his cape back down indignantly. "You never drop that stupid grin but don't have a single wrinkle on you. You're even younger than I am."

"Sure, kid," Jasper laughed and sidled up beside him, throwing an arm around his shoulders. "You're just mad I'm making you look like you have a personality in public."

"I'm mad you're making me look unprofessional in public!" Darius snapped.

They might be in public, but they were alone in the castle hallway, at least. For now.

Jasper rolled his eyes and flipped his mask up in one hand, catching it and flipping it again. "You've got to figure out how to get that stick out of your ass. Did that Blight guy put it in there? Cuz I can always–"

"Okay!" Darius cried, cutting him off. "I reiterate: making me look unprofessional in public!"

"Aw, c'mon, kid, you love it when I give you shit," Jasper snickered, before he went in to tickle him again.

Darius kicked a leg out and swept the Guard's ankles out from under him. Jasper fell forward onto his one free hand easily and bounced up in a perfect backflip, landing on his feet with a bow and a flourish. He tossed his mask in the air again and caught it without looking. 

"You're such a show-off," Darius mumbled, trying to pretend that he wasn't impressed.

"Aaaand if you've been keeping up with your homework you'll be able to show off just as much as me some day!" Jasper beamed, tooth gap on full display as he walked backward through the corridor and into the sunlight as it passed into an open air walkway. "Tell me you've been keeping up with your homework, kid."

Darius sighed and came to a stop, leaning against the wall to peer down into the castle courtyard. There was a stuffed griffin laying on the cobblestone, and he raised an eyebrow at it. "What's that?"

"Hm? What's what?" Jasper stepped up beside him and leaned forward to follow his gaze. "Huh. I dunno."

Darius was about to speak again when he actually looked at his antagonistic friend, cast in sunlight as a light breeze caught his hair and let it waft in the wind, framing his face like a portrait. 

He was not a traditionally attractive man. His face was bony, cheekbones too high and nose crooked from being broken more than once, eyes set deep in his skull with dark shadows beneath, lips thin and pale on equally pale, ashy skin– and all of it almost forgettable beneath the four deep white slash-mark scars across his face. But Darius seemed to be exclusively attracted to messy, gangly men with sharp angles and crooked smiles. 

He was beautiful.

His expression suddenly shifted and his ears swiveled straight up, drawing Darius's gaze back to the courtyard and the toy. There was now a child holding it and two more peeking around the open gate, a Coven scout approaching at a brisk pace. 

"Oh," Darius chuckled, "They must have gotten lost on a tour or something."

Jasper was silent, pink eyes hard and focused. Darius frowned and watched the scout approach the child who appeared to be frozen in terror, clutching the stuffed animal against his chest. 

The scout picked him up off the ground by his arm and yanked the toy away, yelling something that Darius couldn't hear.

"That's uncalled for," he commented sourly, but when he looked up Jasper was gone. 

He'd appeared in the courtyard framed by fading red light, mask on and staff drawn. He dropped down and swept it low, taking the scout's legs out from under him as he jumped back to his feet and caught the startled child in one arm with the ease of someone who could have done it in his sleep. He stood up straight and pointed his glowing staff at the scout, and though Darius couldn't hear him, he could tell the man was getting a thorough scolding for his excessive use of force.

Jasper turned back toward the other children hiding by the door and gave them a little wave, and hesitantly, they waved back.

Darius couldn't help but chuckle to himself. He would never understand that man. But he never wanted to stop trying.

"You still in there, Dar-dar?" asked Raine worriedly. 

No– not Raine. Eda. Eda glamoured to look like Raine. Right.

Her borrowed face was more worried than he'd ever seen the Owl Lady's real face, and he swallowed thickly, looking down at the circle at their feet. The other coven heads eyed them suspiciously and his stomach churned.

He didn't have the luxury of thinking about Jasper or Hunter right now. There were so many more lives on the line today and relying on him. He had never been enough to save anyone in his life, but he had to be enough now.

He had not saved Alador when he had needed him. When his parents had beaten and berated him and all the while Darius had sneered at and scorned him for the slight he had seen and looked no further into. His first love in this world had let him go to save him from suffering alongside him and he had let him, and then prayed as he fell that there were spikes at the bottom.

He had not saved Jasper when he had found the line he would not cross. Whatever had been the final straw that forced the Emperor's hand against him, Darius would likely never know, but he hadn't asked when he had the chance. He had known him, he had loved him, and he had seen the strength and cheer in his heart alongside the terror and fear of their lord and master and he had never once asked why. He had vanished and Darius had not looked for him. He had grieved in silence and pretended not to know who had killed him, had not sought out the justice he deserved.

And then he had allowed a child to take his place as the Emperor's whipping boy. He had told himself, when he had seen those flickers of fear on Jasper's face, that if he had been there when they'd been burned into him, he would have stopped it. He would have saved him.

One way or another, you'll see me again.

He'd stood by in complicity as a little Jasper had needed him and done nothing. He'd seen the boy in the courtyard with the stuffed animal and he'd stood still. He'd done nothing but watch.

He hoped that if Jasper had been watching him all this time that he was still watching now. That if he had forced himself to endure years of Darius' disgusting apathy, that he stood with him today to watch him finally be the man he wished he'd been more than a decade ago when he should have been. Darius was going to be a good man today, whether he lived to be one tomorrow or not.

Terra Snapdragon's scroll fluttered to life with a beep and she waved it open, thin lips pulling into a scowl. 

"I'll be right back," she said shortly, "Stay here." 

A mass of vines swarmed up and swallowed her as she vanished downward and into the castle. 

Darius and Eda and Eberwolf all exchanged nervous glances, and Darius swallowed, clenching his hands into fists.

Edric wiped tears from his eyes as he clung to his broomstick. His mother hated the things and would have thrown a fit if she'd seen him riding one. Brooms were for poor, low class witches who couldn't afford palistrom wood, she said.

He had a piece of palistrom wood. His mother had given him and his sister each a piece on their fifteenth birthdays. She'd had a winged snake carved that she had yet to wake up.

And Edric had carved nothing. It sat on his desk in his room and stared back at him, a reminder of his own indecision and lack of direction. His sister had always been slightly more outgoing than him, just a little bit more likeable, just a little bit smarter. She was the one people spoke to at parties. He was the quiet one that stood next to her with a smug smile to remind people they came as a set.

He didn't know what to carve. He didn't know what he wanted, or who he wanted to be, or who he even was now. He didn't even know how to figure it out. He was a Blight twin. He was his sister's brother. His mother's son. What could he ever be beyond that?

What he did know, though, was that Hunter was the same age that he was, and both of them had lived beneath the thumb of a cruel parent who never wanted them to have their own lives. Edric was finally free, and he was not going back. Even if his father gave up again, even if his mother got off for her crimes, he was not going back. He would rather be whoever it was that he was by himself than be whatever she wanted him to be with her. 

Hunter deserved to figure out who he was, too. So did both of his sisters. Hell, so did his dad. He felt surrounded by misery and apathy, and he wanted to do something about it. 

Edric didn't have any friends. He had Emira, who knew everything about him but was equally ready to find out who they were without each other, and he had Amity, whom he'd bullied mercilessly when they were younger to vent out all the bullying his mother did to him. But all of Amity's friends had been so nice, Viney had listened to the things he'd had to say, she'd taken him seriously and called both of them by their names, not just the Blight twins. The Owl Lady had given him potions tips and a shirt that smelled like old peaches and coffee. And all of them, all of them had been glad to have him there. No one had called him annoying or told him to be quiet or to stay in the background. Be seen and not heard.

He liked having friends. He wasn't going to let his mother keep him from the rest of the world any longer. And as he was quickly learning, the most important part of having friends, of being important to other people is that you never leave your friends behind. You break into their parents houses to rescue them, you run with them through crowds of coven scouts to help them escape, and when they run off in a suicide mission, you go after them.

They rounded a corner and came to a screeching halt as a massive beast blocked the corridor, a three headed dog that must have weighed half a ton, rippling with muscles beneath it's thin black fur, spaded tail whipping wildly behind it. All three muzzles were filled with teeth and it snapped and snarled at them, chains trailing from all of its spiked collars.

"Holy heck," Luz shrieked as she spun out of the way of a slashing paw, claws reaching for her. 

"It's a Cerberus!" Lilith called out. "They keep them downstairs and release them into the castle if there's an attack– they're vicious, practically feral, and they're kept hungry just for times like this."

Edric's heart ached as he looked at it again. She was right– beneath the muscle he could see the bumps of its ribs and the sharp cut of its pelvis. They were starving it to make sure it wouldn't hesitate to eat an intruder. How unbelievably cruel and unfair. 

For a moment he was locked in his bedroom again, grounded for yet another C-, and wondered if he was actually getting dinner tonight or not. He stepped outside of his body, and when he looked back, a three headed puppy lay in his place, too tired and miserable to even stand.

"Keep going!" Edric yelled, "I can handle Cerby here on my own."

"Are you crazy?!" Luz burst.

"Yeah!" Edric laughed. He spun out of the way of a pair of snapping jaws, and then drew a gold spell circle in the air. "Hey there, buddy. I know you can understand me. I'm not going to hurt you."

All three of its heads snapped his attention to him, before snarling and advancing again, now fully focused on him.

"I know you're not just a big, evil creature!" he insisted, "That's just what someone else wants you to be, but you're not!" It hesitated and he waved insistently at the others. "Go! Save Hunter!"

With a sharp nod from Luz, they zipped past the Cerberus and on down the corridor. It was so focused on him that it didn't even seem to notice.

"You're just hungry," Edric went on, "I know what it's like to be hungry. And angry. And hurt. But that doesn't mean you're bad." He inched forward as it growled, lips curling. "And you don't have to be. Not if you don't want to be."

"Bite-kill-eat!" it snarled at him and surged forward.

He had to tumble off his broom to get out of the way in time as a massive set of sharp teeth crunched together where he had just been. He scrambled sideways as another head snapped at him and then turned around to look after where the others had gone, snarling furiously as its eyes refocused. 

"No pass," it barked, "Bite-kill-eat!"

That was no good. Edric put his fingers in his mouth and whistled so loud that it echoed off the walls and he watched three sets of ears swivel up as it turned back to him. He celebrated for only a moment before grabbing his discarded broom and zooming out of the way of a swipe of massive paw, but not quick enough to avoid one claw tearing through his pants and into his calf.

He cried out and lost his grip on his broom, tumbling back to the floor. He watched as all its eyes locked onto him and then, in a panicked frenzy of thought, drew a blue spell circle.

The Cerberus froze, expressions confused. It stared no longer at him but at what was in front of him.

A frightened little Cerberus puppy.

"Hey there," Edric said slowly, keeping his eyes on the beast. "See? You wouldn't hurt a baby, because you're not just a big scary mindless creature. You're just big and hungry and scared, and probably pretty angry, too, huh? But why wouldn't you be?" 

He pushed himself to his feet and watched the Cerberus eye him warily, then lean down to sniff at the illusion. Edric waved it away and its ears went flat in surprise.

"It's just a picture," he explained. "Don't worry. There's no real puppy here."

It continued to eye him uneasily, no longer aggressive but clearly uncertain how to continue. He raised up an arm and moved toward its middle head, limping. It snarled warningly at him, and Edric stopped, still holding out a hand. 

"You're a good dog, aren't you?" he asked. "I know you are. I know you want to be."

It eyed his hand in a worried way, almost frightened, but it didn't back away.

"Let me help you," Edric insisted, "I'll get you out of here and away from these jerks. We'll get you something to eat. Okay?"

There was a moment of silence, and then he felt its nose press against his palm.

"Okay," she rumbled. 

Hunter could feel his feet squishing and sloshing in his boots, formless and quivering. He didn't know how much time he had left, but he needed to make this quick because it obviously wasn't much. 

He felt something drip from his face below his mask and onto his cloak. He didn't look down at the black stain he knew was forming. He didn't want to see it. Didn't want it to be real. As long as he didn't look, it wasn't real.

No, his friends were real. His friends who loved him and wanted him to be safe. His friends who he was going to play flyer derby with after this. And go to class with. His friends that were going to show him what birthday parties were like, sixteen times in a row because he'd missed so many. Cake and presents and games and time with them. It was going to be great. It was going to be worth it.

He just had to make that real in his head for a little bit longer, and everything would be okay. 

Another step, another squelch, another wave of pins and needles up his thighs, though everything from the knee down was completely numb. Another dribble under his mask. 

Just keep thinking about birthday parties.

"Hey! You! What the hell are you doing? Where'd you get that?"

Hunter came to a stop, wavering in the hall with his shoulders hunched. His vision was blurry and shadowed by the visor of his mask, but he saw a guard captain pointing at him down the corridor, a small company trailing behind him.

So much for subtlety.

"What's your badge number?" the captain demanded when Hunter was silent for too long.

“Guess,” Hunter said dryly, which seemed to confuse him. “Eighty-four, cap’n.”

“You’re not the Golden Guard,” the Captain scoffed. He paused. “Are you?”

“I’ve got the staff, don’t I?” Hunter countered. “And, you know. The annoying voice.”

There was a long moment of silence, and then the scout quickly drew a circle in the air.

Hunter snapped into action, teleporting forward into close range where he was at his best. He blasted him at point blank range in an explosion of red magic that burst against the walls and showered down on them all. The corridor erupted into yelling and swearing and the sounds of spells coming to life, but Hunter was gone, the Golden Guard was gone, and all that remained was sixteen years of no birthday parties and combat training, all focused toward a single-minded goal. 

He swept out a leg to knock over one and jab his staff into the gut of another before he flash-stepped again and came back into himself behind the company, swinging hard into someone's rib cage. 

The world blurred together into red, nothing but blood and magic, and he let everything beyond that goal go, weightless in the darkness, his vessel all but hollow.

Chapter Text

Willow would never forgive herself for having allowed Hunter to be taken and traded like a thing. Especially, especially now that she knew he was a Grimwalker– that treating him like a thing probably hurt especially bad. He didn't deserve it. He wasn't a thing. He was a person. A good person. 

She hadn't known him long, and most of that time he'd been dissociating or screaming, but she felt like she'd known him forever. Like he slotted into their little group of friends perfectly. Like he'd always been meant to be there. He had a goofy smile and a nice laugh and a protective nature about him she admired. All the apologies in his letter, despite the fact he was the one who'd been wronged. 

I only have a little time left and if I get to use it to make sure you guys get to live, then I'll die happy. 

Her heart broke like glass. How could he want that after they'd traded him away to die? It was all their fault he was dying in the first place! 

The last couple of days have actually been really great. The best in my life, honestly. Nobody has ever cared so much about me before and I'm really grateful. You guys mean the world to me.

She'd made a lot of assumptions about him. He was the Golden Guard who had lied to her. He'd been difficult and rude, judging her friends and insisting even chances needed to be earned. He'd locked her in a cave and taken Clover away. She'd assumed he was the spoiled head of the emperor's coven, and he certainly had everything he could ever want, right?

The best in my life.

Her eyes watered. How could these have been the best days of his life? How bad was his life??

I'll miss you.

She fought hard to keep the tears in her eyes from spilling over. Sometimes the world could be so horrifically cruel and unfair. She wanted to take fate by the throat and throttle it, she wanted to scream in its face how could you let this happen?!?! 

She couldn't do that. She couldn't go back in time and fix his life, either. She couldn't change what she'd done and she couldn't give him his arm back or take away the trauma he'd gotten in exchange.

What she could do was rescue him from himself. She could make sure that he lived long enough to be real friends. For a birthday party. To go to school. To laugh and smile and just be fucking happy for once.

She would turn the world upside down and stop it from turning to make that happen. No witch or Titan or force upon the earth would stop her.

Willow tensed as she felt vines approach just before they crashed through the stained glass windows lining the corridor, and managed to swerve out of the way just in time. Unfortunately, her companions were not so lucky, and Lilith, Luz, and Gus all suddenly found themselves tumbling from their staves and caught in a quickly growing web of plant matter. 

The cobblestone floor broke apart as a massive corpse flower emerged and opened, Terra Snapdragon stepping out with a smug smile, chin held high as she surveyed her work.

"Well, that was easy," she mused, "You know, they used to train scouts much better. There was actually some dignity to being in the Emperor's Coven. They're all spoiled these days, no wonder they couldn't stop a couple of kids and an old woman from breaking in."

"Old?!" Lilith demanded.

Willow clutched her staff tight in one hand and drew a bright green circle in the other, shoving her hand through to keep the magic flowing. The vines that were creeping up Luz's neck and beginning to squeeze released her and she tumbled to the ground. 

Terra whistled, visibly impressed. "My, my, dear girl. I'd heard you were a powerful plant witch, but you convinced my plants to listen to you over me?" She waved a hand and the vines were wrenched out of Willow's control again to grab Luz by the ankles as she scrambled for her pockets.

"You don't know the first thing about me!" Willow yelled. She threw both hands in the air and all the vines thrashed and writhed, caught between conflicting instructions. She saw Terra frown as the other two witches fell away from the walls where they'd been held.

"I know plenty about you," she dismissed. "I've had you on my shortlist for months, little girl! How quickly you've made yourself known since you switched tracks." She smiled, the edges of her mouth curling up toward her high cheekbones. "I've had retirement on the mind, lately. I think that it's come time for me to take a new apprentice. The last one was such a disappointment."

Willow felt nauseous. "I would never work for you!"

"You say that now," she mused, "But I think I can change your mind."

"What?" said Willow, just as a flower opened behind her and released a puff of spores that clouded her vision and made her cough. She fell forward, clutching Clover as the world spun wildly around her. 

It was like vines were in her mind, creeping in from the edges and rooting themselves into her thoughts, grasping at anything they could reach. Somewhere from the darkness the compulsion began to use her magic to wrap a vine around Luz's throat and squeeze.

Heat suddenly flared across her face with such intensity she had to throw her arms up in front of her, and when she blinked her eyes back open, Luz was holding a crumbling piece of paper and a massive hole had been blown through Terra's wall of vines. The old witch had been thrown to the floor and was pushing herself unsteadily back to her feet.

Willow dropped off of Clover and snatched her staff from the air, twirling it in a wide circle that blew clarity into her mind like blooming white light, burning through the encroaching tendrils there and casting them into the aether. Terra looked up and clenched her hand into a fist, the vines around the newly made exit beginning to quickly refill the space.

Willow threw her hands out to the sides and sent the thicket slamming into both walls as it was torn in two, and she could see the light of her own eyes reflecting green off the scattered glass shards on the cobblestone floor.

"Go!" Willow yelled. "Save Hunter!"

She expected Luz to argue. Luz always argued. 

But her friend looked at her with a trust and reverence that she knew, in this moment, she deserved. She was one of the most powerful plant witches on the Boiling Isles, and she didn't need Luz or anyone else to save her. 

Hunter did. Willow could take care of Terra herself.

Luz grabbed Flapjack and took off even as the coven head grabbed at her uselessly, followed quickly by Gus and Lilith. Terra tried to throw vines after them, but Willow grabbed them from the inside and yanked them back, resealing the exit so that the two of them were alone within the closed off corridor. 

Terra looked back at her furiously.

"I'm going to enjoy this," the old woman snarled, standing up straight and summoning an army of thorns around her.

"No," said Willow, as the entire room writhed beneath her power, "You're not."

"Stay with me, kids, we're almost there," Lilith said firmly. Luz and Gus nodded beside her.

Lilith had lived in this place for almost twenty years. She knew these dark hallways like she knew the feeling of magic in her fingertips and air in her lungs. She may not know exactly where Belos was, but there were very few places he would be. He had a small wing that was heavily restricted to only the highest ranked scouts, most of whom were sworn to silence about what they saw there with undying oaths. 

Whatever he was doing, he would be there. Preparing for the end of the world. Hunter would know that as well as she did. Even if Belos left, Hunter would be there. 

Lilith had known who she was for many years. She was cool, controlled, powerful, important. She was feared by some and respected by all– save for maybe her sister. 

In a few short months her entire self-perception had been irrevocably shattered.

She was not a good woman, but she wanted to be. She had sent a great many wild witches to their deaths, all the while seeking to cure and protect her sister, hypocrite that she was. She had resented a child for threatening her position and made sure that he knew it. She had followed Belos without question, and allowed and caused a great amount of suffering because of it. She would probably never be able to put more good into the world than she had bad.

But she had to try. Hunter may never forgive her for her role in his anguish, but that didn't excuse her from making up for it. It didn't mean she no longer owed him a great debt. 

She had grown to like herself so much more in recent months. Perhaps selfishly, she refused to sacrifice that, even if it may lead to her death. She would rather die a good woman than live as a bad one. She would never go back to what she had been.

The first time she had met Hunter he had been eight, and she had hated him. He was loud, hyperactive, excitable, and never stopped talking. He wanted to know everything she was doing and refused to sit quietly while she worked.

"Are you completely incapable of doing as you're told?" she had snapped at him. "Do I need to tell your uncle how poorly behaved you've been?" 

She had thought, at the time, that the look of fear on his face had been of her. Worse, she'd felt a sick sense of pride when he looked down at the floor and shook his head, quiet for the next two hours until one of his tutors came to collect him. 

She had become well acquainted with shame the past few months. It was now a close friend.

She came to a screeching halt as they rounded the last corner before Belos' personal wing, and grabbed both children by the backs of their shirts to stop them from going any further either. 

Kikimora stood before them in some kind of massive mechanical contraption, her glimmering eye watching her with maniacal glee.

"Hello, disgraced former head witch Lilith Clawthorne," she purred, "How wonderful it is to see you again."

"I can't say the same, Kikimiki," Lilith replied.

Kikimora narrowed her eye. "Kikimora."

"Oh, is it?" Lilith said tersely. "I'm so sorry. You just weren't particularly memorable, I suppose."

Kikimora's eye twitched. "You'll go no further, traitor. Your fool's crusade ends here."

She didn't look behind her at the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. She knew the corridor was filling with coven scouts, boxing them in.

"Belos is the real traitor!" Luz yelled. "The Day of Unity is a farce! He's going to cast a draining spell that will kill everyone on the Boiling Isles!"

Kikimora giggled. "Was that your ace in the hole? I already know that, human."

Luz's eyes widened and she gasped.

"It's going to kill you, too!" Gus snapped, "Why would you help him?!"

"No, it won't," Kikimora dismissed, "Emperor Belos has promised his most trusted and valuable servants his protection, and I am one of them. You will die, but that's not much of a loss, now is it?"

"It will kill you, Kikimora," Lilith insisted, "Belos is not the man you think he is."

"Don't even bother," Kikimora rolled her eye. "Your pathetic attempts to sway me into betraying our emperor grow tiresome. Now, I'd love to present you to him alive to give him the pleasure of punishing you himself, but I'm sure he won't mind too much if you're a little bit less alive. What will it be, traitor?"

Lilith's pupils dilated, her heart slowed, and a sense of strange calm passed over her. She understood what she had to do. There was only one option. She knew who she was now, and she knew what action that person would take.

She crushed a plant glyph in her hand and sent Kikimora smashing into the wall beside her as she leapt off of her staff and to the floor, slapping another onto the cobblestone ground to block the path of the scouts behind her. Her palisman sensed her intentions, the same wavelength passing between their bond, and she flew at the little red demon, beating her wings and clawing at her eyes.

"Go!" she screamed, "Save Hunter!"

"But Aunt Lilith–!" Luz gasped. She had tears forming in her eyes. "You–!"

"Luz," Lilith said in earnest, "Please."

Luz hesitated a moment longer, her tears spilling over silently.

"It's alright," Lilith said softly. "And tell him– tell him that I am sorry. And that I hope he gets everything he ever wanted."

Luz sniffled and hiccuped a tiny sob, before she nodded sharply, then spun towards Kikimora as spell blasts from the coven scouts showered around them. Her and Gus shot past Lilith as she wrenched herself free from her bindings.

"No!" Kikimora snarled, spinning around after the kids and reaching out for them with one huge monstrous arm.

Lilith slapped the wall with another plant glyph and yanked it back. Her raven descended on her again, clawing at her face and cawing furiously.

Kikimora snatched her from the air in a crushing grip and made eye contact with Lilith before she smiled through scratched lips.

And then she crushed her in her fist.

"Eve!" Lilith wailed, despair consuming her heart and leaking out between her ribs, cold and wet.

Kikimora giggled as she tossed the lifeless wood aside and ripped her arm free. "You were always so sure that you were so much stronger and more important than you really were," she sneered, "The emperor never trusted you. You were just a figurehead while he picked a real leader for the emperor's coven."

"And he chose Hunter," Lilith snarled. 

Kikimora's smile faded. "This is the part where you die, Lilith Clawthorne." 

"I know," she sniffled, trying and failing to sound brave.

Kikimora had one moment to look confused before Lilith clapped her final plant glyph against the floor with a trembling hand. A torrent of vines erupted up from the cobblestone and smashed through the ceiling, bringing several tons of stone and structure crashing down on top of them in one massive cascade of rubble and regrets.

Chapter Text

Eda fidgeted nervously with the hem of her shirt, her heart beating too quickly in her chest. She fought furiously to keep her expression as carefully neutral and controlled as Raine always did, and wondered how it was they made it seem so easy.

Beside her, Adrian Graye swore and she looked over at him, clenching her hands into nervous fists.

"Terra won't be coming back," he snapped, staring at his phone in disgust. "She's been taken completely out of commission by a child."

"A child?" Mason balked. "You must be joking."

"I told you she was getting old," Hettie Cutburn said dryly.

"So what now?" Osran demanded. "The Emperor said that all the covenheads must be assembled for the spell to succeed. We need the head of the plant witch coven!" 

"That's not exactly what he said," chuckled a new voice, accompanied by a rhythmic stomping that approached their circle. 

All of the gathered witches picked up their heads at the approach, as bursts of dust stirred up and dispersed, great robotic feet rising and falling against the stone steps. 

The abomaton emerged from the smoke that it poured out, Kikimora at its head, her clawed hands on the controls. Blood poured from a wound across her temple, head-hand broken, fingers at odd angles. One of the robot's arms was crumpled and missing below the elbow, its plating buckled and broken all over.

Eda's breath caught in her throat and her eyes widened as the demon stepped onto the platform, raising her mecha's free hand to toss Willow into Terra Snapdragon's empty place in the circle.

"He just needs a plant witch strong enough to be a covenhead," Kikimora purred, visibly pleased with herself.

Willow groaned, one of the lenses of her glasses missing and the other cracked. Her face was scraped and she pushed her chest weakly off the ground, arms trembling beneath her own weight. 

She made eye contact with Eda, expression terrified, eyes wide. 

Eda's mouth went dry. Her eyes slid sideways to meet Darius's, as wide and frightened as her own.

Amity blocked another blast of magic with her staff as Viney and Puddles dove into the crowd of scouts again and knocked many to the side, but there were truly too many to stop. Their route back had closed, too, leaving them trapped on the bridge, surrounded as her accosters closed in step by step.

She wondered if the rest of them had found Hunter– if they’d been stopped further into the castle– if they’d been hurt– if they’d been ki–

Tears brimmed in her eyes. She couldn’t think that thought. Not for one second, or it would crush her. She could only trust that Luz was the most unstoppable witch she had ever met, and no matter how many people had tried to kill her thus far, no matter how hard they had tried, no one had managed to kill her, and today was not the day that they would. Not when it was so important. Luz would not allow herself to fail. 

“Ah!” she burst as a blast of magic struck her painfully in the back. She fell forward onto a knee, seeing stars, and struggled to raise her staff again, but her arm was shaking, and she couldn’t get back to her feet.

“Amity!” her father cried, his attention snapping to her.

“I’m– I’m okay–” she panted, but she was very much not okay. She was exhausted. She was running out of magic, and she didn’t see any way out of this. She was terrified, and as the coven scouts pushed forward again, closing in as they stepped onto the bridge, her breath caught in her throat with a whimper.

She looked up at her father and watched him freeze like a statue, eyes locked on her. It felt like, for maybe the first time in her life, he was looking at her and really seeing her. His messy hair lifted in the wind, coat billowing as smoke and cinders rose behind him, sky growing dark as the end approached.

“Amity,” he said with perfect calm and wide, unblinking eyes. “I love you. I love you so much.”

Her heart dropped. “Dad–” she gasped, “Dad, wait–”

He waved a spell circle toward her just as the scouts rushed forward, and all the abomination matter that he had surged up around her and enclosed her in a sphere that hardened on the outside like concrete, before it slammed through the crowd and tossed her out on the ground behind them in the direction of town.

“Dad!” she screamed, but she couldn’t see him through the throng of scouts that covered him. She found the strength within her to stumble to her feet and reach out in his direction, tears flowing down her face, but claws grabbed her back as Puddles picked her up and rose into the sky. “No! No, put me down!”

“I'm sorry, Amity,” Viney warbled, “I can’t do that.”

“No!” Amity wailed. “No! Dad! DAD!”

"Listen!" Katya cried, clambering up the tower at the center podium of the courtyard until she could hook a leg around a lamppost and free her hands. "Everyone! You have to listen to me!"

No one did. No one even looked up at her. They chattered amongst themselves with no concern for what was about to happen to them, smiling and laughing. Her heart clutched in her chest and then burned fiery hot as determination seared through her veins. With a whistle she summoned her tambourine, then raised her arm above her head and shook it in a rising cadence of ringing metal that then released into a drumbeat so loud it echoed off of the far walls. 

Everyone looked up at her.

She gave it another jangle to throw her voice and make it loud enough that everyone could hear it. "Listen to me, everyone! You have all been lied to! We have all been lied to!"

There was a chorus of confused murmuring from all those gathered. They were suspicious, but they were listening.

"The Day of Unity is a trap!" she yelled. "You have been brought here today to die. The emperor is planning to cast a spell that will use your sigil to drain your life force. You are all meant to die here!" 

The whispers of the crowd made it clear they didn't believe her. Her heart sank.

"Get down, fanfic girl!" someone called.

"That's treason!" 

"No one wants to listen to your paranoid rambling!"

Katya's breath sped up. They didn't believe her. They needed to believe her and they didn't. She was failing. The consequences of failing were too high. They needed to listen to her, and–

"She's telling the truth!" a new voice yelled. 

Katya's ears swiveled up and she turned her head to the side to see a coven scout had clambered up onto the opposite side of the pillar she was hanging onto. His cape flared out in the wind, and he pulled up his scout mask to reveal a young face with one horn on his temple. 

"You need to listen to her!" Steve insisted, "Everyone needs to leave, now!"

The voices around them were suddenly significantly more worried. 

"Steve," Katya gasped, eyes widening. "I thought you left to find Matt?”

"Don't you remember when we were in school, and Tibbles stole Severine’s necklace?”

She did. Tibbles had been an upperclassman at the time and a much more highly skilled magic user than her, or even Steve and Severine who were two years past her. His laugh was the worst. He picked on everyone and things always went missing around him.

“You punched his lights out,” Steve grinned, “Knocked him out cold.”

“He made my life hell for the rest of the year,” she said bitterly.

“Yeah, and you knew he would. And you did it anyway.” He tilted his head at her fondly. “How could I leave you to be the brave one again, fanfic girl?”

Katya blinked and then smiled like an idiot, pride blooming in her chest. She’d once been imprisoned for failing to be ‘normal.’ She’d always been an outsider, a ‘weird girl,’ unpopular and unlikeable, but she’d never compromised herself. She knew she deserved to be happy however she wanted, and no one had the right to take that from her.

Still. It was nice for someone else to agree, for once.

Both of their attention were suddenly snatched away as several shouts of alarm began. Around the edges of the courtyard, some people had clearly decided they wanted to leave, but the abomaton guards outside had stepped up to block their way.

They raised their arms and pink forcefields erupted from their metal bodies, rising up to trap everyone inside of the crab bucket they suddenly found themselves in. The shouts became screams.

Katya's mouth went dry. There was no way out, now.

She looked back up at Steve, who was looking at her. The fervor of the crowd was rising in volume as fear rippled through them, and she watched his face go pale and knew hers was doing the same. 

"Do you have a plan for this?" he asked. He sounded frightened, completely unlike him.

She shook her head.

"Ah," he said, swallowing. They both looked back out at the crowd as they began to pound on the forcefield, surging toward the edges of the courtyard. "That… is not good."

No. It wasn't. She was right.

They were all going to die here.

She wished, suddenly, that if this was really the end, she could have punched Tibbles just one more time.

Luz gripped Flapjack in her white-knuckled fists, choking back tears that she didn't have time for. The eclipse was coming. They were running out of time to save Hunter and stop the Day of Unity, and she had to do both. There was no other endgame. She had to.

But she'd left everyone behind. Everyone but Gus had stayed back so that they could continue. She had no idea if they were okay. If they would be okay. And all of them were trusting her to save Hunter. They knew the risks going in, they stayed behind knowing that they might die and they did it because they wanted Hunter to live and she needed to save him. 

It was all riding on her shoulders. Her tiny, tiny shoulders. 

"You can do this, Luz." 

Gus's voice broke her from her reverie and snapped her back into focus. She sniffled and wiped her face on her sleeve before looking back at the firm, earnest smile that he was giving her.

He knew she could do this. And if he knew it, she could know it, too.

His expression suddenly shifted as he snapped his head forward and squeaked in alarm, skidding to a halt on Emmeline. Luz nearly flew off of Flapjack head over heels when he stopped, too, and she spun forward to see why.

Hunter stood in front of a great pair of gilded doors, in a white cloak and with his back turned to them. 

"Hunter!" Luz exclaimed. 

Hunter was silent. 

"Hunter?" Luz repeated less certainly.

He tilted his head to the left and peered back at her through one pink eye, hair askance and falling across his temples. He flicked his ears curiously, the only sign of emotion she could see.

"What's wrong with him?" Gus whispered. She could hear fear in his voice as it trembled. "Why is he just staring at us?"

"Hunter–" Luz tried. She sat up straight. "Hunter, we found your letter. We know what Belos did to you– what he took. And I know you think this is the end, that you have no choice but to die!" Her eyes filled with tears again and she clutched her hands over her heart. "But you don't! It's not over until you give up, Hunter! We think we know a way to help you– please, please let us help you!"

Hunter flicked his ears. Luz realized with a sense of rising dread and ice in her chest that his left ear was not notched.

"Hunter," Gus added, "Please. I promised you, remember?"

Hunter blinked impassively and then turned all the way around to face them.

Luz froze, breath catching in her throat. The first thing she noticed was the missing scar on his cheek.

The second was that his right eye was missing, the vacant hole there pouring out dark sludge that stained the cloak he wore over his Golden Guard uniform, leaking black liquid from every seam to pool on the floor around his boots.

Hunter clenched a fist around his staff as he marched forward, leaving black footprints in his wake. 

Red ones, too, but that colour hadn't come from him.

He stopped in the hall between the portal room doors and the ones that led out of Belos's personal wing in the opposite direction of his bedroom and on toward the rest of the castle.

This was his last chance for a change of heart. If he had any desire still left in him to run away, to find some way to make it to tomorrow, this was the only opportunity he was going to get from this moment onward to try. He only needed to choose the other exit.

He swung his staff in a wide arc and the portal room doors clattered open, slamming into the walls with a boom that shook the floors. He stepped forward, face cast in dark shadows and eyes glowing in the low light, cape billowing outward in the stirred up wind before it settled around his body again. 

His uncle stood in front of the portal door, his hands crossed casually behind his back as they often were when he came in here to mull over his thoughts. He had his back to Hunter and didn't so much as flinch at his entrance.

Hunter stood in the doorway in silence.

Belos hummed in mild amusement before he sighed. "I knew you'd be back," he mused. "They always come back. They never just run, even when they should. They always want to finish things." He turned slowly to look at him, eyes soft with what Hunter had once believed was love, lips curled upward in a gentle smile. "That's why they always die."

Chapter Text

Willow took deep, steadying breaths as she watched the surrounding covenheads watch her. She wanted to look at Raine and Eberwolf and Darius, she wanted them to reassure her that everything was going to be okay, but she didn't want to give them away. Instead she looked at the others. 

None of them appeared happy. Adrian was glaring at his phone and tapping his foot anxiously, tail lashing. Mason had his arms crossed and was also looking around the circle at everyone else's faces. Hettie Cutburn was motionless, but she had a deep scowl on her face, and Willow could see sweat beading on her temple. 

She looked down at her hands, pressed to the circle carved into the stone. Shaking.

Her bile sac was nearly empty. She didn't even think she could stand. She'd defeated Terra, but it had taken everything out of her to do it.

It occurred to her, quite suddenly, that she could die here. Her dads could die if they didn't stop the spell and they wouldn't even know what happened to her or where she was. Or– maybe they survived, and they had to bury her. Or maybe they wouldn't even have anything to bury. 

And she didn't even know if they had found Hunter. If they would be able to help him. If they would be too late. If it would all be for nothing. She couldn't let it happen. She couldn't fail.

"What's taking so long?" Adrian snapped, waving his scroll away. "It's almost time for the eclipse! Where is he?"

"I'm sure he's working on last minute preparations," Darius suggested.

"He wouldn't be late," said Raine– wait, no, it was Eda. She'd forgotten. "There's too much riding on this."

Darius looked up at where the moon was nearing the sun, the light it cast slowly shrinking into crescent shapes. "I'm sure…" he swallowed. "I'm sure he'll be here."

They all heard a sudden increase in volume from the crowd below and turned to look. The people seemed panicked and had begun to rush the walls, the Abomatons blocking them all in.

"Something is wrong," Adrian said, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. "I'm going to go see what it is."

"No!" Darius cried. Everyone looked at him, Adrian raising an eyebrow. "I mean– no. It should be me. I can be there much more quickly with translocation– and time is of the essence." 

Adrian watched him warily, before he nodded. "Yes," he agreed. "It should be you. Go on, then. There's not much time."

Darius let his shoulders sink in relief, and then abomination matter surged up around him, before he sank into the ground.

Steve stared down at the little fruit bat in his hands, his wide black eyes looking back at him curiously. He didn't understand what was happening. 

Steve swallowed around the lump in his throat, and kept the trembling from his hands. He could do this. He had to do this. Palismen were wild magic. They were dangerous, and the Titan was against them. He wasn't doing something wrong.

"C'mon, buddy," he said, picking him up as his palisman reverted to wood. He looked up at the recruitment officer holding open the wire crate with an apathetic expression. Slowly, he reached forward and placed his palisman inside.

He closed the door.

"Alright then," the officer said, setting it aside. Steve could hear confused chirping from within. "Welcome to the Emperor's Coven."

He'd never liked it. For all the status and reputation it provided, the training was brutal, the hours grueling, and the rewards slim. He got used to sleeping in barracks with dozens of strangers and waking up at 6AM. He got used to marching and seeing the world through the shadowed visor that made everything just a little bit darker. He got used to people calling him by anything other than his name.

He'd never wanted to join the Emperor's Coven. He'd wanted to go into architecture, like his parents. He'd studied construction magic and loved it.

But you don't always get what you want in this world. Sometimes you spend your whole life knowing who you are and who you'll be, and then you turn eighteen and your parents die in a house fire and leave you with nothing but a half-brother and a host of exciting new trauma symptoms to your name.

Your name that no one uses.

Nothing pays better than the Emperor's Coven. Not for some kid fresh out of Glandus without an apprenticeship locked down. He took the money, he took the sigil, and he did his best.

But he  knew, at the end of the day, it wasn't enough. Matt was practically raising himself. At twelve he made his own dinner. He got himself to school. He put himself to bed.

Not to mention he was getting bullied for, of all things, having dead parents. Who bullies someone for that? Steve had hoped that transferring him to Hexside instead would help, but…

At least Matt wasn't going to die today. Steve probably would, but his little brother wouldn't. And he was glad, in a strange way, that all the neglect he'd suffered through had prepared him for the world he was about to live in, thirteen and alone. Steve wondered if the only people left would be children and a few scattered wild witches and demons. Who was going to take care of them all? Would they have to take care of each other, children raising children like he had been?

"Steve!" Katya yelled, shaking him from his reverie. "We have to do something!"

Steve's stomach dropped looking out at where people were piling up against the walls. The tighter and tighter people got to one another, the more likely it was that crowd crush was going to start killing people before the draining spell could. 

"Didn't you have a plan for evacuating people?!" Steve yelled. 

"We did!" she exclaimed. "There's tunnels beneath us and we had wanted to get through them– but the ground is deeper than we thought, and even me, Derwin and Amber couldn't break it!"

Steve's eyes widened. "Where are they?" 

Katya pointed a ways away at the ground, at an innocuous patch of cobblestone near where the Oracle witches had been filed. He leapt down from the tower and sprinted for it, pumping his arms as his cloak billowed behind him. He skid to a halt in the spot and spun about, sliding one foot outward to draw an orange spell circle against the stone. It glowed before the ground split open and folded into a staircase that led downward into a dark tunnel. 

He whistled, loud and short, but it swirled red in the air and wrapped around his throat.

"Everyone!" he yelled, bard magic carrying his voice like a megaphone. "This way! Hurry!"

He waved frantically as people began to turn toward him, before the rush began. 

He realized a moment too late that he'd made an error in judgement.

As soon as the first wave of people hit him, he was trapped, crushed in against a terrified rush of people trying to flee through the tiny corridor. He felt his breath catch in his throat as he was jostled back and forth, stumbling and trying to wade backwards in the opposite direction.

"Katya!" he yelled. "Katya!"

Something hit his leg and knocked it out from under him. He hit the ground with a cry of pain and surprise.

Distantly, he heard her calling his name back, but someone stepped on his arm and the pain bloomed across his thoughts, blotting them out. He tried to scramble back to his feet, but as he reached his knees someone stepped on his back and slammed his ribs back down against the stone. He thought his hand might have broken beneath someone's boots, but there was so much happening and the panic was becoming so palpable he couldn't tell.

"Katya!" he cried again, and then something churned miserably in his stomach and his voice broke. "Matt!" 

And then something hit him in the back of the head, and everything went black.

Gus froze in horror at the sight of his friend in such a state. He didn't think he would ever see anything more horrifying than he had the past few days. The grimwalker lab, the blood-soaked slate and the sea of bones, Hunter laying on the ground with sickly pale skin and half an arm– the look on Willow's face as Luz read Hunter's note out loud. 

But this. This was worse.

Seeing his friend in his old uniform that he'd tried so hard to escape was bad enough– seeing it soaked in black, bloody sludge was worse. The gaping hole in the right side of his face was dripping thick ichor, the white shimmer of bone just visible around the carved-out eye socket. Black liquid was oozing from his mouth, his nose, his eyes, even his ears. He didn't look like he should even be alive. 

"Gus!" Luz cried, just before he was tackled to the ground. A razor-sharp spike shot through where his head had just been and his mouth went dry.

Hunter snapped his arm like a whip, withdrawing the long rope of sludge back into the vague shape of a now ungloved right hand. It was pitch black and dripping, shiny and wet.

His right hand. He had a right hand.

"Hunter!" Luz cried. "Hunter, it's us! It's Luz and Gus! We're your friends, remember?!"

"That's not Hunter," Gus breathed in dawning horror. "Oh, Titan. Luz– Luz, that's not Hunter!"

"What?" she balked, then yelped and rolled out of the way of another strike. She swore and grabbed a glyph note from her pocket, summoning a surge of vines to leap from the ground and wrap around his legs.

They liquefied and the vines tightened around nothing as his legs reformed and he stepped forward, both arms morphing into blades.

"He made another," Gus shook, "Luz, Belos made another Grimwalker."

He watched her freeze, eyes widening as the realization hit her, too.

"Oh my god," she warbled. "He's already destabilizing."

"He's already dying," Gus corrected.

Not-Hunter sprinted forward toward him and Gus snapped to his feet, summoning three identical clones of himself that scattered in random directions. He got lucky, and Not-Hunter picked the wrong one, slashing through its gut as it burst into smoke and light.

That would have killed him.

"What do we do?!" Luz wailed. Gus could hear the despair creeping into her voice.

Not-Hunter swiveled toward him, his pink eye locking onto his own. 

For a moment, time stood still.

"Go," said Gus. "Save Hunter."

"What?!" Luz gasped. "What are you talking about?!"

"He has the Ortet bone," Gus told her, "We need it."

She hesitated, visibly conflicted and alarmed. "But…"

Not-Hunter threw another spike at him and he just barely dove out of the way before leaping back to his feet, a fire in his chest that would not be put out.

"Hunter needs you!" Gus cried, throwing a hand in the air to catch Emmeline in her staff form. He leaned forward and slid one foot back, slashing his staff to the side and slamming open the massive doors behind Not-Hunter. "And this guy– this guy needs me."

Luz's eyes widened, before she looked at Not-Hunter again, and swallowed. She made a shaky, high-pitched and miserable noise before she grabbed Flapjack and flew forward, shooting through the doorway and beyond it.

Not-Hunter threw a whip of sludge after her, but Gus drew an orange spell circle with Emmeline and a pillar of stone shot out sideways from the wall, smashing it into the opposite side and rendering the way forward impassable.

Not-Hunter turned slowly toward him, pupil dilating.

"Okay," Gus swallowed, "Let's do this."

Chapter Text

Luz could already hear fighting when she burst into the portal room, and her heart leapt into her throat when finally, finally, her eyes fell on Hunter, standing in the middle of the chamber.

And then her heart fell through her stomach and into the floor as she actually looked at him.

His hair was streaked with black sweat that made it slick against his skull, his clothes stained with dark liquid that oozed out in every place that it could. His left arm hung at his side, too long and writhing with rot and decay. When he turned to face her, eyes wide, he was leaking the same ichor from his ears, his eyes, his nose, his mouth– his skin was so pale and his expression so frightened that he was barely recognizable as her friend.

"Hunter!" she cried. Her eyes were burning with tears of– relief? Misery? Joy? All of the above?

"What are you doing here?!" he cried, and then snapped his head back up as a whip of dark green and black sludge hit the ground where he'd just been standing. He had flash-stepped a few paces away, and she could see from the way that he'd landed that he wasn't moving quite right, that his limbs were sloshing like they weren't totally solid.

He had been right. He didn't have much time left.

"I came to save you, idiot!" she cried as she flew in beside him, leaping to the floor and grabbing Flapjack. "We all did!" She watched him twirl his artificial magic staff and fire off a volley of fireballs at where, across the room, a horrifying beast with glowing blue eyes was roaring at him. Ice cold fear squeezed her heart. "What is that!"

"Belos," Hunter replied. "You have to go."

"I'm not leaving you behind!"

"This isn't up for debate, human!"

"I'm not letting you kill yourself!" Luz yelled. She yelped as a spike shot toward her, spinning Flapjack frantically to block it, if only barely. 

"I'm not killing myself!" he groaned. "I'm dying, Luz! I don't get a choice!"

"You didn't even let us try to help you!" she insisted, the tears still flowing. "You just accepted it!"

"Of course I did!" he exclaimed. "It's happening, Luz! Please, you have to go!"

Both of them dove in opposite directions as a whip of goo slammed into the ground and crumpled the stone floor like styrofoam, sending debris flying in every direction.

"No!" she snapped.

"Yes!" he insisted.

"No!" she yelled.

"Ye–" he began.

Before he could finish, a goo spike shot through his palm, knocking away his staff and pinning his hand to a pillar.

He didn't look like he even felt it, lurching backward as he fought to stay on his feet, arm pulled taught and just a little bit too long.

"Hunter!" she gasped. She'd looked away from Belos for too long, though, because while she was distracted, another whip took her legs out from under her and sent her crashing to the floor. Her head spun as she reached out for him. "Hunter!"

She watched as Belos stalked toward his would-be nephew, his wide, skull-like smile widening around too many teeth.

"That's better," he said in an uncomfortably human voice. "Back in your place."

Hunter sagged against his trapped hand, looking up at the monster that his uncle had become– and maybe always been– with hate-filled eyes. "No. Never again."

Belos chuckled. "You don't even realize that this fight was over before it even began, do you?" He picked up his staff in a massive hand and Luz's eyes widened.

"Wait," she cried. "Wait, don't!"

"Goodbye, nephew," said Belos with a wave, and Hunter jerked painfully as stone began to creep up his boots.

"Hunter!" Luz shrieked.

Hunter's eyes sharpened, bright and angry but filled with satisfaction, lips curling upward into a sharp smile. "You're right," he snarled, "It was."

His cloak suddenly burst open as a thrashing whip of rotten sludge exploded forth from his right arm had once been and impaled his uncle through the chest.

The Owl Beast missed the simplicity of being an animal. Once, a great many years ago, it had not worried about much other than eating, sleeping, hunting, breeding. It had led simple lives. Wake, hunt, eat, sleep. At times seek out another of its kind to procreate.

Before it had become what it was now, it had been a great many creatures. A whole species. Its fractured mind was filled with memories of flying and fighting, of rearing chicks and teaching them to hunt for themselves, and then finally, finally, of endless running as each iota of what would become its new self would be collected and combined. 

It did not have the intelligence to understand what it was now, but it did have the new intelligence to understand that it did not understand. It knew, deep within its being, that it should not exist, but it existed in spite of what should and should not be.

It had at first been elated to find a host it could inhabit, but that joy had quickly been doused once it realized it had simply moved from one prison to another. At least this one allowed it brief moments of freedom and the relief of taking its anger out on someone else.

A very short time ago, however, everything had changed. Freedom was given and not taken. It was no longer an unwanted presence within its own body but something offered love and acceptance and welcomed there. For the first time in more time than it knew how to comprehend, it was… happy.

It was hopeful.

It had not known what hope was before that. It was not a feeling familiar to its parts in their past lives, and had never been known to it in its new one. But now that it had it, it didn't want to let it go.

It could see its new future, taste it almost. Peace with its host. Freedom given to be an animal again, to rest in a body that could touch and feel, to hunt and eat under its own power. To raise chicks like it once had– and its host had so many chicks that needed raising. She'd not kitted them herself, but that wasn't important. 

The little furry one, the two-legged one from another world and the little witchlings that came with her, and even the new one that stank of death. It could feel how deeply its host worried about that one, the distress that just thinking about his suffering brought her. The flock had failed that one and it needed to be reared properly. 

In the future the Owl Beast could taste, its host was happy, it was happy, their chicks were happy, and it would never have to worry again about being locked away and despised for existing. Perhaps its host could even convince her nestmate to find some peace with her own creature, and the Owl Beast could truly meet it without violence, and it wouldn't be so alone anymore.

And as the crowd below them began to cry out in fear and alarm, as the other witches stood around the circle beneath the rising moon began to bicker and banter and demand action, as they began to suggest more and more violence it could feel its host beginning to come undone. She was falling to pieces beneath her anguish and her anger and any moment she would drop her very careful pretend-game. If she did, they would kill her. They would kill the little plant witchling.

"You need to get these animals under control before they ruin everything!" snapped the little red creature in the metal beast. "And I need to get back to the castle so I can finish off those stupid children."

The Owl Beast had finally learned what hope was and it was not prepared to lose it now. Its host may be prepared to play pretend-game and make tricks, but the Owl Beast was a different kind of creature. In its world, things were not so complicated.

"What," scowled the witch with a tail, "You couldn't disable even one rebellious child?"

These people were enemies. They threatened their lives, their chicks, their hope.

The red one cackled and grinned, missing a sharp tooth. "No," she answered, "But I did kill Lilith Clawthorne."

Its host would thank it later.

The Owl Beast burst forth out of the aether it occupied and into the world through its host with a furious shriek of rage and flew straight at the red one, burying its fangs in her metal steed. It beat its wings furiously and knocked those around it to the ground, shrieking and clawing and tearing with its teeth.

"Oh, Titan, what is that?!"

"Did Raine just turn into the Owl Lady?!"

"You idiot, it was always the Owl Lady using an illusion!"

"Shouldn't you have figured that out earlier, then?!" 

"Shut up, you, we have to– ahh!"

It heard the speaker cry out and turned its wide eyes away just long enough to see that the ooze-witch and the little beast-witch had turned to fight, too. It was glad that they understood. 

It screeched again, but this time in pain as it was thrown to the ground. The red creature's metal beast was damaged, but it was much stronger than it had expected. The Owl Beast began trying to flip itself back into its feet, but it had never been particularly good at getting up off of its back. 

A metal foot stepped on its throat and it snarled, before the sound cut off with a hrrk.

"Hello, Owl Lady," the red creature said to it. Idiot. The Owl Lady was not here right now. "I'm going to enjoy the opportunity to end the entire Clawthorne lineage today." 

Deep within it, the Owl Beast could feel its host's sudden fear and panic, locking up its limbs as their synchronicity in desire and emotion clashed. The metal thing's arm reformed into a blade and raised above its head.

There was a sudden crash of stone and steel as something fast and dark burst upward and grabbed the metal creature, lifting it into the air and dropping it again just as unceremoniously. 

Synchronicity returned as The Owl Beast and its host both surged with the same joy.

Lilith Clawthorne landed on the ledge before them, huge black wings behind her back and dark eyes set into her pale skin, mouth stretched around huge teeth. 

Red streaked down her right side from her missing arm where it had been rended apart above the elbow, but she was still smiling around her fangs. 

"Hello, Eda," she said, "Hello, Owl Beast."

The Owl Beast and its host screeched in mutual joy as their sister reached out a clawed hand and took its own, pulling it back onto its feet. 

Lilith and The Raven Beast joined its battle cry, and together they launched themselves on their enemies.

Gus tucked and rolled, pulling up slabs of stone in his wake to block lashes of ooze that reached for him. He was breathing heavily already, but Not-Hunter seemed completely unperturbed, still standing in the same spot that he had been, single eye wide and expression blank and unfeeling.

But Gus didn't believe it. Not for one second. He'd made that mistake before, when he'd judged Hunter based on what he thought he was like, when he'd done it to Matt, Titan, when he'd done it to Amity. All three of them had hidden all their pain with anger. They'd spat and snarled like feral dogs and he'd accepted that's what they were without looking for the weeping injuries they were hiding along their bellies. 

Not this time. This time he would not be backing down. He would not accept the illusion he was being shown as reality.

"You don't need to do this!" he yelled. "We don't have to fight!"

He dodged out of the way of a spike that flew by his head and splashed into the ground behind him. Not-Hunter staggered, arm dripping onto the floor around him. His cloak dragged through it and pulled it across the ground.

"I don't know what Belos told you–" Gus continued stubbornly, "But this– this is not the way things have to be! He's a monster and you don't owe him anything just because he made you– he made you to die!"  

He threw up another stone shield against a whip of goo before it surged around the wall and beneath his feet. He stumbled backward with a yelp as it clung to his ankles. 

Emmeline chirruped and transformed into a staff. He grabbed her in both hands as she pulled him straight up and his feet were pulled free with a squelch.

"He did the same thing to my friend, Hunter– and that's why I'm here!" Gus yelled. "I'm here to save Hunter. Because he's not a thing! And he's not Belos's!" He scrambled up onto his staff and away from tendrils that rose up from the ground and grasped for him. They receded quickly back toward their owner. "And neither are you!"

Not-Hunter didn't seem to care all that much. His eye was on the sticky rot that was crawling across the floor until it was sucked once more into his arm and he looked back up at Gus. 

His right arm writhed and roiled with thick ichor, and Gus wondered what it would be like to touch it.

To plunge his hand into it and grab his stolen bone. To pull it free and leave him wanting. 

Could he do that?

Another rope of ooze shot out and grabbed Emmeline's staff and yanked it down. He cried out as he lost his grip and tumbled off and to the floor. His palisman transformed and skittered away, trying to get back to him, but the cursed matter between them would not let her pass. 

He pushed himself up to his knees and looked at his opponent– his blank expression, his unfeeling eye, his rigid posture.

His familiar face. 

Gus had come here to save Hunter. He had to save Hunter. He had promised him– promised him– sleepovers, flyer derby games, birthday parties. While Gus had been cuddling in bed with his parents and listening to bedtime stories, Hunter had been sleeping alone in a cold dark room in the castle. No one was reading him bedtime stories. No one was soothing him after his nightmares. They were waking him up before the sun to train, to take hits delivered by and for adults, to walk them off without crying and hit back even harder. 

He was being raised like a work animal, not a child, and he was being raised inevitably for slaughter. Gus couldn't even think about it without feeling sick. He couldn't fathom how anyone could be so cruel, or how anyone could have seen it and not intervened.

He wasn't like them, though. He had been raised to respect adults, but he'd seen enough now to know that there were adults that weren't worthy of respect. Emperor Belos first and foremost, but every single adult who had ever seen Hunter suffering and walked away.

Gus was better than them. Better than every single one of them. If he died today he would go to his grave knowing that his conscience was clear.

Or– was it? Was it really?

Not-Hunter threw another whip at him that he rolled away from, before he snapped his hand in the air and brought up a surge of stone beneath the Grimwalker, throwing him into the air. His limbs clawed uselessly at nothing before he crashed back into the ground with a splash, rolling onto his side.

Gus stood up, wavering uncertainly. He looked down at the person in his way, the person who wasn't Hunter, the person who had the one thing Gus needed to save him.

He hadn't asked to be made. He hadn't asked to be a weapon.

He hadn't asked to die.

No one had stuck up for this guy. No one had tried to help him. No one had hugged him, no one had told him bedtime stories or thrown him birthday parties, no one had loved him or cared about him either. He had never even stood a chance. No one had ever given him one, either.

Gus's hands shook at his sides as Emmeline scrambled up his leg, and transformed into a staff that he caught in blanched-knuckle fists.

Not-Hunter looked up at him, one pink eye focusing on him, his face sloughing off at the sides and this time, he showed the first expression he had since he'd turned around.

He was afraid.

Gus's breath quickened in his chest. He didn't have a choice. This boy was going to die no matter what he did. Unlike Hunter, they didn't have a plan to save him. If he kept the Ortet bone he might last a little longer, but he was going to fall apart soon no matter what. He hadn't just been broken, he hadn't been made right in the first place. 

He could still save Hunter. He couldn't save this stranger. 

He raised Emmeline above his head, tightening his fists until the shaking in his arms stopped. 

He could do this.

He had to do this.

Chapter Text

Skara leaned forward on her staff until she reached the front of the castle and leapt off onto the castle parapet, throwing her hands in the air. 

"Yue!" she cried. Her palisman staff twirled in the air and transformed again in a burst of glittering red magic. Her erhu landed in her hand and she took the bow in the other, closing her eyes as she drew it across the strings, a long, beautiful note singing out from the drum.

With a deep breath she pulled it quickly back in a sharp loud note that sent a shockwave crashing through the crowd of coven scouts with a boom.

"Emira!" she cried. 

Skara had been friends with Amity for years, though they didn't talk much anymore. She'd met both Edric and Emira countless times. Back then, all of them had been cruel. 

But Amity had stopped hanging out with Boscha. She'd stopped bullying Willow. She'd stopped bullying anyone. Soon enough, Amity was out of their friend group. She'd started dating Luz, she'd stopped listening to her parents, and… she'd been happy. Happier than she'd ever been when they were friends. 

And Skara had realized, quite suddenly, that she had been miserable, too.

Emira struggled up to her elbows from where she'd been knocked to the ground, but a coven scout grabbed her under the arms and dragged her back as she cried out in pain. Skara grit her teeth and leapt down from the parapet, beginning to play rapidly. 

She loved this song. It was an old one, one her parents hated, something from the savage ages. It told the story in its notes of the spirit of a serpent that fell in love with a mortal and was hunted down by a priest who believed her to be tricking him to steal his soul. She died protecting him and proved that her love was true, and the gods returned her to life as a mortal too. It was a little bit sad and a little bit bold, but beautiful in both ways. The swirling red magic shot through the air and wrapped around the scout that had captured Emira, dragging his arms away like a marionette. 

Emira stumbled back to her feet and sprinted for her, limping on a bleeding leg. She was huffing and puffing with exhaustion as she stumbled to a halt behind her. 

"Can't you heal that?" Skara asked.

"My bile sac is almost empty," she panted, "and Caduceus is exhausted."

"Caduc-a-who?"

A winged snake popped its head out of Emira's jacket collar and flicked its tongue at her.

"Since when do you have a palisman??" Skara balked.

"Since about fifteen minutes ago," Emira replied. "Look out!"

Skara squeaked as a fireblast closed in on them, only to pull another series of notes from her erhu and watch it split open around them, sending sparks in every direction. 

"Where is everyone else?!" Skara cried.

"Everyone but Amity, Viney and my dad kept going– I saw Viney carry Amity away, but–"

"Where's your dad??" Skara looked frantically around. It was time for everyone to get out of here. 

Suddenly Emira gasped. Skara whipped around and followed her eyes to the bridge where, just barely, she could see Mr. Blight's purple trench coat, stained with red.

Emira moved to run forward, but Skara sidestepped her and shook her head frantically.

"Don't get yourself killed! Stay with me." She spun back around, playing louder as she pushed forward into the throng. 

"Dad!" Emira yelled. "Dad!"

There was no response. Emira choked on a sob behind her, and coven scouts moved into a circle with spell shields raised. Just then there was a roar and several cries of fear and surprise, and both girls spun about toward the castle to see what it was.

A huge three headed dog had burst through the front gates and gone crashing through the crowd like a battering ram. Edric sat on its back, clinging to its spiked collar and howling something that Skara couldn't hear. 

"Ed!" Emira yelled. "Ed, I need to get to Dad!" 

There was no way he could hear her over the noise, but she pointed toward the bridge, and maybe they did have some kind of twin telepathy after all, because that's all it took. Edric and his beast ran forward, bowling through their enemies like they weren't even there.

Skara and Emira ran through its wake to find the Blight father lying motionless on his side in a pool of blood.

"Dad!" Emira wailed, dropping to her knees beside him. She shook him hard, but he had no response, head lolling to the side. 

"Is he–?" Skara gasped. 

"I don't know!" Emira cried.

"Heal him!" Edric yelled.

"I– I don't know if I–" she sniffled. "I'm only a beginner healer, and I'm almost out of magic, and– and–"

"You have to try!" Skara insisted.

"Em," Edric said firmly, "you can do this."

She took a shaky intake and focused on breathing, raising her trembling hands to draw a pair of wobbly blue spell circles.

"I can do this," she warbled, focusing on the stab wound in her father's chest.

Skara took her place facing the direction of the forest and Edric took his own facing the castle. Back to back, they just needed to give Emira the time and space to do what she had to. 

She took a deep breath, and then she kept playing.

Luz had one bright, beautiful moment of elation as Hunter impaled his evil uncle, one moment where she thought that he had killed him and they had won, that she could slap him and call him stupid and then start frantically scrambling to find a solution to his whole 'dying' problem.

Then the moment passed, and Belos snarled in rage, grabbing at Hunter's– wrist? –part of the spike that ran through his body. Then something crossed his face, some kind of belated realization, and he quickly pulled his hand away.

Or at least– he tried to.

It came away still connected to Hunter's arm, connected by ropes of ooze he couldn't shake away. 

"Hunter–" Luz gasped, "Hunter, what are you doing?"

"I left you a whole letter!" Hunter snapped, "Did you not read it?!"

"Yeah, we read it!" Luz yelled, "It was really sad and everybody cried and then we came to save you!" Flapjack twittered from her shoulder.

"Ugh," Hunter snarled, before he pulled his hand forward and it schlorped around the spike that held it there, freeing his arm. He stumbled and then stepped forward, heavy stone feet cumbersome and climbing. "I told you, I have a plan."

"What are you doing?" Belos interrupted. "Let me go!"

"No," Hunter snarled. Stone crawled up past his knees and forced him to halt. He dragged his monstrous uncle back with the arm that connected them, but Luz couldn't quite tell where Hunter ended and Belos began.

And then it clicked. 

"No, wait," she said as her stomach dropped, watching in horror as lifeless grey climbed up his legs began to grow in patches along his arms, spreading across where he was connected with Belos to grow on him, too.

Flapjack burst into a frantic song and leapt from Luz's shoulder to flap around Hunter, trying and failing to grab his hair as he turned his head away to stop him. 

"Let me go!" Belos roared, rearing back as he visibly began to panic, but he was dragged back to the floor, and Hunter lurched forward. 

Luz caught him, dropping to her knees under the sudden weight, but at least he hadn't hit the floor. Flapjack wailed out the saddest warble she'd ever heard.

"Hunter, please!" she begged. "Please, please, stop!"

"I can't stop now," he grimaced, as if in pain. Halfway on his side in her lap, legs twisted awkwardly, he leaned heavily on her shoulder, covering her shirt in black goo. "It's too late."

"It's never too late!" she sniffled, "Hunter, don't you want to live?"

His lips trembled and his furious, focused expression suddenly warbled, until it fell part into fear and grief.

"Of course I do!" he wailed. "Of course I want to live!" His voice broke. "But I don't get to. I'm not choosing between living and dying, Luz, I'm choosing between dying for nothing and dying for something that matters!" He hiccuped a sob and shook his head frantically as stone crept up past his waist.

Belos snarled and scrambled for his staff, but Hunter dragged him back down. The old man suddenly changed his tone from furious to frightened as stone locked his shoulders in place.

"I've spent my whole life as the bad guy who did bad things and that's how I'm going to be remembered," Hunter shook. "I– I need to know I'm good, or at least, that I'm not all bad– I need to prove that there's something good inside of me, that it's real, that it's in here, that I– I just need– I need to prove that my existence meant something, that– that–" Stone rolled across his ribs. "That the world wouldn't have been better off if I'd just never been born at all!"

So much horror rocked through Luz's body that she thought she might be sick. "Hunter…"

"I'm sorry," Hunter sniffled weakly, "I'm sorry, Luz."

Flapjack finally landed on his chest and pushed his head up against Hunter's jawline miserably. 

"I'm sorry, Flap," he said more quietly. 

"Don't say sorry," Luz sniffled, "It's not over, it's not done. We can still fix this. I can still fix this!"

"Please," Hunter begged, "I'm going to die. Please, I don't want to die with– I just want– I just–"

She crushed his body against hers in a hug as she wailed out a sob, almost as bad as the one she'd made when she'd heard the flatline from outside of her father's hospital room. She had thought she could never feel that kind of pain or sorrow again, that nothing could ever hurt as bad, but she was rapidly discovering that it didn't matter. Death hurt. Death always hurt. 

"I love you!" Luz burst, "Willow loves you and Gus loves you and Viney loves you and even Amity loves you! We've all been so happy to be your friend and you should know that!"

Hunter whimpered in pain and she cried out in sympathy, her whole chest on fire as her heart broke like hollow pottery. 

And then something purple shot over them and impacted with the thrashing emperor.

Not-Hunter's one eye tracked back and forth across his face as it searched for something, before it closed, and he hung his head in silence. Gus did not know if he had found what he had been looking for.

His arms were shaking and his vision blurred at the edges. This was the worst thing he would ever do as long as he lived, and he was so young. He may have to live with it for a very, very long time. 

But he would also have to live a very, very long time knowing he didn't do it, too.

It's fine. Thanks for not letting me die.

It wasn't fair. The world was supposed to be fair.

I don't think I've been a kid for a long time.

People weren't supposed to have to make decisions like this! This kind of suffering wasn't supposed to exist in the first place!

It's not like hurting me is new for him. He's been doing it my entire life.

People were supposed to do something about it!

I don't need help. I'm okay.

Adults were supposed to do something about it!

Why didn't you help me?!

If Hunter was willing to make sacrifices for his friends, Gus should be, too, right?

I only have a little time left and if I get to use it to make sure you guys get to live, then I'll die happy.

Hunter was his friend.

I wanted to.

This guy was a stranger.

I really wanted to.

It was that simple, wasn't it?

Goodbye.

Wasn't it?

I'll miss you.

"You think I want this?"

Gus snapped his head up at the same time the Grimwalker did.

Beside them, an oxlength away, Hunter had appeared, arms crossed.

"What," Gus blinked, Emmeline still over his head. 

"You think this is fair?" Hunter scoffed. "He's no different than I am. What's the difference– that you met me first? Is that the only thing that makes me real to you?"

Gus balked. What was happening right now? "You are real, though!" he insisted. "You're my friend!"

"Am I?" Hunter pressed. "We've known each other, what, a week? What do you even know about me?"

"I know that your life has sucked!" Gus burst, "And that it's not fair! I know you've never had friends before and everyone deserves to have friends!"

"Oh, yeah?" Hunter scowled. He uncrossed his arms and pointed at Not-Hunter. "What about him?"

Gus froze, staring at his outstretched arm.

His outstretched right arm.

He looked back down at the Grimwalker again, who was looking up at him with undisguised confusion. He frowned curiously, and then picked up a hand to point at his one eye, raising an eyebrow.

"What?" Gus squinted, before it clicked. "Oh!" He raised his free hand up to his face where he could see the faint cerulean light of his eyes shining against his palm. "Oh."

"I didn't ask you to do this," Illusion-Hunter said. "I won't thank you for it, either. I don't want to know that you would have killed me if I'd been the second one you met."

Slowly, Gus lowered his staff.

He shouldn't have to make a choice like this, but he did. This kind of suffering shouldn't exist, but it did. Someone should have done something, but they hadn't. Gus should be willing to make sacrifices, and he was.

But not someone else's life. That wasn't his sacrifice to make.

He sniffled and waved his staff, dismissing the illusion of his friend. He dropped to one knee in front of the stranger who might not be Hunter, but he also wasn't Not-Hunter. He was still someone.

It didn't matter if he could live with it or not. He wasn't the only one that would have to. It wasn't fair of Eda to force them to live with having done nothing while their friend died. It wasn't fair of Hunter to make them live with his suicide mission on their shoulders. It wasn't fair of Principal Bump and the others to trade Hunter's life for his own and make him live with the guilt.

It wasn't fair of Gus to make Hunter live with this, either. 

"I won't," Gus choked.

The Grimwalker drew back, almost in alarm.

Maybe he could, but he wouldn't. He could make the choice to sacrifice someone for his friend if he wanted to empty his heart out to do it, but if he was in Hunter's place– knowing he had killed someone just like him to save his life– someone else who'd been born to die, someone else abused and unloved and friendless in an unfair world– he'd never forgive himself or them. 

"I won't!" Gus yelled. He could feel tears drip down from his nose to splash against the stone, messy-crying with anger and grief and frustration and bone-deep misery. "I won't let that monster make me one, too!" He snapped his head up and grabbed one of the other boy's hands, visibly startling him. "And you don't have to either! Please, please, I'm begging you to let me help you– I don't care what Belos told you, if he bothered to tell you anything, you are not my enemy and I'd rather let you kill me than treat you like one!"

The Grimwalker seemed genuinely confused, looking around the room as if he might find some kind of explanation for what was happening there. He swallowed and shook his head, gritting his teeth before he pulled his hand away and surged forward, wrapping his fingers around his throat.

Gus gasped as he fell backwards against the floor, two hands on his neck and squeezing. He grabbed at his wrists, a strangled whine choking out of him before he went silent. Above him the other boy's lips were trembling, and single eye tracking back and forth like it had before, searching again for something Gus didn't know if he would find.

And then he let go.

The boy who wasn't Hunter skittered backwards against the floor until his spine hit the wall and he wrapped his arms around his chest, clutching his shoulders as he squeezed his eyes shut. He was shaking all over, which seemed to only hasten the rate at which ichor leaked from his clothes. 

Gus sat up, hacking desperately for air. His stomach churned and for a moment he thought he might vomit, but fortunately the feeling passed and he looked up again at the Grimwalker. He had started shaking his head and his hands moved to thread into his hair, knees pulling up against his chest. Gus crawled toward him.

"Hey!" he cried. "Hey, look at me! I'm right here. Can you hear me?"

The other boy looked up at him miserably. 

"I'm not going to hurt you," said Gus.

The other boy sniffled and grabbed at his shirt over his heart, shaking his head.

"Don't give up," Gus implored, "It's not over until it's over. We still have time to figure something out."

The boy's chest moved as if he were laughing, but he didn't make a sound.

"Up past here my friend Hunter is trying to kill Belos. And himself, probably. And my other friend Luz– the girl who just left? She's the smartest and most stubborn person I've ever met. She would never let one of her friends get hurt. If there is anyone in the world who can figure out what to do, it's her. This doesn't have to be the end. I won't let it end like this."

The boy squeezed his shirt more tightly, balling the fabric into a fist. He looked away.

"The world fucking sucks," Gus spat. He'd never said that word before, but he didn't think there would ever be a better time to. Besides, if he was old enough to die– old enough to kill– he was old enough to cuss. "It's not fair, but that doesn't mean I can't be. And I don't think it's fair to have never had a friend before, not for anyone, not for Hunter and not for you." He offered the other boy his hand. "Please. I want to be your friend."

There was a long moment where neither of them spoke, the only sound in the corridor the wet, wheezy breathing of the dying Grimwalker.

He looked back at him finally, swallowing thickly, before he reached out and took Gus's hand.

Chapter Text

Darius only appeared in a room long enough to register that neither Belos nor Hunter were present before he translocated to the next one. 

One way or another, you'll see me again.

He'd seen him again. 

One way or another, you'll see me again.

He'd seen him again and he'd hated him. 

One way or another, you'll see me again.

Jasper had never told him that he couldn't use magic. He was the most powerful witch that Darius had ever known, and he had both been able to hide the fact that he couldn't actually use magic without a staff and felt that he had to. 

One way or another, you'll see me again.

And he'd been right.

How many times had he mocked Hunter for being a powerless witch? How miserable had he made that boy for something he couldn't change– something he hadn't even done wrong, for Titan's sake, all he'd done is been born and been born disabled and Darius had taken that as full permission to be his worst self toward him. 

Maybe Jasper had seen that hate in him. Maybe he'd known that he could never trust Darius with that secret. Maybe he had known, not just deep down, but right on the surface, known every time he smiled at him, that Darius was capable of being that cruel to him, too. 

He was moving so quickly that he nearly translocated away again before he realized that  he'd finally found him. And oh, how he'd found him.

He was partially sludge and partially stone, all mixed up with a great writhing beast on the floor. He lay in Luz's lap where she crushed him against her chest, wailing miserably. 

The furious creature on the floor looked up at him, glowing blue eyes set in black holes that locked on him with rage and fear that sent a shock of ice cold water through his veins. 

And suddenly he knew. He knew who that was. He knew what he had done, to Jasper, to the Boiling Isles, to Hunter. He knew what Hunter was doing now. 

And he knew he couldn't let him do it.

Rage and grief and determination flowed through him like a river as his body rippled and shifted into abomination matter, and he surged forward like a bullet at the Emperor.

Hunter cried out in surprise as purple abomination matter collided with his uncle and dragged him forward– fortunately Luz was clinging to him so tightly that it dragged her along with him, so he didn't hit the floor face first. 

Something writhed against where he was all twisted up between them, goop mixed with goop, inseparable, and yet somehow, it separated as Darius's abomination form reared back from where he was now mixed up with black and green rot, tearing Hunter free. 

"Darius?!" Hunter cried. "What are you doing?!"

"What I should have done years ago!" he yelled, before he shifted both hands into a hammer and slammed it down on Belos. He split apart like water filled with stone only to reform back around Darius' arms and pull him inward. "Rrgh– saving you from him!"

"Stop!" Hunter yelled. He clawed at the floor with his one hand, two fingers already stone as his right arm liquefied against the ground. "Stop, you're going to die, too!" 

"I can live with that," Darius hissed through grit teeth. A tendril of abomination matter rose from his body, warbling like it wasn't entirely under his control, before it grabbed Belos's discarded staff and threw it at Luz. She nearly dropped Hunter as she scrambled to catch it.

"What do I do?!" Luz gasped.

"Save Hunter!" yelled Darius.

"Save Darius!" yelled Hunter.

"I don't know how to do either of those things!" she cried. "How do I stop the petrification spell??"

"I–" Hunter choked, "I don't know."

Luz hiccuped out a sob and clutched the staff tightly between her hands, but her mind felt suddenly blank, as if she'd forgotten everything she'd ever learned about magic. After all of it, after everything, after they'd come so far, after Lilith had– she wasn't enough, she couldn't do it, she was a scared little kid in over her head and–

"Luz! Hunter!"

She snapped her head up. In the doorway stood Gus with the other Grimwalker's arm over his shoulders as he limped beside him, legs shaking beneath his own weight. Not-Hunter's one eye widened in what she presumed was surprise as he saw Hunter.

"Gus!" she wailed. Now she definitely didn't know what to do. There was no longer any denying that the other Grimwalker was a real person and not a mindless construct, he wasn't hostile, there was no way to justify taking the Ortet bone from him without calling it murder. One of them or both of them was going to die.

"What is that?" Hunter burst. 

Gus stumbled to Hunter with the other Grimwalker and collapsed to his knees. "Hunter!" he cried. "Hunter, what do we do? How do we help you?"

Hunter sniffled, lip trembling. patches of stone crawled across his collarbone. "I don't know."

The other Grimwalker mouthed something silently, face screwed up in hurt. He reached forward and Hunter drew back, but not before he touched his hand.

They stuck together.

The other Grimwalker's expression shifted suddenly to determination. He twisted his arm to take Hunter's hand in his and squeezed, before he suddenly fully transformed into black and green goop the same as Belos had and surged forward against his mirror double.

"Hey!" Luz cried. "What are you doing!? Hunter!"

The stone in her lap suddenly dropped as it disconnected with the goop that it had been attached to, falling into chunks that scattered across the floor. She cried out, wordless, as the black liquid surged and writhed before it reformed into a single shiny obsidian figure made of rippling liquid that picked up Belos' staff and rose to his feet, black-stained Golden Guard cloak billowing around him.

Without hesitation, he pointed his staff at Belos and Darius and fired. 

They blew apart like he'd thrown dynamite between them, striking opposite walls. Darius groaned, but Belos rolled onto his side, raising a single clawed hand in his direction as he yelled "No!"

And then stone rolled across his face, and he went totally still.

The black-ichor boy in front of them lowered his staff to his side and let out a breath, before looking at his left hand with a frown and screwed up eyebrows. 

"Hunter?" Luz asked hesitantly. 

"Not-Hunter?" Gus asked uncertainly.

He looked back at them, expression grief stricken, and shook his head. Luz took in a sharp, shaky breath.

"What do we do?" asked Gus. 

The boy stepped back, grabbing his head in his hands and shaking it further.

"No," he choked out. "No, stop."

"Stop?" Luz repeated. "Stop what?" 

"No," he repeated, "I won't let you–"

Flapjack left Luz's lap and fluttered about the Grimwalker, tweeting desperately. The boy looked up with wet eyes, holding up both shaking hands for him to land in.

"Flap," he choked. "What do I do?"

Flapjack cooed a soft, sad note, and then closed his one eye, leaning forward to touch their foreheads together.

Hunter blinked away the cloying darkness and shook his head as the fog cleared and left him looking around in confusion. 

He was back in the throne room.

"What…?" he murmured.

He went stone still as his eyes fell on his mirror double, except this Hunter had a missing eye.

"You–!" he burst. His double looked equally surprised, before he looked down at his own hands and then back up at him in confusion. Hunter looked down at his own and realized two things.

He had both of them, and his skin had returned to its normal colour.

He looked back up at the other Grimwalker, who's ears twitched, and he pointed behind him. Hunter blinked and turned around.

A ways away, a tiny Hunter stood before the throne. He was alone except for the Emperor who sat before him.

Six-year-old Hunter clutched a little wooden palisman in his hands. He remembered this day suddenly– it had been a frog then, but it wasn't a frog now.

It was a cardinal. 

He froze in horror as the memory played out otherwise unchanged, with little Hunter handing his uncle the palisman.

"Good boy, Hunter, thank you," he said with what Hunter now knew was entirely fake fondness. 

Then he crushed the palisman in his fist like it was hollow pottery, swirling green magic rising from its broken body as he breathed it in.

Tiny Hunter gasped in horror. He hadn't known at the time what his uncle was going to do with the palisman, only that he had asked him to bring him one. He covered his mouth and took a step back. 

"You killed it!" he cried. 

His uncle narrowed his eyes at him in immediate disdain. "Hunter. It was wild magic."

"You killed it!" Hunter yelled again. "How could you?!"

"Hunter," Belos repeated. "It was wild magic. You know how the Titan feels about wild magic."

Hunter shook his head, crying now as he pointed at him. "You're a monster!" he yelled. 

A spike of green-black rot shot out and struck him across the face. If he hadn't seen it coming and turned his head at the last second, it would have killed him.

"Ah!" he wailed, falling to his knees as he grabbed his cheek. It had been torn open, far enough to clip the bone of his jaw, and blood immediately began pouring out and through his fingers.

"Rrg," the Emperor grunted, sagging in his throne as he covered his forehead in his hand. "I apologize," he rasped, "But this is why I need palismen, Hunter." He raised his head to glare at him. "The beast is near impossible to control. It takes all my strength to protect you from it, nephew. It is only with the magic I take from them that I can keep you safe."

Hunter hiccuped a sob. "I– I know, Uncle."

The Emperor sighed. "You're young, Hunter. I know it is difficult to understand, but you must trust adults that we know things you do not. While these creatures look alive, look like animals, they are not. They're mindless trinkets performing the illusion of sentience. They don't even feel pain."

Hunter sniffled. "They don't?"

"They don't."

"Oh," said Hunter.

The Emperor rose to his feet with a groan and crossed the room to where Hunter was kneeling. He picked him up like the child that he was and held him against his chest, unbothered by the blood he got in his tunic. Hunter buried his face in his shoulder and wrapped his tiny arms around his neck.

"There, there, little one," Belos murmured. "Wild magic is a terrible, dangerous thing. You remember what it did to our family."

"Y-yeah," Hunter hiccupped. 

"Your poor mother," Belos murmured. "I found her beneath two tons of collapsed stone, in a tiny pocket of air. She was long dead, but she held you still in her arms. She loved you so much."

Hunter sobbed. 

"You were so young, but already so brave. You didn't cry once as I moved away the rubble and took you from her arms." He pulled Hunter  away to tilt him back and gently wipe the tears from his eyes with his gauntlet. "You're a brave boy now. You mustn't cry anymore, Hunter."

"O-okay, Uncle," Hunter sniffled, "I'll be brave. I w-won't cry any-anymore."

"That's a good boy," said Belos, kissing him on the forehead and pulling him back in for a hug.

The real Hunter shivered at the memory. It had felt so real then. He had felt so loved.

But it had been a lie, even then. He had always meant to kill him. Perhaps he would have that day, if he hadn't had the foresight to move. He would have simply taken his body apart like a broken toy and made a new one. Hunter had meant nothing to him.

He looked back over at his would-be replacement, who appeared distraught. He looked at Hunter almost broken-hearted.

"It… wasn't always bad," he found himself saying. He wasn't sure why. Something about seeing so much hurt on a face so similar to his own felt strange, and he wanted it to go away. 

The room warbled and shifted, mixing like watercolour paint before it reformed into the Grimwalker lab where Hunter had lost his arm. The table was still drenched in dried blood and Belos stood over one of the potting boxes with a scowl. 

He reached into the soil and yanked out a hand, and then an arm. And then a whole torso. 

His mirror gasped as his eyes opened, looking around in wild confusion.

"Congratulations on being alive," Belos growled. "You'll do."

His doppelganger sagged as he was released, catching himself on the wooden box frame as he gasped for air, chest heaving. His arms shook and he looked up at Belos in confusion. 

"You are a Grimwalker," Belos told him, "A golem created to act out my orders. Do you understand?"

Hesitantly, the Grimwalker nodded. As he did, his right eye rolled in its socket and black ooze dribbled out from the corners, before the entire thing detached and slipped out, dangling from a single thread against his cheek. It broke, and the eye fell to the ground where it splashed into a black puddle.

"Lovely," said Belos, wrinkling his nose in disgust. "Now get up. You have work to do."

Hesitantly, the Grimwalker nodded.

Hunter looked back at the real one, who was staring at the floor with his shoulders hunched and his arms crossed. Hunter's heart sank.

His double had not even had the illusion of love. Not even for a moment. 

"I'm sorry," he said. 

His doppelganger looked up at him sadly, and then hung his head. 

The room warbled again, reforming into the rebel hideout he'd been in so recently. Hunter sat cross-legged in bed, surrounded by his friends and a gaggle of palismen, gentle petting Puddles head. He was smiling. 

The other Grimwalker watched with a face full of grief, and then he looked again at Hunter. He seemed broken. He seemed resigned.

"Hey," said Hunter. The other Grimwalker took a step backward, hugging his arms across his chest and closing his eyes as he shook his head. "Hey, wait!"

The room faded away, leaving them standing alone in darkness. 

One of his doppelganger's feet slipped into the ground and it rippled like water. He took another step backward, sinking deeper.

"Hey!" Hunter cried. He surged forward. "Hey, stop!"

The other Grimwalker looked up at him with a streak of tears flowing from one eye. Real tears– clear as crystal.

"Stop!" Hunter yelled again. He grabbed one of his hands and tore it away from his chest, pulling him backwards, but he remained stubbornly in the inky darkness. "Stop, what are you doing? Where are you going?!"

The other Grimwalker pointed behind him. When Hunter turned his head, he saw a beautiful, perfect, pure white light in the distance. 

He spun back around. "Stop. Don't do this. We can both live. We can!" 

His double looked at him miserably, and then pulled against his grip, taking another stubborn step backwards.

"No!" Hunter yelled. "No, stop!"

The other Grimwalker shook his head. 

"No!" Hunter yelled, "I won't let you–"

The other boy shook his hand away and stepped back one more time, before he dropped suddenly into the darkness and vanished.

Hunter froze in place in horror, and looked back at the white light behind him. It dimmed and flickered, as if it could only remain open for a short time. His chest heaved as his breath quickened, and then, without a further thought, he turned and dove into the inky blackness.

The darkness felt thick and heavy around his body, filling his throat and his lungs. They burned painfully as he gasped for air and didn't find it, but he didn't drown, either. Below him, he could see the other boy sinking, legs pulled into a ball and eyes squeezed shut. 

Hunter clawed at the shadows and swam toward him, grabbing his wrists. The doppelganger's eye shot open. 

"What are you doing?!" he cried, but his mouth didn't move. He seemed surprised by his own 'voice,' a soundless thought they could both hear, and his ears shot straight up.

"I'm saving you!" Hunter burst.

"You have to go back!" the other boy dismissed. "People are waiting for you!"

" I'm not leaving you behind!"

"You have to!" the other insisted. "We can't both live!"

"Why not?!" Hunter demanded.

"The bone…" the Grimwalker said miserably. "There's only one. It has to be you. You're real. I'm nothing. I'm no one."

"You're someone!" Hunter insisted. "You're you! You deserve to live just as much as I do!"

"But we can't…" the other repeated. "It doesn't matter. We don't get a choice."

They both looked up at a new sound. 

The sound of flapping wings and a soft, sweet song. 

Hunter breathed heavily around his aching wet lungs and let go of the other's wrists. Then, easily, as if he already knew he could, reached into his right arm with his left, the skin rippling painlessly like water around his touch, and pulled out the bone of their Ortet.

The other looked down at it with a wide, bright eye, and then back up at him. Hunter nodded, and his gaze returned to the bone.

"There's always a choice," said Hunter.

Then he broke the bone in half.

Chapter Text

Hunter woke with a groan, the world tipping back and forth like he was on a boat in a storm. He pulled the blanket over his head and squeezed his eyes shut until the feeling passed and he felt well enough to peer blearily out from the covers.

He squinted. He wasn't sure where he was.

It was certainly someone's house, warmly decorated and filled with knick-knacks and odds and ends stacked to the ceiling in places. The lights were off, but sunlight streamed in from the window and he was confident that it was the middle of the day. 

How had he gotten here? How long had he been here? 

He shot straight up in bed, heart racing.

What happened to the other Grimwalker?!

"HOOT! YOU'RE AWAKE, HOOT!"

Hunter nearly threw himself on the floor as the Owl House's bird demon tube thing burst in from the window and squished its face against his. 

Well. That answered the question of where he was.

"Eep," Hunter squeaked. 

"SO GLAD YOU'RE NOT DEAD, HOOT!" the house demon cooed in delight. "NOW STAY RIGHT THERE WHILE I GO TELL EEEEEEVERYBODY YOU'RE AWAKE!"

"Wait, hang on!" Hunter cried, but it was too late. The demon had wormed back out the window and vanished. Hunter froze, clutching the blanket against his chest with his one hand, until a moment later he heard rapid footsteps on the stairs.

"You're alive!" Luz yelled as she exploded into the room, the door banging against the wall as she did. 

"I can see that!" Hunter snapped, before following it up with an "Oof," as the human collided with him like a sack of bricks. 

"We were so worried about you!" Gus added from the doorway.

"You big stupid brave idiot, don't you ever do something like that again!" Viney sniffled, eyes brimming with emotion from the doorway.

"Hunter!" yelled Amity from behind them. "Hunter, we missed you!"

"Alright, alright, you little goblins, back up, quit crowding him," Darius' voice groused from the hall before he shooed them away from the door and stepped inside, crossing the room to his bedside. Luz did not release him from her hug. "Welcome back to the land of the living, Hunter."

"It's, uh… good to be back," Hunter said awkwardly. "What, uh… what happened?"

"Your stupid plan worked and you turned Belos to stone," Luz sniffled, "And Eda and everyone managed to stop the coven heads and get everybody out. Some people got hurt, but nobody died."

"Nobody died?" he said hopefully.

"Nobody died," Luz repeated.

"Oh," he said, breathing out a huge sigh of relief. "Oh. Good. Really good."

"That was very brave, and very stupid," Darius commented. "You wouldn't be here if so many people did not love you so very much."

That hit Hunter in the gut like a punch thrown full force. So many people that loved him. So much. 

"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. His hand trembled and he clenched it into a fist around the fabric of Luz's shirt. "I… I only wanted to…"

"We know what you wanted," Gus said softly across the room. "Nobody's mad at you."

"I'm kinda mad!" Viney dismissed. "If I ever think you're considering another suicide mission, so help me, I am going to tie you to a chair!" 

"I'll help," Amity agreed.

"Hunter," Darius interjected, "How do you feel?"

Hunter thought about it.

Physically… fine? He was still missing a whole arm, but it didn't hurt. He had kind of a headache, but it wasn't too bad. 

"I'm… hungry?" he said eventually. 

Luz gasped and finally pulled away. "What do you want to eat! I'll go make it right now!"

"Uh," he said, swallowing. His mouth felt dry. "Griffin noodle soup? And… maybe some water?"

"I'm on soup!" Luz announced, before she skittered right back out of the room.

"I'm on water!" Viney added, following right behind her.

Hunter shook his head, still trying to cast away the lingering darkness. "How long have I been asleep?"

"Two and a half days," Darius informed him.

Hunter jolted. "Two and a half days?!"

"Hunter," Darius said carefully, "You almost died."

"Yeah, but…" He froze suddenly. "Wait. The other Grimwalker. What happened to the other Grimwalker?!"

"Oh," said Darius as he shifted to look back at the doorway. "Well…"

Gus turned back into the hall towards someone Hunter couldn't see. "Do you wanna come say hi? You don't have to." There was a moment of silence. "Okay." 

Hunter sat up as a familiar face poked around the edge of the doorframe, and then emerged fully into the threshold.

His face.

Well… sort of his face. It was missing the scar on his cheek and had traded it for a square shaped eye patch. His hair was cut short but more than that–

He couldn't have been more than twelve. 

"What," Hunter balked. "What happened to you?"

The other Grimwalker fidgeted with a flat square board in his hands and then looked back at Gus nervously. 

"Lilith said she thinks it was something to do with the way you broke your Ortet bone," Gus explained, "Or maybe that, like, a lot of you turned to stone." He raised his hand to pinch two fingers almost together. "So he's short."

"He's more than short," Hunter said dubiously.

"Well," Gus replied, "He's only like a week old."

That made Hunter's stomach churn and he thought for a moment that he might be sick. A week old and he'd almost died. Been ready to die. How horrible. How cruel. How unfair. 

"He picked a name, by the way!" Gus burst suddenly, and Hunter suspected he'd seen the growing upset on his traitorous face. 

"Oh, yeah?" Hunter asked, ears swiveling up. "What's your name?"

The other Grimwalker rolled on his heels and looked down at his hands, before he flipped the whiteboard around to show him the words that he'd already written on it.

'Hi, I'm Will!'

Eda watched with some amusement as Alador limped into her kitchen and collapsed at the table. She continued to stir the soup pot on the stove. 

"You look awful," she commented. He glared at her. "Hey, it's a compliment. Yesterday you looked abysmal."

He sighed and leaned forward on his arms. "Eda. Coffee. Please."

"Mr. Skrunkly needs his morning juice, I see," she hummed, but set down the spoon to make some anyway. 

She had insisted– more than insisted– he stay, after all. With Hooty standing guard she felt much safer with all of her injured friends, wards and acquaintances holed up under her proverbial (and literal) wing. The least she could do was give him his medicine.

"Oh, if you're making coffee, I'll have one, too!" Emira cooed as she strode into the room.

"Sure."

"You're a bit young for coffee, aren't you?" Alador asked wearily. 

Emira plopped down in a chair across from him and folded her bandaged hands on the table in front of her. "Nope."

He sighed. "Alright. If you say so."

She rolled her eyes. "C'mon, Dad, I'm in healing track, I know the health concerns better than you do. And you drink nothing but coffee."

"I guess it is a little hypocritical."

"Yup!" she agreed, "But your concern is noted and appreciated."

He looked up to offer her a tired smile. Her palisman slithered out from her collar and down her arm to slither across the table and flick her tongue at him curiously. He reached forward to rub her head and she leaned into his touch gratefully. 

"How are your hands?" he asked. 

She grimaced. "They feel like I set them on fire." 

An emotion passed across his face that he quickly shut down and discarded. "Isn't there anything else they can do?"

"They already did it," she scowled, "Apparently without the pain killing spells they cast, it would feel like I stuck them in acid." She sighed. "I feel like I've gotten a hundred lectures about overcasting in the last three days."

"You'll get one more," Eda huffed as she turned to point at her with a spoon. "You could have killed yourself. You could have killed your dad. Hell, you could have blown yourself up like a firecracker pulling a stunt like that. You only got so much magic in you, kiddo, once you force yourself to cast when you're out, you're pulling from other people! You could get them killed, too!"

"I don't have any regrets," she said primly, "I knew what I was doing and I refuse to feel bad about it."

Eda rolled her eyes and turned back to the soup.

"You did very well," Alador told her. "I am so proud of you."

Emira's face flushed and she smiled to herself. 

"Really," he went on, scratching Caduceus under the chin. "Look at you. A palisman. Multi tracking. Overcasting. You really are a phenomenal witch, Emmy."

She beamed happily, looking profoundly pleased with herself. "Thanks, Dad."

"So," said Darius, shutting the door and leaving him alone in the room with Hunter. "I want to speak to you."

Hunter immediately looked down at his bowl, pushing the noodles around with his fork. "I'm sorry."

Darius frowned. "Sorry for what?"

Hunter shut his eyes and shook his head. "I'm sorry I yelled at you. I was upset."

Darius' heart sank. "No," he said, crossing the room to sit down on the edge of the bed. "No, Hunter, you were right. About everything. You had– have every right to be mad at us. At me." He clasped his hands together. "I've spoken with Lilith about it quite a bit the past few days. I want you to know… that you deserved better. That none of it was your fault. That it was our responsibility to help you, and we didn't."

Hunter stirred his soup uncertainly. "...Okay."

"...You've been through a lot, Hunter," Darius said softly. 

"...I know."

Darius didn't think he did entirely sound like he knew. 

He took a deep breath. "The night they brought you into the castle," he said slowly, as Hunter raised his head, "Was the night my mentor went missing. We were told that… there was an attack by wild witches, on the town where you… your family, his family lived. That everyone there was dead. Belos told me that he found you in your mother's arms after he'd sent Jasper to try and save them. He could translocate, if you can believe it, so he was the only one that could get there quickly, and…" He swallowed thickly. "They never found his body. They never found out what happened to him at all– as far as I was told, anyway. He just left and never came back. I…" He clenched his hands together tightly. "You always looked like him, and, well– we know why, now, but… at the time, all I could think was… that you'd replaced him. Some horrible thing in the universe decided you deserved to exist more than he did, and whenever I looked at you all I could think about was how much I wanted him back."

Hunter tightened his shoulders. "I'm sorry."

"No!" Darius burst, before Hunter flinched and he grimaced. "No, I'm sorry. I don't want you to be sorry. You didn't do anything wrong, Hunter. I did. I don't… I don't know what happened to him. I'm sure Belos killed him. And I don't know, but… I have this… this feeling that…" He touched his chest. "If he had the choice, if he'd had a gun to his head and had to choose between him or you, he would have picked you. Every time. He always loved kids, you know– I think he secretly wanted one, but Belos never would have let him have a kid, or a partner, or a life of his own. I'm sure you know that as well as he did. But I think… I think if he'd gotten to meet you, he would have loved you." 

He opened his eyes and looked over at where Hunter was staring back at him with wide eyes. 

"You didn't take Jasper from me, Hunter, Belos did. You didn't replace anyone. I want you to know that every horrible thing I've ever said about you was wrong, that I have been bitter and selfish and cruel and that you have always been enough." He took a deep breath. "And I want you to know that he would be proud of you."

"Oh," said Hunter in a small voice. 

"I don't know what you want now," Darius went on, "But I promise I'll do everything in my power to get it for you. Lilith and I spoke about getting you a spot at St. Epiderm's."

"But all my friends go to Hexside," he deflated. "Do I have to go?"

"No, Hunter, you don't have to do anything. You don't have to go to school at all if you don't want to."

"Oh." 

"If you want to go to Hexside then you can go to Hexside. We'll figure out somewhere for you to stay. I don't… think it would be good for you to live alone, but you've had enough decisions made for you by other people, and if that's what you want, I'll pay for it. The Owl Lady offered to let you stay here, as crowded as it is. Alador offered a room in his home as well." He hesitated. "You're always welcome to stay with me, too."

Hunter sat up, wide eyes glittering. "With you?"

Darius nodded

"What about Will?" Hunter asked.

"Well, Will–" Darius pursed his lips. "He's been staying with your friend Gus. They've gotten very attached to each other very quickly. I was going to offer him a room, but…"

"Is he going to stay there?" Hunter blinked. "Can he do that?"

"Perry seems quite fond of him. They've not decided anything yet, but I think he's probably going to take him in more permanently, yes."

"Oh," Hunter hummed. He fidgeted with his spoon. "I guess he needs a parent. He's just a kid."

Darius swallowed. "You're just a kid, Hunter. Someone should be taking care of you. You deserve… a parent."

"Do you want to be my parent?" Hunter balked.

"If you want me to be."

Hunter took a sharp, quick breath and started to move forward, before he looked down at the soup sitting in his lap again. Darius picked it up and set it on the nightstand and leaned forward to take him in his arms. 

Hunter melted into the hug like he'd been waiting for it for years.

Hunter limped weakly down the stairs, clinging to the railing. He didn't really think he was going to fall, but his knees were shaking like they would when he had trained for so many hours that his vision clouded with black spots and the room spun around him until he thought he would vomit. 

He stepped into the living room doorway and squinted at the bright sunlight streaming in from the open windows. 

"Hunter!" cried a familiar voice.

He blinked his vision clear as Lilith stood up and quickly crossed the room toward him, offering him her arm to steady himself.

Her one arm.

"You–" he said, "What happened to you?"

"Oh, well," she coughed. He took her arm and she helped him over to the couch where he flopped down with a sigh. She sat down next to him. "I was injured."

He kept staring at what was left of her arm, severed above the elbow. Whereas Hunter was wearing a short sleeved t-shirt, Lilith was wearing a long one, with the sleeve pinned up to her shoulder. 

"How?" he asked.

"Well…" She looked uncomfortable. "I was with Luz and Gus when Kikimora and an outfit of guards stopped us. I kept her busy so they could go on."

"Kikimora did that?" Hunter raised his eyebrows. He couldn't believe Kikimora would have stopped at injuring her. If the little demon had the chance, he was sure he would have killed her.

"...No," she said slowly. "I… brought down the ceiling on top of us. I lost it in the rubble."

He stared at her. "You brought down the ceiling." She nodded. "You're lucky to be alive."

Lilith pursed her lips and looked away before she took in a deep breath and let it out. "I didn't really want you to know that, but I don't want to lie to you, either." She shook her head. "I know Darius already spoke to you. If there's anything you need that I can give you, Hunter, please let me know."

He frowned and narrowed his eyes. "Why? What makes you care so much now?"

"I'm not proud of the way I treated you," she admitted, "Which you may not believe, and that's your right. But, Hunter, I…" Lilith sighed. "I do… regret it. I regret a lot of things. You aren't the only person I've wronged– I've not been a good person. Not in a long time. But I want… I want to be good. I want to be better. And that starts with you. With my sister, too."

"...Oh," he said.

"I'm not asking for your forgiveness, nor am I asking you to like me." She chuckled. "I'm not even asking you to be nice to me. The only thing I want from you is to allow me to help you if I can. Though… if you want me to leave you be, I can do that, too."

"No, I…" he tilted his head to the side in thought. "...Thank you. It… I actually appreciate it." He scratched the back of his head. "I was angry before– I think I really needed to get a really good yell in, honestly. It felt like it was poisoning me, everything I was feeling, and I had to get it out. But now that I did, I… I feel a lot better." He let his hand fall into his lap and stared at it. "I don't want to be mad anymore. I don't want to hate anyone. I've done a lot of stuff I'm not proud of either, and I hurt a lot of people thinking I was doing the right thing. I even hurt my friends and they still wanted to help me." He fidgeted with the hem of his shirt. "I want to be better, too."

Lilith straightened up. "...Maybe we can be better together."

Hunter smiled up at her. "Maybe we can."

Willow cracked the door open first to peek outside quietly. Behind the house Hunter was standing beside Will with Flapjack in hand, the younger boy holding a simple wooden staff. He thrust it forward and Will followed suit, even though his feet shifted and he moved slower than Hunter did. 

As he moved to reset and repeat, Willow opened the door. "Hunter!" she called.

Hunter's ears swiveled up and he spun about, eyes lighting up. "Captain!" he bubbled.

Willow jogged across the yard to meet him and was surprised when he surged forward to catch her in a hug. Her heart melted– this was not the same Hunter who had been shivering and screaming in a cave not so long ago. 

"It's so good to see you!" he exclaimed as he pulled away. "Luz said you got really hurt, and I couldn't see you…"

She groaned. "Yeah, um, turns out I broke my leg in two places and, like, a couple of ribs. And some internal bleeding. But no biggie." She waved a hand dismissively as he grimaced. "The healer had to put me under for awhile. She said it takes a lot of energy to heal up that much damage. My dads have basically had me in solitary confinement, I guess. I was unconscious, so, y'know, I don't really remember it."

"I've been under lock and key, too," he chuckled weakly, "I can't believe they let me come outside today at all. It's like people expect me to run off again on another suicide mission at any moment!" 

"Yeah, well, can you blame us?" she asked dryly.

"I'm just glad you're okay," he said gratefully, "Or at least, you didn't get hurt in a way that can't be fixed." He wagged his short arm for emphasis. "I heard Steve still has a concussion."

Willow winced. "Well…" She swallowed and then held up her arm, pulling her sleeve back.

Hunter's face paled and his ears flattened as he stared at the plant coven sigil on her wrist.

"It's okay," she said weakly, "I mostly do plant magic anyway. It's not the worst thing that could have happened."

"Willow," Hunter breathed, "I am so sorry."

"I don't want you to be," she said, dropping her arm back by her side. "It was worth it, Hunter. I'd do it again."

"I…" He swallowed and she expected him to argue with her, but instead, he just said, "Thank you."

Willow smiled in relief, before her ears perked up and she suddenly remembered the other boy who had slipped quietly behind Hunter, looking up at her nervously. "Oh, hey. Will, right?"

He nodded silently. 

"It's just funny," she said, "Because my name is Willow."  

He smiled sheepishly. 

"Gus said you might be staying with him?" she asked. 

Will fidgeted with his staff and looked up anxiously at Hunter.

"He doesn't speak," Hunter explained, "Didn't Gus tell you?"

"Oh!" she burst. "I'm sorry, Will. No, I guess he must have forgotten. I spoke to him on the phone last night and he had a lot to say about a lot of stuff, but I just got here and I haven't seen him yet."

"Yeah, he's still asleep," Hunter laughed. "I guess everybody is pretty exhausted."

"And yet you two are out here training," she pointed out wryly, "Aren't you tired?"

"Oh, exhausted," Hunter snorted. "But I'm always exhausted." Will shook his head.

"Come back inside," Willow instructed, setting her hands on her hips. "No more morning training when you're exhausted. You're gonna be a normal kid now, remember? I expect to see you sleeping in and gorging yourself on pizza by the end of the week. Got it?"

He offered her a lazy salute. "Yes, sir."

"There we go," she said with a sharp nod. "Now back inside with both of you. Amity is ugly sleeping on the couch and it's super funny. You gotta see it before Luz wakes up and squees her awake."

"Puddles!" Viney cried, as Puddles nipped at the Cerberus with her beak. "Play nice!" 

Puddles squawked back at her before the other beast rolled over and pinned her to the ground, licking her face with one of her huge tongues. 

Edric burst into laughter. "She's such a baby."

"Did you pick a name yet?" Viney asked.

"We're still working on it," Edric admitted. He turned back to the animals playing in the clearing in front of the Owl House and whistled. "Hey, buddy! How about Dixie?" 

All three heads stuck out their tongues at him.

"We need three whole names," he sighed. "And I think they want them to have a theme. You know, they can't just be Dixie and Barbie and Bella or something, they want them to match. They're very picky. Will picked a name faster."

"Hm," Viney hummed. She cupped her hands around her mouth. "How about gemstones?" she called. 

The Cerberus tilted all three heads to the side thoughtfully.

"Like Pearl, Ruby, Jade, Crystal?"

Two heads nodded but one one shook her head.

"I don't think those are all actually gemstones," Edric said dubiously.

"Hrrm." Viney covered her mouth in thought.

"How about flowers?" Edric asked. "Like, Daisy, Poppy, Rosie, Iris, Buttercup, Lily?" 

Their tail started wagging and all three heads looked intrigued. Edric hopped to his feet.

"Yes!" he fist-pumped, "Okay, we got something here!" He jogged up to the Cerberus. "Daisy?" The left head barked. "Poppy?" Silence. "Rosie?" The right head barked. "Iris?" Silence. "Buttercup?" 

The center head barked. Edric whooped and did a little spin before he grabbed the middle head by the muzzle and mooshed their faces together. 

"Who's a good girl!" he cooed. The Flowergirls wagged their tail wildly. "You are! You're a good baby girl!" 

Puddles squawked from the ground where she was still pinned.

"Gus, hand me the other screwdriver, will you?" 

"Um, the square one or the flat one?" he asked, picking up both to inspect them.

"The flat one," Perry answered with a wave. Gus handed it to him and he returned to squinting at the instructions for the new bunk bed he was constructing. 

Gus dragged out another dresser drawer and dumped it out on the carpet. He plopped down on his butt and picked up a shirt with a hum.

"I've definitely outgrown this one," he decided. "It can go in the donate pile."

He looked up as Will waved in his direction, gesturing for the shirt. Gus handed it to him and the other boy held it up in front of his chest, looking down at himself.

"Do you want it?" Gus asked. Will nodded enthusiastically. "Y'know we're making room to buy you new clothes, right? You don't have to take my hand-me-downs."

Will pouted and dropped the shirt, grabbing for his whiteboard before he thought better of it and scrunched up his face in concentration. 

'But,' he signed shakily, 'I like it.' He finished by pointing at the shirt in question. 

"'But I like it,' right?" Gus confirmed. Will nodded. "I didn't say you couldn't have it! I just don't want you to think you have to take old stuff. We can get new stuff."

Will responded by simply tugging the shirt over his head and then pulling the hem out to look down at the pattern happily. 

"What do you two want for dinner?" Perry inquired.

Will's ears swiveled up and he grabbed his whiteboard to scribble something down, then turned it around. 

'Something new!' it read. 

Gus snorted. "Well that's not hard, you've eaten like ten things." 

"What did he say?"

"He said he wanted something new."

"Ahhh. Your pick then, Gus-Gus."

"Dad!" Gus groaned, face flushing in embarrassment. He watched Will titter in silent laughter. 

He'd been worried about his dad while they were away. There was no way to know he was safe, and he hadn't been able to tell him where he was going before he went into hiding with the others. He had, admittedly, partially expected his dad not to have even noticed his absence. 

He had not expected to return home to a father who had not slept in days, had not expected that he had called every contact he had (and as a reporter he had a fair few) asking about him, had not expected he had been combing the isles for him personally night and day. 

He'd not realized his father cared that much about him at all. It occurred to him belatedly that he might just be… very bad at showing it. But it was there. It was real.

He wasn't even reporting on the situation with the Emperor and the coven heads and the literal revolution that has overthrown the government. He was at home building a bunk bed. 

Gus beamed silently to himself, and then picked up another shirt.

Hunter finished pushing in the last dresser drawer with a grunt and stood back, brushing his hand off against his pants' leg.

"Is it enough space?" Darius asked.

Hunter surveyed his new bedroom. It was simple– spacious, in Darius' large and luxurious home, but simple. He'd picked out some largely basic, functional furniture, the most audacious selection being a cardinal-red bedset. 

"It's enough space," he said confidently. It was more space than he'd had at the castle, and he'd spent the majority of his life in that little room.

"Alright," said Darius, stepping out into the hall. He returned with a grunt, hefting a box of things that had been collected from his old room for him. Hunter had not gone himself and was glad he'd allowed his friends to go for him.

"What in here are we keeping, then?" his new guardian asked.

Hunter lowered himself to his knees to begin sorting through it. He moved aside some folded maps and found a book on wild magic that he remembered fondly. He set the maps aside in a discard pile and the book in another, before his eyes lit up and his expression softened.

He plucked the little red plush frog from the box. "Oh…" he murmured reverently, "Sprig."

"Sprig?" Darius repeated. "Is that a toy? I didn't know you'd ever had any toys."

"It's the only one I had," Hunter admitted. "No one gave it to me. It was in the room when I got it, I think. It was just always there."

"Hmm," Darius hummed. "Keep, then?"

"Definitely keep," Hunter agreed, setting it aside. He returned to the box.

"What in Titan's name are you two doing?" Hunter asked as he opened the door and adjusted the package beneath his arm.

Matt had Will pinned to the floor while he pedaled his legs in the air and pulled the other boy into a headlock. Gus sat on the couch with a dry expression and looked up at Hunter as he entered.

"They're wrestling," said Gus, "Winner gets to pick dinner." 

Hunter raised an eyebrow as he shut the door. "You can't just decide together like normal people? Matt, you don't even live here."

"Rrrg– which is why– I– should get– to pick!" Matt grunted as Will hooked a leg around his own and flipped him over. They tumbled across the floor and into a loveseat, knocking it over.

"Matty, come on, you practically live here," Gus sighed. 

"Where's Steve, anyway?" Hunter groused. "Doesn't he feed you?" 

"He's seeing his neurologist again," Matt answered, wriggling in his hold, "He's coming for dinner afterwards."

"Did he have another seizure?"

"Not since he started taking that new potion," Matt grunted, face mashed into the carpet.

"Well, that's good," Hunter replied. He watched as Matt continued to struggle before he finally went slack with a groan. He tapped the floor.

Will hopped to his feet and pumped his fists triumphantly. He flashed Hunter a peace sign. 

"Congrats," Hunter commented as Flapjack twittered in amusement from his shoulder, "What are we eating?" 

Will bounced on his heels and made a scooping motion with one hand into the other before tapping his lips with his fingers. Gus sighed.

"What'd he say?" Hunter asked.

"He wants something new. Again."

"Surely you've run out of food by now."

Gus swirled a finger and summoned a paper scroll that rolled open and bounced across the floor. "We have a list," he said dryly. "Matt, just pick something off the list."

"I'm sick of picking off the list! I want spaghetti!"

Will stuck his tongue out at him.

"Alright, well, I'm the only one not staying for dinner," Hunter commented. "Will, c'mere, I brought you something."

Will perked up and trot over. Hunter watched with great amusement as Gus hopped to his feet, flashed him a thumbs up, and then grabbed Matt by the collar and dragged him out of the room.

Well. He hadn't asked for privacy, but he wouldn't say he didn't appreciate it. Gus had always been perceptive. 

'What is it?' Will asked, pointing at the package under his arm. That sign was much easier. He didn't need a translation for that one.

"Okay, first of all," Hunter started, shifting the brown-paper wrapped gift into his hand, "I want you to know there's no pressure with this. If you don't want it you don't have to take it, okay?" Will raised an eyebrow. Hunter held out the package.

Will accepted the gift curiously and unwrapped the paper before his one eye lit up and he took in a breath. 

"Like I said," Hunter began, "You don't have to take it if you don't want–"

Will lurched forward to hug him around the middle. 

Hunter froze, before he grinned. "Alright. I guess you like it, then." 

Will pulled away and bounced on his heels with a big, gap-toothed smile. He looked down at the little wooden dove in his hands and squeezed his eyes shut.

Every time Hunter had seen someone wake a palisman before, they'd spoken their wish out loud. All of the ones he'd seen so far had been Dell's– until now he'd only carved things in regular wood, but he'd known exactly what he wanted to do for his first actual piece of Palistrom wood. He'd wondered if Will could wake a palisman, if signing or writing would work, if he was actually bringing him a disappointment that might do nothing but hurt his feelings–

The figure rippled as feathers slipped from the wood and the little white dove shook itself off, puffing up and fluttering its wings. It looked up at its witch and cooed happily. 

Hunter felt awash with relief. He didn't know what he'd been so worried about. Palismen didn't need words to understand the witch they'd chosen.

"What did you say to it?" Hunter asked. 

Will grinned mischievously, but remained silent.

"Hunter!" cried a room full of his friends. 

Hunter rolled his eyes and shut the Owl House door behind him. 

"You guys are early," he commented. "You know it's my party, right?"

"Exactly!" Gus bubbled from where he was stapling streamers to the wall. "That's why you are not allowed to do anything!"

"And you don't get to argue!" added Luz, tying bows on a stack of wrapped gifts, "We are the birthday experts! So you just have to sit there and let us do our thing."

Hunter put up his hand palm-out in a show of surrender, careful of the brown-paper wrapped package under his arm. 

"Did you bring yourself a present?" Emira giggled, holding the streamers she was passing to Gus.

"Huh? Oh, no, this isn't for me," he said, looking down at the package he'd brought.

"You brought someone else a gift on your birthday?" Skara balked.

"...I guess?" he admitted. 

"Dude," Edric commented  disapprovingly.

"It's unrelated!" Hunter argued. "You wouldn't even know if you weren't early."

"Good thing we're early, then," said Amity. 

Hunter rolled his eyes again. "I'll be right back." 

He crossed the room into the kitchen to find Eda trying to tame something screaming in a pot on the stove while King stood on the counter and held the cover beside her. Viney and Willow were at the table decorating the cake.

"Hunter!" Willow bubbled with a bright smile. 

"Hey there, kiddo!" said Eda casually, "Hope you're excited for the biggest bash of your awful life."

"Eda!" Viney burst. 

"What? His life has sucked."

"Not anymore!" Willow said firmly. "Because anyone who tries to fuck with Hunter now is getting their kneecaps broken."

Hunter bubbled with startled laughter. That was the first time he'd heard her swear. He appreciated the sentiment. "Is Lilith here?"

"Lilith?" Eda asked, raising an eyebrow. "She's out back." 

"Thanks. I'll be right back." He waved at Willow and Viney and they waved back as he crossed the room to exit the house from the side door. 

In the backyard he found another crowd of people preparing things for his first birthday party. Puddles and the Flowergirls were napping nearby in the sunshine while Steve and Alador set up tables and Matt lollygagged near Puddles and played a Nintendo DS he'd borrowed from Luz. Ever since her and King had reopened the portal to the human realm and he and Gus had gotten access to 'human relics,' he'd been obsessed with the thing. The rest of the adults seemed to be lingering here as well, Harvey and Perry hovering over a grill and Camila and Gilbert chattering away near a mostly prepared drink table. 

"Hey, is Lilith out here?" Hunter asked, trotting up to Steve. 

"Huh? Oh, no, I think she went upstairs with Hooty and Raine to calm down the vacuum cleaner. It tried to eat Darius."

"Oh, I wondered where he was," Hunter replied.

"He went home to get a new outfit," Alador added. 

"Your home or my home?" Hunter asked wryly. 

"I didn't ask. Do you want me to call him?"

"Nah, I'm sure he'll be back soon. I'm gonna go find Lilith." 

"Kay. Oh, and happy birthday, Hunter," Steve added.

"It's still not actually my birthday," Hunter snorted. "I mean. I wasn't even born."

"Neither was I," Matt interjected, "I was a C-section." 

Hunter bubbled with laughter. "Fair enough." 

He left the backyard to enter the house again through the back door and take the stairs to where he could hear muffled snarling. He found Lilith and Raine trying to coax a vicious looking vacuum back into a linen closet while Hooty talked to it, which only appeared to be riling it up further. 

"Hey, Lilith, can I have a minute?" Hunter asked. 

Lilith looked up in surprise and blinked at him. "Oh," she said, "Yes, of course, Hunter." 

She stepped away from the vacuum and Raine dragged it into a headlock. 

"I brought you something," he said, shifting the package into his hand and offering it to her.

She blinked and accepted it, unwrapping the paper before her ears swiveled up as it revealed a little wooden sparrow.

"I'm sorry about Eve," he said softly. "You don't… have to keep it, but I made one for Will, too, and I thought… you might appreciate it."

"Oh, Hunter…" Lilith breathed, her eyes moist. She looked back up at him. "Thank you. This is… this means a lot to me. You didn't have to do this."

"I didn't have to," he confirmed, "But I wanted to."

Hunter opened up his arm and she leaned in and accepted a hug. Behind her, Raine managed to stuff the vacuum into the closet and locked it.

"There we go!" Raine announced, clapping their hands together. "Are you two ready to go back downstairs?"

"Yes," Lilith sniffled, "Yes, come now, Hunter, it's your birthday and you should be with your friends."

Hunter grinned and bounced on his heels. "Yeah, well, I didn't wanna carry that around all day." He turned and followed her down the stairs to return to the living room. 

"Hunter!" cheered everyone present. 

"Hi guys," he snorted. Flapjack twittered from his shoulder and flapped away to where Will's dove was resting on the couch. She hopped to her feet and fluttered about, the two of them dipping about the room playfully.

Will looked up from where he was sitting on the floor with Luz, holding all of the ribbons. He waved and grabbed his whiteboard from where it was clipped to his belt to began writing quickly before flipping it around. 

'I picked a name for her!' he beamed.

"Oh, yeah?" Hunter asked. "What?"

Will flipped it around and wiped it off before writing something new. 'Grace!'

Luz burst into giggles and they both stared at her.

"Sorry, sorry," she snickered, "It was my suggestion."

"Grace is a nice name," Hunter commented, uncertain what was so funny. "Will and Grace."

Luz only laughed harder. Humans were weird.

The door opened and Darius swept in with Eberwolf in tow, cape flowing regally behind him. His face lit up when he saw Hunter.

"There you are!" he beamed. "I was worried I'd have to go looking for you."

"Sorry, I had to pick something up at Dell's," Hunter apologized. "He sends his regards, but he's having a flareup today and can't make it."

Darius nodded solemnly. "Well, all that matters is that you are here."

"Duh," Hunter said, sticking out his tongue. "It's my birthday."

It was a good day. The best day he'd ever had, even. Gus hadn't been kidding about it being 'a celebration of you.' Everyone was completely focused on him the whole time, on making sure he was having fun, on making sure he knew everyone was happy he was there. That he hadn't succeeded in killing himself when he'd tried.

Gus had been right about birthday parties all around. They were pretty great.

He got piled in gifts, and hugs, and attention, and when they set down a cake in front of him and sang a little song in a huge smiling chorus, Luz told him that he had to make a wish when he blew out the candles. He thought for a long moment about what he wanted.

He realized that he didn't want anything. He had everything that he'd ever wanted, and everything he hadn't known he'd wanted.

When he blew out the single candle that Gus had insisted on placing on top (since he had fifteen parties to go, apparently), Hunter didn't wish for anything.