Chapter Text
Luz was still in a daze, clutching the Healing Hat under her uniform tightly and fighting the smile spreading across her face. Up to the moment they ran back out over the bridge, she had expected to be caught, because this was what happened with the best laid plans in all her books. But no, nobody had stopped them. No ominous voice sounded through the castle before locking all the doors, no villain stepped into the room at the last minute preventing their escape, no deadly magic tossed her off the bridge to her death moments away from safety. The perfect heist – she felt like skipping!
“Luz?“ Willow’s voice.
“Hm?“ She did not even lift her gaze from the top of the hat peeking out from beneath her shirt, her smile spreading. She would be able to heal Eda!
“Luz, you are walking into a –“
A loud bang later and Luz pressed a hand to her forehead that just connected with the lamp post in front of her, which shrieked and swung at her indignantly. Because, of course it would – it was a lamp post on the Boiling Isles. Luz‘ smile widened.
Evening light fell over Bonesborough and painted the buildings in the same rosy glow as the sky. They had been walking for hours, but Luz was too drunk on happiness to even feel the pain in her feet.
“See, Willow, I told you she was not listening to a word you said.“ Gus said and pulled Luz back up.
Willow brushed some dirt of Luz‘ Hexside uniform. “I said stop looking like you just found a treasure trove of snails.“ she whispered, looking around, concerned. “I’m as happy as you that this went well, and I’ll admit I never felt so alive, but you need to be cool. Otherwise, they –“ She pointedly looked over at some guards passing them. “- will check and you won’t be able to convince them that the bulge under your clothes is a demon baby.“
Luz grinned sheepishly. “Sorry guys. I just can’t believe it. Eda won’t believe it.“
“Yeah, about that.“ Gus scratched his head. “How are you going to tell her that you broke into the Emperor’s Castle, stole one of the most coveted items on all of the Isles and that the illusion of the hat I left might only last a few days?“
“I mean, she took me to steal from a prison and start a riot on my first day here. I think she’ll be alright with it – especially when she sees this.“ Again having completely forgotten about the guards, Luz started to pull out the Healing Hat. Gus and Willow lunged and wrapped their arms around her before she could.
“Woops, sorry!“
Gus sighed. “I wanted to go home and whistle innocently when sneaking into my room, but we better walk you home to Eda.“
Luz‘ smile faded a little. “Will you guys get in trouble?“ Another thought occurred to her. “Would the school have come back to the castle looking for us?“
Gus and Willow shared a confused look. Willow shrugged. “Not really. Gus sent our illusions back on the ship and kids get lost during school trips all the time – normally they only double-check when they don’t turn up again till the next day. Or somebody reported them eaten. Is it that different in the Human Realm?“
Luz started to say yes and then thought about the fact that no one noticed she had never arrived at summer camp. “I guess we just pretend it is.“ Her mother loved her, she knew that. But still, she sent her to a foreign place and did not even know she never made it there. Would Eda and King have looked for her if she had gotten arrested today and had not come home?
A crow flew up and pecked Willow on the head. “Ow!“ she shouted before holding it up to her ear. “Oh, hi dad. Oh, er, yeah, we went to the market after the trip, completely forgot the time.“ Gus started whistling next to her in the most suspicious tone imaginable and Willow batted him away. “Gus‘ dad already called you?“ She held her hand over the crow and looked at Gus. “Your dad says get yourself home in the next 10 minutes or he will throw out your entire collection of human stuff.“
Gus shrieked at that. “Injustice! I am going to protect you, my treasures.“ He dashed off down the next street.
The crow already started pulling Willow down the sidewalk. “Are you going to be okay, Luz?“
Luz saluted. “No problem. Everything under control. Text Amity on Penstagram I said hi and that she missed the best heist in the history of the Isles!“
Willow waved her goodbye and disappeared behind the early night stands that were set up, the first one having an impressive array of cut off hands in jars that all waved in unison with her. A month ago, Luz would have probably considered this odd.
The walk still stretched on for a bit. The stars would be out by the time she made it, but she still prepared for a triumphant arrival home.
Home … she grinned again.
---
“Where were you? It’s pitch-black outside!“
“I was stuck in a cake for 10 hours!”
“Hoot!“
This was not quite how she had imagined her triumphant return. Eda still held her ear with which she all but dragged her through the door, King hopped up and down on her head and Hooty had looped himself around her, nearly tripping her on her way inside.
“You've got a lot to answer for, kid.“ Luz noticed with a wince that some feathers protruded from Eda’s shoulder. And the black in her gem wavered ever so slightly. “I spent half of the day searching the whole school when you did not come home, got shouted at by Bump for scaring ‘innocent students’, got the cops called on me because I stole three wallets and had to clean up King’s vomit because he got tired of waiting and ate the whole cake!“
“Hey, I made that cake and had a right to eat it!“ She felt King stomp his foot on her head.
“I’m sorry Eda – wait, how is the stealing my fault?“
“Not the point! The point is you are getting in tons of trouble for making me worried. Have you still not learned how dangerous it can be out there? Oh Titan, I sound like my mother. Or Lily.“ Eda let go of her ear and dragged a hand down her face. “The list of chores I have for you will need its own address in Bonesborough!“ The shoulder-feathers grew in size.
Luz immediately stepped over Hooty and reached out to hand her an elixir from the nearby table. Eda’s face softened. “Kid, I'm not mad. You just scared me – with the attack this morning, I’m not quite sure how far the Emperor’s Coven would go. And my curse, well-“ She downed the elixir and hid the bottle in her hair, but the feathers only shrank a bit. “I might not always be at full strength to protect you.“
“About your curse, though-“
“Luz, I told you not to worry. I can handle it.” Eda gingerly took an already dozing off King from her, who buried himself in her grey mane, and sat on the couch.
“But that’s exactly it, you won’t have to. I found a cure!”
Eda, who had started plucking the remaining feathers from her shoulder, stopped in the middle of her movement and stared at her.
This was it. Taking a deep breath, Luz pulled out the Healing Hat with as much showmanship as she could muster and shouted: “Tada!”
Eda blinked a few times, her golden eyes comically wide. It was clear she recognized it for what it was. And where it was from.
“Alright, first off, this is probably the most impressed I've been with a robbery, ever. Secondly: HAVE YOU LOST YOUR TITAN-DAMNED MIND!”
King jumped from Eda’s hair with a loud ‘Weh!‘ and Luz, who was holding the hat up in the air like the first prize in a competition, almost dropped it. So much for Eda being alright with it. The black in Eda’s gem bubbled further up.
“You can’t just steal from the castle. No one steals directly from the Emperor. You can get petrified for shit like that! This is not a game, this is serious.“ Part of Luz wanted to hide behind Hooty at the panicked rage in her mentor’s voice but she would not back down, this was important, every little feather that grew on Eda’s arm was a testament to that.
“You’re right, this is serious! The curse gets worse, even just compared to this morning. You just drank an elixir and there are still feathers coming out. You've done so much for me, I needed to do this for you. And I was careful, I promise, no one saw and Gus left an illusion. Please Eda, I can’t lose you.“ She felt tears forming in her eyes.
She walked up to Eda, holding the hat right up to her face.
The older woman looked taken aback, but opened her mouth to argue, when a voice next to her piped up. King. “Eda, what if it can help you? Please try. I … I also don’t want to lose you.“
Eda never looked so at a loss of words and so out of her comfort zone. Her eyes switched back and forth between the little demon and child she took in. For a moment, Luz thought she would refuse to take the hat, but then a mischievous sparkle appeared in her gaze. And maybe a glimmer of hope?
“Alright, kiddo. Let’s give this a go. I could do with having bird brain out of my hair.“
With a deep breath, she grabbed the hem of the healing hat, stuck it on her grey mass of hair and closed her eyes.
A soft glow illuminated the room, the candles started to flicker. Magic permeated the air, reminiscent of the time Luz and her friends animated the house. A light emanated from Eda’s body, ridding her of that which had plagued her for 30 years.
Or at least, that’s what would have occurred in one of Luz‘ Azura books. In reality, nothing happened. Even after five minutes of complete silence, Eda just sat there with an ugly, big hat on. Neither Luz nor King said anything. Luz felt a deep pit bubbling up in her, similar to the bubbling black of the gem. Eventually, one of Eda‘s eyes cracked open and glared at the stubborn feathers on her skin.
“I don’t think it’s working, hoot. And blue is not your colour.“
“Gee, thanks, Hooty. You know what a girl wants to hear. And rude, I can pull off any colour.“ Eda snorted and finally took the hat off. She laughed but Luz did not miss the disappointment that fleetingly crossed her features. King buried himself in the sofa cushions, as if he wanted to hide from the fact that Eda was, in fact, not going to be cured today.
This time, a few tears escaped Luz. All for nothing. She had gotten Eda’s hopes up for nothing. She even put Gus and Willow in danger, for nothing. Even worse, Eda had clearly stressed about her and deteriorated her condition, for nothing.
“Oh Luz, don’t take it too harshly. These decrepit relics are no good to anyone. It was a nice thought, though. And hey, maybe I can sell this overgrown traffic cone for a good bunch of snails.“ Eda slowly got up. Maybe it was Luz‘ imagination, but Eda seemed stiff. Older, like her time was slowly drawing to a close. “You’re still in trouble and we’re going to have a long chat about which crimes to commit and which crimes not to commit, but I think we should all get a good night’s sleep. Thanks kiddo.“ She ruffled Luz‘ hair, scratched King behind his ear and made her way up the stairs with cracking joints, feathers brushing the wall on both sides and probably a lot of elixir waiting in her room.
With the Healing Hat dragging behind her and King on her tail, Luz went to her room. As soon as she was inside, she angrily tossed the hat to the far corner, centuries‘ old relic or not. She curled up on her sleeping mat and King shuffled close to her. While a few distressed noises came from him, she could tell he drifted off to sleep quickly like he always did. Luz did not.
A little square package next to her bed caught her eye. It was tied with a ribbon and had a messily scrawled note on top: To a young witch from her proud mentor. Had Eda really -
She had. Luz pressed the cape close to her, recognizing the glimmering witches’ wool she had wanted so much this morning. Now it just reminded her of what a wonderful person Eda was and how Luz disappointed her. Instead of helping, she just added to her worries. Why could she not be there for her? After all she had done, Eda deserved so much more in her life. She carefully folded up the cloak, determined not to wear it until she had earned that right and truly made Eda proud.
Back on her mat, she kept tossing and turning before she eventually gave up and took out a small stack of paper hidden under her sleeping bag. She drew one small light glyph after another and let them illuminate the room in a warm glow. There was no purpose to it – she just liked doing it, reliving the sense of accomplishment and hope when she had learned her first spell. It helped when her thoughts kept roaring through her head, at least normally. Not today.
A dozen tiny lights floated above her and she imagined them mirroring the stars outside. A beautiful sight, had it not been for the stupid blue waste of cloth in the corner the lights gravitated towards. Luz narrowed her eyes – why were even her spells reminding her of how much she messed up today?
The lights danced around the hat, making some of the threads glitter. As if it consisted of different layers of fabric … as if there was a net of glittering threads right beneath the top layer … as if these threads formed a pattern like …
“Glyphs.” Luz breathed.
She stood up, careful not to jostle King. When she crouched down in front of the hat, she could see it clearly. They were glyphs, not new ones, but an odd combination of the light and plant glyphs. It was like trying to decipher a foreign language you were learning, but Luz was certain she got the message. Bring to life. Heal.
Trembling, she used her pen to draw along the lines of the glittering threads. When she touched them, the hat burst into different shades of blue, running like waves across its surface and almost pulsating.
Slowly, she turned around and made her way to Eda’s room. She tiptoed, not wanting to wake anyone.
Eda’s snoring shook the whole corridor and Luz knew she would not need to make an effort to be quiet when entering her mentor’s room. She slid the door open, fluorescent hat in hand and approached the nest where on her side, a curled-up Eda was sleeping with Owlbert nestled between her and some small twigs. She should wake her, but what if she failed again? She could not repeatedly get Eda’s hopes up for no reason.
For a moment, she had an odd vision of herself standing above the bed nest, powerful spell ready to be cast on an unsuspecting victim. Almost a déjà-vu that was not her own. A mirror image of another time.
She shook her head, not sure where these thoughts came from. This was just another attempt to help and maybe this time, she could truly do something. Before she could talk herself out of it, she placed the hat half on Eda’s head and tucked some of her hair under it so that it would not fall off.
Immediately, the coloured waves from the fabric replicated themselves across Eda’s body. Her snoring stopped for a second, before resuming loudly. Luz could only watch as Eda kept on sleeping soundly but with each wave, the tiniest bit of hue seemed to return to her chalk-white skin. The small feathers seemed to retreat bit by bit, same as the black of her gem.
The smile from after the heist returned. It was working, Luz knew it was working. Still, she had to make sure. She leaned against the wall next to the door. She would keep watch over her mentor. But it was late and the hours passed by. And at one point, the human girl fell asleep among the glowing waves of light. Light that reversed a wrong committed long ago.
---
“AAAAHHHH!”
Luz nearly jumped out of her skin at the high-pitched scream that echoed through the room. It took her an embarrassing amount of seconds to piece together where she was and why she was here. The Healing Hat. Eda. The glyphs.
The scream repeated itself and Luz sleep-leaden eyes adjusted themselves to the scene in front of her.
Blinking, she rubbed her hand over her face, not quite sure this was not her being trapped in some weird dream.
The room with its big stained-glass window was still there. The nest was still there. All the plants and little trinkets were still scattered where they had been scattered before. But instead of Eda, there stood a massive beast on the right end of the nest. It was an owl beast, yet its face was rounder, its feathers scruffier than what she had seen before. It snarled at Owlbert who was puffed up and hooted protectively in front of what was at the other end of the nest and what was the source of the scream.
A young girl maybe around Luz’ age. A girl with a massive mop of bright orange hair and wide gold eyes set on the owl beast across from her.