Chapter Text
Luz, by fundamental nature and inclination unable to sit normally, sprawled over her bed as she chewed her pencil. Beside the bed, Willow had her desk chair pulled over close so they could both look over the human’s copious notes, and maybe even try and wrangle some form of organization from them. Notebook paper, textbooks, references from the library, all lay opened and bookmarked or dog eared across the teen’s narrow bed. The only sounds for several minutes were the scratching of pencils, their soft breathing, and an occasional turn of a page, until a gentle knocking at Luz’s half-open door preceded her mama entering.
“You girls okay to take a break?” Camila asked warmly. “I brought snacks.” She lifted the plate of Boiling Isles vegetables, heavy on Luz’s favorite peppers.
“I could definitely use a break,” Luz announced, flipping the nearest textbook closed and stretching her arms out.
“Thank you, Miss Camila,” Willow agreed, and Cami gave her a smile. She liked Luz’s friends in general, but she had a special bond with Willow; the girl was so kind and dependable, the least prone of all Luz’s little cohort to get swept into some of her daughter’s crazy shenanigans.
“Of course. How’s the studying going?”
Luz groaned and dramatically flopped over as Willow scooped a handful of scream beans off the plate, her grip muffling the soft cries of alarm as she popped them into her mouth one at a time.
“Horribly,” the young human admitted. “Why does Runic have to be so complicated?”
Willow finished her little snack and took another handful.
“You know the runes just fine,” she assured her best friend, who groaned again.
“For everyday stuff, yeah. But all these… formulas-”
“Formulae,” Willow corrected under her breath.
“Are so… blugh. They all mush together in my head, like-” Luz spread a hand and pressed it to her temple, then made a popping sound. “Bloop. Now everything is all mixed up, and woops! Used the measure of an intrados instead of extrados, so your whole spell falls apart. Congratulations, you failed! Enjoy the boiling rain, sucka.”
Willow reached over silently to rub her friend’s back as the rant wound down.
“You done?”
Luz nodded.
“Pepper?”
Luz opened her mouth. Willow laughed gently and popped a few slices in before sitting back.
“Fanks, ‘Illo’,” Luz muttered as she chewed, sitting up.
“Anytime.”
Camila watched the exchange with a hand over her mouth to hide her adoring smile. Luz, normally so self-assured about everything, would be embarrassed if her mama were to draw attention to how cute she was with her friend. They’d been inseparable for years, even before Eda had reluctantly allowed the girl to try attending Hexside, and Willow’s desperately needed switch from abominations to the plant track. Even better, to Cami, Gilbert and Harvey were a bastion of relative normalcy in the rest of the chaos of the Owl House, and definitely why Willow was growing up such a sensible, reliable young witch. Even Eda was fond of them, though she naturally had to deflect any signs of ‘going soft’ behind snark and sass.
Luz snagged more peppers off the plate and popped them into her mouth, even as she hissed in a breath through her teeth at the spiciness. She’d picked up a taste for the red and yellow striped peppers from Eda, who adored the things; the fact that it also served nicely as a defense mechanism against snack-pilfering little brothers was just a bonus. Camila set the plate down between the girls and smiled as the teens descended with their usual pubescent voraciousness, setting about demolishing the platter.
“Sounds to me like you could use a tutor,” Camila opined gently, careful nonchalance in her voice. Her tone stayed that way even as Luz grumbled at the suggestion. “At least for the formul-ae,” she self-corrected the plural after a glance at Willow, who smiled appreciatively.
“Why can’t mom just help me out?” Luz whined out.
“You know your mom isn’t the best at explaining sometimes, bebe. The basics, yes, but it can help to have someone with a little more… instructive experience,” Cami put it delicately, “She does mean well, but… ‘eat the snow, sniff the moss’,” her mama reminded her, doing her laughably bad Eda impression.
“To be fair, it did work,” Luz argued gently. From its usual pouch on her belt, the girl pulled one of her pre-drawn ice glyphs. She always kept a few on hand, in case of emergencies, and had spent hours meticulously adding fire to her repertoire of ready to cast spells.
“You had a sinus infection for a week,” Camila deadpanned.
“Yeah,” Luz agreed as her eyes went unfocused, staring off into memory. “That was not fun.”
“You know,” Willow joined in the conversation slowly, giving Luz an innocent look. “When we were little, Amity was really good with Runic formulae. If it’s giving you that much trouble, she might be able to break it down for you better than Miss Eda can.”
Luz pressed her palms together in front of her mouth and drew in a deep breath.
“What a great idea, Willow!” Camila winked behind her daughter’s back and caught the witchling’s struggle to hide her grin before she continued, voice absolutely free of guile. “ Mija, why don’t you invite this Amity over sometime? Sounds like she might be able to help you work out these rune problems, and you know I always love meeting your friends.” She paused. “Actual friends, not imaginary, or drawn, or reptilian,” she added playfully, and Luz snorted.
“Ixirax is more of a classmate than a friend, mama, and it’s not really their fault they and Hooty-” she waggled a hand over the remembered unpleasantness. So many feathers. “Clashed.” That was the gentlest way to put it.
“I meant the flying snakes, bebe.” Camila clarified.
“Oh, heh. Yeah. Those.”
Willow didn’t miss how Luz’s eyes shot nervously to her wardrobe at that, and she made a little mental note to not be near the thing when Luz opened it, just in case.
“Doesn’t seem fair that I need to know these, though,” Luz grumbled, eating a few more pepper slices. She had to slow down on them, or risk an upset stomach and deal with King’s pronouncements of imminent fire burps with every low rumble from her guts.
That only rarely actually happened, but her little brother did not let her forget.
“Runic equations are just part of doing magic,” Willow reminded her, content with her own much less incendiary snacks.
“Potions don’t use them, and I can’t even cast a shield or a ward,” the human huffed. “Runic just isn’t super important for me, like it is in abominations or illusions.”
“I thought you wanted to learn all branches of magic, like your mom. Doesn’t that mean you need to know how they work?” Willow prompted. The argument went around and around every few weeks when they had to learn new Runic equations for a test in that general studies class. It was one of a handful of such broad-spectrum lessons every track took on rotations, overlapping with other tracks before they split off into their specialized studies again. This semester, Luz had really lucked out- until the equinox, she had runes class with Willow, and history with Gus and Viney.
Luz made unintelligible noises of annoyance to hide that Willow was right. Even if she couldn’t officially study all tracks, having a basic understanding would help her whether she stayed Wild, like mom wanted, or joined her aunt in the Emperor’s Coven- a secret workaround Tia Lily had begun hinting towards in the last year, even if she did drop the topic when Luz pushed back.
“Why do you get to be right all the time?” the young human groaned playfully as she flopped into Willow’s lap, sprawling over her friend. Both she and Gus had learned long before that Luz was a tactile person, and dealt with it fondly. “Fiiiiine, I’ll try and learn the stupid formulas.”
“Formu-” Willow sighed. “Nevermind.”
“But I should get more credit; Runic is my third language! Fourth, if you count Witchtongue from the Azura books,” she continued over Willow’s truncated protests.
“Mija, I don’t think a conlang really counts,” Camila suggested. “It’s made up.”
“Mama,” Luz looked up at her levelly. “All languages are made up.”
Camila snorted out a laugh. “Okay, point. Good point.” Cami reached down to ruffle her daughter’s short, fluffy hair gently. “I’ll let you girls keep studying. Willow, I assume you’ll be joining us for lunch?”
“If it’s not any trouble,” the young witchling agreed, and got her own gentle head-ruffle.
“Never any trouble to have you over, brujita,” Cami assured her.
Luz huffed and squirmed, rolling off her friend and to the floor with a soft flumph, something else she had picked up from Eda. Springing to her feet, Luz stood bouncing gently on her toes.
“Actually, it feels like I could use some outside time. Is that okay?” The younger human looked to her mother eagerly, and Camila nodded.
“Half an hour, then lunch, and then I want you studying again,” she informed her daughter. Much like Eda, Luz could hyperfocus with the best of them when something caught her attention, but outside of her specific interests, the girl had to be coaxed and eased along.
“Yay! Willow, want to help me train?”
The witchling rose sedately to her feet and nodded. “Sure. You know I’m still not trying out, though.” She had to make sure, with Luz.
“I know,” Luz assured her friend, taking Willow’s hand and heading down from her room. They passed by the basement stairs leading down into Eda’s atelier, the door shut and with the red ‘NO ENTRY’ sign prominently displayed, and exited through the back door. Luz dug in a pile of junk, human and Boiling Isles in origin, by the door until she found the old grudgby ball, flicking it up and spinning it on her finger. A makeshift goal, some scrap wood making an inverted triangle on a tall post, waited about thirty paces from the back door, turning that part of the yard into a half-size grudgby pitch. Granted, the real thing was far more treacherous, but that was where Willow came in. Luz squirmed in her own skin as she pulled a few glyphs from their respective pouches, holding two ready in the corner of her mouth and three between her fingers, where her friend couldn’t see the spells drawn on them.
“Ready?” Willow asked with a grin, and Luz nodded. A second later, the human sprinted at full tilt towards the distant goal, sneakers smacking the hard-packed dirt and occasional tuft of red grass on the way. Willow gave her a few seconds and then began to cast spell circles, working each hand independently in a display of skill she once hadn’t believed she possessed. Hissvines, Willow’s preferred opening spell, erupted from the ground at Luz’s feet as the human ran and writhed their thorny way towards her.
The first few whipping vines slammed into an ice wall that Luz summoned, then used to vault herself over another patch of writhing greenery that poured up from the now-cracked ground. The girl spun in the air, barely stumbling as she resumed her dash across the yard, grudgby ball tucked against her chest. She only made it a few more feet from Willow’s second spell caught up to her. From the ground between her and the goal sprang a massive four-petaled plant as big as a witch. Its flower opened with a roar, showing the teeth-lined petals and glaring yellow-red eyespots. Four ‘arms’ formed from waving vines and Luz mentally apologized before she hit the oversized Maim’s Rocket blossom with a fire blast. Petals crinkled and crisped, but the flower’s protective, waxy skin defended it long enough that Luz caught a ‘fist’ in the chest, driven back with a ‘whoof’ as the air was knocked from her. She wheezed and gasped, barely keeping her feet after the blow, but remaining standing. As the Maim’s Rocket made a bite at her, Luz deployed one of her new secret weapons.
A bank of thick, obscuring fog bloomed up around her from the tapped combo glyph, soaking into her clothes and leaving her skin and hair dripping. She tore around the plant, using the cover of her miniature fog bank to skirt its fumbling grabs and blows. A basic fog brew could have given her the same concealment, technically, but this way was more fun, and far less likely to get mistimed by a broken flask.
Luz cleared the mist and ran on, almost to her goal. She just had to-
“Hoot!”
The sudden piercing cry reached her just as Hooty’s head pushed up out of the ground like one of Willow’s vines. The house demon shot upward, ten, twenty, thirty feet, his round face pressed into Luz’s stomach.
“Hooty!” the girl gasped out. “Stop!”
The owl-faced bird-tube suddenly stopped, giving her a beaky grin. That took the pressure off her belly, but also let momentum carry her upward, just to the point that Hooty was no longer holding her up. She reached the top of the tiny arc, looking down at her yard, the section of house, and the trail of mayhem-
Then she fell.
“Luz!” Willow called out, casting another spell. With the human halfway to the hard-packed dirt and, best-case, a definite trip to the Bonesborough Healing Coven, a thick-petaled flower bloomed under her. It stretched up on a coiled stalk, reaching for the girl, cushioning her fall enough that when it broke under her weight she landed gently on the next, waiting flower. Then the next, with barely enough force to hurt. When the third flower broke, stalk snapping under her, it rolled a panting Luz gently onto the ground- bruised, but whole.
She lay facing the friendly purple sky with the wispy yellow clouds, aching back to the hard ground. Over her head, Hooty bent down to inspect her. His ludicrously long neck-body (she still wasn’t sure if they were separate, but at this point she would be willing to wring all of it) bent into a crazy-straw spiral as his beady little eyes met her huffing, annoyed expression.
“Oh wow, that looked fuuuuuun,” the house demon trilled.
“Hooty, move,” Willow pushed him aside to lean down over her friend. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah,” Luz huffed. “Just- winded. And… Sore.”
“Should I get miss Eda?”
“No, I’ll be fine.” As she lay on the ground, ribs aching, Luz lifted a hand to smack her family’s house demon on the beak with her palm. “What was all that about, Hooty?” she demanded. “You could have killed me!”
The demon took her light slap without changing position or expression. “But you wanted to train,” he protested, voice a little muffled by Luz’s hand. “I’m an unbiased hazard!”
“You’re a hazard alright,” Luz muttered, pushing the enthusiastic house demon away and rolling over. After so many successive blows her chest ached, and she still had a little trouble filling her lungs, but there was always a stock of low-grade first aid potions around the house. Between Eda, Luz, and occasionally King’s semi-regular antics, they went through them in bulk. “If Willow hadn’t managed to catch me, I’d have died,” she grumbled at Hooty, who at least managed to look contrite. A toss up if he actually knew why she was annoyed, but he did put on a downcast face as Luz looked over to the wreck she’d made of Willow’s summoned plants. “Great reflexes. What even are those?”
Willow dug her toe into the dirt. Even after all her time in the plant track, where she could flourish, the witchling remained a little hesitant to put herself forward or show off her obvious skill.
“Spring-stalk Daisies. Though, they don’t normally get this big… Or grow around here,” she admitted with a bashful smile as Luz’s eyebrows rose at her friend’s increasing skill and strength.
“Good thing you had the seeds.” Luz got to her feet slowly, stretching carefully to check for any deeper injuries than just the ache from developing bruises.
“I didn’t,” Willow admitted after a silent, awkward moment.
Luz blinked at that, even more impressed. Plant magic normally required something to work from, seeds or spores being the most common, but a really powerful plant witch could use a cutting or a single leaf, force-growing massive, fully developed specimens in seconds. Working blind, as Willow had just done, calling plants into being from nothing but bare dirt and magic, was a whole different level of skill.
“Wow,” Luz breathed, taking a few slow steps to the broken stems and torn, pillowy petals. Already she could see the edges beginning to crisp and turn brown, without Willow’s magic to sustain them. “Willow, you are like, crazy strong,” Luz praised, missing how her friend’s cheeks shaded red at the compliment. Her attention had been caught by something else.
In the center of the nearest giant daisy, obscured from her body having slammed into the stigma and stamen, was an oddly… inorganic shape. Luz forgot her aching chest as she tilted her head, narrowing her eyes. It was a little difficult to make out the details, but she had seen something like this before- three times, in fact. The human whipped her head around and looked up at Willow with an intense, wide-eyed frenzy.
“Can you do it again? Summon another one. Please?”
The witchling frowned a little, but she knew that expression. Her magic circle formed slowly, wavering a bit from the effort of such focused casting four times in succession, but a waist-high flower bloomed up from the ground, going from single green shoot to fully-formed in almost no time. Luz bent over it, peering intensely into the little crown of pale yellow.
“It’s…” She dug a blank square of paper from her belt pouch and snatched one of her cut-down pencils to copy the rapidly fading shapes. Circle, triangle, connected by a single line… Luz’s hand shook as she finished and placed the paper on the ground. Desperately hoping, she whispered, “Titan, let this work, please, please, please,” under her breath.
A single tap confirmed something, at least. Inert shapes didn’t react at all, but the lines she’d drawn glowed a faint spring-green as the paper crumbled, leaving the luminous mark on the dirt. A few thundering heart-beats later, a tiny flower with a tightly-coiled stalk pushed up through the center of the glyph, opening its leaves, then petals.
Luz’s excited cry sent gore-crows fleeing nearby trees.
“Plant glyph!” she yelled, grabbing Willow in a hug and swinging the shorter witchling around as they both laughed in the shared excitement. “Willow, you beautiful genius!”
“ Mija?” Camila called across the yard. The older human stood in the back door, pulling off oven mitts as she approached. “Are you girls okay?”
“Better than okay!” Luz squealed as she stopped spinning her friend around and Willow recovered from the sudden twirling. “Plant glyph!”
Luz beamed as she knelt down and used a fingertip to trace out the glyph again. Bigger, this time. The circle with the dot in the center, two lines at right angles, the center ‘stalk’, and the triangle-within-a-triangle. She slapped her hand down, and a small tree began to climb from the center of the image, sucking in magic to fuel its growth and ending as a sapling about chest high.
“Another one?” Camila breathed out, eyes wide behind her glasses as she looked at the brand new tree in the middle of their yard. “Luz, that’s… incredible!” she laughed, hugging her daughter jubilantly.
“I heeeeelped,” Hooty announced, doing a little wiggling ‘dance’, all contrition vanished. Luz didn’t even mind, too elated to have discovered another form of magic she could use.
“I guess you could say my glyph skills are really- blossoming!” she declared, unable to contain the pun. Willow rolled her eyes but held her tongue, letting Luz revel in the moment as Camila kept hugging the girl. The small tree had already used up the magic inherent in Luz’s glyph and was beginning to wilt, the leaves going gray at the edges and drooping. Even as she watched, a few fell off and spiraled to the dirt, as papery and ashen as if it were well past the equinox and into knife season. Like Willow’s manifested summon, it lacked the staying power of a real plant born from seed and just magically helped along.
Willow trailed her fingers along the failing tree slowly, searching for the subtle touch of another witch’s magic but coming up with nothing. Not surprising, given how difficult it could be to get a ‘feel’ for anything but an active spell, but there should have been some little sign that Luz had just done what, by the standards of the Plant Coven, was definitely a high-level summon.
“Willow! Come on,” Luz cried enthusiastically, breaking the witchling’s concentration. She looked up to a wide grin too close to her own face, and her human friend grabbing her hand to haul her towards the back door to the Owl House. “You have to show me how plant magic works!”
“I can show you what I know,” Willow promised. She definitely harbored doubts that she could even get close to connecting Luz’s unique methods with what she learned in class, though.
“You’re the best plant witch on the Isles.” Luz gushed. “Oooh, how do you control the Maim’s Rocket? Is it like a telepathic witch-plant connection?”
“That’s more Oracle magic,” Willow warned gently. There was clearly going to be plenty of laying the groundwork ahead of her, but Luz’s galloping enthusiasm for learning never failed to brighten her own outlook on what had been a touchy subject for so long. “I just-” Willow paused. Putting the flow of magic bile through her veins into words wasn’t in her skillset, and it wasn’t as though Luz were at all capable of picking up the ‘ feel’ of a spell. “Well, you kind of…”
Willow sighed. There was one way to express her thoughts in a way the human might understand. No one else would, and it was silly, but…
“You nyoom, and then Hmmmm! The important part to remember is the Ah! ”
Willow’s cheeks heated up as she made the accompanying hand motions; first lacing her fingers and then opening them before putting her fingertips to her temples and squinting through her glasses at where Luz’s erstwhile tree crumbled in on itself. Finally she threw her arms wide, then pointed with both hands, fingertips touching.
Camila gave her a confused but accepting expression usually directed at the woman’s daughter. Luz, however, nodded enthusiastically.
“Ohh! Right, because when you…” She knelt down in the tan dirt and began to sketch out a recreation of her recent discovery. “Aaaand..” Tongue poking from the side of her mouth, Luz tapped the center of the glyph. “Boop!”
Up from the bare soil sprouted a single leaf, then several more in rapid succession before a fat, fist-sized purple-red root wrenched itself free. The newly-formed plant stood on stubby little rootlets, and turned back and forth between the watching figures for a second before it ran towards Luz, and abruptly kicked her in the knee before shaking its leaves at her and sprinting towards the tree line.
“Ow! Ungrateful,” Luz grumbled as the plant fell over, turning ashen and lifeless already.
“Is there any particular reason you summoned a rampaging beet?”
“I was trying for roses,” the human admitted.
“Maybe give it some more practice,” Willow urged her. “Plant magic isn’t like potions. It’s closer to beast-keeping; you need to work with your subject.”
Luz nodded. “Right. Gotta ‘hmm’.” She knelt down and narrowed her eyes in concentration. She traced out the shape of her new glyph, then took a few deep, slow breaths. After a quick tap the lines glowed a bright green, then vanished as their power coalesced into a stubby shrub covered in crimson flowers. “Oh wow!”
Willow seconded the enthusiasm, reaching over to touch a leaf and carefully stroke her fingertip along the wicked curve of a thorn. Human realm plants didn’t thrive in the Isles, what with the boiling rain and inability to protect themselves from some of the more aggressive herbivores, but it looked just like some of the plants in the gardening guide Miss Camila had given her. While it lasted, she cupped a flower in one hand and made a spell circle with the other. Luz watched as the flower lost its petals in a scarlet shower and a little red fruit formed, which detached to Willow’s grasp before she slipped into a pocket.
It never hurt to have a little surprise up her sleeve.
Luz plucked a fat red blossom very carefully and held it in her hands. As a look of concentration crossed her face, she reached for an ice glyph, set the unnatural rose on it and gave the paper a tap. A sphere of ice formed around the rose, like a crystal ball holding a single image and Luz carefully lifted it in both hands to catch the sun, impossibly pleased. Both girls turned at a low whistle to find Eda and Camila standing a few feet away, hand in hand. Luz’s mom still wore a thick, leather apron and had her goggles pushed up onto her head, struggling to rein in her mass of gray hair.
“Dang, kid,” the elder witch said with a click of her tongue and a wide grin. “Are you gunning for my title already? Can’t say I like the idea of not being the Most Powerful Witch on the Boiling Isles, but I guess if I had to give it up to anyone…” As she spoke, she and Cami had approached, and so she was able to take the enthusiastic Luz hug before the girl could build up too much momentum. “Oof!” Eda gave her hair a soft ruffle that called back to that frigid morning on the Knee as Luz pulled back from the tight embrace.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be more powerful than you, mom. I just do things my own way.”
“No one’s ever doubted that, bebe,” Camila chuckled and bent down to kiss her daughter’s forehead as Luz practically vibrated on the spot. “Willow, you get in here, too,” Cami commanded the young witch playfully, and another squeeze drew her into the group hug.
Then Hooty wrapped them all in his feathery coils, sparking off four sets of protests that overlapped and ran into one another as everyone struggled to escape his hold.
“Hooty, stop!”
“Get off, birdbrain.”
“¡Gusano, no me hagas buscar la chancla!”
“No touching!”
Hooty ignored all the complaints, wrapping humans and witches tighter in his squirming embrace.
“I helped,” he repeated in a smug tone, even as Eda got a hand free and jabbed him in the beady eyes, making the house demon yelp and retreat through the tunnel he had burrowed under the building.
“Now that the moment has been entirely ruined,” Eda grunted as she popped her back. “Cam caught me at a good place to pause for a while, and since we can’t have you rewriting the known laws of magic on the Isles without some celebration, whadya say we go somewhere fancy for lunch? You too, Willow,” she added. “Evens us out for all the times your dads feed this little mooch.” Eda winked, and ruffled her daughter’s hair again.
“I’ll go get King,” Luz volunteered, taking the opportunity to burn off some energy as she grabbed up her dropped ice ball and scrambled towards the back door, calling for her little brother. As she left, both older women regarded the dissolving rose bush she had called up, two speculative expressions covering very different thoughts. They shared a look that Willow would have had to be blind not to notice, and Eda nodded very slightly.
“Let me call your dads before I forget, and let them know where we’re going,” Camilla told Willow with a smile. She followed her daughter, far more sedately, into the house, leaving the elder and younger witches alone.
Willow waited a handful of seconds afterward before turning to face the Owl Lady. Calm, level golden eyes met her gaze right back, and the Willow of a few years before would have wilted under the silent challenge in that stare. Now, she squared her shoulders and spoke quietly.
“You’re worried about something.”
Eda’s upper lip lifted on one side, revealing a glint of fang as she looked away from the younger witch. She muttered something in Runic that Willow didn’t catch, then made a circle with thumb and forefinger before opening her hand again.
“Noticed that, did you? I’ll level with ya, kid; I’ve always been useless at the foretelling part of Oracle magic, but this-” she indicated Luz’s now entirely withered and leafless rose bush as the sticks crumbled into flaky ash, “means something. Luz is bright.” Eda let out a soft laugh. “ Incredibly bright, to be honest. But it took her five years to find her first two glyphs. Now she finds two more inside a month? Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but that’s what kept me alive for a long time. Feels like the Titan’s Eye is on her, y’know?”
Willow hesitated, then shook her head.
“The Ti- don’t witchlings learn anything these days? The legend of the Titan’s Eye!” Eda grunted, the wind out of her portentous sails in the face of falling standards in modern education. “No appreciation for the classics anymore… Nevermind. It just feels like something is about to go down. Something big.”
They both looked over as the last of the bush collapsed into a small heap of powdery flakes that blew away on the breeze, leaving just a small hole in the soil where it had sprouted.
“Well that’s nicely ominous. I’ll be sure to prepare for some unknown but imminent event,” Willow said brightly into the drawn-out silence. Eda snorted a sound of wry amusement and shook her head.
“That’s why I like you, kid, you’re the only one of Luz’s friends with sense. Ahh, you’re probably right, just an old witch being paranoid about nothing.” She winked, then elbowed the younger witch gently as Luz, carrying King atop her head and being directed by a stubby claw forward, and Camila came out of the house. “Don’t mention anything to Luz, though. It’ll worry her, and you know how she gets when she thinks there’s some problem to solve.”
Willow nodded as the trio approached and they began the trip to town; Owlbert could never manage five, so it was set to be a long walk to Bonseborough. With Cami and Eda leading, and Luz and King engaged in some make believe game, Willow fell unobtrusively to the back of the group and sent Augustus a quick message on Penstagram. No reason she couldn’t put some feelers out for more information while also not mentioning anything to Luz.
After all, she was the sensible, reliable one.