Chapter 45

Hunter wasn't really sure what was going on. He'd hidden up in the tower for a few hours while they were having a party to celebrate Lilith getting a new job. One of the guests was a former coven scout who might recognize him so...

Later, when he went to the kitchen after everyone left, Lilith was leaning over the table working on a display of Deadwardian Balisters and in such disarray that she didn't notice him. It was... So surreal, to see prim and proper dignified Lilith acting like... Was there even a word for how obsessive and disheveled she was?

Not long after, Luz had some in and smooth-talked Lilith into taking her cryptid hunting or something. Even donated some of the abundant magic she'd gained by consuming palistrom wood and the Titan's humors to power some kind of detector.

Then, not long after they left, the Owl Lady's parents arrived. The dog-demon, King, who had been legally adopted by the Owl Lady at some point, was very excited to meet his grandfather but the Owl Lady had run upstairs and locked herself in her room for some reason.

This left Hunter just sort of standing there awkwardly as an elderly woman doted on a small child and an elderly man stood there somewhat amused by it all.

After a few moments, the old man's palisman, a cardinal who honestly looked a lot like Flapjack except yellow, flew over to greet Hunter's own partner. The two birds chirped away, and what bits of Flapjack's end he picked up told him that they knew each other.

"Excuse me, young man," the older witch greeted, "is that your partner?"

"Yeah, that's mine. His name is Flapjack."

"I thought so," the older witch asked.

"Do you... Know him?" Hunter asked.

"Sort of," the old witch replied. "I have had some dealings with the Bat Queen, and met many of the palismen who are safeguarded in her sanctuary. One of particular interest caught my eye, as he matched a drawing from the Clawthorne family's records, one that stuck in my mind so much that I modeled my Toast on it, depicting a palisman that my... twelve or thirteen greats grandmother Evelyn Clawthorne carved as a gift to the man who would one day father her child. I inquired about it, and after a few more visits the Bat queen confirmed that Flapjack and that palisman were one and the same and that he had been in her care ever since the death of his first partner back in the Deadwardian era."

"Oh," Hunter replied. "That... I didn't know about that... I..." Knowing that his partner had first been carved as an act of love... That he'd been alone for centuries before he... "He said he was carved to be a friend for a witch that needed one. He... He found me and stepped in because he thought I was like his first partner, I..."

"Yes, that sounds about right," the old witch said with a bit of fondness. "Records from that time are sparse, but what I know is that Evelyn was famed for kindness and curiosity that bled into the palismen she carved. I don't know your situation, young man, but if Flapjack chose you then you're in good hands."

"Thank you, sir," Hunter replied thoughtfully.

"Oh, I'm sorry," the older witch said. "I forgot to ask you your name."

Hunter thought for a moment, before concluding based on what he'd seen of Lilith's reports that Hooty simply would not have let the Owl Lady's parents in if they weren't trustworthy. "It's Hunter. And, it's not like you need to introduce yourself. Everyone's heard of Del Clawthorne the Palisman Carver."

Del laughed. "It's nice to know that even retired my reputation still proceeds me. But tell me, Hunter, how did you come to be staying with my daughter?"

Hunter avoided eye contact. "So technically she kidnapped me. I had to leave home in a hurry and I had nowhere to go. I was just about to lay down and die before she insisted I stay with her and physically carried me here."

"...Well yes, that sounds like my little Pumpkin," Del replied. "She's been presenting herself as a dangerous rebel for as long as I can remember but she never could pass up a chance to help someone in need, no matter how many laws she has to break to do it."

"So far I'm convinced that she just likes breaking the law," Hunter deadpanned.

"That too," Del admitted good-naturedly. "How are you settling in?"

"It's... Odd. She doesn't exactly live up to the reputation of the dangerous wild witch in the forest, she's... No offense but your daughter is completely insane," was Hunter's only way of phasing it. "Her apprentice, Luz, isn't much better. The Emperor said she was someone blessed with strange powers by the Titan who was being led astray by the Owl Lady but she's... I think humans are just like that. I've been... Second guessing some stuff for a while, and it's gotten worse since I got here, and... Before all of this I knew who and what I was supposed to be but the more time I spend away from home the more I realize that everything I knew was wrong, I..." Hunter swallowed. "Starting over is scary."

"Don't I know it," Del replied and for the first time that afternoon, Hunter got a good look at the man's closed eye socket and scarred hand.

"Can I ask what happened?"

"A terrible accident," was all he said by way of details. "Not something that anyone can be blamed for. But I haven't been able to so much as whittle since, let alone carve a palisman. At first, I wasn't sure what to do, and I had other, much more important things to be concerned about, but eventually, I figured something out."

Gears turned in Hunter's head. "Your business with the Bat Queen, sir?"

"Yes," Del confirmed. "I've been working with her for the last... Long while. If things go well, if our efforts come to fruition, then in just a few short years there should be a solution to the palistrom shortages."

"...That's amazing, sir."

"And once that problem is over, I'll be able to teach a new generation of palisman carvers," Del continued. "I might not be able to carve anymore, but I can still pass my skills and the benefit of my experience down to other witches looking to make sure everyone can have a partner to guide them."

Something clicked in Hunter's head when he heard Del say that. He looked over at Flapjack and the other cardinal. "I think that's what I want to do."

"Oh?"

"Flapjack finding me was the start of, that start of what really got me thinking about my life. I... There are probably plenty of witchlings in bad situations. If I can make sure they have a guide, well, it's not what I thought my life would be like but I was raised to believe I was helping people and... Helping people is what I want to do." Hunter forced a short laugh. "Besides, I'm a little curious about how palismen work."

This prompted a good-natured chuckle from the older witch. "Well, I'd be glad to teach you."

"Thank you, sir."

Shortly after that, an unnatural chime of some kind rang out, distracting all in the room.

"Huh, Luz must have forgotten her phone," King noted before scrambling down from and searching under the couch for a moment before emerging with Luz's weird human-realm scroll thing. Tapping the screen and holding it up to the side of his face, he greeted, "Hellow, Mrs. Luz's Human Mom... Yeah, that's me, Luz isn't in right now... I'm doing great, I got to meet my grandpa!" the childlike glee in the young demon's voice was palpable. "Oh, she's upstairs... Okay, yeah." King put a paw over the device and looked up, "I'll be right back, she wants to talk with Eda."

With that, the demon proceeded to scramble up the stairs with the device in hand.

TLOA

Eda was not having a good time. Lilly had gotten a job as a curator at the Bonesborrogh Museum, and Eda had agreed to host a small party to celebrate. It went... about as well as could be expected... And then Lilith's old mentor, Flora Dysplora came by to drop off some of Lilly's things after her office was cleaned out and set Lilly off and left Eda's sister commandeering Eda's kitchen to work on a display for the museum in a misguided attempt to show Flora up.

So into it, she was, that she hadn't even noticed that Blondie was here, which was good because Eda had forgotten to tell her about him.

Then Luz, having learned a little too well from the smooth-talking lessons she got for acing a potions exam, and after asking Eda about time magic, smooth-talked "Cool Aunt Lilith" into helping her look for time pools.

(She also insisted that possums were real. She even said that Boots could vouch for their existence. Like Eda was going to believe that.)

Then her parents arrived. She couldn't turn them away, with Luz gone she didn't have "busy with my apprentice" to use as an excuse and King was so excited to meet his new grandfather, but Eda couldn't face her father. Not after what she did. So she locked herself in her room while plotting a way to sneak out.

...She wasn't having much luck on that front. She was starting to eye a robe that Lilly had left here, planning to sneak out while disguised as her sister, when a knock on her door distracted her. Coming from near the floor, she knew it was King and not her mother trying to get her attention.

"What do you want?"

"Luz's mom is on the phone," King replied. "She wants to talk to you."

With a sigh, Eda unlocked the door and opened it just wide enough to take the phone before closing and locking it again. "Hey, Cam," she said with the device to her ear, "this is a bad time."

"Sorry," the human replied. "I know King said your parents were over but... Luz mentioned that there was some bad blood between you and your mother."

"No, that's all taken care of," Eda dismissed. "It's not her it's... I haven't spoken to my father in over thirty years."

"...Eda, did... Did he do something?"

"No, no no no no no," Eda insisted. "It's... When I was a kid, I cost him his job and ruined his life. I can't... How can I look him in the eye after that."

"...Eda, I seriously doubt that anything you could have done as a child when you were, what, Luz's age? I doubt you could have ruined his life."

"Did Luz tell you that I'm cursed?" Eda asked.

"She mentioned it, said it was sort of like a chronic illness," Camila confirmed.

"Well, the thing is," Eda continued... "So I only figured this out recently. The curse was cast from a scroll, and trapped in that scroll was a powerful demon I've been calling The Owl Beast... Though I should probably give her an actual name at some point... Anyway, some absurdly tall jerk in a pajama-like robe trapped her in the scroll Titan knows how long ago, and when the curse was cast on me, we sort of fused. She's part of me now, and I'm part of her. We're stuck together for good. Usually, I'm in charge, and we still look like me, but... I didn't use to get this distracted by shiny things, and while I can fall asleep on a chair or couch if I'm tired enough I can only get properly comfortable in a nest."

"Aye, sounds rough," Camila added.

"There are some other side effects, too," Eda added. "Let's just say that if we can get the portal open again by autumn I could really help you scare the pants off some folks come Halloween."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"But the really bad part was... when I was stressed out, or just went too long without taking my elixirs, I'd change. I'd slip into the dark recesses of my mind while she took over. My body would change to be like hers and... I know now that she was just scared and confused, lashing out against threats... A few weeks after I was first cursed, Dad lit off some fireworks that reminded my headguest of the magic used to seal her away, and... My Dad was the best palisman carver the Isles had seen in decades. Now he can't even hold a carving knife."

"That doesn't sound like something you can blame yourself for," Camila replied. "And if he's here now then he's probably forgiven you."

"That's the worst part Cam, I don't think he ever blamed me in the first place," Eda explained. "It'd be easier if he was mad at me, I..."

"Let me ask you a question," Camila started, "the little demon boy, King, Luz tells me you adopted him... You love him, right?"

"Of course I do," Eda replied.

"And you're basically Luz's second mother. Do you love her?"

Eda laughed awkwardly. "Yeah... Look, I'm sorry about that. Wasn't exactly planning on that when I agreed to let her stay here but, well, things happen."

"It's fine. Like I said that night in the car, Luz has more than enough love for two mothers. Honestly, it's nice knowing I have someone else keeping an eye out for her," Camila admitted. "But that brings me to my point: Being a parent is hard, and something I've learned is that you can't take care of them if you're not taking care of yourself. This might be a little hard to hear but... It sounds like you're determined to make yourself sad."

"Cam, it's not that—"

"You need to talk to your father. To end this, one way or another, before it's too late," Camila said grimly.

"...Too late?"

"He's not going to be around forever, Eda," Camila explained. "You're putting this off and hurting yourself when you need to talk to him and get closure. It could go well, it could go bad, but anything is better than torturing yourself like this. And if you wait too long, you'll miss your chance and you'll be hurting like this for the rest of your life."

Eda gulped. "It's not that easy, Cam."

"I'm sure that if Luz was there she'd be telling you that she'd give anything to have one last talk with her Papi."

...It occurred to Eda, in that moment, that she had never once heard Luz say anything about a father. Or any parent other than Cam.

"Okay, fine," Eda finally broke down. "You're right. I'll talk with him. But, before I head down... What was it you called for?" She could still put it off for just a bit longer.

"It's about Luz, actually um... Doctor Strange got back to me, and things aren't looking good."

"Oh?"

"Following the lead about giraffes really helped him narrow things down," Camila explained, "he says that he's ruled out the Demon Realm being one of the splintered realms or having any connection to the negative zone or the Darkforce Dimension, but he ran into a dead end: The trail goes ended with, and I quote, 'the only Gravesfield witch who was actually a witch.' Er, uh, what we call witches over here, not..."

"I get it."

"So when he came back into town this morning we went to the historical society, the library, and so on to see if there was anything on her but... All we could find was that just before she was hung she recited a series of nonsense words... They wrote them down, taking it as proof of her infernal nature. We were set to take it as a dead end when Masha, Vee's um... I think they're going with 'Theyfriend,' noticed that when it was written out phonetically it looked like something called a Caesar cipher, where you move letters around to encrypt a message. After some experimenting with how many letters to shift around we got dying prayer."

"To who?"

"The witch's last words, translated, were 'As I die I commit my soul to Bill Cipher, who freed me from drudgery and gave me the power to live ridiculously. Praise be to his angles and eye.'"

"...I have no idea who that is," Ed admitted.

"Neither do I," Camila continued. "But Doctor Strange did. Supposedly he was killed ten years ago and, even if he hadn't been, he's not the kind of person you ever want to deal with unless you're holding all the cards and even then it's risky. He said he could try a seance but he would like to save that for an absolute last resort so... Back to the drawing board."

"Ugh, well, Luz left with Lilith earlier to chase a lead on how the portal was made but..."

"He's reaching out to some other magicians and calling in a few favors among 'the Illuminati' but he says that from where he's sitting now it could be months or even years before he can get the portal open from this side."

"...Do you want me to tell Luz? Because... That would..." Eda gulped. "She'd be devastated."

"No, I don't want to discourage her," Camila replied, "Especially not so close to... Anyway, the point I'm getting at is... How secure is the situation, on your end? Legally speaking."

"I'm not sure I understand what you mean, Cam?"

"Like, I know you were able to enroll her in school," Camila started, "but in overall terms of guardianship could... Could someone from the government come in and legally take her from you? Put her in some sort of fostering program?"

"Only if they wanted to die," Eda quipped. "If they somehow avoided getting eaten by Hooty, overpowered me, and Luz didn't kick their keisters herself, Boots would level the city to get her back."

"Yes, yes, Amity's definitely a keeper but, I'm serious... Are you considered her legal guardian, on your side of things?"

"We're not exactly all that formal about those things here. You had to go through some hoops to adopt Vee, right? And it wasn't official until a bit after the paperwork was filed. Over here," Eda explained, "adopting King was legal the second I signed the paperwork and even that was mostly a formality, he did it because that's what he wanted. If he just said he wanted to use my name that would have been good enough for most people. Luz... After a while, Luz stopped being 'Luz the Human' and started being 'Eda's girl.' As far as anyone around town is concerned, she's my kid. If I told my parents that she's my kid, they'd probably be doting on her like their flesh and blood grandchild and I'd eat my foot if she wasn't written into the wills by the end of the week." Eda paused to collect her thoughts. "The only way I could be more her, her parent is if... Cam...? Are you asking me to formally adopt Luz?"

The was a sighing on the other end of the phone. "My daughter is trapped in another dimension, Eda. And I'm sorry, I know she loves it there, I know she fits in there, but everything I've been told about it scares the life out of me. The only thing giving me peace of mind is knowing that Luz is safe with someone who loves her. I'd be sleeping a whole lot easier if I knew that that arrangement was as secure as possible."

"Cam, I don't know what... I love her but that's kind of a big ask," Eda began, "I could run it by her but..."

"And even if you could get the portal open tonight," Camila continued, "and she could come and go whenever she wanted again... We both know she'd rather stay over there. She has friends there, she goes to school there, she has a life there... With how well she's doing it's almost like she was supposed to be born over there instead of over here."

"Cam, don't be like that you know she loves you," Eda replied.

"I know," Camila said. "But she doesn't love it here. She admitted to me that I'm the only reason she came back and that she feels safer over there... And who can blame her? She's never been arrested for being excited while brown over there."

Eda blinked. "Excuse me, what?"

"It was her last year of middle school," Camila began. "Her class had a field trip to New York to visit a museum and she was so excited because the museum had a whole exhibit on magic complete with replicas of some of the artifacts that Doctor Strange uses. Some puta mas absoluta who I am sure was named 'Karen' didn't like that a brown girl had something to be excited about and called the police, claiming that... Well, she used slurs but didn't use the right ones and we'll leave it at that. The gist of it was that she lied and claimed she overheard Luz talking about plotting to steal magical artifacts from the museum. Luz was in cuffs by the time one of the officers realized that not a single other person at the museum corroborated the story and that maybe the words of someone who can't talk about Latinos without treading into hate speech weren't reliable. NYPD offered me a payout to not sue for false arrest and emotional trauma, which was great because the middle school principal was a completo bastardo and insisted that I get Luz tested for all kinds of behavioral and developmental disorders before he'd let her come back and said I'd have to pay for them out of pocket."

"...Is this where Supervillains come from?" Eda asked. "Because I'm suddenly tempted to come over there and perform a couple of highly specific and precisely targeted themed crimes."

"They're not worth the hassle," Camila replied.

"She's mentioned that before, but... She didn't say that it was because of that."

"She doesn't know," Camila replied. "She's got a bad habit of blaming herself for problems or accepting blame for things... And she's been punished or ostracised over little things that shouldn't matter all her life. With the middle school principal putting the blame on her, she assumed she must have done something wrong... I thought about telling her the truth but she was upset enough as it was, this would just have made it worse."

"Cam," Eda said, "Luz is a big girl. She knows that not everyone is nice and that some people are just jerks. She can handle this."

"You're probably right, but..."

Just then, Eda got a notification on her scroll.

"One second, Cam," she said while checking it... A DM from Lilly... In all caps. With no punctuation.

"CALL LUZS DOCTOR"

"Cam, I've gotta go," Eda said as her blood froze.

TLOA

Luz woke up with... Definitely not the worst pain she'd ever had. That was what had happened before she passed out, but... Still hurting pretty bad. Especially in her chest, which was very concerning.

The last thing she remembered... Phillip. He had absolutely not changed for the better. He was exactly as bad as you'd expect of a witch hunter, maybe even worse. He was charismatic and manipulative and like an idiot, she fell for it. She and Lilith had been conned into helping him retrieve a mirror related to someone called...

She snapped up, eyes wide open. The Collector! And... Her dream, with the Titan... The Archivists, eh... No, no, the Titan said the last archivist wasn't a threat to anyone anymore and this was centuries ago, it's probably fine, but... Why hadn't she connected the dots sooner?

"Good, you're awake," she heard a voice, an older woman's and...

Turning, she saw Eda's mom. A somewhat heavyset woman with a clear family resemblance to Eda and biceps for days."Um, Gwen?"

"Yes, Poppet," the older woman confirmed, and... No, Luz would ask about the nickname later. Gwen turned and called out "She's awake!"

Within moments the room was filled, Luz's vision being dominated by King, Stringbean, and five concerned-looking bird palismen: Owlbert, Mike, Flapjack, Hawksley, and a second cardinal that she didn't recognize.

"Where," Luz got her bearings. She was in the living room of the Owl House, on the couch. Someone had taken her shoes off, but she was still fully dressed. Including her witch's cloak, which she'd figured out how to summon without having to go full symbiote and had used along with a helmet she'd looted from a skeleton to disguise that she was human after traveling back in time... Elsewhere in the room were Lilith and Hunter, who were both slumped up against different walls and both trying to sit up The windows were plated up, like the house was on lockdown. "Where's Eda?"

"As soon as your doctor said you were going to be okay," Gwen explained, "and she got a promise from each of us that we would not leave you alone for a second until you woke up, she went into town with Del. She said she had something very important to do and this convinced her to get it done now."

"Oh," Luz said, not sure how to feel about Eda not being there when...

The kitchen door opened and Tiny Nose walked in. "Oh, good, you'we up. You'we test wesults are back... But fiwst, how awe you feeling?"

"Everything hurts, especially my chest," Luz answered. "Like... Um..."

"Thewe's a heavy-duty pain potion on the table," Tiny said and Luz noticed it as it was pointed out to her. "You can take it as soon as we go over a few things. Fiwst, what's the last thing you wemembew?"

"I was about to confront Phillip Wittebane after he conned me and Lilith into helping him while planning to sacrifice us," Luz said, "and I guess I spooked him or something because he threw a bottle of something at me. On reflex, I guarded with my cloak, the bottle shattered and... My cloak is witch's wool, but it's all mixed up in my symbiote side. Whatever was in the bottle got sucked up and my coven sigil flared. The last thing I saw before I passed out was Lilith breaking Phillip's nose."

"Titan Bile," Lilith said as she, clearly somewhat tired, finally stood up. "I grabbed a shard from the bottle for testing, the residue was pure, undiluted, raw Titan Bile."

Luz immediately pulled the bandages from her wrist and... "Titan take me, it's still there! Five humors and half a bag of palistrom shavings and..."

"It can't possibly take much more magic than you've already taken in," Lilith insisted. She looked so tired.

"Um, Lilith, are you okay?" Luz asked.

"Mike and I really pushed ourselves to get you back home safe," Lilith explained. "But I'm fine. Once you were in safe hands I drank an elixir and an entire pot of bitter bean blood." Considering that Lilith's coffee was just as strong as Luz's own, that was not exactly reassuring.

"She was like, two-thirds Raven Beast by the time she got here," King quipped. "Hunter almost had a heart attack."

"I did not!" Hunter insisted.

"So I have questions about why he's here," Lilith said. "Starting with... Why he's here?"

"Ask your sister," Hunter deadpanned.

"It's cool, he's one of us now," Luz explained. "And, um... Dr. Nosa, you said you ran some tests?"

"Yeah. Could someone go into the kitchen and wheel in the scans?" Tiny replied, which prompted Hunter to rush off.

"Scans?" Luz asked.

"They'we kinda like... I think humans call them X-ways?" Tiny answered. "I used a spell to see inside you then pwinted the image on a sheet of papew."

"Will that explain the chest pains?" Luz asked. "Because I'm very concerned about the chest pains."

"Yes, but don't wowwy those should go away in a day ow two."

Hunter rolled in some kind of bulletin board on wheels and parked it where Luz could see it from the couch. On it were pictures that were... Basically, Luz in layers, which was all kinds of cool to look at but he found her eyes drawn to what appeared to be a picture of her internal organs.

"...That's not supposed to be there," she said while staring at a growth on her heart.

"I figuwed as much," Tiny replied. "Luz, it seems that the intwoduction of Titan Bile into youw system has twiggered you to grow youw own bile sack."

"...I was not expecting that," Luz said flatly.

"Now in tewms of stwuctuwe," Tiny continued, "youw's is mowe like a Titan's than a witch ow biped demon, but you onwy have the one. It's a little undersized, and more compwessed against pwabably since you have two full-sized lungs," the small demon mused. "I took a bile sample, it's not quite titan bile but... it's weally close. Even has the spell phlegms mixed in alweady. Testing youw blood, which is vewy slightly almost unnoticeably purple now, showed twace amounts of diluted Titan Blood. Youw ciwculatory, skeletal, pulmonawy, and musculaw systems all have similaw mutations. Luz, I'd need a live Titan to compare but... I think you'we part Titan now."

"...How?"

"Thewe's no way of knowing for sure," Tiny continued, "but I hypothesize that youw howwible eldwitch monstew side was able to weconstitute the Titan's decaying genetic matewial fwom its humows and insewted it into youw alweady hybridized genome. This would have stawted when you fiwst absowbd the Titan Blood and accelewated with each humow. With the full set," she finished, "thewe was enough to pawtially Titanize the cowwesponding organs."

"So I understood about half of that," Luz admitted.

Just then the windows unboarded themselves as the door swung open and Eda came in accompanied by an older man that Luz didn't recognize. "Ah, shoot," she said, "I was hoping to get back before you woke up."

"...Well, you didn't," Luz replied. She didn't mean to sound sad, but... "Where were you?"

"It's not important right now," Eda said nervously.

"Was important enough," Luz mumbled.

Eda sighed. "Okay, fine, you left your phone here and Cam called. She admitted to me that she had some... Concerns about how secure our situation here was, in terms of, you know, guardianship and... Asked me to do something. I said I'd run it by you but then... Seeing you like... That... again made me realize that I wanted to do this too, and soon, so..." Eda started rummaging through her hair. "Now um, this is all up to you. If you're not comfortable with this we can just toss these in the fireplace and, and I made sure that even if we do do this that it won't invalidate your relationship with Cam and... You won't have to change your name, you won't have to change what you call me, this doesn't have to change anything if you don't want it to..."

Luz realized what Eda was talking about just as her mentor produced a stack of papers and a pen. Papers much like the ones she'd helped King fill out not that long ago.

"And again, it's ultimately up to—" Luz had signed the adoption papers, 'Luz Noceda-Clawthorne,' before Eda even finished.

It seemed to take her mentor, her second Mom, a moment to realize but... after that second, there was a lot of hugging, especially when King jumped in.

"Welcome to the family, Poppet," Gwen greeted.

"No," the older man said, "I think she was already family."

"I'm sorry, who are you?" Luz asked him, which prompted Eda to let her go and stand next to the man.

"As of a minute ago, in the eyes of the law, he's your new Grandpa," Eda explained. "This is my Dad, Del Clawthorne. He was the best palisman carver who ever lived and now he's getting ready to train whoever the next best is going to be."

"You flatter me, Pumpkin," the man, Del replied.

"He taught me everything I know about palismen," Eda continued, "and he helped me carve Owlbert the same way I helped you with Stringbean."

"It's nice to meet you, sir," Luz said with a smile only to wince as the chest pains got slightly worse. "Sorry."

"No," Eda replied, "I'm surprised that you're even able to sit up, so... Tiny? Is there anything you haven't told her yet?"

"Nothing that I can't wite down fow latew, all the impowtant stuff is done."

"Okay, so I think what needs to happen is that you, young lady," Eda said as she turned back to Luz, "should take your pain potion and then get up to bed. I'll carry you if you need help. We're... almost certainly doing a late dinner tonight, so I'll bring some up to you while you take it easy and then you can just crash and try to sleep this off. Does that sound good?"

"Yeah," she said as Stringbean pre-emptively went into Teddy mode. "But first... If I have a bile sack now, then... I should be able to..."

Her eye caught one of Eda's potted plants. That would do. She held out her hand, thought about some of her lessons in plant class, focused the power at her fingertips, and drew the circle while she pictured what she wanted. Just like Eda taught her, and...

The flowers in the pot suddenly got a whole lot more lively as the blooms perked up and took on a more vibrant color.

Casting the spell had maybe been a bad idea because, much like after casting her light spell after the Titan Blood, she was suddenly exhausted, but as she smiled at her handiwork all she could say was "worth it."