Chapter 48

"Okay, so first we need to cut the onions," Amity explained. "As finely as you can."

Luz pealed and began chopping the onions that had been laid out for her. "So why did you pick this recipe?"

"Well, I don't know what your experience with cooking is," Amity explained, "and this is simple enough. Also... After the other day, I figured some comfort food might be a good idea."

"I have a little experience," Luz said. "Mostly helping my Mom... oooh! Maybe when we get the portal working again, I can ask her about teaching you how to make empanadas?"

"I'd like that."

"Okay, I'm done chopping," Luz said. "Now what."

"Now carefully pour the onions into the mixing bowl with the bread crumbs and the ground Khalkotaur." Luz did so and Amity continued. "Next pour in the garlic powder, boiling sea salt, black pepper, and newt's eye mustard powder that I premeasured for you."

Luz added in the spices and Amity walked over to the Blight Manor's kitchen's refrigerator and returned with a single griffin egg and a carton of milk.

"Now this is koi milk," Amity explained. "It's made from these weird protein-rich fatty legumes that grow near koi ponds up on the swampy toes. The recipe typically uses just regular dairy milk, but this doesn't have lactose. Crack in the egg and then pour in that molasses," she said while pointing to an egg cup of black syrup, "I'll measure out some milk."

Luz did as instructed, and then Amity handed her a measuring cup with the milk, which she poured in with little prompting.

"Anything else to add?" Luz asked.

"Nope," Amity said while handing Luz a large wooden spoon. "Now stir to combine. Try to mix it as much as you can."

Again, Luz followed her girlfriend's instructions and stirred to combine the ingredients. She really put her back into it and after a few minutes, she had a dense meat slurry. "Okay, I think this is as good as I can get it."

"That looks exactly right," Amity confirmed. "The next step is to move it into the loaf pan and try to shape it into a log-like shape."

Luz once more did as she was told and, once that was done the pan was placed in the preheated oven. "Okay, now what?"

"Now?" Amity began, "Now we make the gravy."

"Alright, how do we do that?" Luz asked.

Amity gave a smug smirk, then with a flick of her wrist produced a packet of powdered gravy mix from inside her sleeve. "There are all kinds of ways to make gravy and even different definitions of the word but this is what I like best."

"Really?" Luz asked.

"When I first found this recipe it said to use your favorite brown gravy, but that was back when I was first learning to cook so I took a shortcut the first time," Amity explained. "The next couple of times I experimented but... Nothing worked out quite as well as the first time so I went back to the instant mix... Also, my mother hates 'poor people food' so, you know..."

Luz laughed but then had a thought. "Speaking of, how are you holding up?"

"It's... an adjustment," Amity admitted. "But... Not as big a deal as I thought. Mom moved out for good last night, she's in a hotel in town until she and Dad finish going over the assets but she should be moving to that house in Latissa sometime next week." Her parents had apparently inherited it from her maternal grandparents, who Amity had never met, but they'd never really found a use for it. "Before she left she told me that everything she did was for me and that I'd thank her someday but she understands that now going away is for the best and... I feel like if she meant that, though, she would have told me she loved me... I can't remember her ever saying that."

Luz immediately moved to hug her girlfriend. "You okay? You know I can pick up bad feelings, so... If I can't lie to you about that sort of thing you can't lie to me."

Amity snorted. "Yeah, I'm fine. Okay, this is a pretty simple thing to do, the instructions are on the packet but there is something I do to punch it up a little. I'll let you decide if we do that this time though."

Luz read the instructions and then poured the measured out some water into a saucepan and set it on the stove to boil. "So, what do you do to punch it up?"

"Usually, when it comes time to add the mix to the water," Amity began as she reached into a cabinet, "I also throw in about half a teaspoon of my homemade skullapeño salt." Amity then withdrew a small sealed jar filled with coarse salt and just barely visible bits of dried and powdered peppers.

"Okay, yeah, let's do it!" Luz agreed.

Once the gravy was done, they had a moment to talk. "So, um, how are you doing?" Amity asked. "With your studies? Learned any new spells?"

"Oh, yeah. Phillip might have been a jerk but now that I know he used glyphs I realize he had a couple of designs hidden away in his diary and I found even more," Luz added. "I was experimenting with combos a bit this morning... One of them is for petrification," Luz said with a wince. "Yikes... One's also for this reddish goopy monster arm spell that's... A lot like a spell that Belos used. When I fought him."

Amity winced herself. "Oh."

"I have two theories," Luz continued. "One is that Lilith was right, he's a symbiote or a hybrid like me that somehow ended up here on the Isles. He found the glyphs too, and either eating palismen lets him cast glyph spells he nows without drawing them like when I borrowed Owlbert, or else he's absorbed Titan Blood."

"But, if the Glyphs came from the Titan..." Amity began.

"In my dream," Luz continued, "the Titan said he let me find the glyphs... Because he wanted me to have a fair chance to learn magic, but he also said I found the plant glyph on my own. And Phillip found the glyphs, but he's a total jerk. He did say it took him a long time to find them all, though, and he learned the Light Glyph from me... So Belos could have found them, too," Luz concluded.

"Okay, that makes sense," Amity admitted.

"My other theory is that it's just a big coincidence," Luz admitted. "Hunter says that a lot of glyph spells are similar to advanced elemental magics from the Savage ages. Most witches haven't delved all that deep into elemental magic since the main nine were discovered and fleshed out and that was doubled down on when Belos declared all the more advanced elemental spells wild magic. It'd make sense for a tyrannical cult leader to not want anyone else to be able to do what he can do."

"It's probably that one," Amity insisted.

"Yeah, probably," Luz agreed.

Just then, Edric and Emira entered the kitchen. "Mittens, there you are. You won't believe what—Oh, hey Luz," Emira greeted.

"Hey Em, hey Ed," Luz greeted back. "Amity's teaching me her meatloaf recipe."

"Speaking of which, it's time to check on that," Amity said. "Do you know how to use a meat thermometer?"

"Yeah," Luz confirmed.

Checking that the meatloaf was brown and that it was the correct internal temperature, the next step was to carefully pour the gravy over the meatloaf so that it was pulled over with the excess gravy welling up around it before putting it back in the oven to finish cooking.

"Okay, now what is it I won't believe?" Amity asked her brother and sister.

"So Dad asked us to oversee the abomination butler packing up Mom's office," Edric began, "and um... We found a hidden cabinet in the wall that was just filled with junk food."

"...What?" Amity asked.

"Like, all the stuff she gets mad at us for eating," Emira continued. "A bunch of different candies, Hex Mix, those cupcakes with the cream filling that are 'loaded down with enough preservation potions that not even a trash slug could digest them.'"

"Those chips you like," Edric added. "Not the skullapeño ones specifically but like, that brand."

"Poor people food" the twins finished together.

"That absolute hypocrite," Amity observed with... Not an angry laugh, but not a happy one either. More resigned than anything else. "She didn't have a secret minifridge full of pizza bagels, did she"

"No," Emira denied. "We checked."

"Whatever she has against those, she's honest about it," Edric added. "Unless they're hidden somewhere else in the house."

"But still, she's so obsessive about eating all that fancy, expensive garbage that comes in these tiny portions..." Emira noted.

"...But only a little bit, not the three to seven courses that stuff like that is supposed to come in," Edric continued, "or you know, even the good version of that stuff half the time."

"And then she goes and eats junk food behind all our backs," Emita finished.

"You know," Luz chimed in, "I remember reading somewhere that when it comes to things like wine or liquor, rich people who are comfortable or confident in their wealth will mostly just drink what they like even if it's the cheap stuff but people who feel the need to flaunt their wealth will make a big show of getting the fanciest and most expensive stuff even if it tastes like a sick moose peed in a glass of spoiled juice."

"Luz," Amity said with a sigh, "I love you but that is not a mental image I needed right before eating."

"Sorry."

"What's a moose?" Edric asked.

Luz proceeded to describe the animal to Amity's elder brother and soon after the meatloaf was done.

After checking it over again, which revealed that much of the gravy had been absorbed into the loaf ("That's supposed to happen," Amity reassured,) the dish was left to rest for a moment and then portioned out.

Luz stared at hers, nervously. Unable to eat. Had her attempt lived up to Amity's standards?

Seemingly unaware of Luz's turmoil, Amity took a fork to a piece and raised it to her mouth. She chewed it for a moment, a thoughtful expression on her face, before swallowing. "You did perfect, Batata."