Chapter 49

Content Warning I don't normally do these but... We're going into Hollow Mind here so... Honestly, that's probably CW enough but just to be clear we're getting two teens hit with severe emotional damage, a frank discussion of murder complete with victim blaming, and just a little bit of racism and homophobia. You have been warned.

Luz woke up, confused about where she was... It was like, the floor of some kind of museum. It was dark, and there were paintings everywhere.

"Where am I?"

"Somewhere we really don't want to be," came Hunter's voice.

Looking over to him... Okay, yeah, it was coming back to her. They had to make a trip to the night market so Eda could pick up enough witch's wool to make a little cloak for King. They went as a group for security, since 1: Night market and 2: The closer it got to the day of unity the more coven scouts were in town, and 3: Hunter was getting stir crazy. In the dark, it was determined that it'd be fine if he had a hood, so...

"Okay, um... Last I remember you pointed out a squad of coven scouts moving in an 'emergency apprehension' formation..."

"Where-in the squad is in an active attempt to apprehend potentially dangerous criminals believed to be actively committing treason and who may be armed," Hunter explained.

"And you remembered that um, our older friends," Raine, Eberwolf, and Darius, "were doing something in town, and even though I told you I promised Eda that I wouldn't do stuff like that you insisted on checking it out." Luz was really, really worried about how Eda was going to react. "We ended up getting into a fight with the scouts just as they were declaring an arrest, which let our... Friends escape," never mention the rebels by name outside the privacy of the Owl House. At least not in their capacity as rebels. "Then um.. I sort of got thrown into a ritual circle and something broke, and now we're here. But um... Where is here?"

"Judging by the portraits," Hunter explained, "we're in the Emperor's mind."

"That's bananas!"

"I don't know what those are."

Luz blinked. "But... The demon realm has bananas. I've seen you eating one."

"What?"

"The long, curved fruit with the peal and the stem at the end you pull to peal it?" Luz asked rhetorically.

"...There are clearly gaps in my education," Hunter admitted neutrally.

Luz pulled the jacket Eda gave her tighter around herself, feeling admittedly unsafe at the moment. "Okay, how do we get out."

"...We don't," Hunter replied. "Mindscape traversal spells are tricky and are almost always cast on a third party. Getting us out would require whoever cast the spell in the first place to take us out and..."

Well, odds were that meant that Darius, Eber, and the BATTS were probably already working on it. Or at the very least had told Eda so she could work on it.

A walky-talky that Luz and King had been playing with earlier went off, Eda's voice coming through. "Luz? Are you there? Can you hear me?"

"Yeah. I hear you... Um, before you get mad, um... Caleb—"

"I'm the one who ran off and I more or less dragged her behind me," Hunter interrupted in his subservient soldier voice. "I take full responsibility."

"Look, we'll worry about that later" Eda continued. "Do you know where you are?"

"In the Emperor's mind," Luz replied.

Eda responded with a string of words that made Luz hope desperately that King wasn't with her. "Okay, we can get you out, but it's gonna be tough and we're going to have to scrounge up a power source. Sit tight, try not to get dragged into Bonehead's subconsciousness, and whatever you do don't get caught by his Inner Self. I'll check in on you in a little bit." There were assorted animal noises that Luz couldn't make out. "Oh, and Owlbert says that your respective palismen love you and are currently plotting regicide. Well, Stringbean is. He's trying to calm her down but..."

"So, um, Caleb," Luz said using the suspiciously familiar fake name that Flapjack had given Hunter, "what's an inner self?"

"Well, in a healthy mind, the inner self is... A second you that exists in the mindscape," Hunter explained. "It's sort of a gestalt embodiment of instinct and emotion... But, for all intents and purposes, Inner Emperor Belos would be Emperor Belos... And if he finds us, the Real Emperor will gain conscious awareness and even a degree of control of what's happening in the mindscape."

"...That sounds bad," Luz admitted.

Just then, Luz heard what sounded like a young boy's laughter.

Down the hall was what appeared to be a young boy, dressed in old clothes and a wooden version of Belos's mask. He just... Appeared all of a sudden.

"Is um... That the Inner Belos?" Luz asked.

"Not unless he has absolute perfect control of his mindscape," Hunter replied. "And the only place you could learn how to do that burned down in the Deadwardian era. All records were lost. He's old, but he's not that old."

"So what is he then?"

"Probably a manifestation of a strong, deep-seated emotion?" Hunter guessed. "Maybe... Guilt?" He said hesitatingly. "He um... Made a lot of sacrifices to get to where he is now."

Hunter still hadn't fully accepted that his uncle was evil but acknowledging that he had things to be guilty about was a good start.

"So what do we do now?" Luz asked only to realize that the mini-Belos had walked up to her while Hunter was explaining and was now tugging on her sleeve as if to tell her to follow him. "Um..."

"We die. We die horribly or otherwise end up in deep trouble."

Turning to see what Hunter was talking about, Luz saw that he was looking behind them at a silhouette that strongly resembled Belos with his mask on. However, as the figure approached Luz started picking up negativity from it on her ESP.

...But it wasn't like one person's emotions. It was... Countless. Almost too many. But, Luz could just barely make out sadness, grief, concern... For her and Hunter... And fear, loathing, for... The child.

"That's not the Inner Belos," Luz said.

"What else could it be?" Hunter asked.

Luz, not wanting to risk giving away all that she was capable of, reached into her pocket and drew out a pre-drawn light glyph. Activating it and sending the ball of light over toward the figure, it was revealed to be a monstrous horned figure vaguely resembling a skeleton composed of disgusting, rotten-looking green slime. And throughout its body with the faces of small animals.

"Wait, I recognize some of those," Hunter said with dawning horror. "Are those... Palismen?"

"Get away," came the fearful warning of dozens of whispering voices. "Before it's too late."

"I think so," Luz admitted. "They must be like, the souls of all the Palismen Belos ever ate all mashed up into one or something. Which means..."

The hand tugging on Luz's sleeve suddenly grabbed her by the wrist. And was much bigger. Turning back around the child had been replaced by the form of the actual adult Belos. She'd seen his face reveal at the Coven Day parade but up close the nasty green scar across his face was especially disgusting.

"Those vile creatures have been a thorn in my side for far too long," Belos lamented. "I had a whole game of cat and mouse planned out, but I guess it's partly my fault. I suppose old biases die hard, as much as I want to think I'm better than that. I won't underestimate your intellect again, Luzura."

"It's just Luz," she corrected. Luzura was her... Admittedly rather uncreatively named Azura SI. She'd used the name when she and King were writing but the only time she'd ever seriously introduced herself by that name was to... "No..." But, it all made sense. What Hunter said about the 'last time' Belos was in the human realm or, just now when he said that the only place he could have learned how to... Do what he's doing was lost in the Deadwardian... "No."

"Figured it out?" Belos asked rhetorically. "In truth, it took me quite a while to piece it together myself. I wouldn't learn about Time Pools myself for a few more years, and I wouldn't know for certain until I absentmindedly asked Hunter about a book I'd caught him reading. His comments about your reaction to Titan's Blood confirmed it."

"No, no no no no," Luz said while pulling her arm free and backing away.

"Speaking of," Belos said while turning to Hunter. "I'm so disappointed in you," he declared in a sinister tone.

Hunter immediately started shaking and the fear coming off of him almost outweighed that of the amalgamated palismen. "I... I'm sorry, Uncle," he said while trying not to stutter through his soldier voice.

Before Belos could respond to Hunter, the palisman-creature behind them struck the floor, causing it to break away and making Luz and Hunter fall through.

After falling for a little too long, the teens hit the ground in the clearing of a dark forest. "Okay, now where are we?" Luz asked while sitting up.

"...Not Uncle's subconscious," Hunter said while clearly trying to regain his composure. "We'd... It'd be chaotic in there. This is probably a deeper layer of consciousness and... Huh, the portraits here are a lot less stylized."

It was then that Luz noticed the trees all had what looked like... "They kind of look like memory photos," she observed.

"The basic principle behind memory photos is similar to mind-walking spells," Hunter explained. "If we wanted to, we could even see his memories, exactly as he first experienced them... Huh, here's one of you and Lilith."

Luz moved to where Hunter was standing and saw that he was right. That was her and Lilith... In the Titan's skull. Back in the Deadwardian Era. Luz poked the picture, saw her finger phase through it, and then stuck her face in it.

There she was, talking to Phillip Wittebane as he wrote something in his diary with Lilith solving a puzzle door in the background.

"Philip, why did you bring us here?" Memory Luz said.

"I needed a sacrifice," he replied nonchalantly.

Luz pulled herself back out of the memory. She didn't need to see the rest.

As she was processing that shattering revelation, the walky-talky crackled to life again. "Luz, checking in, are you still there?" came Eda's voice.

"Yeah."

"Okay, we've got a plan" Eda declared. "We're working on it now, are—"

"Eda, Belos saw us," Luz interrupted. "We only got away because like, all the palismen he ate are in here too, and they saved us, and, and... Eda, Belos is Philip!"

"...The dead jerk?"

"Not dead, but yeah!" Luz confirmed. "I don't know how, but..."

"Okay, kid, breathe. We're gonna get you out of there. Just... Try to stay safe."

Another voice came on after Eda. It was distorted, but the cadence was familiar. "Luz?" came what she suspected was Raine. "I know you're scared, but I have an important job I need you to do. While you're in the emperor's mind, try to find any information you can on what it is he wants to use the draining spell to achieve. Why he's willing to risk killing nearly every witch and demon on the Isles to achieve his goal."

A horrible realization dawned on Luz. "That is the goal!"

"What!?"

"Philip Wittebane was a witch hunter!" Luz shouted into the device. "A, a sociopathic, hypocritical religious fanatic devoted to condemning and executing people for 'conspiring with wicked spirits' or harming people with magic on spectral evidence because they're different, because they're a convenient scapegoat for the witch hunter's problems, or because the witch hunter felt like it! When Aunt Lilith and I went back to the Deadwardian era he was manipulating people into helping him while actively setting them up to die because he hated witches so much, he, he...Who does the draining spell target?"

"...Everyone on the Isles with a coven sigil."

Luz glanced at Hunter, who glanced back at her before pulling back his sleeve and looking at his own sigil. The realization was chilling. Belos had fully intended for Hunter to die, and... If they couldn't stop his evil plans, if Luz couldn't burn her sigil out, then...

"Okay. It's fine. We just have to stay calm," Luz insisted. "We... We just... This isn't my first apocalypse," she said. "First one I've been involved in, but..."

"Oh, you're more than involved," came a disturbingly British voice from behind them. Turing, there was Belos again. "I never could have come close to pulling this off if it wasn't for your help, Luzura."

Luz responded by blasting him with the fire-conjuring spell, grabbing Hunter by the wrist, and bolting.

She ran until she was out of breath and then ran a little more, sure that by the time she was forced to stop they were far away from inner Belos.

"What did he mean," Hunter asked between breaths, "your help?"

"In, in the past," Luz explained. "I um... Lilith and I sort of got conned into helping him find something called the Collector's mirror but... He has to be bluffing," she finished uncertainly. The last archivist wasn't a threat. The Titan said so. "So um, while we're here, let's see if we can learn anything else about his evil plans—that looks promising!" she said while pointing to a random picture of what looked like Belos in some kind of lab.

Reluctantly, Hunter followed her and they entered the memory finding Belos leaning over a table of some sort. Moving around the memory to get a better look was something Luz immediately regretted. On the table was what appeared to be a humanlike skeleton that had been picked apart at some point. Belos almost absentmindedly grabbed a small bone from it and laid it on a sheet of some disturbingly organic material along with the lungs of a massive creature, an opaque crystal sphere of some kind, and what Luz recognized as a large shard of palistrom wood before folding the material around them and... That was... selkidomus hide?

Then another figure appeared. A shadow in the wall, a crescent moon for half its face, pajama-like robes... It was like a stylized, two-dimensional version of what the Titan had shown her when talking about the archivists, and, looking closer Luz saw The Collector's mirror on the table, propped up against the wall.

"Philip, I'm bored," they said in a childlike voice. "Are you ever gonna let me out so we can play?"

"Now, now, Collector," Belos chastised as he finished tying up the bundle, "you know I can't let you out until after the draining spell and the eclipse I need to cast it won't be for over a decade."

"Draining spell this, draining spell that," The Collector complained. "I wish I'd never taught you that spell."

And that froze Luz's blood. If... If Belos had learned the draining spell from The Collector, and he only had The Collector because of Luz then...

"Ooh! Are you making another Grimwalker?" The Collector asked, the memory continuing to play uncaring of Luz's personal crisis. "You break the last one?"

"Yes. Hunter became too interested in the well-being of the young Abomination specialist, oh, what's his name? He was prioritizing that apprenticeship over his loyalty to me, and such treachery can't be tolerated."

"...What?" Hunter asked. "I... How?"

"Are you going to name this one Hunter, too?" The Collector asked. "I'm not gonna lie, I don't get what's so funny about that."

"What else would I name a witch hunter?" Belos mused. "Now, maybe if I create one as a small child and raise him properly he'll be more loyal than the others." Belos then walked to a plot of soil and began to bury the bundle. "Someone else will have to be head of The Emperor's Coven in the interim... Perhaps Lilith? I know she'll end up as Luzura's 'aunt' by some means, but until then it never hurts to keep a close eye on someone."

"...That... That's me," Hunter said while staring at the bundle. "That's... He's not my uncle he, made me in some kind of ritual. I... What am I? What's a grimwalker?"

"A homunculus in the image of a deceased person," came the voice of Belos from behind them. "A galdorstone provides power for the ritual and becomes the grimwalker's heart. Palistrom wood takes the role of keratin: skin, hair, nails, the lining of glands and organs, and numerous other structures in the body. " Terrified, the teens turned to face Belos as he continued. "The remaining aspects of the grimwalker's flesh and organs are derived from selkidomus scales and stone sleeper lungs. A bone of ortet, the deceased individual, is cultured to form the skeleton and gives proper shape to the grimwalker. It's a shame," Belos finished almost sadly, "out of all the grimwalkers, you were the most like him."

"...Caleb," Luz asked. Keep him talking, stall for time, find an opening, and... Darn it why didn't she have any coffee today? "Your brother. Caleb Wittebane."

Belos turned and focused on her intently. "Well well well, someone's done her homework. Tell me, how did you learn that name? I presumed that it was from my diary that you learned I existed at all, but... I never wrote about Caleb."

"I, I'm from Gravesfield," Luz answered. "Just like you," she further explained while trying to keep her non-magical bile down. "I... Everyone knows the legend of the Brothers Wittebane," she said, ignoring that she'd never been filled in until Masha told her. "Who came to town as orphaned children, who became witch hunters, how the elder brother was spirited away by a witch and the younger brother gave chase never to be seen again. There's a statue of the two of you in the town square. It's... I have a friend who would give their right hand to be able to solve the mystery."

Belos laughed and if it weren't for the horror of the situation they were in you could almost mistake him for a kindly grandfather with the tone and posture he took. "It's good to know that after all this time we haven't been forgotten. I imagine I'll receive quite a warm welcome when I finally return home."

"Yeah... There's just one thing I don't know," Luz continued while Hunter, having caught on to what she was doing, began to sneak around and grabbed the staff of Memory-Belos, which was leaning against a wall. "What... What happened to Caleb?"

Belos took on a grim expression. "That damnable jezebel Evelyn happened! She ensorcelled Caleb with her wicked spells and led him away into this perdition. But, I was able to grab some meager supplies before they left and chance after them, though I was unable to keep up with them between her own staff and the palisman she tempted Caleb with. If I ever see that detestable cardinal again it'll beg me to devour its essence by the time I'm done with it..." That made Hunter flinch. "It took me years to find him and by then her seduction and corruption of my brother was complete. He'd even laid with her so that she could use his seed to create her hellspawn." That was information that Luz did not need. "Regrettably, I did the only thing I could do to save my brother's soul and prevent Evelyn from exploiting him further, and... Well, Evelyn didn't care for that. I had to flee as she attacked me and she spent the rest of her life making mine difficult. She even stole my portal and it was centuries before it resurfaced again, in the hands of her distant descendant who is even more of a thorn in my side but... You'd know all about that already, wouldn't you?"

...Eda? Eda was... Distantly part baseline human? That would have been fascinating to learn about in any other situation that Belos admitted that he murdered his brother in cold blood because he was mad that said brother got a hot witch GF and moved away from a town whose favorite pastime was murdering whoever fits in the least well that month.

"You know, Luzura, you... Remind me of him. With the right clothes, if your hair was a little longer and pulled back, you might even be able to pass for him in his younger days, though obviously only in silhouette," Belos continued. "I'd... Hate to let this world ruin you as it ruined him. You might be of the witchbreed, but you're still human." Luz had no idea what 'witchbreed' meant. "Come with me when I return to the human realm. I'm sure that if you take created for your part in my cleansing of this realm will see you hailed as a hero regardless of whatever status you may have had when you fled here."

Luz narrowed her eyes. "How do I know I can trust you after all you've done?" She'd never trust him, of course, but she needed to keep him focused on her until Hunter saw an opening for whatever it was he was going to do.

"Please, Luzura, we're human. We're better than that," Belos said with obviously false good human. "I only treat the witches the way I do because I know they would do the same if it was the other way around," the man blatantly rationalized. "They're all wicked, sinful, conniving, every last one of them. It's in their nature."

"You say that," Luz countered, "but if I stay here it won't be the witches that kill me." Her defiant declaration was supported by tearing the bandages from her arm to reveal the coven sigil that she'd been branded with.

"Those things were never meant to touch human flesh," Belos said. "I can't remove it, but if you return to the human realm with me you'll be spared its effects." He looked thoughtful. "You can even bring the Blight girl."

"What?"

"If any witch is able to overcome her inherently sinful nature," Belos began, "it would have to be the one who channeled power so holy and pure as to render severe harm onto Lucifer himself." Luz resisted the urge to correct him that Mephisto only pretended to be the real Satan. "Clearly your influence. I suppose the nature of hymnal music has changed significantly in my absence but clearly, the Divine intervened on your behalf that evening and who am I to deny Him?"

"...Yes. That is exactly what happened," Luz lied with as straight a face as she could muster.

"Even if she hasn't risen above her evil tendencies," Belos continued, "she would have to be at the very least the least destructive and offensive of them all. If sparing her life will let me save yours," from the spell he was casting in the first place, "then it's acceptable. There would have to be... Restrictions on her behavior back on Earth, of course, but... Well, it's not like she can make more witches. Not with your shared vice."

It took Luz a moment to realize what exactly Belos had meant by that... But when she did, she got angry.

She transformed, but she didn't just attack him mindlessly this time. Instead, with arms stretched out as far as she could and hands slayed out so her claw-tipped fingers could give as much volume as they could she drew the largest spell-circle she could manage before hitting him with the fire conjuring spell once again.

This didn't quite take him by surprise as the first one had, but the resulting fireball was still too big for him to dodge even by turning into slime.

This, apparently, being a good enough opening for Hunter, in a burst of yellow he dashed, grabbed her, and dashed again moving them past Belos as he reconstituted himself and out through the portrait that was their exit back into the mindscape.

Once outside, Hunter took a seat on the pilfered staff. "Get on."

Luz got on behind him and he took off, flying... Much faster than she thought was safe, all things considered, but...

"So I take back what I said," Hunter began awkwardly. "You're not a bad oracle."

"I appreciate your attempt to lighten the mood but I don't think this is the time for jokes," Luz replied.

Before Hunter could respond, the staff he'd stolen from Memory Belos vanished from underneath them, sending them tumbling to the ground into another memory.

This one was a meadow somewhere. Belos... No, Philip was there. His nose was unbroken, so this was before meeting Luz, and he seemed to have set up a circle of candles around a sketch of someone with their eyes crossed out. He was holding an open book.

"It's a good thing I thought to steal the diary of that witch before coming after Caleb all those years ago," Memory-Philip said. "I couldn't have known that it'd be an entirely different sort of witch who dells in this detestable realm, but it's valuable in its own right." He turned a page. "The heathen's writing describes her infernal patron as an interdimensional muse willing to trade knowledge of the true nature of reality to worthy souls... Arcane secrets... Arts and sciences well beyond anything I've ever dreamed could exist... And luckily for me, she wrote down instructions for the ritual he gave so that she might summon him. Let's see if he knows how to build a portal."

Closing the book, Philip cleared his throat and recited "Triangulum! Entangulum! Vene foris dominus mentium! Vene foris videntis omnium!"

Whatever happened next Luz didn't get to see, as she and Hunter were both grabbed by the middle and dragged out of the memory by two of Belos's goopy, rotten-looking limbs. He had transformed into a horrible, glowy-blue-eyed thing that... Resembled the amalgamation of palismen souls but was somehow even more horrifying.

He dropped them both on the hard ground and slowly melted back into his previous form.

"It's amusing," he said, "that you honestly think that you can hide from me, escape from me, defeat me in the arena that is my own mind. But I grow tired of this game of endless pursuits. The only way you're getting out of here is by my will, do you understand that?" Belos declared. "If you will not be reasonable, if you insist on letting this realm destroy you the way it destroyed my brother, then I will have no choice," he insisted, "no choice but to bestow onto you the only mercy I could afford him. Do you understand that?"

Luz responded with a raspberry. If she was going to die here she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of letting her fear show.

Belos sighed. "Can't argue with crazy."

Before he could do anything, however, Luz was saved by the timely interference of the amalgamation of palisman souls appearing seemingly out of the aether to tackle Belos with a cacophonous cry of "Leave them alone!"

Luz got up, helped up Hunter, and got ready to try and bolt again when she realized she didn't have the walky-talky anymore. She must have dropped it in the fall. She heard it click to life just as she saw it, "Luz? Luz, are you there?" Eda's worried voice called out.

Dragging Hunter behind her, Luz ran to where it landed and picked it up. "Yeah, I'm here."

"Okay, good. We're almost ready to get you out we just need you to wait just a little bit longer."

"It's kind of a bad situation all around, Eda," Luz replied.

"We're working as fast as we can," Eda answered. "Just do whatever you have to do to stay safe for just a few more minutes."

"Okay," Luz replied... Then she saw Belos had thrown the palisman amalgamation down and, having manifested a staff, was about to bast it.

Those poor creatures had suffered enough. Luz didn't know if they could even be hurt or killed, but her gut told her to act so she did.

Throwing out her free hand, she extended a tendril of symbiote mass out as fast as she could to try and pull the palismen out of Belos's line of fire but... Something unexpected occurred when her goo touched their slime. The creature looked back at her, and then she felt countless beings feeling spite all at once, directed directly toward Belos as the amalgamation melted and slithered toward her along her tendril and—

Her sigil flared and she reflexively retracted her tendril, which dragged the palisman creature back with it, and then... Physically it was gone.

The sigil calmed down pretty fast though, more uncomfortable than painful.

"We're sorry" countless voices whispered in her ear. "We don't have much power left to give. A palisman should be an inferno but even all together we're barely a campfire, sparks and embers really."

"But we have knowledge" one voice specifically said. "We've been part of him for a long time, we know everything he knows about magic."

"And we all had witches before he got his filthy hands on us."

"Some more than one" one palismen said, "I was passed down from parent to child for generations."

"He only took the best of the best for his Coven."

"Take it!" they all shouted at once. "Take everything we've got!"

"Use it to stay safe."

"Use it to hurt him like he's hurt so many others."

Luz's mind was suddenly flooded with... Well, a lot of information to process. She mostly moved on instinct and autopilot when Belos realized what had happened and moved to blast her.

With a raised hand and a spell circle, an energy shield similar to what Luz had seen Viney use except in the dark colors of Luz's magic rather than Viney's uniform healing coven blue appeared and ate the blast.

With a circle on each hand and a glyph combo in mind, Luz summoned more of the same mud monster arms she'd found when experimenting with Philip's glyph notes and that Belos had used against her, a good half a dozen, around the tyrant and set them to grab him and hold him in place. Holding one hand out, a bit of the knowledge from the palismen filtered through her mind, and a gust of cold wind carrying shards and slivers of ice manifested from the spell circle battering Belos while he was held still.

"That was for Blue Fang," one of the palismen whispered in her ear.

Unfortunately, this didn't do much to stop Belos for long. Mostly it just seemed to make him mad. With a strange pulse not only was he freed from the grasp of the monster arms but the forest around them vanished as well.

"I told you, Luzura!" He shouted. "This is my mind! Becoming the master of this domain was something I achieved centuries ago as a mere precaution! You cannot win here! Since you will not listen to reason, I am forced to—"

Belos was cut off by Luz and Hunter vanishing from his mindscape and appearing in the living room of the Owl House. The rather crowded living room, and not only were King and Eda there, but also Darius, Eberwolf, and Raine.

With the danger having passed, at least for now, Luz's adrenaline seemed to run out all at once. As did, it seemed, Hunter's as he immediately began to freak the heck out and was only prevented from running out of the house by Darius grabbing him.

Luz wanted to freak out too, but... She couldn't. There was stuff she needed to say but... She couldn't make her mouth work. It took a few moments to find the strength to open it, and then when she did a whole lot of little balls of light spilled out.

The voices of the palisman, a chorus of whispers, rang out in her mind. "Thank you." "We're free?" "I can't believe that worked." "Please, make good use of the power and knowledge we gave you." "Tell Steve that Nibbles doesn't blame him."

After a moment, she realized that... Every single palisman that Belos had consumed had come back with her and now they'd passed on... And suddenly she was exhausted.

She began to fall backward but was caught by Eda. "Kid? You okay? You're safe now, so just..." Eda's grasp became a hug, and King jumped on her to hug her as well, and... Luz just let herself be comforted by her mother and brother while she processed everything that had happened tonight.