Chapter 63

"So, we've gone over how the socio-political system of the Boiling Isles was a theocratic despotic dictatorship established by a genocidal puritan who was lying through his teeth about both his species and his religious affiliation," Luz lectured. "The Titan cult was superficially Christian with some real Hollywood Catholic vibes throughout, just changing out God or Jesus with The Titan...The Puritans were historically very anticatholic so I wonder if that was Belos's idea of another sick joke. Make the demons act like Catholics."

"Interesting, interesting," the 20-year-old brunette said as he wrote down Luz's theories.

It'd been a few days, and Luz and Co were both fixing up the old shack to use as a base of operations for their own attempts at reopening or recreating the portal (Apparently Doctor Strange had discretely bought it and the land it was on and then quietly transferred ownership to Luz's Mom shortly after he started working on helping Luz get home. Something about wanting to make sure nothing messy happened with zoning or land development) and giving Ford that interview about the Boiling Isles she agreed to a few months ago. Additionally, Stan and Ford's great niece and nephew had gotten into town Yesterday.

The nephew, a young man who insisted on going by Dipper, seemed to be in some kind of apprentice or internship with his 'Grunkle Ford' while working on a degree in occult research. The niece, Mable, seemed to just be here because her family was. The young woman in the colorful sweater was currently doing a handstand for some reason.

"Otherwise, culturally... Violence is a bit more acceptable there, and there's a sort of survival of the fittest mentality that Belos instilled, but for the most part Demons and Witches are just like, normal people with normal values. Honestly a lot like modern America, complete with internet, social media, and television equivalents. But, there are no shopping malls or supermarkets. Everything's done at special shops or stands and stalls at the marketplace, or else ordered from big supplies so things like haggling, bartering, and paying for things with contracts or exchanges of assets are a lot more common."

"We do have big business and corporations though," Amity added. "My family ran one of the biggest on the Isles."

"Really, what does your family produce?" Dipper asked.

"...Before I answer that, hypothetical question: Are weapons manufacturing and arms dealing considered to be respectable institutions in the human realm?"

"It depends on circumstances but the average person on the street will probably say no," Dipper replied.

"...Home security systems, mostly," Amity said diplomatically.

"Hmm," was the reply.

"The technology on the Isles is pretty um... They have machinery and electricity, but they don't have electronics," Luz continued. "A Demon refrigerator is just like a human refrigerator, but instead of TVs and computers, they use crystal balls. The tech Amity's dad makes is like steampunk and clockwork stuff mixed with abomination magic which is... We'll get to that."

"I'd actually like to learn how electronics work," Amity added. "If I could show my Dad, I bet he could make something amazing with it."

Luz had of course told Amity what her father had said. Amity had responded with her complete faith that her dad was alive, as had everyone else. All of Luz's friends were absolutely certain that their friends and family back home were all okay and they thanked Luz for coming up with the plan that stopped the draining spell and sending out the message to her mother that got heroes from the Human Realm to help them deal with Belos.

The gratitude stung. It was her fault that they had to fig Belos and that the draining spell could be cast in the first place but... Their confidence that everything was okay despite the behavior of the collector was contagious, especially once they began insisting that King, Eda, and Hooty would all be fine, too. So Luz... When Luz admitted to her mother that she'd signed the adoption papers "Noceda-Clawthorne" she'd been understanding and that they could even get the paperwork to change Luz's name on the human side if that's what she wanted.

Luz, to be truthful, couldn't help but doubt that her Owl Family was okay, or that they'd still want her after how the Day of Unity turned out, and part of her felt like she didn't deserve them but... They'd filled out the paperwork. In three to five weeks she'd be Luz Noceda-Clawthorne in both words. She thought of it as a commitment to try to not let the bad thoughts win. To hope for a day when her whole family could be together and they could put all of this awfulness behind them for good.

...Admittedly, she wasn't doing a good job of living up to that so far but... Baby steps.

"'Fashion in the demon realm is a bit more, um... Hard to describe but... T-shirts and stuff exist, and sports jackets." Luz tugged on the varsity jacket Eda had passed down to her. "But most clothing is like tunics and trousers, cloaks, belts, blouses, and the like. Tailored stuff, too, not just mass-produced clothes. Formalwear is more modern, though it's less gendered: A lot of girls were wearing tuxes or other suits at Grom."

"What's Grom?" the young woman, Mable said as she flipped right side up.

"It's a dance they have at the Hexside School of Magic and Demonics," Luz said. "It's a lot like Prom... Except only one person gets made royalty and it's the King or Queen's job to go into an arena underneath the gym and stop a horrible nightmare monster from escaping and terrorizing the Isles."

You could hear a pin drop.

"...That's weird here, isn't it?" Gus suddenly asked.

"Yes," all four adult humans present confirmed simultaneously.

"I've got half a mind to talk to whoever's in charge of that place," Stan declared.

"No offense sir, but Principal Bumb would eat you alive," Willow interjected.

"I asked him about it," Luz continued. "A student fights Gromethus becuase... Well, he's a shapeshifter. He turns into whatever you're afraid of and... It's a lot easier to beat up an overly controlling step-parent or that dream where you show up to class in your underwear than it is to hit the abstract personification of your rapidly encroaching mortality or your anxiety over paying the mortgage. There are all sorts of precautions to make sure nothing went wrong."

"...Was this year's King or Queen okay?" Mable asked.

"I was Queen this year," Amity said. It was going pretty well up until Grom turned into the nightmare I had about a human realm serial killer Luz told me about killing my friends and siblings a few nights before."

"Yeah, sorry about that," Luz said with a tinge of guilt at the reminder of another one of her mistakes, which got her a lookfrom Amity.

"Then it turned into Luz tearing up my gromposal and attacking all my insecurities and self-loathing... Then the real Luz jumped into the arena, kicked Grom in the face, reassured me, told me she wanted to accept my gromposal, which finished Grom off together, and that's how we started dating," Amity finished. "So all in all I'd said I turned out okay." Amity then made a show of coming up to Luz and taking her hand.

This extracted a gasp from Mable. "You're together? And you got together at the big dance? While slaying an evil monster!? That's the most romantic thing I've ever heard of. Are their pictures? Are they adorable? You two look like you'd be an adorable couple."

"Yes, yes, yes, thank you, there are, they are, and thank you we are," Amity answered in succession.

"The most adorable," Willow insisted.

"Hexside's greatest power couple," Gus added.

"I'm eighty percent sure they're secretly engaged," Hunter said dead serious.

"...Does it count as an engagement if you've agreed to get married when you grow up but haven't bought a ring?" Luz asked suddenly. "Like, general question. I honestly don't know."

"I'm gonna be honest, I have no idea how the legalities of marriage work," Ford chimed in. He hadn't spoken much before, as he'd been looking over sketches and diagrams Luz had drawn of various demons she had learned about. "Stanley somehow managed to legally marry a poster of The 50 Foot Womanwhen we were children."

'Yeah, I'm still not sure how that counted," Stan added. "I mean, all I did was draw a ring on her finger."

"I have to imagine that a trickster spirit was having a bit of fun with us," Ford concluded.

"I'm not so sure," Stan said. "Apparently my impulsive Vegas wedding to Old Goldie counted."

Luz had reservations but her mouth moved before her brain could say no. "I'm going to regret asking about that, aren't I?"

"A cursed, gold-toothed antique," Mable supplied. A treacherous part of Luz noted that Stan apparently had a type. "This creepy mechanical statue of an old-timy prospector. I still have nightmares about it."

"Yeah, getting that marriage annulled was a pain in the—"

"Okay, what did we just walk in on?"

Vee and Masha were here. Vee had made it something of a habit to hang out around the historical society... When Masha was on the clock.

"A lecture on the ways that Boiling Isles is similar to but different from the human world got side-tracked into how Amity and I got together and that got side-tracked into a discussion about the legalities of marriage," Luz summarized. "Which... Actually segues nicely into another cultural thing. There's um... No discrimination or persecution of queer people. At all. Nobody cares if you want to date your own gender or decide that the sex you were born with is a bad fit for you and you want to change it or otherwise live as the other gender. They don't even have special words for people like that because it's just considered normal."

"Luz told me about the... History that people like, us have here," Amity added. "It's sad to hear but... I like the names humans like us have come up with to describe themselves and the communities they've formed. Especially sapphic. It's a pretty word."

"There are even spells and rituals to um, you know... Have children when they're not... compatible with it," Luz said diplomatically. "Technically it's for any couples who can't conceive children naturally but in practice, healing magic can fix most causes of infertility so it's mostly same-sex couples that use them."

Willow chimed in: "It's easiest when at least one of the partners has a functioning set of feminine presenting reproductive organs, otherwise it gets a little more complicated with surrogates or incubators. I have two Dads. They won't tell me the full details but apparently, I was grown in a jar."

"So... The Boiling Isles is a paradise for Queer people but the trade-off is a dictatorship and the chance of getting eaten by a monster?" Masha asked suddenly. "Because... Not gonna lie, kind of thinking of emigrating now."

"I mean hopefully with Belos dead it won't be a dictatorship anymore but... Yeah," Luz said. "Now um..."

"What's food like in the Demon Realm?" Dipper asked. "You can tell a lot about a people and their history by what they eat."

"Culinarily speaking it's very similar to Europan or traditional American cooking," Luz started, "With ingredients substituted based on native plants and animals, of course. Amity likes to cook and she taught me her meatloaf recipe and I can recreate it here almost exactly with local ingredients. However, there's a bit more protein in the average witch or demon's diet. Which makes sense, you might have noticed that my friends all have fangs."

This was met by Luz's friends all giving big toothy smiles.

"...We had not, actually," Dipper replied nervously.

"Anyway, blood and organs and stuff like that are more likely to get eaten there than here, where it's considered an acquired taste." Luz continued. "Eyeballs especially... Which are actually pretty good once you get used to the texture. Bugs also get eaten, and... It's occuring to me that I went native weirdly fast."

"I see that your notes on fairies indicate that they're both pests and food," Ford added while looking up from Luz's sketches again. "...And that they're typically eaten alive?"

This prompted a horrified look from every other human in the clearing who wasn't Luz.

"Yeah, um... To be clear, just becuase something can talk that doesn't mean they're a person," Luz continued. "Fairies look like little people but on the inside, they're mostly bugly, they eat witch flesh, and while they can talk it's just expressing simple ideas like 'give me your skin.' They're a bit more poetic when it comes to bug demon dance communication stuff but... As for food... Never actually eaten one, it... I can't. I can eat spiders and viscera but I can't intentionally eat something that looks that much like a person."

"They're best served baked into a pie," Amity took over lecturing. "They're crunchy and a little chewy, and they have a flavor profile that's similar to poultry but much sweeter, like the exact middle ground of sweet and savory, with an aftertaste that's vaguely fruity and earthy without actually tasting like anything specific, which Luz says sounds like a chemical that's used as a food additive here. What was it again?"

"Ethyl formate. It's found in like, raspberries and rum. Alone it tastes fruity without tasting like fruit, vaguely like cinnamon or molasses without having either, and a little like alcohol without any alcohol,"

"Yeah, that so... Maybe there's some of that in them? To prepare them properly," Amity continued, "they must be submerged into a sort of fruit jam, I prefer to use a mixture of boo berries, poison berries, and saw berries. Once their wings are wet and they're wayed down by the jam they can be encased in the pie shell, which should be sweeter than what you'd use for a potpie but more savory than what you'd use for a dessert pie, and baked until the crust turns a nice golden brown. The fairies are still alive at this point becuase... Something about their magic makes them rapidly decay and become toxic if they die from anything other than being eaten. There are a few ways to preserve parts of them but being dismembered alive isn't exactly any more ethical than being eaten."

"I'm glad you mentioned the fruit jam," Luz continued. "The demon realm does have fruits and vegetables but they use them a little differently. They've got apples, but apple pie was something of a novel concept until... Well, Amity baked me one a few months ago."

"I needed to make sure it was human-safe," Amity continued. "Luz couldn't digest most demon food when she first got to the Isles. She can handle it now, but that's because um..."

"Because I'm part space alien. My parents got possessed by symbiotes in the 90s, it's a whole story. And thanks for reminding me, Hermosa: There are notable biochemical differences between earthlings and creatures adapted to the demon realm and... Well, Eda's experience was mostly with human food that's demon-safe, not the other way around. The first couple of days were a little rough and it turns out that most of the human-safe food is on the more expensive side... I should have non that something as delicious as griffin eggs would have been pricy," Luz noted bitterly. "Anyway, fruits and vegetables. Traditional recipes mostly use tree fruits and root veggies, because... Um, Willow, you can explain this better than I can."

"We don't have weather in the demon realm," Willow began. "We have plagues. Boiling rain, gorenados, shale hail, painbows."

"Those are rainbows that turn you inside out if you look at them for too long," Luz added.

"...I'm less interested in emigrating now," Masha noted.

"Naturally the plant life adapted. Native plants of the Isles are mostly either fast-growing, sturdy trees or highly regenerative plants with strong, fast spread root-systems" Willow continued. "We have smaller and less sturdy plants, but they tend to either be cultivated artificially from samples taken from other islands or else adapted to live symbiotically with trees. We have a healthy range of fruits and vegetables now, but that's the result of selective breeding mixed with explorers and sailors coming back with samples of edible plants from other landmasses and we've only enjoyed this bounty for the last century or so."

"Anyway, with food covered," Luz transitioned, "that covers all the cultural stuff I can think of. Which brings us to what you've all been waiting for..." Luz let the anticipation build, then with a quick and fluid movement whipped out her pocket confetti. As she threw it into the air and let it fall down she loudly declared "Magic!"

"You keep party supplies in your pockets, too?" Mabel asked. "Me too," she said while tossing a handful of glitter into the air. "Party pocket pals!"

"...How did that not fall out when you were doing a handstand?" Hunter asked. "...Wait, you're wearing a skirt. How did the skirt not fall?"

"Lots and lots of practice."

"Okay folks, as anyone who has had even a cursory education in the mystic arts knows, magic doesn't happen for free: The energy has to come from somewhere, and the witches and demons of the Boiling Isles are no exception so tell me everyone, where do you think their magic comes from."

"Hmm... My guess would be an extradimensional source," Dipper guessed.

"The heart!" Mable shouted.

"Pass," Stan dismissed.

"Most species capable of inherent magic have it infused into their bodily tissues or tied to a specific organ," was Ford's educated response.

"Well, two of you are right," Luz confirmed while drawing out a sketch of the organs in question. "A witch's magic comes from the heart. Specifically, a sack of magical bile attachedto the heart. I've also got one, grew it a little while back, but mine's shaped differently and more compressed. Happened for the same reason I can eat demon food. The magical bile provides the raw power while nine 'spell phlegms' produced by glands inside the sack mix with it and shape the nine main types of magic."

Luz gestured to Amity, who drew a spell circle and declared "Abominations!" causing a small abomination to appear and do a little dance. "The creation and conjuring of mudlike slime and the creation of constructs composed of it. In terms of practical applications, abomination magic has the most."

Luz then pointed to Willow who shouted "Plants!" and with a circle in each hand a dozen writhing vines each covered in local flowers burst from the ground. "Creation and manipulation of plants, fungi, and algae, similar organisms, and their lifecycle."

Luz gave Gus his cue and, ever the showman, with his spells replaced the entire clearing around the old shack with the image of Hexside's gymnasium as it was when decorated for Grom. He'd even faithfully recreated everyone's formal wear and placed illusionary tuxes on the Pines and Masha and a dress on Vee.

Then the music started to play, something upbeat and swingy but at the same time classy and elegant. It wasn't part of the plan but Amity took Luz by the hand and they immediately fell into the rhythm and danced a tango. After throwing Amity into the air and catching her as the music concluded, the illusion faded and Gus took a bow: "Illusions," he said, "the projection of images, manipulation of the senses and emotions, and the summoning and manipulation of props."

"In addition to the specialties of my dear friends," Luz said as she carried with her the momentum of her beating heart after the dance, "we have Construction Magic," Luz drew a circle and caused a pillar of stone shaped like a king chess piece and marked with the symbol of the Emperor's Coven, "which manipulates the Earth to make structures but can also be used to power people up or help make structures more sturdy. Bard magic," Luz summoned her acoustic guitar and played a strong chord, sending a burst of energy that shattered the chess piece, "which uses music as a magical focus. Bard magic is good at just about anything but isn't quite as good individually as other kinds of magic are at their specialties." Luz dismissed her instrument, "healing magic," Luz said while conjuring a shield, "which is about healing, protection, and removal of curses. Potion magic," Luz said while dropping the shield, "which I can't demonstrate, sorry, no usable ingredients, which um... Higher level potions magic in cloves transmuting substances, kind of like alchemy, but for the most part is just literally making potions. Becuase of this you can learn it without having any magic of your own, as long as you don't expect to be a master... Actual potion-making is sort of like... Baking. There's an art and a science to it, and if you don't know the science then the art's gonna be a disaster. Beginners need to follow recipes exactly but once you know what you're doing you can make all sorts of tweaks to customize the results. I was gonna try and make a fog brew so that the mist would be lavender colored and smell like lavender for my finals project but then the apocalypse happened."

"Why lavender?" Dipper asked.

"Becuase it's Amity's favorite color and flower," Luz replied, which earned her an aww from Mable and a hug from Amity. "Then there's Beastkeeper magic," Luz continued as she made a squirrel come out of the tree line, run around, and then go back home as she released it, "which is all sorts of magic relating to animals and animal-like creatures but also includes things like imbuing beastly traits into people and objects. Finally, there's Oracle Magic, which includes all magics related to interacting with spirits, as well as telepathy, clairvoyance, and predicting the future. Like potions, a lot of it can be done without magic of your own. Not to toot my own horn, but I got pretty good at divination by tea leaves and palm reading."

Mabel was in front of Luz with an outstretched hand in less than a second. "Do me, do me, do me!"

Luz laughed and then took the young woman's hand before letting the magic work, looking at the lines on her palm through magic-infused eyes and tracing the flows of the river of probability. "Oh, that's.. That's not good."

"What!?"

"Well, the good news is that the future isn't set in stone and oracle magic only detects probabilities. So, ummm... Don't date vampires," Luz replied. "Like, in general. As far as I can tell it never ends well for you. And while it's usually for the reasons you'd think, it's not always for the reasons you'd think."

The grown woman proceeded to wine like a child as she walked back to stand next to her brother.

"Oracle magic is used for broadcasting," Gus added. "My Dad's an oracle and he's a news reporter on crystal ball."

"Now," Luz continued, "the main nine magics can be combined, though this was outlawed and declared 'wild magic' under Emperor Belos it so just... Wasn't done until recently. And even learning more than one was discouraged until..."

"Luz and some kids she met in detention convinced Principal Bump to allow students to multitrack, and to experiment with new magics under the table," Amity said. "Most kids at Hexside are still specialists, but a lot of them are dabbling or trying to master more than one. I'm studying bard, plant, and potion magic to supplement my abomination specialty."

"You convinced a high school principal to change the rules and break the law to let troublemakers do what they want?" Stan asked. "Kid? You're now my hero."

Luz laughed awkwardly. "Look, I'm not that great. I just... Asked him what was more important and he decided that the well-being of his students was more important than rules... I will admit that a high school principal being that reasonable is probably the most fantastical thing in the demon realm. Anyway, I've studied all nine main magics, and while I'm best with healing, oracle, and construction magic, and beast keeping but I don't have much practice with it, my real specialty lies outside of the main nine."

Luz spread out her arms and conjured balls of light and fire that danced around her and jagged shards of ice erupted from the ground which she then pointed to, causing them to explode into snow which was then blown about by a miniature whirlwind. Spouts of water extinguished the fireballs as the lights winked out, then for the finisher, Luz summoned some monster arms to juggle the remains of her destroyed chess piece.

"Elemental magic," Luz explained. "The oldest form of magic, used by the witches before they learned how to use their bile sacks. Unlike the main nine, it isn't dependent on bile mixed with a specific phlegm. It doesn't even need bile at all, any magical energy will work." Using a telekinesis spell, Luz drew the four main glyphs in the dirt. "There are four main elements and a basic spell for each. Light, Ice, Fire, and Plant. These spells and elements can be modified slightly to tweak their effects, chained together to create new effects, and combined to make new spells. In theory, everything possible with the other magics can be done with elemental magic though in practice..." Luz rocked her hand noncommittally. "These glyphs are how I first used magic: They are the unique language of the magic of The Titan, around whose bones the Boiling Isles formed and can be used to manipulate any of his magic that happens to be lying around to cast spells... For obvious reasons, they only work in the demon realm unless within a certain distance of a source of the Titan's magic."

"So you can't demonstrate?" Dipper asked.

Luz smiled mischievously. "I never said that." While Doctor Strange had borrowed the Titan Blood to help locate the demon realm, it hadn't been consumed and the vial was now back in the safe deposit box at the house. Which, Luz had tested, was close enough for the glyphs to work at the shack. "If you're gonna copy the glyphs I suggest you do it on fresh sheets of paper and do not touch them when you're done."

Dipper turned to a new page in his journal and began sketching quickly. When he was done, Luz kneeled down and tapped each glyph in sequence activating each respective element conjuring spell.

"When I first gained magic of my own," Luz began, "I could only cast elemental spells and only spells that I've memorized the glyphs for. There's not much information on the glyphs or elemental magic in general, however. This is the same magic Belos uses, so when he seized power all of the advanced elemental magics were declared to be dangerous wild magic. The conjuring spells and a few others were left alone, but things like telekinesis were relabeled utility magic. I sort of rediscovered the glyphs, with some help, and have been working hard to recreate it as magic."

"And this all started back in May?" Mable asked. "You, a young teen, went to a magical land over the summer and in just a few months went from having no magical ability to being a freaking archmage using ancient magic that almost no one else has? That's awesome, you're like the hero out of a children's fantasy series!"

"It sounds a lot more impressive than it is," Luz said with another awkward laugh. She scratched the back of her neck and continued. "I um... I had a lot of help, and I have a few other advantages that other people don't have access to. I couldn't have gotten anywhere near this without the help and support of my friends and family and... Yeah." Luz could feel her face heating up with embarrassment at the praise. Did she... Did she deserve this... Or did she just get lucky?

"Luz, you're being too modest again," Amity said, "Luz worked very hard to get where she is and we're all very proud of her."

"Also it's not like I'm alone in the whole summer adventures thing," Luz added. "Plenty of kids around my age have... Like there was that girl who got caught up in th eFrogvasion of LA two years ago and um... That girl from Oregan who got the Electoral College abolished so she could meet a unicorn."

"That was me!" Mable shouted. "Turns out unicorns are total jerks, but I did get the unicorn hair we needed... Okay yeah, I see your point. Dippy and I got up to all kinds of crazy stuff in Gravity Falls back in the summer of 2012. Busted up a secret society..."

"Almost got killed in a haunted convenience store," Dipper added.

"By the way, Smile Dip was outlawed for a good reason," Mable noted without clarifying. "Oh, that time we ruined a time cop's life."

"We're cool now," Dipper added. "Got visited by him last June, he's with the TVA now. He says it's a much nicer work environment and the pay's better."

"Good for Blendin," Mable said genuinely. "We made life-long friends, solved a murder mystery, caused and then stopped an apocalypse."

"Wait, what?" Luz asked, suddenly a million percent invested. Did, someone else like...

"Yeah, some jerk disguised himself as a friend and used my insecurities and personality flaws to trick me into stealing the thing he needed for his evil plan," Mabel said. "It... sucked. Really bad. But we stopped him, everything worked out in the end, and..." Mabel made eye contact and immediately got a look of understanding. "There are still days when I feel bad for being tricked... But the blame is mostly on the jerk who tricked me and he's dead now so who cares about him anymore? But... I did have to do some work on myself. It took time but the support of friends and family goes a long way toward making up for mistakes and getting over pain. You get what I'm saying?"

"...Yeah," Luz said.

"Oh!" Mable then changed the subject. "There was also the time I was almost the gnome queen and... Oh, oh... Oh..."

Dipper turned to his twin. "What?"

"So um, I never actually thought all that hard about that after that day but... Maybe I'm just overthinking it becuase I'm an adult now but... They were going to make me marry all of them... What was the plan for after?"

This resulted in a full-body shiver for everyone in the clearing.

"Now I feel like I should have pushed for eating the gnomes a little harder," Stan mumbled.

"So, um... Anyway!" Mable tried to change the subject again. "...I got nothing."

Just then a circle of light appeared on the ground. Everyone cleared away from it as Illyana Rasputina, Magick, manifested.

"Oh, heck. There's people here," she said. "Oh well. Kids," she greeted Luz and her friends. "Old dudes," Stan and Ford. "Two people I don't know," she said to the younger twins.

"Actually, we have met before," Mable interrupted. "Eight years ago, I was in group therapy with Pixie and you picked her up that one time."

"Oh, right, Mabeline," Magik noted.

"Close enough."

"Anyway that's a good segue, becuase..." Magick turned back to Luz and co. "I was going to speak to Mrs. Noceda about this and obviously she still gets the last say, but... Kids, Stephen said something about getting you all counseling, right?"

"Yes," Luz confimred.

"Well, we've figured something out: How would you kids like to come visit the Jean Grey Institute for a few days?"