Chapter 12
Amity
It was the golden guard. It was the golden guard! She was furious but also relieved. She could deal with him. After a moment Luz ran over to her and twirled her around only after that did she seem to register what Amity had just yelled. She spoke up sounding adorably puzzled.
“You know him?”
Did Luz not know who he was? Well, maybe that was good if she told her then things could end up fine.
“This is the golden guard” she announced loudly enough that no one could miss. Once she realized she was pointing at him too long she put her finger down.
“How did you know that”
Amity was pretty sure her mouth was open, Luz knew that and they were friends
"How did you know that?"
"I met him as the golden guard.”
And she had still befriended him?
“But he's a bad guy”
“Woah woah woah he is not a bad guy” She flicked her hands trying to emphasize that.
He is a super not bad guy he just works for the wrong people since I haven’t been able to convince him how evil the emperor's coven is”
The boy sighed “I’ve told you a million times the emperor's coven is not evil and again I live in the emperor's coven so I would know that it isn’t evil.”
“You’re biassed.”
“So are you”
Luz put her hands on her hips “How am I biassed”
“You live with the owl lady she taught you the wrong stuff.”
“I will refrain to comment on that until I can make a winning argument against that” Luz declared
“That's a first” the boy muttered
“Hey,” Luz and Amity said at once.
“How dare you” Amity yelled
“He’s only joking,” Luz said grabbing her arm
“How dare he insult you.” Amity couldn’t believe the golden guard would say something like that to Luz she wouldn’t stand for it.
“To be fair he’s kinda right I usually don’t make that good of arguments”
“Though that was a little uncalled for Hunter,” Luz told him in a scolding tone
He raised an eyebrow “How many times have you made incohesive arguments? Do I have to name three?”
“We aren’t playing name three right now. What you're supposed to be doing is making a good first impression on my friends. Also, I haven't done the incohesive argument thing in at least 6 months.”
“I’ll take your word for it”
“Hey,” Luz whined then she seemed to shake it off.
“First I need to introduce you guys.”
“But, he’s the golden guard, an emperor's coven member. I mentioned fighting the other day.” Amity pointed at him again how did Luz not understand how big of a deal this was?
Luz’s eyes widened and she looked horrified “You fought Amity” She turned to him. Good Luz understood now. She’d see he was a bad guy and kick him out.
“Oh no I knew you two wouldn’t click right away but I didn’t know you guys would already have beef against each other.”
”When did this happen?” She turned to Amity.
“It happened when you were sick the other day.”
"So that’s why everyone kept it a secret from me.” Luz said slightly accusatorially looking from Hunter to Amity”
“I didn’t know that blight had anything to do with you” Hunter volunteered
“You threatened my girlfriend” Amity yelled
“I wouldn’t have if I had known you were referring to Luz.” He shouted
“You don’t believe him do you?” Amity questioned her girlfriend.
“I do believe him since I've known him forever. But seriously Hunter, how many times do I have to remind you that threatening people isn’t okay no matter how just you find your cause.”
“But”
“No threatening people” Luz yelled “I know a lot of it is just instinct kicking in so you can have the highest chances of success but it's uncool. You shouldn’t have threatened anyone.”
“He shrugged the emperor needed something they had and”
“I know, I know you had to retrieve it but it doesn’t undo that what you did is uncool.”
Amity couldn’t believe what Luz was saying; this was the golden guard and he had threatened everyone. How could she let this happen? She walked towards him and pointed her finger in his face.
“I don’t trust you. You threatened my girlfriend.”
“I only did it because I didn’t know your girlfriend was Luz.”
Amity made a sound of outrage “Why should I believe that I don’t trust you.” The look of apathy on his face only made her more angry.
”How dare you.”
“How dare I? The real question is how dare you.”
Willow spoke up. “Soooo by the way what you did at the school was cool.”
Amity’s head snapped toward Willow
“What thing?”
“Oh, he did something in seventh hour. I mean the person who was at school was you right?”
“What is she talking about Hunter”
Amity perked up at that. Luz didn’t know? She could get him yet.
“He”
Luz didn’t seem to hear her. “What happened Hunter?” His eyes darted away from her. Then they widened in apparent fright
“What?” Luz asked them whatever it dawned on her.
“I recognize this situation. I'm acting how you act whenever I do something stupid and you're wearing the expression I wear at those moments. Tell me.”
“No thank you” the golden guard started taking steps back.
"You have to tell me” Luz took steps towards him.
“I’d prefer not to ”
Amity stepped forward and volunteered “I know what happened I can tell you”
You know too? Luz sighed. Amity opened her mouth to explain and Luz stuck a stilling hand out “Please don’t explain you're going to explain it with a bias."
“What? And he won’t?”
“No, he’ll give a report. He’s good at explaining with just facts.”
“Hunter tell me now or I will ask her” She pointed at Willow.
He muttered something and then opened his mouth to explain.
“30 minutes after 300 hours I awoke here.”
At the end of his sentence, Gus asked what do you mean 300 hours you don’t mean 300 hours ago or something”
Before the guard to explain, Willow spoke up “It’s a way of explaining time for some coven guards or the military in Luz’s world. 300 hours is 3 a.m. It starts at 0 hundred hours which is midnight and goes to 24 instead of restarting at 12. Any examples or questions?”
Gus hummed in thought 1300 would be 1 o'clock. Right?”
“Right” she turned to the guard “Go on”
He blinked at her then continued “After I awoke here I realized you had kidnapped me”
Amity couldn’t believe he had the nerve to say something like that “How dare you accuse Luz of that you– you–.
“Amity calm down he’s right. I did kidnap him,” Luz soothed
“What?” Was Luz just saying that so Amity wouldn’t be angry at him?
“I did kidnap him and I’d do it again. He's in a bad situation and he didn’t and still doesn’t understand the situation he was in is bad. I’d do it again to protect him”
The boy rolled his eyes “May I go on”
“Yeah,” Luz said sheepishly “Sorry we keep interrupting.”
“You weren’t interrupting me. They were. He jerked his head towards herself and Gus. “Anyway I was very angry but I realized you were sleeping and since I don’t trust the owl lady I decided to guard you.”
“Eda would never hurt me.”
“She could be playing”
“Don’t you dare say the long game” Luz growled
“Fine” he grouched
“No one plays the long game for that long.” Luz declared He opened his mouth, and Don’t you dare give me historical examples. Just keep telling the story.”
“Right” he nodded “Partway through the night I learned you were sick and you also seemed distressed. I figured since you couldn’t go to school the best idea seemed to be me going in your place.”
Amity couldn’t believe that was the true reason. The actual reason was probably much worse. He continued “At” His eyes widened and he looked worried before Luz laid a hand on his arm. How long did it take from your arrival time for school to start?
“About 5 minutes.” And how long did it take for you to walk there? “20 minutes” he replied promptly. She narrowed her eyes at him. Please tell me you didn’t count all the seconds.
“Not all the seconds.”
“How many of the seconds?” Luz discerned
“600” he muttered.
“Half of the time? Seriously?” He opened his mouth. “That was figurative.”
“I need to get you a watch.“
“Luz you don’t need to keep getting me things.”
“I want to” Luz replied stubbornly
“Even if you got me one I couldn’t wear it. They’d know someone got it for me and how could I explain that?”
She sighed “You're right.” Amity blinked, Luz was never resigned like that. How was she okay with that?
“I’ll try and figure something out. Keep telling your story.”
“Okay. The first half of the day was fine. I did fine in the beast keeping, though you should know I didn’t do very well in bard class even though the teacher seemed fine about it. Also, I messed up my mixture in healing class. It worked but It was the wrong color and chunky.”
“That’s fine as long as it works. Even if it hadn’t worked I wouldn’t blame you”
He grabbed her shoulders “But it was chunky Luz.” He seemed to think his words would make her understand the gravity of his statement. They didn't see to.
“I could lose at most a couple of points from it and the teacher won’t probably take any points off. It’s just impressive you managed it” He opened his mouth again. “It's fine, go on.”
He sighed. For the most part, the first part of the day was fine but it started going wrong in the second half. I hid away at lunch and they came to find me. He nodded toward Gus and Willow "At first, they didn’t notice anything wrong then he” The guard nodded towards Gus “had a project.” “And she,” he nodded towards Willow, “told me to guess.”
“I didn’t have enough info to make a good guess so I had nothing to say. Luckily the bell went off and I got out of there.”
Luz sighed “Hunter you could have just guessed random silly stuff or just kept trying to get them to tell you,”
“They told me they weren’t going to tell me” He shrugged
“Fine keep going what happened next”
“Plant class was next and I didn't turn into a disaster since she” he nodded at Willow again “Didn’t pry into things”
Willow mused “I should have guessed you weren’t Luz. I should have known that you lied about knowing about magical plant theory because it reminded you of Azura since you didn’t add as many details as Luz always does.”
“You're right I should have added more details. If this happens again I will.”
“Anyway don’t thank me” Willow added, “I mostly just walked away after talking to you since I knew Luz wasn’t particularly into any specific magic theory and I didn’t want to bother her.”
”You’d never bother me” Luz exclaimed.
“Don’t worry,” Willow smiled at Luz. “I know you’d listen but you wouldn’t like it”
The boy spoke up “The theory we were talking about was very interesting. I’d be happy to talk to you about it more.”
Willow grinned “Cool”
This time he continued by himself “That class went fine but the next one went less well”
“He said the emperor's coven was good, that it was good they were rounding up wild witches for the day of unity.” Gus pointed at him.
Luz sighed “He thinks the emperor's coven are the good guys.”
“They are the good guys,” the older boy told her.
“We both know we weren’t going to convince the other of that so let’s just not try for now.”
“Fine. Due to the fact you’d never say something like that, he got suspicious and figured me out. Luckily I managed to run out the clock and the bell screamed after that was abomination class and that went worse”
“He was acting very off” Amity chimed in. She hadn’t been able to say much for a while.
“I was trying to figure out what to say before Gus texted me he was an imposter.”
I drilled him with a bunch of questions but he didn’t crack I ended up having to chase him around the room before I nearly removed his disguise charm and he disappeared as the bell yelled”
Luz blinked at him “You disappeared? She said in confusion
“I remembered the invisibility glyph” He shrugged
Luz seemed to stop herself from saying anything else.
A wicked look flashed across his face and he said something before Amity could stop him.
“She tried to use Azura's knowledge to reveal my identity”
“Amity!” Luz said in horror “How could you use Azura against someone?
“Amity stuttered “Well, how I knew he wasn’t you was because he said while pretending to be you that it was nice to talk about Azura with someone who loved it almost as much.”
“Hunter! How could you say something like that she loves it almost as much that's so rude”
“I messed up one line other than that I held my own” He shrugged
Anyway I managed to not get revealed”
“I should have recognized you, blonde hair and a uniform i should have guessed it's so obvious,” Amity muttered to no one in particular
Luz looked at him “Okay now for the big stuff what happened in seventh hour?”
“Nothing much I just took care of business and left.” that didn’t sound right to Amity although she didn’t know.
Luz nodded to Willow.
After flashing the guard an apologetic smile (why did she do that?) Willow answered
“He had a run-in with someone.”
“A run-in” Luz shrieked
He winced “I’ll tell you”
“I will be angry if you deserve it" she glared at him.
“First of all, I made it seem like an accident.”
At their skeptical looks Willow chimed in "He really did it was kind of amazing”
He looked embarrassed and continued “At seventh hour we were outside throwing potions.”
“Dang it. I forgot that was today” Luz looked sad.
“Sorry, and don’t worry most of your potions weren't used, and the ones I did use worked very well.”
She grinned at that “Thanks.”
He shrugged, “I’m telling the truth.”
“I know you don’t give false compliments but it’s still polite to say thanks anyway.”
He snorted at that. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t snort” she stated
“Anyway after arriving at the field, I managed to avoid a bad situation after sitting on the ground because some of the students had been lying on the ground after racing each other.”
Luz snorted “You just kept sitting on the ground to play it off as me being eccentric didn’t you?”
He glared at her and then continued “A while into class I spotted a name on a bottle that I recognized.” Luz tilted her head slightly and he answered her unspoken question “Boscha” Luz's eyes widened.
“Nothing too bad happened. I just embarrassed her a little bit since a bully today is a danger to the isles a couple of years from now. “He seemed to be lying a little bit but Amity could figure out how later
“What did you do?” Luz asked.
He grinned "First. I pretended that I didn’t aim right and hit her with a wind and fog potion. Then I apologized a bunch and scrambled for a clean-up potion instead I grabbed a fire potion”
“Fire hunter?” She looked a tiny bit uneasy.
“Don’t worry I didn’t hurt her.”
Her worry dissipated. “I kept apologizing and hit her with a water potion. When she was properly furious I said I thought there was a hose on the other side of the building and ran around the side of the building.
Eventually, I pulled out an invisibility glyph and went back around the other side of the building so I had extra time to plan. I ran into her” He nodded at Willow "and asked her to trip boscha if she thought that Boscha deserved it.”
He turned to Willow. “I thought that if Boscha had been mean to Luz she would have also been mean to you" He turned back to Luz “When I got there I made as big of a commotion as possible someone gave me a hose and although I didn’t hit Boscha with it.
I pointed it at her the plant witch tripped her and since she had tied up the laces and couldn’t see them from her current vantage point, I distracted Boscha as she got to a point where she could see the laces.”
“It was actually cool. He called her out on all her bullcrap all the while pretending to not notice that he was. He just kept mentioning that karma thing you mentioned once or twice.”
She laughed and Amity was a bit surprised. There were times when Willow was insecure about her laugh. “He basically said it was destined to happen since she was a jerk and that she didn’t have to worry about it happening again as long as she stopped being a jerk.
He even added in a clause that karma dumps last a while so that if others wanted to mess with her they could just use the karma excuse too. If she tries to get you back for it she’ll probably get in trouble because he made it seem like you were distressed it happened.”
She was smiling at him pretty widely Amity needed to remind her he was an employer's coven member.
“I was just doing my job as a member of the coven to eliminate threats to the boiling isles.” he shrugged.
“I kept saying that. I’d find the cleanup potion then the bell shouted.”
“Then I headed back here and the rest was history” He had a slightly strange look on his face at the last few words and Amity didn’t know why.
Okay Luz said “So that's why you two” she pointed at Amity and Gus, “Are mad at him”
“Yes,” Amity said.
“I wouldn’t exactly say I’m mad at him” Gus hedged. They looked at him “Okay I don’t exactly like him that much.”
Luz took a breath, steeled her expression, and pulled something out of a bucket. This is a sudoku puzzle. I would have given you a crossword, but a lot of the information is from the human realm.
To solve a sudoku puzzle you must have the numbers 1-9 in each box column and row. You can’t have any repeats.
Any questions?” Before he spoke up she added “No cheats” His shoulders slumped “So I can’t have any doubles anywhere and the goal is getting every square filled?”
“Yep. Sit and do this. I’m going to talk to my friends.”
He looked at her “About what “
“You’ve already agreed– wait did you agree to play nice?” She looked at him suspiciously.
He sighed “If I didn’t already agree I do now as long as they” he held up his fingers in quotes "'Play nice' then I do too”
“Okay well, I haven’t made them make the same promise I want you to stay and if you aren’t getting along with them you won’t want to stay. Have fun doing that.”
She gestured to Gus, Willow, and Amity come on guys. We need to talk” Without looking at them she walked out of the room. And they followed
Amity was hopeful she could convince Luz he was bad. He was dangerous. The golden guard had hurt them at Eclipse Lake and Amity just knew he’d do it again.
She had to convince Luz he wasn’t as nice as he seemed and she had to do it before things got worse. Luz had known him for a long time from the sound of it but not as long as them.
She could convince her girlfriend and since it would turn out that he was bad, it would be the right thing. She just hoped Luz wouldn’t be too sad when she realized he was bad. If she would it would be okay though since they’d be there for her. She started to plan her argument
Hunter was worried, on top of annoyed. So Blight was Luz’s girlfriend. Blight didn’t even half deserve Luz. She came from a family known for its corruption and she probably even had bad intentions. He couldn’t try and stop them from being together in case she was good but he’d keep a close eye on her and if need be he’d present Luz with a list of all her worst qualities from an objective standpoint.
Hunter knew they probably wouldn’t try and hurt Luz but he’d keep an ear out for loud noises just in case. He started on the puzzle. She always found it cool when he solved little puzzles easily and he knew Luz would be disappointed at the end of tonight when she hadn’t convinced him to stay so at least he’d have this to cheer her up with.
Luz
Luz was determined. Hunter and Amity and Gus and Willow deserved to be friends with each other and if she didn’t do this right they never would be. That was a lot of pressure but it would be fine since she would do this right. She didn’t think planning her words would be a good idea since they should come from the heart but she desperately hoped this didn’t come off as her trusting him more than them.
That was impossible. She trusted them all completely. She took a breath in and out. Hunter needed her even though he did know it and she wouldn’t fail him ever again.
That statement did seem liable to be broken but she wouldn’t let that happen. She wouldn’t fail him. He mattered too much to her for her to let that happen. No matter what it took she’d save him. After all, he had everything to lose if she failed and she never wanted him to lose anything again.
Gus
Gus was torn. Nothing about the boy was particularly dangerous but he was part of the emperor's coven and the emperor's coven was bad news. Even if he didn’t seem very bad what if he fought Luz for them? Just because he seemed to care about her it didn’t mean he wouldn’t do it. Gus knew he trusted too easily and he didn’t want that to happen again.
He couldn’t let the people he cared about be hurt by his greatest weakness. Willow seemed to not dislike him so he needed to pick up the slack in her place. He put on his toughest face. He wouldn’t lose his conviction he would be logical and he’d protect Luz from the guard. He would stay vigilant and not relax too much.
He was smart enough to find a way to become friends with him like Luz wanted and still not trust him. He was fairly certain he could do it. He was the mc as he preferred it call it (unshortened was master of ceremonies) he could channel his showmanship into cautious friendship if that’s what Luz wanted. He’d always take care of his friends. Like they’d cared for him. He won’t be tricked again.
Willow
Willow was calm. Mostly at least a good 90% well more like 85%. She was pretty sure he wasn’t dangerous now. Luz trusted him and he continued to seem un-malicious she would still keep her guard up a bit just in case but it mostly seemed like her job would be keeping Amity’s mistrust from ruining Luz’s goal.
She had messed that up earlier by mentioning what happened at school. She thought he’d have told Luz. Though she got why he hadn’t. She was a little confused about why he had said that he had fought Boscha for the Isles when it sounded like he’d fought Boscha for Luz but if he wanted to play that down she wouldn’t stop him unless she had a reason to do it. He seemed like someone she’d be cool with being around. In some moments, even like someone she’d like to be around.
Willow liked his protectiveness of Luz. That was always great in her book since it seemed like he had no creepy intent. Willow kind of wanted to know more about him. Very few people liked magic theory, and it was something that it took a special person to like it. She shook away the thoughts she had to focus on how she would de-escalate the situation. She had this in the bag. She was pretty sure. Maybe she was closer to 75% calm.
That was still a decent percentage. She could do this. Everything would be okay whatever Luz wanted Willow would do her best to make sure happened. And after all, there were worse things than stopping Amity and maybe Gus from making a big mistake and getting to know a cu– an interesting seeming boy. Willow got herself into the zone and mentally prepared for the next few hours.