Chapter 27
Hunter awoke to someone hovering over him. He tensed his mind whiling. Who was it? A coven member he had pissed off? A coven head? People rarely entered his room. If he was lucky it was Darius telling him he was willing to do a sewing lesson. If he was unlucky it was Kikimora. Has he annoyed her lately? He didn't think so. Anyway, neither of those was likely. He was - oh.
He was in the Owl House, wasn’t he? It was probably Luz hovering over him. Maybe Eda or King which was also probably not too bad. Eda didn’t seem keen to hurt him in front of Luz and he was pretty sure he’d heard her say she’d “taken away the dagger” from King.
He sat up gently. It was kind of weird to get up this calmly.
Luz smiled sheepishly “I didn't mean to wake you. I should have known your fighty instincts would wake you up.”
He decided to move on from that statement.
He steeled himself when he looked at the time and then relaxed. It was maybe a bit late but nothing too bad. “You didn’t wake me up at some crazy time.”
Luz twitched a little at his statement but didn’t comment on it. "I didn’t wake you up at 9:00 again because I had to get to school. I was trying to decide if I wanted to wake you up and explain beforehand or give you a note or something."
“Explain what?”
Luz sighed but smiled a little. ”I’m not allowed to miss more school so I called in the cavalry.”
He wasn’t 100% sure what that meant so he waited.
“I called up Gus. He’ll be here in a few minutes. “
Luz was staring at him. He took a deep breath in.
He knew she adored her friends and wanted them all to get along. On top of that, it was smart. She probably wanted him to have company and it was a simple solution. He didn’t know too much about the illusion kid, still having him here wasn’t as bad as if she had picked Blight, but not as good as if she had picked Willow.
He could deal with the illusion kid. He looked at Luz. She had been studying him.
He was pretty sure his face had told her the conclusion he came to because she smiled. “Eda made breakfast, let's go downstairs.” Luz was out the door before he stood up all the way.
Hunter was almost done with breakfast when the door opened. He ate his last couple of bites before he looked up. Gus was standing in the doorway. Hunter put a hand in front of his mouth and finished chewing then he stood up. They stared at each other for a moment before Luz stood between them.
“Okay guys, I have to leave in a minute or two but first of all I want to say no fighting and no dangerous situations got it?”
Hunter nodded and looked at Gus. Gus gave him a side eye and then nodded too.
Luz glanced between the two of them and then nodded. "Okay if you get bored there are more puzzles in the room we looked at before, don’t open the human games. Pieces always go missing when they get opened when I'm not around. They also go missing when I am around but I think more go missing when I'm not around. Anyway it's almost impossible to find the pieces which might ruin the entire game so just don't do it. Be very careful if you go back into the basement. "She looked at them again. "Stay safe, love you, byeeee."
She ducked out the door and after a look, Eda grabbed King who squealed and she followed Luz.
Hunter and Gus stared at each other again. Hunter was relieved Flapjack had woken up with him. He was usually a bit tired since it was early but he would still be okay if they needed to fight. He wanted to turn to Flap, seeing him was reassuring but he decided it was too dangerous. The way Gus’ hands were positioned said that he was ready to fight with his palisman if need be but that the younger kid wasn’t super jumpy about it. He could work with that.
Hunter recalled Luz’s voice. She once gave a long lecture, he didn’t remember why but she’d given him a long lecture on what she’d learned about social conduct. He remembered one of the tips she’d given him was to offer a guest food. She had also said that if they were a regular they would grab food themselves. Still, the rules were probably super messed up now since it wasn’t his house and Gus was with someone he wasn’t used to. He would mention food.
“Did you get breakfast?” Hunter only remembered after he offered that the food here was more the owl lady's than Luz’s. He tried to stay relaxed. It would probably be okay and if not he would take the blame.
The illusionist shook his head. “I ate at home.”
They stared at each other again and Hunter wished he could remember anything else from that lecture but he couldn’t think of anything else.
Gus sat on the couch. Hunter walked upstairs and returned a moment later with his sudoku puzzles right as it looked like Gus was about to get up to follow him.
Hunter was doing a puzzle. Gus was recasting a small illusion each time with minute differences each time.
Gus got a text. He read it and his face scrunched up
“What’s that?” Hunter questioned. What kind of text had he got that upset him? He was pretty sure it wasn’t anything Hunter would consider bad but he needed to be sure.
“Nothing”
Hunter hated that answer but he just gritted his teeth.
Hunter kept staring at him and Gus’ shoulders dropped.
“I was supposed to be doing something else right now.”
Of course, how could Hunter have forgotten? He was supposed to be in class right now.
“Do you need to get to class?” Hunter blurted. “I’ll be fine on my own.”
He looked up at Hunter a bit startled. “No, that wasn’t what I was talking about.”
“What is it then?" Hunter grilled him. What else could it be other than a class?
Gus looked at him for a moment “I have a time commitment occasionally with a person at a place doing stuff.
That was incredibly nonspecific and it reminded Hunter of the time he said something like that and Luz said Colonel Mustard in the billiard room with the wrench. She never explained what she was talking about
He didn’t need to ask Gus because he got a bit more specific. “I already had nothing for most of the first part of the day so I made other plans. I had decided to go somewhere with an acquaintance of mine. We were to help someone with something.
What kind of thing could he have planned? Was it safe? He was young but could anyone Luz befriend make smart decisions? She’d hate him if he got hurt.
“I’m coming with you.”
“What?”
If you’re going somewhere random then you need someone who can fight.” He would have thought it was self-explanatory with how much taller and stronger he was than the younger boy.
“I can’t do anything now that I’m supposed to be here with you,” Gus told him.
“Like someone, Luz is close to would do something like canceling potentially dangerous plans just because something else came up.
“Okay, that’s sort of fair.” He looked at him a bit curiously, “You want to come?”
He seemed to read something in Hunter's expression. He considered for a moment but then he nodded. “Okay. I guess a little more help wouldn’t be that bad.”
A smile bloomed on his face and Gus jumped up and darted toward the door just seconds before he reached it, it opened. The Owl Lady set King down and he glared at her before running off “Where are you going?”
“ I have plans and he agreed to come with me.” He pointed at Hunter
She raised a brow “huh”
He glared.
She smirked, “What are you doing?”
“I have plans with someone else. I know exactly where I’m meeting them and we aren’t doing anything dangerous.”
Eda whistled “Even I wasn’t that vague when I was a kid. I’m impressed." She studied him. "You’ll be safe?"
He nodded. At the same time as Hunter said “Yes”
Eda shot a glance at him considering. "You said you’re meeting a friend?"
“Yep.”
“Okay”
Gus started to dart out the door but she gently grabbed his arm. "If I figure out anything happens I am not trusting you to do anything like this ever again" She went on just as he wiggled out of her grip “And this is not like the moonlight conjuring. This time I mean it."
Hunter went to walk out shortly after him.
Eda blocked him with an arm when he reached the door. She stared at him. "He’d better come back here without a hair on his head hurt. Do you understand me?”
He tried not to flinch. That had already been his plan after all “Yes ma’am”
Gus was speaking to his palisman who transformed. He waited for Hunter.
Hunter smiled at his palisman "Hey Flap, ready to fly?”
Flapjack chirped at him, still a tad sleepy but that was a definite yes.
Gus
“Where are we going?”
Gus glanced at the older boy. Everything that happened surprised him; he thought he had to cancel and was relieved when he realized he didn’t. He had been looking forward to this. He could talk to other illusionists about magic, get tips from the master of the graveyard, and give tips to Matt about the new courses he was a part of.
He was proud his branch of magic attracted other people and impressed people other than Luz were trying different branches of magic. It was a lot of work and very few had the power to keep up with it other than Luz and the dual-track students.
He had been surprised Hunter volunteered to join him. He could try to assign ambiguous motives to his actions but he didn’t think that was the case. He did what he did because he valued duty and also probably because he valued Luz. He knew that Gus and Luz were friends and didn’t want Luz’s friends hurt.
Gus realized he hadn’t answered the teen. ”Forearm forest.”
He could feel eyes drilling into the back of his head “Why?”
“I agreed to help someone with something there.” He was pretty sure that he shouldn’t tell the guard- Hunter everything. He valued the coven too highly for that but he could go to the graveyard without Gus telling Hunter about the stones. They could clean up the place. He could chat with Matt and the old man. Maybe he could even see a little bit more of Hunter. See if he was like Luz saw him or how Amity saw him.
They touched down a short way from the graveyard he knew it probably wasn’t a risk but he didn’t want any other Glandus kids trying to get ahold of the stones. He walked toward the graveyard and saw Matt standing there
“You made it." He glanced at Hunter. "Who is this?” he asked.
Hunter was looking at him strangely. It seemed to click then. "Are you Matt?"
Matt glanced between Hunter and Gus.
“Yes. Why do you sound so surprised about that?”
"I know Steve."
Matt froze up. A complex look crossed his face.
“Cool.”
He turns back to Gus almost robotically. "So why were you on and off about if you were coming or not?"
He could use a lot of words to describe every facet of the Hunter/The Golden Guard situation but he should probably keep it simple. "Him being here was kind of a sudden development. Luz asked me to hang out with him because she didn’t know I had plans and I said yes then he agreed to come with me. So I got to come anyway.
“Cool”
Matt cleared his throat and held out a hand to Hunter.
“Hi, I’m Matt.”
Hunter took his hand and shook it “I’m Hunter.”
“Cool”
Gus glanced at Matt again. He was acting kind of weird but that made sense. His brother was important to him; they saw each other sometimes but not enough to know each other as well as Matt wished they did. A connection to Steve was bound to make him act strange.
Gus walked into the graveyard first. The first thing he saw was the distressed face of the grave keeper. Gus jumped back when he flung himself at Gus.
He looked upset which probably wasn't good.
“What’s wrong?” All three boys asked the question. Hunter got to the questions faster than the younger boys and Matt asked slightly before Gus did. Hunter seemed on high alert searching the area. Matt and Gus were focused on the old man. "It’s the galderstones" he shrieked. "They’re gone.