Chapter Text
Gus POV
Augustus didn’t know how long he’d been standing in the alleyway. He checked his watch. They should’ve been here ten minutes ago. He looked around, eyes landing on a small, crested, tan-striped bird sitting on top of a garbage bin. A smile grew on his face as the bird morphed into a spider around the size of his hand, scuttling along the ground until it got to his feet. He took a step back as it grew taller, morphing into a humanoid shape. The humanoid settled into a tall witch form, with wild light brown hair and suntanned skin. There were dark circles under their mismatched eyes, one of which looked like a normal eye aside from the gray of the iris, the other eye with a golden iris and dark background. They had spotted markings on their cheekbones and a feathered earring in one of their ears. They wore standard attire for a street urchin; baggy brown trousers, a yellow scarf, and a loose black tank top hung on their lean frame that showed off their toned, sunburnt arms, complete with a scattering of small scars and a few larger, longer ones that no doubt came from several scuffles over the years. There was a faint reddish-brown tattoo of a detailed feather on the inside of their wrist. The witch held a red-tinted walnut staff with a palisman that looked close to the bird that Augustus had first seen. Around their neck was a small pendant on a thin bronze chain with a carving of a feather identical to the tattoo on it, made of the same type of wood as the staff. They had a satchel strapped over their shoulder. If he didn’t know any better, the shapeshifter might be intimidating, terrifying even, save for the warm smile on their lips.
“Lark! How are you?” Augustus asked, bouncing on his toes. The older witch laughed.
“You know, the usual. Keeping up with being the best shapeshifter on the Boiling Isles by day, avoiding authorities by night. Classic wild witch things.” Lark ruffled Gus’s hair. “How’s my favorite illusionist? Staying in school? Being a decent human being?”
Augustus grinned up at them. “You bet!” He looked down, thinking out how he was going to say next as he scuffed the brick under his feet. “Actually, I need a favor for a new friend.”
Lark raised an eyebrow as Augustus explained his plan.
Lark POV
Lark perched in a tree near a house with a large stained glass window in the shape of an eye on the front. The house was going to be a challenge to sneak into. For one thing, there was that freaky bird tube out front that had proven that it ate bugs, so that ruled out the spider-under-the-door option. For another, Augustus said that there was a human inside, and a smart one at that. The human would recognize a bird from the human realm flying in through the chimney instantly. That only left one option for Lark.
They sighed and morphed into a lark, flying onto the roof before morphing again into a rat. She scurried down until she was on the outcropping above the door, staying completely still so the house demon wouldn’t detect her. She listened carefully at the wall to determine if anyone was home and let out a sigh of relief when there was silence. They sat back on their haunches and went over the plan to herself until she saw her target approach. She morphed into a jumping spider and readied herself. They knew that the gray-haired Owl Lady could fit anything into her hair, and the human and King weren’t very attentive. If a rat could get into her hair without anyone noticing, then so could a small spider.
3… 2… 1… jump
Nailed it.
She nestled herself into the thick hair and waited until she was safely inside before turning herself invisible and jumping for the wall. She hid behind a frame on the wall to observe.
The human had plopped herself onto the couch with a sigh and pulled out a rectangular device. A human scroll . Lark had seen them before when they made a trip to the human realm on a request from Augustus. From what they could see, the human was reading something. They hopped from the wall to the back of the couch and squinted at the phone screen to read. She needed to gather as much information as possible for the mission, which meant that she had to completely immerse herself in the human’s life.
Two days later
Lark rubbed her thumb over the address on the envelope in her hand. It had taken some serious energy to focus into Luz’s mind enough to get the information to find it, and now that they had it they could do what they needed to do. She morphed into a lark, putting the envelope into the mailbox in front of the main building and flying away. She needed to hurry if she wanted to get to the portal before it closed. Augustus had said that he would try to keep Eda, Luz, and King distracted enough to keep the door open long enough for Lark to deliver the letter and get out, but he couldn’t make any promises for exactly how long.
Lark had actually known the Owl Lady for a while. When Lark was first out on the streets as a six-year-old, Eda had been one of the few sympathetic souls that had given the young shapeshifter tips on survival. Over the years, Lark and Eda had done each other quite a few favors, some of which involved Eda letting Lark use the portal in exchange for odd jobs. They weren’t exactly close, but their relationship was one of the few Lark had had in their decade of being a street urchin.
If they thought about it, Eda had probably saved their life multiple times, which didn’t make Lark feel any better about taking advantage of the portal. Even though the mission was fairly innocent, Lark hadn’t asked to use the portal. She had just snuck in when Luz had it open for wifi and nobody was watching.
Now she sat in a tree outside of a college campus, one that was hosting a camp called “Reality Check Summer Camp”. From what she’d picked up from eavesdropping on the camp counselors, what Augustus had said Luz told him, and from the pamphlet that they’d snuck away from Luz, it didn’t seem very good. She could see that the few children that were outside had darkened looks on their faces, and the counselors and adults that were supervising seemed to have permanent creases between their eyebrows from how much they were furrowed. Luz would hate this.
Lark shook her head. Part of this job was to have opinions, but not to act on them. Acting on them would get her caught. The kids at this titan-forsaken camp would have to fend for themselves. All Lark could do was to observe Luz and write the letters so Luz wouldn’t get in trouble and be sent back to what seemed to be kid hell. Then the summer would end. Luz would go back to her mother, and Lark could go back to their odd jobs in Bonesborough. Job done.
She morphed back into a bird from her witch form and flew away towards the portal under the hot summer sun. She had a human to spy on.