Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Vee watched as the portal faded, her family leaving with it. She knew she wasn’t ready to go back to the Demon Realm, but it would still be hard to hold the fort down on her own. There had been some questions when the Noceda household had suddenly gone from one child to six, but they had settled down after a month or so. There were sure to be even more now that five and the parent had disappeared. Not that anyone would know that.

Vee took a deep breath, turned around, and froze. “Camila still has the keys!”

That would be… a problem.

But that was a problem for future Vee. She transformed into her adopted mother and followed the trail of light spells back to the halloween festival in the Gravesfield Town Green. 

At the edge of the forest was Masha, the first friend she ever made in the Human Realm. The friend who no longer recognized her, since Vee had met them while she was pretending to be Luz.

“Hi Mrs. Noceda. Where’s Luz and the others?”

Vee shrugged and said, “They said they wanted to explore the forest a bit more. I made them promise they’d come home before midnight, so I’m going to wait for them at home and get the last wave of trick-or-treaters. You’re a friend of Luz’s from camp last year, right?”

“Yes, ma’am, but I haven’t talked to her much since… those other five showed up. Who are they, anyways? She hadn’t mentioned them.

“They’re her cousins on her dad’s side,” Vee lied. “Except for Amity, of course. It’s a long story. They’re leaving tomorrow morning, so Luz wanted to spend as much time with them as she could before they left.”

“Oh. That’s nice.”

“I heard a bit of the story on the hayride. You told it very well. This town has a very interesting history, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Masha shrugged, still looking past Vee into the forest. “When you see Luz, can you tell her I was looking for her?”

“Of course.” Vee smiled as she brushed past her old friend. Masha was looking for her ! They missed her! Before she came to the human realm, no one but the scientists in the Emperor's Coven even knew she existed! And the fact that it was Masha who missed her—well, she was just glad it was dark enough that no one would notice her blush.

She opened the car door—Camila had forgotten to lock it in her haste to find Luz—and opened the little compartment above the rear-view mirror. There was Camila’s wallet and driver’s license, right where Vee knew it would be. She put it in her pocket, closed the door, then made a big show of patting down her pockets to look for her keys. She turned to a family heading towards the parking lot and said, “I think I dropped my keys. Can you help me look for them? They should be around here somewhere.”

The father led the younger children to their car while the older two and the mother used their phones as flashlights to look for the keys. Vee knew they wouldn’t find anything, but it wasn’t like she could break into the car that was supposed to belong to her. That would draw even more questions.

The little family swept their flashlights over the entire green but, unsurprisingly, no one found anything but candy wrappers.

“Do you think someone stole them?” the kind mother asked.

“I hope not. How am I supposed to get home?”

“Should we call the police?” The daughter asked.

Her mother frowned. “I can call a towing service, if you think that would help.”

“That would be very helpful. Thank you.”

She turned to her children and said, “Go tell Dad that it’s going to be a little while. He can come get me when everything is settled here, after you’re all in bed.”

“But Mama—” the son complained, but the daughter took off towards their car on the other side of the parking lot and the boy had no choice but to follow with a disgruntled look back at their mother.

“Thank you. You don’t have to stay if you need to get home and put them to bed. I know how much of a hassle it is.”

“Nonsense! Remember at the PTA meeting a few years ago, when you stood up to Mrs. Warren? She kept criticizing me for buying cookies from the store instead of baking them myself for the bake sale, despite the fact that she’s a stay-at-home mom with one kid, not a working mom with four. If it weren’t for you, I would have done something I know I would regret. You might have even kept me out of jail that day.” She laughed at that, so Vee laughed too, as though she knew what the lady was talking about.

She ended up waiting with Vee until the tow truck showed up and confirmed that the car did, in fact, belong to Vee—I mean, Mrs. Noceda—and agreed to help her get it home.

The Noceda house felt darker, quieter, emptier without six teenagers and one adult filling the house with noise.

Vee flicked on the lights, pulled out a pen and paper, and wrote down everything she would need to do until Mrs. Noceda and the others came home:

• Tell Mom’s co-workers that she was visiting her Abuela
• Pay taxes/mortgage/bills (?)
• Get food and cook for myself
• Go to school (as Luz)?
• Maybe get a job to pay for anything she needs?
• See if she could find anything here that would help build a portal back, in case they needed it

That should be easy enough. Right? Right?

What was she doing ? How was she supposed to do this on her own? She hadn’t even grown up in this world! And her Hexus Hold’em cards would only last so long, especially if she was switching between forms so often.

She sighed. She could deal with all of that in the morning. For now, she was going to go to sleep and try not to think of the image of Belos in Hunter’s body.

Poor Hunter. He had been so nice, and Luz considered both of them siblings, so he was basically her brother. And Belos had possessed him and killed his palisman.

Belos was strong. She had always known that. She hadn’t realized just how strong until she was trying to suck the magic out of him. There had been so much ! She couldn’t have swallowed it all if she tried! And he wasn’t even a witch!

How were they supposed to deal with him on the other side, while also dealing with that Collector as well?

She took a deep breath, tried her best to calm her nerves, and went upstairs to Camila’s room. Even if Camila herself wasn’t there, it was comforting to be in the big bed, to imagine that her adoptive mother’s arms were around her.

She glanced at the nightstand. Her eyes widened. Luz’s palisman sat there, wrapped in a blanket, unmoving.

Luz’s palisman was still there!

As she watched, a tiny crack appeared in the top. Vee wouldn’t have seen or heard it if the room wasn’t so quiet and she wasn’t so focused on the egg. She wanted to pick it up, to let the palisman know that it was okay, but she didn’t want to accidentally steal Luz’s palisman either. What if it bonded with her instead, thinking she was Luz?

She dropped her disguise completely and slithered slightly closer.

Another crack formed, and soon the Palistrom wood egg split completely in half. A small snake slithered out and looked up at Vee, tilting its head at her. Vee tilted her head back at it. The palisman hissed. Vee hissed.

“Sorry, buddy. I’m not your partner,” Vee told the snake. “Luz is in the Demon Realm right now. You’re in the Human Realm. But as soon as Belos is gone, she’ll come back and get you!”

The palisman hissed sadly and curled into a circle, its tail in mouth. An ouroboros, like the framed snake skin beside it.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Vee said. “She loves you so much already, and she hasn’t even met you yet! She’ll be so excited to see you!”

The palisman nodded at her, then closed its eyes and turned to wood.

“Okay,” Vee said, climbing into Camila’s bed. “I don’t know your name yet, so I’m going to call you Little One for now, okay? Good night, Little One.”

Chapter Text

The next day, Vee called Camila’s vet clinic co-workers and told them her Abuela was sick and she would be out of town for an unspecified amount of time. Then she called Luz’s school and told them the same thing, and that she would call them when she and Luz were back in town, and if they could please email her the schoolwork for each day. Little One didn’t unwind herself until the afternoon, when the snake began to explore the house.

Around 3 p.m., there came a knock at the door. Vee slipped into her human disguise then rushed to the door and threw it open.

Masha stood in the doorway, their fist raised to knock again. They stared at each other for a moment, then Masha said, “I thought Mrs. Noceda said you were going home today.”

“Oh, um. I was going to, but something came up.”

“Okay. Why wasn’t Luz at school?”

“The… same something?”

“Is everyone okay?” they asked.

Vee swallowed. “Perfectly. Everything’s fine.”

Masha raised an eyebrow, but they didn’t say anything. “Okay. Your name is Vee, right?”

Vee nodded.

“Well, could you tell Luz that our cabin is meeting up in the town green around 6. That’s the park across from the Historical Society building. You know, the one I work at?”

“Yeah, I know the one.” Vee suppressed a shudder, then gave Masha a smile. “I’ll let her know.”

“Thanks. See you around, I guess.”

“Yeah.” Vee began to close the door, but Masha stuck their foot in the way.

“I don’t want to freak you out, but there is a snake on the floor behind you.”

Vee turned to see Little One slithering towards her. “Oh, yeah. Mrs. Noceda’s a veterinarian, so there’s a couple weird animals around here sometimes. I thought this little one was in her cage, though. Thanks for letting me know.”

“Okay! Nice to see you again, Vee.”

“Nice to see you, too! I’ll tell Luz you stopped by!” She closed the door and turned to look at the wooden snake. “You can’t do that! You’re lucky Mrs. Noceda is a veterinarian, or people would think it’s weird that we have a snake in the house. You don’t want to make this harder, do you?”

The snake just tilted its head at her. Vee sighed.

A few hours later, she transformed into her Luz disguise and ran to the green. Masha and their friends were already there.

“Hi, guys!” Vee said, “Sorry I’m late.”

“It’s okay,” Masha said, waving her over. “We’re just glad you could make it. Your cousin said something happened. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine, but Mamà and I might go stay with my abuela for a few days.” It had been a while since Vee had been able to hang out with her friends, since she hadn’t been pretending to be Luz. Ace and Blake sat on one side, Blake wearing her favorite blue-striped shirt.

“Yeah…” Blake said, wringing their hands. “We don’t want to add onto any family issues, but…”

They looked to Masha, who took a deep breath and asked, “Why have you been ignoring us at school?”

Vee froze. What was she supposed to say? How was she supposed to answer that without hurting their feelings? It hadn’t been her. Luz hadn’t known them at all!

“I’m sorry about that. It’s… kind of a long story.”

Ace raised an eyebrow. “We have time.”

Vee looked to the menacing building of the Gravesfield Historical Society and made a decision. “I can’t explain it here. Just follow me and… try not to freak out.”

Her friends looked between each other skeptically, but they followed Vee out of the town green and into the woods behind the Nocedas’ house, where the little wooden cabin stood. She led them inside and gave them a moment to look around while she sat on the little beanbag chair and gathered her nerves.

“What’s this?” Ace asked, pointing to the diagram of the portal door.

Well, that wasn’t the ideal starting place, but it would work.

“It’s what the portal door used to look like. We were trying to figure out if we could deconstruct it to make another one, but… we didn’t have any titan’s blood.”

“Portal door?”

“Titan’s blood?”

“Look, this may sound crazy, and I understand if you don’t want to be friends with me anymore after this but—” Vee steeled herself for their reactions. “—I’m not Luz.”

There was complete silence within the shack for a moment, then Blake asked, “What do you mean, you’re not Luz ?”

“I’m the one you met at summer camp, but that wasn’t the real Luz. I was just pretending to be her. I’m actually a basilisk.” She let her disguise drop and they gasped. “I’m a shape-shifter from the Boiling Isles, also known as the Demon Realm.”

Vee looked down, preparing herself for rejection.

She didn’t get it. Instead, Ace poked her tail and said, “Sweet, dude. You’re from another dimension? Wicked!”

“I—what?”

He shrugged. “What? It’s cool! And I was worried you didn’t want to be friends with us anymore, but it was just the real Luz! Right?”

“Yes,” Vee said slowly. “She got back at the start of last summer. The portal door broke when she and her friends went through it. They got trapped here.”

“Are they still here?” Blake asked. “Are there other basilisks in Gravesfield?”

Vee shook her head. “No, I’m the only basilisk. Technically, basilisks are extinct, even on the Boiling Isles. Emperor Belos had a few of my kind brought back to study. I escaped. Everyone else on the Boiling Isles is either a witch or a demon. All of Luz’s friends that came back with her were witches. Well, except for Hunter. He’s a clone.”

“A clone ?”

Vee nodded. “It’s called a grimwalker. I didn’t know until yesterday. But he’s actually a clone of one of the Wittebane brothers from here in Gravesfield! The older one, who fell in love with the witch.”

“Caleb,” Masha said, her voice bitter. “You’ve been lying to us as long as you’ve known us. This is insane and cool and creepy, but even with all that, how do we know we can trust you?”

“Masha,” Ace chastised, but Masha didn’t pay attention to him. They crossed their arms at Vee and glowered.

“I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you, but… I didn’t think you’d believe me.”

“Well, that’s your own fault. We do believe you. But it still hurts that you didn’t trust us enough to tell us. And I get not telling us at camp, but you could have at least told us when the real Luz got back so that we didn’t make fools of ourselves at school, wondering why she was ignoring us. That hurt … what even is your real name?”

Vee looked down. “You can call me Vee, like the roman numeral for five. I was the fifth basilisk experiment, but Luz helped me make it my own name, not just a number.”

Masha sat down, not looking at Vee. “Tell us everything. From the beginning.”

So she did.

Chapter Text

“So the real Luz is in the Demon Realm now, with the rest of her friends and her mom, where they’re going to fight a four-hundred-year old emperor and a god. And you’re here. Pretending to be all of them. Alone. With just a baby snake on your side.”

Vee shrugged. “It’s better than going back to the demon realm. I love Luz and Mrs. Noceda, but I’m not ready to go back, especially not when it’s so chaotic. If I go back, I want to be able to make good memories.”

“Fair,” Ace said, lounging on a beanbag chair.

Blake nodded. “I still think you should have told us, but I get why you would be worried. It’s… a lot to take in. But it’s cool, too. Maybe one day, we’ll all be able to go to the Boiling Isles together!”

Masha glared at them, their arms crossed over their chest.

“Oh, come on, Masha,” Blake elbowed them. “I get that you’re mad, but at least she’s telling us now, right?”

“So neither of you care that she’s been lying to us as long as we’ve known her?”

“I’m sorry, Masha. I should have told you guys from the start. But I’m still me,” Vee promised. “The way I acted at camp, that was me . Not Luz. Just because I looked like her doesn’t mean I mimicked her entire personality.”

They glowered at Vee, then shook their head and stormed out of the cabin.

Vee sighed.

“Don’t worry,” Blake said, wrapping her arm around Vee’s shoulder. “They’ll come around. It might take a little while, but I think they missed you most of all. They just need some time to process. It is a lot to take in.”

“I hope they forgive me for not telling them. I hope you guys do, too. I get it if you don’t, though.”

“I do,” Ace said, brushing the hair out of his eyes. “And Masha will too. Don’t worry too much about it.”

“I should go talk to them.”

“Don’t. Give them time,” Blake said. “We’ll talk to them in a little bit. For now, what can we do to help?”

“Huh?”

“Well, there’s no way you can live on your own for however long they’re gone. And people will think you’re a squatter if you keep coming and going from a house that is supposed to be empty now that the Noceda’s are visiting their Abuela .”

“They’re right, you know,” Ace said from the beanbag. “You need a place to stay, at least. I would offer my house, but my parents…”

Vee winced. Ace’s parents still refused to acknowledge he was a boy. They only called him by his deadname. Ace avoided them as much as possible. To get them to allow Vee in the house, he would have to play nice with them—like, pretending-to-be-a-girl nice. She wasn’t going to put him through that.

“I could stay here,” Vee said. “I’d just have to bring the computer over and I could do all of Luz’s schoolwork and everything.”

Blake raised an eyebrow. “I seriously doubt this old cabin has WiFi. I’ll ask my parents if you can stay with us for a little while.”

“Thanks, Blake,” Vee said with a smile, then looked out the cabin door and bit her lip. “Are you sure Masha will forgive me? I mean, they’re right. I lied to you.”

“You lied because you didn’t feel safe. You were running from an evil emperor dude!”

“Yeah, before I got to camp. I had already made it out of the Demon Realm. I should have gotten away from there as fast as I could, instead of lying to all of you and Mrs. Noceda.”

Ace smacked her upside the head. “Don’t even think that. If you had left, Mrs. Noceda would have thought her daughter ran away, and we wouldn’t have met one of our best friends.”

“Luz would have made it back eventually.”

“Maybe. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe Mrs. Noceda wouldn’t have believed in the Demon Realm at all. Maybe they would have compared notes and freaked out about some evil Luz running around wearing her face.” He bumped her shoulder. “And the camp would have reported it back to Mrs. Noceda if you disappeared. And, again , we wouldn’t have met one of our best friends. I mean, imagine if it was just Blake and Masha and I in a cabin. I think we would have killed each other.”

Blake laughed. “Imagine if you weren’t there to calm us all down after the silly string incident!”

“Or the ensuing prank war,” Ace added.

Vee smiled despite herself. “I guess so.”

Blake stood up and looked at the drawings of the witches’ families. They turned back to Vee and Ace with a grin. “I think I know how to get Masha to forgive you.”

Vee sat up straighter. “You think so?”

“You have to show them how well you know them. You , not Luz. Remind them that you’re still yourself. And apologize while doing it.”

“That’s what I was trying to do and they stormed out,” she pouted.

“What’s their love language?”

Vee thought about it for a moment, then said, “Probably either quality time or gifts.”

“So to show that you appreciate them…” Blake started.

“I should make them something that shows both of those things?” Vee asked.

“Ding, ding, ding!” They laughed, “We have a winner!”

Ace nodded his approval.

“What would I do for that, though? Bake them a pie?”

Ace shrugged. “I mean, I guess, but how would that play into the quality time part?”

“Oh! I have a different idea!” Vee clapped her hands together. “I could use pictures from camp to make Masha their own personalized set of tarot cards!”

“Dude, that would be sick!” Blake said, pumping her fist in the air. “I have pictures you could use on my phone, and we could print them out at the library! Maybe on cardstock or something?”

“I’ll talk to Masha and see if I can help them at all while you two work on the cards,” Ace offered. “Text me when you have the tarot cards ready and we can meet back at the green.”

“Thanks, Ace! That would be great!” Vee hugged him as tight as she physically could, then grabbed Blake’s arm. “We have to get to the library right this second!”

“Okay, okay!” Blake laughed, letting themself be dragged out of the cabin and into the woods.

~~~

The moon had crossed a large part of the sky when Blake texted Ace that the cards were ready. Luckily, Ace had convinced Masha to have a sleepover at his house, so Vee and Blake headed there instead of the green.

Vee fiddled with the tarot cards, which she had wrapped in tissue paper and string from Blake’s house.

“Do you really think this is going to work?” She asked.

“I’m pretty sure.” Blake patted Vee’s arm when they saw her terrified face and said, “It’ll be okay.”

Vee took a deep breath and nodded to Blake, who knocked on the door.

Ace’s mother opened the door. “Oh, hello! I’m glad you were able to make it. Your mothers’ know that you’re here, right?”

“Of course,” Blake said, giving her brightest fake smile. “They’re in the basement, right?”

Ace’s mom nodded and stepped back. The kids thanked her as they rushed to the basement staircase.

As soon as Vee opened the door, they heard Masha’s voice say, “ Please tell me that’s Blake.”

“Why?” Ace teased. “You can’t take being beaten at Mario Kart for the fifth time?”

“You know what I mean.”

Blake put a comforting hand on Vee’s shoulder and nudged her down the staircase.

At the bottom of the staircase, Vee knocked on the wall and poked her head into the space. “Hi, guys. Um, I brought Blake. Can I come in?”

“No,” Masha said, turning away.

“Come sit,” Ace said with a smile.

“Traitor,” Masha muttered.

Blake jumped down the last few steps and bounded over to their friends, immediately putting her head on Masha’s lap. “Vee made you something. You’re gonna love it.”

Vee blushed. “You helped.”

Blake hooked one leg over the top of the couch and grinned. “Only a little. It was your idea, and you did most of the legwork. I just told you if it looked good or not.”

“A crucial part of the process,” Ace reminded them.

Masha nodded in agreement, but quickly returned to ignoring Vee’s approach.

Vee swallowed and held out her present. “This is for you. I hope you like it. And… I’m sorry. I should have told you. All of you.”

“Yeah, you should have,” Masha said, but after a nudge from Ace, they accepted the gift. They unwrapped it slowly and carefully, without tearing the tissue paper. They pulled out each card, one by one.

Vee remembered when each picture was taken. A picture from after their prank war with their cabin neighbors as the Fool. A picture from after the camp variety show as the Wheel of Fortune. Blake staring at their camp crush as the Lovers. A picture of Ace in his sleeping bag, refusing to get up, as the Hermit. A picture of Masha laughing as the magician. Each picture, each corresponding card.

Only a few showed Vee, since she had been in her Luz form at the time.

Masha flipped through them, their eyes glassy with tears. “When did you make this?”

“Earlier today. That’s where Blake and I have been all day. I had to have her send me some of the pictures.”

“You guys made all of this today?”

“Yeah. I know you already have plenty of tarot cards, but I wanted to make you something to remind you of us. I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, and I understand if you never want to see me again. But, if you think you can forgive me, do you think we can start over and be friends?”

Masha continued looking through the cards, a small frown on their face. “It hurts, Vee. You guys were the first people I ever came out to, even before my parents. And to know that I trusted you enough to tell you, but you still felt the need to hide who you were from us—and I know it’s not the same thing, and you didn’t want us to abandon you—but we’re all weirdos. That’s how we met in the first place! And camp didn’t change that. Nothing ever will. Whether you’re from another dimension or you grew up down the street, that doesn’t matter. You could have grown up on the sun for all I care. I just wish you had told us sooner.”

“You of all people know that you can’t force someone to come out before they’re ready, Mash,” Ace warned. “We’re all at different stages in the journey to self discovery.”

“ And at different stages in our levels of confidence and security,” Blake added. “Vee didn’t have any kind of security in her life until Mrs. Noceda found out and accepted her anyway.”

“This isn’t like coming out as queer, guys.”

“Obviously,” Vee said. “Homophobia and transphobia doesn’t exist on the boiling isles anyways, so I didn’t know that even existed until you guys told me.”

“It’s not like coming out as queer,” Blake agreed, “but it’s kind of the same reasoning as to why she didn’t tell us before now. It must have been hard enough to tell Mrs. Noceda, even when her safety relied on her. She wasn’t ready to tell us before, and she is now.”

Masha sighed. “I know. Sorry. Now I’m being a jerk.”

“Vee was never the jerk in the first place,” Ace said, handing his guests glasses of water.

“I’m sorry I kept it from you,” Vee said, ignoring his comment. “Friends?”

Masha took a deep breath, pushed Blake off of their lap, and held out their arms. “Come ‘ere, you lovable snake charmer.”

Vee’s eyes grew wide. “Really?”

“Snake charmer?” Blake spluttered from the floor.

Vee threw herself into Masha’s arms and hugged her until Masha pushed her off just long enough to put the tarot cards to the side.

“I don’t want to bend them,” they said, pulling Vee onto the couch beside them and stretching out across her lap. “I’m going to use them all the time.”

“So,” Ace said, a smile on his face. “Movie?”

Chapter Text

Turns out, Masha’s parents were surprisingly understanding and had an extra mattress that they set up in Masha’s room. They may have been more understanding because Masha told them that Vee was a friend from camp who had been kicked out by her parents for her sexuality instead of the truth, but they were still nice enough to let her stay there. They even helped Vee get enrolled in school with her new face. Vee left Little One in the Noceda house and packed a bag to take with her to Masha’s house.

And so the group began to settle into a routine. In the morning, Masha and Vee would ride the bus to school, where they would meet up with Ace and Blake. They ate lunch and walked to classes together. Vee made friends all over again. When the final bell rang, they took the bus back to their homes—or Masha’s home, in Vee’s case—where they did their homework. Masha or Vee would do Luz’s homework and email it to her teachers.

And then they were free.

They went to the cafe and the library and visited Masha at the Gravesfield Historical Society. Ace snuck out to the back of the cafe and tried to communicate with the talking rats one day, but it didn’t go well. Blake spent a lot of time learning about the little pieces of the demon realm that snuck into the human world. They found a few articles about a girl in LA who had apparently been to another world, but that world had a bunch of talking frogs, so she tossed it aside. Vee was just happy to be with them again.

“So, apparently,” Blake said, their eyes skimming over a newspaper from her seat in the library, “a woman named Marilyn tried to pay for something at the cafe with either a raccoon and a possum and the next day, the rats behind the cafe doubled in size.”

Vee shuddered.

“You said that Marilyn was a witch and that her real name is Eda, right?”

“Yeah. She’s the one who took Luz in when she went to the Boiling Isles.”

Blake gave a dreamy sigh. “She sounds awesome. Do you think I could meet her after Luz and the others come back?”

“Maybe. It depends on if they can make a working portal door.”

They bit their lip, their eyes glazing over in that way Vee had learned meant they were lost in thought. “Do you think it would help them if we built a portal on this side for it to connect to?”

Vee tilted her head in confusion. “Well, we don’t have any titan’s blood. How would we even start?”

Blake shrugged. “Not a clue. When they come back, do you think you’ll want to visit the Boiling Isles?”

“I don’t know. I’d probably have to at some point to get more magic. Maybe I’d visit the Owl House at some point, to meet the other half of Luz’s family. I mean, King isn’t my brother, but he’s Luz’s brother, and she’s my sister, so he’s kind of my brother. Does that make sense?”

“Makes sense to me. I want to find out if there are any other basilisks. If there are, they’re probably as scared as you were when you first came here. You’d probably be able to help them.”

“You think so?”

“Duh. Hi, Masha!”

Vee turned around, her hand waved in a wave. Masha came over and dropped into a seat beside them.

“Guess who showed up at work today,” they said in lieu of hello.

“Again?”

“Again.”

Blake groaned. “Jacob freakin’ Hopkins.”

“He was trying to warn me about Vee. Can you believe that? As though Vee is dangerous! If he weren’t such a prejudiced jerk, he would realize that!”

Vee grinned. “Who knows. Maybe he’s onto something. Maybe I’m a demon from Mars, here to steal your teeth in your sleep.”

Masha threw back their head and laughed. Vee felt her cheeks grow warm. She remembered Blake telling her about a line in a book about wanting to bottle laughter. So that’s what that meant.

“He’s such an idiot,” Masha laughed. “That’s not what I wanted to tell you, though. He got arrested.”

“He what ?”

Masha grinned. “He’s not allowed on the property of the Gravesfield Historical Society and he was harassing me. So I called the police.”

“And they arrested him?”

“Yep!” They said, popping the p. “I doubt he’ll actually go to jail, but hopefully he’ll get it through his thick head and leave us alone.”

“Thanks!” Vee said, throwing her arms around Masha.

“It’s nothing. Someone needed to do something about him. At least now the police will have him on file.”

“We need to celebrate,” Blake declared, then smirked. “Ace doesn’t get off work for half an hour. If we go fast…”

“Pizza?”

“Pizza,” Vee agreed, and she shoved her papers into her bag. “And I’m not letting you ruin my pizza with pineapple.”

“Oh, just because you don’t have taste—”

“I do! That’s why I think it’s gross! And Ace agrees.”

“Then why does he sell pineapple pizza?” Masha teased.

“That’s his job , Mash. He’s forced into it by heathens like you two.”

“Oh, because I practice witchcraft?”

“No, because you like pineapple on pizza,” Vee said primly. “Why, in Titan’s name, would witchcraft make you a heathen? And why wouldn’t I like it? I’m a basilisk, for Titan’s sake!”

Masha laughed and looped their arm in Vee’s, then stuck out her other arm to Blake. They led their friends confidently out of the library doors and down the steps.

~~~

“Hey, Vee, are you awake?”

Vee grunted. She heard Masha roll over in their bed, towards the window above Vee’s head.

“I’m worried about one of my friends, and I don’t know what to do.”

“What friend?”

“You don’t know them. Their name is… Anne. She lives out in Cali.”

Vee raised an eyebrow at the pause, knowing Masha couldn’t see her.

“She lived here before you got here, but she moved away. She had… a really hard time here, and when she moved away, she made new friends. But then her family came back here. And she didn’t. I’m worried that she feels alone, even though she has friends with her.”

Vee rolled over. “I’m fine, Masha.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course. But it’s okay if you’re not.”

“I know, but honestly, I know I’m doing a lot better than I would be in the Boiling Isles, especially if Belos is there. I’m just glad to be with you guys. I’ll see Camila and the others when they get back.”

She could tell that Masha had something else they wanted to say, but they kept quiet.

“Are you okay, Mash?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“It’s a lot. I get it. You don’t have to be strong for me.”

Masha opened their mouth, but before they could get a word out, they and Vee heard a knock on the front door. They felt around blindly for their phone, to check the camera at their parents’ door.

“It’s Ace.”

Vee was halfway to the bedroom door in a heartbeat. “Do you think his parents did something?”

“They better not have, if they know what’s good for them.”

By the time they got to the door, Masha’s parents were leaning out of the doorway of their room, blinking the sleep from their eyes.

“Is everything okay?” Masha’s dad asked.

Vee just shrugged as Masha pulled the door up.

“They’re back,” Ace said with a grin, before anyone inside the house could greet him. “Come on!”

“Already?” Masha asked, and Vee must have imagined the hint of disappointment in their voice.

Masha’s mom asked, “Who’s back?”

She didn’t get an answer. The kids were already running out into the night.

After midnight, Gravesfield was about as lively as its name, so there was no one to see the three kids sprinting down the road and over crumbling stone walls to get to the Noceda house.

“How do you know?” Vee panted as the little group slowed to a stop at a stoplight.

Ace rubbed the back of his neck. “I may or may not have gotten into another fight with my mom. I snuck out. I thought I could spend the night at the shack in the woods and let her calm down without me there. But when I got there, the door started to glow, and it looked like it was painted with pastels and cartoon stars. So I went to get you. Don’t worry; I called Blake on my way. She’ll meet us there.”

Vee frowned. “That’s not what the portal looked like before.”

“What if it’s the Collector?” Masha whispered, their voice so small that it startled Vee. She hadn’t thought Masha could be afraid of anything.

She squared her shoulders. “If it’s the Collector, we’ll deal with them. It’ll be okay. And if it is Camila, then we know everything’s okay.”

The walk light went on—there was no point running to the Noceda’s house if they were going to be hit by a sudden car on the way there—and they ran through the crosswalk. A few minutes later, they were crashing through the trees behind the Noceda’s.

Vee made it into the clearing first, with Ace and Masha on her heels. As Ace had promised, Blake was already there, trying to calm a gray-haired one-armed woman who had dropped into a defensive position.

And behind the woman…

“Vee!”

She raced forward to meet her mom in the middle of the clearing. “You’re back! You’re back, you’re back, you’re back! How did it go? Is Belos gone? Did you deal with the Collector?”

“Heck yeah, we did!” Luz cheered, pumping a fist in the air and joining the hug.

Vee squeezed her tight, then stepped back and scanned her for injuries. She frowned. “Something’s… different about you. You smell delicious. Like… like magic, but not. What happened?”

Luz opened her mouth to answer, but the gray-haired woman said, “Oh, so you’re Vee.”

“Vee, this is Eda, and the widdle angel behind her is King. I told you about them. And just so you know, we’ll probably spend the next little while going back and forth between the human realm and the Boiling Isles. We wanted to make sure you knew what was going on and that we were safe before we started working on cleaning everything up. The Boiling Isles are kind of a mess right now. But everyone’s okay!”

“It’s nice to meet you. And these are Blake, Ace, and Masha. They’re my friends from summer camp. I told them about the Boiling Isles. Masha’s parents even let me stay at their house.”

“Oh!” Luz said, grinning at them. “I recognize you guys! I’ve seen you at school! Vee, why didn’t you tell me they were your friends? Nevermind. Thank you guys so much for taking care of my baby sister while we were gone!”

“ Baby ?” Vee squawked, but Luz was already pulling Vee’s friends into a hug.

“Hey, Vee, now that Belos is dead, would you be okay with your friends coming to the Boiling Isles? It would probably be easier to explain everything there.”

“Or we can stay here, if it would be better for you, darling,” Camila added.

Vee looked around, at Luz bouncing on the balls of her feet, then at the door. “I’d be okay with going to the Boiling Isles. Oh! And Luz, you left your palisman egg. I think it’s in Masha’s house. It hatched, and—”

The little snake curled around Luz’s shoulder. “She found me, even in the demon realm.”

“How did you do that, Little One?”

The snake transformed into a bird in response.

“Meet Stringbean,” Luz said. “Well, I guess you’ve met. But still, she’s a lot like you, Vee.”

Vee blinked at the not-snake, and her face split into a grin. She turned to her friends. “So, do you guys want to see the Boiling Isles?”