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The shadows were alive, and Willow couldn’t sleep.
She lay flat on her back on the floor between Hunter and Gus, staring up at the dusty rafters of the Owl House. It was strange here, without Hooty, or King, or Eda. The house was too still. Quiet.
Dead.
Cold panic pulsed through her veins. She squeezed her eyes shut before she remembered that she had to keep them open—because if she closed them she would fall asleep, and if she fell asleep she would dream, and if she dreamed … Hunter would die. Again.
She sucked in a shaky breath. 1, 2, 3, 4. … 1, 2, 3, 4.
It wasn’t working.
She buried her face in her pillow, chest aching from how hard her heart pounded against her ribcage. Her breaths came in rapid, shallow gasps, and tears pooled at the corners of her eyes. She tried to blink them back, but soon there was a wet patch on her pillow, all her aching spilling out to spread against her cheek. It reminded her of the icy water that had streamed from Hunter’s hair, soaking through the layers of her Halloween costume, while his head lay heavy as stone in her lap. The water had long since dried out, but even now, she could still feel it, a phantom chill clinging to her bones.
Guys, Hunter isn’t moving.
She emerged from her pillow, blood cold, eyes bleary, chest throbbing. Next to her, Hunter’s sleeping form seemed impossibly still. He was turned away from her, drenched in those nightmare shadows, like they were devouring him whole, taking him from her once again.
She swallowed.
Hunter isn’t moving.
“Hunter?” she breathed, and her voice cracked on the way out.
Part of her hoped he wouldn’t answer. He needed rest. He deserved rest. If it had been a bad day for Willow, it had been a thousand times worse for Hunter.
But most of her just desperately, desperately needed to hear his voice, so she’d know that he was alive and safe. That her nightmares weren’t real.
“Yeah?” he murmured, so softly she might’ve missed it if she weren’t listening so intently.
Relief flooded through her, and she let out an unsteady breath. But her heart kept thumping crookedly, and a strange, frantic longing pulled at her chest. Her arms itched to be filled with his shape.
Maybe being held was exactly what Hunter needed right then. What he wanted, but couldn’t bring himself to ask for.
Or maybe Willow was just being selfish, too weak to keep her cracks from leaking on her own. She had to be strong for him. She had to give him space if that’s what he wanted.
But her hands seemed to have other ideas, because they reached for him without her permission. Her fingers brushed the fabric of his shirt, hovering over the curve of his shoulder. He stiffened.
“Sorry,” she said softly.
A long pause. “It’s—it’s fine.”
Did he want this? Did he need her? Oh, Titan, what if she made it worse?
Carefully, hesitantly, she slipped her hand beneath his elbow, draping an arm across his waist. His clothes were unexpectedly cold to the touch—still not quite dry from his deathly plunge.
“Is this okay?” she whispered.
She felt the tension in his frame relax, and all her muscles softened too.
“Yeah,” he whispered back. “Yeah, it’s okay.”
She scooted forward to press herself against his back, hugging him tightly around the middle. A shiver ran through her at the contact with his damp clothes, but she had no intention of letting go.
For a moment, they lay still. Willow slowly brought her hand up to his chest, where she could feel his heart thrumming under her fist, just like she did at the lake when he finally woke up. She uncurled her fingers and let his pulse click against her open palm, a steady reminder of what she needed most to hear.
Alive. Alive. Alive.
Her eyes slipped closed. Soon Hunter felt warmer in her arms (alive), and her own heartbeat began to slow, the aching in her chest soothed into quiet. Hunter made a small noise in the back of his throat and placed his hand on top of hers, over the exact spot where Flapjack had lain to rest.
His fingers curled around her hand, rough and warm. She’d never touched his bare hands, she realized. It was a strange thought, that after months together, with hugs and bumps and accidental brushes, she’d never once felt his hands. Maybe they’d been soft once, protected by those gloves he used to wear, but now she could feel every mark: The burn from when he’d helped Vee make cookies. The gash from when he’d upset Willow’s tentora razor plant. The callouses and needle pricks from hours and hours at Camila’s sewing machine.
It was too bad that none of them were any good at healing magic. But then again, she didn’t think Hunter minded these scars. His hands were full of memories now. Good memories. Signs of the life he’d lived in the human realm—happy, maybe, for the first time ever. She’d never seen him smile so much.
Willow let out a slow breath, summoning up the image in her mind. It felt like magic when Hunter smiled. Real magic. Natural magic. Wild magic. Like if she traced back to the origin, from witch’s magic to the Titan’s magic to nature itself, it would be Hunter’s smile at the beginning of the chain, the brightest thing in the two realms. Sometimes when he looked at her she felt like a plant turning her face to the sun, soaking him in, letting him light her up inside.
In those first days after they met, when they’d established their strange and fragile friendship over text, she kept finding herself scrolling through her own Penstagram feed, back to their first team photo, just so she could look at his smile again. There was something so endearing about it, with that little gap between his teeth and the way his eyes crinkled up. It was such a golden smile. What a shame, she’d thought, that it was always hidden away behind that mask—gold without the gleam.
What a shame that just hours earlier, Belos had taken his smile away once more.
Would she ever see him smile again?
As if on cue, Hunter started crying.
He shook in her arms, quiet sobs seizing his whole body. She squeezed him tighter to hide her own trembling, burying her face in his back.
She couldn’t cry. She wouldn’t cry. But her heart broke all the same, and she prayed that her arms would be strong enough to hold both of them together.
She wasn’t sure how long they lay there, clutching each other in the dark, but eventually his sobs subsided. By some miracle, she’d managed to force down her own tears, but she felt each of his rattling breaths swell against her chest, making every part of her ache with his sorrow. She swallowed down the lump in her throat.
“I’m so sorry, Hunter.” Her voice came out rough and low.
He didn’t answer. She counted the clicks of his pulse on her palm. One. Two. Three.
Then Hunter twisted around in her arms, till they were lying face to face.
The moonlight filtering in through the stained-glass windows left strange patterns on his skin, and the shadows cast his scars into deeper relief. She wasn’t used to his new face yet, and she almost wanted to look away, if only to keep her inner cracks from spiderwebbing further.
But Hunter held her gaze with his, and in the dark she could imagine that his eyes were still the same.
(They were the same, she told herself. A different color now, but still his. Still him.)
“Are you okay?” Hunter whispered.
She blinked. Was she okay? After everything he had been through, he wanted to know if she was okay?
She considered the question. Turned it over in her hands.
She thought of his head in her lap. His skin, cold and deathly pale. The way she shook him, wishing more than anything to see the brights of his eyes, but they didn’t open.
Hunter isn’t moving.
She willed away the seawater rising to her eyes and forced her lips into a smile.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Don’t worry about me.”
The crease between his eyebrows deepened. “Are you sure?”
An image of her dads bloomed in her mind, and she crumbled.
Willow withdrew her arms to wrap around herself, as if she could hold all her pieces in place if she were strong enough. But it didn’t matter how much she trained, how much she toiled, how much she tried—in the end, she could never weed out her old weaknesses. They were rooted deep inside her, wrapped around her ribs like stubborn vines. And as long as they were there, she’d fail. Over and over she would fail to protect the people she loved. Just like she failed her dads. Just like she failed Flapjack.
Just like she failed Hunter.
She realized she was crying now—sticky, salty tears streaming down her cheeks while she bit her trembling lip to keep the sobs from ripping through her teeth. Her throat burned, and Hunter’s form blurred before her, blending with shadows and nightmares and death.
No, she decided. She was not okay.
Hunter offered his arms. She didn’t want to admit how much she wanted them. But before she could say anything, he pulled her in, holding her close to his beating heart.
“Me neither,” he whispered.
Willow clung to him, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt. His arms tightened around her as she pressed her face into his chest and cried.
“I don’t—want to wake up Gus,” she choked.
“Should we go outside?”
At this, she nodded, and it took all her strength to wrench herself away from the reassuring thump of his heart. He stood first, stooping to help her up, and then they silently slipped out the front door.
It was a different kind of quiet outside—a quiet filled with rustling grass and creaking trees. In the open air, with the moon watching them high in the sky, Willow suddenly felt embarrassed that she was crying. She wiped her eyes roughly, as if she could hide it from him, as if she weren’t just sobbing into his chest a second ago, his t-shirt still soaked with her tears.
Hunter sank to the ground, knees bent, with his back resting against the rough stone of the house. She followed suit, keeping a careful distance between them this time, giving him space to talk.
But he didn’t. He just sat with his face lifted to the sky and let the moon kiss the scars on his face.
(His shoulder looked achingly bare. She tried not to think about it.)
“It’s beautiful,” he said at last, voice still thick from crying. “The human realm’s sky is beautiful too, but I kind of missed the stars. Our stars, you know?”
Willow followed his gaze. Without her glasses, every point of light was swallowed by the inky sky, but she stared upward anyway, picturing the constellations she’d learned about when she was a witchling. The Titan’s Eye. Orso Major. The Big Scooper.
“I used to study them,” Hunter went on. “I made a map of them to hang on my bedroom wall. I knew that magic came from nature and I thought, I don’t know, that they’d give me answers somehow. A cure for my uncle, maybe. A way for me to harness magic on my own. Just … a sign for what else I was supposed to do. Something.”
He bowed his head and sighed. “Honestly, I’m not exactly sure what I was looking for. I was just hoping, I guess. Hoping there was something out there for me. Something more than what I had.”
He fell silent, and Willow couldn’t help but think that even now, battered and broken, he still looked like that kid who stargazed out his window every night. She could picture him then, with fewer scars and shorter hair, leaning on the sill to listen to the stars. He’d always seemed so eager to learn. To see. Like he was on some kind of quest to understand the very fabric of the universe. Like he was collecting the pieces of one grand puzzle, binding them together bit by bit to see the picture that would finally tell him everything, so that every piece made sense.
It seemed so … hopeful. But a different kind of hope than the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed variety that Luz had come bounding to the Isles with. Hunter’s hope was fierce. It was a raging, wild thing, a fire that blazed through every downpour. Over the months she’d known him, it had softened into something more golden-bright and honeyed, but it had lost none of its strength.
His eyes turned on her. “Did—did you ever do that?”
“What, study the stars?”
“Yeah.”
“Nah,” Willow said. “I’ve always been more of a down-to-earth kind of girl. Like, literally, digging in the earth. Gardening.”
“Right. Of course.” He let out a strange little huff—an attempt at a laugh, maybe, that he didn’t have the strength for right now.
She wished she could tell him that she was a stargazer too. But Willow was not like Hunter, at least in that way. Hope had not, historically, been her strong suit. Before she met Luz, she’d been resigned to always being half a witch. She had decided just to make the most of it, to laugh it off when she could and keep the rest out of sight, out of mind. She taught herself to not be hungry, to be satisfied with smallness. She kept her eyes on the earth and her hands in the soil, if only to keep herself from looking up.
It wasn’t until Luz that she found courage to dream bigger. And it wasn’t until Hunter that she realized just how big her dreams could be.
She glanced over at him, with his face turned back toward the sky. Hope was Hunter’s superpower, she thought. A brand of magic that bled straight through his relentless veins. After everything he went through, he came out with stars in those magenta eyes of his, so hungry for a life he was never guaranteed to have.
It was brave of him to want things. It made her brave enough to want things too. (After all, plants were light seekers. They were born to look up toward the sun.)
Hunter pulled his knees up to his chest. “I don’t know why I told you that.”
“Hunter—”
“I miss Flapjack,” he said, and his voice sounded so bleedingly broken that something broke inside her own chest, like she could feel his wounds, bursting with fresh hurt.
“I know,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
His words came in a rasping rush now. “Sometimes when I woke up, he wouldn’t be there. He liked going out early to catch rattleworms and chase other birds and stuff. But he’d always come back.” He turned to her, eyes shining earnestly in the moonlight. “No matter what, he’d always find me.”
For a moment, she could see it, that signature Hunter hope—but it was twisted with grief, warped by fear, beaten to a shape she didn’t want to recognize. She could feel his desperation eating at her insides, and she almost couldn’t bear to look at him anymore. But before she could give up, he had bowed his head again and turned away.
“He’s not coming back this time,” Hunter whispered. “Oh, Titan, he’s not coming back.”
He buried his face in his knees with a small choking sound. This time, Willow didn’t hesitate to reach for him. Gently, she pulled his head against her shoulder, and he let himself curl into her side while his body shook with sobs.
Willow wrapped her trembling arms around him and looked up at the dark sky. Hot tears blurred her vision, and she was too tired now to pretend she wanted to do anything but cry. So she did.
She cried for her dads, who were Titan knows where, trapped by the Collector (or worse—but she refused to consider that). She cried for her home, stripped bare and silent. She cried for Flapjack, who wasn’t coming back. She cried for Hunter, the hopelessly hopeful boy with the sunshine smile, who’d lost everything once again.
(She cried for half-a-witch Willow, who couldn’t do anything to protect a single one of them.)
She shook her head, fingers gripping the fabric of his t-shirt. She couldn’t think like that. Especially when he needed her. That Hunter-brand hope was dangerously low in the embers now, and she wouldn’t just sit there and let it burn out.
“Listen,” she said, and her voice came out fiercer than she meant it to. “Hunter, listen.”
He lifted his head. The moonlight glinted on the tears that trailed down his scarred cheeks.
She took a steadying breath. “Flapjack—he loved you so much. He must’ve been waiting for hundreds of years for you. And then he chose to stay with you. Do you get it? After all that time he chose to stay with you. And then he gave himself to save you. The person he loved most in the whole world. Because—because you’re special, Hunter. And Flapjack knew that.”
For a moment, Hunter stared back at her with a look that made her ache. Then his expression darkened, brows flattening, and he tore his gaze away.
“Belos used to tell me that. But he was lying. The Titan never had big plans for me. I’m just a powerless witch. Not even a witch. I’m—I’m—”
He sucked in a breath, fingers clenching into fists.
A grimwalker? she wanted to ask, but she bit her tongue. He could talk about it when he was ready. Now was not the time. (Besides, whether he was a grimwalker or a witch or a human, he was Hunter, so it didn’t really matter to her anyway.)
She shifted to face him. “I don’t care what Belos used to tell you. You are special. Not because you were the Golden Guard. Not because you have powerful magic. Not because you’re useful to somebody. You’re special because … you’re you. I’ve just … I’ve never met someone like you, Hunter.”
He blinked, and all the sharp, grief-stricken edges of his face went soft, melting right before her eyes into a face she recognized. From lazy mornings in the clubhouse, sunlit hours in the garden, cozy nights in the basement under blankets and Camila’s twinkle lights. When he’d look at her, and she just knew.
It was hard to believe that just that morning they’d all eaten bowls of Captain Crispy at the kitchen table. Willow had glanced up from her cereal to catch Hunter staring at her, mouth slightly agape, his own spoon poised halfway to his mouth.
He used to look away, whenever she caught his eye, but he’d been getting bolder lately. So when she’d smiled around a mouthful of cereal, with cheeks bulging and milk dribbling down her chin, he’d smiled his golden smile right back. She could still remember how the flush of his cheeks somehow made his eyes seem even pinker. How she’d felt like a light spell had been cast inside her chest.
It was then that Flapjack chose to stick his beak in Hunter’s bowl, and the sound of his laugh made her wish she could carry it around in her pocket for a day when the whole world seemed too dark.
A day like today, in fact.
Willow swallowed. “I know you miss Flapjack,” she said softly. “So do I. But he’s gone because he saw that too. He knew you were special. You were worth protecting. And—and—”
He’d been laughing. He’d been happy. And now his eyes were dull and his shoulder was bare and his hair was long and his hands were far too still.
Guys, Hunter isn’t moving.
A sob broke in her throat, and then she couldn’t stop the tears from spilling out.
“Captain?” His hands found her shoulders. “Willow?”
She tucked her chin into her chest, trying to shake the fog from her head. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”
“No, you don’t have to—I’m here, okay? You can talk to me. You can—”
“You were dead, Hunter,” she choked. “We all watched you jump in, and then you didn’t come up, so Camila jumped in after you, and she pulled you up, and—and you weren’t moving, or breathing—you were just lying in my lap, and you were cold, and you were … dead.”
Hunter’s grip on her shoulders loosened. “But I’m fine now,” he said hoarsely.
Her head snapped up. “You’re not fine! How could you be fine?”
“I—”
She shook her head, sucking in a breath. 1, 2, 3, 4.
“You’re not fine,” she said. “But you’re alive. And that’s a start.”
Hunter’s hands slipped from her shoulders to anchor at her elbows. “You’re not fine, either.”
She chose to ignore that, wiping her tears with the heel of her hand. “Look, I … I know it’s not the same thing, but I know what it’s like to lose someone you really care about. I mean, I don’t even know if my dads are alive right now.”
“Willow—”
“And even if it was only for a few minutes, I lost you too. I’m just lucky because you’re here now. Flapjack made sure of it. He sacrificed himself for you, and I’m devastated, but I’m grateful. Because even if you’re not fine right now”—she swallowed—“I’m so glad you’re alive, Hunter. I’m so, so glad that you’re alive.”
His face was scarred and soft and still. Then the corners of his mouth turned up, just a little. Not a smile—but a start.
“Me too,” he said.
Wordlessly, they settled back against the house, bone tired but too full of ache to sleep. Willow let her head fall against his shoulder, and together they stared up, once again, at the stars she couldn’t see.
“You know,” Hunter said finally, “I read about how in the Savage Ages, witches used to wish on stars.”
A tiny jolt ran through her. Another recognition of the Hunter she had known that day at breakfast. She’d quickly learned that “I read about” was one of his favorite sentence starters. During those months in the human realm, he must’ve read dozens of books, fascinated by their strange new world. Sometimes he told her about the things he’d discovered. His eyes lit up and his hands came to life while the words spilled out of his mouth, eager and unrestrained. He told her about steam trains and mummies and the Bermuda Triangle. She didn’t quite understand everything he said, but she’d hung on every word. Inevitably, he’d ramble himself into a corner and slam the brakes full stop, babbling an apology for talking too much. And even when she told him to go on, he’d blush and say he knew he must be boring her. (He could never bore her.)
But sometimes he forgot to be embarrassed. And it was those times when Willow felt the full power of the sun.
“Captain, look!” he’d said one day. “Did you know the human realm has carnivorous plants too? This Venus fly trap looks a lot like your razor plant! Except, it’s way smaller and moves really slow and doesn’t get moody and vengeful if you say its spikes look dull. But still. Cool, right?”
“Really cool!” she’d said.
Then he beamed at her, and she was sunstruck.
(The human realm was just like Hunter, she decided. No magic, but full of something else just like it. Something bold and bright and beautiful.)
Willow lifted her head from his shoulder. “Really? What does that even mean, to wish on a star?”
“I guess it means you just look at the stars and tell them what you want.”
“Oh. Huh.”
“It’s stupid, right? Stars are nothing but balls of fire burning a million miles away, and wishing won’t do anything.” He paused. “But … but sometimes I still did. Some nights when I felt extra lost, I’d wish on a star.”
“What did you wish for?” Willow asked.
He closed his eyes. “I wished for a future that I’d get to choose myself.” Another pause. “I think … in some way … I was wishing for you.”
Willow blinked. “Me?”
Even in the dark, she could see his blush. “I mean—all of you. Gus. Luz. Camila. Everyone. But … yeah. You. Captain Willow Park.” He smiled, and this time, it was real—timid and tired and blue at the edges, but real, with sunshine peeking out from underneath.
Willow blinked again, dazzled by the glimmer. “So … I—we—are the future you would choose?”
“Of course. I can’t imagine my future without you.” He glanced her way, cheeks blooming in the bluish light. “Any of you.”
“Me neither,” she said softly.
He clasped his hands over his knees. “Do you, um, remember the day we met?”
She didn’t know she was even capable of laughter today, but somehow it bubbled out of her anyway. “Of course I do. Did you think I’d forget? You made it pretty memorable.”
“Right. Right. That was a stupid question.” He breathed out something that wasn’t quite a laugh (but a start). “I guess I just don’t know exactly how you remember it. Because for me, it was like … I don’t know. The beginning of everything, somehow.”
Willow tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
He fiddled with the ends of the yellow sleeves still tied around his waist. “I mean, I’d already met Luz, and that was … weird. I didn’t know how to feel about it. It was humiliating for her to see me without my mask, without my staff—to be half a witch in front of this human, of all people. I kind of hated her, honestly. She was so … annoying.”
Willow chuckled again. Luz had told her about her first run-in with the “bad but sad” Golden Guard. She could picture Hunter’s grumpy little pout.
“But at the same time,” he went on, “she saw me the way no one ever had. The way no one ever tried. And somehow, I kind of saw her too. I wanted to keep hating her, but I couldn’t help wanting more of that … connection. I didn’t know if we could be friends. I didn’t even know if I wanted to be her friend. But I wanted … something. Something that she had.”
“A choice,” Willow said. “For her own future.”
Hunter nodded. “And then I came to Hexside, and we played flyer derby, and being there with you and Gus and Flapjack … it made me feel so … free.”
He closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the wall. “It was the first time I can remember that I actually wanted to be … just … Hunter. Not the Golden Guard. And not Caleb Jasper Bloodwilliams, either. Just … me. It’s like I got a taste of what the future could be like, if I had a choice about it. And from the moment I met you and Gus, I … I wanted my life to be different. Just so you could be in it.”
She stared at his profile, lined in moonlight, and remembered a sunnier day when his hair was short and his smile was bright. She’d had some very complicated feelings at the time, but she looked back at it all with fondness. Hunter came into her life like the Wailing Star—clear and loud and dazzling (and kind of whiny, to be honest). He streaked across her sky in more ways than one, leaving a trail of brilliant chaos in his wake. And he was gone just as quickly, sinking over the horizon where she might never see him again.
She didn’t know that day at Hexside how this boy would quickly fill up every corner of her life, until the very thought of his absence made her edges crack with sorrow. But even then, she missed him, as soon as he was gone. And she hoped that she would see him once again—even if she had to wait fifty-two weeks for it.
Willow had never wished on a star, wailing or not, but maybe even on that first day she somehow knew about his wish. She felt it in her chest when she glanced back to watch him leave—a fervent hope that this wasn’t goodbye forever. A stubborn faith that they could be friends anyway, in spite of everything.
“I’m really glad you ended up on our team,” Willow said. “And I’m not just talking about the Entrails. I’m glad you’re one of us now. That we could stick together, through everything that’s happened.”
“Me too,” he said. “I had a lot of fun with you guys at Camila’s.”
“Same. We made a lot of good memories, didn’t we?”
“Yeah. We did.” He pinched at the fabric that bunched at his knees. “I know it’s probably selfish, but I think a little part of me wished that we could stay. So I could keep having somewhere to belong. So I could keep feeling like me. I thought I had finally figured out what that even means, to be ‘just Hunter.’ It—it meant that I liked sewing, and wolves, and Cosmic Frontier, and those little juice pouches Camila used to buy us. It meant that I had friends, for the first time in my life—it meant I had a family. It meant I had a future doing things I love, full of people I love. And now …”
He closed his eyes again and sighed. “Now Belos is back, and Flapjack is gone, and I don’t know what being Hunter means anymore.”
But Willow knew.
Being Hunter meant being impossibly gentle, in a world that was so un-gentle to him.
Being Hunter meant being hungry—for knowledge, for answers, for opportunities. For a future he was determined to build, piece by piece, with every broken shard of light he could find.
Being Hunter meant consuming books like oxygen. Laughing at the worst jokes. Getting flustered easily. Talking too loud when he was excited. Gesturing freely with his glove-free, happy-scarred hands.
It meant being loyal. Compassionate. Intelligent. Curious. Strong. Brave. Kind.
It meant wishing on stars, even if he wasn’t sure they’d hear him.
Being Hunter meant shining like the sun, the brightest thing in the two realms.
“Hey.” She placed a hand gently on his arm. “That’s still you. You’re still that Hunter.”
He looked down. “It doesn’t feel like that.”
“It will. You’ll feel like yourself again. I promise,” she said fervently. “And I’m gonna be here with you until you do, okay? And after that too. I’m not going anywhere.”
He offered a small smile—a glimmer in the dark. “Thanks, Willow. That means a lot.”
“I’m serious. You’re gonna get that future you wished for. That was Flapjack’s gift. To be here, alive, so you can choose whoever you’re gonna be.”
His eyes found the ground again. “But to get that future, I have to kill Belos first. I know I have to do it. I—I want to. I need to. To make sure he doesn't hurt anyone again. But … I don't know how I'm supposed to do that without Flapjack. I mean, not just because I won’t have a staff, but just …” He bit his lip, voice trembling. “How can I do something so scary without him?”
“Do you think you can do something scary with me?” she asked.
“I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Hunter, we’re not gonna let you do this alone. We'll all be with you. We're gonna do this together. For the future, okay? The one that you told the stars about.” She paused. “I think they were listening.”
He stared at her, and she watched his face melt once again. Watched his magic hope ignite behind his eyes.
“I think so too,” he said.
Willow had never cared much for the idea of fate. She didn’t understand oracle magic. She didn’t like it. What was destiny except the result of the seeds she planted herself? She had to believe that the future was hers to decide, and that whatever mystical forces were out there had nothing on the strength of her own two hands.
But it was nice to think, for Hunter’s sake, that the stars were on their side this time. That maybe they always had been.
After all, if the stars were going to listen to anyone, wouldn’t they listen to the sun?
Hunter’s hand rested on the ground at his side. She placed her own on top of it, offering a reassuring squeeze. Then she settled back against his shoulder, and they both lifted their faces to the sky once more.
Did star wishes still count if you couldn’t actually see the stars? She decided to try, just in case.
I want my dads to be safe, she told the stars silently. I want the Isles to be restored. I want us all to be okay.
Underneath her own, Hunter’s hand was bleeding warmth into her palm.
And I want Hunter’s wish to come true. I want him to choose the future he wants. I want him to be happy.
His thumb brushed against her fingertips, soft and hesitant.
(It would be so easy to flip it over. To press their hands together, palm to palm; to bury her fingers in the spaces between his.)
I want … I want …
“Willow?”
She wrenched herself out of her reverie. “Hmm?”
“Thank you,” Hunter said. “For always being there for me. Especially now.”
“Of course. I’ll always be here for you.”
“I hope you know it goes both ways,” he said earnestly. “I’ll always be here for you too. You don’t have to hold it in all the time. We can—we can carry it together, okay?”
All the usual excuses rolled to the tip of her tongue. (”I’m fine!” “It’s nothing I can’t manage.” “You don’t have to worry about me.”) But something in his expression made her swallow them back down again.
“Okay,” she said instead.
“We’re gonna find your dads. I promise,” Hunter said. “We’ll—we’ll take down Belos. And the Collector. Everything will be okay.”
It was back. His hope. She squeezed his hand as if she could grasp the hope itself and hold it tightly in her fist for safekeeping.
“Including you,” she said.
“Huh?”
“You have to be okay too. You have to promise me you won’t do it again.”
“Do what?”
She looked him dead in the eye. “You knew—when you threw the blood into the lake, you knew you he was gonna kill you for it. Didn’t you? You knew you weren’t gonna make it. But you did it anyway. Because you wanted to protect us.”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
“You have to promise me, Hunter,” she pressed. “Promise you’ll be a little selfish this time. Promise that if you have to choose between stopping Belos and being alive, you’ll choose to be alive. For Flapjack. For the future. For … for me.”
She’d been off to a strong start, but she ruined it at the end with a tremor in her voice. Hunter stared straight back at her, searching her face, and nodded.
“I promise,” he said.
Before she could say anything else, he wrapped her in a hug, tight and warm. His arms felt strong around her, and his heartbeat in her ear felt like a promise of its own. Willow tucked her head into his shoulder and let out a slow, heavy exhale, like she’d been holding her breath for years without realizing, like she’d hit the ground running and finally stopped to rest.
“Hunter,” she said, but she didn’t actually know what she was going to say. She pulled back to look into his face (soft, scarred, sunlit) and something swelled inside her chest—a half-asleep seed that quietly burst into bloom.
What could she say that she hadn’t already?
You smile like the sun, Hunter.
You make me brave, Hunter.
You’re my wish too, Hunter.
The way he looked at her made heat crawl up her neck, and she almost wondered whether he could read her mind. He could see her—that was certain. He could see right through her ribcage to her beating, blooming heart.
“Willow,” he said simply, and in his face she caught an echo of the blossom in her chest.
Beside them, the Owl House door creaked open. They both flinched toward the sound.
“Willow? Hunter?” came Gus’s groggy voice. “What are you doing out here?”
Willow’s heart was still fluttering. She fervently hoped Gus couldn’t see her blush in the dark.
“Couldn’t sleep,” she said.
Gus shuffled over, letting out a huge yawn. “Guess that’s not surprising.”
“Gus, you’re exhausted,” Hunter said. “Why did you get up?”
“I just … didn’t wanna be away from you guys. After everything that happened tonight.”
All three of them fell silent.
“Are you okay?” Gus asked Hunter.
“I—I think so,” Hunter said. “I will be.”
Gus nodded. “We’re all here for you. You know that, right?”
“I know. Thanks.”
Willow got to her feet, brushing the dirt from her tights. “We should all get back to bed. I’m sure we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”
“Right.” Hunter stood too, and they both followed Gus into the house.
They lay back down on the living room floor, Willow in the middle again. But this time, Gus scooted closer, pressed against her side.
“I’m cold,” he said. “Plus, this way I’ll know if you guys try to abandon me again.”
“We didn’t abandon you,” Hunter said. “We were, like, ten feet away.”
“Ten feet of abandonment. Now hush. I need my beauty sleep.”
Hunter didn’t argue this time. He pulled the blankets over both of them and then settled back onto his pillow, staring up at the ceiling.
She snuck a glance at him. The moonlight coming through the window caught on the edge of his nose, the tips of his hair. She didn’t have her camera anymore, but she snapped a mental photo.
He must have sensed her staring, because he turned his head to look at her. Then he smiled, and finally she saw a semblance of the sun—bold, bright, beautiful.
“Good night, Captain,” he said softly.
Willow blinked (dazzled). “G-good night, Hunter.”
“Good night, Gus,” Gus said loudly.
Hunter jolted. “I thought you were asleep already.”
“Dude, it’s been literally eighteen seconds.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry. Night, Gus.”
“Yeah, yeah. Night.”
Willow gazed up at the rafters again. The house was just as dark as before, but the shadows had softened somehow, all their jagged nightmare teeth sanded down to cloudy edges.
She adjusted herself against her pillow, and underneath the blankets, her hand brushed Hunter’s accidentally.
She froze. Neither of them moved. The edges of their hands stayed pressed together.
Slowly, Hunter slid his hand over hers.
Her skin tingled at his touch. She waited for the space of a few heartbeats. Then she turned her hand over, threading her fingers through his.
Beside her, Hunter sucked in a tiny breath, soft and sharp. He squeezed her hand in answer, and she could feel his scars again, all those cuts and callouses from the human realm. His “just Hunter” scars, in glorious display against her palm.
A hazy warmth settled over her. Willow let her eyes slip closed, and this time, she wasn’t afraid to sleep.
With the sun at her side and the stars overhead, she knew they’d be just fine.