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The thing about a house with seven people in it is that it's rarely ever quiet. Mostly, Luz likes that. Quiet gives her too much time to stew in her own thoughts. And it's nice, to have people around, even if she's always feeling guilty about the reasons they're all here. It's nice not to just be alone with her mom, as much as she loves her.
Sometimes, though, she loves the quiet moments, as long as there's someone there to share them. Like right now, when she's sitting next to Amity, both of them drawing, not talking, just existing together.
She hasn't drawn for fun as much recently, and she relaxes into it, the movement of her pencil across the paper, the familiar shapes of Hecate and Azura and a fictional world so much simpler (despite the flowery prose) than her own life's become.
She reaches for the green pencil to shade Azura's hair, and Amity reaches for it at the same moment, their hands bumping together. Amity laughs, draws back and gestures for Luz to take the pencil first. Luz smiles at her and thinks nothing of it.
A few minutes later, both of them done with the green, Luz reaches for purple, and she's only just started colouring when Amity asks if she can have it when Luz is done. Luz nods and speeds up her shading to hand it to her, then notices Amity pick up the dark orange she needs to use next.
This happens at least three more times, and finally, Luz asks, “What are you drawing?”
Amity blushes and covers her paper with one arm. “Um. A picture.”
“Let me see!”
Amity bats her hand away playfully, looking embarrassed, but Luz manages to snag the paper out from under her arm.
It's Hecate and Azura, from the special edition cover for book four. Exactly what Luz has been drawing.
Luz laughs. “You stole my idea.”
“Did not,” Amity mumbles. “Great minds... think a fright, or whatever your human saying is.”
“Alike,” Luz says. “But no. I definitely told you what I was drawing.”
Amity blushes redder. “Fine. Yes. You maybe... inspired me a little.”
“Copycat,” Luz teases, playfully poking Amity's shoulder.
Amity blanches. “Copycat?” she says loudly, scrambling to her feet. “Where?!”
“No, I–” Luz begins, but then Willow bursts in, wielding vines.
“There's a copycat?”
“Get the others!” Amity says urgently, calling for Ghost.
Willow doesn't leave, which might've allowed Luz to calmly explain to Amity what she meant, as opposed to whatever Boiling Isles weirdness 'copycat' must also mean. Instead, she just yells Hunter and Gus's names, loud enough that Amity covers her ears.
There's a thundering of feet on the stairs, followed by a panicked exchange of words involving 'copycat', 'hunt it down', 'acid sac' and other equally worrying pronouncements.
Luz tries to interrupt. She really does.
“Amity, it doesn't–”
“Secure the house!” Willow says loudly.
“Guys, no–”
“It's not getting through us,” Guz proclaims, assuming what he probably thinks is a menacing expression.
“There's nothing to–”
“Someone get Vee!” Hunter adds. “A basilisk can fight it, right?”
“It's just a–”
“I'll get her!” Amity says.
The four of them scatter from the room, talking over the top of each other about assembling defences.
Bewildered, Luz follows them. In the living room, Gus and Hunter are making a barricade by pushing furniture together, Amity is frantically stabbing at the buttons on the phone because apparently Vee and Camila are out somewhere and “we have to warn them!”, and Willow has grown a couple of houseplants into a threatening looking array of spiked greenery.
For a moment, Luz just blinks at the chaos, torn between laughter and shock. Then Willow's plants veer dangerously close to knocking over a precious vase from her abuela, and Hunter knocks a chair into a lamp and sends it crashing to the ground, and Luz realises that if she doesn't say something, they might actually destroy her mama's house. All in the spirit of keeping everyone safe, but she has a feeling that won't make much of a difference.
“Hey!” she calls.
Amity's head snaps up from where she's staring at the phone in frustrated confusion. “Luz! Do you see it? Is it here?”
“There's no it,” Luz says hurriedly, before they can all start talking over each other again. “This is... it's another human thing. Like how rain doesn't boil, and 'bookworm' is a cute name for nerds? A copycat isn't a monster. It's just a nickname for someone who copies someone else.”
The four of them all freeze, and then Amity slowly puts down the phone, shutting off the very confused voice on the other end saying, “Hello? Hello? Did you want to order pizza?”
Willow sheepishly shrinks the plants back down to their normal size. Hunter goes to pick up the lamp. Gus stands nonchalantly against the back of the sofa, like it's totally supposed to be blocking the doorway and piled up with towers of books.
“So a copycat here is like... Vee?” Amity asks.
Luz frowns. “Vee?” Then she realises. “Oh. No. Not someone who copies someone's appearance. I mean, I guess they could, but not like a shapeshifter. Just... if you copy someone's action exactly, or like... steal their idea. Or keep wearing the exact same outfit as them.”
Silence. Then Willow says, “In the Boiling Isles, a Copycat is a ten-foot-long catlike monster with an acid sac, which creates physical copies of its victims so no one realises they're gone until it's too late.”
Luz nods slowly. “Somehow, that makes total sense.”
“But for you... I'm the copycat?” Amity asks. Her face is the colour of a tomato. She's breathing hard from sprinting around the house on a totally unnecessary mission. She's ridiculous. Luz loves her so much.
Luz grins. “Just today, sweet potato. 'Cause you stole my drawing.”
Amity frowns, thinks about it, then grins back, a glint in her eyes. “But you stole the nickname 'sweet potato.”
She extends a finger, pointing at Luz with full drama, like she's accusing her of being the suspect they've been hunting for all along. “Copycat!”
Luz laughs, spreading her hands because technically, Amity's right, and the fact that this is a playground insult and not a word of great power isn't really important right now.
“Some people say imitation is the highest form of flattery,” she offers, with a shrug.
“Those people,” Gus says, with an air of dire warning, “have never met the Copycat.”
Luz finds herself laughing again, and her friends join in, and they all keep pointing at each other and saying the word 'copycat' over and over like it's the funniest thing in the world. There are real monsters waiting, but right now, let them wait. Luz is holding onto this bright spot for as long as she can.