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The sun hung in the sky like an executioner's axe, glimmering against a cloudless sky. Amity sat on the pier, staring off into the bubbling horizon of the boiling sea, and let the heat steaming off the water beneath warm her to the bone. She couldn’t sit there for long—“You’ll become a sweet little dumpling,” Darius had warned jokingly as he dropped her off. “More than you already are, that is.”—but feeling the sea’s heat comforted her in a way she desperately needed.
Everything was changing so fast. The days since Luz’s arrival in the Isles had been full of change and growth and transformation, but somehow, nothing was as jarring as Luz returning home to the human realm.
The human realm didn’t appreciate her, Amity knew, and Luz appreciated it even less, but a part of her still hoped that Luz would find happiness at school. Even if Amity would rather give Luz that happiness herself, she’s finally accepting that Luz is going to be gone. And Luz shouldn’t be sad just because Amity will be. She should have fun and enjoy school as much as she can. Maybe Vee could introduce her to the friends the basilisk had made in secret; after all, they had responded so well to Vee coming out as a magical being. Luz will have people who understand—people in her school, in her immediate life, not just the group chat she’d joined for human survivors of supernatural and magical occurances. Most of those people were older than Luz, like the Pines twins she called sometimes. Even the one she’d gotten closest to, a girl named Marcy, was older by a year or two. Amity was so glad that Luz had people she could talk to, but she wanted her girlfriend to have people in her immediate vicinity as well. Friends she could go to in person, friends she could ask for help from in person… No matter what, Luz should never be lonely.
Amity took a deep breath. The scent of sweet rot and hot salt was comforting. It didn’t stop her racing mind, but it calmed it. It didn’t heal her broken heart, but it stopped it from getting stuck in her throat again.
Luz would soon be in the human realm, in human school, surrounded by human friends. And Amity was happy for her as much as she was sad and angry and lonely and miserable.
Amity didn’t really have friends, either. She and Willow weren’t talking again after a fight that Amity regrets intensely but doesn’t know how to fix. Augustus is trying not to take sides, but is taking Willow’s in the process. She has Hunter now, who is miraculously standing by her, but they aren’t the kind of friends who confide in each other. Skara had turned over a new leaf, but they were building a friendship over the remains of something inherently broken, something Boscha had built and Amity had been happy to extort… So many regrets and no Luz Noceda to help her resolve them.
It was a bad time to be friendless. Truthfully, in the midst of her parents’ divorce, her father’s sudden remarrying, and her girlfriend moving back to a different planet, Amity was feeling lonely.
All Amity had ever truly wanted from life was a friend. She’d found that in Luz—someone who she didn’t have to perform for, someone who, despite their differences, despite their hardships, seemed to come so easily to her. It was so natural to be Luz’s friend. Even when it was hard, even when she was unpracticed or mean, Luz just made sense. Even when she didn’t, she made sense.
Amity was going to miss every facet of their relationship. The kisses, sure, but the laughter too, and the quiet talks, and the banter, and the goofing around, and the serious stuff that neither of them was very good at. Just being alive with Luz was enough. It was wonderful.
She has the “tamagotchi”, even if it’s mostly good for sending emojis and quick texts. Even if it’s barely better than a tin can and a string, she can still contact Luz with it so long as the portal door is open. And Luz promised—swore—to visit whenever she could. As soon as she was done with Saturday school, she said, and as long as her mother doesn’t force her to go to church every Sunday, she’ll be in the Boiling Isles every weekend. Although, Amity had overheard Vee convincing Luz to join the school softball team. Amity remembered how much of her time had been swallowed up by grudgby, back when she played. There wouldn’t have been time for her to spend weekends with a friend, let alone a needy girlfriend like Amity Blight.
Amity held her knees to her chest and watched a wicked wave roll into itself and become one again with the sea. Her mother moved to a different titan. Edric wasn’t taking it well.
Amity wondered how difficult it would be for her to have a human cellphone.
Truthfully, even beyond her loneliness, she was terrified. She didn't totally understand the human realm, but she knew the bigotry there was different than the Boiling Isles. Here, at home, it was simply: strength was rewarded and weakness was punished. The social rules of who was weak and who was strong were more complicated, but there wasn’t anything like what the human realm did. And Amity was terrified.
Amity wouldn’t be there to protect her. And it hurt. It hurt like fire up her spine and needles in her gums. It hurt like watching Luz disappear into sparks of golden light again, again, again, every night in her worst of dreams.
Amity laid back against the wooden pier, feeling the thrum of the magic that protected it from the heat, feeling the wicked steam that burned her skin through her clothes, and closed her eyes.
Everything was changing so fast. Despite her magic, despite her ability to fight, despite saving the entire titan and then some, Amity felt powerless to stop it.