Luz sighed and took a step back, looking at her work.
"You think we got it?" She asked Amity.
"We've been working on this for nearly seven months now. We can't exactly afford this not working." Amity chuckled sadly.
It'd been 27 weeks since Luz, Amity, Willow, Gus, and Hunter arrived back in the human realm. 27 weeks of nearly nonstop work at trying to make a new portal.
Thankfully Camila had been fairly understanding of the 4 children that her daughter befriended wanting to go home, so that was a good cover for Luz caring so much.
Luz hadn't been able to tell her mom that she wants to go back to the isles and fight yet. She was so happy she'd returned. How could she crush her?
"You want to head back?" Amity asked, snapping Luz out of her deep thought.
"Oh, uh, yeah. Mom is probably done with making lunch by now."
The two walked away from the old house they'd been using as a workshop. As it's the place the door always led to, it seemed like their best bet.
As they left the woods, Amity pulled on the hat she'd been using to cover her pointed ears. The two walked along the sidewalk then up to the house. When they opened the door, they were greeted by a bit of controlled chaos.
Willow was helping Hunter carry a bunch of markers and poster paper, Gus was fiddling with his magnifying glass, Vee was trying to figure out where she left her Hexes Holdem' cards, and Camila was rushing around giving everyone snacks and water.
Willow was the first person to notice them.
"Oh! You're back! How is the door coming along? We've all been working pretty hard at preparing to go back while you've been gone. Better over prepared than under prepared, am I right?"
"Yeah, we're actually coming along great." Luz explained, "Amity and I think all we need is some Titan's blood then we can go home."
At that last statement, everyone froze before erupting into joy and celebration.
"We're seriously almost ready?"
"This is incredible!"
"I can't believe we're so close."
As Luz looked over everyone smiling, she noticed her mom had a bit of a saddened expression.
"What I mean by 'We can all go home' is, like, all the people who call the Isles home can go home. I'm not saying the Isles is my home." Luz recovered.
Camila still looked unsure then went back to the kitchen.
How am I supposed to tell her? Luz thought She needs to know I'm going back. But I promised her I'd stay! But...the Boiling Isles need me more.
As Amity went over to help Hunter and Willow diagram the plan for fighting the Collector, Luz walked upstairs to her room.
She sat down at her desk and stared at her notebook. The past few days she'd been drawing nothing but her friends from the isles. King, Eda, Raine, the CATs, etc.
With a sigh, Luz doodled a small light glyph in the corner of the most recent page.
I should get some paper so I'll have glyphs ready.
Absent-mindedly, Luz tapped the glyph and, somehow, it flickered and began to crumple before going back to just being a normal page.
"Did...did that glyph almost work?" Luz whispered, "Did I almost use magic here? It didn't disintegrate like when I used a glyph here when I fought Lilith."
What the hell just happened?