When Amity and her siblings got home that night, her parents weren't there, so she was able to go quietly to her room and relax. As soon as she sat down on her bed exhaustion swamped her, and her eyelids began to droop. She put her Grom crown on her nightstand and placed her scroll next to it. She was just about to lean back and shut her eyes for just a moment when her scroll lit up with a notification. It was Luz. (Amity was still surprised that scroll numbers even worked in human cell phones.)
HEY AMITY!!! JUST WANTED TO LET U KNOW THAT I HAD AN AMAZING TIME TONIGHT AND I LOVED DANCING WITH YOU WAS JUST GDUYUHSFVEGWYUGQY!!!!!<3333333 ALSO I WAS RIGHT ABOUT YOU LOOKING STUNNING IN A SUIT LOLL
(Luz tended to, more often than not, display her excitement very clearly in her texts.)
You have quite a way with words, Amity replied. But it's okay. I feel the same way. Dancing with you was seriously awesome. :) And you were absolutely beautiful too!
Luz sent back a few more exclamation points. Then her three little bubbles popped up again, and another text came through.
BY THE WAY!!!!! I HAVE GOOD NEWS!!! BUMP PULLED ME ASIDE AFTER YOU LEFT AND TOLD ME THAT I WAS ADMITTED TO HEXSIDE WHOOOO!!! AND HES LETTING ME START ON MONDAY!
Amity let out a breath of relief. Sure, maybe this was a bit anticlimactic, but at least it had happened. Congratulations! I'm so glad!<3 she texted.
I GUESS HEARING GROM CONFESS ABT THE FIRE WAS ENOUGH!!
Thank goodness.
ALSO ARE U GOING ON THE FIELD TRIP TUESDAY? IT LOOKS SUPER FUNNNNN AND IM ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO GO
The field trip. Amity's heart skipped a beat. The trip to the Emperor's Castle. The trip that had marked the beginning of the end. The trip that was part of the reason Amity was where- or when- she was.
I'm not sure... I'll get back to you later.
TONIGHT??
I hope so. But my parents aren't home and I need to ask them to fill out the permission slip. Now that she thought about it, Amity knew exactly where the permission slip was- tucked away in the back of the history textbook she hadn't yet opened this semester. As soon as she'd received it from her teacher, she put it away where she wouldn't have to deal with it. But she'd forgotten that Luz would have no idea about the trip's disastrous outcome, and that her sometimes fatally curious girlfriend would probably want to go herself. Amity had been signed up for the field trip last time, but... she'd been hurt. Since Boscha had been relatively quiet all week- save for her forlorn staring at Willow during class- she'd figured that this time around, there wouldn't be a Grudgby game to get hurt in.
WELL LMK WHAT THEY SAY
Sure thing. I've gotta go to bed now. I'm tired. Amity wasn't actually tired- in fact, she felt more awake now than she had a few minutes ago- but now the issue of the field trip weighed heavy in her mind.
GNIGHT AMITY!!! <3333
Amity put a heart over the message and laid her scroll facedown on her bedside table. Then she flopped onto her back and pulled a pillow over her face. She was consciously aware that she was still lying in her itchy green suit, and that she could probably change, but for now, she just wanted to lay down and contemplate things.
Like how in the universe she had forgotten that the field trip to the Emperor's Palace was coming up in three days.
Three days.
She should be able to solve this problem easily. She should be able to warn Luz to not go on this field trip, to keep herself and Eda safe and as far away from Lilith and the Emperor as possible. But Luz couldn't know what Amity was doing. She couldn't know what Amity knew.
Three sharp raps sounded on Amity's door. She bit back a groan. Only one person in her family knocked like that, with a quiet, controlled urgency, like they wanted to knock down the door but their constant need for professionalism was keeping them from actually doing it.
"Come in," Amity called. She knew had no choice but to invite them inside.
The door creaked open and the light turned on. Alador Blight poked his face into the room, his dark eyes finding his daughter immediately. Amity could see the silhouette of her mother, Odailia, hovering behind him. She bit her lip anxiously. Both her parents in one place never meant anything good.
She recalled her confrontation with Grom- barely an hour ago- and the image it had shown her of her parents learning about Luz. Surely that wasn't why her parents were here. How would they have found out about Luz, anyway? Em and Ed would never have ratted her out.
"Good evening, Amity," Alador said, his voice low and rumbling in his chest. "I trust you had a pleasant time at Grom?"
Useless small talk. Another bad sign. "It was fine."
"Emira and Edric told me you were chosen as Grom Queen."
"Yeah, I was. It was tough, but I defeated Grom." She pointed to the tiara on her dresser as if she thought her parents wouldn't believe her. "My crown's over there."
Alador nodded. "That's very good," he said quietly, as if he were talking to himself. Then he went on, louder: "Do you mind if your mother and I come in for a moment?"
There it was. Something had definitely happened. Something that the Blight parents were none too happy about. Amity hoped that it was something as simple as a C she'd gotten on an assignment, but she knew that everything she'd turned in over the past two weeks had passed with flying colors.
"I was just about to go to bed-" Amity said lamely.
Alador's eyes narrowed.
"Okay, come in. But I'm-" she stretched her mouth wide in an exaggerated yawn- "really tired. Fighting Grom just does that to you, you know?"
Her father said nothing. He stepped inside, the top of his head nearly brushing the doorframe, and sat himself down on Amity's bed. The whole thing reminded her of the time two months ago when she'd told her siblings about the time spell. She wasn't sure if they'd ever actually believed her.
Odalia followed Alador inside and sat down in the chair at Amity's desk. She looked calm and contemplative- alarmingly so. Amity's mother had never been much of a talker. She tended to leave that up to her husband- she preferred to control her children from afar.
"Oh, by the way," Amity rambled, "there's a field trip on Tuesday to the Emperor's Castle and I'd really like to go. I have the permission slip that you can sign-"
"That's quite enough, Amity." Alador raised his hand to silence her. "We know about the trip. Boscha's mother was telling your mother all about it when she was on the phone with her."
Odalia nodded in confirmation.
"Which leads us into what we want to talk to you about," Alador went on.
Amity blinked in surprise. "Boscha?"
"I suppose you could frame it that way. Boscha sent a message to her mother tonight during the dance, saying that she had not seen you anywhere, least of all with her."
Amity shrugged. Her heart rate increased, and she tried her best not to look nervous. "Well, yeah, she wouldn't have. I was getting ready for the fight."
"She didn't see you even after the fight ended."
"So?" Amity couldn't help but feel a bit defensive, though she knew that standing up for herself would only anger her parents more quickly. "I never promised I'd go to Grom with her. I'm allowed to hang out with other people."
A brief flash of surprise crossed Alador's face, and she knew instantly that she'd said too much. "Other people?"
"Yeah, like... um..."
"Like the human girl you kissed?"
The world screeched to a halt.
"Boscha saw everything, Amity. You can't keep secrets from us."
She was right. What she said at the Conjuring, about never covering for me again. It wasn't an empty threat. And to think that Willow's rejection had humbled her.
"That didn't happen," she breathed. Her head spun. "I- I've never kissed anyone in my life."
"Amity." Alador's voice was beginning to verge on a dangerous growl. "You know that the Blights-"
"Only associate with the best, I know, you've been drilling it into my head every day since before I even started elementary school."
"Amity! " Alador roared.
The sheer volume of her father's yell caught Amity off guard and she flinched. Alador sat up straight on her bed, jaws clenched. He glared at her with a ferocious, terrifying gaze, and she shrunk back, clutching a pillow to her chest for some semblance of protection. She hated that she could only cower away from him.
"You've disobeyed one of the most important principles of the family by forming a... relationship with this human girl. It's simply inexcusable. If anyone from the Emperor's Coven sees you with the human, you will surely never earn your spot. Losing Lilith as a mentor was bad enough-" Amity's father began to rant, throwing frantic glances around the room and waving his hands.
"I don't want to be a part of the Emperor's Coven," Amity interrupted.
Alador's cold eyes swiveled back to her. "What did you say?"
"I mean, it's not my fault you weren't at the witches' duel back in June. You don't know what the Coven's capable of. I bet that Lilith never even told you exactly what happened, just that she'd decided to stop mentoring me. She wanted me to cheat. She wanted me to cheat in a duel against a human who couldn't even do magic." She decided to leave out the detail that Luz was already becoming a very proficient witch by then.
"So? Let the human get what was coming to her. If you want power, you have to make sacrifices."
"I don't want that kind of power. Not anymore."
Odalia cleared her throat. "Alador, dear," she said levelly, her tone insufferably pretentious. "You're straying from the subject."
"Look," Amity said, "if you want me to consider the Emperor's Coven again, you'll have to let me go on this field trip. We're going to the castle, for stars' sake. If anything will convince me to go back to my old ambitions, it's seeing how the Coven works up close and personal."
"Will the human be going on this trip?" Alador asked.
Unfortunately. "Yes, my girlfriend Luz is signed up to go."
Odalia gasped and Alador's scowl deepened. "Girlfriend!" groaned Odalia. "I knew I would hear you say those words eventually, but never about a human! Titan help you!"
Amity found herself laughing despite the tightness of fear in her lungs. "I'm beyond the Titan's help, Mom."
"The human should be put back where she came from. The only use humans have is for studying and I believe that even those who study humans have bones for brains," Alador muttered.
"The human is the sweetest and most dedicated witch on the Isles."
"And if I see you around her again, I'll have to contact Hexside administration and convince them to remove you from your top student position."
"It'll take more than that to keep me away from Luz."
Her parents exchanged a look that said clearly, she doesn't give up, did she? She wondered where she did get her determination from. Probably neither of them.
"Whatever," Amity sighed dismissively. "Let me go on this trip and I won't breathe a word about Luz ever again. That doesn't mean we won't stay together," she added when Alador opened his mouth to say something more. "But I won't talk about her around you, and you can pretend you have an absolutely perfect heir to the Blight name."
"Your siblings are failures and so are you. Very well," Alador grunted, "you may go on this trip. I suppose that nothing we can do will change you. But no humans in the house."
"No humans," Amity agreed. It wasn't exactly a victory, but it was something.
She grabbed her scroll and sent a quick text to Luz.
I'm going!
She'd defeated Grom. She'd confessed her feelings for Luz. She'd indirectly nearly burned Hexside to the ground. All these obstacles- nearly overwhelming, but she survived every time.
Now she had to face her last enemy: time itself.