Chapter 2: The Good Witch Azura Appreciation Society

Luz idled near the romance section of the Bonesborough Library, her eyes scanning the shelves as she tried to guess, by title alone, which novels must be the steamiest. It was a game she’d played often enough in Earth’s libraries and bookstores, but that good old Boiling Isles weirdness made it even more fun. Take, for example, The Bloodmonger’s Last Wand. Luz had absolutely no idea what a “bloodmonger” was; to her knowledge, the only three types of mongers were fear, war, and fish. Devising an appropriately weird-but-plausible definition for the word, and then trying to figure out what could possibly be enticing about his/her/their last wand, and then trying to compare that with all the other equally absurd titles, was one hell of a mental workout.

She’d almost finished weighing Hidden Pockets against The Man with a Thousand Fingers when, finally, she saw an opening—no one to her left or right, or in the aisle behind—and tugged excitedly at The Lone Witch & Secret Room. The bookcase shifted aside. Amity was already present, bent over her desk with pencil in hand; at the grinding sound of the bookcase, she looked up.

“Hey, Amity!” Luz greeted with a smile.

“Hi, Luz! How's it going? Make sure to close that behind you. Wait, no, I'll get it.” Amity spoke too fast for Luz to react, then leapt from her chair and made for the entrance.

Luz stepped aside to let Amity pass, then wandered over to the desk at the back of the room. By the light of a single flickering candle, she saw a pencil illustration of a woman with two faces—one overjoyed, one melancholy—cradling a bouquet of tiny, five-petaled flowers in her arms.

Luz gasped. “Is that Hecate from the end of book five? The white blossom scene? It’s really good!”

“No!” Amity darted back to the desk and flipped the paper over. “I mean yes—all the stuff you said got me thinking—but it’s not finished yet! Aha.”

Luz nodded. She could understand not wanting to show off a work in progress until it was complete. Not that she’d ever had friends who cared about her fandoms—but she’d always felt weird writing or drawing where her mom might see her.

At the thought of her mother, a too-familiar wave of homesickness seized Luz. She and Eda had spent weeks trying to find a way back to the human world, but so far, they’d come up dry.

“So, how were the oath crabs?” Amity asked, interrupting Luz’s thoughts.

Luz grinned, happy for the distraction. “We had a lot of fun! I mean, the crabs are total jerks. They were all like”—she put her hands up against her face, mimicking their skittery little crab legs with her fingers—“Only the worthy may bond our kind! You have not the heart to awaken the ancient words! Whatever that means.”

Amity chuckled. Luz felt herself swelling with pride, as she always did when she got Amity to laugh.

“But it was still fun!” she went on. “I managed to grab one, and it felt like—I don’t know, like there was a thunderstorm inside me or something. I wish you could’ve been there.”

That last comment seemed to catch Amity off-guard; her smile disappeared, and her eyes darted to the floor.

“Sorry,” Luz said quickly. “I know you had a lot of homework. It's okay, though; we had lots of fun without you!” As soon as the words were out of Luz’s mouth, she felt like smacking herself. “No, that came out wrong. What I meant was—”

“Luz,” Amity interrupted. “It’s okay.” She gave a slight, reassuring smile.

Luz grasped for something to say that would assuage her guilt. She finally settled on, “We will go crab fishing at some point. Just the two of us.”

That ought to do it. Amity really seemed to enjoy their one-on-one hangout sessions, more so than hanging out in a group. Luz figured it might have to do with Willow; despite making amends, the two former best friends still weren’t really…well, friends.

But Amity didn’t brighten at the promise. Instead, she just stared silently at Luz, some unreadable emotion passing over her face. (The candle cast only a faint glow, and while it was supplemented with magical ceiling lights, those weren’t too bright, either.) Luz returned Amity’s gaze, unsure of what was happening, but unalarmed. Without warning, she noticed the way Amity’s nose tipped upward, ever so slightly, and…huh. It was cute. What a cute nose.

“Well,” Luz said. Nothing to do but plow through the awkward. “I officially call the first session of the Good Witch Azura Appreciation Society to order! Hm…I wish I had a gavel. Should we sit on the floor? I forgot there was only one chair in here.”

“I need to do something,” Amity said, ignoring the question. She sounded weirdly resolute. Luz watched, intrigued, as Amity pulled a tiny glass tube from her shirt pocket and uncorked it. For a split second, the transparent liquid inside shimmered with a faint purple afterimage. A potion of some kind?

Luz frowned. There was something really familiar about that particular shade of purple, but she couldn’t quite place it. It wasn’t until Amity downed the contents of the vial in one swift motion that she finally remembered: Eda had once slipped a similar-looking liquid into King’s dinner after he denied drinking the last can of apple blood.

“Is that a truth serum?” Luz asked.

Two things happened at once: Amity’s eyes widened, and she started hacking violently into her arm. Luz reached for Amity in a fit of panic—then realized she had no idea what to do. Heimlich maneuver? Did witches even have lungs??

But the coughing fit was over as soon as it started. The tension seemed to bleed from Amity’s body: her shoulders lowered, her eyelids drooped, and a placid smile washed over her face. Luz recognized the trance-like state of absolute honesty that she’d seen before in King.

“Yes. This is a truth serum.” Amity spoke in a dreamish, lilting tone, sounding calmer and more relaxed than Luz had ever known her. “That’s exactly why I drank it. I need to tell you something, Luz.”

“Oh, yeah, uh, sure!” Luz took a tiny step backward, her heart still beating a mile a minute. She was surprised and confused and a little curious, but mostly just relieved that Amity hadn’t choked to death.

Amity inhaled deeply. “I’m not romantically interested in you. At all.”

“Okay,” Luz found herself saying. “That’s…fine.” Her mind raced to figure out what was going on. Had Luz somehow given Amity the impression that she liked her romantically? I mean, she is really pretty…

“I don’t want to hold your hand all the time,” Amity went on, “or introduce you to people as my girlfriend, or kiss you. And I definitely haven’t had any sexy dreams about you.”

Luz felt her face heating up. “Um, okay, I—that’s kind of a weird thing to just bring up out of nowhere.” Then her embarrassment gave way to panic: an old fear stirred to life, one she’d thought long buried. “But it’s not a problem! We can still be friends! Right?”

Amity’s head lolled a bit. With her muscles so relaxed, it was a miracle she remained standing.

“Luz. Luz.”

She reached forward, resting her limp hands on Luz’s shoulders. She stared at Luz through glassy, half-closed eyes. When she spoke, each word was a knife.

“I don’t want to be friends with you. I don’t value the time we spend together. I don’t find you funny or charming. You’re my least favorite person in Hexside—maybe in the whole world.”

Emotions warred in Luz’s breast, raw and unwelcome, like a thousand rivers yanking her in different directions. She wanted to scream, sob, punch, hug, curl up, run away, strangle, cry. Too much. It was too much.

❀

Back in sixth grade, Aiden Clark asked Luz on a date. Stupidly, she said yes. (Luz was only dimly aware that she’d chosen the run option; that she’d left Amity alone in the hideout, still high on truth juice.) Aiden never showed up. Luz stood at the door of the theater for hours; she tried calling him, but he’d either turned off his phone or given her a fake number. The next day in homeroom, Luz heard Aiden and his friends snickering, her name a stage whisper on their lips.