“You’re dead.”

The silence that followed those words was the loudest Amity had ever experienced. Despite the warm weather, she felt a shiver run down her spine as Luz – the fake Luz, with too-long hair and, she noticed after a second glance, a slightly lighter shade of brown to her eyes – looked her up and down. The impostor’s eyes landed on her ears and she gasped.

“You’re… a witch!” she exclaimed, and now Amity could finally hear the difference in that rather raspy voice to the sweet dulcet tones she had dreamt about over the past year.

Amity saw Mrs. Noceda stand up and take a few steps toward the stranger to stand in front of her with something akin to fear in her eyes, and she realized that she, Amity, had drawn a spell circle in front of her. Quickly, she dissipated it and shook her head.

“Yes, I’m a witch,” she said, looking straight at Mrs. Noceda. “My name is Amity Blight, and I am… was Luz’s girlfriend.”

Mrs. Noceda stood silently for a few seconds, scanning the witch up and down, her face a mixture of confusion, fear, and shock. She cleared her throat, glancing back at the fake Luz and then back at Amity. “What do you mean, you were her girlfriend?”

Amity sighed and closed her eyes, cursing her stupid brain for ruining any good first impression she could have made. Granted, she had known this wouldn’t be an easy conversation to have, but she had definitely not counted on this turn of events.

“That’s… kinda what I came here to talk to you about,” she said evenly, raising her hands as a sign of peace.

Mrs. Noceda nodded slowly. “Go on.”

“A few years ago, Luz managed to build a semi-functioning portal to the human realm and told me she saw you and explained some stuff about our world to you,” she began, looking pointedly at Mrs. Noceda and trying not to glance at the fake Luz whose face was contorted in fear. “The portal was destroyed and we couldn’t get it to work again. We tried, but soon enough, we had to start preparing for a fight.”

“A fight?” Mrs. Noceda asked, leaning on the loveseat.

“Emperor Belos, a dictator who terrorized our homeworld for over fifty years, was planning something big that involved the human realm.”

This time, the interruption came from the girl standing behind Mrs. Noceda. Her voice was small and vulnerable, and Amity almost forgot she was essentially the spitting image of her girlfriend.

“Is Belos… What happened to him?” she said timidly.

“He’s dead,” Amity said, still not looking at the girl. She noticed the impostor shuddered and sighed in relief. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

Mrs. Noceda spoke up. “Sorry, I should have introduced you,” she said absently, still a little dazed. “This is Vee, a basilisk that snuck back from the Boiling Isles shortly after Luz…” She trailed off, glancing back at Vee, who offered Amity a small wave.

Amity’s first instinct was to attack the basilisk, but the way Mrs. Noceda spoke about her threw her off. “And you’ve been living here for three years just… looking like Luz?” she couldn’t avoid the sting from seeping into her voice, and knew that Vee had noticed.

The basilisk flinched. “I changed it a little after Luz appeared that time in the mirror, because I didn’t want to replace her, but mom said I could look however I wanted to,” she explained rapidly in a single breath, glancing from her mother to Amity and back to Mrs. Noceda. “And I figured telling everyone I was Luz’s cousin Vee was much more convincing than the real thing…”

Amity turned to Mrs. Noceda with wide eyes. “And you knew about this? You don’t seem shocked by my being a witch.”

The woman nodded. “After Luz told us she would do her best to come back to us, I housed Vee and she taught me a little about your homeworld and what it’s like. All this time, we never heard anything else from Luz so I just thought…” Her words were drowned as a sob escaped her lips and she buried her face in her hands.

Vee rushed forward and placed a comforting hand on her mother’s shoulder, whispering something Amity could not hear. Amity, for her part, was at a loss for words. While Mrs. Noceda knowing about the Boiling Isles might have made this easier, the fact that she had all but adopted a basilisk made it all the more confusing.

The basilisk in question looked up at her as her mother cried and gave her a sad look. “You said Be – Belos was planning something?” she said, stuttering.

Amity nodded. “He called it the Day of Unity. We never found out what it was, but it couldn’t be good. We did our best to put it off over time, but last year it came down to a fight at the palace,” she said, reciting the only words she had really rehearsed from this half-assed speech. Her eyes blurred as the next words began to spill from her mouth. “Luz managed to kill Belos but she… she d-”

Vee gasped and Mrs. Noceda whipped her head up, looking straight at Amity with bloodshot eyes. “What happened to my little Luz?” she asked, her voice cracking as she said her daughter’s name, and it was all Amity could do not to devolve into tears herself.

“Luz sacrificed herself to save us all,” she said softly, afraid they might not have heard it because she was not sure she could say those words again. A small sob from the woman and a gasp from the basilisk told her she would at least be spared that burden, however small. “I couldn’t… couldn’t save her in time, she was almost gone. She made me promise I would come back and tell you, so that you may have closure.”

Mrs. Noceda blinked a few times. “My Luz…” she whispered, burying her face in her hands again. “¿Cómo puede ser esto? Mi luz, por dios, no… Yo sabía que algo iba a pasar, ¡lo sabía! Le dije que no era seguro.”

While Luz had tried to teach her some Spanish, Amity could not fully understand what she was saying, but the message was clear. She stayed silent as Mrs. Noceda spoke rapidly in Spanish, probably trying to make sense of the situation. Amity felt the urge to go comfort her, but she was neither comfortable nor prepared to offer consolation for something she herself had not gotten over yet. To her relief, albeit undercut by her apprehension of the basilisk, Vee sat beside her mother and spoke soothingly to her in the woman’s native tongue.

For a while, Amity sat there, unable to do anything about the situation unfolding before her, and she was brought back, unbidden, to the moment she had just recounted. Her eyes stung as the image of Luz’s hunched form, blood trickling down from her mouth, materialized in her mind’s eye. It was the object of every nightmare she’d had since then, only now it was amplified by the soft sobs of the mother who would never get to hold her daughter again; who would never get to see her and tell her she loved her, like Amity had, because Luz was gone and everything seemed bleaker for it. What good could Amity do for Mrs. Noceda now, when the woman’s world had crumbled at her feet and the witch stared blankly at her through tear-streaked lashes? Even though it had been a year, she felt as though yet another light had burned out at that very moment, extinguished far before its time, to be replaced by darkness and despair.

Before her thoughts could spiral any further, she heard Vee clear her throat and looked up. The girl was sitting on the armrest of the loveseat, her left hand drawing small circles over her mother’s back, and her eyes were filled with tears.

“Did she…” she whispered, just loud enough for Amity to hear. Mrs. Noceda perked up ever so slightly as if she already knew the question her adopted daughter – her only daughter now, Amity thought with a horrible pang of guilt – would ask. “Did she suffer?”

Amity shook her head firmly. “No,” she said. “It was pretty quick. It all happened so fast, I was fighting Kikimora – Belos’ right-hand woman – and I heard her yell and I just… snapped. I ran for it and held her and… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be talking about this. I should probably go.”

“No,” came Mrs. Noceda’s raspy voice. She cleared it and raised her head higher, trying to straighten her back somewhat. She waved a dismissive hand as Vee tried to help her up. “I’m okay, honey. I just can’t believe it, but, I guess I somehow knew, deep down. Just, hearing a confirmation was harder than I thought it would be.”

Amity pursed her lips. “Mrs. Noceda, I’m so sorry,” she said, wringing her hands frantically, itching to get out of there but forcing herself to see this through to the end. “I loved your daughter and I was devastated, but I can’t even begin to imagine your pain. You shouldn’t have to go through this at all. I wish…” She looked down at her joined hands and sighed. “Sometimes I wish it had been me.”

Mrs. Noceda scoffed, making Amity look up. “I admit I don’t know much about you, Amity,” she said softly, shaking her head. “Luz did tell me about you briefly three years ago, but we never got a chance to meet before. But if I knew my Luz – and god, I hope I did – I know she wouldn’t want her… girlfriend,” she said the word carefully as if testing it on her tongue, “to beat herself up over it. I’m sure you… did the best you could.”

Amity did not have a good enough answer to that, so she nodded stiffly and went back to wringing her hands. The three of them sat there for a few moments, awkwardly looking at each other or their laps. At a certain point, Vee reached over and took the cup of tea, which was probably rather cold by then, and took a sip, offering the other to Mrs. Noceda, who shook her head and thanked her in Spanish.

Amity’s brain, ever the annoying sidekick, was screaming at her to get out of there and be done with it, but something inside her told her it was not the time to be a coward and run. She would have to face this and see it through, just like she’d promised Luz. She had to.

Mrs. Noceda cleared her throat and blinked a few times before looking at Amity as if for the first time. Her cheeks were tear-stained and her eyes were almost completely red, though she was shedding no more tears. “Would you like something to drink, dear?” she said to Amity, who looked taken aback.

She shook her head slowly, pursing her lips. “No, thank you, Mrs. Noceda,” she said, rubbing her left arm absently as the ghost of her earlier pain made itself known faintly.

The woman nodded, offering the girl a soft but sad smile, and Amity felt a newfound wave of respect for Camila Noceda. Here she was, grieving a daughter she had not seen in years, and she still found the strength to offer hospitality to the very guest that had brought the fateful news to her.

Vee shifted uncomfortably on her seat by her mother, and Amity finally got a good look at her. She had thought she looked like Luz at first, but the small inconsistencies she found as she eyed her up and down dispelled that idea. The basilisk’s cheeks were covered in freckles, almost hidden in her dark complexion; her hair fell to her shoulders, straight and with two dark blue highlights Amity had not spotted before on either side of her face. Every story she had ever heard about the viciousness of basilisks fell apart as the image of the real thing stood before her, seemingly too nervous to look her in the eye.

Amity remembered something and she perked up. “Oh, right,” she said, bringing the attention of the two Nocedas back to her. She drew a small blue spell circle and summoned an object from her Void (the space between realities witches used as storage for important things). Instantly, her left hand was holding a rectangular device with a black screen on one side and a small smiling bat on the other. She pressed a button Luz had showed her on the side and the screen lit up. Amity saw a picture of her and Luz embracing, their cheeks flushed and a beautiful pink-leaved tree behind them.

“I know this is not enough to make up for… everything,” she said, holding the phone out to Mrs. Noceda. “But before she…” she shook her head, “Luz made a bunch of videos for you, in case we ever got the portal working again. I haven’t seen them; didn’t think it was… right.”

Mrs. Noceda took the phone and stared at the screen, glancing at Amity, whose cheeks turned tomato red. “Thank you, Amity,” she said, nodding. She unlocked it and pressed the screen a few times. Amity watched her, shifting uncomfortably from the couch. The woman turned the phone on its side but stopped and looked at Amity. “Would you… would you like to watch them?”

Amity’s eyes went wide. “You’re sure?”

The woman smiled sadly. “I’m sure, dear,” she said. “I can see you cared about my daughter a whole lot. And she always wore her heart on her sleeve, my Luz. I’d love to get to know the girl who found her way into it.”

The girl blushed, if possible, an even deeper shade of red while stuttering abashedly. She spluttered something about “I don’t know about that,” and “she snuck into my heart too,” but it was all for nothing. Mrs. Noceda placed a comforting hand on the witch’s shoulder and nodded.

Vee smiled at her. “Don’t worry, mom doesn’t bite,” she chimed, attempting to lighten the mood. It didn’t quite land the mark, but Amity felt some of the tension release from her shoulders. She nodded and sat down beside Mrs. Noceda, and the woman pressed play on the first video.

The screen flickered black for a moment before a bright image of Luz appeared on it. She was kneeling in her bedroom at the Owl House, her Good Witch Azura poster just barely appearing in the frame. Amity smiled at the sight as Mrs. Noceda stifled a sob.

“Hola mamá! You haven’t heard from me in a while,” she said, her smile as bright as it ever was in life. Amity saw Vee reach over to grab her mother’s hand, drawing small circles on her palm with her thumb. “It’s been a week and a half since the petrification ceremony. A week and a half since I… destroyed the portal home.”

They watched the video in silence. Occasionally, Mrs. Noceda would gasp at a particularly grisly tale told by her daughter, or nod as Luz explained something she probably hadn’t heard from Vee. Luz had recorded a lot of these, detailing her experiences in the Boiling Isles both before and after the portal was destroyed. She spoke of Eda and King, and what a wonderful home the two of them had made for her after she’d arrived there. One video was almost exclusively about hunting the Selkidomus with Eda and her encounter with the Golden Guard.

Amity suppressed a smile as Luz recounted her dealings with the boy who had eventually become one of their best friends after he had broken free of his uncle’s abuse and deception. It pained her to think just how many memories Luz would miss from now on; how many memories Amity wouldn’t be able to make with her girlfriend.

Luz’s fourth video was filmed in a different location. The living room walls of the Owl House breathed deeply as she showed her mother around the place she now called home. As she did, she told her all about the new friends she had made. She spoke about Viney, Barcas, and Jerbo, the three detention track students that had helped her defeat the Greater Basilisk on her first day of school. She told Mrs. Noceda about Willow and Gus, and the impact they’d had on her life. Finally, she stopped rambling and took out something from her pocket.

In her hand, Luz held the picture they had taken at Grom of the four of them.

“And this is Amity,” Luz said, pointing the camera at the photo, and the real Amity had to fight the urge to blush at the softness with which the human had said her name. “She’s the most amazing person I’ve ever met. She’s a talented witch, she likes the Azura books, and she’s… just the best.”

Mrs. Noceda glanced back at Amity with a knowing smile on her face, wiping away a few tears that had built up on her cheeks. Amity was about to say something when Luz continued.

“I… think I really like her, and you’d love her too if you got a chance to meet her,” she said slowly, panning the camera back at her, and Amity saw she held a frown on her brow. “I really miss you, mamá. I wish you were here so I could show you how awesome everyone is here. I promise I’ll do my best to get back to you, okay?”

The three of them watched the videos for what felt like hours. They watched Luz gush about Amity after they had confessed their feelings for each other – Amity had to hide her face in her coat hood to mask her blush. They watched years’ worth of documentation of Luz’s life in the Boiling Isles, as Mrs. Noceda asked a few questions to Amity to fill the gaps. Amity felt much better about her decision to give the woman the phone as she saw Mrs. Noceda’s smile at seeing her daughter grow up into a beautiful young lady, her eyes swimming with tears.

Eventually, after the fifteenth video, they saw one last one that seemed much shorter than the rest. When Amity saw the date it was recorded, her blood ran cold. A day before Luz’s death. Noticing her apprehension, Mrs. Noceda halted her finger before pressing play and glanced at her.

“I think it’s been enough, don’t you think?” she asked, not unkindly, and Amity had to fight the urge to agree. But something deep inside her told her she needed to see this.

She shook her head. “No, I… I can do this,” she said, and felt quite silly to be steeling herself so thoroughly for this when the mother of the girl in the videos had been soldiering on with a smile on her face.

The woman pressed play and Luz’s face appeared on the screen once again. She was in her room, most of her things packed away in a tiny corner, and her face was a mask of sorrow and longing.

“Hola mamá,” she began, running a hand through her hair, which had grown considerably since her first videos. Two identical braids fell down her shoulder on either side of her face, framing it the way Amity had loved back then. She found that she still loved it.

“Tomorrow, we’re going on a very dangerous mission, and… none of us know what’s gonna happen,” continued Luz, taking a deep breath. “I’m gonna delete this once we get back home, so if you’re seeing this video, it means I didn’t make it. I’m hoping whenever you get this, a week from now, a year, ten… I hope you know how much I love you.”

“I always loved you, even when we were fighting or I said some stupid things that made you think otherwise. You thought you were pushing me away, but I was just as responsible in our strained relationship as you were. I can see that now. I hope you can forgive me for running away and… living out this witch fantasy of mine.” She chuckled softly, but it was undercut with a sob as tears began welling in her eyes.

Mrs. Noceda stared at the screen with her mouth half-open, her red-rimmed glasses almost falling off the edge of her nose. Vee sat to her right, squeezing the woman’s hand tightly as they got through the video. Amity could do nothing but watch as Luz took another heavy breath and pushed on.

“Even though I really miss you, the last two years of my life have been… pretty great,” she said. “I have amazing friends, a family of weirdos who accept me for who I am, and the best girlfriend I could have possibly asked for. I hope one day you get to meet the girl – the woman – who made me want to become the best version of myself. She’s my everything and… I love her with all my heart.”

Amity blinked back tears as the words rolled off Luz’s tongue, her cheeks pink and hands trembling. “Please, don’t blame yourself for what happened,” the human continued. “And remember that I’ll always be there. Deja una luz puesta para mí, ¿okay? Te amo.”

The screen shut off for a final time, and for a few seconds, none of them spoke. The air was thick with tension and Amity was afraid even a knife would be unable to cut through it. Mrs. Noceda put down the phone gingerly on the coffee table, her hands trembling. Vee was looking between Amity and her mother, a curious expression on her face as if she were gauging what might happen next.

To Amity’s great relief, Mrs. Noceda broke the silence. “Thank you, Amity,” she said softly, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “I know how hard it must have been to come here and to see that. It seems you were even more special to my little Luz than I thought. So thank you for taking care of her all these years. And thank you for this.” She gestured to the phone on the table.

Amity blinked at the woman and cleared her throat. “Um, you’re… you welcome,” she said softly, unable to think of a better thing to say. “If you must know, she never stopped talking about you. You were her one motivation to make it back here. She would always point out things you might find interesting on the Boiling Isles.”

Mrs. Noceda chuckled. “That sounds like my Luz,” she said.

“Y’know, after she died, we dug a grave for her near the Owl House,” Amity said slowly, averting her eyes. “If you ever wanted to… visit her, you can let me know, and I’ll arrange that.”

“I would like that,” Mrs. Noceda said, laying a hand on Amity’s shoulder. The witch turned to the woman who had raised the most wonderful person in the world and saw the pure love that radiated from those kind brown eyes. Her heart ached at the thought of such a loving mother losing such a fundamental piece of her soul. The woman in question tilted her head and said, “Would you mind if I hug you, Amity?”

Amity felt her brain short-circuit at such an honest and pure show of respect, and she barely had the self-awareness to nod as two strong but gentle arms wrapped around her body and engulfed her in a warm feeling that spread to the tips of her fingers and the depths of her soul. She felt rather than saw Vee’s arms wrap around them too, too engrossed in the moment to consider asking, but Amity didn’t care.

In that moment, embraced by a mother and daughter after what could possibly be one of the worst days of their lives, she felt nothing but relief and joy. In that moment, after that light had burned out, another had taken its place, dimmer than before but shining through the darkness nonetheless.

In that moment, if only for a moment, Amity felt that Luz Noceda was still with her.

In her heart.