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“Can you pass me a pencil, cariño?”
Luz doesn’t even realise she says it.
Amity reaches for a pencil to give to her before stopping halfway, her hand hovering in the air. “What was that word you said?”
It takes Luz another second to really think it through. But when it finally clicks, her cheeks glow bright red. “Uh...nothing?” she falters. “Pencil?” she tries, but it’s weak.
“No, the one after that,” Amity says. She forgets about getting the pencil and instead, turns back to look at Luz. “I...I don’t know it. Is it some kind of new spell you’re trying?”
“Yep,” Luz rushes. She stares down at her paper, refusing to meet Amity’s eyes. Everyone else in the room is still talking while the teacher ignores them and sleeps. She wishes that Willow and Gus were in this class, too. “A lot of stories about witches in the human world use spells made of words, so...I thought I’d maybe try one of them.”
Amity doesn’t say anything for a second and Luz’s heard pounds in her throat.
“Oh,” Amity says carefully, like she doesn’t quite believe her. “Any luck?”
“Nope,” Luz says all too quickly. She rocks back and forth in her chair. “Uh, pencil?”
Amity’s movements are still slow and she won’t take her eyes off Luz, like her brain is whirring, going into overdrive trying to figure out what the word could’ve meant. But she gets the pencil, and Luz snatches it quickly out of her hand – so quickly that their fingers touch for a second.
Luz puts her head down to work. She can’t believe she let something like that slip out.
She can’t let Amity know that she likes her. Luz knows she has a precedent for rushing into things, and ignoring other people’s feelings and, well...she’s trying to be more considerate. Amity must be straight – if queerness even exists on the Boiling Isles, which she isn’t sure about yet – and she likes someone else, anyway. Luz remembers the infamous note on Grom night too clearly.
“Are you okay?” Amity asks. Luz glances up to see that her face is a little red. She’s rubbing the spot where their fingers touched.
Great. Now Luz’s made her uncomfortable.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she says.
Amity looks unconvinced, but she doesn’t say anything.
Luz lets out a breath. That was close.
Luz waves at Amity wildly, jumping in place and grinning. She sits on the stairs in front of the school doors with Willow and Gus. Amity’s across the school grounds, resting books on her hip. Her amber eyes gleam brightly, just like gold. Just like always.
She catches Luz’s eyes and waves back with an awkward, small kind of smile on her face. “Hey, Luz.” She walks over to meet them at the stairs. “Willow. Gus.”
“Hi, Amity!” Gus says cheerily.
“Hi,” Willow adds. She waves a little.
Luz probably shouldn’t let herself be distracted by Amity’s eyes, but she can’t help herself. “Hola, corazón,” she says.
Willow and Gus look at her strangely. Amity goes bright red.
But again, it takes Luz a second to realise. When she does, her stomach twists. “Just...another worded spell I’m trying.” She coughs.
“Wow...is it a human thing?” Gus asks. His eyes widen and he has that expression he gets whenever he discovers something new and human. Luz can’t lie to him.
“Yep!” she says. She nods as she talks. “Super human. The most human.”
“Wow!” Gus says, clapping his hands together. “Can you teach me about it?”
Luz’s eyes meet with Amity’s. Gold eyes. Shining eyes. She stutters. Amity’s blush deepens and she looks down at her feet. Luz’s head whips back to face Gus.
“Uh...maybe not today, it’s kind of hard to explain,” she says.
“Oh.” Gus’s face falls. Luz’s stomach churns in guilt.
“But...” Luz wracks her brain for something to say. “...But have I told you about these things called clothing brands?”
Gus’s eyes brighten again. “What are they? They sound unnecessary!”
“Yeah!” Luz says. “It basically means that humans want to buy one kind of thing more than another one because it has a specific picture on it. And they’re more expensive.”
“Ooh!” Gus says. “There’s literally no reason for that to exist.”
“Pretty much,” Luz says.
Gus starts firing questions at Luz. She can barely keep track of them.
She finds herself looking over at Amity, who’s smiling at her softly. As soon as their eyes meet, Amity blushes, again. Luz has to figure out what she’s doing that makes Amity so uncomfortable so she can apologise for it.
“Uh...” Amity stutters.
Sorry, Luz wants to say. But that would mean admitting that cariño and corazón really mean something. Which, of course, they do. But Amity can’t know that.
It becomes sort of a game.
Unconscious. Partly.
Luz kind of knows she’s doing it on purpose at this point, but she doesn’t want to confront that, because confronting it means she might have to stop. And it feels so natural to call Amity these things. It’s right.
So maybe she’s not being as considerate as she’s trying to be.
They’re at the gates when Luz tries it again. It’s just her and Amity.
“Okay, so I’ll see you tomorrow,” Amity says. She rocks onto the balls of her feet and then back again. “I mean, obviously, because it’s school. And we both go here. Together. Me, and you. Luz.”
Luz nods. Probably with a little too much enthusiasm. “Yeah. Uh-huh,” she says. “So, I’ll see you around, cielo.”
Maybe that one was a bit cowardly, because she turns on her heel and leaves as soon as she says it, leaving Amity confused and sputtering behind her.
“Amity, querida, did you hear that the next Azura book is coming out?”
“Yeah...I mean, what?”
“Hermosa, do you know what the homework is? I wrote it down but I can’t find it.”
“Uh...”
“Eres mi vida.”
“What?”
Amity’s late for class. She’s never late for class.
Luz is starting to get worried. She wonders if she should ask to go look for her, but as soon as she does, Amity opens the door of the classroom. Her whole face is a brighter red than Luz has ever seen. She looks like she’s trying to make herself as small as possible, and she’s clutching something to her chest.
The teacher tells her to go sit down. He doesn’t write her up, thankfully.
Amity goes to sit next to Luz, but she can’t meet her eyes. Instead, she slides the thing she’s holding in front of her on the desk.
It’s a book. Luz reads the title. Her stomach flutters with butterflies. She feels tingly all over. Her body doesn’t seem to register that it’s a bad thing.
A Spanish dictionary. From the human world.
Amity doesn’t need to say anything. Luz knows what it means.
She’s been figured out. She’s been caught.
And her emotions are a confusing swirl she can’t unpack. Part disappointment, part all-consuming fear, but also (just a little bit) of what might be excitement.
Luz and Amity don’t talk for the rest of the class. They don’t talk until their break. Until Amity can take Luz by the arm and pull her away from everyone else, to a secluded area of the Hexside grounds where no one will hear them.
Until they’re finally, finally, alone.
Luz looks up at Amity. At Amity’s shining gold eyes.
“So,” Amity says quietly, “I know what the words mean.”
“Yeah,” Luz says. Her throat is dry, so she swallows. And she knows what she should say, even if it’s really the last thing she wants to tell Amity right now. So, forcefully, “And it’s fine if you want to pretend it never happened.”
Amity’s mouth falls open a little. “Pretend...pretend it never happened?”
Luz’s heart sinks. “Yep. Sure, we can do that.” She tries to sound upbeat, like she doesn’t mind at all.
“So...you didn’t mean it?” Amity asks. Her voice is soft and nervous.
Luz should say no. Definitely not. But she can’t lie. And she definitely can’t lie to Amity. “Well...yes, yeah, I meant it,” Luz admits.
Amity looks down for a terrifying second, and then she smiles like she’s trying to supress it.
“But you probably don’t even like girls,” Luz rambles. “Maybe girls only like girls in the human world. I’m bi, though, so I like everything. Which is fine too. But you probably don’t.”
Amity snorts. “Luz, you’re such an idiot,” she says. She meets Luz’s eyes. “Of course I like girls.”
“Really?” Luz asks, because she can’t think of anything more intelligent.
“And of course I like you,” Amity adds. “I was just...too scared to do anything about it.”
And that’s when it clicks. Grom night. Amity’s right. Luz is an idiot.
But being an idiot comes with stupid, reckless confidence that might sometimes come in handy, like when Luz Noceda stands on her toes and kisses Amity Blight.
Like when Luz Noceda kisses Amity Blight, and it’s everything she thought it would be.
So maybe, just maybe, this whole thing was a game worth playing.