Chapter Text
The rain ran down the Realm, leaving nothing the same.
It changed the ground into a rippling reflection of the Noceda’s home. It sucked the late-summer warmth from the sky. It covered up the stars until it seemed that they had never existed, that all that had ever been were the dreary clouds. It shrunk the world until it felt as if nothing was real but the three forlorn figures standing together in the downpour.
Luz’s image appeared in the storm, golden and shimmering and built of raindrop reflections. First they flinched, expecting boiling heat. Slowly, hesitantly, they opened their eyes. She looked up into the starless sky, then down at her glittering gilded hands. Luz gasped, and a delighted laugh escaped her. “Look what I can do with the rain!”
They grinned vacantly, gazing down at their palms. The outlines of her fingers flickered as the rain poured past. Their smile flickered with it. All of a sudden, Luz realized that they couldn’t feel the drops. She wasn’t really here. The storm would pass, and she would pass with it. The house would return to the same sunny home they’d known, and they wouldn’t be there to see it. The rain fell through Luz as if she had never existed. And maybe she never had. Maybe she never would. Maybe she’d never get to feel a storm’s first few drops without fearing flame from the unfeeling sky.
No. They had to. There had to be more portals, better ones, that allowed them to really and truly travel between their two homes. As soon as she got back to the Boiling Isles she’d start working to leave. The thought made Luz feel sick to their stomach, and they weren't sure which part of the idea was causing the nausea.
Luz’s spiral was mercifully interrupted by Vee slithering towards her.
“Vee!” They exclaimed. “I’m so happy you’re okay!” Luz reached out for her hand, palms passing through each other. “Woah!” Luz giggled.
“Yeah!” Vee replied. Her carefree grin revealed broken fangs. “Thank you Camila, for everything.”
Camila gently took Vee’s hands into her own, giving her a reassuring smile. “Vee, you have a place here as long as you need. And take these.” Camila pulled the Hexes Hold ‘Em cards from her purse. “Luz said they might be helpful for you.”
“Magic!” Vee exclaimed. She popped one of the cards in her mouth and slithered off to Luz’s home, which, as they reminded themselves, was now Vee’s home too.
It was Vee’s home too . Luz felt their smile widen. Her mom had welcomed Vee in. If Camila could accept a magic-eating basilisk posing as her child, surely she would adore Luz’s friends. Despite everything, their mind filled suddenly with images of happy sleepovers, friends and family from both Realms spending the night in the Noceda’s home. And for once there didn’t have to be isle-ending threats. There wouldn’t be building pressure to build a breakthrough to another Realm. Luz wouldn’t have to live her childhood dream as a world-hopping savior. Just junk food and junk movies and dancing in the Human Realm’s precious rain.
“Mom!” she exclaimed. “You were awesome back there!” They sobered, remembering just what they’d put her through today. “Thanks for being cool about… everything.”
Camila turned around. Luz’s grin died in an instant. Her ever-constant illusion had shattered, for one of the first times Luz had ever seen. The confidence, the security, the taking of everything in stride, all gone. With what felt like a lead weight dropped upon them, Luz realized that their mother was crying.
“I’m trying to hold it together,” Camila choked. “I really am. But I have never been this afraid before.” Her voice was smaller than Luz had ever heard it. Not whispering, but small, as if the words were drowning in the rain. “The Demon Realm? Magic?”
She took a step forward. Luz took a step back.
“How are you going to get back here?” Camila’s voice was ragged and unexpectedly loud. And then her voice, her gaze, her will and hope all dropped lower than they had ever been. “Is this… the only way I can touch you?” She reached out a hand for the reflection of her child. Her fingers passed right through where Luz should’ve been, an absent space that felt far colder than the chilling downpour.
Luz’s heart dropped to her stomach and stopped beating altogether. She was frozen and melted and beaten bloody by the phantom rain, forgetting she was the phantom. Everything, all of it, was too much. Talking felt impossible. And all of a sudden, a burst of fear they didn’t understand pumped their heart again. Luz felt cold all over, and unthinking words poured out of the mouth that was no longer hers.
“I- I need a little more time!” Luz yelled. They could hear the quiver in their voice. “If I keep working my hardest, I- I will make a working portal, I promise!” Blurry tears warmed her icy eyes, burning the vow she wasn’t sure she could keep.
Camila raised her gaze from the pavement, wiping away a stray tear and meeting her daughter’s gaze. She managed a small smile. “As scary as this is, it really does seem like you’ve matured.”
“Yes!” Luz exclaimed. “I’ve learned so much!” They still weren’t in control, mouth moving without her mind allowing it. They couldn’t hear how loud their voice was, couldn’t realize how foolish of a mistake their words were. “Staying here was the best decision I’ve ever made!”
Camila looked up sharply. Luz fell silent. Her mother’s expression shifted to something worse than before, something new, now directed at her wayward child. “You chose to stay there? Were you trying to live out some witch fantasy?!” Luz stepped back once more. Her mother's face fell to something worse still, something directed at herself. Camila held herself in her arms, since there was no one else left who could. “Did you- did you hate living with me that much?”
Luz withered. “Mamá, no!” Her vacant, stupid, horrible mind raced for the words she needed.
Before they even had a chance to find them, they felt a tugging at their waist. The rope, their connection to the Boiling Isles, was gently and traitorously pulling her back. “Not yet. Not! Yet!” She pulled down on the tether, managing to bring her feet back to the In Between Realm’s pool beneath. The cruel unfeeling force never yielded, tugging back and lifting her once more. “Mom!” Luz screamed.
She couldn’t leave now. Not like this. They couldn’t leave their mom again, possibly for the last time, letting her think they hated her. In front of Luz was the window, the connection home, the last link to Camila. Luz reached out for the slowly rotating cube, gilded and glowing, false indigo and empty dark. Infinite, meaningless depths writhed captive in its shifting illusions. Her fingers just barely reached the box’s smooth surface. They curled their fingers tight around its corners, clutching it to their chest. The rope never stopped pulling and pulling her farther and farther from the Realm that housed her home.
And all of a sudden, it stopped.
The tether still pulled at her waist until it was painful, but Luz was no longer moving through the air. With each tug, the cube in her arm let out an irritated whine. It was their anchor, the sole thing holding them there. The box couldn’t pass over, its existence utterly incapable of leaving the side it belonged on. Luz gripped the box tighter. As she clutched on, she resisted the pull, clinging desperately to the human’s side, to her mom. Luz refused to leave. Now motionless, they were able to forget that they were being taken back at all. The pain around their waist became constant and inconsequential.
The cube glowed gold once more. Luz reappeared in the rain, and forgot she wasn’t there, forgot where there was, forgot where they were.
Camila was there, her face a mess of jumbled emotions. “I- I’m being pulled back,” Luz said. Their current predicament made it quite hard to breathe, and nearly impossible to talk. But the words poured out easily.
“Mom, it’s not your fault. It never was. I didn’t ever fit in when I was in the Human Realm, you know that!” The words ripped her throat as they came out, jerked from her lungs. The words came anyway. “I always, always, wanted a way out. And I found one, and I took it, and I wasn’t thinking!” The Boiling Isles loomed beyond, trying desperately to pull them back. “But it was so much more than I thought it was. Things were hard, but I had help. I had friends! I found weirdos to stick together with. I have real friends here, friends I’ll never have there.” The last sentence hurt more than before, and not physically this time.
Camila reached a useless hand up to Luz. “I’m sorry, Luz!” she sobbed. “I promise that things will be better. I’ll make them better! Just please come back!” Her tears mingled with the rain. The tether pulled harder and harder.
“I’m trying! I’ve been trying for months, I promise! And I’m going to get back, no matter what it takes.” Her mind refused to let the words go. I’m going to get back, no matter what it takes. I’m going to get there, no matter what it takes. I’m going to find a way to live on both sides, no matter what it takes.
Luz unthinkingly clamped their fingers tighter around the cube until the edges cut into their fingers. She clung onto a home where she wasn’t there, lest she lose it forever. Still she was drifting up. Luz couldn’t hold on forever.
They remembered why they’d come here, the one thing they’d meant to say. “I love you, okay?”
Fresh pain sparkled behind her glasses, tracing its way down her cheek until it was drowned in the unfeeling raindrops. She could see her daughter fading. “Oh, mija, no. No no no no.” Camila extended her hands to Luz’s once again. They must have both known it was pointless.
Luz reached back, and Luz, without meaning to, had really reached out. Her never-existent hands passed through Camila’s with a wistful finality. Their hands left the box. Before they could breathe, before they could realize they could breathe, gravity flipped upside down. The Realm turned inside out as the rope happily claimed its prize. It tore her up and up and up and up until she lost sight of the cube altogether. Faster, faster, faster still. She ripped through the air and the air ripped back, clawing at the back of her neck. Her real, solid, fingers were outstretched for the home they’d left, the home they’d never gone to. The air rushed in their ears as they rose, drowning out and drowning with a final, futile cry for their mother.
And then came a single sound above it all.
The simple snipping of a rope.
With the constant force gone, the world suddenly seemed wrong. The whole Realm seemed to shift. The shadows grew and twisted into something foreign and frightening, something terrifying. Luz got the sudden feeling that they were being watched, and it made their heavy heart beat faster with fear.
They were no longer pulled, one way or the other. It seemed like gravity had died and she was stuck in between. They weren’t sure which way was up, which way was down, which side was human, which side was demon. They couldn’t know, and it didn’t matter, because she was hopelessly lost from both.
They couldn’t move. They could, but it didn’t matter, since it didn’t move them. They couldn’t do anything. Panic closed around her, choking and suffocating. The world closed in such that nothing existed but her mistakes. The world fell open, uncaring and vast and unknowable. She was stuck. She was trapped. She couldn’t reach either side, she would never reach solid ground, and she would be trapped here forever. She reached for the rope around her waist, now free-floating and useless. Everything came crashing together all at once.
The portal had closed.
The portal. How, how on earth had they forgotten the portal? How had they forgotten their family? They had been waiting on the other side, ready to pull her back in case the portal had collapsed.
The portal had collapsed.
Oh God. Oh Titan.
They whipped their head side to side, looking for anything, anyone, but no one was there. They kicked into the air, hoping for some movement, some connection that they couldn’t find. She dug her hands into her skin, needing to know that something, anything was here. But it was only her. And it was worse than they had ever feared.
She was completely and utterly alone.