Coveted

Chapter 6- A Bitter Farewell, A Sweet Return

It's come to this. After a minute of shock, Amity wiped her eyes with her sleeve and stood, her legs trembling but face solid and cold. She made her way up the steps of the large, menacing reconstructed portal, and the abomination, smaller now and with a subdued Luz in hand, followed her and stopped a few steps below the witch. As Amity fiddled with the structure, making adjustments and preparing for it to be fired up, she could feel the godly eyes of the Emperor on her. She sneaked a glance at the wall behind her, and she could have sworn she had seen Belos's silhouette standing on one of the catwalks. Still, she returned to the machinery.

Luz's damp eyes fluttered open, and her head tilted up slightly to see the young witch tasked with sending her home. She had no fight left in her, at this moment she just wanted the chance to leave things on good terms. But first, several questions swirled in her mind. "Amity?"

She hesitated, any words getting caught in her throat, but after a moment she was able to squeak out a simple "Yes?"

"Why does Belos want me sent home? Why not just have you kill me?"

Amity didn't know how to respond. Her first mind first went to a place of worry- she knew Luz was only asking out of practicality and curiosity, but at the same time, why did she phrase it as if she wanted her to... no, she wouldn't allow herself to go there. Her next instinct was to tell Luz the truth, that he did want her dead and that Amity had to convince her mother to go along with the portal plan, but she decided not to risk such emotional vulnerability and ended up just giving the basics: "He wants you out of the way. You're a threat to his plans for the Day of Unity." She didn't even know what those plans were; she only knew that was the case because she had heard her mother mention the Day of Unity on calls or during meetings and assumed it was a big enough deal to want Luz, Eda, and their little revolt out of the picture for security reasons.

Luz could sense that that was the most in-depth answer Amity could give, so she decided to move on. "Another thing, what happened to the portal? This seems more sci-fi than anything on the Isles. Besides, I destroyed the portal! How did he-"

"I don't know, Luz!" Amity cried. Beads of tears returned to her eyes as she twisted her head back to look at the human. "Just... be quiet, okay? You're just making this harder on both of us."

The sound of mechanical whirring faded into the room as the portal warmed up. Amity finished the adjustments and took a step back. She considered what Luz said about the technological anachronism of it and decided she would ask her mother about it when this was all over. She peeked over her shoulder at the abomination holding her human, and motioned it to bring her up to the platform. She hated to see this girl, this person that always found the bright side to any situation, look this defeated. The abomination reached a position right next to Amity, and Luz's eyes met hers.

"If I let you go, promise you won't run?"

"I promise."

The witchling searched her eyes for dishonesty and found none. She flicked her finger in a circle and unsummoned the abomination. To her surprise and relief, Luz kept her promise and stood still next to her as the contraption in front of them hummed. Amity was about to say something when the portal suddenly powered down. She rushed to check the progress screen, and found an error message reading: "PLEASE INSERT KEY."

"What's wrong?" Luz wasn't hoping for the portal to work, but if she was anything it was two things: helpful and curious.

Panicked, Amity searched for the key, but couldn't find one. "It says it needs a key, but no one told me anything about one."

Luz immediately knew what key she was talking about, and at the same time remembered where it was: She had tied it around her neck and kept it since she destroyed the portal. At first she thought it would simply be a keepsake to remind her of her return home, but now it was evident that it was both a blessing and a curse that she had kept it. The human had two options: admit to having it and be sent home, or feign naivete and have a chance at staying, even if that meant being locked in the conformatorium. But as she considered these paths, something compelled her to remember why the date she saw on the boards at school seemed important. She's supposed to return from camp today.