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LUZ PRESSED PLAY ON EMBER'S phone, rewatching the video Ember had made with Luz for her mom explaining that she wouldn't be coming home. Ember had done the same for Luz.
"I hope you understand, mom. And... I'm sorry."
The video ended on a frame of Ember frowning, holding the phone in her hands sadly, brown eyes downcast.
"Y'know, I think he does it cause he's shy," Gus says softly, tapping his chin thoughtfully as he spoke with Willow, sitting a few stairs down from Ember and Luz. "He's just evil and shy, it happens."
The video ended, and Ember scooched over to Luz to check on her. She grabbed her necklace and fidgeted with the locket as Luz leaned onto her right shoulder.
"I heard there's just a mirror underneath." Willow narrows her eyes and glances around before cupping her hand around her mouth and whispering, "The real emperor was society all along."
"Maybe he's so handsome, people have a hard time focusing on what he says." Gus theorizes, waving his hands in front of his face. He shrugs. "I get it. I can relate." He says, turning to the two behind them.
Luz picked up her phone, setting Ember's between them as she watched it, her expression sad. Ember rubbed the heavy dark bags under her eyes before returning her attention to fidgeting with her locket.
She hadn't been sleeping lately, always waking up thinking she was back in the human realm, incapable of doing anything to explain herself to her mother. She felt like she failed her mother; choosing her own path and choosing what and where makes her happiest.
"Luz and Ember!" Luz scrambles with her phone, she and Ember jump apart. She hides the device behind her back, eyes wide. "You two have seen Belos up close. What's he like under..." He gestures to his face, narrowing his eyes curiously. "all that?"
"Oh!" Luz taps her chin with her pointer finger, glancing at Ember, who has rested her head on her propped-up knee, drifting between consciousness. She sighed softly and shrugged at the two below them. "We never got a good look."
Amity's head pops up to the right of Ember's, and she's grinning mischievously. "I heard he's scarred from wild magic!"
Ember jolts awake, screaming and falling back onto the stairs, falling over Luz's lap. She shakes out of her daze, sighing in relief upon seeing Amity.
