“Hey, has anyone seen that truth serum that I made this morning?”

Lilith stopped dead as she held her own tea to her lips. After all, Willow and Amity were over for a girl’s study night and she had been a good host to them and offered them drinks. However, Eda had a bad habit of not labeling things and so the older Clawthorn slowly turned to her sister and asked, “Um, what color was it?”

Eda raised an eyebrow. “Purple. Why do you ask?”

Lilith paled at the news. Of course, her mind did consider a useful side effect of it but she didn’t like having unintentionally drugged Luz’s friends. “Um, I offered the girls some grape juice when they got here.”

Eda snorted for a second before walking towards the stairs. “Oh, don’t worry about that. I actually did make some of that too. No, I put the serum in a metal thermos to keep it chilled when I went to market with it because it loses its effects if it gets too warm.”

Creak.

The two sisters looked up to the stairs to see Luz in the middle of sipping from said metal thermos. The energetic girl’s eyes slowly turned to her drink before taking it away from her lips with a pop. “Um, uh, I had heard that there was some grape juice and when I didn’t find it I kind of, well,” she then shuddered as purple static buzzed off of her and she blurted out, “checked this to see if maybe you had packed me some for school tomorrow and then took it up to have with the others. I’m so sorry for not asking!”

Eda and Lilith looked at each other before Eda got an evil grin on her face. “Hey, kid, does making this a game where we all ask you your most personal questions sound?”

“Amazing!” Luz then frowned for a second. It was in part because she wished that hadn’t been her brain’s first response but also because, “Couldn’t I just say I don’t want to answer it as the truth or keep my mouth shut if it was too personal?”

Lilith stood up before shaking her head. “I’m assuming with how devious my sister is that that’s the same sort of serum that the Emperor’s Coven uses. Part of the effects is that you have to answer questions and speak your mind. Otherwise, a truth serum is pretty useless.”

Luz immediately snapped back with, “That sounds really shady.” She then scratched her head as she mumbled, “I swear I came up with a trick for this sort of thing at one point…”

Eda came up behind Luz before beginning to push her student up the stairs. “Come on. We have work to get done.”

Lilith on the other hand decided to ask, “Why would you come up with a trick around a truth serum? Magic doesn’t exist in your world. In fact, without knowing how magic worked, what would your plan even be?”

Luz hopped onto the top landing of the stairs before bringing her hands up to the side of her head like she was a secret agent holding a gun. “Because Noceda, Luz Noceda, will not fail as the super spy she was destined to be one day.”

The two Clawthorn’s stared at Luz before Eda said, “I don’t even think that’s the potion talking.”

“Potion?”

The two conspirators and their accidental victim looked to Luz’s room where Willow and Amity had come out of. Amity frowned in concern before coming closer to Luz. “We were wondering what was taking so long. Are you okay? What sort of potion was it?”

Luz beamed at the serious girl before shouting, “Ah, I’m so happy you’re worried about me, Amity. I’m feeling great though! It was just a simple truth serum after all.”

Amity blushed at the compliment. She was first going to say that it was just what friends did until Luz finished and her face turned bright red. One of her hands then went to her ear and hearing the blossom’s message again made her shout, “Do you like me!?”

Luz gave Amity the dumbest smile she had while her cheeks turned a little red and she shouted, “Of course! You’re my friend after all.”

Eda and Lilith could see the shattering of Amity’s heart for a second before Lilith laced her fingers together. “I think she meant a little more than just a friendly sort of liking.”

Luz tilted her head for a second before she went, “Ooooooh,” before turning pale and laughing nervously. “I mean, I do consider her to be my best friend. After all, she’s beautiful, strong, kind, smarter than I thought anyone could be, and her confidence can’t be matched. I mean,” she said as she grabbed Amity’s hands, “I bet she could say anything she wanted, truth potion or not.”

Amity’s face was bright red as she stared into Luz’s eyes. They were shining so bright. And so close. And her words were so sweet. Well, outside of the friends stuff at least. Willow decided to step in before she actually managed to say anything. “Oh, like if she liked someone?”

Luz began to say, “Exactly,” before Amity cut her off by screaming, “I would still need to want to answer the question!”

Willow giggled before looking at Luz. “Well, maybe she’ll feel more like it if you answer first, Luz. Is there someone you like?”

Eda cut that one off by saying, “I think we already saw where that got us so let’s amend that to love.”

Luz turned pale as her mind began screaming. After all, she’d managed to figure out some sort of out before now while still technically telling the truth. That one was a little… harder. Stall, Noceda! “Well, um, of course I do! I love my mom, Eda, King is way too cute not to love and- I remember now!”

Lilith’s knuckles turned white as she gripped her hands tighter together. Fortunately, there was a simple fix to this. “Luz, the question.”

Luz began bouncing in place as she said, “I’ll answer it after answering the one you asked earlier. Or, well, I shouldn’t, not if the plan works.”

Eda turned to her sister and glared at her. She just had to ask what Luz’s plan would have been, didn’t she? Luz didn’t appear to notice though, nor did she notice the frustration on Willow’s face or the fact that Amity was barely breathing as she waited to hear who that last person might have been. No, she instead merely resumed her spy pose again. “Well, you see it’s quite simple. I merely need to say something I would need to keep trying to correct to the truth. As an example, I shall now say that today is opposite day! But, because the phrase means it’s not opposite day, I’m now lying, so I have to say it’s not opposite day! But-”

Luz was stuck in this loop for three hours while they all waited on the potion to wear off. When it was done, she dodged having to say who that last person was with, “I mean, I admitted that I might not have been able to even say if I liked someone, let alone loved them, without the potion.” This, quite understandably, sent Amity back into the closet she’d been in for the last three hours to continue screaming into a pillow.