The diner Willow and Laurel are in is bizarre: technically a chain restaurant, but each one is unique in food, quality, decor, atmosphere, everything. The only thing they have in common is the name: Sunchaser Diner.

  This one, situated in Salt Lake City, is hickory-paneled walls and oaken floors, with walnut chairs and faux-wood tabletops. Everything on the menu is surprisingly cheap for a surprisingly large portion, too.

  Willow and Laurel wait patiently by the front. Since the home improvement incident, Laurel has taken to wearing a baseball cap and fake glasses, if only to break the recognizable silhouette. She's far from a household name, especially two years after the news cycle was through, but if one person has recognized her, it stands to reason others might too.

  Fennel arrives, and waves. She looks exactly like the description May and Six gave: tight braids, baggy clothes, and a distinctive pair of thin scars on her left cheek. "Hey there," she says with a wave.

  "Hey!" Willow says, eagerly entering the diner with Fennel and Laurel.

  The three are directed to a seat, and look over the menus a silent waitress sets in from of then. "Damn. Good pricing," Fennel says. "Anyway, good to meet you. You two are ex-Counter-Magic, right?"

  "Well," Willow says, "I'm technically still active service, and my friend here is just a consultant."

  "Mmm... Oh shit, Vale!"

  Laurel takes a minute, but widely smiles. Maybe being recognized isn't so bad, when it means meeting old friends. "Fennel! I had forgotten what you looked like!"

  "I don't blame you! How the hell did you get out?"

  "Long, long story. Willow, this is Fennel! I used to sell her formalized Static sigil stakes when I needed cash. I go by Laurel now, just so you know."

  Fennel nods along. "People keep asking for those, by the way. I'll be your first customer if you sell them again, Laurel."

  "Oh, of course."

  Willow scratches her head. "So I went through all this trouble, and you two already know each other?"

  "Yep," Fennel says. "Anyway, I'm happy to be your intrepid guide into the wide world of magic regulations. It varies by state, and lucky for you, Utah has barely any. You just need to provide an itemized list of all items you're planning to sell, include some kind of mark on each item you produce, and register said mark with Counter-Magic. Vale already has a mark, those two mountains with the V in between, right?"

  Laurel shyly nods.

  "I still see a ton of those around the shows. You have a kind of infamy, like, 'this terrible person made good shit'. You get it."

  Fennel seems so nonchalant about how hated Laurel is. It hurts a little. "Hoping to redeem my image, but that goes without saying. I wonder how much money I have in my old bank accounts, now that I think about it."

  Willow slowly turns her head to Laurel. "How much money do you think you have?"

  "I have no idea, honestly. Money came and went a lot. Illegal grimoires were expensive. I think the last one I bought was two hundred thousand, and-"

  "TWO-" Willow covers her mouth as the waitress comes by and takes everyone's orders, before walking away. It's not busy here, but there are other customers.

  Laurel giggles. "I... yeah. I forgot I had money, to be honest. I wasn't really spending much inside Magimax."

  Fennel raps her knuckles on the table. "Okay, I gotta know, before I start telling you all the boring registration stuff. Were you let out because of that documentary series?"

  "Huh?"

  "Piercing the Vale? You haven't heard?"

  Laurel's eye starts to twitch slightly. She absolutely had not.

  The second the two get home, they split, working in perfect tandem. Willow making popcorn and getting drinks, Laurel finding out which of the fifty thousand streaming services has it.

  Fortunately, it's on the big one, and the two cuddle up on the couch together.

  "Remember, Laurel, if this gets bad, we can turn it off."

  "Honestly? I kind of hope it is. I wanna see how badly they skew it." Laurel isn't lying, either. There's a kind of morbid joy in watching her character get assassinated.

  The first episode starts with a voiceover describing occultists, what they are, what they do, the usual boring stuff. And then, it's an old picture of Laurel, blurred to hide the pixelation, with Piercing the Vale: The Hunt for Chad Vale in an ominous font.

  "Jeez," Willow says. "They couldn't get your name right?"

  "I doubt they even know I'm out of prison, let alone that I changed my name. I should call Shankar. Might be able to get it corrected before the next episode."

  "Heh. Laurel, I just realized, you're still wearing those fake glasses."

  Laurel reaches for her face, and feels nothing. "Oh, screw you."

  Willow's teasing smirk melts Laurel's heart, but Willow's words do more when she says, "You do look pretty cute with them, though. Like a sexy librarian or something. You should wear them more often."

  "Wait, really?"

  "Sure. I like your face however it is, though." Willow reaches out, and pokes Laurel on the nose.

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  Laurel can't help herself. She reaches over, and meets Willow into a kiss. Soon, the documentary is entirely forgotten, the screen frozen on an unflattering frame of some guy talking.

  It takes around thirty minutes before things cool down enough for Laurel to take a few breaths. "Wow. I- I mean, you know. Wow."

  Willow rests her head against Laurel's shoulder. "You know, Laurel, you're a really god damn attractive woman."

  "You too," she replies, mentally screaming at how dumb that sounded.

  "No, I mean it. You're incredibly smart. You have a huge range of disciplines, like you're a one-woman university. As if that wasn't enough, you're also really fucking pretty, and you kiss well, too."

  Laurel wipes a small drop of sweat from her forehead as she tries to think of the best way to phrase what she has to say. "You know, I, uhh... I haven't actually kissed anyone as... well, as myself. If you get my meaning."

  "I do. Which reminds me... actually, never mind."

  "Go ahead." It's probably about one of her many occult dealings. It's natural to be curious, Laurel figures. No reason not to answer, right?

  "It's... well, about that rock I touched. How many more are there?"

  "...a few. I'm not giving specifics. I... I trust you, I really do, but a lot of people rely on them."

  "Completely fair. Look, I know I'm not supposed to say this, but those are a damn good thing to have around. Curse or not, I bet they've helped a lot of people. And you didn't do it for money, either. You just went all around the country and made those sites to help people. I'm... I dunno. I find that kind of selflessness really attractive." Willow kisses Laurel's cheek, and resumes the documentary, leaving Laurel's brain as a fog.

  She barely pays attention as the documentary's overly long introduction finally ends. When it actually starts, it leads with an interview by Karl Hendrickson, labelled as 'Anti-Occultist Task Group Delta Survivor'.

  "Survivor?" Willow sardonically asks. "None of them were hurt, besides one guy shitting himself for a while! I'm a survivor of going to fucking Taco Bell, I guess."

  Vale is too busy riding the high of Willow's compliments to have a witty remark. Having her close like this...

  Willow groans at the 'real footage of Chad Vale' with a vignette and a spooky gray filter that's just a grocery store security camera showing Laurel buying a few snacks.

  "Jesus, that's just sad. How is that- holy fuck, is that fucking Peter Jordanson?!" Willow laughs hysterically at a far-right pundit's jumpscare as he starts talking about how 'deviants like Chad' are prone to study the occult and Satanism.

  Willow playfully covers Laurel's eyes, but at finding them wet, immediately pauses the video. "Hey... is it too much?"

  "Whuh? No, I'm just... Willow, thank you. For everything. You saved my life."

  Willow gently kisses her head. "I'm glad I did. You're much too cute to die."

  Laurel lays her head down in Willow's lap, but shoots it back up as quickly as she put it down. "Why is fucking Peter Jordanson in this?!"

  Shankar's phone rings for a few moments, before he picks up with dismay. He looks at the name, and nearly hangs up taking the call. "Vale, it's eight at night. This better be important."

  "Am I interrupting something? I can call back in a couple hours."

  Right, right. He read that it's common for Magimax prisoners to completely lose track of culturally acceptable timeframes, due to them simply not having a schedule beyond 'light on,' 'light off,' and 'food.' "No, just... call me between nine and five for now on."

  "Won't you be sleeping?"

  Or maybe she's just socially inept. "...nine in the morning, Vale."

  "Oh! Right, so sorry! I forgot what a workday was like."

  "It's fine, it's fine. What is it?"

  "Well, there's this documentary series about me."

  Damn it. He was hoping she wouldn't find that until it was finished. "Terms of parole include me having to look over any media appearances you make for final say, and you not being allowed to make any profit based on past crimes, so you aren't allowed to be paid for anything you do. No marketing, either, obviously."

  "Okay, I just wanted to correct some things for factual accuracy."

  "No skewing things to make you look better, either."

  "Not that... I, uhh, just want to make it clear that my name is different, and that I didn't kill six people. That speculation is insane."

  Shankar runs his hand down his face, looking apologetically to his wife as she points to the clock on her phone. This is gonna be a lot of overtime...

  After calling the company making the docuseries, Laurel was immediately invited to a local set in Utah for interviews. Once she coordinated with Shankar, it was easy enough to find the time to make it there.

  It's a small studio, a sandy yellow box in the desert, like most of the purpose-built rectangles out here. The only signs of life are the dozen cars waiting in the unmarked and disused parking lot, not yet consumed by dust like the building they're just outside of.

  The inside is the opposite: a dark gray box, with a solid two dozen people waiting for them within. One of them being Shankar, who's hanging by the refreshments table. Laurel ignores the hushed whispers and private security clutching tightly to their tasers as she stands beside her parole officer. Willow, meanwhile, lurks near the entrance so as not to draw attention as "Vale's friend."

  Shankar nods to her, while Laurel busily begins obliterating the doughnuts.

  One guy strides over, wearing a beret despite probably never having so much as seen a picture of Europe, and offers Shakar a handshake. "You must be Chad Vale."

  Shankar gestures with his head over to the occultist, who furiously finishes a chocolate frosted and offering a handshake. "It's Laurel, actually. Laurel Vale."

  "I thought we were speaking with Chad today."

  "That was my old name. You seriously don't recognize me?"

  "I do, but Vale is a well-known magic user. Illusions are to be expected, of course. So this guy is your parole officer, right?"

  Laurel nods. "This is Shankar, he-"

  "Okay. Good. Go sit." The guy in the beret waves her away.

  After a shrug to Shankar, she obeys. Laurel sits down in an ominous dark wood chair, backlit and facing straight ahead to the camera. No makeup team for her, it seems, not that it really matters. It's a little worrying how scared everyone still looks. Hopefully by the end, they'll be less nervous.

  "You can just call me Vale, if you need to. Or Laurel."

  "Fine, whatever. Roll camera."

  Oh, the beret guy is the director. That makes sense.

  The interviewer hesitantly takes his seat, looking through his questions with a sweaty brow. "Please state your name."

  "Laurel Vale," she replies.

  "I thought your name was-"

  "I changed it a while ago," Laurel interrupts. "It wasn't a great name for a woman. At least, in my opinion. You can just call me Vale for simplicity, I get how it would be confusing for the show." Vale smiles a little wider at seeing how rattled the interviewer is. Her congeniality is a dangerous weapon, is seems.

  "Alright. Well, Vale, how is prison treating you?"

  "I'm out on parole, assuming I continue to work with Counter-Magic when they need my expertise. I know what you're thinking, but it's actually true this time."

  "Interesting." The interviewer flips through a few pages. "So, what do you think of the crack team that finally put you away for, well, twoish years? Have you considered what you're doing now that you're out of prison?"

  Laurel's smile drops slightly. "Hendrickson and Warburg are okay, I guess. I admit, it's hard to put that betrayal behind me, but I know from their perspective they were doing the right thing. Bay's a..." Laurel trails off, considering her options. The lawsuit for assault was dropped, so she can't say that... but she can say the truth. "Bay's not my favorite person. After he slapped me, I... did something I regret. I hexed him with incontinence. It was juvenile, dangerous, and so, so stupid of me. I can't say that I didn't deserve some prison time for it."

  The interviewer leans in. "Bay claims you hexed him with something that made his body unable to retain water."

  "I guess that's a nicer way to say it."

  "Alright. What would you say to the say to the team that outsmarted you?"

  Outsmarted? She wasn't outsmarted, she was lied to... Even so, Laurel puts her pride aside. There's no place for it here. "I'd say I hope they're doing well, and that they can sleep at night."

  The interview went well, overall, at least in Laurel's estimation. It went on for hours, though. She's sure Shankar has his work cut out for him in approving what questions can be put into the series.

  In the meantime, though, Willow is taking her out for a late lunch. Or maybe an early dinner. Either way, Laurel's getting pancakes.