When I woke in the blue darkness of the covery, I felt like I had been asleep for so long that I had turned to stone.

I had no way to know how long I had been asleep, but Alexei had not come to take me back to my quarters so it could not have been too late.

I had missed my mark.

After a morning spent with frustrating failure after frustrating failure, I had made the incredibly easy decision to give up.

The last day of my first week of Precept Seram's Implementation class had started out poorly. Staying up far too late into the night with my mind in Katarina's memories and then having to comfort Anna after one of her nightmares shortly after I had finally fallen asleep had left me little time to sleep.

That little time had been reduced even further when Sam's eyes had suddenly begun to glow yellow in the darkness of the room. He had proceeded to sprint from one end to the other in a laughing dash until I had finally agreed to let him out to hunt.

Waking up with my eyes sore and bloodshot, my body had felt like it weighed twice as much as it actually did. It had taken all of Anna's strength to get me dressed and all of her persuasion to convince me to leave our little room.

I was exhausted in ways I had not known were possible before my acceptance into Lun Arcanicil, but that had not been enough to make me quit.

Then there had been the final task of my first set of assignments.

It had not seemed much different than any of the others. The only difference had been that the square metal weight had been held above the table by my teacher's magical bubble. When I had given her the word, she would drop it and it was my duty to keep it from dropping to the wood beneath it.

Stopping its descent had been no issue. I had been able to do that every single time I had tried.

Holding it in the air and bringing it down to the table gently afterwards had turned out to be the hard limit of what I could do with my power. No matter what memory I had held in my mind, no matter how many times I had tried, my working would fail.

I would fail.

It had not been like the struggles there had been with my previous assignments. I had not slowly improved or had a sudden emotional realization that gave me the understanding necessary to prevail. Precept Seram had said it was because I lacked stamina, that I was naturally talented at using my power in quick bursts, but sustained workings would be more difficult for me to perform.

That had made sense to me. I trusted her guidance and knew that with it, I would eventually be able to catch the weight. I had been far too tired to continue to work towards that unknowable time however.

Yes, it was purely exhaustion that had left me unable to care about anything. Even the knowledge of what tomorrow would bring brought me no excitement.

I had kept Anna and I's agreements

I had asked questions.

I had stayed calm, mostly.

I had even managed to be as true to myself as I could be while I was living the black haired lie that was known as Underwitch Ire.

Anna and I would take the snowy road to Hymneth early the next morning. We would spend the day together and have the date that had been promised to me. After the third or fourth time I had failed to hold the weight once I had caught it, I had tried to find some power or patience in what I should have been looking forward to, but had continued to fail regardless.

After too many attempts, I had told Precept Seram that I was going to the covery to focus on bending branch and made my leave. I had not wished for her to know that I intended to sleep the rest of the day away because I cared very much about what she thought about me.

Tana had more than likely made all the other new moons think that I was some violent mindless monster. Somehow, the idea of Seram thinking I was lazy felt worse than being thought of as crazy by my classmates.

I sat up on the quilted table and stretched my arms above my head with a heavy yawn.

Living the Ire lie made me untruthful enough. I would sit in the darkness and practice bending branch because if I didn't, I would be lying to Seram even more than I was already forced to.

Before I could fill myself with my bright blue power, I heard a quiet conversation taking place just outside the drawn curtains of my place.

"I know we aren't supposed to be out past curfew, but I slept too long and missed dinner. It would be nice if one of you woke me up next time."

Plia. I recognized her voice even though the small amount of times I had heard her speak it had been filled with fear.

"We will, we will. Now tell us about when you saw the ghost." another voice demanded.

Tana. I thought to myself as a sour taste filled my mouth.

"I didn't say I saw a ghost," Plia continued. "I saw something, but it was dark and I was tired."

"Whatever. What did you see?" Tana said.

"A person, a girl maybe, I don't know. They were standing at the bottom of the stairs, but then Precept Bellum caught me and now I have detention tomorrow." Plia said in a rush.

Careful not to knock the bottle on the floor over, I swung my legs off the quilted table and quietly stood. The floor was covered with a bed of pillows and blankets, so it was not difficult to creep over to the curtains and peek through them without making a sound.

The other new moons sat in a loose circle amongst the blue sea of soft bedding.

Tana lay flat on her back, the bottom of her bare feet resting not an arms length from the thin fabric I hid behind. Plia sat next to her with her legs held to her chest. The two underwitches I had not met yet sat across from them.

"It's probably Ire, sneaking around and waiting to attack one of us." Tana said with a little laugh.

It took me a moment to realize that she meant me, but I was not happy when I did.

If walking quietly was considered sneaking, then I had snuck over to the curtains, but I hadn't been waiting to attack anyone until she had said I was.

How different could snatching her by her ankle really be from sliding a square metal weight across a table? I wouldn't even have to think of a memory to guide my will like Precept Seram had taught me. If she was so convinced that I was violent and crazy, then why should I not bring truth to her beliefs?

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Anna had always called me her little monster.

I had never known someone more deserving of experiencing my monstrousness more than the underwitch with the blue stone necklace. That wasn't true, there were much greater forces that had put me through much worse than Tana, but at least most of them had a reason.

Just before I brought my will to bear against her, I remembered one of the all important rules of Lun Arcanicil.

It was forbidden for a moon to use their aura outside of the classroom. If I reached out and dragged Tana into my place like a demon dragging a maiden into their lair, I seriously doubted my ability to hide my breaking of the rule.

I did not have proof that breaking it would directly lead to Azza locking me away in her domain, but that definitely felt like the sort of thing that would happen to me. So, I kept my will to myself and my tongue held, hoping the bright blue glow of my eyes could not be seen through the curtain.

Plia was the next to speak. She shook her head and spoke with her eyes held down to the quilted floor. "I think you are wrong about her. She is strange, but I don't think she would hurt any of us."

Tana argued back. "Think about it. Why else would that guard be following her around everywhere? The classroom, the dining hall, he takes her to wherever they lock her up in at night. He is here in case she snaps, so he can stop her from hurting one of us."

"I guess." Plia muttered through a sigh.

Even if it had been a half hearted defense, the skittish underwitch had taken up for me. In an opposite reaction to the one Tana had made me have, I wanted to burst from my hiding place and throw my arms around Plia. I wanted to thank her for what she had said and how it had made me feel, but I resisted the sudden wave of happiness and kept myself concealed.

One of the underwitches I did not know smiled and snickered. "I wish he would follow me around."

"Whatever she did, I'd do it twice if he would walk me home." the other added.

All of them laughed.

"He is kind of handsome in an intimidating way, isn't he?" Plia asked the circle of moons.

Tana shrugged her shoulders. "If you say so. He's too wild looking, like a stray dog. You will all see what I mean when Savian comes for The Lady's Ball at the end of the semester."

"He's not like a stray dog, he's like a-" the underwitch that wished to be followed disagreed.

The other cut her off. "A wolf."

"Ahhh." Everyone in the circle sighed in collective agreement.

When the agreeing faded, the underwitch that wished to be followed spoke in a much more serious tone. "This place is haunted. You've all heard the sounds in the walls."

They all nodded quietly at her words.

I hadn't heard anything coming from the walls, but I had been inside them. It brought me far more joy than it should have that I knew the sounds they were hearing was more than likely Nami and the precepts.

"It's not what's in the walls that you should worry about, it's what's in the library." one of the nameless underwitches said quietly, like she was telling a secret she should not be telling.

"Don't start with that again, Mallory." The only underwitch whose name I did not know said with a wave of her hand.

Mallory crossed her arms. "You tell me why no one goes down there then? The librarian won't even step foot in the place. All he does is have books brought to it from wherever he is. They are all piled up in boxes inside the door."

"What's in the library?" Plia asked, hiding all but her eyes behind her crossed arms and knees.

"A Monster. It almost ate Vanda and I last semester." Mallory gasped dramatically before falling into laughter.

"Shut up," The Underwitch I then knew to be named Vanda said as she pushed Mallory over. "She's just trying to scare you. It didn't try to eat us. We didn't even see it."

"But there is something in the library?" Tana asked aloud.

"Underneath it. I think. We all got detention and had to clean it. The later it got, the more we heard it." Vanda said in the same hushed tone Mallory had used before her.

"There would be these sounds, like someone was banging on a door and the floor would shake." Mallory continued.

"And the breathing. Every couple of minutes when we got to the bottom floor, we could hear something let out these big breaths." Vanda said in turn.

"Before Ryslyn left Lun, she said that it was some kind of guardian, that the six wonders of The Mother in Blue are kept beneath the library, but I think she was making it up." Mallory continued.

Plia had coiled around herself so tightly that it seemed like she had shrunk. "Mothers help me, is that what I am going to have to do? Did you get detention for being out too late?"

"No, we didn't have a curfew until this semester." Vanda replied as she seemed to shake off whatever chill had crept over her.

The hair on the nape of my neck had stood on end as they had spoken, but not because I was being watched. They had been wrong in thinking that no one went to the library.

Anna did.

Every time she had talked about it, she had said it was empty.

Surely if there was some monster shaking the floor and breathing loud enough to hear, she would have told me.

"The curfew is because all the people in Hymneth think Azeralphane blew in with the storm the other night and is terrorizing the village," Tana said as she broke the circle and stood. "But my mother says it's all made up, that the precepts and Mother Nami are getting wrapped up in superstition."

"I hope so. The stories I've heard say that he only goes after young sorceresses and we are all the youngest here." Plia said as she looked back over her shoulder.

Tana looked down at her disapprovingly. "I'm going to eat."

"Did you finish your assignment?" Plia asked as she followed Tana's lead.

"No," Tana said with a shake of her head. "I could hold it if it didn't break through my working every time it fell. Seram said that I have natural talent for sustaining workings, but that I need to learn how to build my power up quickly."

"Don't worry about it, it took me my whole first phase before I ever got to the catching assignment." Mallory said as all of them made for the door of the covery.

"I am not worried. I'm Spring Tana. I'll be a full moon by the time any of you get your first crescent." Tana said with a laugh that did little to hide the arrogance in her voice.

Once they were gone, I turned away from the curtains and immediately began getting dressed.

Tana was stuck on the same assignment that I was.

That knowledge had come with me finally understanding what I had been missing that morning. The path that would lead me to completing my assignment did not need to be motivated by all the things that had brought me as far as I had come.

All I needed was the thought of being better than her.

For all I cared, she could tell whoever she wanted that I was crazy. If I knew that I was more powerful than her, that I could do more than her, what she said about me felt like it would matter so much less.

She had even given me the memory that I would root my working to. Anger and happiness had swung wildly within me during my eavesdropping. I had felt them and had been so close to giving in, but I had stayed silent and held my tongue.

I would catch the weight with the feeling of how it had felt to hear Tana talking about me in the front of my mind. Then, I would let it fade and be silent as I held the metal square like I had my dark desires.

As soon as I could fasten my cloak around my neck, I left the then empty covery with an excited smile on my face and nearly ran straight into Alexei.

"I was coming to wake you. It is late." My white haired guard said in his emotionless tone.

Literally crying on his shoulder the day before had seemed to reestablish some of the distance between us that there had been before. It was a small set back in my attempts to endear myself to him, but I could not be concerned with it then.

"Wait here. I have something I need to do." I told him as I made my way back through the open door of Precept Seram's class room.

My pink haired precept sat on one of the chairs in the lowest level of her terraced room. She was not floating and her bubble was nowhere to be seen. With her white gloved hands, she was tying the laces of her black boots in what could only be preparation to leave.

"Underwitch Ire? I was certain that you had returned to your quarters. There is no shame in waiting until next week. Giving yourself time to process what you have learned will usually lead to improvement." She said as she climbed the terraces towards my place.

"I'm sure you're right, but this will only take a moment." I insisted, not bothering to take off the uncomfortable parts of my uniform that I had just put back on.

Precept Seram's pastel blue aura covered the little metal weight as she raised it from its place on the table. "Such confidence."

I lifted my hand and let my power build against the seals on my skin.

"Not confidence. Spite." I corrected my teacher with Tana held firmly in the front of my mind.

Then, the weight fell.

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