A strange thought snapped through my panicked mind as I tried to free myself from the clutches of my attacker.

I had fought them before.

Only, they had not been quite so big the last time.

Rolling into my back with a broken melody of notes ringing out in my mind, the mass of fur settled its too heavy weight onto my chest. All the fight and struggle left my body. I let my arms drop down to the hard edges of the singing stairs and looked up to see two glowing yellow eyes staring back down at me.

"Let me go, Sam. Anna needs me." I whispered harshly, the sounds of Precept Shanti's conversation growing ever closer.

There would be time for me to let my anger out at him later. I had to find a way to hide from the precepts and yelling at my familiar would not help my need for stealth.

"Silence, My Lady. You will be discovered by your betters." Sam said quietly in his new high pitched voice.

"Dragging me to the ground and holding me down will prevent that, how?" I whispered, as I rolled my head back against the cold crystal underneath it and looked up the stairs above me. I had been pinned not two steps from the landing.

Precept Shanti would have to be literally blind to not see me once she reached it.

"It will not," Sam answered simply. "Remain here, I will intercept them so you may continue unimpeded."

Before I could say another word, he bounded off of my chest and left my sight. I stared up at the bottom of the crystal stairs above me and remained as he had commanded.

"Well, hello there." Precept Shanti yawned.

"This is one of the new moon's is it not? The black haired one with the cord?" The other voice asked.

"Underwitch Ire. She is the one that threw up her power at the ball before the storm rolled in." Shanti added.

"Forgive that I do not remember your name. If I recall correctly, you can speak, yes?" The other voice said to Sam.

"MEOW." Sam said in some monstrous imitation of a real cat. Even with the higher pitched voice that came with his yellow eyes, it didn't sound all that different from one of Mother Gwyn's snarling beasts.

"What do we do?" Precept Shanti asked.

"I am unsure. It has been many years since there was a familiar roaming the halls. Mother Katarina's children were still young enough to need someone to watch them." The other voice answered.

Three yellow flashes, like silent strikes of lightning, brightened the dark staircase suddenly.

"MEOW." Sam's call came echoing down the crystal stairs once again.

"I think it wants us to follow it." Shanti yawned, her voice sounding further away than it had before.

"MEOW."

"Well, go on then, show us the way." The other voice said with a weary sigh.

I stayed on my back for a long moment and listened as their footsteps grew quieter and quieter. When I could no longer hear them, not even with my breath held and my body still, I rolled off my back and climbed to my feet amongst a chorus of crystalline notes. Sam's sudden change had come with many things that I found annoying, but his horrible mimicry nearly made me laugh the cover it had given me away. Whoever had been with Precept Shanti had been correct, my familiar could speak, he had just deliberately chosen not to. Beyond that, he was perfectly capable of making actual cat sounds. Hisses, growls, meows, I had heard him do them all.

Had Sam been trying to make me laugh?

There was not nearly enough time for me to ponder the answer to that question, so I left it where I had been laying on the spiral staircase.

From the stairs to the wing that held the dining hall, I ran as close to the wall as I could without dragging my shoulder against the grey stones. The small smile that Sam had put on my face faded as I reached the massive doors and tried to open one quietly.

I tried.

The darkness that surrounded me brought a prickling uneasiness to my fingers. So eager to begin moving once again, I pulled the door open a little too hard and sent it swinging out behind me. I threw myself down and crawled underneath one of the long tables just as the door smacked against the wall outside. The impact echoed back into the empty hall and I spent a long moment with my breath held and my heart pounding in my chest.

The Precepts had to have heard the noise I had made.

All of them.

It would only be a matter of minutes before they all came rushing in and found me hiding under the table.

I would be punished. In what manner or to what extreme, I did not know, but it would happen.

My breaths became shallow and my whole body froze over in a cold sweat. A pit formed in my stomach at the thought of more punishments being wrapped around my neck. I still had six more from The Mothers and had no idea when they would be coming. At any time, I could be pulled from my quarters or Precept Seram's classroom and thrown into some sudden torture. If I was caught in the dining hall, I could be pulled from the precept's punishment and taken The Mother's.

I can't. I admitted to myself as I tried to slow my breathing.

I'll leave. If I get caught, I'll run away again.

Anna can get new clothes. I've learned enough. I know twice as much as I did before I came here. How hard could it be to find a weight and a table in Erosette? With Anna's coaching, I can get just as strong at the manor as I could in Lun.

Anna.

She was probably still slumped over on the floor, only holding herself up by her grip on the toilet. The floor was too cold. She had told me so. Unless she was caught in one of the violent wretches that emptied her stomach, she would be shivering from the chill and the strain. She was waiting for me to come back, and there I was hiding under a table in the dark. How would she feel if I kept her waiting and came back empty handed? What could I possibly say to her to explain that the one time she actually needed me, I had failed?

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I couldn't.

I wouldn't.

I won't.

On my hands and knees, I forced myself to move forward through the darkness. With every single table leg and chair I ran my face and shoulders into, I would snap still in anticipation of my sneaking being ruined. When I reached up blindly and found that there was no table left above me, I stood and walked forward with my hands stretched out in front of me.

There was not so much as single glowing coal in any of the fireplaces. Without the shapeless chattering of underwitches that normally filled the air, the quiet sound of my bare feet crossing the stone floor echoed softly against the high ceilings. I had ran from my quarters so quickly that the heat of my body was still warding off the cold of the empty place, but I could feel it creeping up on me like one of the horrors I had imagined on my way there.

My hips hit the edge of the table that stood across the width of the room and I started pawing over all the food in search of what Anna needed.

I felt like I did when Alexei had taken me through the passageways in the walls. How was I supposed to find bread if I couldn't see my hand when I held it up in front of my face?

Precept Seram had taught me many things, but I was no closer to being able to make a werelight than I had been when my guard had told me to.

The longer it took me, the more likely it became that I was discovered.

Anything that felt close to what I thought bread felt like got picked up and piled into my arms. Rough crusted rounds and soft loafs, slices and hunks, dry and moist alike, I stacked them into my arms as I moved from the left side of the table to the right.

I placed a long and thin loaf onto the bread mountain I had formed in my arms and ignored the storm of crumbs that I felt spilling down my front like a cast off working.

In my haste, I had not heard the footsteps approaching the dining hall until they crossed through the door I had swung open not very long before.

My body acted before my mind could form a thought.

I squatted straight down in front of the table and held my breath. Across all of the possible ways I could have tried and hid, I knew that I had picked the worst one as soon as my sudden descent came to a stop. Whoever was approaching me was too close. All I would do if I moved was make noise and draw attention to myself. My breath beginning to burn in my chest, I bit my lip as the footsteps stopped right in front of where I knelt.

Pallid blue light appeared above me and my eyes flinched shut against the sudden brightness.

I have failed. I thought to myself, hoping desperately that it was not Precept Seram who had found me. My teacher's perfectly pleasant face looking down at me in anger or disappointment would be too much for me to take.

I opened my eyes just enough to look up and see if my fears had come true.

Plia stood half an arm from me, her grey blue aura shining atop the tip of her pointer finger in a little ball. The short sorceress wore a too long nightgown that bunched on the stone beneath her feet. Her werelight was too bright for me to see what she was looking at, but her lack of startled screams was evidence enough that she had not noticed me.

If I stay still, maybe she won't. I thought. What is she doing down here?

The very next moment, she side stepped towards me as she reached for something on the table.

I did not back away, but all of me tensed at her movement.

The long loaf of bread fell from its perch and hit the floor in a burst of dusty crumbs.

Plia screamed and whipped around to face me.

Blinded by her power, I fell back and all that I had gathered tumbled out of my hands.

The short underwitch clamped a hand over her mouth and silenced her own scream as I began to throw the scattered bread back into my arms.

The time for stealth had ended.

I would have to make a run for it.

"What are you doing here?" Plia demanded in a hushed tone, her hand leaving her mouth just long enough to ask her question.

"What are you doing here?" I whispered back.

"I get hungry when I can't sleep," She snapped as she lowered herself to my height and brought her werelight low enough that I could see her face. "Why are you following me?"

"I'm not following you. My partner is sick. They need bread." I answered, real anger bringing an edge to my voice. Some of what I had gathered was not bread, so I left it where it had fallen and only took what I needed.

"Oh." Plia muttered.

She took the long loaf that had fallen near her feet and placed it gently in my arms.

Without waiting for her to speak again, I stood and made my way back towards the door between the tables.

She called after me. "Precept Shanti and Precept Bellum are awake. Don't get caught."

"I won't" I whispered back, too concerned with Anna to stop and thank the new moon for her warning.

My words were true.

From the dining hall, back through the pitch black wing, down the singing stairs, and onto the hall that was hidden behind them, I saw no sign of the precepts. As soon as I laid my eyes on the door to Anna and I's quarters, I broke into a full sprint that was only slowed by my need to return without leaving a trail of fallen food behind me.

I did stop and leave the dusty remnants of Ire at the door.

Anna did not need the dark haired underwitch.

She needed me.

All of the panic and all of the fear I felt vanished when I saw Anna laying on her side on the bathroom floor. She was asleep and snoring, but even in her rest I could see the poor shape she was in. Having nowhere else to put it, I dropped all the bread on top of the bed and went back to her.

"Anna. You can't sleep here. It's not a bed." I said softly.

She let out a weak laugh and brought her hands to her face. "I hadn't noticed."

I helped her sit up and tried to help her stand, but she resisted me.

"Can't, I'm disgusting." She said, shaking her head and reaching over to draw a bath.

Without thought, without hesitation, without needing to be told what to do, I started the water and helped her up. She was dirty, anyone who went through what she had just been through would have been, but she was not disgusting. She could never be that, and I told her as much as I helped her get clean.

In truth, with the relief of the warm water washing over her face as she began to relax, I could not think of time she had been more beautiful.

"I'm sorry I took so long, I should have been back sooner." I told her as I dried her hair with my aura in the way that my mother had taught me.

She made a stumbling turn towards me in response, but her eyes remained closed. Wearing nothing but her towel, she leaned against the door frame and pointed a lazy finger in my general direction. "You know I love you, right? And I'm not just saying that because I'm sick and drunk. I need to tell you that more. Because I do, I just need to tell you that more."

I smiled a real smile, one whose warmth spread far deeper within me than my lips.

"You don't need to tell me anything. I know." I told her as I walked her to the bed and made sure she was all the way on it before I turned my attention to what I had brought her.

"So, I think most of this bread. Some of it is cake, maybe. This is definitely cheese." I said as I looked over the spread atop the made bed.

She opened her eyes then.

I watched them find their focus and as soon as they did, she fell back on the bed in a fit of laughter.

"What?" I asked in feigned anger, truly happy to hear it instead of the horrid sounds that had been coming from her earlier.

I never got an answer, but that bothered me little.

Watching her eat, brushing all of the crumbs she had made off the bed, and crawling into bed beside her once she fell asleep was enough for me.

I had taken care of Anna the way she would have taken care of me.

Nightmare or not, that was what I did.

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