Almost every time that it had happened in the short part of my life that I could remember, being the center of attention usually meant I had done something wrong.

The spare few times it had happened and I had not been in trouble were some of my favorite memories.

Even if the late hours were a blurry mess, the gathering that had been held for my birthday was something I would never forget. When I had been a guest in The Mother in Red's home, I had spent almost all of my time there thinking that some horrible torture was waiting around every corner. When I had finally accepted that Rhiannon and her lovers had not meant me harm, I had been able to understand the depth of their care and kindness. Countless times, I had outplayed Arthur in front of the guards. They would cheer with me and laugh at him until they fell by my hand as well.

Those memories weighed more in my heart.

They felt so significant despite how brief they had truly been.

Sitting on the floor of the room that lay somewhere deep beneath the white snow that blanketed Lun, I had discovered why.

The thread that ran through each of the memories and all the others that felt like they did was that I had been Autumn.

Just Autumn.

I had not been The Well thief or the terrified little girl that had run away to the mortal plane. Any thoughts of my breaking The Mother's seal or escaping the walls that had confined me had been very far away.

No glamors, no lies, no hiding, I had been myself and that had been more than enough for the people around me.

At least two of the people watching me prepare to be observed were only there because they had been charged by The Mothers to assist me. Alexei had asked to come, yes, but if he had not been assigned as my guard, he never would have known me in the first place. Sorceress Twila probably gave no great care as to who I was. The Mothers would not have been allowed to see my true face if she had. In all likelihood, her interest in regard to me ended with wanting to please The Mothers.

The Mother in Grey constantly seemed like she wanted to be anywhere that I wasn't. If the need for me to find my red again was indeed because of The Well like I thought it was, then she needed me to be Autumn.

Nami cared. She might not love me the way that The Mother in Red did, but I was certain that she was on my side like Rhiannon and Glim.

Anna and my mother were the reasons I knew what love was.

In very different ways and for very different reasons, they had never asked me to be anything other than what I was. With both of them sitting to my left and everyone but Mother Grey and Alexei sitting on my right, I felt that significance once again.

I was about to do something that only Autumn could do and everything one in the room had come to watch.

If I never had to put on my mask of Ire again, it would have been too soon.

Stealing The Well, running away, breaking seals, despite it all, I liked being myself.

"Underwitch Autumn, when my eyes open once again, you may begin." Mother Grey said in her flat tone. Sitting on her knees before me, she held the tips of my fingers in her hands and I tried very hard to not think about the fact that she was.

"Yes, Mother." I agreed from where I sat across from her.

I don't know why I had expected her hands to be smooth and cold to the touch like the glass vial that hung beneath the front of my dress, but I had and they had not been.

As soon as she had pulled the loose fabric of her sleeves up and our hands had met, I had felt their roughness. Her palms and fingertips were calloused like Bool's or any of the other guards in Erosette, like she had spent long hours with a wooden sword and a hayman. Signs of old wounds ran all across them like those that were on my feet. There were thin white lines where they had been cut and star shaped scars that looked like the places I had been stuck by thorns.

More surprising than their rough shape, was that they were warmer than my own.

They stood in stark contrast with the rest of her.

Every light and dark lock of her grey scale hair, the haunting silver glow of her eyes, her delicate frame and the living pattern that draped over it, all of her had a fluid elegance that seemed beyond what a normal soul could possess.

Except for her hands.

Mother Grey's eyes opened, and she stared at the center of my brow as her silver aura began to cloud up my arms.

I sighed and shut my own, unable to keep myself from wondering why she would not look at me directly.

The Mothers were all wildly different. Two of them, The Mother in Orange and The Mother in White kept their back turned to me whenever I was in their presence. Glim was unpredictable and childlike. Azza made no attempt at hiding her hatred for me, but somehow, Mother Grey's willingness to look near me but at me, felt much worse than that.

My mind met the cold power of my aura, but unlike when I was trying to complete an assignment, I did nothing with it.

"What now?" I asked aloud, feeling the sensation of Mother Grey's aura on my skin. All the thin hairs on my arms stood on end at her touch, but I could feel no trace of her within myself.

"What do you see, Grey?" I heard Nami ask from somewhere nearby.

Mother Grey answered with absolutely nothing in her voice. There was no emotion, no emphasis, just the words and the meaning they carried. "Azure. Nothing else. No red. Only her blue."

"I told you." I said, feeling a small amount of satisfaction at being proven right.

"Underwitch Autumn, perhaps you could reach further into yourself? I am only able to see what you see, but I am certain that there is more for us to learn from this." Mother Grey said.

Us? I thought to myself. How could she be unable to look me in my eyes, but be able to think of me as a part of what she was doing? She had more than likely been referring to herself and Nami, I knew that, but it still struck me as strange.

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"Forgive me. To avoid further confusion, I will not use that word again." Mother Grey said aloud, answering the question that had only been asked in my mind.

"You can hear my thoughts?" I demanded as a shiver ran through my body.

"Yes, Underwitch Autumn. I am inside of you." Mother Grey answered calmly.

"Nope, still don't like that. At all." I heard Anna say from somewhere off to my left.

How do you do it? Can I learn? I thought excitedly. There were uncountable things I could learn if I could somehow get inside of Tana or Alexei. Although, the notion of getting either of them to sit calmly while I held their hands was highly unlikely.

"If there is another that is capable of it, they are not known to me." Mother Grey answered aloud.

Nami's voice came again from somewhere much closer than she had been the first time. "Can you go deeper, Autumn?"

What they were asking me to do was not unfamiliar. It had been a long time since I had tried, but I had done it before and I could do it again.

"Yes." I answered confidently and pushed deeper within myself.

Further.

Just as I had done countless times before in my room with Anna, when my skin had been sun warmed and the smell of sweet wine had hung in the air like smoke, I pushed further into my blue and tried to find what I had lost.

Red.

Red like wine. Red like roses. Red like the fireworks glittering in the night sky.

Blue.

Azure. Cold blue. Never ending blue was all there was.

Further.

The deeper I went, the harder it became to hold my focus and keep my eyes closed. It did not feel bad, there was no pain, it was the opposite. It felt good, too good, like the all consuming moment before a sneeze or when a yawn stretched its way to the tips of my finger and toes.

I loved it.

I wanted it to end.

I had to go further, but I couldn't.

It was too much. There was too much blue and no matter how deep into myself I went, I felt that I would never find my red again. My eyes were closed, I could still feel Mother Grey's rough hands holding my own, but I felt like the very room around me was spinning wildly.

I reached the edge of my focus. My breath held in a desperate attempt to hold on just a little longer, my eyes opened without my permission and I fell back limply towards the floor.

Mother Grey's hands tightened. Something soft caught me before I could hit the floor.

"I've got you." Anna said as she let my weight sag back against her.

"I know." I smiled, my mind still swept up in the warm feeling I had come away with.

She resettled herself and held me upright, making no move to push me off or sit me up. "Is it like before?"

"Mmhmm." I answered, still feeling like I might faint.

"This has happened before then? It seems the two of you have done some-what did you call it?" Nami asked from where she stood behind Mother Grey.

I smiled. "Super secret training."

"No. If we had been training, and I am not saying that we have, it would just be secret training. The two of you being here is what makes it super." Anna said defensively as she held me just a little tighter than she had been before.

Nami laughed. "Grey? Were you able to make anything out?"

"She was close. There was a very long way for her to go. Perhaps we should not push her further. We will meet with our sisters and discuss the best way for us to progress." The Mother in Grey answered in her flat way of speaking.

"No," I sighed as I pulled myself up with Mother Grey's hands. "I want to try again."

"There is no need. You have done as we have asked of you." She said, still carefully keeping her eyes from mine.

Anna snorted. "You really don't know anything about her, do you?"

"It is likely that she will continue to try on her own, regardless. My daughter is quite strong willed when something has caught her interest." My mother added in a much more respectful tone than Anna had spoken in.

She's right. I thought at Mother Grey as I brought my mind back to my aura. There was no sense in waiting, Grey had said it herself, I was close.

Red like Rhiannon's eyes. Red like my cord. Red like the color of Anna's cheeks when she blushed.

Blue. Drowning Blue. Swept away in the cold azure of my soul.

"What is happening?" I heard Sorceress Twila say aloud.

My focus slipped and no matter how hard I tried, I could not keep my eye closed.

My vision swam and I fell back limply into Anna's waiting arms for the second time.

"There. She has exhausted herself. I would-" Mother Grey began.

Once more, I turned inward without bothering to sit back up.

Red.

Red like blood.

Mine, the sorcerer Eames, Arthur's, it did not matter.

In my mouth, from my wounds, by my hands, red.

Further into the blue, the deeper into my soul I went the colder I grew.

My eyes flickered violently behind their lids and I clutched at Grey's hands like they were all that held me to the ground.

"A little further, Underwitch Autumn. You are nearly there." Mother Grey said suddenly.

I still could not feel her presence, but her calloused hands pulsed against my fingers as she spoke.

I will not fail. I thought back at her. How could I? Anna was behind me, literally, there was nothing I could not do.

The edges of my mind began to blacken and blur.

I would faint if I continued to push myself.

I had to let go, it was too much.

"Yes, Autumn! I can see it! It's. . . " Mother Grey exclaimed before she trailed off, her voice no longer flat or emotionless.

There was only blue.

Then, there was nothing.

A hollow, barren, white that blinded my mind and left me feeling empty.

In that emptiness, I found both my colors.

A blurry vision filled my mind.

Azure cords coiled so tightly around cords of my perfect red that they could barely be seen.

The white nothingness between my mind and where they were was too far for me to reach.

I had gone too deep.

The very moment that they came into my sight, the darkness at the edges of my mind washed over me and I came back to the training room with a sudden gasp.

"Knots," I shouted. "There was a bunch of nothing and then knots and cords. Blue ones, like what I passed the trial with, but I saw my red! It's tied up in all the blue."

Silence was all I received in response.

Not even Anna said a word.

"Grey?" Nami said after a long moment passed.

My dizziness faded enough that I could open my eyes and I realized that The Mother in Gray was no longer holding my hands.

She stood on the right side of the room, facing the door with her arms wrapped around herself.

Alexei leaned against the wall next to her, his arms crossed over his chest and his one white eye looking at me.

"She tells the truth. I would speak with you alone, sister." Mother Grey said as she opened the door and stepped out.

"One moment." Nami said, holding up her finger to me and then to Sorceress Twila before she followed her sister through the door.

The all too familiar feeling of having done something wrong pressed down onto my chest as I watched The Mothers leave the room.

There it is. I thought, the sudden weight making me truly feel like myself again.

Could there even be an Autumn Aubrey unless she was in trouble?

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