My mother came to me the moment that the door of the training room shut behind Mother Nami.

"You did very well, my little Delpha," She said with a soft smile as she lowered herself to the floor in front of me. "Better than I believe you realize you did."

I kept my eyes on the door, suddenly unable to relax or feel comfortable in the big room. "What did I do? Why did they leave like that?"

"I do not know why they have left, but you have done only as they have asked you, despite how large their request was," My mother said as she took my right hand in her own and patted the top of it reassuringly. "I was in my fourth decade before I was able to do what you have just accomplished. That was remarkable."

The brief glance I had gotten at the twisted knots in my soul flashed back into my mind and sent a shiver through me.

"Really?" Anna asked from behind me, still making no move to move me.

"Indeed. Soul searching is usually a futile pursuit for one so young." My mother nodded, an obvious look of pride on her face.

Sorceress Twila stood and walked over to where the three of us were sitting. She lowered herself and balanced in the balls of her feet, her two colored eyes looking at me intently. "How old are you?"

"They didn't tell you that you were coming here to train a child?" I asked, the words sounding bitter in my mouth as I said them. I did not look at her, but it was no longer just because of my fear of meeting her eyes.

The door that Nami and Grey had left through had become a dark and terrible thing. Like the black shadows between the trees of a moonlit forest, whatever came through it next would not be good for me.

It wouldn't be a beast, a sorcerer, or a horror made of hands and a head, but it might as well have been.

I had angered The Mother in Grey.

She had not liked what she saw inside of me.

I did not know when, but the day would come when she would take me for my punishment and I knew that it would be even worse because of what had just happened.

"You are (my) child, but you are no longer a child, my little Delpha," My mother smiled. She reached up and tucked a loose strand of my hair behind my hair. "You are a young lady, one who desperately needs her hair cut, but a young lady all the same."

"Anna likes it long." I muttered, feeling much smaller than I had before Grey had left.

I had finally gotten a small chance to be myself inside Lun, and that had been too much.

Sorceress Twila pulled the cloth down over her face before running her fingers through her purple tinted hair and pulling back up again. "So if you aren't a child, but you are a young lady, that makes you what? Thirty? Thirty five?"

"I'm nineteen." I sighed, turning my head and letting my cheek rest against Anna's shoulder. My hair fell over my face and for a brief moment, I let myself believe that I could hide in its small cover forever.

"And you just saw your own soul?" She asked.

"No, not really," I muttered. "I fainted before I could truly look at it."

I heard her stand back up. "Still, Mother Azza was right about you. What is that?"

"What?" I asked, turning my head back in her direction. My eyes were even with her knees, which I was grateful for. It was hard to not look someone in their eyes if you could see them.

"The lines on your palm." Sorceress Twila said, pointing to my right hand.

It was not just my age that The Mothers had not told her about. If she did not know about the seals, then she certainly did not know about The Well. They had probably told her nothing about me except for the fact that I was a twinsoul.

I didn't want to lie. I didn't want to hide who I was any more than I already did. If telling her the truth meant letting her know that I was a thief and prisoner of The Mothers, then so be it.

For a long moment, I thought about letting it all go.

My place at Lun Arcanicil as a new moon, the cloak, the charm, and all the other things that were Ire's and not truly mine. The desire to be a normal underwitch and to be allowed to learn too. I almost told Sorceress Twila what the seal was and why it was on my skin because that seemed easier to do than to tell her lies.

Fortunately, my mother lied for me before I could give into my impulses.

It is a marking we both wear, like a tattoo," My mother said, raising her right palm for Twila to see. Identical to the seal that The Mothers had laid over my skin, nine colored rings circled down to the middle of her palm. "We knew we would miss each other greatly once we parted. We wear these to keep each other in the front of our minds when we are apart."

It wasn't true, I knew that, but in the unknowing anxiousness I had been thrust into, it nearly brought tears to my eyes.

I did miss her, far more than I realized I did when I was caught up in my assignments.

"Oh, that's sweet. I didn't notice it earlier." Sorceress Twila said in answer.

Anna grunted and gave my arm a small squeeze . "Hey, I love you and all, but if we don't move, my spine is gonna break in half."

"Wait. What was Azza right about?" I demanded as I brushed my hair back from my face and looked up at my fellow twinsoul.

The sound of the door being open snapped my attention back to it.

"She said that you might be the most strong willed soul she has ever met." Sorceress Twila said.

Anna gave out with a sharp exhale and both of us fell back in a heap.

It would have been reasonable if Mother Nami or Mother Grey walked back into the room. What was less reasonable but felt much more likely because of the fear I felt was a monstrous nine headed horror clawing towards me and calling for all that I owed it. Almost more unreasonable than the imaginary Mother monster, was who actually came through the door.

Bool and Schmit, two of my guards from Erosette, entered the training room with stacks of twine tied parcels in their arms. Nami came in after them, her arms full as well. She shut the door behind herself and walked over to me before putting the parcels down on the floor.

"Your third request, Underwitch Autumn. Straight from Erosette." Nami smiled as she stood.

I rolled off of Anna and not a moment later, she reached over and grabbed the parcel from beside me.

"No. Did you really?" She asked as she sat up and began to untie the twine. It fell limply away from the box as she tore away the paper and her jaw dropped when she saw what was inside.

"What is it? I am lost." My mother said.

"Underwitch Autumn only agreed to attend today's super secret training," Nami said with a playful wink towards Anna. "If I could honor a few requests."

That had not been how it had gone, but I did not correct her. I thought it best that my mother did not know I had balled my fists and made demands straight to a Mother's face.

Anna dropped her face into her hands and let out something that was between a groan and a laugh.

"She asked for fried potatoes from seven columns." She said, her voice muffled by her hands.

My mother laughed a high, happy, laugh and reached her hand out to me. "Not in all of chaos is there a soul as pure as you, my little Delpha."

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"I thought if they were good enough that she had asked for them specifically, that we all should try them." Nami shrugged.

"Should still be warm, little Aubrey." Bool rasped as he offered me an open parcel.

I took it, and felt the warmth that seeped out through the bottom in my hands.

It wasn't that I was unhappy to see the guards or displeased that my third demand had been met, It just looked so strange.

Bool and Schmit did not belong in Lun Arcanicil. They belonged at the manor. The belonged in the place where Arthur and I had played an uncountable amount of points with them. They belonged where they had occasionally had to stop my escape when my mind had temporarily not been mine. They belonged by the camp fire they built every night up on the hill, the same place they had been when Bool had found me after Azza's punishment.

In truth, it made me happy to see them in normal clothes and without their swords, but there were much deeper feelings that kept me from showing that.

"I don't understand. Am I not in trouble? Am I not to be punished?" I asked towards Nami, unable to bring myself to do anything but trace the lines of her sandals with my eyes.

The Mother in Blue, headmistress of Lun Arcanicil, spoke with her mouth full.

"You should be for not telling me about these sooner," She said in feigned anger. Once she swallowed, she continued. "Look at me, Underwitch Autumn."

With the uncomfortable feeling of everyone in the room staring at me bringing warmth to my face, I did as I was asked.

"There is nothing I can do about before," Nami said, her ocean eyes somehow looking soft and strong at the same exact time. "But while you are in Lun, I will treat you fairly. You have done nothing deserving of punishment here today. If anything, you should be rewarded for what you have accomplished."

"But, Mother Grey-" I started.

Nami shook her head and sent her gradient blue hair into gentle waves. "She had merely forgotten how intense soul searching could be. It caught her off her guard. That is all."

Lie. The word appeared in my mind like a sudden shout and I felt it all the way down in my bones.

The feeling that came over me was almost like when I felt like I was being watched. I could not explain it, I did not know how I felt what I felt, but I did. It was almost the same as it had been on the bridge with Alexei, when he had told me that Azeralphane was a myth.

I had been absolutely certain that what he had told me was not true.

Staring into Nami's eyes, I was not nearly as convinced.

I still felt that she had lied to me, but it did not feel lieke what she had said was false. Rather, I felt like she had only told me a very small and unimportant part of the truth.

"You could have asked for anything," Anna chuckled, her face still into her hands. "And you asked for something you could have walked down the hall to get."

"The ones from the dining hall don't taste the same." I said defensively as I let my suspicion fade away until Anna and I were alone again. Nami was one of The Mothers that liked me, accusing her of lying in front of everyone in the room did not seem like the best way for her to grow fonder of me.

If my super secret training had not ended with Mother Grey's departure, it had with the arrival of the guards and their potato parcels. Everyone ate, even Alexei. I realized that I had never seen the white haired guard consume anything before. Even though we spent a large amount of time together, I had sort of just assumed he sated his hunger by standing silently in the same place for hours. Sorceress Twila was the first to leave. Nami had walked her out, but it had only been after she had agreed to come back when I had found my red again. It was not long after that, when all the potatoes had been eaten and there was nothing left but empty boxes, that all of us left the training room. Concealing myself in my mask of Ire once again, we went down the hall, up the stairs, into the room the stairs were hidden in, and through the painting that hid the entrance to the room.

Not a moment after we all reached the floor that Anna and I's quarters were on, a voice echoed down from the singing stairs towards our strange group.

"Where have you been?" Underwitch Maletta demanded, every part of her snapping straight in one big clinch as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

Anger ran through my fingers at the sight of her. If I had not been able to distract everyone at the new moon ball, her trick would have embarrassed Reese. I had not forgotten what she and Tana had tried to do to my friend. As bad as I wanted to let her know that, something else grabbed my attention.

I had not noticed it before, or rather, I had not known the necessary things the last time I saw her to see that she shared many similarities with Katarina.

Did The Mother in Blue have a daughter as well? I thought to myself, taking the time to truly look at who Nami had called Lun's strongest moon.

Her hair was just a shade darker than Katarina's. The same was true of her eyes and her skin. She was much too tall, her shoulders were too broad, and her features were much too full, but she stood with one foot pointed in front of her just like The Mother did in her memories.

No. It couldn't be. I decided.

Maletta looked like she was trying to be the sorceress I only knew in my mind. The similarities did not run as deep as mine did with my mother or Alexei's actually did with his.

It truly was not fair, Maletta was beautiful in her own right, anyone could see that, but in comparison to Katarina, she looked like Ire would if she were to be compared to me.

"Underwitch Maletta, you should remember who you are speaking to." Nami said, any trace of the gentle way she had spoken to me carried very far away. In its place was a tone so strong that it would drown whoever tried to move against her words.

Underwitch Maletta tried to hide her reaction, but I saw the way she shifted her weight further back on her foot.

"While you have been off playing with your favorite little new moon and whoever else the rest of these people are," She sneered, speaking as if the words tasted bad in her mouth. "There has been another attack in Hymneth."

Nami took three quick steps towards Maletta and spoke in what I thought was meant to be a whisper."Another gatekeeper?"

"Yes, but you would already know that if you were where you were supposed to be. You would already know that if there was someone else to catch what slipped through your fingers." Underwitch Maletta whispered back, both of them failing completely at speaking quietly.

"Go. Get Jasna. I will meet you both at the gates." Nami commanded.

Without waiting for Maletta to respond she turned back to all of us. "I am needed elsewhere. A Mother's work is never done and all that mess. Alexei?"

"Yes, Headmistress." Alexei answered before turning his one white eye to me. "Straight to your quarters. Do not leave until I return."

Anna's face twisted into a scowl as she opened her mouth to undoubtedly yell at my guard, but I spoke before her first angry word could pass through her lips.

"You have my word." I said simply, just the way he would have said it. If the attack that Maletta had mentioned was anything like what I understood the first to be, then something very bad had happened indeed. When Alexei came back and found that I had kept my word however, it would go a long way into deepening his trust for me.

My white haired guard nodded in response before climbing up the singing stairs after Mother Nami and Underwitch Maletta.

Once he was gone, my mother turned and placed her hands on my shoulder. "I am afraid that I must depart as well, my little Delpha."

"No. Stay. We can have dinner together and I can show you what I've learned?" I asked her, making my best attempt at looking like a little girl that desperately wanted to spend time with her mother.

It wasn't hard to, it was true after all.

"I cannot," She sighed as she pulled me into a hug. "We will see each other soon."

"Anna and I were going to go to Hymneth. We could all go together?" I said as I pushed away from her and looked to the guards for help.

Bool and Schmit made it a point to not meet my eyes, the traitors.

"Arthur will be coming here soon to see his mother, and all of us are eager to see him. After the end of your first cycle, we will all spend time together." My mother said with sadness in her emerald eyes.

"Promise?" I asked with my pinky held towards her, not wishing to make her any sadder by continuing to beg.

"I promise," She said as she wrapped her own pinky around mine and shook it. "Bool, Schmit, will you see me home please?"

"Yes, Lady Aubrey." Bool agreed just a little too quickly.

Hugs were exchanged and goodbyes were given. If it had not been for Anna's comforting presence, I don't think I would have ever been able to let any of them go.

The moment that they disappeared behind the curve of the crystalline stairs, Anna took me by the wrist and dragged me into the hall hidden behind them.

"What are-" I started, confused by her hastiness.

My back pressed against the cool stones of the wall, she leaned in and kissed me with her arms around my waist.

I no longer cared about what I was going to ask her. I couldn't even remember the words I was going to say. When our lips parted and I was left with a dizzy smile spreading across my face, Anna let out a little laugh.

"I'm sorry, I've been wanting to do that all day. Seeing you do something that Mothers thought you couldn't might be the most attractive thing I have ever seen." She said, her dark eyes tracing the outline of my lips as she spoke. She shook her head and took a small step back from me. "Look, we don't know how long the creep is going to be gone, I have things to tell you."

"I have things to tell you too, but they don't really seem to matter right now." I said, reaching out to pull her back to me.

"Hey, no, listen. I don't want him to hear this. Pay attention and then we will have the rest of the day together." She said, taking another step back and lowering her voice to a whisper.

"Yes, Coach." I barked and furrowed my brow.

"Three things. First, Sorceress Twila does not like The Mothers. What was yours?" Anna whispered as she whipped her head from side to side to make sure we were alone.

"Nami lied to me." I whispered back.

Anna nodded as I spoke. "That was my second one."

"Whatever she saw inside me, it made her angry." I continued, beginning to have fun with the quick and quiet way we were speaking.

Anna shook her in disagreement. She took back the space she had put between us and put her hand flat against my chest. With her mouth dangerously close to mine, she spoke with excitement turning up the ends of her words. "No, Autumn. She wasn't angry with you. She was scared of you."

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