It had not been very long ago that going to school had been little more than a fantasy for me.

After years of dreaming about what it would be like for me to be normal and to not be locked away I had become so curious, so restless, that I had thrown myself through a black gate without having a single clue as to where it would take me. Being out of the loving arms of my mother and in a completely unknown place with nothing but my newfound, contemptuous, familiar had been terrifying. Being hunted by sorcerers, sorceresses, and other darker things had taught me just how weak I was.

All the memories I had viewed and all the training I had done with Anna had only made me want to learn more.

That desire and the help of a very loving Mother had made the impossible happen. Despite being brought to Lun Arcanicil and placed in a trap that would ensure my failure, I had succeeded.

I did not know how I had done it, but I had. I had taken what should have been beyond my reach into my hands with nothing but my will.

After everything I had been through, and everything that I had been put through, I had finally become something close to normal. It was actually Underwitch Ire that had become a new moon, and though I had begun to resent being her, it was likely that she was as close as I would ever get.

Several days after my super secret training had ended, in the middle of my third week under the watchful bubble of Precept Seram, I had become well and truly bored.

It had taken less than a month for something I had wanted for so long to become a chore.

I might be the most ungrateful soul in all of chaos.

Grateful or not, there was a limit to how many times I could get excited about moving a weight around with my power. I was not Arthur, I could not stand in one place and swing my wooden sword towards a hayman from dawn to dusk.

Pushing, pulling, sliding, lifting, catching, the weight got heavier and the workings got harder, but I was still just playing with a little metal square. The assignments were working, I had become stronger in the last few weeks, but the thought of doing the same set of things over again felt impossible.

Not even my pleasure and pride at being ahead of Tana could bring me any motivation.

It was as if the moment that Precept Seram's bubble had carried the new weight down to my table, I was up to twenty pounds, all the will in my body had run out of me like water being squeezed from my hair after a bath.

Ever watchful, Precept Seram noticed the change in me almost immediately.

"Underwitch Ire, are you well?" My usually bubbly Precept asked in what I could only describe as a withdrawn tone.

The difference between it and her usual brightness was enough to bring my eyes up to the bubble hanging above my head at the top of my place.

"Are you?" I asked in return, making no effort to undress like I did everyday when I got to her classroom. The fact that I had not thrown the blue silk dress off of me as soon as I could have was a sign enough that I had lost whatever had pushed me towards success in the weeks prior.

"I am well in all the ways that matter, yes. Do not let me trouble you, I am sure you are eager to begin." Precept Seram answered.

I shrugged my shoulders. "No, not really. Why are you sad?"

"Is it that obvious? I am sorry, it was thoughtless of me to speak with you with my emotions so close to my surface. Let us begin. The ten pound weight was difficult for you, but you completed the assignments with the fifteen pound weight in two short days. If the twenty pound weight gives you trouble, then perhaps you have an issue with things ending in zero. It seems silly, but that is exactly the kind of problem I have come to expect after all my years of teaching." Seram said all at once as she gave a pale imitation of her usual cheery tone.

"Precept Seram? Can I be honest with you?" I called up to her bubble.

"Of course, Underwitch Ire. I expect nothing less." My teacher answered.

"I would rather ram my head into the wall than to try and move this weight today. Why are you sad?" I said honestly.

Precept Seram laughed. The sound made an immense amount of pride swell up in my chest. I stood a little straighter, felt a little taller, and smiled a little wider. Making someone laugh, be it Seram, Anna, or anybody else, was one of the few times in my life that I knew without a doubt that I had done something good.

"I would rather you not cause yourself injury, but I understand your frustration. My assignments are effective and well measured, but they can become tedious. I believe you will find the second phase of Implementation much more engaging if what your familiar has told me is true." She said once she caught her breath.

"So you are going to put me in danger and threaten my life?" I asked as innocently as I could. That was what Sam had told her would help me learn.

Precept Seram laughed again. "No. I would never. That is for Precept Mon Zetta to do."

If her continued laughter was anything to go by, she had seen me swallow from sudden nervousness and widen my eyes in shock. Once I got started, it was very difficult for me to stop, and there was no reason for me to pull myself back like there was with Alexei or Nami.

"What does she teach?" I asked quietly, pretending to be much more scared than I truly was.

"Conflict and Resolution." Precept Seram said through a happier sounding sigh.

"Uhmmm." I grimaced and scratched my head in what was mostly false confusion.

"Combat. How to use your aura offensively and defensively. It is in her class that most new moons forfeit their position and leave Lun Arcanicil." Precept Seram said, her voice turning deadly serious.

"Oh," I said and gave my head a little shake. "Wait, don't try to distract me! Why were you sad?"

"Ah, well, it was worth a try. I do not believe that you are one to just let something go, are you?" Precept Seram asked.

"No." I said and shook my head in agreement.

"I would not say that I am sad. I am merely disappointed." Precept Seram sighed.

It was already strange that I felt perfectly natural having a conversation with a bubble. It was even stranger when the bubble shrank and lowered with the somber sound of my teacher's sigh.

"I am disappointed that none of you have tried to find the clue that I have left for you. Are none of you curious as to where we are going? Answer honestly please. I need to know for future semesters." Precept Seram said, her bubble floating down until it was even with my eyes.

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I could see Ire's reflection staring back at me on the shiny surface. Behind her black hair and dull features, so slight that I could only see it for a moment before I would lose it again, was a vision of Precept Seram's pastel blue eyes.

She was disappointed. Even though she would not admit it, I saw that she was sad as well.

The moment I met my teacher's eyes, I knew what I had to do.

"I forgot about the clue! I've been trying all week to figure it out! I'm sorry, Precept Seram, I have to go." I called out and made a show of being disappointed in myself.

Precept Seram's bubble swooped around and stopped me in my tracks before I could part the white curtains of my place.

"I am aware that you are attempting to make me feel better and I do appreciate it, but do you remember what the hint was?" Precept Seram asked.

"Uhm, something about where there is company in the library?" I tried, knowing the words weren't right as I was saying them.

Through the small crack in the curtains, I saw Precept Seram shake her head inside of the larger bubble she floated within. I knew she was much older than me and that thinking of my teachers as cute was more than likely not the right line of thinking to go down, but there was something about the way her hands and feet pressed against the inside of her working that brought a smile to my face.

"Tell me why the other new moons will not go to the library and I will refresh your memory." Precept Seram offered, one of her pastel pink eyebrows visibly raised within both bubbles.

I cupped my hands around my mouth as if I was worried someone would try to read my lips and I whispered into the small bubble that blocked my way. "They all think the library is haunted."

"Spotless. That leaves no room for doubt. I thought they did, which was why I put the hint in the library in the first place." Precept Seram said, any trace of her earlier sadness nowhere to be seen.

"You were trying to show them that it isn't?" I asked, still whispering.

"Oh no, it most certainly is haunted, I just wanted all of them to face their fears," Seram said with a pleasant smile. "The hint is to look where your only company is yourself. Please come and tell me if you figure it out."

Without another word, her little bubble popped in front of my face and sent me into a startled flinch. I dusted her pastel dust off the front of my uniform as I left her classroom, wondering all the way if Tana or any of the other new moons had ever seen our teacher be quite so playful.

Alexei was not waiting in his usual spot with his back against the wall. My white haired guard stood at the end of the hall, his hands clasped behind his back as he stared out the paneled glass of the window.

I was so used to him moving as soon as I walked through the door that I made it several steps towards the stairs before I realized he was not following me.

For a brief moment, I considered continuing on my way. He would either come and walk with me as he always did or some unknown thing would happen. What if he got mad at me, or maybe, he was trying to test and see if I would wait for him.

I didn't know, and I didn't wish to spend the time necessary to find out.

Anna was in the library with a ghost.

"Master Alexei?" I called out to him.

I received no answer.

"Master Alexei!" I shouted, trying to sound as respectful as I could with my raised voice.

He didn't so much as turn his head.

"Hey! What are you doing?" I demanded as I gave up and walked over to him. I made it to the window and tapped him three times on his shoulder. Without lifting his hand from where it sat on the end of his white sword, he pointed a finger towards the window and nodded for me to look.

Something very wrong had happened on the other side of the paneled glass.

A long way down from where I stood, near the bottom of the grey stones of Lun's walls, a bloody stain ruined the blanket of deep white snow that lay underneath it. From a shocking shade of red to a sickly pink where it had been mixed with the disturbed powder, the sight of it made my stomach turn.

"I just watched your familiar stalk, kill, and devour a snow hare," Alexei began, speaking simply and without emotion as he almost always did. "Fur, organs, bones, all of it. It took him less than a minute."

I frowned. "Sorry about that, he's done it since he was a kitten. It used to be birds, but the bigger he gets, the more he eats. Once, before I came here, when I was in Erosette, he dragged a whole-"

"He grows?" Alexei asked, cutting me off and snapping his one white eyes down to me.

"Not really. He kind of molts, like a butterfly but creepy and disgusting." I said with a genuine shiver.

"How unusual," Alexei said, turning away from the gruesomeness outside the window and facing me. "I have been asked to tell you that he will not be allowed to travel with you at the end of the week. Are you able to tell him that or will you need my assistance?"

I thought about the time in the shack that the two of them had been seemingly moments away from coming to blows.

"It is probably best if I tell him. Why can't he go?" I asked as we started walking.

"I cannot tell you." Alexei said simply.

"Why not?" I asked.

"I cannot tell you." Alexei said simply for the second time

"Do you know where we are going?" I asked.

"I cannot tell you." Alexei said simply for the third time.

"Why not?" I huffed over the soothing sound of the singing stairs song that rang out in my mind.

In the ghostly light of the staircase, a wolfish smirk spread across my guards face. "I cannot tell-"

"Shut up. I shouldn't even ask you questions, you never tell me anything anyways." I pouted and crossed my arms with just enough exaggeration that I hoped he understood that I was playing.

I would likely never know because I had met rocks that were more expressive than my stone faced guard.

When we reached the landing that would lead to the dining hall and I continued down the stairs, he spoke again.

"Where are you going?" He asked aloud.

With my face as plain as I could possibly make it, I answered. "I cannot tell you."

"Well played," Alexei admitted. " I cannot tell you because Precept Seram has asked me not to."

I spun on the heels of my laced black boots and stamped my foot. "Was that so hard? This whole partnership thing would work a lot better if you would talk to me a little more."

"It was not and it would, if we were partners, which we are not. Now, where are you going?" Alexei asked as he stepped down to the step above me.

I had no way of proving it, but it felt like he was looming over me on purpose.

I laughed in his face. Well, it was really more in his chest because of our height difference and the stairs, but the feeling was the same.

"You are just like Sam. You are trying to play with me," I laughed my way down the rest of the singing stairs and did not wrap around the back of it to go to Anna and I's quarters. "I am going to the library."

Alexei followed along behind me, looking as unbothered as he always did. "Never level those kinds of accusations at me again. Why are you going to the library?"

He would not have said that if what I had said did not bother him.

"Can you not hear everything? Shouldn't you already know? My real partner is in there with a ghost, I have to guard her." I called back to him as I reached the library doors for the very first time.

Alexei stayed silent as he leaned against the wall opposite the doors and rested his arms atop his swords.

"Why don't you want to go in? Are you scared?" I teased him.

In truth, he reminded me of Arthur. He was much more intimidating and seemed to like me far less, but the back and forth we had fallen into was not all that different from conversations with the tall man.

"I can not tell you." Alexei said, repeating what he had said earlier.

The time had come. I had been playing nice for weeks and he had finally began to play with me in return. It was time for me to push him.

"You will, or I will spend each waking moment of my life making your place as my guard the most frustrating and difficult thing you have ever done." I threatened. I wouldn't, I had grown much too fond of him for that, but he didn't know that.

"Very presumptuous." He said a word I did not know.

I would ask Anna what it meant later. I had to keep a strong face.

"Well?" I demanded.

"There is nothing for me in there," My white haired guard said with a sigh. "And the library is not haunted by a ghost. It is guarded by a spirit. Now you know something none of the other new moons do. Happy?"

I wanted to push him further, but I made myself accept my small victory as enough for the day.

"Thank you, Master Alexei." I said with a genuine bow of gratitude and went into the library to find Anna.

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