Alexei declined the warden's invitation to come with us, which was not completely strange on its own.

Under usual circumstances, the only reason my white haired guard ever left me alone was if I was in Precept Seram's classroom or in Anna and I's quarters.

But only minutes prior, I had been carried into the air by an unfamiliar familiar. Not only had I just agreed to follow a nearly unknown man into a dark and strange forest, but I had done it so I could meet the mother of all the most inexplicable things that I had ever met.

What made his refusal strange was how quickly he turned away and left me unguarded.

Maybe the things Anna said had been right. Maybe I was wrong about the way I thought of my white haired guard. Maybe I was making the same mistake I had with the guards in Erosette. For so long, I had assumed that they had been charged with protecting The Red Mother's city from me, but that had never been their orders.

Had I been wrong in assuming that Alexei's orders were one and the same with what theirs had proven to be?

I did not know, but the warden made it nearly impossible for me to care.

With a look out at where the familiar Taloo and the familiar Dessa were playing together atop the ocean, he waved me on towards the forest of white fabric. "I've got to thank you, I'm sure it was scary and all, being dragged up there like that, but I haven't seen Taloo this carefree in years."

There was a certain quality to his voice, an earnestness that made everything he said sound like the most important words he had ever spoken. It didn't make me want to lower myself to the ground and listen like Precept Cherith's did. It made me want to talk to him, to ask him questions so I could understand where the passion in his voice came from.

I looked out at the familiars once again, both of them having run and romped far enough away from the shore that I had to squint to make out their individual features.

"Are they going to come back? Should you call for them?" I asked aloud.

"I hope they don't," The warden said with a grin. "If I never see either of them again, that means I've done my job well."

Just the way that Arthur and The Red Mother's lover Galahad had done for me before, the warden shortened his steps as we walked so that he would not out pace me.

"Why do you say that?" I asked, hoping that I was not asking too much of him. I had not spent nearly enough time with him to know which questions I should ask and which ones were likely to get me into trouble.

"For one, Silkcradle is getting a little full. Having to come up and convince Taloo to let you down was one of the easier problems I've had to deal with today. Second, that's what I'm supposed to do. That's why I've let all you moons come. If there is a chance at a third life for any of the souls that live here, I want to give it to them." The warden answered without hesitation or annoyance.

I was so used to Alexei's inexpressiveness and having to dance around all the things that I truly wished to know that the warden's willingness to answer so openly felt like warm sunlight in comparison to Alexei's cold and grey demeanor.

"Souls?" I continued my questions as we approached the edge of the fabric forest, the sand under my bare feet giving way to a bed of dried evergreen needles.

"Not the way you are thinking, not a soul like when sorceresses say the word. Although," The warden stopped and began riffling through his shirt pocket before pulling out a burner and lighting it with a loose match. "It's possible that some familiars were sorcerers or sorceresses before they were woven. I mean souls in the sense that every familiar was someone before they were what they are now. Even your Samsara."

I knew that in the way that I knew I still had six punishments from The Mothers hanging around my neck like my vial necklace. With everything going on and how busy I had been, it was all easy to forget it.

"And you said that they were woven?" I asked as the warden exhaled a small puff of smoke from his burner. He blew it away from me and waved his hand through it until it dissipated, which he did not have to do because I liked the smell of it. It was heavy, slightly sweet, and reminded me of all the long nights I had spent playing points with the guards.

The warden chuckled to himself. "Someone should really write a guide book to familiars. Yes, they were woven. Out of the same stuff my belt is made of. I think it would smooth out a lot of wrinkles if everyone knew these things."

I could not contain my excitement. "I have thought the same thing so many times! Is it hard for everyone when they get their familiar?"

"What do you mean by hard, exactly? I've heard that your Samsara is rather hostile to anyone but you, has that always been the case?" The warden asked, one of his bushy eyebrows raised as he took another inhale from his burner.

The fact that he had just saved my life and his presence alone putting me at ease, I did not hesitate to tell him the truth. "Anyone but me? He is the most hostile to me! He has hit me, scratched me, bit me, threatened me, and insulted me more times than I can count. Sometimes, I think he would try to kill me if it suited him."

Too much. I had said too much too quickly. My mask of Ire had slipped just a little and Autumn had come out.

It took time for people to like me. It had taken the guards in Erosette months to grow truly fond of me. It would probably take years for Alexei to do the same, but I had already given the warden of Silkcradle a glimpse of the real me.

I had to hold my tongue. If I could not contain myself, he would begin to think of me the same way that the other new moons did.

To my surprise, the warden did not slowly back away from me with a shocked and suspicious look on his face. He finished his burner in one long pull before snuffing it out between two of his fingers and extending his hand to me. "I already had half a hundred questions about your Samsara. I've got the full hundred now, but I wouldn't feel right about asking if we weren't properly introduced yet. My name is Mortwin, but almost everyone calls me Warden. If you'd like to go join the others at the hot spring or go rest before dinner, you are more than welcome, but if you stay and talk, I'd owe you a favor."

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Why couldn't Alexei be half as decent as the stranger that had saved my life? I took his hand and smiled as he shook it, reminding myself all the while that I could not give him my true name. "How do you know about Sam?"

"Seram, mostly. I've known her since she was a girl, and she keeps me up to date on what familiars are wandering around Lun. How did Samsara come to you?" The warden answered and asked in one fell swoop as we wove our way through the darkness underneath the web of white cloth.

The silver moonlight that had painted the high points of the ocean waves seemed unable to brighten the darkness beneath the cloth. The air felt so much cooler that I had begun to long for the warmth of the rights I had thrown off myself not very long before. It was not the same kind of damp cold that I had felt the night I had met Sam.

Having rescued me from the black masked beast or not, I could not tell him the truth, no matter how much I hated lying to him. It wasn't even just him, wearing a lie on my face everyday had begun to wear on me more than I thought it would.

"He just kind of showed up and told me who he was. I had heard of familiars before, but I didn't believe him at first. He didn't have his skin then and he was very small, but trust me, he was terrifying." I answered as honestly as I could.

Of course, I had to leave out the part where I had been on the mortal plane because I had escaped the confinement that The Mothers had placed me in. I did not tell him how Sam had arrived with knowledge of The Well and had tried to drag me back to Zenithcidel before I even knew his name either.

What I had said had not been untrue, but it left me feeling less than good.

"I had wondered if that was true," The warden said as the dry needles beneath us ended and a seamless blanket of moss began. "The molting part that it is. He grows afterwards, correct?"

I stopped walking and let myself enjoy the soft and cool feeling meeting the bottom of my feet. If the mountains surrounding Lun Arcanicil were covered in moss instead of knee deep white snow, I would never go to class again.

"Should I be concerned that you know so much about my familiar?" I said as I placed my hands on my hips and raised an eyebrow in feigned suspicion. Somehow, I knew I shouldn't be before he ever answered.

The warden laughed. It was a nice laugh and the smile that it passed through was even nicer. In all of the short part of my life that I could remember, I didn't think I had ever met someone I had grown to like quite so quickly.

Not even Anna.

"If it was anybody but me, yes, but I take care of her creations. I get some privileges that others don't. So he grows? I don't mean changing size, I mean growing permanently." The warden said, holding his hands close together and then stretching them out wide to emphasis his point.

I nodded in agreement, having to stop myself from asking about every single uncountable scar that covered both of his well muscled arms.

"When I first got him, I could hold him in one hand," I said, holding my palm up to the web of white fabric that darkened the night sky above us. Then, I lowered it until it was even with my knee. "He is about that tall now."

"I wish we had the time for me to explain just how unusual that is, but it will be time for dinner soon. We better hurry." The warden said as he dug out another burner from his shirt and lit it with yet another loose match.

We started walking again and every step I took over the moss making me wish that everywhere I went would have floors of the verdant green blanket. Before I made it more than a step or two, the warden turned to me and spoke just as my foot broke through the moss and I began to fall.

"Watch your-" He started.

I shouted in surprise and my aura came to life within me at the realization that there was nothing beneath me but a bottomless pit of solid darkness.

Then, I stopped falling.

Tight enough that there was no room for my fingers to slip through his grasp, but not tight enough for it to hurt, the warden caught me by my hand and lifted me up like I weighed nothing at all.

Dealing with things like Taloo had evidently made him very strong.

"-step. There's a familiar here by the name of Rat that is trying her best to collapse this place with all her tunnels." The warden continued as if he had not just saved me from a splattered and shadowy death.

He placed me gently on the patch of solid moss behind him and turned back around. "Strange thing is, with a name like Rat, you would never guess that she looks like a butterfly. Follow my footsteps, I know the way."

I did as I was told and followed his footsteps with great attention.

There was not much talking as he led me the rest of the way to the building that the web of white fabric began from.

It was dark, made of some black stone whose edges had all been broken, worn down from age, or covered in overgrowth. The closer we grew, the more hesitation began to weigh down my steps and threaten to stop me in my tracks completely. I could no longer see the beach or the building I was meant to sleep in. The moonlight had become a distant memory and by the time we reached the black steps of the aged structure, the only light I could see was the orange glow of the warden's smoldering burner.

"How does the temperature change so fast?" I asked aloud.

"I can't tell you too much or I will ruin Seram's story, but it doesn't really change fast. The jungle is still hot and humid. The beach is still as it was when we left it. We just walked across ground that used to be half a dozen different places. Do they teach you about shifts at Lun?" The warden said as he entered the structure and the light of his burner vanished from my sight.

The air was so cold that my breath came out in tiny white clouds. The cold solidity of the black stones steps replaced the cool softness of the moss, but I did not have the spine to follow the warden inside. I pulled my too thin robe tighter around myself and stopped just before the shadowy opening that served as the entrance to the structure.

"Uhm, warden? Thank you for the walk and the conversation, but I don't really think I want to meet her after all." I said weakly, my voice echoing in the darkness behind the open doorway.

"Why not? There is nothing to be scared of," The warden said in a comforting tone as he reappeared from the darkness. "She chose you, Underwitch Ire. You have nothing to fear from her."

The way he looked at me in my eyes without pause, the ease in his shoulders, and the fact that he had saved my life twice in the short time that we had spent together, all came together and formed a terrifying thought.

I trusted him.

"Is she," I swallowed the fear that had risen up in my throat and took a short step forward. "Is she really in there?"

The warden spoke through his nice sounding laugh. "No. No. No. I was only having a bit of fun. But, when Seram tells her story at dinner, you'll be one of the two sorceresses that knows what she looks like. Come."

With the small remains of his burner, he lit two small lanterns that hung inside the doorway and cast some of the darkness away.

I did as I was told and followed him inside.

There was so much to see that it took my squinted eyes far too long to put it all together.

When I did, I stood in shocked silence at a statue of what I could only think of as Sam's mother.

I had never seen anything quite so terrifying.

I had never seen anything quite so beautiful.

Within her web, I knew that I had never seen anything like her.

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