Even after all the mess had been cleaned up and Precept Seram had promised countless times that nothing else would disturb our slumber, I could not sleep.

Plia was the first to doze back off. Her belly full of the cake that should have been mine and her bed roll moved as far away from the door as it possibly could be, she had laid back down just as soon as her afterglow had left her.

I did not mind that she had eaten the last sweet. It was better her than Tana, and she had earned it after all.

The way she had eaten her werelight, the way she had used her power, was part of the reason I could not sleep. I had more questions for her than I would likely ever have the chance to ask. It had already crossed my mind to take a big bite out of my cord the next time Anna and I were training, but I doubted it would do for me what Plia's aura had done for her.

Mallory and Vanda went next, but I could not let myself think about them for too long. Both of them had been kinder to me that night than they had ever been before. It had not been much, but after weeks of thinking that they thought I was crazy, it meant more to me than it probably should have.

That had left Tana and I to finish sweeping up dust with the brooms that Precept Seram had made appear out of what seemed like nowhere.

I had snuck a handful of the stirred up blues into the bag that Anna had sent for me. It had been impossible for me to try and keep all the different shades sorted, but I knew them well enough to tell the difference if I ever decided to tell Anna about Tana.

Precept Seram had told both of us that there was a discussion to be had once we returned to Lun, and that was the second thing that kept my eyes open far later than they should have been.

Despite how my short life had gone, I really did not like being in trouble. Precept Seram would not bury me alive or set some unimaginable beast after me, I knew that, but I dreaded the oncoming discussion more than I did my remaining punishments.

I liked Seram.

I wanted to be liked by Seram.

I wanted to be like Seram.

That alone gave her the power to hurt me in a way that Azza and Gwyn had not been able to.

The third thing that kept me up was Tana's knowledge of my seal.

If I had learned anything about the honey haired underwitch, it was that there was no reality where she left me alone. From the first time I had met her, she had expressed an annoying amount of interest in me. Where I came from, my familiar, what I wanted to eat, it didn't matter, if it had to do with me, she would not hide her dislike for it.

It was only a matter of time before she shared her knowledge with the other new moons and I would have to come up with something to tell them.

The real problem was that I would much rather tell them the truth. Would it really be bad if they knew The Mother's had sealed the channel on my navel? Would it be so terrible if they knew I had stolen The Well? Would it truly be such a tragedy if they knew Autumn Aubrey?

What truly made it impossible for me to sleep, was how much I missed Anna.

I knew that I would see her soon. We were meant to return to Lun before night came again. Even with the earliest light of dawn beginning to brighten the room, it felt like I would never see her again.

We were not meant to be apart for so long. I had learned that in my short time away from her.

Vanda had said it was her third time as a new moon and probably her last. Had she given thought to what she would do after?

I hadn't because there had never been an after. It had not been very long ago at all that what I knew ended with the four walls I was confined within.

There was no chance that I would be allowed to roam free when my time at Lun was done, not until my debt was repaid, and it was getting harder to stay focused on viewing memories.

I did not know when, and I did not know how, but I hoped that Anna and I could end up somewhere like Silkcradle. Not necessarily a place filled with paper dragons, tunneling birds, or invisible robbers, but somewhere beautiful. Somewhere with a beach, good food, and no one to bother us, that's what I hoped for.

Sometime in the blue dark of the new day, after I had rolled into my back in a desperate attempt to get comfortable for the hundredth time, a voice whispered into my ear.

"Underwitch Ire." The voice said softly, barely loud enough for me to hear.

I froze, remembering our guide's warning about not opening the door. Had another of Hexis's creations come to bother me and the other new moons?

"It is Precept Seram, will you come outside please?" The whispering came again.

"No. I'm not going to open the door. I whispered back, not wanting to be the moon that was dumb enough to let something else into the room.

"I am proud that you took that to heart, but I am not some mischievous familiar. I am your teacher. Please come outside." The voice continued.

Whatever was trying to trick me was doing a very good impression of my pink haired precept, but I would not be fooled so easily.

I rolled onto my side and settled into my bedroll like I was going back to sleep.

The first thing I saw was the thumbnail sized bubble floating a finger's length from my face. The second was Precept Seram standing in the doorway, patiently waiting with her hands held behind her back. The third was the warden standing behind her, a trial of white smoke curling up from the burner he held in his hands.

I could not be completely certain that I was not being tricked, but those three things were as close as I could get. After laying in the dark for hours, It would have one of them to get me onto my feet.

Precept Seram slid the door closed behind me once I stepped outside. She waved the warden's smoke away with her hand and made a sour face. "I will never understand why you choose to smoke those terrible things."

"Probably for the same reason you wash your hands a hundred times a day," The warden said as he puffed out a thick cloud towards my pink haired precept. "They keep me calm. Good morning, Ire. I heard that Taloo wasn't the only thing you got tangled up with last night."

It was light enough that I could see the coast and the shape of Hexis's temple, but still dark enough that I could see little else. Still, I saw Precept Seram watching me very closely.

"It was a misunderstanding. That is all." I answered quietly, biting my tongue to keep myself from slipping into a rant about Tana.

"I'm sure," The warden laughed. It was easy to tell how handsome he was beneath his dark beard, but I could not help but wonder what he would look like with a haircut and a shave. "If you're willing, I need your help with something while the others are meeting all the familiars."

"Yes!" I answered just a little too quickly.

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Precept Seram smiled at my sudden excitement. "Perhaps this robe is not the best thing for you to wear today. Let her change, warden, and then I will leave her in your care."

"I don't mind, I would rather wear this. My uniform is too warm." I said, thinking of how hot I would be in my tights and uniform. Even without the horrid dress over the top of it, I could already feel the heat of the oncoming day and knew that anything besides what I was wearing would leave me a sweaty mess.

I did not want to be miserable while I was with the warden. Short of snapping my fingers and finding myself next to Anna in our bed, there was very little else I actually wanted to do.

"Yes, but as a new moon, you must follow the rules and the first rule is that you must be in uniform when you are acting as a representative of Lun Arcanicil. Last night was a rare exception. Since we are-"Precept Seram began.

The warden interrupted her as he patted her on the back. "I seem to remember a little underwitch that couldn't stand to be dirty and liked playing with bubbles that used to run around this island in whatever she felt like wearing that day."

"A robe is hardly the proper clothing to roam about in. Besides, that was different." Precept Seram said with a frown.

"Neither is that stuffy old uniform. I'll get her in the right clothes. You just need to tell me how this is any different from you? You had the same rules she does." The warden laughed as he lit a burner off the smoldering end of his first.

"That little underwitch's teacher did not have the same understanding of why the rules are what they are that I do." Seram said, her frown replaced with a superior expression.

I raised my hand and interrupted them both. "Wait, you knew Precept Seram when she was an underwitch?"

"I knew little Seram before she was ever one of Lun's moons. I knew Mother Nami before she knew what aura was." The warden answered without hesitation.

"How old are you?" I asked, knowing just how long some sorceresses could live.

"Underwitch Ire, is considered terribly rude to ask someone their age. Especially a sorceress." Precept Seram explained.

"I don't mind. I'm older and younger than I should be," The warden laughed. "When you figure out what that means, I'll owe you a drink and a smoke."

Seram reached over and thumped the warden on his hand. "If I catch you giving any of my students one of your burners, you will have much greater things to worry about than a sweet stealing familiar."

"Alright. Alright. Alright. If you let the girl wear what she wants, I won't let her have any fun." The warden said as he held his hand out for Precept Seram to shake.

"The Mothers should be thankful that you sequester yourself on this island, warden. I fear what would become of our underwitches if you still roamed Lun's halls." Precept Seram said as she took the offered hand and shook it gently, evidently agreeing to the deal.

"Come on, Ire, we have things to do. What is it you say when you approve of something? Speckless?" The warden called out as he waved for me to follow him.

"Spotless." Precept Seram corrected him.

He let out a wild laugh. "You said it, little Seram. Not me."

I followed in his footsteps all the way to a building that was hidden behind the one I had spent the night in. The sprawling web of white cloth still hung in the air above, but the trees had turned from jungle to forest in only a couple of steps.

"Never tell her I said this, but Seram is right. Those robes are good for going back and forth to the hot springs but that is about it. If you are working with me today, you need to dress properly." The warden said as he opened the door to the smaller building and led me inside.

"Right." I agreed. If I was going to be doing warden work, I needed to be dressed like one.

"Everything in here should fit you well enough." The warden said as he led me to a room so full with clothes that it could have been one of the shops in Erosette.

"Am I supposed to wear what you are wearing?" I asked, realizing that while I knew the necessity of dressing like a warden, I did not know how wardens dressed. He was the only one I had ever met and all he had on was a pair of dusty pants and the silken tether that was wrapped around his waist.

"Seram would have a heart attack," The warden chuckled. "Or she might attack my heart, I'm not sure which. I feel safe in saying that you should probably wear more than I am. I've never been one for skirts or dresses, but I'll owe you if you wear one. Pick something out and I'll meet you outside."

If he knew how infrequently I had been allowed to dress myself, there was no way he would be giving me that much freedom.

"Wait, are you asking me to wear a dress?" I asked as I began to riffle through the seemingly endless piles of clothes.

"A green one, with a flower pattern if you can find it." The warden called out from somewhere outside the room.

"That seems oddly specific. Why do you need me to do that?" I called back.

The warden gave me my answer from what sounded like somewhere outside. "Because there is someone we need to talk to and it is going to go much better if he is in a good mood."

Much too long after, there truly was a ridiculous amount of clothes I had to go through, I left the smaller building and met the warden outside wearing exactly what he had asked me to. The dress mostly fit. It was a little longer than what I usually liked, and I knew that green was not my color, but it felt so nice to not have silk sliding against my skin for once.

The flower pattern was nice. Its dark petals and stems reminded me of Rhiannon's roses even though they were not the same flower at all.

"So, you said you needed my help, but I should tell you, I am not good at many things." I admitted as the long bearded man began to lead me down a well worn footpath. I kept my robe thrown over my arm. After all, Anna deserved a bigger present than paper and dust.

The warden lit yet another burner as we walked and spoke through the smoke he drew into his mouth. "Don't say that about yourself, Ire. You are one of the few souls in all of chaos that could help me with this."

Hearing him say my false name grated against me in a way that little could. Of all the people I had met during my time at Lun, he was the one that I wanted to know Autumn Aubrey most of all.

"Because of the dress? Any of the others could have worn it." I said.

"Some have. Little Seram has done things like this for me before, but this is where our work begins, not where it ends, and I have a feeling that you will succeed where I have failed for nearly a year." The warden said, taking time to stop and let me catch up to him as we walked.

The ground had turned up into an incline and the forest floor had quickly turned to rock and stone underneath my bare feet. We were climbing up the taller of the two peaks, straight towards the cloud of white fog above us, and the air was becoming thinner as we went.

"I still don't know what you think I will succeed at." I panted sometime later, very aware that how easily I tired was something I should work on.

"The thing that came in the room last night, that tried to steal the cake, right? I've been trying to talk to it for a long time, but it won't speak," The warden began, evidently nowhere near as out of breath as I was. "Even when the other moons were here, it would stay out of sight, but you arrive, someone who had been chosen by Hexis, and it comes out of hiding."

"Twice," I agreed. "It stole a sweet out of Plia's bag when we first came through the black gate."

"See, that's why I need your help. You've seen it twice in two days, that's more than I have in a year." The warden cheered.

"I didn't exactly see it. I saw what it was doing, it was kind of invisible." I answered honestly.

The captain stopped before a large split in the mountain that had risen up beside us and held his finger to his lips. "When we cross through here, let me make the introductions, alright?"

I stayed silent and nodded in agreement, needing no explanation to trust what he was saying.

Following him through, I felt the pleasant sensation of warm moisture settling onto my face, like the air when I was drawing a particularly warm bath.

We came out on the other side of the split, and I saw what could have only been the hot springs that the others had visited the night before. There were three pools, each much larger and deeper than what I had used in the well house of the manor, and white steam swirled in the air above them. A wall of solid stone, darker than the rest of the mountain, stood tall on their far side and gave the hot springs a secluded feeling.

"Now you get to meet who really runs this place." The warden whispered to me with a playful wink before he raised his voice and called out.

"Amabura! It is I, Mortwyn! And I have brought a guest to speak with you!" The warden shouted towards the springs.

When no answer came, he shouted again. "Amabura! Awaken! I have brought one of Hexis's chosen souls to meet you!"

"Familiars only grow more stubborn as they age, remember that," The warden whispered to me with a sigh and the roll of his eyes before shouting out for a third time. "Amabura! She is wearing a green dress and has come from very far away!"

I did not know what to expect, familiars could be anything from talking guns to paper dragons, but in the echo of the warden's third shout, I still found a way to be surprised.

The wall of solid stone blinked.

One, twice, three times, and then it spoke in a voice that sent ripples across the still surfaces of the springs.

"Who dares disturb my slumber?"

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