There had been several times that I had found myself wishing for Sam to return to the size he had been when we had first met.

He had been just as contemptuous and irritable, but he had been so much easier to deal with.

The way he would thump his paw against my face to wake me had not hurt quite as much before they were the size of a plate. His scratches and pricks had been far less grievous when his claws were not the size of small knives. My familiar had not been quite so intimidating when he had been light enough for me to pick him up by the scruff of his neck.

As big as he had become, it would take both hands and a wide stance for me to be able to lift him.

Seeing Amabura open his strange eye and understanding that the wall of stone was not a wall at all, gave me a new wish.

It made me wish that Sam would never grow again.

Azeralphane, Othilie, none of them would compare to the demon Sam would become if he was anywhere near as big as Amabura.

"I did, you dusty old skink. Now get up. We need to talk and you have a guest." The warden shouted as he walked forward and sat down at the edge of the closest pool.

I did the same and let my legs hang down into the water just like he did. The sight of whatever the massive familiar was brought a jittery nervousness to my body, but I felt safe enough with the warden that I did not let it halt me.

The water was as warm as any bath I had ever taken, and part of me wished that I had gone with the other new moons the night before as soon as I felt the soothing heat.

Amabura, appearing to be nothing more than a large eye in the wall of stone, looked the warden and I over before giving his answer. "No."

With that, his eye shut and there was no evidence that he had ever been there at all.

"Don't start acting out because there is a pretty girl here," The warden said as he lit yet another burner. "She may be the new warden when I'm gone."

I may be what? I asked myself, having to repeat his words for or five times before my mind could understand them.

"I may be what?" I asked aloud.

"You could be. If you wanted. There aren't many of you around any more. This place needs someone who knows what it's like to have a familiar, and I don't want to live forever like most of you sorceresses do," The warden said quietly with a shrug of his shoulders. "If you ever get tired of that icicle of a school, you could come stay for a while and see if you like it."

Beyond simple dreams of freedom, I had never thought much about what I wanted to be. I knew that I wanted it to be with Anna, but that was as far as I had been able to think.

It made it all the easier to imagine myself as a warden because the warden had said I could be.

A new dream took shape in my mind. It was one of early mornings spent walking around Silkcradle and late nights spent watching the moon from the beach. Fetti-Gami, Taloo, Drissa, and whatever Amabura actually was, Anna and I could get to know all of them. We would eat grilled fish and drink wine every night. My mother, Arthur, and Ms. Lao could all come stay with us. I doubted it would ever get cold or snowy, and I would never have to so much as see silk again.

It was a warm dream, a good dream, and it brought a smile to my face that I could not have hid if my life depended on it.

"Do I get your belt?" I asked and pointed at the length of silk around his waist.

"I'll take that as a sign of your interest. Good, I'm tired of being alive," The warden laughed before he yelled out at the wall of stone again. "It's been awhile, don't you want to tell her about your lady?"

"You play dirty, Mortwyn," Amabura answered, his voice shaking the spring water once again. "Do not think that I am ignorant of why you have dressed our guest this way."

The steamy mountain air was suddenly filled with the sound of rock breaking and crumbling. Amabura's eye opened once again as the wall of stone that surrounded it separated and shattered.

No chip or bit hit the ground. Not a single piece fell into any of the three pools. All that fell away from the quaking shape turned to plumes of white steam that swallowed me in a rolling billow. So thick that the warden vanished from where he was sitting right next to me, I felt the water of the hot spring lap against my legs as Amabura began to speak again.

"Tell me, Sorceress, do you know why you are wearing what you are?"

I found great pleasure in being able to answer honestly. "Because the warden and I need you to be in a good mood."

A dark shape, a large shape, moved towards me and brushed against my arm as it passed. Its skin was slick, wet, and warm to the touch. Its size alone was enough to make me take a sharp inhale and hold it. Whatever Amabura truly was, he seemed much too polite to suddenly turn violent, but I had been fooled many times before.

"So he has coerced you into aiding him. Know this, Sorceress, The Warden Mortwyn is a manipulator within equal. If what you have is something he seeks, he will not relent until it is his." Amabura continued from wherever he was behind me.

Truly in danger or not, being spoken to by something that big and that hidden was terribly unnerving. My eyes darted around in every direction to try and lay my eyes on the enshrouded familiar once again, but all I found was steam.

"He is upset because I called him a skink, but he's always been dramatic. Let him have his fun." The warden leaned over and whispered to me.

Being reminded that he was there calmed my nerves enough that I was able to ease the burning in my lungs and take a breath of the dense air once again.

"I sense her power around you, Sorceress. You are bonded. Tell me, have you ever heard of Oni, The Emerald Plume?" Amabura asked as I saw his shape move around the edge of the spring to the warden and I's right. Just close enough that I watched his long tail dip down into the water before slithering into the cover of steam, I began to wonder if Fetti-Gami was the only dragon that called Silkcradle its home.

The warden gave me an expectant look and I realized that I was the one that had to give the familiar an answer.

"No," I answered honestly. I had heard of walking storms and blue deaths, but not The Emerald Plume. Still, I remembered Taloo speaking of his lady and remembered what Silkcradle and the warden's true purpose was. "But I would like to."

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"A fine answer." The familiar's voice called from in front of us once again, and as the steam began to thin, more of him was revealed with every word he spoke of who could only have been his lady.

"Like so many who are young, Oni wanted nothing more than to be free. And like so many who find themselves with power, everyone that knew her wanted nothing but to use it." Amabura began, the length of his long glossy tail gleaming like a sun struck mirror as it took shape.

All of him, from the tip of his tail to his long body and clawless feet, was blacker than any night sky I had ever seen. Like thousands and thousands of shining emerald stars, deep green spots and splotches spread across his body of darkness in a formless splatter.

"From her wayward parents with their plays, poems, and troupe to The Nine Mothers of The Temple Below, all of them had plans for her because she was uncommonly brilliant. Petulant, impulsive, and childish, yes, but well and truly brilliant." Amabura continued.

Sam had called me every single thing the massive familiar had just used to describe his lady except for brilliant.

Every word the familiar spoke further disturbed the surface of the hot spring and sent droplets of hot water higher and higher up my legs. Just as the last of the steam dissipated and I met Amabura's eye for the first time, I understood that he was not whole in more way than one.

"I was shaped from what I once was into what I am now to protect her from those that would use her. Even if it cost me my second life." The familiar said, turning his wide head towards me so I could see the damage that had been done to his body. The ruined flesh began where his other eye should have been. Like a sickly grey cloud covering the green starry night of the rest of him, all of the black and emerald that should have on what remained of his right leg had been utterly ruined.

Something terrible had happened to him.

The sight of his injuries forced me to turn away as my stomach twisted into a knot. Flashes of when my arms and legs had been one raw pain came quick to my mind and if it had not been for the warden patting my back, I may have gotten sick.

"Alright you old salamander, you've scared her enough. Tell us what you want, we've got work to do." The warden called out and interrupted.

"It is you who has come with wants, Mortwyn. Or do you not wish for her to understand the nature of existence? Look at me, Sorceress. See the pain I have felt and know that it is a pale reflection of the anguish that marks my heart. Despite my purpose and despite my efforts, Lady Oni was taken from me and I am left to suffer that loss endlessly. There is nothing that would leave me in a good mood, let alone a too bright dress." Amabura growled, his voice sending waves over the hot spring that washed all the way up to my knees.

Skink or salamander, I was not sure, but either way, the massive familiar's voice was so bitter that Sam seemed pleasant and personable in comparison.

"Make it darker with your glamor, just a shade or two, you know how to do that right?" The warden whispered to me without shifting his eyes from Amabura.

Before he could finish what he was saying, I had brought my power out of my palm and reached behind my back. Spreading it out over the flower patterned dress, I thought of the spots on the familiar's back and my mother's eyes as I did exactly what I had been asked to do.

What Precept Seram did not know would not hurt her. It wasn't breaking the rules if no one was around to catch me.

The warden pointed at me. "Your eye isn't as sharp as it used to be, that looks like emerald to me."

Amabura was unaffected by the change in color. "I am well aware of the tricks that sorceresses can perform. How many times must we play this game?Begone, enjoy the bliss of your ignorance while you can and do not disturb me again."

The warden whispered to me again. "Can you make your hair red? Not like an apple, but like fire."

If he would have told me to stand up and take flight, I believe that I could have found a way to do it.

Fortunately for me, I did not have to glamor my hair to turn it red, I just had to drop the one I was already wearing. In a sudden shower of dust, Underwitch Ire's black gave way to my natural red for the first time since I had stepped foot on Silkcradle.

"Leave me, Warden. Leave me to return to stone where I belong. There is-" Amabura started and stopped in one spring shaking breath.

The warden laughed. "See, if you would learn some patience, good things would happen to you more often."

Crippled, burned, injured, I did not know what had happened to the slick looking creature, but it did not slow him down. In a mad dash that took less time than it did for me to blink, Amabura stood an arms length away from my face.

"I am aware that you are not Oni, but it is good to see her once again." He said, his breath hot on my face and the smell of rain hanging around him like the steam had been moments before.

I did not move. I did not breathe. I didn't so much as blink. It was not fear that froze me, no, it was the soul crushing sadness I felt for the familiar that kept me in place. He had lost his lady, and if I could be who he needed to see for even a single moment, it was the least I could do.

"Her hair was shorter and she was much prettier than you, but this is as close to being in her presence as I will ever come again." Amabura continued.

I tried not to let his words hurt my feelings, and almost succeeded.

His voice growing so quiet that I almost could not hear it over the sound of the waves it created, he focused his undamaged eye on mine and spoke. "No matter how deep your bond may grow, learn from My Lady's folly, Sorceress. Do not rob your familiar of its purpose. Do not condemn it to a fate such as mine. Promise me this and I will give you and Mortwyn the aid you desire."

He did not have a pinky for me to wrap my own around, but I knew my word was good. "I promise."

"There, now that we are done with all that nonsense," The warden said as he clapped his hands and stood up. "Our slimy friend here can tell where everyone on Silkcradle is just by lighting up his spots. Tell us where little Seram and the other visitors are, won't you?"

Amabura ignored him. "Chaos will take everything from you, Sorceress. There is no freedom in this life. All that-"

"Amabura," The warden interrupted him in a serious tone. He had wrapped his silk tether around his hand and placed it on the center of the massive familiar's head. "Where is little Seram?"

The familiar sighed like he had just heard very good news and all the green spots on his black body began to glow. "In the clearing that she should be in. Fetti-Gami has just rejected all of the visitors."

Beyond the hot springs, over the edge that had once been concealed by the giant salamander, the paper dragon that had greeted me in the moments after I had come through the black gate soared into sight and disappeared into the white clouds above in one quick spiral.

"Well, we knew that was going to happen. Are any of the newer familiars going down to meet them? "The warden said with a shrug and asked.

Amabura's spots lit up once again as he began to withdraw from us. "The mantis, the crane, and the wolf."

Back to where he had been upon our arrival, the familiar laid down on the far side of the hot springs and steam began to leak out of his nostrils.

"And our invisible friend, the one you have helped me find before, where is it?" The warden asked. He waved for me to stand and once I did, began to lead me back the way we had come in.

The steam that came from Amabura burst into towering plumes that hid him from my eyes in a matter of moments, but his voice echoed out as we left him where we lay. "The drowning cave, trying to steal a meal from Durath's kill."

On the other side of the pass, with all of Silkcradle laying at my feet, The warden let out a sigh that was nothing like the relieved sound Amabura had made before.

It was tired, weary, and obviously frustrated.

"What is it?" I asked as I dropped the glamor on my dress and returned Underwitch Ire's hair to its proper darkness. No part of me wanted my white haired guard to show up and ruin one of the most interesting days I had ever had.

"Nothing," The warden smiled. "We just have to make a quick trip underneath the island. A long walk and a little swim, that's it. This has nothing to do with where we are going, absolutely nothing, but you know how to defend yourself, right? Have they taught you that at Lun yet?"

I answered honestly and without the need to think. "No, they haven't, but I do know how. There is only one problem."

"What's that?" The warden asked as he lit a burner and took a long inhale from it.

"I don't know how to swim."

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