Not long after I had tried to turn the familiar Bruce into something resembling a roast chicken, we had left the hills of soft grass and made our way to the end of Silkcradle.

There was no sand on the beach we had arrived at, only round stones that were smooth to the touch and the same dark grey as storm clouds. I took one that was small enough to hold in my hand alongside the crystalline quills and stark white feather I was already carrying.

I had learned a valuable lesson.

It wasn't that the little crystal familiar I carried could charm me into violence in her defense, and it wasn't that a familiar could take the full force of my power without injury. As strong as it had felt, It wasn't even that I was sad at not knowing my father.

All of those things were true, but the small wisdom I had gained had nothing to do with them.

It had to do with bags, and what was most important about them.

The size, how it fastened, how it could be worn, there were many traits that were as innate to a given bag as my aura was to me. But without doubt or debate, the single most crucial thing about any bag was that it was not laying uselessly on a bed roll instead of being slung over my shoulder.

What good was a suit of armor if it still hung on its rack and its wearer had already taken the battlefield?

The sandals that I had wanted so desperately not very long before my acceptance into Lun were laying uselessly at the bottom of an empty chest instead of being on my feet.

Sam, whose entire purpose, to my understanding, was to protect me and to make sure that I remained Autumn, was probably stalking some poor creature in the snowy wastes around The Mother in Blue's school instead of being by my side like he should have been.

A thing was only useful if I actually had it in my hands.

Just like Benny.

The warden's tether still stretched out over her quills to keep me from assaulting anything else in her name, she still slept soundly despite all that had happened. I carried her in my arms and she rewarded me for it. I was still sad, still ashamed of what I had done to Bruce, and beginning to get tired, but the sight of the sun glittering off her iridescence made all of that a little easier to deal with.

The warden had been telling me about her the whole time we had been walking, but I had not paid nearly enough attention.

"Don't blame her for her charm, she can't help it," He said as the hills we had crossed gave way to cliffs that climbed higher and higher alongside us as we followed the rocky coastline. "The best I can tell, her lord was a master of colorless aura and all the wicked things souls like you can do with it."

I shook my mind out of its aimless wandering and asked a half hearted question. "Thats why Hexis made her able to charm people?"

Finding a good question to ask was always a difficult thing to do. Finding one when I had not truly listened to most of what the bearded man had said was even harder.

"I'm not really sure, half the job is getting them to talk about who they were bonded with, that's how I really learn about them. There is no way to prove it, but I think she made each one with a little piece of their lord or lady in them. Taloo's lady was thin enough for a strong breeze to blow her away, and so he floats. Fetti-Gami's lord was some manner of artist, and so she is made of paper. Durath's lady possessed an intellect that was supposedly above all others, and so-well, I will let you see for yourself. Do you see the point I'm trying to make?" The warden asked with enough vigor in his voice that his passion for familiars was on full display.

"That Benny can charm because her lord was good at charms?" I asked in response.

The warden gave me a shrug and a smile. "That's what I think. I plan for that to be my first question if I ever see her again. Have you noticed anything about your Samsara that reminds you of yourself?"

"Wait," I said, stopping my stew dead on the smooth stones beneath my feet. "You've actually met her?"

The warden nodded. "Who do you think made me the warden or gave me that strange scrap of silk you're holding?"

Most of the times I had ever heard anyone speak of a god or goddess, it had been in memories from The Well. The only memory I had ever viewed where the god was present, it had been a cloud of talking pink gas. It had been strange to see, and even stranger to see what it had been hanging over, but there had been doubt from the sorceress I had been that it was even a god at all.

I had been in Hexis's temple.

The memory of standing at the feet of her statue was still very clear in my mind.

If her likeness had been enough to unsettle me the way it had, actually seeing her would probably make me smoke just as much as the warden did.

I took three quick steps to the bearded man and resettled Benny in my arms, unable to hide my curiosity or excitement. "What was it like?"

"Haven't I told you this already?" The warden asked with one eye brow raised.

All of my words came out at once. "No! You should have, but you didn't! What was she like? Was she nice? What was she wearing? Did she come and get you or did you go to where she was? Would she have liked me? I know I'm asking a lot of questions, but I can't believe you are just mentioning this now. You're as bad at telling stories as Precept Seram is. You should have said something when we were in her temple, that would have been way better."

"Slow down, slow down, slow down," The warden laughed as he held his palms out towards me in a placating gesture. "It wasn't like that."

He bent down and took one of the smooth stones into his hand.

"Think of me as this rock, alright?" He said, rolling the rock end over end in his scared and calloused palm.

I gasped. "She just plucked you away from all the other rocks?"

"Indeed. Though, I had been trampled and left for dead not long before, so it wasn't like I was particularly busy. After she took me," He stepped forward and threw the stone straight out over the water. It went, and went, and went before finally turning down towards the waves and crashing into them in a splash of white seafoam. "I drowned in her."

I bite my tongue to stop the next flood of questions from pouring out of me so I could actually think about what he had said. The thought of the bearded man that I had become very fond of very quickly laying bloody and broken on the ground brought me no joy at all.

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"Something like her, if there are other things like her, you don't really meet it. Or, at least, I didn't," The warden continued. "I knew she was there, I could feel her fixing me, but it was more like being knocked around by those waves or sinking deeper into the water than it was having a chat."

What he was describing reminded me of the time I had been buried alive in a glass pyramid. Azza was not Hexis, but she had been powerful enough to make me feel something similar to what he had.

The warden let out a weary sigh. "It changes a man going through something like that. Made me realize how small we all are. Even The Mothers and all they hold within Zenithcidel can't hold a candle to what being in her presence was like."

"You know The Mothers?" I asked quietly, my eyes still focused on the place the stone had sunk into the water even though any trace of its entrance had long since been waved away.

How could it be that I was an unknowable distance from everywhere I had ever been and I still could not get away from them? It wasn't enough knowing that I still had six more punishments hanging around my neck, no, they had to be everywhere so they could taint every good moment I managed to have.

"I wouldn't say I know them, but I've met a few. The Mother in Orange is the only reason this place hasn't been shifted to pieces, but we better get moving, little Seram doesn't like to be kept waiting." The warden answered as we continued on our way.

Benny still slept, the sun was still bright, and I still had a head full of more questions that I could ask. We fell into an easy back and forth while we walked that seemed to make the time pass twice as fast as it should have.

"Where did she take you?" I asked.

"Somewhere, nowhere, maybe both. It's hard to know." He answered.

"What was it like?" I asked.

"Cold, dark, but not uncomfortable. A little like waking up in the middle of the night and realizing you left your window open. Except, I was just kind of floating there. No up or down, just dark." He answered.

My mind could not help but compare what he was saying with the strange place that Mother Katarina was in inside the memories at the back of her book.

"Did you talk to her?" I asked.

"No," He smiled. "But she spoke to me. She told me many things, about her child, the island, what she wanted me to do. The funny thing is, I can't remember what her voice sounded like or half the things she said, but she talked to me for what felt like years."

"Were you scared?" I asked.

"Not at first, but that was because I thought I was going to die. It was when I realized that it was not my time that the fear came." He answered.

"Why?" I asked.

"Well, there isn't much to be scared of if you know you'll be dead in a minute or two. Staying alive, having to deal with what comes next, that's what's really terrifying," He answered. Before I could ask my next question, he cut me off and asked one of his own. "What I asked before, about anything being similar between you and your Samsara, you never answered me. Have you noticed anything?"

I thought about it for a moment before I answered. "We both hate being told what to do."

The warden laughed. "Fair, fair, fair. I mean with your power or his. Can you speak to each other through your minds or anything of that nature."

"No," I shook my head. "Not even a little."

I could not tell him about Sam's questions or how he always knew when I was going into The Well. There would be far too many questions that I would have to answer with lies for that. So, I made my peace with just not telling him.

"Hmmm." Was all he gave me in response. Which, of all the possible responses, was possibly the one I wanted the least.

It was nothing. It told me nothing. It left me waiting for some hint of what I had said was good or bad, and I hated it.

"Is that bad?" I asked after a moment, unable to take the not knowing any longer.

The warden shook his head as he lit another burner. "No, not bad at all. It just means that the two of you are young in your bond. Whatever her plan is, whatever she means for you to do, it's safe to say you've got some time until it happens."

"What? Plan? She means for me to do something?" I asked, nervousness teaming to life within me. The nervous feeling I felt at the thought of something being expected of me grew even worse when Benny began to stir in my arms.

"Oh yes. Hexis does not give freely. The best I can tell, she has some sense of what is going to happen but has not yet. How could she send each little familiar to their lord or lady with a specific purpose in mind? That's the only thing that makes sense. Something that will happen in your life is something that she wants to happen and she has sent your Samsara to assist you with it." The warden said, glancing at me through the corner of his eye.

"I. . ." I started, but I could not find the words to continue.

I knew that everything good in my life was only allowed to stay good because The Mothers had not decided to take it away from me yet. Not Rhiannon, Nami, or Glim, but the rest of them, the ones I did not know and the ones that I had the misfortune of knowing.

They had a plan for me. Even if I didn't know what they would be, I knew very well that I would be stolen away six more times and put through something I could not imagine.

I had seen their faces.

I knew their names.

I had touched some of them.

Hexis, whatever she truly was, a spider, a woman, or a goddess, felt so different in my mind.

No part of me could make sense of the truth that there was something somewhere, or nowhere, that had something they expected me to do.

It was good that Benny uncurled herself in my arms and started sniffing at my hands because if she had not, my mind would have continued down a path that I was not prepared to follow.

"Keep?" She asked through a yawn that was so cute, I almost listened to the part of me that wanted to squish her.

Her king crystalline snout was nosing at the feather, stone, and quills that I was holding.

"Oh, uhm, yes. I was going to, but you can have them if you want." I said, having trouble letting the thoughts of Hexis leave my mind.

She sat back on her haunches and the sun shined off of her in every color I could imagine.

"No. You keep. Why?" She asked, staring up at me intently.

Her voice, the way she spoke, it all made her sound so young, but she was not dumb. One look into her crystalline eyes was enough for me to know that.

It was a welcome relief to be able to talk about something that did not make my mind feel like it was being slowly ground away by its inability to understand.

"If you don't mind, there is someone special at my school that asked me to bring her something back, and I know that she will love your quills." I answered honestly.

Benny gave a little nod as we followed behind the warden. "Love. Love her?"

I couldn't help but smile. "Yes, I do."

"Be Mama. Stay with her." Benny nodded again.

Without another word, she carefully turned herself around and jumped straight out of my arms. The sound she made when she hit the ground reminded me of the times my mother had knocked a fork against a wine glass, and there were uncountable smaller clinks that came with every step she ran away from us.

"Durath!" She cried out in obvious excitement as she made slow progress towards a bend in the coast line.

The warden took his silken tether back from and formed it back into its belt shape. "Good, my pants were beginning to fall down. It's a little later than I wanted, but we're here."

We followed after Benny's back of shimmering quills, but I had one last question for the bearded man before I met whatever creature Durath proved to be.

"She knows I am not her mother, right? Why does she keep calling me that?" I asked, genuinely confused.

"This's what you'll have to learn if you ever want to be the warden. There isn't a person alive that knows more about familiars than me, but I still know how little I know. Benny knows all sorts of things that she shouldn't, she's a terrible gossip. Maybe you remind her of someone she used to call that, I don't know," The warden said through a laugh. "You said you like riddles right?"

I hadn't.

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