My hair and dress still damp from my almost drowning, I stretched my arms above my head and let out a yawn that was so long and so deep, it threatened to throw me off of Taloo's back.

"Thank The Mothers! Are we going back to Lun now? I'm so bored." I complained through the yawn, making a show of sagging shoulders and half lidded eyes.

Alexei was no fool.

"You are bored?" My guard asked me in his usual flat tone, so little expression in his face that he might as well have been made of stone.

"Yes. I want to go home. It's too warm here and I'm hungry." I lied. Well, the growling in my stomach told me that the hunger was not a lie, but everything else was.

"The hunt did not go well." He said, his one white eye reminding me all too much of Bru-tol's empty black stare.

I pushed harder, trying my best to sound as stupid and silly as Spring Tana did every time she opened her mouth. " oh no, we found what we were looking for, but getting to it and getting back almost put me to sleep."

I threw my legs to the side and threw myself off of the black masked beast that I had been resting atop.

"Master Alexei, have-" I started.

My feet hit the ground.

The rest of me followed shortly after.

I was still weak, worn, exhausted, and my legs could not have held up a feather if my life depended on it.

"Master Alexei," I started again as I pulled myself up from the tall grass by handfuls of Taloo's black and grey fur. "Have you ever been inside a cave? Do you know what's inside of them? Rock. That's it. It's just a big hole that goes through rock. And, they're dark for no reason. Shops have windows and signs and lights to make you want to go inside them. Caves have nothing. It's like they don't care if you're inside or not. How rude. At least Lun is honest, with its glamour and its walls. All it takes is one look to know that you probably shouldn't go inside without permission."

It was fortunate for me and the warden that acting like a silly little girl who was not something it was terribly difficult for me to reach for.

The warden looked at me and by his expression, I doubted that he had ever been more confused or amused.

I leaned all of my weight against Taloo, trying to seem relaxed and hoping that Alexei did not notice that my legs had turned to jelly like Deebee's.

"You do not like caves." My white haired guard said simply.

I shook my head vigorously in disagreement, and felt trapped water swishing around in my ears

"Don't get me wrong, I would if there was anything to like inside them. I kept waiting for something to happen. Maybe a monster comes crawling out of the dark," I thought of Bru and the slapping sound her little shark feet had made. "Or a trap that would make it difficult to move forward," flashes of the high tide's swill came back to me so clearly that it felt like I was still there. "There wasn't even any treasure. There is supposed to be treasure in caves," My eyes shifted to wear Anna's gifts were pilled in the hollow between Taloo's shoulders. "But there wasn't. It was dark. It was just dark, damp, and disappointing."

I ran out of breath three times during my mad rambling.

Somewhere inside me, I knew that I was terribly close to the point of exhaustion that would leave me curled into myself on the grassy ground, but my work was not done.

The warden was not safe yet.

"I assume that means that I should be unconcerned with why you look like you have spent the afternoon in the bitter deeps, you are barely able to stand, and there was something not very long ago that shook the entire island?" Alexei asked, still unmoving and expressionless.

I faked a little laugh and waved him off. "Of course, Master Alexei, the warden would not have let anything happen to me. I'm just so weak and clumsy, you know that."

He turned his one white eye from me to the warden. "Warden?"

He is going to tell the truth. He is going to tell the truth because he is a good man. He is going to die because he told the truth. The panicked thought ran through my mind like freezing water.

Before I could throw myself into another fit of made up nonsense to try and save them the warden answered my guard.

"You've heard what she had to say about it, that's good enough for me." He chuckled without a hint of fear in his blue eyes.

Alexei nodded and the two men shook with the hands they had harmed to form their blood pact. "Very well. All is settled."

Victory! We did it! I cheered in my mind, knowing that if I had done it out loud, I would've ruined everything. He would have asked what it was that we had done, and I did not have the wit or the will to lie anymore.

Alexei was no fool, but I had fooled him.

"Well now, now that that's done, we should get back. I'm sure that little Seram has worked herself into a lather because we're late." The warden laughed as he helped me back onto Taloo's back

I didn't mind because I would have collapsed to the ground again shortly if he hadn't.

"She has, but not because of you. The gate was supposed to open an hour ago, but it didn't." Alexei explained.

The warden crossed his arms and handed me another burner to dry. "Hmmm, problems with the gatekeepers. We best be on our way."

"I will be there shortly. There is something else I would like to see while I am here. I trust that another pact is not necessary?" My guard asked, already turning away from us and heading toward the foggy mountain that loomed over the windswept hill.

"Trust, it's an easy walk back to the temple grounds from here." The warden agreed as he sighed a puff of smoke out and relaxed his shoulders.

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Alexei left, Taloo carried me without ever letting his clawed hands touch the ground, and the warden smoked as we left Durath's coast.

There was far too much for me to think about.

When my guard and the warden had ended their grasp, the bloody cuts on both their palms had been healed. Was it the warden or had Alexei used the aura that he did not know I knew he had? Why had the black gate not opened? Where was the gatekeeper? If Precept Seram could lather like soap, would the frothy bubbles be pastel blue like her aura or would they be white like usual?

I did not know the answer to any of my questions, but there was one that I was not content to keep to myself.

Not long after we had taken the long way around the curtain of rain and made our way into a swamp that was thick with mud, I cleared my throat.

"Warden?" I said through a yawn.

He gave me back what I gave him through his own yawn. "Ire."

"If that had not gone as well as it did, and Alexei, you know, what would have happened to Silkcradle? To the familiars?" I asked, looking over at him without leaning up from Taloo's pillow tail.

The warden broke out into another of his big laughs. "You think that went well? It was like watching a newborn fawn learn to stand. You could barely talk, you were so out of breath. I don't mean to laugh at you, Ire, but I'm going to."

"Hey! I just saved your life, don't laugh at me!" I whined at him, the sound of my false name passing through his lips only adding to my aggravation.

The warden's laugh fell away into a cough that he tried desperately to speak through. "Grateful. But. If you could have seen it. Oh. I had to bite my tongue."

"Answer my question." I crossed my arms and glared at him with as much fury as I could summon through my exhaustion.

He nodded and caught his breath. "If I had been cut down, or if anything happens to me before you become the warden, my beloved, little Seram, and a few others would look after things until you were ready. Seram knew about my interest in you before you ever came here. And, I doubt Hexis is going to choose another seeing how I'm the first and only. And, I've got more notes than you'll ever be able to read in my cabin. So even if I go, what I know won't go with me."

There was something comforting about what he said. There was no mystery, nothing from my mind to guess at, just an answer that I could trust.

"Now, if this is uncomfortable, I'm sorry, but I have to say it," He continued, his face hardening into a serious expression. "I know you said you never knew your Da. If there's ever anything you need to talk about, uhm, just tell little Seram. She can get in touch with me and I'll try and help you, alright?"

My tears made a triumphant return.

"Hell, I didn't mean to make you cry. I'm sorry." The warden sighed.

I couldn't speak. There was no part of me that had the strength to tell him how happy he had just made me feel. All I could do was reach out and place my hand on his arm and thanks.

"Talk to Taloo too. Taloo help." Taloo looked back and said in his high pitched voice.

I thanked him the same way I had the warden, and took a long time drying my eyes. The swamp gave way to a wide blanket of twisted tree roots whose trunk I could not see, and the roots gave way to dry red dirt that was surrounded completely by dense jungle. When we were halfway across the small desert, a voice came echoing from the tangled trees in the distance.

"Warden? Warden? Warden?" The voice called out, and the warden answered.

"Here! He shouted and held up one of his scarred hands.

Over the red desert, a bug that looked to be the size of my hand shot out of the jungle like a gleaming arrow and reached us in the time it took me to blink.

It was a dragonfly, made entirely of perfectly clear glass, and I knew its name.

"Clarus." I said under my breath before I could stop myself from speaking.

The warden raised one of his eyebrows. "Have you met him before?"

I had, in a very strange way that I absolutely could not explain to the warden. The sorceress that he had been bonded with, her name escaped me, but the working she had performed in the brief memory that I had seen of hers echoed heavily in my mind.

Sunshard.

I had been her the day that all the books had fallen in The Well, the day that I had been an uncountable amount of sorceresses. The ceiling of the well house had been burnt, but I could not remember how.

"Yes, but not today." I gave the warden the most honest answer I could.

Thankfully, Clarus reached us before the bearded man could ask me any more questions.

"Warden," The glass dragonfly buzzed excitedly. "It happened."

"Slow down, bug. What happened?" The warden demanded, his palms held up towards the flitting familiar.

"One of the others, they bonded with one of the visitors." Clarus buzzed.

The warden clapped his hands and his big laugh returned. "Which one? Was it Peitre? It had to be Peitrie. She hates it here. Come on, out with it."

Clarus darted from side to side, his wings sounding like wind chimes from the movement. "I don't know. You said to come straight to you if it happened."

"I did say that," The warden frowned. "Are they still at the meeting grounds?"

"Let me see. Stay here." Clarus commanded and went darting back into the jungle before I could understand what he said.

The warden broke into a run not a moment later. "Hold on tight, Ire. We gotta move quickly."

Taloo kept pace with the bearded man easily. I kept one hand on Anna's gifts and the other clutched in the familiar's fur so neither of us would fall off.

A sorceress I had once been was dead.

One of the other new moons had bonded with a familiar, and the warden had told me just how rare that was.

Even being as worn out as I was, riding on the back of a giant talking raccoon was possibly the most fun thing I had ever done.

I was aware that I had lived days that felt much longer than the one I was having, but there had not been quite so many things in them.

We broke through the dent jungle into a clearing that could have only been the meeting grounds. Clarus met us as soon as we did.

"I asked Petrie, and Petrie asked Erret, and Erret asked Queuewuewu, and Queuewuewu asked Thresher, and Thresher said that they are still here." The glass bug buzzed in one unbroken breath.

I pointed towards the other end of the clearing, where the other new moons and my teacher were huddled around something in a clutch of blue cloaks and black laced boots. "There is Precept Seram!"

"Good eye, Ire." The warden grunted as we started moving towards my classmates.

My breath was quick with excitement, and a wide smile had taken up on my face. Before we reached Seram and the others however, that smile died, and my breath stopped all together.

"That's it, that's the one who bonded." Claris buzzed.

Stalking out from behind a tree and standing in our way, came a big silver wolf.

It was just like the first time I had seen it in the woods behind the boarding house.

It wasn't like Clarus or Gat, it was not a soul I had come across in a memory while I had been their Lady. I had met it in my own life. I had fought beside it. I had fought with it. Sam had sent it away.

I had been the reason its lord had been killed.

It was a familiar that I was unfamiliar with, but one that I had once known.

When all four of its shining silver eyes met mine, I hoped desperately that it did not remember knowing me.

"The wolf? Really? You haven't been here long enough for me to learn your name. Who did you bond to?" The warden asked aloud as he ran his hands over his long beard.

The warden did not know its name, but I did, and I could not stop it from slipping through my lips in a petrified whisper.

"Auden."

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