Everything fell away when I met Auden's silver stare.

The warden, Taloo, Precept Seram, the other new moons, all of them felt so far away that they might as well have been back at Lun.

I felt completely alone in the meeting grounds.

There was only me and the four eyed wolf.

Nothing else mattered.

How much I had grown to dislike Tana, what Plia and the others thought of me, Precept Seram's lessons and everything I had learned from her, gone.

All the memories I had made with the familiars that called Silkcradle home faded like the blurry end of a dream. I had just been holding Benny. Deebee and I had made our trade not very long before. There had just been bloody teeth marks in my leg from Bru. I knew all those things had happened to me, but they felt like something I had seen in The Well.

The scent and taste of blood filled my mouth, but it did not remain there for long. Sea salt, sun warmed grass, cold night air, hot chocolate, followed quickly behind it.

Underneath it all, like the true smell of Anna's hair underneath the scented soap she washed it with, was the sickly sweet scent of death.

I had never been a new moon. The frigid halls of Lun Arcanicil had never sent shivers down my spine. I had never found my blue, I didn't know Reese, and I've never slept in the little wooden shack that had briefly been Anna and I's.

The yellow firefly that Mother Glim had snuck into my glows was a distant dream. Knowing that what The Lady in Red wanted more than anything was to be a mother left me. Standing up and telling The Circle of The Nine Mothers what I wanted with the courage that Rhiannon's love had given me could've been one of my mother's stories.

Seeing Auden brought me all the way back to that night behind the boarding house.

His silver eyes entranced me.

I was still the same silly little girl I had been. I was no longer covered in his master's blood, but had changed since then.

My body was tired and weak. I had pushed myself beyond my limits. I was still wearing someone else's clothes. Most of all however, what had changed the least, was that Auden knowing who I was put me in great danger.

It's over. It's all over. I thought to myself, gripping Taloo's black and gray fur so tightly that I was worried I was going to pull it out.

The first time I had met the wolf in the woods behind the boarding house, he had come creeping out of the dark night, his fangs bared and his lit with moonlight.

I had been wearing glamor then.

My false name had not been Ire, it had been Dani, and the wolf had known that I was not what I had appeared to be.

Staring at him as the warden went to meet him in the middle of the meeting grounds, I knew whatever came next would be the end of Ire.

It did not matter if he called out my true name, told the others of how he knew me, or simply took my throat between his jaws.

Azza would take me from Lun if I survived. Even if the others did not understand why what was about to happen happened, no amount of lies or glamor would be enough to keep their questions and suspicions from being asked and thought.

Goodbye, Seram. Goodbye, Alexei. Goodbye, warden. Parting words began to drift through my mind because I knew it would be a matter of moments before I had to say them aloud.

"You said his name was, Auden? Did you meet him yesterday as well?" The warden called back to me as he knelt down a small distance in front of the wolf.

I lied to the bearded man without making any attempt at being partially honest. In the face of certain terror, I returned to what I truly was.

Being a liar was only one of those terrible things.

"Taloo told me." I said, unable to look away for the wolf.

The black masked beast I sat atop quirked his head to the side. "Taloo did?"

I could not understand why Auden had not ran over to me and ripped me apart. I could not understand why he had not exposed me yet. I could not understand why he had stared at me for a short moment and then turned away.

I could not understand it, but all the games of points I had played with Arthur and the guards had taught me that when someone gives you an opening, most of the time, you should take it.

I did.

"Yes. When you were trying to take my bag, you mentioned him." I insisted, reaching for any loose strand or afraid end of hope that I could take in my hands

I did not like being Ire, sometimes I hated it, but being her at Lun was better than being me with Azza.

"Don't remember. Taloo sorry about bag."The big raccoon apologized to me.

My lies were answered enough for the warden.

"I suppose our short history should tell me that you're not gonna explain how it happened," He said to Auden before looking from side to side and shouting. "Thresher?

"Yes, warden?" A slippery sounding voice echoed out of the jungle around us.

I could not tell exactly where it was coming from, but it sounded close.

"Did you see it?" The warden asked aloud.

"Yes, warden." Thresher hissed back.

"And? Did it seem right?" The warden called again, his eyes held down to the ground as he spoke.

To my right, I caught sight of the familiar and had to blink my eyes several times before I could make sense of what I was seeing.

A skull, made of nothing but clean white bone, crawled between two trees on what looked to be spider legs.

"Yes, warden." It stopped and said, its eye sockets turned in the bearded man's direction.

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The warden clapped his hands and stood, one of his good laughs rolling out of him and filling the jungle air with its brilliant sound. "I can't believe it. I'd given up on the idea. Damn, I hate that I missed it."

I ignored the twinge of sadness I felt at the notion of the warden regretting our time together and kept my focus on Auden.

The thought to call out for The Mothers or Alexei crossed my mind, but I did not see the point. It would give the wolf less of an opportunity to hurt me, but maybe he had the right to.

He was stuck because of me.

He was just like Amabura sitting in his stony illusion for great lengths of time or Benny only being able to learn so much because of the loss of who they were bonded with.

I remembered the sorcerer Eames. I remembered when Ulet had told me to not be sad for his death on the roof of the manor in Erosette. I even thought about him on my own from time to time. Not how we had met, he had been quite kind in the moments after he had shed his old lady disguise. Come to think of it, he had been the first person to ever teach me anything about using my power, and without him, the black breath hand horrors that the lich had sent after me, would have succeeded.

He had not truly been nice and kind, I knew that the way I knew that my mother loved me.

Our time together had ended with my teeth tearing through his throat, but I felt guilt for what had happened to him afterwards.

I felt guilt for my familiar sending his familiar away.

Had Sam sent him to Silkcradle? Did the contemptuous cat know about Hexis's island? Or had Auden found his way afterwards, lost and alone, searching for something that was no longer alive.

My sadness from before returned, and with everything I had been through that day already, I wished that I could just lay back, close my eyes, and wake up to the sound of Anna's snoring.

The warden was speaking, but I was so lost in my terrified thoughts that I only heard half of what he was saying.

"-who I think it is?" He asked.

"Yes. It was all too much for her, so I helped her calm down. I hope you do not mind. She will be herself again in a moment." Precept Seram answered him from where she knelt in the center of the circle of new moons.

"Of course. Of course. Of course," The warden nodded, pulling out a burner and lighting it without the need for me to dry it first. He looked towards where Hexis's temple lay below the web of white fabric with a strange glisten in his blue eyes. "This day, it's. . . A rare sort. A rare sort indeed."

The day was not a rare sort.

I was.

He had told me that himself.

"Take a step back, girls. Please. Let her get some air." Precept Seram asked my classmates politely.

Underwitch Morgan was the first to stand and step away. There were green leaves stuck in her short brown hair. She brushed them out with her fingers as she looked from me to Taloo to Clarus to the warden, and finally Auden.

It had not been her that had bonded, but the longing that was obvious in her eyes told me that she wished it had been.

Underwitch Vanda stood next. She did not look around the meeting ground like Mallory had. She kept her eyes down towards Precept Seram, with what could only be her aura glowing in front of her naval. It was a faint, dainty, shade of blue like spring flowers or a faded shirt.

It was not Vanda. It seemed like she had helped Precept Seram calm whoever it was down.

At that moment, the person I wanted to see stand the least, stood.

Plia's little shape rose from the overgrown ground, and she looked around, just like Mallory had.

Every familiar she saw, be it Auden, Clarus, or Taloo, she took a scared step backwards until she reached the edge of the meeting grounds.

Her eyes met mine and she shook her head several times before she held up her hands and mouth a silent question.

Where have you been? What are you doing? I repeated in my mind as I read the movements of her thin lips.

Her unheard words did not move me. I normally would have jumped at the chance to talk to her, to try to make her like me more, but the sight of Precept Seram helping the last new moon sit up took the desire to do anything out of me like it had been one of the yellow fruits in Rat's nest.

Spring Tana leaned against my pink haired precept with her eyes closed in a peaceful expression.

It had been her that had bonded with Auden, and there was no lie that I could tell myself that would let me hide from that truth.

Of course it had to be her. I thought to myself. There was nothing in all of chaos that could just be mine. The honey haired underwitch had spent the last several weeks trying to convince my familiar to break away from me and join her.

She had wanted the buttery cake just because it had been mine.

If she ever learned about how bad Bru wanted to eat me, I was certain that she would wrap herself in meat and go swimming in the drowning cave just so she could be wanted more than I was.

I had never disliked a person more than I did Spring Tana.

Eames had tried to steal me away to the sorcerer's skybound spire. Mother Gwyn had stolen me from my bed while I was fast asleep and dropped me in an unfamiliar forest with snarling beasts nipping at my heels. Azza had crushed me and literally ground my skin away with her saying.

Still, I would rather spend a year with any of them than I would an afternoon with Tana.

From my left, the sound of hurried footsteps broke through the tangled jungle and turned my attention away from everything before me that was stirring my anger.

The man that had met us on Silkcradle's shorter peak the day before came rushing through the vines like Gwyn's dogs were after him.

"Drolt?" The warden said aloud, concern on his face.

Drolt held up a finger and doubled over as he took great wheezing gasps to try and catch his breath.

"Come on, what's the matter? What happened?" The warden demanded as he crushed the end of his burner between his fingers and stuck what remained back into his pocket.

Drolt pushed his upraised finger out towards the warden with great force.

"This is what I've told you about eating all that bread. Look at yourself man, a walk to the bathroom would wind you." The warden chuckled, evidently no longer concerned with what had brought Drolt sprinting into the meeting grounds.

Again, the breathless man shoved his finger out, and after a very long moment, he stood and let out a relieved exhale.

Still gasping, he tried his best to speak. "Gate. The gate is open. The gatekeepers are here. But they said they won't wait. Gotta. Hurry."

"They will wait for as long as I need them to, and you can go tell them that I said that. It will be a half hour or more before we can begin to start towards the gate." Precept Seram said, the angriest expression I had ever seen the polite sorceress make twisting her pleasant face.

"Do you actually want me to run all the way back up there and tell them that?" Drolt asked as all the color drained from his face.

The warden took two quick steps towards the man and pushed him back towards the way he had come. "Yes. And don't complain. You could use the exercise."

Auden took a step.

Even with only seeing it out of the corner of my eye, it was enough for my worn out power to snap against my channels in full-blown panic.

It was good that I was near my absolute limit because I would have done something that I would have regretted if I had been well rested.

The four eyed wolf walked calmly over to Tana and sniffed at her face before giving her cheek a vigorous lick.

The honey haired underwitch's eyes flirted open and she stretched her arms up like she had just woke from the best nap that anyone had ever taken.

Scratching her new familiar behind the ear, she gave him a sleepy smile.

I hated it purely because it was hers.

I hated the way that Seram and the other new moons were all staring at her like she had done something amazing.

She had woken up from a charm. Anna had done that a dozen times and no one had celebrated her.

I was almost convinced that there was nothing that could have made what I had found in the meeting grounds worse. Not the lich, not Azza, not being wrapped in silk sheets and left to rot in torturous comfort, nothing.

I thought that until Tana saw the warden.

She sprung to her feet and ran towards the man before throwing herself into his open arms.

"Daddy," She cried, her voice high and full of joy as she was spun around weightlessly. "I did it! I have a familiar! I can be the warden now!"

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