Early night's darkness had begun to creep through the evergreens and blacken the grey clouds above before I had loosed my ruinous working.

My power cast away all of the oncoming night and a bright blue day was born as it blew back against me.

I had been hit before, more times than I could remember at that moment, but I had never been hit like I was then.

It chilled me to the bone, but I did not freeze. It licked up my body like flame, but I did not burn. It felt like every part of me had been struck all at once, but I was not thrown backwards like I had been in Rat's nest.

Waves of azure and lavender flashed all around me as my power met Ali's boundary in a disorienting display.

When my vision finally returned, there was no snow left underneath me. What had remained of my long black skirt had been torn away and was nowhere to be found.

I still held my arm out towards Mother Ali, but her garment was no longer clutched in my fingers. It was I who was held in her grip and I understood that she was what had held me against the aftermath of my working.

Looking just the same as she had moments before, without a scratch in her or a curl out of place on her head, she smiled at me.

"There is that potential I have been told about," She began as she pulled me closer to her. The tips of my boots drug across the shining lace under me, and I was powerless to resist her immense strength. "How old are you? You are still in your thirties, yes?"

"Nineteen." I choked out weakly.

"Alexei is right, you are very talented. You will grow into a very powerful sorceress," She said as she threw me away from her with absolutely no effort at all. "If you live that long."

I hit the ground and rolled onto my side facing away from her. The sound of crunching snow followed, and Anna threw herself onto her knees just outside the unseen wall that separated us.

"I ran as-you just-I'll kill her-what can I do?" She panted as she reached her hand out to me.

"Don't!" I shouted, remembering how Sam's flesh had been shredded away from his claw not very long before.

That same claw of exposed bone smacked Anna's hand away before her flesh could be ruined.

"If she were an open flame, you would burn alive trying to hold her, mortal. It will do her no good for you to lose your hand." Sam growled as he shouldered himself into Anna and knocked her further away from the lavender lace.

She pushed herself back up but did not reach out again. "Hold on just a little longer. Mother Nami said she is going to fix this."

As if she had been waiting for Anna to tell me that, Nami's voice echoed out through the clearing.

"Enough, Ali! You have gone too far. You know full well that you are not allowed to kill her." The Mother in Blue shouted, her ocean blue aura turning endlessly in a spiral over her navel.

Ali answered, but her eyes never left me. "You dishonor me, sister. Do I look like Doomlacer? Is this working anything like what you have seen before? All she must to is what I have asked her. I require no death this night."

"Oh man I miss when she was drunk and talking about sleeping with Alexei," Anna sighed. "What did she ask you to do?"

"Hit her." I muttered.

Anna smirked and nodded to herself. "That's it? Take off your glamor. I want to remember you doing it with your actual face."

"Agreed, mortal. There is no reason for her to hide herself. Have The Mother look into your true eyes when you deliver defeat to her." Sam growled in agreement.

I rolled onto my hands and knees, the thought of laying back down almost too strong to resist. "You both think I can do it?"

"If you are ever met with something you cannot overcome, then you will die." Sam said simply.

Anna looked at my familiar with disgust on her face as I let Ire fall to the shining lavender lace beneath me.

"See, that's why I'm your coach. I don't say depressing things like that. We know you can do it." She insisted.

I had not been so close to her and completely unable to touch her since the early days we had spent together in her mother's boarding house.

"Hold on. Just have to hold on." I said under my breath as I pushed myself back up to my feet.

Ali waited for me in the center of her pit, and she slid back into her stance as I approached.

I held on, even though I didn't have on any pants and it was terribly cold.

I held on, even though Tana was off with others having fun and I was getting beaten senseless

I held on because Anna and Sam thought I could overcome The Mother in Purple's punishment.

Even though I wanted to cry, I held on.

Even though my body felt like it had been torn apart, I held on.

Even though my poor excuse for a strike missed once again, I held on.

Without realizing she had hit me again, I felt my feet lift off the ground from the force of her blow just like before. When they came back down onto the mess of dust and snow, I did not stumble back.

I fell forward against Mother Ali.

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She caught me, and I let go.

I couldn't hold on any longer.

I let go of it all.

For all of the time I had been in her boundary, she had been able to react to everything I had thrown at her. The one thing she had not been ready for was for me to cry on her shoulder.

"Is this necessary? I did not hit you that hard, did I?" The Mother in Purple asked, her hands held up and away from me in obvious discomfort.

I whipped my nose on her shoulder and cried into her. "I'm sorry I can't fight you better. I'm just so sad. I want to be the warden, but I can't. I want to beat you and go to play but I can't. I want you to like me, but you can't."

"Now is hardly the time to be lamenting your sorrows," She said as she pushed me away from her. "If I were truly your enemy, you would have already been slain."

Through the blurry tears in my eyes, I saw her expression soften as she looked at me.

"You really are just a girl aren't you?" She asked through a sigh that relaxed her shoulders and left a concerned frown on her lips.

I sniffled and brought my arm up like I meant to dry my eyes.

My tears remained.

The knuckles of my right fist cracked against her jaw before she could react.

She did not flinch, grimace, or make any sign of pain at my strike.

It did not matter that pain stabbed through my hand and forced me to cradle it against my chest. It did not matter that my tears continued to stream down my cold cheeks. It did not matter that I felt like collapsing to the ground and falling into a frozen slumber.

All that mattered was that I had punched The Mother in Purple square in her jaw.

I had won.

The boundary and lace of her lavender light dimming and going dark was proof of that.

"What a terrible trick you just played," Mother Ali said, her brow furrowed and her lips pressed into a tight frown. "I actually felt bad for you."

Sam padded over the snowless circle and placed his big blue body between The Mother and I. "Well done, My Lady."

Anna ran over and hugged me so hard she nearly knocked me off my feet. A smile spread across my face as she kissed me on my cheek, but I kept my eyes on Mother Ali.

"If I had truly been your enemy," I repeated her words back to her as I began to shiver from the cold. "You would have already been slain."

Ali gritted her teeth, spit, and took a hard step towards me.

Nami was there before she could take a second.

"Mind your afterglow, sister. Your punishment is done." The Mother in Blue said gently. "Will you stay the night? I would enjoy it."

Sam had shifted into a ready stance. Every one of his blue hairs stood on end and a low growl rumbled in his chest.

Nami was tall enough that she blocked most of Ali from my sight, but I saw the shorter Mother turn on her bandage wrapped heels and start out of the clearing.

"I'm going to find Zetta." She grunted back over her shoulder as she went.

Nami held out her hand. "She's in the dungeons with the first crescents. Won't be back for another day or more, but I will spar with you. Meet me in the training room near my quarters."

Mother Ali's only response was a shrug and a shake of her head as she continued on her way.

In the last dim light of day, Mother Nami turned around and walked to where Anna and I stood together.

It said much that Sam relaxed and let her pass.

She shivered and rubbed her hands together. "You have to be as cold as I am. Are you injured? I cannot heal you, but there are some small remedies I could recommend."

"Do you realize how hard it is to be around any of you when you all look like this." Anna said, evidently having the same thought I had.

Even when she had been actively causing me pain, Ali was unnaturally beautiful.

Nami was the same. Every part of her, from the tips of her toes to the top of her gradient blue hair, was so

"I am aware, but it can't be helped. Autumn will have the same problem if she lives as long as I have," Nami said as she took my right hand from where I cradled it against my chest. "Are you hurt?"

I shook my head. "No. Nothing is broken, I think."

I had been thrown around enough in my short life to know that I would be sore beyond belief the next morning, but I still had skin and I could still move my fingers.

"Good," Nami smiled and gave me my hand back. "Now, tell me how you tricked her. She never falls for things like that."

Anna looked at me and scrunched her nose before answering for me. "It wasn't a trick, was it? You were actually crying."

"Uh huh." I nodded and shrank further into Anna's embrace, my missing skirt and the snow that had snuck its way into my boots only making me colder.

Nami laughed. "If it makes you feel better, the fact that she lost that way will eat her alive for the next year or so."

"Why would that make her feel better? All of you hate her enough as it is." Anna said with a little too much anger in her words.

Nami sighed. "It is not all of us, but I understand why you would say that. How Ali feels about her no longer matters. She has taken her turn. There is still the matter of The Well, but her punishments are nearly half over."

"And when it's your turn?" I looked up and asked her.

All of the strength I knew her to have welled up in her ocean eyes. "I will do as I see fit."

Not even Anna had anything to say back to her. Instead, she looked up at the nearly dark sky and sighed.

In the silence that followed, the sound of my teeth chattering filled the air between the three of us.

"It doesn't look like we are going to make it to the play before your curfew. Let's get you back inside before you freeze to death." She said as she pulled me closer to her.

Nami tilted her head to the side. "Curfew? I didn't realize that you were a student at Lun Arcanicil, Autumn Aubrey."

"I don't understand." I said, too tired to do anything but be honest.

"There is a new moon by the name of Ire that reminds me of you, but I am sure she is sound asleep in her quarters by now." Nami continued.

My jaw dropped as what she was saying finally made sense in my mind.

I looked over at where Alexei still stood in the snow outside of the bare spot that Ali and I's fight had left on the ground. "But my glamor?"

"Considering what you have just been through, and that it will be the midnight show, I believe an exception can be made just this once. Right, Master Alexei?" Nami followed my gaze and said.

"She is barely dressed," Alexei started, but then his mask slipped one last time. "If you approve of it, headmistress. So be it. Just this once."

His white eye snapped towards the far side of the clearing. Beyond the little wooden shack, the sound of one of the evergreens splitting and falling echoed within the trees. "We should move quickly unless the three of you wish to be caught in a phantom bear's teeth."

He did not have to tell us twice.

Even Mother Nami picked up a brisk pace as we left the place that my strangest punishment had taken place.

Whatever a phantom bear was, the fact that I was only wearing a shirt that barely covered all the things I needed to be covered, and what had happened with The Mother in Purple, none of it mattered.

All that mattered was that I was going on a date with Anna as myself.

I would have bounded to Hymneth over the treetops like the spring deer if Anna had not been holding me to the ground.

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