For all the times I had been hurt by Tana, I thought that I would be able to enjoy hurting her just a little bit.

She had been rude to me without reason from the first time I met her.

She had lied about me, threatened me, tried to steal my cake, taking my good dream of being the warden, and made it nearly impossible for me to be friends with the others.

I had never had anyone in my short life that I could truly call an enemy.

Azza was close, but if I had never stolen The Well, I would have likely never met her.

The lich should have been closer to one than it was, but enough time had passed that I thought of it as a nightmare that Anna had rather than something that was trying to harm me.

Sorcerer Eames, the souls that had been originally bonded to the four eyed wolf in the hall, had been my enemy for a brief amount of time. I had torn into his throat with my teeth, but before he had tried to steal me away to the skybound spire, before I had known the taste of his blood, he had helped me slay the lich's hand horrors.

If Tana was truly my enemy, then hitting her should have felt good.

It didn't, not even for a second.

The moment after the bright spots in my vision began to fade, pain forced me to cradle my hand to my chest. That small movement was enough for the pain in my middle to bring me down to my knees.

Tana still hadn't moved.

The feeling that I would be sick quickly faded to the feeling that I would faint as the loss from my working made me thin.

I looked up to see the other new moons frozen in shocked stares.

I had ruined it all. They would never speak to me again. All I had done was throw a tantrum and show them just how dangerous I truly was.

I had just proved Tana right.

I was crazy, and everyone had seen it.

Precept Zetta still had her hand on my shoulder. I did not know her well enough to know what she thought of what I had done, but attacking another student could not have made her like me more.

Tana stirred.

Just her fingers at first, but then she wrapped her arms around her legs and curled into herself.

How many times had I done the same thing because I had been hurt by someone stronger than me?

"That's the way, Puddles," Precept Zetta called out, one corner of her mouth turned up in something close to a grin. "See? That is what true focus is. She had no way to know that she would be struck with such force, but her werelight remains."

It had. Her spring blue light still hung above her head, even as she shuddered with the pain I had caused her.

"I'm sorry," I muttered as I pushed myself back onto my feet. The throbbing bruise across my stomach brought me back down, but I stood up again and made my way towards Tana. "I didn't mean to."

She had covered her face with her hands. I could not see the wound I knew that I had left her with which did nothing but let my imagination run wild.

How bad had she been burned?

Had I broken her jaw?

Would there be no skin left at all? Just a hole that her bloody teeth shone through?

Alexei had told me that the others were not like me.

Mother's help me, why had I forgotten that so quickly?

"I'm sorry," I said again as I reached her and lowered myself at her side with tears in my eyes. Everything hurt, but the hurt I had caused her mattered so much more that I was able to ignore it. "I'm injured, when you hit me-I didn't mean-I'm sorry, Tana."

I put my hands on her gently without really making the decision to do it. I touched her because that was what I needed when I was hurt, to be touched, to be brought out of my pain by another.

"Get your hands off me!" Tana cried out at my touch and kicked out with one of her legs.

It struck me in my shin and sent me falling back to the cold stones of the floor.

"Don't ever put your hands on me again!" She shouted as she pushed herself back against the wall.

Through the gaps in her fingers, she stared at me, her eyes alight with her power.

The floor underneath me was cold no longer. It grew so hot so quickly, that I was worried that my cloak had caught fire.

I looked down and found that I had fallen into a pool of Tana's watery blue.

She ground the heel of her boot against the floor underneath it and more of her aura shone up from it.

The pool exploded underneath me the very next moment.

It blew me over onto my side.

I rolled over and over again until Vanda's legs stopped me on my back.

Precept Zetta snapped her fingers and sent the same jarring crystal sound through the classroom just like she had before. "Stop. That's enough. You'll both have plenty of time to fight this semester. I'll make sure of it."

Visions of Vanda came to me in waves, like I was blinking slowly without closing my eyes. If I hurt anymore, if I moved again, I would faint. I was sure of it.

"Why is your hair. . ." I tried to ask, but my breath failed me.

All the stray hairs that had come loose from where she had tied them behind her head stood on end. It would have been funny if laughing would have been something I was capable of in that moment.

"What's that sound?" Mallory turned towards the door and asked during one of the short waves that I could see.

I knew what was coming, the realization was one of the few solid things I could wrap my mind around, but I did not know if I could stop it.

In a sudden flash of crackling lightening, Sam struck the stones between where I lay and Tana sat.

"Long have I wished to rid my lady of you, child. It's only by her mercy that you continue to draw breath." My familiar growled as her prowled towards the terrified looking Tana.

Plia and Mallory screamed. Vanda remained where she had knelt over me. Precept Zetta's face pinched into an angry scowl.

Tana called out a name. "Auden!"

This is bad. This is very bad. This is the most bad thing that has ever happened. I thought, trying to force myself to sit up.

If Sam said a single word about having fought Auden before, my time as a new moon would end to the sound of his contemptuous growling.

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The four eyed wolf prowled through the doorway. He crept around the edges of the room, his silver stare staying locked on the big blue cat.

It did not make sense to me that Auden seemed not to remember him. At first I thought it to be because Sam had not been wearing flesh when they had last fought, but Sorcerer Eames had been watching me long before the lich had sent his horrors into the woods behind the boarding house.

"Back." Auden barked and sent traces of ethereal light snapped out from his snarling maw.

Sam let out a hiss that sounded like stones being ground together. "And here you are. You have bonded with this welp not very long ago, are you sure you are ready to leave her so soon, dog?"

More light began to leak through Auden's teeth.

Small arcs of yellow lightening began circle all over Sam's body.

Unlike when they had been in battle behind the boarding house, there was not much difference in their size.

"Don't talk to him like that!" Tana shouted and broke the tense silence that had filled the class room.

Sam needed nothing else to make his move.

He leapt towards Auden with his vicious claws outstretched.

Auden lunged forward with a ferocious growl.

Neither of them made it to the other.

Two snaps, like someone thumping their nail against an empty glass, broke through the room.

The two familiars froze in shackles of animate sapphire. It held them firmly to the stone beneath them and crawled up their legs like crystalline vines.

Precept Zetta walked over and stood between them, her deep blue eyes hard and sharp with anger. "Puddles, Ire, listen. This? Never again. From this point onward, neither of these demons are allowed in here."

She took turns staring down at each of us before continuing.

"I had two moons not that long ago that you two remind me of. They were in your class your first year, Gentle," Zetta said as her sapphire continued to grow up Sam and Auden. "I'll give you the same warning I gave them. No dueling, and no using your aura outside of class. Those are the rules, I don't care how much you hate each other."

The arcs of lightning that circle Sam grew faster as he flexed against his crystalline cage.

"Release me, Sorceress! Or I will-" Sam started.

Precept Zetta cut him off. " Or you will what? Kill me? Good luck. I've had people try to murder me my whole life. I'm still here, they aren't."

I could see in her eyes that she meant what she said. He was frozen in her power of course, but my familiar was still intimidating.

There was no fear in my teachers eyes.

It almost looked like she was excited.

"Patience, Sorceress. I will be free momentarily and I will use that luck." Sam growled. The claw whose flesh had been removed by Mother Ali's lace had not been constrained like the rest of him. Inside the sapphire stone that continued to grow over his shoulders and back, his claw had cut begun to cut itself free.

My new teacher laughed.

Even the sound of her humor was sharp and cutting.

"No. You won't. I am going to set both of you free and your ladies are going to order you away, aren't they?" She asked Tana and I at the same time.

"Yes, Precept Zetta." I answered from where I sat at Vanda's feet.

"Fine." Tana spat with her hands still covering her face.

I brought my power to my lips and gave Sam the first command I had spoken in longer than I could remember. "Samsara. Leave this place. Wait for me by the stairs. Do no nothing else."

Precept Zetta's sapphire only began to recede when my familiar accepted what he had been told.

"Yes, My Lady." Sam growled as he shook the small chips of the deep blue crystal that had caught in his fur to the floor. Without a glance back or another word, he left the classroom and I was finally able to take a breath.

"Your turn, Puddles." Precept Zetta said to Tana once Sam was gone.

"Auden, go to our quarters." The honey haired underwitch said through her hands.

All the sapphire that had encased his steely fur broke away, but the four eyed wolf did not move.

If Tana had given him his command properly, he should have been unable to resist. At least, that was how it worked between Sam and I.

Her voice grew even more frustrated than it already had been before. "Auden. Go to our quarters, please."

With a heavy exhale through his snout, he padded out of the class room just like Sam had.

"There," Precet Zetta said with a nod. "Now, Gentle, see what's wrong with Ire here. Either she has no stomach for pain or she is hurt."

Vanda knelt down and placed her hands on me with a soft sigh before I could tell her not to.

She gasped and I knew that she had felt the black bruise that covered my middle with her aura. "Oh my. What? What happened to you?"

"Nothing. I am fine." I insisted. I tried to shrug her off, but only managed to make self flinch from new pain.

Precept Zetta knelt down on my other side. "What's the matter?"

"Have you been beaten? Did you fall or something? She needs to go to the medery." Vanda asked me and told our teacher.

Zetta narrowed her eyes and pushed her jagged hair back from her face. "If you're hurt, you should've said something. You haven't been fighting with the older moons, have you? What are you hiding under that dress?"

I couldn't tell her.

I couldn't say that The Mother in Purple had turned me black, and blue as punishment for me, running away to the mortal plane.

So, I lied.

"I tripped. I drank too much a few days ago and fell down the singing stairs. That's it. I'm bruised up is all." I said, ignoring the bitter taste in my mouth.

"You fell?" Precept Zetta asked, suspicion obvious in her sapphire eyes.

"Yes." I lied again.

"You fell, and you didn't think it would be a good idea to tell me before I had puddles hit you in your stomach?" My teacher continued.

"Yes." I agreed dishonestly.

She shook her head and stood. "Well, if that's it, then why don't you stand back up and I'll let everyone have a turn with you. Puddles passed, you need a new partner anyways."

I swallowed at the thought of getting hit again and an audible gulp echoed out from me.

"That's what I thought. Get up, go to the medery, and come back ready tomorrow morning, you've got until the end of the week to be able to hold your focus." Precept Zetta commanded.

I did as I was told, and let Vanda help me up. Mallory gave me a worried look, but Plia would still not meet my eyes.

"What about me? I'm the one that got thrown around like a rag doll! She tried to burn my face!" Tana cried from where she still sat against the wall.

Precept Zetta crossed her arms. "Get up. I bet she didn't even leave a mark."

Tana did not so as she was told. She finally pulled her hands away from her face and felt all around where my firework had exploded against her.

There was no hole in her cheek, no burn or broken teeth either. There was no sign that she had ever been struck other than the shocked look on her face.

"You should be punished," Tana said as he climbed to her feet. "You shouldn't even be here, you motherless"

Precept Zetta snapped her fingers once again. "Enough. At the end of every week, we spend the day sparring. Save your violence for then, when I can keep you from killing each other on accident."

I didn't want to spar with Tana.

I never wanted to hit anybody again.

Watching crumple against the wall had felt far worse than getting hit myself.

"Go on, Ire. Take care of yourself. You're no good to anyone if you're hurt." Precept Zetta commanded me again.

I did as I was told and left the classroom.

Alexei waited for me in the hall as he always did, and Sam sat patiently by the singing stairs like I had told him to do.

I couldn't go to the medery, even if it meant taking on another lie. Making the decision to not go was easy because going would only make me lie more and because I had absolutely no idea where it was.

I reached the stairs and leaned my back against the wall before feeing tears fall from my eyes.

"Why are you weeping? You bested your enemy, yes?" Sam growled up at me.

Alexei snorted. "Bested? I thought she had killed her for a moment."

"Silence, guard. It is regrettable that I was not there to see it." Sam said with what sounded like actual sadness in his deep voice.

His hatred for Alexei had evidently not faded over the last few weeks.

I wiped my face with the end of my cloak. "You told me they weren't like me, that you would stop me from hurting them if it came to it. Why aren't you mad?"

Alexei shrugged. "If Zetta would have thought you were going to actually hurt her, you would have been wrapped in stone just like she did the familiars. Will you go to the medery? Cherith will know that your injuries are not from a fall."

"No. I'm going back to bed." I answered, wanting to do nothing more than to fall back asleep.

Sam stood and shook even more shards of sapphire from his coat. "Wrong. I have made an agreement with your mortal. You will spend the rest of the day with me so we may deepen our bond."

"Can we wait until another day?" I muttered and wrapped my arms around my middle. I hated when he spoke to me like he was my master and not the other way around.

"No," Sam said simply. "Come."

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