I had never been more grateful for anything than I was that Arthur played along with my announcement of our false relationship.

He had needed no hints.

It had not been necessary for me to speak into his mind for him to understand what I needed from him.

The tall man gently placed my feet back on the ground and gave no complaint when I tried to wrap my arms around him.

My hands were nowhere near close to meeting because of how big Arthur was. Maybe it was the time that had passed or maybe it was how happy I truly was to see my friend, but he seemed so much bigger than I remembered him being.

He was harder too, hugging him felt like embracing one of the crystalline steps of the singing stairs.

"I was wondering when I would run into you." He smiled down at me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders.

I laid my head on his chest and felt the reverberations of his voice fill my ear. "Your voice got deeper. And you're bigger now. What did she do to you?"

Not very long before Anna and I had left for Lun, Arthur had accepted an invitation to stay with The Mother in Red and her seven lovers.

I was fairly certain that she had meant to make Arthur her eight, but I could not speak of such things when there were so many underwitches around to hear them.

"Wait. Wait. Wait," Plia said, waving her hand and shaking her head with a pained expression on her face. "This is your boyfriend, and Anna is your partner?"

Arthur laughed. "So you've met my big sister? Has she threatened you yet or was she too drunk to remember you were there?"

The color drained from the little underwitch's face so fast, that I thought she would faint.

"Well, that is certainly something I have never heard of before." Vanda said as she gave Plia a shoulder to lean on.

Plia was still shaking her head. "They are siblings? I thought Mallory had problems."

The way Vanda and Plia had reacted to my little lie was funny, and I would had loved to keep watching them sweat as they tried to make sense of the confusing relationships I did not truly have, but I only had eyes for Tana.

There was nothing that would be better for my soul than to watch her writhe in silent anger at the revelation that Arthur was mine and not hers. If it hurt her half as bad as learning that the warden was hers and not mine had me, the lie I had told would have been worth it. Her jaw would clinch, she would look at me with the hateful expression that was so easy for her to fall into, and she would storm out of The Boiler like she had Zetta's classroom earlier that day.

None of those things happened.

"Plia. Vanda," Arthur said as he pointed to each of them and looked to Tana for approval. "The girl sitting on the table over there is Mallory. Where is the crazy one that hit you where your legs meet?"

Tana's voice cracked as she answered. "You are holding onto her. Excuse me, I have somewhere to be."

She left without another word. I saw tears glistening in her eyes as she left the realities calm beneath the balcony and rushed through the crowd of moons towards the door.

I had not made her angry, I had made her sad enough to cry, and for some reason, that was nowhere near as satisfying as I wished it had been.

"What's wrong with Puddles?" Precept Zetta asked as she stepped into the small circle we all had formed into.

Plia dropped her face into her hands and let out a sigh that was so weary, it sounded like she had not slept in a hundred years. "Tana had a crush on Ire's partner's brother, who also happens to be Ire's boyfriend."

Precept Zetta shrugged her shoulder. "Mmhmm. That sounds like a sorceress. Listen. I know we aren't in class right now, but learn this. Living as long as we all do doesn't make things simpler like mortals think. All it does is leave more room for things to get complicated."

My teacher took a drink from the glass of milk she had brought with her and made no move to wipe the white line that coated her upper lip. "If any of you dandelions are ever interested in doing something besides getting blind drunk, there is a theater a few streets over. They put on a play about two sorceresses that hated each other so much they fell in love and built a city."

Her sapphire eyes turned up to Arthur as she handed Plia her empty glass and held her hands towards the tall man. "And you, I know an enclave man when I see him, are those clothes just for show or are you actually a squire?"

Arthur looked down at my one armed teacher and then his jaw dropped.

"No. You can't be, can you? You're-" Arthur asked excitedly.

Zetta cut him off. "I am, and I think I've heard of you."

My teacher shook Arthur's hand and as they parted, a cracking crystal sound that was much quieter than what I was used to sounded in our little circle.

"Give one of those to Grand Master Phlegan when you see him next. Tell him it was from Saph." Precept Zetta said with a dangerous looking smile.

"I can't believe it, Phlegan is always saying how none of us can compare to his sapphire, that a strong breeze would blow us over but there isn't a storm in chaos that could move his sapphire," Arthur said through a laugh. "I've never met anyone for the first time that I'm as tired of hearing about."

"Uhm, you're bleeding." Plia practically whispered, her face still as white as the snow that blanketed the streets outside.

"Oh, right," Arthur said as he looked to where Precept Zetta had cut the inside of his wrist. Without a word, pale blue light shone up beneath the trickle of blood and the wound closed. "Did you really force The Father in Brown to a draw? Phlegan told us about it, but most of the squires in my quarters don't believe it."

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I was sure that I was the only one who noticed, but Precept Zetta nodded to herself at the sight of Arthur's healing and she mouthed the word Ugi.

"Shhh," She hushed the tall man as she pressed her finger to her thin lips. "Not in front of my students. It's been too long since I've been with another knight. Meet me here tomorrow at midday? You can tell me just how soft The Grand Master has become in his old age."

"No, I can't do that. Tonight is the last night of my leave. I'll be back in a couple of months though, we can meet then." Arthur said as he rubbed the back of his neck with his hand.

Precept Zetta nodded and looked just a little bit disappointed. "I look forward to it. Come girls, we've got to pry Rake off that table and find Puddles, curfew is coming."

Vanda and Plia both gave me concerned looks before they turned and followed our teacher through the thinning crowd.

"Right, you have a curfew here don't you? Let's go outside, someone wants to see you and this place is a bit too crowded." Arthur said as he tapped the still wet blood on his wrist with his finger.

I agreed, and tried to leave my disappointment at Tana's reaction beneath the balcony. I was with Arthur, why should I care what kind of upset I had made my arrogant classmate.

I didn't, or at least I convinced myself that I didn't, but I did care about something, and it made me the angry kind of upset.

"You have been here for a week, why haven't you come to see me?" I demanded as we turned off the underwitch filled street that the front door of The Boiler led to.

"I tried!" Arthur cried as we stepped into an empty alleyway.

I hit him in the chest with my gloved fist. "You are a giant. If you wanted to come see me, who could stop you?"

"All the guards at the bridge. I don't think they would like it if I knocked them all out and went on my merry way. They say there is some demon haunting the town, have you heard anything about that?" Arthur asked. The tall man stopped dead in his tracks, and I felt the air shift around us as he caught sight of Alexei standing at the other end of the alley.

"Go away. I'm safe," I shouted at the white haired man before turning back to my friend. "Don't mind him, he's my guard. He mostly stands around and refuses to answer questions."

Alexei did not go away, but he leaned his back against the wall and I knew he would come no closer.

Arthur frowned, and as much as I was used to him smiling, it looked wrong on his face. "So you are watched all the time, they make you wear this, I can't call you by your real name, is this better than being back in Erosette?"

"I. . ." I tried to speak, I tried to give him an answer, but my words failed me. His question had knocked the breath out of me so quickly that he might as well have struck me in my gut.

I did not have an answer because I had never been asked that before.

I had never even thought about it.

"Alright, come on out, she wants to see you too." Arthur said to himself as pale blue light began to shine beneath his shirt.

First came a beak. Then, two wide wings unfurled and sent uncountable motes of light swirling out into the gently falling snow. Finally, an owl shaped spirit took flight from Arthur's chest and Opa winged down to the snowy street at our feet.

The owl gave three clicks of his beak and called my name. "Autumn! Autumn! Autumn!"

"Shhh. Not Autumn. Ire." I hushed him as I knelt down and clapped my hands three times in response.

Opa ruffled his ethereal wings in response and turned his head upside down. "No, Ire. Autumn."

"Yes, but no. Right now, I am Ire." I insisted.

The owl spirit nipped at my fingers playfully before taking to the air and leaving Arthur and I alone. It was easy to forget that Opa was not an owl at all, he was a little boy that had lost his father a very long time ago.

"Has he gotten bigger?" I asked as I watched the spirit become a single pale blue dot in the sky above. When I had knelt down, his glowing eyes had almost been even with mine.

I stood up and saw that Arthur was still frowning. His eyes had hardened, and any sign of the silly man that wished to be my knight had disappeared.

"Inside, when you called me your boyfriend, you did that to hurt Spring, didn't you?" He asked, his voice heavy and demanding.

I looked down and held my hands behind my back, trying to look as innocent as I could. "Yes, sorry. We don't like each other very much. I wish I could have talked to first."

Arthur rolled his eyes and sighed. "Don't worry about it. I don't mind pretending. After all, wearing this has to mean something, right?"

He pulled the collar of his shirt down and showed me the scars on his throat.

I knew them well, I had made them with my teeth when I had tried to tear his throat out.

I hit him in the chest again.

"Get rid of that! I know you can," I yelled in halfhearted anger. Arthur and I both noticed at the same time that I had begun to shake from the cold. "Why do you want that on your neck anyways?"

"Girls like it, to remember you by, there are more reasons to keep it than there are reasons to let Opa get rid of it. If you're so cold, I know how to warm you up." Arthur said with a laugh, all the hardness in his face having melted away.

For a moment, I didn't understand what he meant, but then he slid into his stance and a smile spread across my face.

"If you want to get beaten so badly, then I don't mind being the one to do it." I said as I mirrored his posture and put my left hand behind my back.

Stillness settled over us both in anticipation of our game, but we were interrupted before either of us could begin to play.

"Neither of you have changed at all, have you?" Anna called from where she stood at the open end of the alley.

Arthur literally turned and ran towards his sister. When he reached her, he picked her up in his arms and spun her around with no effort at all.

"Get off me you big idiot!" Anna screamed. Her words were harsh, but there was joy in her voice.

I followed in the tall man's oversized foot prints and joined them in the open street.

"Oh, what's the matter, you didn't miss your little brother?" Arthur asked as he put the struggling Anna down.

She hit him in the chest just as I had and then gave him a tight hug. "The only thing little about you is your brain, and yes I did. You should have come and seen me, dummy."

"I tried!" Arthur repeated the same excuse to Anna that he had given me.

It felt good for the three of us to be together again, even if it was just for the night.

Thunder rumbled through Hymneth and sent showers of snow raining down from the buildings around us.

Arthur spun around on his heels and looked out towards the city.

Alexei appeared in front of me, his hands gripping the handle of his white sword. "To the school, now."

"What is happening?" Anna asked aloud.

Sam came loping through the snow and placed himself against the back of my ankles, every one of his blue hairs standing in end. "This place is not safe, My Lady."

"Why?" I asked, not understanding what had changed so suddenly.

Then, lighting streaked down from the darkness above and a roar of destruction followed as debris was thrown into the air just a few streets away.

Alexei gave me my answer while I was still blinded from the lightning. "Hymneth is under attack."

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