If that night was the first time that Jasna had needed to care for Nami in her afterglow, then it was terribly fortunate how prepared she was.

From within the cabinet she had placed Alexei's dust in, she pulled out a basket and came to where The Mother in Blue cried in my arms.

I was still crying with her, but I had no illusions about whose tears needed to be dried first.

She was a Mother.

I was a thief that was lying about being just another moon.

Jasna uncorked a bottle of some amber colored liquid and its scent was strong enough that the smell of sweet spices stung dully in my nose.

Nami looked up long enough to take the bottle and raise it to her lips. She took a drink, winced, and let out a sudden exhale as she wiped her mouth on the sleeve of my uniform jacket.

"I usually have time to do this by myself before I leave the temple, but-" Nami said through her sobbing.

"I know, I know," Jasna cut her off and tipped the bottle back towards Nami's lip. "Drink. I will be back in a moment."

Nami did as she was told, which was a strange enough sight that it almost stopped my crying.

Hearing a Mother being talked to like a sick child was strange enough, watching her obey and do what had been asked of her was even stranger.

A covered ceramic bowl came from the basket next, and Jasna took it to the fire she had started not very long before. She placed it right next to one of the charring logs within the fireplace and waved her hand around it three times.

A string of yellow and orange flames circled the bowl like a trail of spun smoke.

When she returned with the warmed bowl held in her hands, there was enough heat coming from the ceramic that I could feel it on my face before she ever knelt back down beside us.

Nami pulled up the hem of her thin blue dress as Jasna opened the bowl and poured a stream of sand down onto The Mother in Blue's feet.

It was not like Azza's sand. The sand that had stripped my skin from my body had been brown, almost golden. The sand that mounded up to Nami's ankles was white and glimmered in the hanging light above us.

Nami sighed and closed her eyes as the bowl emptied, but her tears continued to fall. "It's just, without a Lady, I can't be everywhere at once."

Anna and Arthur still stood together by the window, both of them wearing expressions of concern that brought attention to just how similar they actually were.

Arthur was nearly twice his big sister's height, and Anna was only half her little brother's width, but the siblings still looked much the same. Both of them were in Precept Jasna's quarters because of me.

I tried very hard to not guilt myself over being the reason that they had left the mortal plane at all. Both of them had gotten mad at me in the past for saying those things and the only person I enjoyed making mad was a specific underwitch with honey colored hair

I had not even felt guilty about Anna following me to Hymneth and Arthur running off to join the enclave. There was nothing that would have stopped her and was so set on becoming my knight that I thought the same was true of him.

What had finally hung that heavy cloak of shame over my shoulders when my white haired guard had up and left me.

Bool, Woolie, Springer, or any of the other manor guards would have done that.

If I had just been happy with what we had in Erosette, I would probably be playing points with them instead of consoling The Mother in Blue.

Anna wouldn't be having so many nightmares, and she wouldn't have such dark rings under her eyes.

Arthur would have been with us instead of being wherever the armory enclave was.

I would have never had the misfortune of meeting Spring Tana.

I would have never gotten hurt because Alexei left me.

The tall man had asked me in the alley if Hymneth was better than Erosette, and I had not known what to say to him.

I had found my answer.

"Pour this into my hands." Prefer Jasna said to me.

The sound of her voice brought me out of my spiral enough to remember what was happening around me, and the pitcher of water she handed me pulled me into movement.

Before I could truly consider what she had asked me to do, I poured the water into her hands like she had asked. It did not spill onto the floor or leak through her fingers, it formed into a pool like it had been poured into an unseen bowl and began to spin.

"It should be you, we both know that. I'm sorry that I cannot-" Nami started as her head slumped to the side.

"Shhh. Deep breaths. Listen." Jasna interrupted her and brought the spinning water up to Nami's ear.

Nami did as she was told, and Jasna gave a sad smile as The Mother in Blue's crying came to a slow end.

My own tears had stopped, but mine was because of distraction, not relief.

After a long moment, Jasna withdrew. Nami patted me on my back as she used my sleeve to dry her face and let out a heavy sigh.

"I am sorry that all of you had to see me like that," The Mother in Blue apologized as she stood in one fluid motion. "My duties as a Mother require much of me. I hope you understand, Ire."

The Nami I knew had returned.

Her ocean eyes were swelling with strength once again, and the sorrow of her afterglow had been washed from her face completely.

"If I've got this straight, that happens to sorceresses every time you use your aura? That sucks. How can you ever get anything done?" Arthur asked aloud as he rubbed the back of his neck with his hand.

Anna drove her elbow into her little brother's ribs. "Forgive him, Mother. He's not very bright."

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"I thought you hated The Mothers? What did I say? And why are you always so violent?" Arthur complained as he made a show of covering his middle.

"Wait, it couldn't be," Nami said as she took a step towards the tall man. "It is! What are you doing here?"

Jasna followed her with a look of confusion on her face. "Is he not supposed to be here? Alexei said to bring all of Ire's companions."

"He is the one I told you about, Jas. This is the page that refused The Mother in Red!" Nami exclaimed with the same energy that Mallory held when she was being particularly flirtatious.

Arthur's back straightened and his shoulders went back as his face hardened into something serious. "I am not a page. I am a squire."

"Whatever, it's all the same thing." Nami said, waving him off.

Anna turned on her brother in anger. "What happened when you went to stay with her? Did she do something to you?"

"What? No. Nothing happened. I trained with Galahad, Nocti, and Go. Patience and Dreamtongue taught me all about spirits. Rhiannon and I would spar every night, and then we would all have dinner." Arthur said, his big hands raised up in a placating gesture.

Anna narrowed her eyes and stuck her finger in the center of her brother's chest. "You're lying! Something did happen. Did she charm you? Is your mind all messed up because of her?"

Precept Jasna cleared her throat and borough all of our attention to her. "Mother Nami? There is still the matter in Hymneth to deal with."

Nami had to close her eyes and force herself to turn away from Arthur before she could collect herself.

"Right," she said with a shake of her head. "Tell me what you know. All of you."

Jasna went first. She explained how the lightning strike had brought her to her wall of windows and that Alexei's bird had arrived not very long after.

Nami's eyebrows raised at the mention of my guard's working, but she began to question us the very next moment.

How we had seen the strike, Alexei and Sam coming to my defense, what Arthur had felt, it came together in pieces the siblings. They began to describe our walk through the emptying Hymneth, but I cut them off and jumped ahead to when Maletta's frost had come crawling down the street. Anna remembered what the underwitch had said about Sorceress Gell and told Nami both her name and that The Blue Death had made her disappear.

It felt odd to me that Nami gave no reaction to the mention of Azeralphane.

"Echowalker, when she took shape, what did you see?" Nami asked me.

Arthur answered before I could. "She transformed or put on armor or something like that, but it was made of ice, all of it. It grew up over her and the she just walked into the ground. Can all of you do that?"

"All of us have the potential to. What did you see, Ire?" Nami answered and asked me again.

I saw her see my eyes shift to Jasna as I wondered how honest she wanted me to be.

More and more, I was becoming convinced that Nami was like Rhiannon. She was a new Mother, the name that Anna used to describe any of The Mothers that were not like Azza.

From within the messy strands of her gradient blue hair, she gave me a wink and nodded. "Precept Jasna understands that there are things that The Mothers are allowed to understand. Speak freely."

I swallowed. "I won't be in trouble?"

Even with Hymneth being under attack by a demon that may or may not have actually been real, The Mother in Blue still made time to be patient with me.

I still couldn't shake the ache in my heart that thoughts of Erosette brought, but Nami reminded me that not everything in Lun was bad.

"Katarina. The ice that grew over her, it looked just like her." I said honestly and hoped that I would not live to regret it.

Nami frowned. "What a shame."

Jasna studied me with her sky blue eyes in a way that she never had before.

"Is Ire going to learn how to do that? Will she get ice armor like that other girl?" Arthur asked with his wide smile stretched across his face, evidently still caught up on the transformation.

Nami answered as she walked towards where he and Anna stood. "I believe I understand why The Mother in Red asked you to be one of her lovers."

"She did what?" Anna yelled.

"You are built like a Hezbelth, but I will admit that there is a certain boyish charm about you. If Ire is ever able to manifest her true self or summon her implement, it is safe to say it will look nothing like Maletta's unless she spends the next hundred years trying to be like her." Nami continued as she stepped between the siblings and placed her hands on the center panel of the window wall.

The pane swung open on hinges that I had not noticed before and let a swell of snow and wind into the almost warm room.

None of the sadness that had been in her voice before remained and all of the playfulness she had spoken to Arthur with had vanished as well. When she spoke again, she was The Mother in Blue fully. "Ire, we will speak soon about your desire to remain at Lun. Possibly tomorrow at the ball. Jasna, please remain with these three until Alexei returns for her. If there has been no word before sunrise, escort them to the ballroom."

"Yes, Mother Nami." Jasna and I said one after the other.

Without another word, Nami placed her hands over her stomach and all the blue of her dress began to fade as aura built between her palms. Just before the fabric that covered her became clear enough to see the things that clothes were supposed to cover, she stepped through the open window and dropped out of it.

Arthur reached out and wrapped his arm around her waist just before she fell out of sight.

"A gentleman as well," Nami called back to him. "The Mother in Red is right to be disappointed with your refusal. I will let you know, squire, that your refusal of her offer has only made you more attractive to every other sorceress. When you make knight, there is likely to be a line of them waiting for the chance to earn your fealty."

She rose up in Arthur's grasp and nearly pulled the tall man through the window after her.

A vortex of swirling water had formed under her feet, and I understood that she had just done something that I had only seen in memories.

She had taken the color of her dress, the essence of the piece of clothing, and used it for her working.

True. The Autumn I liked spoke for what felt like the first time in a long time. She only seemed to come out when I was in some kind of peril, be it emotionally or physically.

Still, I was glad she was still there because I had begun to wonder if all that was left of me were the weak parts.

"Release me or I may join that line myself." Nami said over the sound of her roaring water.

I don't know if it was the sound of her voice, how see through her dress had become, or the smile that had taken shape with her almond lips, but whatever it was, it threw Anna into sudden movement.

"No," The raven haired girl said as she tried desperately to pull her brother from The Mother. "No. No. No. Let her go right now, Arthur."

The tall man did, but I knew it was only because he wanted to. Anna could have spent the rest of the night pulling him and he would have never moved.

My beloved was many things, but she was nowhere near as strong as her brother.

With nothing but her will, Nami turned on her vortex and sank out of sight. I went to the open window and stuck my head back out into the cold.

The Mother in Blue road her water down to the ground and then disappeared into the evergreens atop it like the very ground underneath her was carrying her back towards Hymneth.

A frigid gust of wind blew against my face and the stinging cold forced me back inside.

Jasna shut the window.

Anna hit Arthur.

"What was that for? I didn't do anything?" He said as he backed away from his sister.

"Did it hurt? Good. Every time one of them starts being all sweet to you, think about that and what I'll do to you if you actually do something." Anna shouted.

She turned to where Jasna still stood by the table with anger in her dark eyes. "What does all that mean for us? Are we just trapped here until the creep comes back for us?"

"No, you aren't trapped. Think of it as a sleepover." Jasna said softly.

"It'll be more of an over. I don't sleep." Arthur said with a smile.

Jasna's eyes brightened and she let out a genuine laugh at Arthur's joke. "I look forward to learning why that is."

Anna hit her brother once again. "Stop that!"

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