Precept Zetta changed as she gave her response to the question that we had all slain a gemman to have answered.

"Most of you have never left The Mother in Blue's domain, let alone Zenithcidel, but even if you have, you are far too young to know just how big chaos is." The sharp featured sorceress began, her voice low and raspy without being quiet.

Mallory looked up at me, her face still a bloody mess, and whispered. "You aren't from here, right?"

I nodded silently in agreement and gestured back to our teacher with my eyes.

"Black gates, winks like your favorite degenerate sister Mallory, splitstreams like Amber's Rush and spiral bridge, the near infinite sprawl of chaos is not difficult to cross, but that does not take away from how much we do not-" Precept Zetta continued before she was interrupted.

"Why did you call me a wink?" Mallory asked, throwing herself up from my lap and crossing her arms over her chest.

Zetta became as still as stone and her brows pressed into a sharp line. "It means you are fast, could you not have figured that out without interrupting me? Azeralphane is a demon. There. Question answered. I told you about him. Everybody up, we have work to do."

"What! No, I won't say another word," Mallory cried and covered her hands with her mouth before continuing in a muffled voice. "That does not take away from?"

"That does not take away from how much we do not know," Zetta continued with an amused glint in her sapphire eyes. "The Blue Death is not the first thing that was given the name demon and he won't be the last, but no one knows what he really was."

She went to her gemman and brought her finger to a flaw in the blue stone. It was discolored, stained, and the red that caused it was what was left of Mallory's blood. She touched it and her working began to change. "You've all heard the stories I'm sure. Long white hair, pale blue skin, a tongue long enough to wrap around your throat, sickly yellow eyes that can hypnotize and make you weep with a single glance."

All in her shining stone, the gemman shifted into the features she had described. The shape of the demon's hair and tongue stretched down and out as its body thinner and lengthened. It dropped into a feral crouch and crawled towards us on its hands and feet.

Plia let out a pitiful whimper, but Vanda comforted her before it could grow into a proper cry.

"For once, Plia. Your fear is not misplaced,"Zetta agreed as she brought the twisted gemman back to her with a flex of her glowing fingers. "There were rumors about The Walking Storm and The Blue Death for years, but The Mothers and everyone else thought them to be just that. Folktales that the people who live in chaos told themselves to make sense of whatever misfortune fell upon them."

Zetta's face darkened, and the muscles of her jaw clenched before she continued. "But then, Azeralphane proved himself to be much more than a myth. Have any of you ever heard of Almafilura? The desert trading town that was built around a lake of golden water?"

The words desert and gold being said so close together brought me no comfort.

I hadn't, and it seemed like none of the others had either until Vanda raised her hand. "My mother went there as a girl."

Vanda smiled as she looked around at all of us. "She said they drink something there called Almauve. It's this tea that will cool you off no matter how hot you are. She said that if you were on fire, a single sip would put the flames out."

"That is ridiculous," Tana muttered as she left the wall and came to join our gathering. "I have never heard of anything like that."

Zetta leveled her hard set stare at the honey haired underwitch. "Ah, so things can only exist if the illustrious daughter of True Tana has heard of them?"

"I-no-I am sorry." Tana apologized as she pulled her knees to her chest and cast her eyes down.

The nails of her toes were the same shade of blue as the stone that hung from her neck. For as often as I had seen her without her shoes, I had never noticed it before.

"Chin up, Puddles, it's not your fault. Talking about this puts me in a bad mood." Zetta said, softening just long enough to speak to Tana.

The very next moment, her eyes hardened once again. "Purple drinks or not, The Mother in Brown had taken her pearls to Almafitura not long after the city had been freed from the grasp of The Fathers."

Mallory opened her mouth to speak, but clamped a hand down over her blood stained lips before she could interrupt our teacher again.

"What's a pearl?" She whispered up at me through her fingers.

A shadow crept over her face and obvious fear came to light in her eyes.

I looked up to see the demon shaped gemman standing so close to my face that I could see my own reflection staring back at me in its crystalline legs.

"Pearls are cute little underwitches just like you. Studying under The Mother in Brown to try and not be quite so vulnerable. That's what you wanted to know right?" Precept Zetta asked from behind the gemman.

Mallory gave a silent nod.

The gemman turned and walked back to where Zetta stood as she spoke. "Listen. If you interrupt me one more time, I will start calling you Rake again and give you detention. Got it? Now, where was I?"

Before anyone had the chance to remind her, she began again. "Not three days after The Mother arrived, a storm blew in. Lightning, thunder, more rain than that place had seen in a hundred years. It poured and poured for days, and as the golden lake began to rise and lose its luster, strange sightings began to be reported. A group of miners that spent a long night damning up the entrance to their shafts spoke of a ghost haunting the rain soaked streets. Two ladies of the night came sprinting into the inn The Mother was staying in, screaming about voices that had called to them from dark alleyways. There was a tall tale that the desert people liked to tell around their cook fires when they knew that their young were not asleep as they should be, but listening to what their parents were saying."

With a snap of her still glowing fingers, our teachers working shifted once again.

"The wolves of Alrazata, the demon dogs of their silent hell god," From two legs to four, the sapphire statue turned into the visage of a snarling beast. Gaping maw, long claws, a body that's shoulder was as high as Plia was tall, it felt like one of Mother Gwyn's beasts had suddenly appeared in the classroom. "For every child they found that had been mistreated by their parents, the father would be consumed and the mother would be turned into one of the wolves."

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Mallory uncovered her mouth, but I pushed her hands back down and held a finger to my lips.

I didn't want her to get into trouble.

I knew first hand what being on the bad side of a sorceress could be like, and Mallory didn't deserve that. She nodded in understanding and pushed a frustrated sigh through her fingers.

Even though I was becoming quite bored with my teacher's story, it was good that she was bad at telling it. If someone like my mother had been the one speaking, it would have taken another of Vanda's charms to keep Mallory quiet.

Zetta continued as she sat down atop her wolf of sapphire. "Fortunately for all that were there, The Mother in Brown is not one to fall into superstition and stories. Her and her pearls gathered all the citizens of Almafilura into the temple of Laal that stood at the center of the city. She charged her underwitches with protecting them, and set out into the storm alone."

The Mother in Red had roses, The Mother in Blue had moons, and The Mother in Brown had Pearls. If Glim had students, if she had a school, I imagined that her underwitches had to be lightning bugs or some other silly thing.

The thought of being one of Azza's pearls instead of a moon sent a shiver down my spine. If any of them had felt her pressure and weight like I had, they likely wanted to escape her just as much as I wished to go back to Erosette.

When I had been asked what I wanted in the decrepit colosseum and I had answered, it had been myself as one of Rhiannon's roses that I had imagined.

I had never wanted to be a moon.

One of Glim's fireflies wouldn't have been bad either, anything was better than a pearl, but if I had not been a moon, I would have never met Tana and that felt like a dream I would very much like to have.

The color of her nails was dull anyways. It wasn't even her watery shade. My azure was much brighter and much bluer.

I should make mine my color. And my finger nails too. I thought to myself, smirking at the thought of her being ashamed that she couldn't even get her own color right. No, I'll make them red, Rhiannon's red. At least then I can pretend that I'm not stuck in this cold place and being haunted by a white haired ghost.

"Ire," Precept Zetta snapped and brought my attention back to where she sat atop her wolf. "Enough day dreaming. This is important."

"Yes, Precept Zetta." I answered as I tried to ignore the smirk on Tana's face.

"Back then, I was not the wise old teacher that I am today. I was little more than half as old as any of you. A page, barely more than a foot soldier. The knight I was serving under, Clintik the hammer, had seen the storm from our outpost and we had set off for the city for the same reason that Azza had taken to the streets." Zetta began again.

Mallory practically shook from how hard it was for her to keep her mouth closed. Just before her strength failed and she blurted out again, I gave my own interruption. "Who is Azza?"

For the first time ever, Zetta became angry with me.

I could see it in her eyes.

Thankfully, everyone else seemed to have been biting their tongue as well.

Vanda drew Zetta's angry eyes first. "You were there?"

"You have met The Mother in Brown?" Tana blurted out.

"Can you make that thing not so horrible?" Plia cried with her head buried in Vanda's chest.

Three sharp cracks broke out from our teacher's fingers and the room fell silent.

Mallory squeezed my arm and mouthed a silent thank you as we both held our breath in fear of Zetta's anger.

When the sharp featured sorceress spoke again, it was not harsh, it was through a long sigh. "Listen. I understand how frustrating it is when you know so little. I am not old enough to have forgotten being young. Azza is The Mother in Brown. Yes, I was there. I have met all The Mothers except for The Mother in White and The Mother in Orange. And no, I will not change it. You have to get used to scary things. That's why I'm telling all of you this in the first place. Mouths shut, eyes on me, I am going to finish now."

In truth, I was ready for her to be done. The stone floor was much too cold and my dress was much too thin to keep me from it. I Ionged for the days when my mother would tuck me in with a story or keep us all up too late in the garden.

It took me far too long to bring my mind back out of my memories. When I did, I realized that I had missed much.

"-could reach him, he disappeared in a flash of yellow lightning. The Mother in Brown and I gave chase, but there was no sign of him. When morning came, the rain had gone and all of the storm clouds had vanished just like Azeralphane."

Mallory had been quiet for as long as she possibly could. She stood straight up and gasped. "You lost? The Mother in Brown lost? He just got away?"

"Yes, yes, and yes," Precept Zetta said with a sad smile on her face. A lock of her jagged blue hair had fallen over her eyes and she made no move to push it back up. "But that is not all. When I returned to the temple of Laal with The Mother in Brown, she discovered that something was missing."

"What was it?" Plia cried, still hiding her eyes in the folds of Vanda's cloak.

"One of Azza's pearls. While we had been searching the streets for The Blue Death, he had crept into the temple and taken one of the underwitches without anyone knowing." Zetta said, standing and changing her gemman once again.

Our teacher changed with it.

"From what I was told, she was a small girl like you, Plia," From the monstrous shape of the wolf, the sapphire shifted into a shining silhouette of a girl. "And she was not as much of a degenerate as you Mallory, but it was said that she had a dark sense of humor that could not be resisted."

None of us needed to try and be quiet anymore.

Silence came without effort, and I felt a pang of guilt at not paying attention like I should have.

Zetta's raspy voice grew lower in pitch and louder in volume until it was very nearly a shout. "Her name was Rory, and Azeralphane took her."

Zetta snapped her fingers and the shape she had made of the lost pearl shattered.

I'm not sure if the others flinched like I did, but Mallory fell down at my side with tears in her eyes.

"She was not the first that he took, and she was not the last. As for what happened in Hymneth, none of you should fear The Blue Death. He is no more. But that does not mean you should drop your guard or be complacent with your power. For every enemy that falls, another will rise." Zetta gestured for us all to stand up and we did as we were told. To the grinding sound of sapphire crunching underneath our boots, everyone cleared out of the center of the room except for me.

Zetta closed her hand on my shoulder and held me where I stood. "Sorcerers, demons, beasts, ghosts, other sorceresses. There is no end to the threats you will face outside of the safety The Mothers provide you. For all the sorceresses that have fallen before you, vanished, died, sacrificed themselves, you owe it to their memory to become yourselves in full."

All the pieces of the broken gemman began to shake and reform like they had all the times before.

Through all her evident anger, Zetta pushed the fallen lock of hair back and smiled an absolutely savage smile. "Listen. It is good that you all have brought this up. It has made me realize something."

The pieces of gemman did not return to the sapphire statue that all of us had broken. It separated into two mounds before growing into two entirely different figures. Zetta left me where she had stopped me and walked to the other end of the room as she spoke.

"I have gotten soft in my time here, and that has made me be soft on all of you. In that way, I have failed, but no more. You are sorceresses and I will not allow you to remain weak under my watch."

The figure on my left became the wolf that my teacher had sat upon not very long before.

The figure on my right became Azeralphane once again.

"Ire, defend yourself!" Zetta shouted.

Not a single breath later, I was struck from the side and sent crashing down to the cold stones of the floor.

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