"Hold on, hold on, I'm almost ready." Anna called out as she rushed around from pile of books to pile of books.

She threw what she had gathered onto the bed, retrieved her wine from where she had left it by the fireplace, and crawled within her fortress of notebooks and tomes.

"Alright. Show me something, kid." She said with a wink when she was settled.

I brought my hand downs to the end of the oversized shirt she had dressed me in and slowly raised it up my thigh as I stared into her eyes.

The sight of my rose red nails and the pale skin of my leg ran together with the memory of all that had happened in the bathroom. I did not have the words to name what it made me feel, all I knew was that I liked it.

I liked how it made Anna's eyebrows raise and forced her breath into an uneven sigh.

"That's not what I meant and you know it," She pointed her finger at me and scowled. "This is serious. Make your cord or a werelight. Not a firework."

"Yes, Coach." I agreed as I slowly let the shirt slide back down.

I knew I should care about finding my red again. If it was important enough for two of The Mothers to spend a whole day trying to help me do it, then it had to be significant, but there were other things on my mind.

Thinking of all the things I could do to affect Anna the way I just had, I reached for my aura and snapped my left wrist out to my side.

"I've seen all sorts of freaky things since I met you, Autumn, but seeing your eyes change like that is wild." Anna said as turned open one of her notebooks and began to write.

As soon as I had touched my aura, I knew what color my whip would be.

Blue, cold blue.

I could not see my face, but I knew that was what she had meant by eyes changing. The red that I had spent so long without, that perfect shade that had come back to me in the tragically short moment Anna and I had shared in the bathroom, could not withstand my blue.

I let my working fall to dust at my side not a breath after I had manifested it and let my focus slip. "What color are they now?"

"Green. Tell me what happened. I can't see inside you like The Mother in Grey can. I need an explanation." Anna answered.

"I felt the way I did," I muttered, and drew a line in my azure dust with my pointed toes. "When I touched my aura, that feeling went away, and now I feel like I always do."

I felt sad saying that out loud, disappointed that the indescribable feeling my red eyes had brought was gone.

Anna threw her pen down and leaned back against the headboard of our bed in obvious frustration. "I've spent so much time trying to find anything about being a twinsoul, but every time I see something in the codexes that I think might be helpful, the books are never there. It's just these little slips of paper that say whatever I was looking for had been moved to Mothers Study."

She took a long drink of wine and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. "I can tell you all about how The Mother in Green kept a town from falling into one of those split things or that there is a city of sorceresses that isn't a part of Zenithcidel, but none of that is gonna help you. It's interesting, but useless. What's the point of learning about all of this if the things we actually need to know are all kept secret?"

I had seen her angry and upset before, but never quite so frustrated.

If it had been me who was ranting, she would have come to me with comfort and encouragement. There had been times where I had tried to mimic what she did for me, but I was never as good at it as she was.

I could not soothe her irritation, but I could show her how untrue her thoughts were.

"It's not useless. I'm just still figuring out how to use it," I said as I walked towards the bed. "Everything we actually want to know might be a secret, but the place where those secrets are kept is inside me."

That was true.

The answers to everything I could imagine lay somewhere in the near infinite library inside my mind. Even with what I had learned that day, I still did not have much of an idea on how to find those answers, but that did not mean they were not there.

I just had to learn how to find them.

Choosing my words very carefully, I reached over Anna's boundary of books and put my hand on her knee. "I called someone else's name today instead of Katarina and their book came. I'm-"

Anna threw herself towards me and sent all her books tumbling across the bed. Wine splashed onto the floor next to my feet as she threw her arms around me and squeezed.

"Autumn! That's big news," She kissed my cheek and cheered. She let herself fall back and snatched a stack of notebooks up from the bed. "Do you have any idea how many names I have written down? I don't even know where we should start! The Mothers? The Ladies? No, Twila Plaas! The twinsoul from your super secret training."

I smiled at her excitement and watched as she dragged her finger down the lists of names she had collected.

She looked back up at me, her dark eyes deadly serious as started to crawl off the bed. "Wait, wait, wait. I need you to do me a favor first. You gotta be Rihannon. If she's actually trying to seduce my little brother, I need to know so I can stop it."

I held my hand out and stopped her. "No. We have to figure out my color."

Anna nodded in agreement. "Right, we can do that first, but then I want to know about Arthur. Oh! And Azza. We can learn everything there is to know about that dusty old-"

"Shhh," I hushed her and brought my hand up to her face. "I don't want to go to The Well right now. I don't want to be anyone but myself."

There really hadn't been that many times that I had needed to tell Anna no. She was usually the reason I had not fallen into a crying heap or done something stupid and hurt myself.

Even so, the way she reacted made it seem like she had practiced taking it until she could not get it wrong.

"It's just such good news, I got a little carried away there. I'm sorry. Whatever you want to do, we'll do it." She said with an apologetic smile. She grabbed my hand and turned into it, pressing her lips lightly against my palm as my painted nails splayed across her face.

I found a place on the bed to put one knee and leaned towards her until I was on the bed fully. "You mean that? Whatever I want?"

"They are red again, your eyes." Anna said as she leaned back and pulled my hand along with her. Her dress had bunched up at the top of her thighs, and the rest of her had relaxed into a wordless invitation.

My perfect red shone back at me in her dark eyes, and the same feeling that had filled me when I had teased her earlier came again. I had used no aura or performed any working, but what I felt was not all that different from either of the highs I had felt before.

My will to be close to her was definitely passionate.

"That's not what I asked." I whispered as I slid closer to her and heard her breath shorten once again.

I held myself up and stared into her eyes, waiting for her to give me the answer I hoped she would.

"Anything you want." Anna whispered in return

Just before our lips met and I accepted her invitation, I threw myself up, spun around, and laid back on her like a pillow.

"Wha-I-what's wrong? Why did you stop?" She demanded, as she tried to lean forward and look at me.

I could not keep myself from laughing. "Maybe I'm like you. Maybe I just think you are cute when you're frustrated."

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She wanted me the way I wanted her. If her desire had not been obvious before, her disappointment at my turning away had left no doubt.

That new feeling, whatever it truly was, only grew with seeing how she reacted to me.

"You're a monster, you know that?" She said through a ragged sigh.

"No," I shook my head as I pulled her arms around me and left her hands crossed over my chest. "I am not a monster. I am your monster, and you have to hold me while I try to find my soul."

"Like what you did during your super secret training?" She asked, her voice sounding surprised.

I nodded and closed my eyes as I let all my weight settle onto her. "Mmhmm."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but that's actually really smart, Autumn." She said as I pushed my mind down towards my soul.

Red.

Red like the blush on Anna's cheeks.

Red like the glow of my eyes and the darkest flames of the fireplace.

Our lips pressed together, the heat of our breath, the burning desire that filled me and made me want to be closer to her than I had ever been before, I thought of it all.

Just like it had been with Mother Grey, my cold blue met my mind and threatened to drive me away.

The closer to my soul I went the colder I grew, but I had to go deeper.

I would drape her in ribbons like what was around her neck. I would warm her in a way that no fire could. I would paint the room with my perfect red just so she would know how I longed for her.

It was all I could do to keep my eyes closed. My arms found their way to Anna's and I forced her to squeeze me so I would not come apart.

Like I was falling asleep, the edges of my mind began to blur. Dizziness took me and I nearly lost my focus.

My soul was too cold, there was too much blue, I couldn't do it.

"Keep going, Autumn. I'm here. I've got you." Anna said softly and held me even tighter.

It did not matter if I couldn't.

I had to do it.

I had to do it for her.

Feeling like I would seize up and freeze, I broke through the azure cold with her voice still ringing out in my ears.

Into the hollow white that I had crossed before, I reached out blindly for the part of myself that I sought.

In that blindness, colors came to me as a vision.

Cords of my azure were knotted around the small amounts of red that I could see. It had been the same the first time I had gained a glimpse of my soul, and just like then, the stark white nothingness was too far for me to cross.

I could hold on no longer.

Anna's voice reached me and kept me from letting go. "You can do it, Autumn. I know you can."

The vision shifted, or maybe my mind did, I had no way of knowing for sure.

There was an end.

The end of a red cord had escaped the clutches of my blue, and I could almost reach it.

My fingers had nearly reached the exposed end when everything went black and I came back out of myself with a sudden gasp.

I told Anna what I had seen as waves of sensation kept me still. She made no move to make me move, and flipped open one of her notebooks beside us.

"Alright, so not red anymore. You still see the nothing place with all the knots inside, but right before you came back, you almost grabbed your red?" She asked as she wrote down what I had told her.

The waves washed away, and I resettled myself into her arms. "Mmhmm."

"I'll be honest with you, I don't know what to make of that. I can try to find books on soul searching or knots, but I doubt that will help." Anna sighed.

I couldn't help the laugh that came bubbling out of my mouth. "You don't get it."

"Don't get what?" She asked.

I turned around in her arms. "I don't think I need to know how it works, I just have to know what works."

"Watch." I said as I brought one of her hands to the small of my back, and her lips up to my neck.

There has been so much between us already that night, that her breath on my skin was enough to make me feel like I was on fire. We kissed once again, and when I pulled away, the red glow of my eyes had returned. "See? It's not about books. It's about you. The first time this happened it was because we were close, it was because we wanted each other."

"So you're telling me that you think making out is going to help bring your red back." She asked with obvious disbelief on her face.

"Mmhmm," I said as I kissed her on the cheek. "But I need a break. Come tell me what you wanted to tell me earlier."

I untangled myself from her and led her back to the bathroom. I felt that new feeling again as she followed behind me and thought I was beginning to understand it.

I felt confident. I felt in control. I felt powerful, and it had all been because of her.

It took no time at all for us to drown out our voices once again. Water on, air steamy, and both of us sat on the floor across from one another, we were as safe from Alexei's ears as we could be.

Even still, when Anna spoke, it was so quiet that I had to lean closer to her just to hear it.

"When we were with Precept Jasna, and The Mother in Blue came in crying from her afterglow, you cried too," She started, the tone in her voice the only thing keeping me from trying to train once again. "But you hadn't used your aura. You were just sad. You said that you didn't want to be here anymore, and I haven't been able to forget about that."

She took a breath and then a drink before she continued.

"When you ran away the first time and wound up at the boarding house, you had no idea what you were doing, right?" She asked.

"Right." I agreed, not understanding what she was getting at.

She pressed her lips together in a tight smile. "Well, you have me now, and I've spent the last year of my life learning about sorceresses, aura, chaos, all of it. If you don't want to be here, I am almost positive that I can get us out."

I had no words.

It was just like it had been with my nails.

"There are free cities, places The Mothers do not control. Don Viven, the place that Ire is supposed to be from, sorceresses can't even cross its borders without permission." She continued, her words passionate but not loud.

I had made mention of wanting to leave once, and she had put countless hours into thinking about it. I don't know why I was surprised because that was just what Anna did. Everything I gave her, she made real, she made better. The dresses, my sandals, my nails, my fears, even the ribbons around her neck. They would have become dust like any other working I had ever performed if not for her, but with my love for her in my heart as I had made them, they had become more.

She looked all around us as if someone had crept into the bathroom without us noticing. "I met someone when I was looking for nail polish. He said he is a courier, that his guild can take anyone or anything anywhere for any reason if they have the dymes. Money isn't a problem. We would disguise you, put Sam in a chest, and pay him to take us to Don Viven."

I felt like crying how loved she had made me feel, but I felt scared too, terrified, and through it all, there was excitement.

"What about Alexei?" I whispered, a terrible vision coming to life in my mind. We had done all the things Anna had just described and the moment before we escaped, my white haired guard appears and drags me back to Lun.

"We would just have to wait until he abandons you again. He's done it once already, it'll happen again." Anna said as she took another drink.

When she finished, I took one of my own. The wine was sweet and smelled like her, but I really did not care for the taste. "What if we went back to Erosette? Like I leave Lun and we just pretend I never came here?"

I drank again to keep the tears away.

"I thought you weren't allowed to leave? That Azza would take you if you failed?" Anna whispered, a nasty look on her face.

I let my shoulders slump and sighed. "I know, it's just that Nami said she would come and talk to me soon about what I said. It's silly, but part of me hopes I can just tell her how I feel and we will be back in the garden by the next night."

Anna shook her head. "That's not silly, Autumn. You have to be nicer to yourself. She's way more like Rhiannon than she is Azza, she's tried to help you several times, maybe telling her will work. I won't lie, laying around in the sun, reading and drinking all day sounds like a lot more fun than being fugitives."

I gave her back the wine and laid my head down in her lap. Without needing to ask, she started running her fingers through my hair and all the feelings I had were overwhelmed by her comfort.

"Thank you." I said after some unknowable amount of time. I held my arms up towards the ceiling so I could see the rose red of my nail.

"For what?" She laughed over the sound of the still running water.

"Being you, helping me be me, everything. I can't imagine my life without you." I answered honestly.

She gave a little laugh and a smile in return. "See, I can imagine my life without you, and it's a nightmare. I would rather die."

I pointed my finger up at her in anger. "Don't start talking like that again. As long as I'm alive, you aren't going to die."

"Easy, I don't want to end up like that thing you broke in class the other day," She said with her hands held up in false fear. "Come on, get up. We have more work to do."

It was beyond difficult, but I eventually did as she asked and sat up. "What do you mean?"

"I'm happy with what we've figured out, but I doubt that your mother or The Mothers would like watching us make out the next time we are in front of them," She laughed and stood. "We have to learn how to bring your red out without it being so intimate."

She had a point, but I was not willing to accept it.

"Not tonight," I said as I tried to pull her back down. "I think we need to practice it more."

The look in her eyes told me that she would not refuse me.

Then, my stomach growled so loud that I thought a monster had snuck into our quarters.

"I think you need to eat before we do anything." She said as she pulled me up to my feet.

I slipped my arms around her and pulled her tight to my empty stomach. "I would rather starve."

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