Alexei stepped out of Zetta's sparse covery just before I passed by it.

His hands rested lazily on the end of his black sword, and no part of him seemed to be anything but relaxed.

"Ugh," I growled in frustration and felt violence creep into my hands. "Why are you so annoying? I crawled all the way down our hall. You didn't even come out of your quarters!"

He turned his one white eye to me and shook his head like he had just realized I was there. "I did not realize that you were speaking to me again, what was that?"

"I wish you were a bird." I spat and spun away from him on the thin heels of my sandals

"As insults go, I doubt I have ever heard a worse one." He said simply.

The desire to turn around and hit him, even though I knew there was likely nothing I could do to hurt him, was so strong that I almost gave into it.

"I wish you were a bird, a big fat bird. Sam would catch you and tear you apart if I asked him to." I said as I stomped away from him and into the classroom.

"How cruel." I heard him say as all the other new moons turned to look at me.

Precept Zetta waved me towards where her and her gemman waited before pointing down at my feet again. "Ire, if you come in here again without your stockings or your boots, I'm gonna have to give you detention."

"I don't care," I snapped at her in my frustration. Trying to escape the white eyed stare of my guard was a silly thing, I knew that, but annoyance was as close as I could get to hurting him, and I wanted to hurt him so badly. "I'm sorry, Precept Zetta. I am frustrated."

Tana shrugged and sighed. " I would be too. Life must be difficult for someone that is motherless like you."

Keeping my eyes above her head as I whipped around to face her, I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out.

They sounded in my mind instead.

At least my mother doesn't think I'm weak. You're the daughter of True Tana and even she thinks you're disappointing. And! And! Arthur told me to tell you he thinks you're ugly and that he only talked to you because he was bored. I thought, but something kept me from saying those things out loud.

"Look, you can't even say anything. You know I'm right. Some souls just are not cut out for being a sorceress. It's perfectly fine, I'm sure you will make a good maid or something." Tana laughed.

Plia tucked her legs to her chest and put her head down.

Mallory met my eyes and mouthed for me to hit the honey haired underwitch.

"Stop this, Tana. You should speak to anyone that way, let alone Ire. You all are supposed to be sisters." Vanda said as she put her hand on Tana's shoulder.

Tana did not listen. "What are you wearing? Are you too thick to realize it's cold outside? And what an ugly shade of red. This is The Mother in Blue's school. You could have at least tried to respect that."

Ruiner. The Autumn I did not like spoke in my mind.

Normally, I hated it when I heard from her, but right then, it was like my name being called by an old friend.

Ruiner. She repeated and the name I had only ever heard in my worst moments brought me strength.

She spoke a third time and I had never heard anything that sounded so appealing. Ruin her.

My power filled me and the violence that had started with Alexei grew with it. I took a step and pointed it towards Tana, but before I could take a second, I was grabbed around my waist and spun towards the Gemman.

"Save it, you're going to need it today," Zetta said, her raspy voice only loud enough for me to hear. She snapped her fingers and pointed at Tana. "And as for you, Puddles. Detention. After class today. You're going to learn how ridiculous that motherless rubbish is."

Tana's jaw dropped and threw her arms up in the air. "What did I do? And can you please stop calling me Puddles? It isn't fair!"

Precept Zetta did not answer her. She walked me over to the gemman and took a breath.

"Moons like her make me wish I never stopped drinking. Now I know you spent all day yesterday watching Mallory flail about, but you already have a handle on two different workings that are not insignificant," She raised her voice so everyone else could hear as she continued. "Whoever in here can tell me what separates the rest of you moons and Ire will earn a question. Any takers?"

Mallory's hand shut up so fast that she nearly lifted her whole body off the floor. "She doesn't sleep alone at night?"

"Not really what I was looking for." Zetta sighed for the second time in as many minutes. She looked so tired, that I had almost begun to wonder if she had nightmares like Anna.

Tana spoke next, and I had to force myself to not spit at the sound of her voice. "You spend twice as much time teaching her as you do us?"

Zetta snapped her fingers again. "Don't push your luck, Puddles. I'll tell Precept Cherith that she has to call you that too."

"It's because she can make things, right?" Plia asked, only her eyes visible from behind the cover of her knees.

Zetta smiled. "Very good, Plia! What's your question?"

When is lunch? Can I have food now? Why am I always starving? I would not have been surprised if the little underwitch asked any of those things.

She didn't.

"Why do you still call Tana that? She's stronger than everyone except Ire, but we've all earned our names. I don't understand." Plia said quietly.

A long moment passed between her and the honey haired underwitch before Zetta interrupted it

I expected her to say that she did it because she could, or that there was indeed a reason, but it would take another question to learn what that was. Precept Zetta was usually very specific about what she would and would not say.

She was not that day.

She not only answered Plia's unexpected question, she gave us much more than that.

"Because I try to give each of you what you need. Mallory needs to get all her sillies out before she can pay attention. I learned that in my first semester with her. You need to be drawn out of your shell. If you aren't, you are content to sit in it until it's time to call it a day. When Vanda was my student, she needed the respect and patience necessary to allow her to make her own decisions. Do you see?" Zetta explained as she walked towards Plia.

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Our teacher turned her sharp sapphire gaze down to Tana and glared.

"Did you know that I am motherless? So is The Mother in Blue. Neither of us were born in Zenithcidel. Neither of us have renowned mothers. You are Puddles because the last thing you need to be right now is who you think Spring Tana is." Zetta said and messed Tana's hair with her one hand.

Tana joined with Plia and our teacher in saying things that I would have never imagined them saying. "I'm sorry, Precept Zetta. I didn't know."

"Exactly," Zetta nodded and came back to the center of the room. "Which is why you all need a teacher, so I can help you know. Mallory needs to be silly. Puddles needs me to be firm. What is it that you think you need, Ire?"

To be free of The Mothers and to no longer carry The Well in my mind. I thought to myself, unable to think of anything that would be better for me than that.

"Right! To be challenged." Zetta agreed without me saying anything aloud.

The tips of her fingers began to glow and her Gemman stirred from her influence.

"You can make things. You already have the rough version of a whip and the explosives you knock yourself out with. You've demonstrated the ability to use them both in different circumstances, and the loss you take from them is finishing every time you perform them, but there is a problem," Zetta began and made the sapphire statue beside her raise its left hand up towards the ceiling. "You have two workings that could be used in tandem, but I have only seen you use the channel in your left palm."

All I could think about was that both of Tana's channels were open. In that small way she was actually better than me, and I hated her even more because of it.

"How did your left open? When was the first time you were able to manifest your aura through it?" Zetta asked as she took my hand into hers.

How would she have looked at me if I told her the truth? What would my one armed teacher, the one that was so vocal about my talent and what I was capable of, think if she learned that my true channel was my navel? How would she react to the knowledge that I had opened my left palm because The Circle of The Nine Mothers had sealed my right only moments before?

She lowered her voice and some of the sharpness in her eyes softened. "Listen. It doesn't have to be specific. Did it happen because you were in trouble? Were you in pain? Trying to impress someone maybe?"

"I was in trouble." I answered honestly, and felt safe in being that vague.

"So it happened because it had to." Zetta nodded.

I shrugged and shook off all the memories that had come swelling up. "It definitely felt that way."

It had been that day that had brought me to Lun. What I had done and what I had said then were the reasons that I had become a moon. If I had not listened to The Mother in Red, if I had not promised Rhiannon to be myself, there would have been far less hurt in my heart. Anna would still be sleeping as well as she had been at the manor, and I would have never known what it was like to be haunted by my white haired guard.

I could have lived my entire life and only ever known Tana through her memories.

I would have that chance again. If the short part of my life that I could remember was anything to go by, it would likely come immediately after something good had happened to me. When it did come, I would not cry out for freedom.

I would beg to go back to the manor and apologize for my not appreciating what I had been given.

Even quieter than before, Zetta spoke in a tone that I was sure the others could not hear. "I told you I would ask more of you, and I am right now. Opening a channel is no small feat, but I think you can handle it. Listen. If what we are about to do is too much, just say so and I will stop, understand?"

I would miss that. If I ever did leave Lun, I would miss how Zetta spoke to me. Precept Seram had been perfectly pleasant, and that had been its own kind of good, but there was a difference.

Zetta made me feel like she liked me for me. I still wore my mask of Ire, but hiding myself while I was using my aura was a much more difficult thing. The tears, the anger, the losses and defeats, I had not looked like myself, but it had all been me, and my teacher had found that valuable.

I had potential. I was stronger than the others. She would ask more of me because she thought I was capable of it.

That was enough for me to know that as long as I was in her class, no matter how bad I wanted to leave the school, I would do whatever task or trial she put in front of me.

"I understand." I agreed and lowered myself into my stance to show that I was ready.

She pushed a jagged lock of her blue black hair back from her face and smiled. "I was hoping you would say that. Relax. You won't be breaking my toys again just yet."

From her hand to the gemman's, she laid my own hand palm up on the solid sapphire and twitched her then free fingers. The gemman's other hand rose above mine and shifted into a fist that was topped with a single shining spike.

"Vanda, stay ready just in case." Precept Zetta said over her shoulder as she brought the spike down to the center of my hand.

It was not sharp enough to break skin, but the slight pressure of its point was a promise of pain that I could not ignore. The sapphire hand that cradled my own turned to a cage as its fingers spread and wrapped around my wrist.

I pulled back against it just to see if I could slip free and found no slack.

"I am going to break your hand, Ire," Precept Zetta said, her eyes sharp once again. "I am going to push this into your hand until your skinny little bones snap like twigs. If you don't want that to happen, I suggest you find a way to stop it. Ready?"

She did not wait for me to agree.

Her glowing fingers bent, and the spike came down.

I focused my aura underneath the growing pain, and pushed all of my bright blue aura to my right palm.

If it had been free like my left had been when I had tried to attack The Mother in Brown, I truly felt like I could have opened it in time.

A pop sounded from my pinned hand.

It had not broken yet, but it would very soon, I had broken enough bones to know that.

The azure light of my eyes shone back at me in the gemman's featureless face, but I could not bring that light out of me.

"Come on. You're close, I can feel it." Zetta growled as the spoke drove into my hand further and I gritted my teeth to keep from crying out.

"I can't." I growled back at my teacher.

Mallory appeared in the corner of my sight, her hands on her hips and her brows furrowed. Plia and Vanda joined her shortly after. None of them spoke, but they were watching me with intense focus.

My friends were watching me.

"You're running out of time, Ire. Don't make me do this." Zetta growled again and true pain tried to curl my fingers but the gemman held them in place.

Inside myself, I could hear the grinding sound of my bones flexing under the pressure and knew that a crack was only seconds away.

It was too much.

None of them knew what I had just been asked to do.

If opening a channel was truly no small feat, then breaking The Mother's seal to do it was something that stories should be written about. It was a wall that all of the aura I had brought to my palm could not hope to break through.

None of them knew what I was fighting against or what power there was that bound me and kept me from being myself.

But as the glamor that concealed The Mother's seal began to fade from the pain, I knew they were all about to.

Zetta's eyes snapped down as dust began to trail from my hand and all manner of colors began to show on my skin. "What is-"

Just before she did what she said she was going to do, the breath before I was revealed and my bones broke, I gave up.

"Stop! It's too much! I can't!" I screamed and wrenched my whole body back against the gemman's grip.

Zetta released me and I crumpled to the floor with my hand cradled to my chest. Everyone caught in the shock of my screams, I let my cloak wrap around my shoulders and reformed my slipped glamor before anyone could know the difference.

My teacher offered me a hand up and I took it as relief washed over me. My hand had almost broken, my glamor had almost faded, and I had nearly been exposed, but all was well. Somehow, none of those terrible things had happened.

Zetta met my eyes and I understood immediately that she knew.

"Again?" She asked and gave me a small nod.

I understood that she knew something, she had seen the rings after all, but it was between us. I knew that like I knew Anna would tell no one of the lich so she could protect my freedom in The Well.

I gave Zetta my hand once again.

What my teacher did not know would not hurt her, even if that meant accidentally defying the will of The Circle of The Nine Mothers.

I nodded at her and watched as the Gemman clutched my hand for the second time. "Again."

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