Even being as thin and frail as she was, I had decided that Plia was one of the more terrifying souls I had ever encountered.

After she had spent the morning facing off against a gemman, the little underwitch had taken Precept Zetta by the front of her shirt and threatened her until our teacher had finally released us for lunch.

"How can you eat?" I asked as she tore into her third plate of food.

Breads, meats, cheeses, fruits, vegetables, and several other things that I did not recognize all were consumed by the hunger that sat across from me. My question did not come from the amount of food she was eating, but the way she was devouring it.

Plia could not use her aura unless she consumed it first. She didn't understand it, but neither had our teacher, so I was not troubling myself with trying to. It had been strange watching her manifest her pallid blue and bring it into her mouth, but the gemman had been slain either way.

Even still, my question was not about if eating her power filled her belly, it was about her afterglow.

Her sorrow brought tears just like it did for the rest of us, but that was it. There was no crying out, sobbing, or laying down.

She had cried silently all the way to the dining hall and had not stopped. Mouthful after mouthful of food, her tears flowed, and she only stopped to occasionally wipe her nose.

"She's fine. It's weird to watch, but it's way better than Tana's. You are lucky you don't live in our quarters." Mallory said from beside me as she took one of my fried potatoes and threw it into her mouth.

"All of our afterglows are weird. Yours is no better than Tana's." Vanda said to Mallory.

I spoke before I could truly consider if I should. "I doubt that."

Tana was worse than Mallory in every way I could think of.

Vanda met my eyes and used the full force of her kind face against me. "I really think it would be worth both of your time to find some way to speak before your first cycle ends. I know you got off on the wrong foot, but things will be much better for everyone if you can find a way to be friends."

Mallory saved me from saying something that I would likely regret. "She's not here. I don't want to talk about this. Who else have you run into lately, Ire? More blind people or have you moved on to the deaf and mute?"

I looked towards the back of the dining hall and pointed. "That's her. The second crescent I ran into." I said and pointed

Mallory stood up on the bench underneath us and shaded her eyes with her hands. "Where? I can't see. I must look just like her."

"Mallory! Get down!" I whispered as I turned away from her and tried to make myself as small as possible.

"Why? I just don't see the point," The senseless underwitch said as she dropped back to her seat. "I'll keep an eye out for her, really be on the lookout."

I had no words for the other new moon. All I could do was peak back through my arms to make sure that no one was looking at us.

Ferrin Faux was.

Or, at least, she was facing in our direction. But even if she wasn't truly looking, it felt like she was, and that was bad enough.

Plia sniffed and wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her uniform jacket. "That's mean. You shouldn't make jokes like that."

"Why not? I'm not hurting anyone, and Ire thinks they are funny, right?" Mallory said as she reached towards Plia's plate.

Plia slapped her hand away without stopping her relentless consumption.

"It doesn't matter if they are funny, they could hurt her feelings if she heard you. You hate it when Tana starts being mean to Ire, how is this any different?" Vanda asked.

"You hate it?" I turned to Mallory and asked my own question.

"Of course," Mallory smiled and knocked her shoulder into me. "But this is entirely different. Tana is mean to Ire because she is jealous of her. I'm making jokes about her because it is funny. It's not the same thing at all."

Tana was jealous of me?

Couldn't be. Mallory had it wrong.

"What is funny? I could use a laugh today." Someone said from where they had stood

All of us looked up to see Ferrin Faux standing at the end of the table. She looked just like she had when I had run into her before. Thin black hair, an oversized shirt underneath her cloak, no shoes, and the stark white blind tied over her eyes.

"I, uhm, well-" Mallory stammered.

I had never seen her look so scared before.

"May I?" Ferrin asked as she placed her palm on Mallory's cheek just like she had mine the first time I had met her.

Mallory's face went from obvious fear to a bright red blush in a matter of moments.

"Yes, I do have soft hands. And yes I do know how to use them," Ferrin laughed. It was a soft sound, gentle, like morning rain on the roof of the boarding house. "I would be careful. If you keep thinking about these things, I just might take you up on it."

"Are you reading my mind?" Mallory whispered.

Ferrin laughed again as she pulled her hand away. "No, but now I know my guesses were correct."

The second crescent held her hand out to me next. "You, we met in the hall a few days ago, yes?"

I took her hand without really understanding why I was doing it. "I'm sorry for knocking you down."

"That's enough of that, I just wanted to introduce myself properly. I am Ferrin Faux," She said as she pulled my hand to her cheek and smiled at the touch. "And you are?"

Her hands were indeed soft. Cold and smooth like river stones too, but not even a little hard.

"Ire." I said and made no move to take my hand back. She could have it as long as she wanted.

"Hmmm. Well met, Ire. Enjoy the rest of your meal." Ferrin said as she let me go and made her leave.

"Wait! Don't you want to know my name?" Mallory shouted after her and drew the eyes of several others that were in the dining hall.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

The blind underwitch did not turn around to give her answer. "No."

All of us watched her the entire time it took her to leave the dining hall, and despite the blind and all the people she had to weave between, she made it without difficulty.

Mallory shook her head in what seemed to be disbelief. "You have to be making some kind of charm or something. This is getting ridiculous. First, you live with that pretty dark haired girl-"

"Anna." I interrupted her.

"-And then the man that Tana is falling in love with is actually your boyfriend." Mallory continued without missing a beat.

She threw her hands out in the direction that Ferrin Faux was walking away in. "And now this. Someone who can't even see what you look like comes over here just to hold your hand and learn your name."

"She is probably deciding who she wants for Underwing. Not everything is romantic." Vanda sighed and finished her drink.

"No, she wants Ire. I'm sure of it." Mallory insisted.

"How could you be sure? You've never even had a kiss, remember?" Vanda smirked.

Mallory smirked right back at her. "You could see it in her eyes. It was obvious."

"Mallory!" Vanda shouted and gave the laughing moon's hand a little slap.

It wasn't what she had said that made me join in her laughing, but how much she seemed to enjoy Vanda's reaction.

Plia continued to eat and cry silently.

"What is Underwing?" I said as I took several breaths to try and calm myself.

"It's-" Vanda started.

"Let me, let me! Remember, kid," Mallory interrupted her and wrapped her arm over my shoulder. "Even when you have lived as long as I have and become all wise and stoic like me, I'll be even older and wiser, so you'll still need me."

I had grown used to how touchy Mallory was, and had started to look forward to when she would drape herself over me or use me as a backrest. It made me feel close to her. It showed me that she actually did see me as her friend, and there was very little that felt as good as that.

"After Precept Zetta's glorified fighting pit of a class, we go to Precept Cherith for Restoration. You are going to like that one, Plia. Most of the time she gives us an assignment, but we wind up sitting around and talking instead of making us do work," Mallory explained. "The end of her class is the end of our first phase. The second phase is shorter. We spend one week away from Lun with each of the Precepts. Underwitches from the other Mother's schools come and we do assignments with them. When that's over, the third phase starts."

I didn't want to be at Lun anymore, but I wanted to be away from it for three weeks even less. Being at Silkcradle for night and a day had been too much, I couldn't be gone for that long. There was no way.

"And the third phase is where the girls are separated from the women." Mallory said and paused with a wicked grin on her face.

Vanda shook her head. "Don't listen to her, she is trying to scare the both of you. Which makes me laugh, because she spent almost all of her first third phase holed up in our quarters."

"I was sick." Mallory said and rolled her eyes.

"Homesick, maybe. I checked on you almost everyday, and I never even felt like you had a fever." Vanda chuckled.

Plia found the time to speak between two heaping spoonfuls of some thick stew. "What happens in the third phase?"

"We are sent out of Zenithcidel. The Precepts give us tasks in whatever town or city we are brought to. Healing the wounded, mending bridges and clearing rubble, defending it if necessary," Vanda said before Mallory could begin again. "They want to put what we have learned to the test. Show us what being a sorceress is actually like. Underwing is the week after that. One of the fuller moons will come and take you under their wing, get it? It gives the Precepts time to set up our trials and we get trained by someone who knows what we will need to know."

"But why? I don't want to do all that. I don't even know if I want to be here. I just don't have anywhere else to go." Plia said, her teary eyes looking down at her unfortunately empty plate

I met her eyes, and there was a silent understanding between the little underwitch and me.

"I know-" I started, wanting her to hear me say just how similar our feelings were, but the air in the dining hall changed and I fell silent.

Mallory seemed not to notice. "If my parents had their way, I would leave here today and be locked in my room again before sunset. This place is much better than that. They didn't even know I was here until the Knight's ball last-wait-why is everyone being so quiet?"

Tana had appeared in the massive doorway, and she was not alone.

Underwitch Maletta was with her.

Lun's strongest moon had returned.

One of her arms was looped through Tana's, and her other hand rested right between the ears of Auden's four eyed head. There was no sign of her cloak or any other part of her uniform. She wore long white robes that managed to hide most of the bandages that seemed to cover her nearly all of her body.

She took a slow step forward with Tana and Auden's help, and that was all it took for the dining hall to erupt into chaos.

All the underwitches she usually ate with went running towards her like she was their long lost mother. Tables full of half moons and first crescents cheered and clapped with the same intensity that the patrons of Seven Columns would when a points tournament had been won. An underwitch I had seen inside The Boiler reached her first. With the same blue flowers she had sent crawling up the wall of the bar, she made a delicate crown of petals and vines that fit perfectly on Maletta's head.

"Do you think Azeralphane did that to her?" Plia whispered to all of us, her voice barely loud enough for me to hear underneath all the celebrating.

"No. That is from manifesting her true self." I answered without needing a moment to think.

I had seen it too many times before to mistake it for anything else. The sight of it brought horrible memories of The Lady in Purple's legs shattering in the wake of her gloom and Trea's hand breaking from the weight of her gauntlet.

"Why is everybody clapping? Isn't that sorceress from the theater still missing? Doesn't that mean Maletta failed?" Mallory asked, confusion evident on her face.

Plia reached over and tapped my hand. Her face was still streaming with her silent tears, but her eyes had more force behind them than I had ever seen. "Ire, are you sure? I need to know."

I nodded and looked back to where Maletta must have been inside the slow moving sea of blue cloaks. "I know it like I know you are still hungry. I saw her do it."

"She is right," Vanda agreed. "I have seen it in the medery when girls come from Precept Jasna's class."

"But why is she still hurt?" Plia asked.

"Precept Cherith said that healing naturally after doing it is the only way you learn how to do it better. With the soul armor and implement both," Vanda continued. "That's the only way to become a full moon, being able to do both without breaking."

Azza and Gwyn were both worthy of being full moons then. Both of them had been their true selves in my presence, and neither had suffered for it physically.

"Wait! You saw it happen? And Tana's with her now? Why does nothing interesting happen to me?" Mallory demanded.

Plia's head sagged down to the table and thumped against it dully. "I don't want to break."

"Agreed. I'm too pretty to end up like that." Mallory said as she patted Plia on the head.

"I don't want it either. I would rather just keep doing what we are doing now." I answered honestly. Between Anna, The Well, my classes, hating Tana, annoying Alexei and everything else, I could barely keep up as it was.

Mallory clapped her hands and brought all of our attention back to her. "Let's make a pact then."

"Is that like a pie?" Plia mumbled with her head still on the table.

"No. We all agree that as long as we are all moons, we stay together. We try really hard to make first crescents, and once we do, we stay there. There won't be any new moons coming in to take our place, we can basically do this all the time, and none of us will have to take Precept Jasna's class." Mallory said all at once, excitement radiating from her like a fire that had just received a fresh log.

As long as we are all moons. I repeated in my mind. I could agree to that. Even if I did somehow talk my way back into the manor, I would not be breaking our agreement because I would no longer be a moon.

Mallory held her hand out. "Come on, both of you know you want to spend the next hundred years with me."

"Fine," Plia sighed and raised her head. Her eyes were finally dry and she put her little hand on top of Mallory's "but you have to get me pie."

Mallory raised an eyebrow. "Ire?"

I was going to do it before she said my name, I just had felt too pleased to move yet.

I smiled as I put my hand on top of Plia's and knew that Anna would get a good laugh out of how happy making a pact with the other new moons had made me.

"On three, repeat after me," Mallory began and swung our piled hands up and down as she spoke. "To not being ourselves. One, two, three!"

"To not being ourselves." Mallory and I said together.

In the same rhythm that we had chanted in, Plia shouted. "I want my pie!"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.