My afterglow was little more than a frown and I barely noticed the loss I took from the charm, but the giddy feeling that filled me faded quickly once I realized what was about to happen.

Alexei had transformed.

Precept Jasna had as well. Or maybe her wings of white bone had come from summoning her implement, I was not sure, but the result would be the same.

Painful memories began to slip out of the back of my mind. Red dust falling away from a blackened and broken hand, the pale flesh of shattered legs almost glowing against the blanket of purple beneath them, and a single terrible scream echoing in the grey halls of Lun, I remembered them all.

Then, I saw Maletta out of the corner of my eye. Though she was completely still and silent, dark red blotches were slowly spreading underneath her white robe.

That was what becoming Echowalker had done to her.

Just like her and all the others I remembered, Alexei and Jasna were going to break.

"Maletta?" Nami asked as all of our aura turned to dust running down Jasna's back.

Precept Cherith took her hands from The Mother in Blue's and pushed brushed off the front of her dress with her hands. "Asleep, for our sake and her own."

"Add that to all the reasons I owe you, Cherry," Nami sighed. "Does she need to go to the medery?"

Precept Cherith went to the sleeping underwitch's side and knelt down beside her. "No. Not at all. I will change her bandages once I return her to her quarters and she will be fine as long as I can keep her in bed."

"See that you do. The Ladies Ball is coming soon and I already have enough reasons for them to question me without having my strongest moon bleeding every time she moves," Nami said as she turned her ocean eyes to me. "It would be best if you put on your glamor again. Everyone is supposed to be in their quarters which means the halls will be filled with prying eyes."

I shook my head and kept my hands pressed over here. "But what about them? We have to help them. When Trea-when The Lady in Red used her implement, I watched The Mother in Red stop it from hurting her. Use my power! I'll give you all of it if you need it!"

I may have spent the better part of a month being angry with Alexei, but I did not want him to break. And even though her wings of white bone reminded me far too much of Blutmalir's skeleton, Jasna had been the one to stop him from disappearing forever. She loved my white haired guard like Anna loved me, and the thought of seeing her writhing in pain was too much for me to stand by and watch.

Nami's eyes softened and a pleased looking amusement spread across her face as she looked down at me. "You really are that good, aren't you?"

"No. She's even better than that. And you should make sure that all of the others know it." Anna said from where she still stood behind me.

The deep voice of my familiar rumbled up from somewhere between our legs. "Well said, mortal."

Jasna's wings unfurled from around Alexei and she let my sleeping guard's weight fall forward onto her. "I am truly honored by your concern, Ire. But help is not necessary."

Beginning at the tip of the largest feathers at each end of her implements, the clean white bone gave way to trails of sky blue dust.

Jagged edge by jagged edge, the precept's working fell away, but when it reached the place on her back between her shoulders and was nothing more than dust on the floor, nothing happened.

Nothing broke, she did not scream, her back did not twist or snap. Her split back cloak fell back down behind her and she turned around as she ducked under Alexei's arm and kept him upright.

"Thank you dearly for your help. I shudder when I think about what would have happened if he had escaped us." She said with a smile and nod in my direction.

I shook my head and furrowed my brows. "I am used to not understanding most things, but this is too much. My head hurts."

From what had happened during my super secret training to everything in the hall, remembering to breathe had become a struggle because of how much was running through my mind.

"You're going to put your glamor back on, we are going to go get you something to eat, and then I'm sure Mother Nami will sit down and explain everything," Anna said as she stepped to my side and began to rub my back. "Won't you, Mother?"

Nami nodded and sighed. "Right. We were supposed to speak. But, do not go to the dining hall. Straight to your quarters and I will be there shortly."

Precept Cherith left Maletta's side and went to the still unconscious Gell. As Jasna turned to drag Alexei back down the hallway towards the singing stairs.

"No, take him to my quarters. We can move him again once everything has settled," Nami said before she placed her hand on Cherith's back. "Her too. She is exhausted, but I do not believe her to be injured. I will see to Maletta."

The precepts did as they were told and I watched them carry both of the sleeping souls back through the door that I had already been through twice that night.

It was good that Anna was there to shake me from my watching, because not a moment after I had started returning to being Ire, Lun's strongest moon began to stir.

Maletta tried to sit up, but all she managed to do was groan, wrap her arms around her middle, and fall back the gray stones of the floor.

"Be still, Maletta. I will help." Nami said as she went to the grimacing underwitch.

Maletta did not listen.

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Her almost white hair falling down over her flushed face, she rolled onto her side and let out a ragged breath. "Where is Gell? What happened?"

"She is safe. Precept Cherith is with her. But we have to go change your bandages and see how much damage you have done to yourself before you are allowed to worry about her." Nami said as she tried to help Maletta up, but her efforts were not appreciated.

"Get off me. I would rather lay her and die than have you carry me," Maletta spat once she managed to climb up to one knee. Through her tangled hair and heavy breaths, she glared at me like I had been the one to hurt her. "You. You are the one who has been troubling Spring. Underwitch Ire."

She closed her mouth and muffled the scream that came out of her as she stood before she turned back to Nami.

"This is just like what happened before. Why is she always with you? Do you think I am too foolish to know what you are doing?" She panted and tried to take a step in the direction of the singing stairs.

She did not take a second.

Her knees buckled and she would have collapsed back to the floor if Nami had not been there to catch her.

"Nothing is like it was before. How many times do I have to tell you that? And I know you would rather die," As if she weighed no more than a feather, Nami picked Maletta up and began to carry her away. "But I won't watch you hurt yourself out of spite."

Anna and I watched silently until they disappeared on the other side of the singing stairs.

She rubbed my back and gave it one last or before she nudge me into movement. "We better go, I actually feel like she is going to tell you what you want to know."

I looked down and found that Alexei's swords had been forgotten in the broken pit that Jasna's wings had made in the floor.

"Wait," I said as I bent down and picked them up by the thin rope that Alexei wore as a belt. "What should I do with these?"

"I dunno. Leave them? Hide them, maybe? Use them as leverage to get him to leave you alone sometimes?" Anna shrugged as we started walking.

I did none of those things.

The rope was far too wide for my waist, but even after Anna tied it tighter, the ends of both sheaths drug the ground if I did not keep my hand on their ends. I would keep them safe and give them back to him when he felt better. If I did that, maybe then I wouldn't feel so bad about how unfair I had been to him.

I knew better than to think that I was good at putting things together, but if what Precept Jasna had said in her warning to Arthur about becoming my knight was true and I had not misunderstood Alexei's angry words, then I thought I was beginning to understand why my white haired guard was quite so expressionless.

If she dies, you will live every day of your life feeling like part of you has been taken. I could not remember what she had said word for word, but I knew that was close.

Alexei's voice returned to me. Now that I am half a man. I am not just her son, Namiana. I am bound to her.

Nami had been right. Every precept that I knew to be at Lun stood guard at every landing of the singing stairs, but the halls they watched over were filled with underwitches that were not supposed to be there. I was so caught up in thinking about my guard that I did not realize we had passed Precept Seram and the other new moons until we reached the door to our quarters.

Sam was no longer with us, but I had not noticed when he left.

Anna shut the door behind us, but neither of us did anything resembling what we usually would have done. I stood between my side of the bed and the fireplace, my hands still on Alexei's swords and my mind in far too many places.

"I did a charm with The Mother in Blue." I thought out loud, trying to separate everything that had happened into understandable sections.

Anna leaned against the bed in front of me and nodded. "You did. And she said they could not do it without you."

"Right." I agreed.

"How does that make you feel?" She asked slowly.

"Strong," I answered honestly as my mask of Ire fell away from my face. "But not because she needed my help. I know it is silly, but when all of our aura was mixed together, it didn't feel like I thought it would. I thought that feeling her power would make me feel small or weak, but-"

I stepped closer to Anna and looked over my shoulders to make sure no one had suddenly appeared in the room before I whispered as quietly as I could without falling into silent mouthings.

"-my aura was stronger. Or at least it felt like it. I've seen her drown a new sun and essentially make someone a new body in the same couple of minutes. I can make a whip and blow myself up with my fireworks. What does that mean?"

Anna crossed her arms as her face pinched in an expression of intense thought. "Well, maybe you just wanted him to go to sleep more than she did? At least that's what all this reading I've been doing makes me think."

"Or you could just have more aura than me," Nami said as she came through our door. "That's unlikely, but not impossible."

My evening had been strange enough already that seeing The Mother in Blue appear in my doorway with a large basket in her hand gave me no pause.

"But you are a Mother?" I asked.

"Yes, but that is mostly just a title and responsibilities. And having more aura does not equal strength," She said as she went to our fireplace and sat down. Beginning to unfold the cloth that wrapped the contents of the basket, she continued as she pulled out three bottles of some milky looking drink. "I have more aura than all of my sisters, but almost all of them are stronger than me."

Anna nodded along as Nami spoke. "So it's not how much you have, it's what you do with it?"

"More or less. Do both of you like fish? I know that neither of you have eaten." Pulling the cloth up by its gathered ends, she turned the basket over and used it as a small table. A large bowl had been hidden inside the folds of the cloth and as soon as it was uncovered, plumes of white steam carried a distractingly good scent into the air.

It was warm, light, with just a little spice, and my stomach growled as soon as it found its way to my nose.

"Come eat, both of you. I won't be able to sleep if I'm the reason you go to bed hungry." Nami said with a wave.

"What is it?" Anna asked as she went to her side of the bed and took an unopened bottle of wine from the floor.

Nami shrugged. "I don't really know what to call it. But it was the only thing I knew how to make for myself when I was young. Stew, maybe? It's good. You have my word."

I shook myself out of whatever nothing place my mind had wandered into and tightened my hand on the handle of Alexei's black sword. "No. No. No. This always happens. I get confused, and then something distracts me before I can figure anything out. Why did that happen to him? Maletta didn't act that way when she turned into Echowalker. Neither did Mother Gwyn when she transformed. When I met Goldluster, I almost forgot how much Azza hates me. Why was it different for Alexei? Why didn't he get all pretty and confident like everyone else has?"

Nami's ocean eyes brightened as she looked from me to Anna and then back again. "How do you stand living with her? I would be a mess if I shared a room with someone half this cute."

"I don't. I am a mess." Anna said with a content sounding sigh.

"Please, let's eat. I will stay here and talk with you for as long as you want. You have my word as The Mother in Blue." Nami said as Anna walked over to the basket table and sat down.

I wanted to resist. I wanted to stand firm and not move until I was given the answers I had demanded, but the stew smelled very good and the growl that came from my stomach told everyone in the room just how empty it was.

"Fine, but don't lie to me," I said as I shifted Alexei's swords further up my hip. "I don't know how to use these things but that won't stop me from trying."

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