I would have had an easier time convincing Azza that she should apologize to me for her punishment than I would have had getting him to admit it, but I knew that Alexei was grateful that I had not asked him to walk beside me on my way to and from the dining hall.

Mallory was vocal enough already about how attractive she found my white haired guard. I did not think she could have handled being that close to him for that long without taking some flirtatious action.

So, I had let him resume his usual place and pace behind me. Being his friend did not feel all that different from being Sam's master, and though it left Anna annoyed, I knew first hand how quickly commands could ruin someone's willingness to be friends.

If she had known that Alexei no longer stalked around the school behind me, Plia would have been grateful that he was at a distance as well.

On the third day of our Restoration class, Plia had almost ruined everything twice before she had sat down to eat lunch.

Her third mistake came before we reached the sudden jungle of Precept Cherith's classroom.

"But where am I supposed to go?" She whispered up at me as we left the singing stairs.

It took all of me to not turn around and see if Alexei had heard. I knew he had, but even a glance at him would be enough for him to know something that I did not want him to.

"You know he is not my father now, so what else are all of you saying about me when I am not there?" I asked the little underwitch, trying my best to pretend that I had not heard what she said.

Mallory fell into an answer so quickly that I almost thought she understood my need for distraction.

"I don't think you would like the answer to that question, Ire." She laughed as she knocked her shoulder into me playfully.

Plia looked up at me and I gave her a silent shush. Her eyes went wide as she realized that she had almost done it again. I had to reach down and grab her hand to keep her from covering her mouth with it, but I played it off by grabbing Mallory's as well.

There was absolutely not a secret plot that I had been working on for three days, not at all.

All my guard was seeing was three of Lun's new moons finding comfort by holding each other's hands.

We were sisters after all, that was a perfectly normal thing for us to do.

"No, I want to know. I don't get to live with all of you. I know I am missing much." I insisted.

I did not try to hide the smile that spread across my face. Both of them had accepted my hand holding without complaint and both of them seemed to be enjoying it.

It was silly, but it had not been very long ago that the thought of making friends with them was little more than a dream.

"You're right, you don't, but you almost did. We took a vote when Vanda left us for Cherith, but we don't have anyone to break the tie," Mallory said through a heavy sigh. "Why couldn't it have been me? I would give anything to learn underneath her."

I raised my brows and glanced over at her. "If I am not mistaken, you haven't even had your first kiss right?"

Mallory bumped into me again and nearly sent all of us tumbling to the ground. "A girl is allowed to dream isn't she? Shut up, unless you mean to be my first."

I could tell by the joking tone in her voice that she was not being serious. "No, no, no. I am spoken for."

"Believe me, I know." Mallory said as her shoulders sagged.

I bit my lip to keep from laughing as I stepped back and pulled Mallory and Plia together in front of me. "But the two of you. . ."

Both of them jerked my back in between them by my hands.

"I tried, Plia doesn't like girls." Mallory sighed again, but it sounded much realer than her first.

"That's not what I said!" Plia cried.

Mallory laughed. "Or boys."

The little underwitch stopped walking. She wrapped her arms around my own and used me as a shield to peek around. "I was asked and I didn't know what you were asking! I told you that!"

The laughter that came from Mallory deepened and I was torn between wanting to join in and the overwhelming feeling that Plia should be protected at all costs.

"Ire, let me tell you, it's hilarious," Mallory managed to say through the fits of giggles that bubbles out of her. "We had just gotten back from Tana's daddy's island. We had our quarters all to ourselves, we talked for hours about which familiars we liked, what we would want if we could pick one, who we were before we were moons, I have never spoken to anyone for that long."

"Mallory, stop!" Plia cried out again.

Mallory did not stop.

"We were sitting on the floor in between our beds, she said something about how she liked how confident and charming I was," Mallory stepped in front of me and shifted her hand around my fingers. "I took her hand like this, batted my eyes, and asked her what else she liked. I could not have been more obvious."

I agreed.

Her just showing me what she did was enough to make my blush.

"And do you know what she said?" Mallory asked as she started laughing again.

Plia pulled my cloak out in front of her and buried her face in my side.

"Slow cooked meat! Warm bread! Fresh greens! Plia doesn't like boys or girls, she likes food!" Mallory wheezed.

It was funny, and I knew I would laugh about it later, but at that moment all I could think about was easily that could have been something that I had done to Anna.

I reached around and patted Plia on her back. "That's not so bad. I would have done the same thing. I have done way worse."

"Really?" The little underwitch asked as she peaked up at me from within my cloak.

The embarrassment that colored her cheeks looked good on her. With how pale she was, any color did really.

"Mmhmm," I nodded. "The first time I met Anna, I had just gotten out of the bath and did not realize that I had forgotten my towel until after I opened the door for her."

It had not happened to Ire, and they had no idea who I truly was, but they did not need to know that for me to be able to comfort Plia.

Plia's jaw dropped. "That is worse!"

"Why does everything good happen to everyone but me? My mother would say that Temperance is guarding my heart from corruption, but it feels like I'm being punished personally.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Mother? Temperance? Corruption? Mallory had never spoken to me about her parents before, and I was very interested in everything else she had said, but before I could ask her about, Precept Cherith appeared in the hall.

"There you are, Underwitch Ire. Follow me if you will." My teacher said as she turned to walk deeper into her hall.

"What did you do now?" Mallory asked aloud.

I would, anywhere she asked me to, just because she asked me to. I enjoyed being around her so much that she might have been the only soul in all chaos that I would listen to as much as I did with Anna.

Shrugging my shoulders and untangling Plia from my cloak, I left them in front of the classroom and followed Precept Cherith.

"Now, this is not a secret, but I do not suggest that you bring any of your sisters here. We do not want them getting jealous and resenting you for what you have been asked to do," She began as we walked. She was taller than me, and walked much faster, but she slowed her steps so I could reach her side. "Once you put your aura to the door, you and I will be the only ones that can open it, so there will be no fear of interference."

She pulled a key out from somewhere in the folds of her white robes and used it to unlock a door on the right side of the hallway.

"What would I fear interference with exactly?" I asked as we stepped into a smaller hall of even more doors. The light was dim, but I counted three on either side of me, and there was a snowy painting of what looked like the medery in Hymneth that hung on the back wall.

Precept Cherith went to the last door on the left and took my hand by its wrist. "Let your aura flow out, please."

I did as I was asked and let my azure come to light in my palm. My teacher pressed it against a cold metal square that stood where the doorknob should have been and patterns of pastel blue stretched over the wood in a momentary wave before the door clicked open.

"I had Precept Seram make this just last night. She asked that I give you greetings from her and to tell you that she is eagerly awaiting her second phase with you." Cherith said as she pulled the door open and waved me through it.

Thoughts of Precept Seram were almost always nice. She had been my first teacher, and the polite patience she had given me had been far more than I had deserved. The thoughts of her that were not nice, the ones where she was barefoot in a forest or packing my bag, were easy enough to push away.

Precept Cherith walked to the middle of the small room and placed her hand atop something that had been concealed beneath a dark blue sheet. "As for what this room is for, there should be someone else arriving to assist me in explaining that."

"I'm here, Cherry." A voice called out from the little hall we had just left.

Nami appeared in the doorway, but she did not look anything like what I was used to.

Her usual thin dress had been replaced with a gown of so deep a blue that I thought I could dive into it like a pool of water if I wished to badly enough. None of the shades of blue that her hair normally faded to were there to be seen. Instead, it had been brushed back from her brow and cascaded over her shoulders in pure white waves that almost seemed to shine against her dark skin.

"Mothers forgive me, if I would have known you were going today, I wouldn't have asked." Precept Cherith sighed as her face turned down into something sad.

Nami winked at me and tapped the little silver moon she had hung from my ear a couple weeks before as she stepped past me. "Hush. Seeing you always settles my nerves. If I could not have come I would not have."

"Why are you here?" I asked, hoping with every part of myself that I did not have to go before The Mothers again so soon.

Nami sagged her shoulders. "And here I was thinking that you were beginning to like me."

Precept Cherith gave me the answer I had asked for. "This is the underwitch I used to know. She's the ocean through the key hole. She's the one who your power reminds me of."

Nami was wrong, I was not beginning to like her, I already did. More than I should have if I was being honest, but I would pay for that when it was her turn to punish me.

Her turn had not come yet though, so the comparison made my chest swell with pride.

"And I used to have the same problem that you do, Ire." Nami said as she went to the sheet.

"She still does." Precept Cherith said with a smirk.

"Yes, but I used to too. Only, when I was an underwitch, and Precept Den had not faked her own death yet, we did not practice on seeds. We used eggs."

Her words repeated in my mind. And I used to have the same problem that you do, Ire.

"Does that mean?" I asked, thinking of the times that Anna had dropped an egg on the kitchen floor when we had been in Erosette.

Nami nodded and laughed. "It's probably worse than what you are thinking. Imagine me and five other new moons all holding eggs in a line. Theirs turn into chicks, and mine turns into a mess."

My jaw dropped like Plia's had not very long before. "That's so sad."

"It is, and that is why you should listen to everything Precept Cherith tells you. She was one of the new moons that I splattered with my egg. She helped me get better by doing the same thing for me that she had done with you." Nami agreed as she pulled the dark blue sheet free from what it was concealing.

A solid black box stood atop a tall table that was identical to those in Cherith's class room. I walked all the way around it, peered over its top, and felt its corners with my hands, but still could not understand what I was looking at.

"As Vanda should have explained to you, Restoration is a delicate art," Precept Cherith explained as she rolled the white sleeve that covered her right arm. "With your starling yesterday, you overwhelmed it with your power. It took on your color, grew far past what it would ever be able to become naturally, and when there was nothing else for it to do, it died."

I cast my eyes down as a twinge of sadness made me feel heavy. "I'm sorry."

"Do not apologize, Underwitch Ire. I do not expect the snow to say sorry for being cold or fire to beg for forgiveness over its heat. It is your nature. Learning how to handle it is all that can be expected from you." Precept Cherith explained.

I was powerless to resist the comforting current of her words, and I did not give the sadness a second thought.

"For souls like you and I," Nami said as she pushed up the sleeve of my uniform jacket for me. "Our understanding of how much a small amount of aura is has been warped because of how much we have."

All the times that I had blown myself away with my own fireworks were undeniable evidence of what she was saying.

Precept Cherith held her hand over the top of the black box and encouraged me to do the same.

I followed her movements and held my breath suddenly when my fingers did not stop against the top of it. They sank through the black like it was perfectly still water and then a cool wetness surrounded my hand.

Everything below my wrist out of sight, something within the box brushed against my palm and I snatched my hand back out.

"What is that? What's in there?" I shouted as I cradled my hand against my chest.

Nami and Cherith both took their time laughing before they spoke.

"It is your new teacher." Nami sighed once her laughter was done and she had wiped her eyes.

Cherith brought my hand back to the box and lowered it back through the black. "It is your responsibility. Without your sight, without your own perception, all you will have is the feeling of what it needs. You will have to spend time with it everyday until the end of your first phase with me. When that time comes, I will drop this glamor and we will see how you have done."

The unseen thing brushed against my hand again, but I did not jump away in fright.

It was alive, but not in the way that plants had life. It was moving, swimming, and had taken a liking to my fingers.

"But what if-" I started as I looked up at both of them.

Nami cut me off. "What happened with your seed, and what happened with my egg cannot happen with what is in this box. On my power, I swear it."

I let out a relieved sigh as that particular fear left my mind. Nami's power was vast, and I did not think she would swear on it unless she was absolutely sure of what she was saying.

"Give it a try, see if you can feel what it wants from you." She said with an encouraging smile.

Before I could find my new teacher within the water again, footsteps sounded from the hall outside.

Vanda appeared in the doorway. "I'm sorry, Precept Cherith. I know you said not to interrupt you, but come-"

The kind faced apprentice's eyes went wide as she saw The Mother in Blue.

"What is it, my apprentice?" Cherith asked when Vanda fell into silence.

"Uhm," Vanda cleared her throat. "Come quickly, Tana is about to do something impressive."

Impossible. The word appeared in my mind without my permission.

"Truly? This quickly?" Precept Cherith asked as she followed Vanda out of the room.

Nami followed my teacher, and despite my disbelief, I went after them.

Closing the door behind me, I paused and looked back at my new responsibility

"Goodbye. I will see you soon." I said to whatever was in the black box before shutting the door and going to see what awful thing Tana was about to do.

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