The precepts had carried me from my place at the base of the evergreen, past the gathering of watching maidens, and back into the entrance of the camp.

  One of my arms held over each of their shoulders, I had been too weak to stand, let alone walk.

  Once we were inside the big blue tents, they had not turned right and taken me into any of the fabric rooms I had been in the night before. They had led me through an opening on the left, through spaces that could have only been their personal quarters, and into a low lit room.

  A padded mat, like the one that had been the foundation for my blanket bordered reality, had been sitting high on a raised table within it. They sat me on top of it and then Precept Jasna had left.

  The tears that rolled down my cheeks had not stopped at any point during the journey. The Precept's clothes had darkened with the wetness of my still soaked dress and uncontrollable weeping.

  All of the maidens, including Tana, had seen the flood of tears and the sorry mess I had become.

  Once I was atop the table and my false black hair hung down over the face that was not mine, the tears fell from me and pattered against the quilted floor below.

  Through the blur in my eyes, I could see the shape of someone sleeping underneath a thick woolen blanket on the other side of the tent. Shanti turned her back to me and reached into a small box on the floor.

  "To dry your eyes." She said as she returned and offered me a small cloth.

  "There is no use." I muttered. Why wipe my tears away when more would rush back to replace them? I took the cloth anyway, not wanting to seem rude.

  It was silky between my fingers and I let it fall from my hands like it had burned me. The slick feeling of it brought a hollow ache into my chest that brought me down onto my side. I curled my legs to my chest as sobs racked my shaking body.

  "You dislike silk. That is good, Maiden Ire. Now we have somewhere to start." Precept Shanti said threw a yawn.

  It was not good.

  Nothing would ever be good again because of me.

  How long did they stand? The Autumn I didn't like, the real Autumn, asked in my mind. How many years did they live through before you cut it down?

  "The tree," I whispered through another sob. "I didn't. . ."

  Precept Shanti shook her head. "Don't think of it again. Many maidens have done much worse after their first time. Have you ever had coffee?"

  From whatever seed an evergreen grew from, the trees had spent countless years growing tall and strong. They had probably been bearing the weight of the fallen snow long before I was a notion in my mothers mind. All that time, all that life, and I come along and end it with a flick of my wrist.

  The trees had not been arrogant, I had been drunk with my own power.

  They were felled senselessly because I wished them to be, there was no greater purpose.

  Ruiner. The Autumn I didn’t like named me in my mind.

  "When I was a little girl, barely old enough to put my own shoes on, and my mother was called away for war, my father left the enclave to live with me until she returned," Precept Shanti said as she handed me a cloth that was not made of the horribly slick material. "He had no idea how to look after a child, let alone one that could do the things I could, but he tried his best to keep me happy."

  I wiped my face with the cloth and pushed my hair back so I could see her as I listened.

  "One morning when we were camping near the everblossom, I asked if I could try his coffee. Not wanting to disappoint me, we had not been together for very long after all, he said yes." She said with a smile.

  You do not deserve to hear this. She doesn't even know who you are. The real Autumn spoke again.

  Precept Shanti's lazy laugh filled the tent. "I didn't sleep again for a month. He was an engineer and was no stranger to long nights spent scouting an planning. It didn't occur to him that my staying up every night might be a problem until I couldn't keep my eyes open without drinking at least two cups."

  The shape of the person sleeping on the other side of the tent stirred beneath the cover of their woolen blankets.

  Like she had never had a good night's sleep in her life, a terrible yawn bent Precept Shanti over at her waist and brought her back up to the tips of her slippers. "Whenever I have to treat my afterglow, black coffee, the way he used to make it, makes it a little easier."

  He was, he had, he used to. Her words repeated in my mind. All of them led me to the heartbreaking truth that her father must have been dead.

  The hollow ache that the silken cloth had brought to me split my chest and resurrected my weeping. I had never known my father. I had no memories of him. I did not even know his name, but the notion that I would never have something like Shanti's coffee with him brought a drowning weight down onto me.

  She had no idea that she had just shared a precious memory with dishonesty made manifest. Everything Precept Shanti thought she knew about me was untrue. The person sleeping behind the sleep eyed sorceress, whoever they were, had no idea they were in a tent with someone who did not exist.

  Liar. The Real Autumn spoke and gave me my second name.

  "Do you have something like this? Some kind of sweet or a favorite piece of jewelry? What is your coffee? Shanti asked, her hands finding their way into two of the uncountable pockets on her overcoat.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Everything you have is not yours. It is stolen.

  The small weight of both charms that I still clutched in my right hand brought truth to the real Autumn's words. I had not needed both of the little silver crescents, I had stolen the second one purely out of my own greed.

  "No." I whispered, my voice sounding as weak to my ears as I truly was.

  Anna, Arthur, Ms. Lao, none of them had been given a choice to abandon all they knew and be taken to a place they had not known existed. I had wandered into their lives and brought nothing but havoc with me. I had stolen them from the mortal plane by means of impending death if they did not come with me.

  Even The Well, the source of all of the difficulties in my life had been taken by my hands and my hands alone.

  Thief. The real Autumn named me for the third time.

  I disagreed with none of them.

  "That can't be true. Try this. It will make you feel better." Shanti said. She pulled out a small square of waxed paper from a pocket on her shoulder and unwrapped it.

  A square of dark chocolate sat squarely in the middle of the paper’s creases.

  I shook my head, the thought of letting her give me something as sweet as chocolate feeling like a great shame after all that I had done.

  I didn’t deserve anything sweet ever again.

  “How about lemon? You seem sour enough to enjoy it.” She tossed the chocolate into her mouth and laughed. From the pocket on her shoulder to somewhere near the hem of her overcoat, she brought out a bag filled with little yellow candies.

  I held out my hand in denial. Unless it was sour enough to pucker my lips closed permanently, it was too good for me.

  “Hmmm," Shanti hummed as she tied her curly mess of hair back with a scrap of blue fabric. “Is it your mother? That’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s quite common. What kind of dresses does she wear?”

  The mention of my mother sent another tear through my chest and I broke down even further.

  "It comes with potential, but you are a tough one, Maiden Ire." She laughed again.

  You can't even be helped properly.

  In all of the memories in The Well, there had never been a more terrible soul than I.

  Without warning, the folds of blue fabric that acted as the door to the room parted, but no one appeared or passed through it.

  Precept Shanti's half lidded eyes widened for just a moment as she looked down to the quilted floor. "Oh, hello."

  “Wine. Red and sweet.” A low voice rumbled from somewhere underneath the raised table I was coming apart on.

  Sam.

  "I did not take you for a drinker.” Shanti said with a shrug. She reached inside her coat of pockets and pulled out a full bottle of wine from within it. Midnight blue light circled from her fingers and the cork came loose with an audible pop.

  “No.” I muttered again, turning away from the green glass that was offered to me.

  "She only needs to smell it." Sam growled from somewhere out of sight. I had commanded him to stop and had left him petrified in the snow. That my familiar was in the same room as me and had not tore into me with his claws and fangs was far too compassionate. I knew how horrible it was to be held against my will and I had done it to him.

  All I could do was cry.

  A bitter scent found its way through my shade of black hair. It burned lightly before settling into something sweet and fruity. It was not the same as what Anna liked to drink, but it was close enough to bring aromatic memories to the front of my mind.

  When she had stained my simple white dress with it one late night in Erosette, the way it lingered in my room at the manor, the taste of it on her lips more times than I could count, all the wine soaked moments came pouring back into me.

  A shudder shook me from the top of my head, through the tips of my fingers, and out the soles of my feet. The hollow ache in my chest began to close and I no longer felt like I would bring the table down with the weight of my awfulness.

  "Your hair, my lady." Sam commanded.

  Just as my tears had started to dry out, the flood came once again.

  "I didn't mean to leave you!" I cried out to wherever in the tent my familiar was.

  "Silence! Do not cry in the presence of others. Do as Lady Anna does with your hair!" Sam growled with such ferocity that my hands snapped to my head and I did as he said.

  The warmth of the tent had stopped my shaking, but the roots of my hair were still damp with frigid water from The River Eae. I kept both charms tucked against my palm and ran three fingers from my scalp to the end of my too long hair. The feeling was a sad echo of what it felt like when Anna did it, but paired with the wine scent, it was enough for me to pretend.

  The thoughts of her filled the hollow ache in my chest and the drowning weight that covered me lifted.

  The tears ceased to fall from my eyes and I dried my face with Shanti's cloth.

  “Someone you love very much has a deep appreciation of wine do they not?” Shanti said without a hint of a yawn.

  My lips pressed into a tight smile and nodded. I would not have thought to describe Anna’s drinking in that way, but I knew that she would like the description.

  “Perhaps you should keep a wineskin on your person. But, I’m getting ahead of myself, you will learn all of that soon enough when you get your phases," Precept Shanti said. She knelt down and looked underneath my table. "Your lady should have told you about us before the trial, but thank you for your help. . ."

  "Samsara." I answered for my familiar as I sat up and stretched the last of the afterglow out of me. Between the anger that my red brought and the sorrow of my blue, I would rather break walls and skin cats than ever feel what I had again.

  "She did not need to know that." Sam growled again.

  "Thank you for your help, Samsara," Precept Shanti said as she stood and looked at me "Is he always so volatile?"

  "All things considered, he is being quite pleasant." I answered her honestly. From the relief of my afterglow's end alone, I could not keep a smile off my face.

  Precept Shanti yawned. "I can't remember how long it has been since a familiar has roamed the halls of Lun, whatever your temperament, you are welcome, Samsara."

  The folds of blue fabric parted again, but unlike when my familiar had entered, someone appeared through the opening.

  "Have you finished? The maidens are growing restless." Precept Bellum said, the lantern light shining on her silver hair.

  "Maiden Ire, are you yourself again?" Shanti asked me in response.

  "I am." I nodded, knowing that I was as much as I could be in front of the precepts. In the dishonest way I was Maiden Ire, it was not untrue.

  "Give them their coats and let us be off. There is still much to do when we return." Precept Bellum said and left the fabric walled room.

  The next moment, the shape of the sleeping person burst from the blankets that they laid under and sent them spiraling into the air.

  In the brief time before they fell back down on top of her, Reese stared up at me with obvious anger in her eyes.

  "Is it over? That took so long! Being blue is awful. All I had to do was take a nap!" She shouted as she fought the blankets back off of herself. Freed of her woolen restraints, she brought herself to her feet and marched past Precept Shanti.

  "You seem to be feeling better." Shanti said as she turned away from me and reached into a large crate at the edge of the quilted floor.

  "First, we are going to argue about you not telling me you had a familiar." Reese said as she jabbed me in the middle of my chest with her pointer finger.

  "I'm-" I tried to apologize.

  "Second," She cut me off and threw her arms around me in a tight embrace. "I told you that you would pass. I knew it from the first time I saw you."

  I cried again as I hugged her back.

  They were not sad tears and they were all my own.

  What is your name?

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