If I was not who I was, I would have told him no.

  If I had not done the things I had done or did not possess the thing that I did, I could have carried on with Reese.

  Instead, because of something I had no memory of, I was being summoned by The Circle of The Nine Mothers. They would take the impossible thing that I had done as defiance and disrespect. I had been sent to the frigid halls of Lun Arcanicil to fail. The Mother's hadn't known I was too dumb to do that properly.

  If their previous summons were anything for me to base my expectations on, they would punish me for having the arrogance to succeed. If they did not, it would only be because of Rhiannon and Glim, the two Mothers that I was sure were on my side.

  Even though I had done nothing that morning but trudge through the snowy forest, all I wanted to do was leave the courtyard and return to it.

  When I made my way to the little wooden shack outside of Lun's walls, Anna would meet me at the door and yell at me to take my boots off. She would want to know everything that had happened, but I would not tell her. From my place in front of the stove, I would ask her all about her trip to Hymneth. What the library was like, which books she got, how she had fared on her wintery walk, I would listen to it all. She would feed me and inspect me for injury first, but eventually, she would return to questions about the trial. I would feign some great desire to not discuss it yet and suggest that we turn to my training until I was ready. She would pull out her ever growing stack of notes and papers and we would begin. When it was time to make my cord, I would harness the new cold of my soul and manifest my bright blue power without a word.

  The shocked look that I knew she would make would bring me no end of laughter. The afterglow that came after would, but I was not worried. If the smell of wine and my own fingers in my hair were enough, the true versions of those pale imitations would drive the sorrow away effortlessly.

  As much as my heart ached to turn on my heels and make a mad dash back through the black iron gates, I could not.

  I had been summoned.

  How dare I live my life.

  Alexei led me through a door on the great hall to the right of the courtyard that the big blue tents on the morning of the priming had concealed.

  Warm air met me as soon as I stepped inside, but I felt no relief. I was not ready to be warm and I did not want to be warmed by the fireless heat. I wanted to see split wood burn to coals inside the black stove of my quarters, preferably with a hot chocolate in my hands and Anna by my side.

  My first steps inside Lun were straight into darkness. Through yet another door and then a third, Alexei brought me into a dark storeroom so quickly that I had not had a chance to see anything else inside the hall. All I could see was the sway of his long white hair and the shape of his swords.

  "Speak of this to no one." He said as he pulled a sheet of dusty fabric off the back wall and revealed a wood framed painting. An ornate fountain stood in the middle of the large canvas, but I could make out little else in the darkness. My guard ran his hand along the right edge of the frame and then swung it out from the wall on hidden hinges.

  An opening lay behind the painting, an open passageway in the greyscale stone. Shorter and even narrower than Radomir's pass had been, I found myself wishing for the pale blue light of the tunnel's crystals to light my way.

  Alexei stepped to the side and gestured for me to enter the lightless hole in the wall. "This way."

  I made no effort to move. "It's dark."

  "Yes." Alexei said simply, the white iris of his right eye all I could see of his face.

  "I don't want to be in the dark." I told him honestly.

  "Make a werelight." He answered.

  "I don't know how." I admitted.

  "Take hold of my belt. I will lead you." He said.

  "Is there not another way?" I asked.

  "No." He said simply.

  "I could go home? I'll go straight there and then you could tell me what The Mothers want with me later?" I said, pouting my lips and trying to look as pitiful as I could.

  "No," He said, unaffected. "This way."

  I missed the guards in Erosette. They would not have agreed to my ridiculous proposition either, but at least Woolie would have laughed.

  Once we were inside and the painting had been closed behind me, Alexei was all that kept me from becoming lost. The dark space was cold. It smelled of stagnant air and dust. Where I only had to lower my head to keep it from dragging across the ceiling above, he had to crouch fully and practically crawl. He led me through so many turns and up so many sets of steep stairs that I could not have retraced our steps if my life depended on it. Without my fingers closed around the rough rope of his sword belt, the only thing I would have done was get turned around and starve to death.

  "Why is this place so small?" I asked, my neck beginning to ache from my stooping.

  "The sorceress who made them was small herself." Alexei answered as we climbed yet another flight of unseen stairs.

  Before I could question him further, Stone muffled voices echoed through the wall that brushed against my right shoulder. At first only shapeless sounds that were much too quiet for my mind to make sense of, they formed into words as we climbed closer.

  "-Lie."

  "They wouldn't."

  "-within the temple."

  Alexei pulled me to the left at the top of the stairs and the scattered words knit together into understandable speech.

  "-Know why you wanted to do this here-"

  Nami. I thought, recognizing the sound of The Mother in Blue's voice.

  She continued. "-Gone-It's been three years, have I not proven myself to you enough?"

  "When you have known someone for as long as I knew her, you will understand how short a time that truly is. I miss her. You must understand this."

  Azza. The Mother in Brown's voice was so close, it felt like she was standing right next to me.

  Three years since what? Who wanted to do what where? What did Nami have to prove? Who did Azza miss? Dark and decrepit as the passage was, I had heard more things of interest in a handful of moments than I had in all of my life that I could remember. There was no end to what I would hear them say as long as I stayed hidden within the lightless stones.

  Alexei knocked his knuckles against the wall six times in quick succession and all became quiet beyond the stone.

  There was no reason why I would be inside the walls with Driskt or Daphne, but if there were, they would not have given me away like my one eyed guard just had.

  Without warning, light flooded into the cramped space and blinded me. I shut my eyes against the sudden brightness as Alexei pulled me on towards it. Letting go of his belt when I felt him stand fully, I stepped into wherever we had arrived and promptly tripped.

  The tip of my boot caught something on the floor and I tipped forward before my eyes could adjust to the light.

  I did not hit the ground. My woolen coat and dress pulled tight against my front as something clutched the back of them and stopped my fall dead.

  Alexei pulled me upright as if I weighed no more than a feather and only released his hold on my clothes when I had regained my balance.

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  We had come through an opening behind a painting that looked identical to the one we had entered. Same frame, same fountain, same hidden hinges, he gently pushed it closed and smoothed the white furred rug I had tripped over with his boot.

  He was not like the guards at the manor, but it was hard to dislike someone that kept my face from bouncing off the floor.

  "Thank you, Alexei." Nami said from behind me.

  "Headmistress. Mothers," Alexei nodded in turn as he stepped past me. "I will be in the hall."

  I turned around to watch him leave, but froze when I saw The Mother in Grey looking back at me.

  The flickering light of the fireplace she sat next to danced in her haunting silver eyes. Her perfectly straight hair hung down past her shoulders in an ashen meld of blacks, whites and every shade in between. She held her long gray robes tight against herself and seemed to be cold despite her closeness to the flame.

  Being able to look at her face to face instead of only seeing her from below gave me a much better understanding of how striking she was. When our eyes met, she turned away from me and jostled the burning logs in the hearth with the black iron poker she held in her hands.

  Mother Ali leaned against the wall by the door on the opposite side of the room. Her arms were crossed and her eyes were closed. Other than the clean white bandages that barely managed to cover all the things they needed too, she wore nothing. The dark purple coat that had hung over her shoulders in the colosseum was nowhere to be found, but an unlit burner was tucked amongst the lavender curls above her ear.

  "Underwitch Aubrey." Nami said, somehow still behind me.

  The Mother in Blue sat behind a wide wooden desk that was piled high with all manner of papers and books. She looked as she always did in her thin dress, but she was still wearing the gloves that Precept Seram had given me during the priming.

  "Mother Nami." I said, choosing to break my second promise to Rhiannon just so Azza would hear me say one of her sister's names.

  Engaging in open defiance of Azza was absolutely necessary. I was sure Rhiannon would understand.

  The Mother in Brown lay on her side atop a plush looking bench. There was no smell of spices or sun warmed stone. She did not so much as twitch when I said Nami's name aloud. Her back was to me and even with her legs curled to her chest, the bench was much to short for her length. Her short black hair hung off of its end and her sandals lay empty underneath it.

  She looked wrong.

  The idea of Azza laying down at all did not feel right in my mind. Her golden eyes were meant for staring at someone ominously, not for being closed. Her body was meant for looming and imposing, not rest and relaxation. I had never been in her presence without feeling her distaste grind against me.

  No Rhiannon, no Glimmer, no Gwyn, no Orange, no White. I'm not even worth the full circle anymore.

  A painting hung above her and I knew I had seen its kind before my eyes ever found its painter's signature in the bottom right corner.

  M.D.G. I read in my mind. The painting of the three women I had found in the basement of the manor came back to me before giving way to the memory of Rubra and Rhiannon's.

  Three boys, each with hair as white as snow, stood in a line wearing formal looking clothes. The one on the left was the tallest and had the shortest hair. He was very much a little boy, but his blue eyes were much too cold and emotionless. There was a rigidness to his posture that gave him the look of a soldier standing at attention.

  The boy on the right could not have been more different. His jaw length hair was tied back with a small blue ribbon. His little shoulders were slumped and the tips of his shiny black boots pointed inward. His eyes were turned upward and had just enough redness to them that it gave the impression that he had been crying.

  The boy in the middle was barely more than a baby. If it had not been for the other two holding his hands, I doubted that he would have been able to stand at all. His toothy grin that was so wide it closed one of his eyes told me that he had been laughing. The eye that was open was bright yellow and glimmering with obvious joy.

  A fierce looking woman stood behind the three of them. Her hair and eyes were faintly blue, the same icy shade as the precepts cloaks. The gaze she had been painted with had the same hypnotic effect that Azza's did despite their difference in color. An elegant blue gown that shone like silk draped down from her and a shawl of white fur hung around her neck. A single earring hung off her right ear. I recognized it as a small silver crescent moon immediately because two of its kind were still clutched in my right hand.

  The iron gates of Lun Arcanicil stood tall behind them and I realized who the woman was before my eyes ever made it down to the silver name plate.

  Katarina. I thought to myself. I had seen her before through Rhiannon's eyes.

  Mother Katarina and her sons. Alexei, Jaka, and Radomir. The engraved silver read.

  I had held the youngest boy in my arms when I had been within her memories.

  My head snapped from the painting and searched the Mother filled room for my white haired guard, but he had long since left.

  Alexei is Katarina's son. . .

  I looked down at Azza's still form and her muffled words repeated in my mind. I miss her. You must understand this.

  The way she was laying, the complete unazzaness of her behavior, it could have been no accident that she was facing M.D.G's painting.

  She missed Katarina.

  Gone. It's been three years. Nami had said. Have I not proven myself to you enough?

  I had become so used to things in my life never making sense. I was constantly kept in the dark and when I did discover something like the name of a Mother, I did not have the context necessary to make sense of it. I had become so used to being confused, that the quickness with which things were connecting in my mind made me dizzy.

  Something had happened to Katarina.

  Alexei was her son, and she was gone.

  "Underwitch Autumn? If you will." Nami said as she tapped me on my shoulder.

  I shook myself out of the rush of dizzy thoughts and tore my eyes away from the painting.

  All of The Mothers except for Azza had gathered around me. Ali stood with her arms crossed and a disinterested look in her lavender eyes. Grey had produced a notebook from somewhere within her robes and taken a seat on the fireplace. Nami stood closest to me and waited patiently for me to do whatever it was she had asked for.

  "This is unnecessary," Azza sighed from where she lay. "I saw it myself."

  "What is unnecessary?" I cleared my throat and asked.

  "We would like for you to show us your aura." Nami said as she stepped back from me to presumably give me room.

  Nervous heat rushed to my cheeks. "Uhm, right now?"

  "Right now." Mother Ali insisted.

  A memory of a memory came fading into the front of my mind. The sorceress that had been wrapped from head to toe in the white bandages that Mother Ali wore. A dusty drawing room that waves of lavender and honey aura had swept over. A kind faced older man that had remained all too calm considering the choices he had been given.

  My first promise to Rhiannon came spiraling up from my mind and I minded its thorns. I would be myself lest my pinky would be broken.

  "I will, but I want to know why I am here first." I said, my voice sounding entirely too high and shaky.

  The Mother in Grey spoke in an emotionless tone and gave me what I wanted to know.

  "If what we have heard is true-" She began.

  "It is." Azza interrupted.

  Seemingly unbothered by the interruption, Grey began again. "If what we have heard is true and you can channel both red and blue, then it is imperative that we understand your parentage. You have been summoned to demonstrate your ability while we wait for your lineage to be understood."

  I cleared my throat and made a passable imitation at speaking normally. "Why?"

  "Why must you provide a demonstration or why must we understand your parentage? Be specific in your speech, Underwitch Autumn." Grey said, looking at me without truly looking at me.

  "Why do you need to know about my parents?" I asked specifically. I didn't even know about my parents. My mother had lived a life before me, she had told me that herself. She had also told me little details about my father, but I didn't really know either of those things.

  Spring Tana's mother seemed to be known far and wide. Precept Shanti's father had given her coffee.

  My mother was my mother.

  My father was dead.

  Another secondhand memory, one of Rhiannon, Trea, and Captain Byron in the same drawing room as the first, flashed to life within me. Trea wanted to be a mother, she wanted to have a baby with the captain, but because of his blood, they had been forbidden.

  "We must be sure that your aura does not flow from both sides of your bloodline. That is the most common reason that someone would have a twinsoul." Grey continued after a moment of hesitation.

  "What if it does? Why is that bad?" Why is that forbidden? I continued my questioning in silence. The Mothers still thought that the barriers inside The Well kept me from accessing it fully. The last thing I needed to do was tell them otherwise.

  "Children born to a sorceress mother and a sorcerer father are. . ." Grey trailed off, her face pinched in what looked to be rigorous thought.

  "Monsters." Azza answered for her.

  "Unstable," Nami corrected Azza, her ocean eyes starring at me. "They are born with much greater power than a normal soul.

  "And not one of them ever stays sane." Mother Ali added, pulling the burner from above her ear and placing it between her lips.

  The sound of the door clicking open took my attention from what the mothers were saying. I looked to see if The Mother in Blue's son was coming back into the room.

  Fiery red hair, emerald eyes, and a face that look almost identical to my own, Idensyn Aubrey stepped into the room of Mothers looking as beautiful as she always did.

  I ran to her without realizing what I was doing, Maiden Ire running off my face and hair in dusty blue streams as I went.

  She caught me in her arms and spun me around once before planting a kiss on the top of my head. "Hello my little Delpha, I am happy to see you too."

  I hugged her and would until I got good and tired of doing it.

  The Mothers would have to wait for their demonstration.

  The time when I did not get what I wanted had passed.