I had never put much thought into what my first kiss would be like.

Being bound and restricted to the point that what you want most in the world is to be able to go to the bathroom without supervision doesn't leave a lot of room for romantic daydreams.

If I had thought about it, what I wanted it to be like and who I wanted it to be with, I'm certain that I would not have wanted it to be directly after a dark and murderous entity had broken my understanding of what was possible and followed me through The Well. Certainly, it also wouldn't be with my first friend and charmed with my aura to try and save her mind from breaking.

Both of those things were true however, and though I had feelings for Anna, I didn't know if they were those feelings. So, I decided it didn't count. The kiss was exactly what it was and nothing more, a desperate attempt to help my friend.

I pulled my lips from hers. The shoulders of her flannel shirt were soaked from the bath water that had dripped from my hair and remnants of my aura glimmered on her lips.

"What did you just do to me?" She asked, her wide eyed gaze relaxing some. She blinked several times in a flutter and gave her body a little shake, like a chill had come over her. "Did you drug me?"

I had, in a way. "I charmed you, which isn't all that different. Are you okay?"

"No." She answered and left the bathroom.

"Wait," I called, following her out. The door to my room was open and Anna stood just outside of it. My legs were weaker than I was prepared for them to be and I had to catch myself on the doorframe with my hands. "Where are you going?"

"I don't know. It looks like I'm leaving?" She phrased it as a question.

"No. You can't!" I said a little bit too quickly and a little bit too harshly. I had abandoned making every decision based on if it protected my fragile freedom weeks ago. I didn't want to leave. That had been true for longer than I had been able to admit it to myself.

"Why can't I?" She asked, standing entirely too close to the stairs for my panic to subside.

Because you are dangerous. I thought. She was dangerous to me. More so than the four eyed familiar in the woods. I wore a disguise, if the familiar's master had been around, I had given no sign or indication of who or what I was and since I hadn't had someone from Zenithcidel arrive to capture me and there was no sign of a power mad Sorcerer from the spire, my glamor was doing exactly what I needed it to. It still worked on Anna, because she didn't know what I actually looked like, But she had seen me yet again. Naked, as I was the first time I met her, but this time she had seen a glimpse of what I was under the skin. The lich had stared at her in her face and beckoned her. I had manifested my aura through a channel I didn't know I had. And to wrap it all up and put a neat bow on it all, I had charmed her with my power. Even if she didn't understand them, Anna knew enough about me that I saw no way I could let her walk away.

Speaking in a way that was proving harder and harder for me to resist when it came to her, I was honest. "Because you are dangerous and I need to talk to you. You told me I could and that you would listen."

I hoped she remembered that.

"I'm dangerous? You look like you could kill me right now." She blurted, moving to come back in my room despite her words.

I let her pass and we both risked a glance back into the bathroom. If I hadn't felt its presence and looked upon its terrible face only minutes prior, I wouldn't have been able to say it was ever there. The light on Sam’s post had returned but he still sat as still as stone. For the first time, I wished within my heart that I could talk to my familiar but I couldn't divert my attention from Anna.

One problem at a time, Autumn. I thought to myself.

Anna walked over to my bed and sat down on it. Her back was straight as a board and her arms were held entirely too tight to her body. Any trace of her usual half-interested and relaxed mannerisms I had come to expect from her had been forced into a rigid mask. She was holding it together, but if I wasn't careful, her grip would slip.

What was my plan? Was I going to continually charm her until she had forgotten the events of the last ten minutes? I didn't even know if that was possible. Though, with enough aura and the right memories, I didn't see why it couldn't be done. I had charmed Miss Lao twice, once to get the room and once to pay the rent. I didn't enjoy doing it, but it had been necessary. I had charmed Anna for her own safety, no, for her own sanity. It had been necessary. If she broke, would I do it again?

"Are you okay?" I asked, not knowing what else to say. I closed my door and locked it.

"Can you, uhm, not be naked right now? It's hard enough to think as it is." She said, looking at me directly in my eyes and my eyes only.

The memory of an undead entity murdering two sorceresses in cold blood fresh in my mind or not, I blushed.

"I'm sorry. I don't mean for this to keep happening," I said, covering myself with my hands and rushing over to where my clothes lay on the floor. I turned my back to Anna and put them on in a hurry. Then, I sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of where she sat. "How do you feel?"

"I don't know. What was that?" She asked, almost every inch of her still holding every other inch of her in a death grip. It seemed like she thought she would crumble into pieces of herself if she let go.

"What was what?" I asked.

"The thing that was coming through the fucking ceiling? The thing that you blasted away somehow? The thing that forced me to walk towards it?" She blurted.

"Right," I said, considering charming her again. I could get to her before she had a chance to make things difficult. "It was a lich."

"Oh, of course! How could I not have known that? Everybody knows what a Lich is,” She snapped, eyes wide. “What the fuck is a Lich, Dani?"

I flinched at her words, if she didn't calm down, I would have to charm her again. Anna being sound of mind was more important than the guilt I would feel after manipulating her. During my first days with The Well within me, I had found myself in states not dissimilar from the one Anna was in. The difference was, I had my mother to rely on.

All my friend had was me. I tried to imitate the soft spoken tone my mother had taken with me when I had been on the edge. "I don't know, exactly. But I drove it away and you are safe now."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"I don't, I can't." She said, a furious scowl forming on her face. She began to rock back and forth on the bed, clutching herself.

Do something, Do something. I thought, trying very hard to not allow my own panic to show. I looked to the bathroom, maybe Sam could help? The little blue kitten still sat, motionless, atop the light fixture. Beyond the usual list of things I normally thought were not right with him, something was wrong.

I was on my own. Sam’s purpose was to assist me. Although he couldn’t, maybe I could use one of the most annoying things about him to my advantage.

Without meaning to, I dropped my voice to the lowest pitch in my register. "What is your name?"

Surprisingly, she answered. "Anna Lao."

"Who is Anna Lao?" I continued in my best impression of Sam. My friend's eyes had focused back on mine.

"I am." She stopped rocking and I thought I saw her body unclench just a bit.

Good enough.

"What were you doing?" I asked the final question.

"I was down stairs, in my room, and I heard you scream. After the other night, I didn't know if you had passed out again or what had happened. I was worried about you," She sighed and her arms relaxed from her middle. "So I came up here and then I saw. . ." She trailed off.

I stood and sat on the bed beside her, taking her hand in mine like she had for me. "Don't worry about that right now, it's gone and if it comes back, I can protect you."

I didn't know if that was true, but I wanted it to be bad enough that it didn't feel like a lie when I said it.

"How? None of this makes sense. People can't just shoot light out of their hands. That doesn't fucking happen."

Tell her. Tell her everything. The thought came and went from my mind faster than I could recognize it.

I thought about how easy it would be to pull her into my arms and try and charm her memory away, to make her think she had come up here to see Sam and nothing strange or terrifying had happened. I could do it, the more I thought about what it would take, the more my confidence grew.

Instead, I crossed a threshold that I was certain would lead to my downfall.

I told her the truth. Struggling to find the words, I started. “I’m not from here. Where I come from, the people like me, there is more to me.”

"I've noticed," She said, standing up. She started pacing around the room. "Are you magic? Like, can you teleport and shoot fire out of your hands and shit?"

I couldn't help the small smile that flashed across my face. "For lack of a better term, yes, but I can't teleport. I wish I could. And I can't harness fire but I've heard of people who can."

"I need a minute," Anna said, continuing to pace. She had settled into a path that took her from the door, to the window and then back again. My eyes followed her through every repetition. When she spoke again, her words were quiet and softly pointed to herself. "Magic is real. She can do magic, that's not so bad, right? You thought she was a runaway or a bank robber or at worse some deranged serial killer. She could have been a thousand things worse than that. You can handle her being magic."

I didn't think the way Anna was thinking about it all was doing her any good. "I can explain further if it is helpful."

I'm a fucking mess. I thought, realizing some of my fear and panic had been replaced with excitement. It felt good to confide in her the little I had and all things considered, she didn't seem to be taking it all that badly.

Not a second later, she stopped her pacing and a wild laugh bubbled out from her.

I may have spoken too soon.

"Are you okay?" I offered the question gently.

Anna looked at me, the scowl still scrunching her face into something that almost looked like anger. "Not yet, but I'm starting to be," She said. "I'm going to need to take this slow, its a lot to fucking handle."

"Yes, I can imagine." I agreed, and that was true. I could imagine. I often found myself in the possession of knowledge that was far beyond my understanding and though I had a better baseline, it still confused and hurt my head if I wasn't careful.

“How can I learn to do it?" She asked, her eyes deadly serious.

She could not be my student and I could not be her teacher. Even if aura and the control of it could be taught to anyone, and I was nearly certain it couldn't, I barely knew enough to be considered a Maiden myself.

Hating that I couldn't fulfill the expectation that undoubtedly came with her excitement, I answered. "I don't think you can."

"So you're saying there's a chance." She said with a nod. Her face had settled into what was nearly her normal relaxed expression. "Can you show me? Make me float off the ground, something like that?"

I, in fact, could not do that. Not yet, at least.

The Mother’s seal was very much still laid over my navel and was very much still blocking my channel. She had felt the effects of my charm but even if she hadn’t, that wasn't what she was asking to see. I could show her a glamor. Turn my hair pink or make it appear like I had a second hand coming off each wrist, but then she would know I could change my appearance, which for some strange reason that made me feel a little bit too vulnerable. I wouldn't do that.

Somehow, I had channeled through my palm. Could I do it again? I sighed, collecting myself. “I can try.”

“You don’t have to, if you need to recharge or something.” Anna responded quickly, but I had already begun focusing my aura.

“Recharge?”

“Like a battery.”

"What is a battery?" I asked.

"The little round things you put in watches and flashlights? It gives them power, makes them work."

"You would be surprised how fitting that comparison is." I took my eyes off her.

My aura did not come easy but once I had a hold on it, it bloomed within me and hammered against the unbreakable seal. I had little experience in channeling through my palm, but I had the memories of those that had. I remembered how it had felt for Trea to lift her stone and pushed my aura through my right arm.

A burst of my energy shot out of my hand and into the ceiling.

“Oh shit!” Anna shouted.

Dust rained down from the ceiling and I heard the pieces I had blown away clatter and rattle within the hole my power had punched through it.

I severed the connection to my aura immediately and the loss sent me falling back onto the bed with a wave of dizziness. "I didn't mean to do that."

"Alright, my turn now, are you okay?" Anna asked. I heard her walk over to the bed.

"Just tired, I am not accustomed to doing that," I answered, closing my eyes to stop the room from spinning. “It is new to me.”

"Do you always pass out after you use it? Is that why I found you on the floor the other day," Anna asked. She pulled me up by my arms. I let her. She took my right hand in hers and looked at it closely, tracing the lines in my palm with her finger.

"What are you doing?" I asked, enjoying the sensation of her touch.

"Looking for where it came out. There has to be a hole."

I don't know if it was the weariness alone or the fact that she was so interested in what I could do, but it made me laugh. "It doesn't work like that."

"Then how does it work?" She said, releasing her grip on me and putting her hands on her hips.

“I wish I knew. I’m forbidden from learning.” I shrugged.

“Why and by who?” She jumped on my answer immediately.

I avoided the first part of her question and pulled up my sweatshirt, showing her my seal. “The Mothers.”

She picked up on my hesitation. "Dani, I guess you haven't noticed, but all I've got is time. And as long as nothing else that belongs in a horror novel decides to reveal itself to me today, I can take it. I want to know."

As if he had been waiting for the absolute worst moment possible, Sam padded into the room and sat down. He turned his glowing yellow eyes up to my very mortal friend and spoke in his perfectly unsettling baritone. "Yet again you have manipulated my master into giving you her trust, mortal," He spat the word mortal like it left a bad taste in his mouth. "Do not give me a reason to mark you as my enemy."

Anna's jaw dropped and she whispered. "No. Fucking. Way."