Eames took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. "Peace or violence? What will it be Dearie? Either come with me to the Spire freely or I will drag you there. Either way, you can rest easy that you will be safer. Despite the amoral nature of it, I have overhead you refer to where you've come from as a prison. Come with me and you will be free to learn and do whatever you desire. We can teach you all of the things that you have been cruelly deprived of. You will find no bars and no guards within the Spire."

I didn't answer, feeling that his beguiling words were being offered because of what I possessed and not because of any actual kindness to me.

Arthur approached the tense group I found myself in, but the Sorcerer and Anna did not turn their eyes from me.

"I put him back together but he still isn't moving," Arthur said, passing the rigid bones of Sam into my arms. "I'm sorry."

I started to tell Arthur that it was okay, but a pressure I had never experienced pushed against my mind and left me momentarily mute.

There is another. Sam's voice sounded in my mind.

"I can heal your familiar. Honestly, I didn't think I could hate sorceresses any more than I did. The fact that they have left you wandering about unprotected and in possession of what you have, I have been proven wrong." The sorcerer sighed.

He never saw the second creature drop out of the sky just behind him and crashed into the ground.

"Run!" I screamed, pushing the siblings back towards the boarding house and passing Sam back to Arthur.

As soon as we had turned, I saw Eames and Auden being thrown through the wall of the second story of the boarding house. They crashed through the siding and disappeared in a clatter of splintering wood and breaking walls.

I let my friends gain some distance between us and I spun on my heels, coming face to face with the featureless creature. I knew at that moment that the horror I was staring down had been what had torn my familiar apart in the woods earlier in the night. My eyes immediately locked onto the stitches that ringed the creature's neck.

I had unmade one of them already, how difficult would a second be?

The creature pulled its flesh mask up immediately like the first one had and I had to throw myself to the ground in a roll to avoid being enveloped by the black breath that spewed from it.

Just as I slid back to my feet, the cold flesh of one of the creature's massive hands closed around my broken arm and I was lifted off the ground.

It would put me in its arm cage and finger its way away with me. Sam was down, the sorcerer and his familiar had been thrown out of the fight, I had lost.

At least when it left with me my friends would be safe.

Call for the mothers. The thought came and went from my mind faster than I could recognize I had had it.

The creature did not embrace me in its fleshy cage. It threw me towards the woods it had appeared from and I crashed into the ground, hard.

The pitiful trace of aura I had left softened my fall just a bit, and I looked up to see the creature turn its back to me and began fingering its way towards the boarding house.

It had thrown me away because it wasn't after me.

Ms. Lao and Anna screamed. The mother and daughter pressed themselves against their home and clutched each other, their eyes wide with fear.

I remembered the lich turning its lifeless face towards my friend and could hear what it had said to her. Ahhh, It had sighed, almost pleasurably. Come.

The lich had not sent the second creature for me.

It had sent it for Anna.

"Ahhh!" I shouted, trying to tell them to get away but in my panic I was unable to shape my command into words.

The creature was too fast, I couldn't get to it before it got to her.

Ms. Lao and Arthur would be nothing but in the way.

They would be nothing but bodies.

Almost without thinking, I pushed whatever small amount of my aura I had left out of my hand with a wild scream and the last of my power streaked through the night air and collided with the creature.

It broke apart in a flash of shimmering light against the creature's back with no effect.

New pain, clawing and tearing all the way from my hand up through my shoulder nearly sent me falling to the ground.

One of the uncountable holes the creature's fingers had left did. My foot slipped into it and I tripped, crashing to the ground face first.

"Arthur! No!" I heard Ms. Lao shout. Her voice, full of the authority and weight I had come to know, was frayed at the edges. High pitched and quavering, the fearful pitch sounded odd coming from the woman.

I looked up just in time to see Arthur stand and plant his feet in front of his family. Unable to do anything but watch, the undeniable truth of what was happening pressed against me. My friend's mother and sister were in mortal danger, what choice did he have?

Son. Brother. Friend.

Arthur Lao, still in his ghost hunting overalls and canvas jacket, stared into the eyeless face of the oncoming horror and did not blink. Gone was his usual friendly grin, replaced by a hard set jaw and determined eyes.

He had told me his father had been a warrior.

Regardless of the fact that Arthur had never known the man, my friend had decided to follow in Mr. Lao's footsteps.

Just before the creature collided with my friend, a terrible sound that I had not heard in a long enough amount of time that I had forgotten it echoed within my mind.

Thunk.

"No. No. No. No." I muttered, pushing the heels of my palms against my and pressing into my head. I couldn't, not then.

The creature reached Arthur and the tall man shoved his hands against its middle and dug his feet into the ground.

Thunk.

"I don't want to go!" I yelled, grinding my teeth. I took the thumb of my left hand and pushed it directly into the place on my right hand that hurt the most. Flashes of white light blinded me for seconds at a time and I was nearly sick.

The creature raised one of its massive hands and brought it down towards Arthur.

Thunk.

Everything that I had come to care about faded from my sight and I felt my mind be swallowed by The Well.

When Precept Cannenta had found me in the variegated fields of the Shattering Grounds long after the Dyeing had concluded and brought me to her study, I'd had so many nicks and cuts along my legs and arms that she had healed me outright instead of wrapping my wounds. I knew she was breaking the rules when she did it, but the relief I had felt quelled any thoughts about the right or wrong of her actions. When she had left her study and returned with a tray of buttered bread that was still warm from the oven and cups of warm milk for us both, the strangeness of her kindness struck me.

I had not awakened the color of my soul. The Dyeing had ended. Other than gathering my things from the chest at the foot of the bed in the temporary room I had been assigned, I was out. No coven and no patron, the same way I would remain until I could work another ten years to afford to attempt again and that was only if the academy opened its doors for applicants again. Precept Cannenta bore no obligation to me any longer and I didn't understand why she wasn't at the festivities with everyone else that taught at, had been accepted, or worked at the academy.

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When she began asking questions about what all twenty years of my life before I had hung my cloth for The Dyeing had been like, it felt even stranger. Despite my reservations, her soft spoken assurance and the kindness in her eyes had convinced me to answer her questions.

When she had revealed to me, just like me, that she had been born outside of Zenithcidel and came to the place of The Mothers after her fifty-second year of life, I was surprised. Had any of the other maidens, the same ones that had tormented me since the moment I entered the academy grounds for my own origin, known about Cannenta? When Lillian Loral had tried to drown herself in the eastern garden fountain after she had found her color, did she know that the woman that had pulled the water from her lungs and breathed new life into her was motherless?

Precept Cannenta had asked me to stop calling her Precept. She had said that the amount of time we had spent together in the Infirmary, which was considerable due to the way I had attacked the Dyeing, had left her feeling close to me and that it felt right that I call her by her name alone.

I agreed, but found the strangeness of it all too relevant to ignore. So, I asked her why. Why had she come and found me after I had failed? Why had she healed me outright with her power and given me food and drink? Why had she inquired about me and offered details about herself in exchange. I had been gone, I had been the act of physically leaving the academy grounds away from being the least popular hostess at Madame's again.

Cannenta had told me that I possessed tremendous potential.

I had heard the same from every Precept I had encountered during the Dyeing, but I had found that potential was useless if you couldn't harness it.

Cannenta had told me that I reminded her of herself. That I would have to work and learn how to assist her in the infirmary, but she couldn't stand the thought of me not being at the academy.

I hadn't understood and it took her several attempts at explaining to me before I could allow myself to believe her words.

Cannenta was going to be my patron in exchange for helping her in her duties. She had told me that I would be free the majority of days to study, learn, and practice my skills with the vast resources the academy offered. She had said that when they reopened the gates and began another Dyeing, that I would be first priority when it came to admissions.

Again, It had taken several repetitions for me to accept that she wasn't helping Lillian Loral pull one last cruel trick on me.

When it had sunk in, I'd leapt from my seat and thrown my arms around Cannenta. I'd kissed her on her plump cheek and given her an endless stream of thanks until she had begged me to stop through a belly laugh.

I'd had no choice, she had given me the only good news I had ever gotten out of nothing but the kindness of her own heart.

Then, she had asked me if I wanted to attend the celebration that had still been filling the halls of the academy with a festive hum. She had told me that while I hadn't been able to participate in the First Naming, I was technically part of the staff after accepting her offer and there was nothing to keep me from participating.

I had been shocked, but had been unable to hide the desire in my eyes. Cannenta, with nothing but a faint sienna glow appearing from her navel, had fitted me with a dress and shoes in the small amount of time it had taken her to make a joke about disappearing at midnight.

When I could hear her returning from her quarters, she had left to change into her own non-illusory dress, I had caught sight of myself in an ornate mirror. Cannenta had not just changed my clothes. My long black hair had looked as if it had been washed and brushed, falling past my shoulders in a sleek curtain. My skin and the mottled spread of bruises and cuts that had adorned it had been healed and I had been left looking clean and well rested.

Cannenta had taken me in and changed me into something that I had found pleasure in looking at. I had no longer been Madam's Trea or the motherless wretch. Cannenta had made me see myself as Trea.

I had known then that I would die for the woman. All she would have had to do was ask.

When Cannenta had taken the stairs to join the rest of the precepts and staff in the upper balconies of the ball room, she had turned me away. With a smile and a wink, she had told me that I should go and dance, that I should go enjoy myself because I had earned it. She had told me that cadets from all of the different disciplines that comprised the Armory Enclave had attended and I was sure to find a strapping young soldier to show me a good time. Despite my desire to attach myself at the hip to my patron, I listened and entered the dance hall feeling nervous.

Just like Cannenta had said, I had not taken more than a couple of steps into the dance before a particularly large man, a Hezbelth if his size and stature were anything to go by, had offered me his hand and had spun me onto the floor. To a rhythm I had not known, there had not been much time in my life for me to attend balls and dances, the Hezbelth lifted me onto his boots and carried the weight of our dance on his own. That had left me with nothing to do but smile and enjoy how it felt to have fortune fall in my favor for the first time.

I should have known it would all crash down on me.

The song had ended and my partner had placed me gently on the ground and bowed. Surrounded by dozens of others that felt the spirit of the evening the way I had begun to, someone had spoken to me.

"How did you sneak in here?" Lillian Loral sneered at me. Matching the color she had found her soul to be, she wore an icy blue dress that was adorned with white pearls and lace. Her blonde hair had been done up in braids and curls and by all means she was the prettiest Maiden at the ball. Except, she was no longer a Maiden. She was Underwitch Loral then, all of the Maiden's I had hung my cloth beside had gained new titles.

I was the only Maiden left in the whole of the academy.

"I didn't sneak. I was allowed to attend." I said, hating how quickly I had lost the lightness that I had felt only moments before. With the lack of music, I felt the eyes of everyone on the dance floor settle on to me. I wished desperately for the power to turn myself invisible.

"By whom? Who could have possibly thought that someone like you should be allowed to attend when you have no color. Why would someone like you deserve to celebrate with us?" Underwitch Loral bore into me.

No one spoke up. Not the other Underwitch's, not the Precepts I assumed were watching from the balcony, not even the Hezbelth that moments before had been spinning me around like we were in love.

I couldn't blame any of them, I didn't either. I answered the question in nearly a whisper. "Precept Cannenta."

"Liar," Underwitch loral laughed. "As if any one of the Precepts would waste a moment of their time on a motherless outcast like you. Tell me why, tell me why you, in that glorified rag, were allowed to come here."

New dress and the promise of a more certain future aside, I had been at the cutting edge of Underwitch Loral's sharp tongue for months and that moment was no different. I answered, but knew I should have stayed silent as soon as I finished speaking. "She likes me, she is like me. Motherless."

Underwitch Loral did not rebuke my answer or accuse me of lying again. Instead, her face tightened into a look of disgust. "That explains it. One outcast trying to help another haunt a place they don't belong. I knew she had a stink about her, I just thought it was because of her size."

Perhaps it was the wild swing between the high I had entered the dance hall in and the low I had been reduced to by the woman standing before me, I didn't know, but when I heard her insult Cannenta, I snapped.

The entire ball room was cast into a carmine tint. I saw red, literally. Before I knew what I was doing, I had stepped to Underwitch Loral and drove my fist, cloaked in red aura, straight up into the chin of the woman that had suddenly discovered there was an end to the amount of verbal punishment I would take.

She flew up and crashed through the banister of the balcony.

Without knowing how I was doing what I was doing, I launched myself after her, coming down on the balcony a step before where she laid amongst the wreckage. The carmine tint had left the room, but my fist was still covered in a swirling mass of what I understood to be my aura.

I had awakened the color of my soul. Regardless of if I had been announced as such, what better first act as Underwitch Trea was there than to knock the teeth out of the woman that had insulted the only person that had ever been kind to me.

I dropped to a knee over Lillian Loral and drew my fist back. I growled, wanting nothing more than to leave a bloody smear where her head was. "Three months from now, when they unwire your jaw, I hope you've spent the time you won't be able to open your mouth thinking about how you are going to apologize."

Cannenta's sweet voice broke the stunned silence of the crowd. "Maiden Trea! You are not yourself! Cease your actions!"

I hesitated, looking up to see my patron standing over me. "She deserves it. She insulted you."

"I appreciate your loyalty, but this is not the way to proceed. Take my hand and I will help you calm down." She offered her hand to me.

I don't know if I took it or not. In the moment between her offer and what I chose to do, Cannenta, Lillian Loral, the ball room, it all fell away as I felt my mind drop away and sink into complete darkness.

Emptiness, complete senselessness.

Then, a sound came.

It was not a scream or cry, but rather sounded like a sudden and violent exhale.

My sight came next. I wish it hadn't.

The creature, Anna held within the cage of arms that made its torso, had lifted one of its massive hands.

Black nail glinting in the light coming from the boarding house, Arthur was speared atop the longest finger of the creature's hand. It had run its finger through his back and out of his stomach. His arms and legs hung limp. His blood ran down the finger in stark contrast to the pale flesh of the creature.

With no warning, the creature snapped its hand down and slung Arthur's body to the ground, lifeless.

Arthur is dead. I realized, and it felt different than when I had thought the same about Sam. Sam was a familiar, he was made of stronger stuff. My friend hadn't been.

The creature unfurled all of the fingers of its massive hands and fucking flew, every down stroke of its hands, it ascended higher and higher.

It had killed my friend and was taking off with my other.

I only had the two.

From where I lay on the ground, I saw the sky go red and suddenly felt like I could move again.

"Autumn!" I heard Anna scream for her cage of flesh.

I stood up and saw the red tint from my eyes condense out of my vision and an unusual twinge pained my belly button. I looked down and raised my shirt. The Seal of the Nine Mother's had sprung a leak. A thin tendril of my aura, no longer colorless but a dark swirling red, leaked out of the seal.

I couldn't let it take her.

I wouldn't let it take her.

With my left hand, I grabbed the tendril and pulled. Drawing my aura out with nothing but my will and snapping it out to my side like a whip, I went to save my friend.