The Mother in Red’s face twisted with pain after she spoke.

She bent over and braced her hands on her knees, taking short inhales and holding them for long amounts of time in between.

Even when she was in obvious agony, she still managed to be beautiful somehow. There was nothing I could do and there was nothing I could say. All I could was watch her suffer as her words repeated in my mind.

I’ve loved you since the day you were born. I’ve loved you since the day you were born. I’ve loved you since the day you were born.

End to end and back again they went, each repetition bringing me no closer to understanding what she had said.

I knew nothing of the day I was born. From what I did know, that was not because of The Well or anything else unique to my uncommon mind. Memories didn’t usually start until someone was several years old.

What was odd, was that I had never heard my mother mention the day of my birth in the slightest. As much as she loves stories, and as much as she loved me, would the day I was born not be one that was worthy of telling?

Especially if The Mother in Red had been there, it didn't make sense.

I’ve loved you since the day you were born. I’ve loved you since the day you were born. I’ve loved you since the day you were born.

The Autumn I liked, the ration Autumn, the one who didn’t let herself be swept away in panic and fear, spoke in response The Mother in Red’s words

Truth.

“Mother? Are you alright?” I asked her, trying to take on the comforting tone that Anna did with me when I was unwell.

“Rhiannon. Not Mother. Call me by my name,” She said with a wince. Standing and raising her arms above her head, she opened one of her eyes and looked down at me with a pained expression. “I am fine, it is beginning to pass.”

“You were not supposed to tell me that, were you?” I said, taken aback with her insistence for me to use her name when my previous experience with the Mothers had been the opposite.

Rhiannon let out a little laugh. “Just like your wicked and terrible time here, if my sisters should ask about it, I would prefer it if it stayed between us. But, no, I wasn’t.”

I would do as she asked, for myself and for her, but I still didn’t understand what was happening. “Why? You are a Mother. Why can’t you tell me what you want to?”

“I am a Mother, yes,” She nodded in agreement as she opened her other eyes and her face relaxed. “I am older than anyone you have ever met. I am powerful beyond anything you can imagine, but I am still a person. I make mistakes and I am influenced by my emotions just the same as anyone else. There must be safeguards against that. Did you ever learn of Trisolde and her chosen death?”

“No, Mother.” I answered, thinking of the folded sketch inside the book that Patience had shown me.

She took my hand and pulled me one step closer to the black gate. “Rhiannon. Not Mother. I did not tell you about this because it would cause you to worry. There is much I wish to say that I cannot because there are much worse things than worry. As much as I hate it, we must go now. The gatekeepers are returning.”

She turned her head to the side and I followed her gaze. Somewhere in the distance, echoing over the cliffside, there was a horrid sound growing nearer. Metallic and with an off kilter rhythm, I could hear footsteps that sounded like someone walking in chains.

“I’m scared.” I admitted in a perfectly honest whisper. I felt no shame or embarrassment in telling her that. Both the gatekeepers and what waited for me beyond the gate were worthy of being scared of.

“Keep your promise, be yourself, and this will end much better for you than that the last time. That is my vow to you.” Rhiannon said. The rose red of her eyes grew deeper as she spoke and her words rang in my ears like hammered bells.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes as I exhaled. When my lungs were empty and there was nothing else for me to do, I stepped forward and crossed the black gate to stand before The Circle of The Nine Mothers.

From the dark night and rocky cliffside outside of The Mother in Red’s mansion to a torch lit tunnel, everything around me changed in a single footstep.

The heat from the blazing torches flashed against my face. Trails of acrid black smoke spun up from where they hung on the wall and twisted into a cloud that hung above my head. The cracked stone walls and dusty dirt floor led to total darkness that my sight could not pierce.

Rhiannon appeared behind me a moment after I had crossed over and the black gate closed another moment after that.

“Where are we?” I asked. The last time I had been brought before The Mothers, it had been to dark room that was filled entirely with water that could be walked on.

“A very old colosseum where all manner of terrible things have occurred. Tonight may be the first time anything good has happened in this place.” She said as rose colored light came to life in her palm.

She did something with her hands, I wasn’t sure what, and shower me a length of cloth that was the same deep red as her aura.

“This should have been done before we crossed, but I must cover your eyes,” She sighed as she stepped around me and brought the cloth to my face. “Blind as a bat now, are you not?”

I had watched her raise the cloth to my eyes. I had waited as she tied it behind my head. I felt a drop of sweat roll off my forehead and stop when it reached the fabric.

Still, I could see almost as well as I could without it. Everything was just a little darker, like a cloud had cast a thin shadow over everything I could see.

“No, I can-“ I shook my head and tried to tell her.

She cut me off and turned me by my shoulders towards the dark end of the tunnel. “As I said, blind as a bat.”

“But-“ I tried again.

“Once you are on the table, we will inspect The Well, do you understand?” She asked and cut me off again.

I heard a small muffled laugh escape from her and I understood what she had done for me.

All she had done for the last three days had been for me.

I’ve loved you since the day you were born. Her words repeated in my mind once again.

With Rhiannon walking behind me, guiding me, some of the cold fear I felt at the sight of the stone table burned away before it could get into my bones.

It lay in the center of the colosseum's ground. Stone archways formed the circular shape of the dusty pit. Torches were spaced throughout, but every other tunnel was obscured by the same darkness that had stood at the end of the one I had crossed into.

The open air was much cooler than the tunnel had been. The sweat that had begun to dampen the long sleeves and pants I was still wearing thankfully subsided.

Rhiannon whispered into my ear as she helped me onto the table and laid me down on my back. “Remember your promise. Remember my vow.”

She looked up from me and raised her hand to the sky.

A trail of golden dust spun into a shimmering stream and The Mother in Brown took shape on my left.

She scowled at Rhiannon with her eyes of liquid gold without so much as glancing down at me. Her slender arms were crossed over the front of her patterned robe. Every bone of her elegant hands stood against her skin as she held them in white knuckled fists. The sharp line of her jaw was clenched so tightly that the veins on her neck looked like braided cords.

Even through the shadow that had been placed on my face, Azza’s apparent anger was easy to see.

Someone I had never seen before walked to the side of the stone table and stood beside The Mother in Brown.

She was short. The top of her curly lavender hair only reached the bottom curve of Azza’s breast. A burner, something I had only ever seen in memories, hung from her lips and turned to ash as she took a long inhale. A dark purple coat hung over her shoulders and clean white bandages were wrapped tightly around her chest.

The Mother in Purple. I thought, knowing it to be true. I had never seen her before, but I had been her.

The corner of her mouth turned up in a smirk and Azza let out a tiny sigh at the arrival of The Mother I knew to Glim.

Petite and sprightly, she floated into my sight with a winsome grin spread across her impish face. She turned her back to me and sat on the edge of the stone table. The hem of her short ruffled dress splayed over me as she crossed her legs and flipped her hair back with her hand dramatically.

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“Rhi? I would have died if I had to wait any longer. You know how hard it is for me to be patient. Why did you do that to me?” She asked with pouted lips and crossed arms.

A sudden laugh burst out of Rhiannon and she covered her mouth to stifle it. The Mother in Purple continued to smirk, but Azza did not share in the humor.

The Mother in Brown kept her golden eyes focused on The Mother in Red and seemed to grow angrier by the second.

Nami appeared at my feet and another unfamiliar someone came into my sight behind my head.

The Mother in Blue, if that was what she was, looked as she had every other time I had seen her. Serene, calm, and graceful, with a terrifying strength lurking just below the stillness in her ocean eyes.

The unfamiliar someone looked down at me and was completely unaware that I was looking back up at her.

The Mother in Grey. I thought. It must be.

Where Azza’s eyes were intense and gold, hers were haunting and silver.

Like moonlight shining through cold glass, she studied everyone around the stone table without expression. Every strand of her neat hair varied widely across the greyscale in an ashen mix of blacks, whites and every shade in between.

“Has anyone spoken to her?” She asked. Her voice was flat, unfeeling, completely monotone.

As if in answer, the sound of hurried footsteps thumped through the air and Gwyn shoved her way between The Mother in Purple and Azza.

The Mother in Green looked like she hadn’t bathed in years.

Her long black hair was a tangled mess of leaves and twigs. There was so much dirt darkening her pale face that it looked like she was wearing a mask. Long tears in the skin tight black garment she wore ran across her middle and showed the half healed gashes over the muscles of her stomach.

“I’m sorry. I'm here.” She said with her hands on her hips and after several heavy breaths.

The Mother in Purple took what was left of her burner and flicked it the ground somewhere behind her. “Did you run all the way here?”

“Gwyn, your belly. Are you alright?” Rhiannon asked, concern obvious on her face.

The Mother in Yellow leaned back over the top of me and hung her head off the other side of the stone table. She was so light that I could hardly feel her weight.

“Did one of your beasties sneak up on you?” Glim asked as she stretched her hands out and placed them on Gwyn’s ravaged stomach. What looked to be collected yellow sunlight beamed from Glim’s palms and the wounds began to close.

“When are you going to let me come to that forest of yours and hunt one of your (beasties?)” The Mother in Purple asked as she pushed her hair back with her hand.

“Ali, be kind.” Rhiannon said to The Mother in Purple.

“Never. If any of you knew what I have been through since Schwarz died, you-“ Gwyn started.

“Am I the only one that remembers what we are here for?” Azza snapped.

For the first time since she had arrived in her cloud of golden dust, she looked at me. It was only for a split second, barely a glance, but it was enough to send the scarred skin on my arms and legs into an uncomfortable crawl.

“You are right. Let us begin.” The Mother in Grey said in her emotionless way of speaking.

“Thank you, Grey. Thank you, Azza. Come, Glim. It is time.” Rhiannon said.

Glim leaned back up and hopped down off the table, The Mother in Green’s middle wounded no longer.

“Isn’t it rude that we just make her lay on this big rock? Rocks aren’t for laying. She doesn’t even have a pillow.” The sprightly woman said as she turned and stood beside Rhiannon.

“I was thinking much the same.” Nami said quietly from where she stood at my feet.

“Enough! We are all here. Begin.” Azza snapped again. The way she looked at Nami, I would not have been surprised if she tried to attack her. A trickle of blood dripped out of the bottom of her fist from how hard she was clenching it.

Everyone around me grew quiet at her outburst. A moment passed and then another. A stillness settled over the colosseum and I realized Azza was wrong.

They weren’t all there.

It was The Circle of The Nine Mothers, not The Circle of The Seven Mothers.

Rhiannon, Nami, Glim, Grey, Gwyn, Ali, and Azza.

Red, blue, yellow, grey, green, purple and brown.

There was no orange.

There was no white.

I had been The Lady in Orange, but there was no Lady in White.

“Maiden Aubrey,” The Mother in Grey said as she brought her silvery eyes back down to me. “Because of your actions, we must ensure the stability of The Well. Do you understand?"

I didn't.

“No.” I answered honestly like I had promised Rhiannon I would.

In truth, I did not know what being myself meant, but being honest seemed like the best place to start.

Rhiannon smiled at my answer and I had to bite my lip to keep myself from doing the same.

“Regardless. I am proceeding.” The Mother in Grey said in response.

Silvery grey aura came to light in the peripherals of my sight. There was no heat like there had been on my chest when Trea had clutched the front of my dress outside of seven columns.

Thunk.

The metallic sounding heartbeat of The Well echoed in my mind. It would come two more times and then I would be pulled into myself. The Mothers would disappear from my sight when I was pulled into a memory I did not want to see. Or, would it be the thing at the bottom of The Well that I would see?

No. I thought against the echo. I didn’t want to lose myself inside the near infinite library in my mind.

With no other options, I closed my eyes and reached for my aura.

I thought of Anna. The smell of her hair, the way her nose scrunched when she laughed, and every other wonderful thing that I loved about her. I thought of Arthur and how he had tried so hard to protect me. I thought of my mother. I thought of Sam.

I thought of Go’s muffins, Patience’s smile, and Adrian’s fireworks. They had all brought me pillows and blankets so I would be comfortable and not wake up terrified. The way Rhiannon had looked in her bed clothes the morning she had been trying very hard to help me came back to me.

I've loved you since the day you were born. I heard her voice in my mind yet again.

Thunk.

Even with The Mother's preparing to enter my mind and the uncertainty of what they would do with me afterwards, my aura came roaring to life within me. Like the tension that built within a bending branch, it pressed against my channels and nearly burst out of me. I barely held against the rush and waited for the calm to come.

"Is she gone?" Gwyn asked aloud as she turned her green eyes down to me.

"I believe so, yes," The Mother in Grey answered. I do not see her, but I am inside."

Azza unclenched her fists and slammed her hands onto the stone table right next to my leg. She scowled at Rhiannon "Do not think I don't notice what you are doing. Explain."

"I don't know what you mean." Rhiannon answered with a look of confusion on her face.

"What was the point of determining an order if you were going to take her when the notion struck you? I am no fool, sister. The timing is no coincidence either. Three days we have waited. She wreaks havoc in your city, the very same place you assured all of us that she would be under constant supervision, and you take her away for three days. Explain!" Azza said all at once.

Even when she had been lost in her afterglow at the base of Vowkeeper's Anguish and the threat of her taking my life was very real, she had not been as angry as she was then.

Rhiannon opened her mouth to speak, but Azza did not let her answer.

"Our names, you have made it a point to say each of our names aloud, I do not understand this. Have you forgotten the danger she poses to us just by being alive? Have you forgotten that not taking The Well back from her the day she stole it was your idea? I do not know what is worse, if you have grown careless or if you are hiding something from us." The Mother in Brown seethed.

Thunk.

The third beat of The Well sounded in my mind and I felt myself start to slip.

Anna, Arthur, my mother, Sam, muffins, and fireworks, I held onto it all with every bit of focus I could summon.

"Now is not the time for this, Azza. Your questions and anger are not unjustified, but I am certain that Rhiannon will be more able to answer them once Maiden Aubrey has been sent home." A voice said from somewhere beyond my shaded sight.

"I have the same questions for you after what you did." Azza spat as she whipped herself around and walked away from the table.

The pull of The Well began to recede and I slowly realized that I had succeeded.

The silvery aura that covered the false blind over my eyes vanished and The Mother in Grey spoke in her flat voice. "The barriers remain. All is well. When she returns, we will inspect the seal."

It tried to take me and I didn't let it. I thought, having to bite my tongue to keep from smiling yet again. The firework feeling in my stomach only grew more intense as waves of pride washed over me. I did not understand what being myself meant, but if being honest was a good place to start, willing myself to stay conscious was an impressive next step. I was full, fully, like I had never been before.

"She won't come back because she never left." Glim said.

"What!" Azza snapped.

One moment I was staring up at seven of The Nine Mothers. The next, I blinked and found The Mother in Yellow staring down at me.

The sprightly woman poked the middle of my forehead with one of her little fingers and smiled. "She's been here the whole time. Right, Autumn?"

I shouted in surprise and sat up reflexively.

The Mother in Yellow sprung back and the ruffles of her dress fanned out. Small gusts of her aura curled out from her like visible wind as she slowly floated down above the heads of her sisters.

Just like when it had happened in the kitchen of the manor, the branch broke.

A volley of red streaks burst from my navel and sailed straight up into the night sky. With no cabinets or walls to break against, They climbed higher and higher until they exploded into showers of red embers.

Every single Mother around the stone table stared up at the crumbling remnants of my outburst. The two that stood in the distance on my right had their backs turned and seemed unconcerned with what had just happened.

When all of my aura had faded and fallen to dust, The Mother in Grey was the first to speak.

"The seal has been broken. Maiden Aubrey, if you will lay back-"

Rhiannon interrupted her. "She is a maiden no longer. We've all seen it. She is an underwitch."

The black lines that ran down the side of Azza's neck began to glow with her sienna aura. The edge of the table that she held in her fingers cracked in her hands and broke away.

"Underwitch Aubrey, lay back so we may inspect the seal." The Mother in Grey said, her tone shifting into something that sounded slightly annoyed.

I looked at Rhiannon, a swell of conflicting emotions taking root in my stomach. She was looking at me with obvious joy on her face.

I've loved you since the day you were born.

I had made her a promise. I had promised that I would be myself and act without fear.

She had vowed to me that if I did those things, that my time in front of The Mothers would end differently than it had the last time.

"Underwitch Aubrey?" The Mother in Grey said again.

Unable to hide or suppress my smile any longer, I found the calm that came with the aura that had not escaped me and answered honestly.

"No."