The next morning, just before the sky began to brighten and blue, I left Anna asleep and made my way to the roof of the manor.

The wounds that my mother had not been able to close had long since healed and turned to scars, but every part of me was tighter than I was used to. That tightness presented the first difficulty that made my climb much harder than it should have been. The second difficulty was that dark void within that was where my aura should have been. It was not empty like it had been the day before, there was a minute sliver of iridescent light that I managed to focus. Actually pushing it through the channel on my palm and using it to pull myself onto the roof left me weak.

I could not even glamor the color of my eyes if my life depended on it. I thought, laying on my back and trying to gather my strength for the next part of my climb.

A bird, visible against the dark sky only because of its movement, peaked over the edge of the roof above and dipped back only long enough for me to see it.

Someone else has taken up my perch, I thought, pushing myself up and starting to climb again. I wonder if it knows that there is a predator lurking about.

Several minutes later, I pulled myself up and slowly climbed to my feet. With my hands on my knees, I let my aura go and the loss hit me in my legs. They shook violently and I knew that if I let myself drop to the rooftop that It would be beyond me to get back up again.

The bird was nowhere to be seen, but I could not blame it. If I saw some dark figure that was wrapped in bandages and baggy clothes, I probably would not wait around to tell it hello.

In the last few moments of true night, I took shaky steps to the far edge of the roof and looked down at the city below.

The rolling hills I had grown used to seeing had changed. The sky had begun to blue with the light of dawn and everywhere there used to be green, there was red. A near infinite amount of red roses blanketed the valley, a shadowed sea of red petals and sharp thorns that ran all the way down to the river.

“The Mother in Red.” I whispered to myself. It had to be her, there was no one else that could have done it. When I had first caught a distant glimpse of her, she had been riding her lion of fire over the crimson buds that her flower girls had flooded the street with. I knew then that she was capable of creating beauty that I could never be capable of.

I could not understand it. She was a Mother. She held a festival of love that had sent the city and the members of my mother’s house into a week-long celebration. The guards that were charged with protecting the people of Erosette from me all carried a reverence for her that would make one think she was the most pure thing in all of chaos. If she was truly the way she was, would that not mean the other Mothers would be similar? How could someone that brought so much to the people of her city be the same person that was going to torture me? Mother Azza must have her own place within Zenithcidel, that’s probably where the glass pyramid had been. There was no part of my mind that could imagine her being seen the way the guards or the citizens of Erosette saw The Red Mother. I could see her being feared, ruling with an iron fist, making examples out of anyone who opposed her will.

I had no way to prove it. My attempts to return to The Well after Mother Nami’s memory had failed. First I had tried to find The Yellow Mothers. When all that had accomplished was me floating with my eyes closed for a few minutes, I had turned my focus to The Mother in Blue. Finally, when nothing else had worked, I had thought of Azza.

If I was being honest, I was thankful that I had not slipped into her memories the way I had with Nami. There had been no books, no shelves, and no fireplaces. One moment I had been in the pool and the next I had been in Mother Nami.

The thing at the bottom of The Well had deemed it worthwhile to assist me in my search, but had felt no desire to do it again when I came with other names in my mind. Why had it talked to me while The Mother’s had been checking the sanctity of The Well? Why it had sat next to me during my punishment? All the strange things I had heard and seen, what game was it playing?

You remind me of him. That’s what it had told me the first time we had spoken.

“Who the fuck is him?” I asked aloud, knowing that I would never get an answer.

As the new day brightened, I learned that the hills were not all that had changed. On the other side of the river, all along the bank that I had once stood upon, were hundreds of tents. Like a patchwork mountain range, they rose and fell in tight rows that went all the way to the streets of Erosette.

“That’s new.” I said to myself, wondering where they had come from. Had the Mother in Red moved on from Amoranora to some kind of strange carnival? I had never been to one myself, but the tents reminded me of a memory I had viewed from back before I had made my escape to the mortal plane.

“Refugees. The Mother in Red took them in after their city was destroyed.” Someone replied to the words I had said to myself.

I spun on my heels and whipped myself around.

Wearing a thin dress the color of wildflowers, a woman with a wispy mess of blonde hair sat atop the roof with her thin legs stretched out in front of her. A bird, the bird that had looked down at me just a small time earlier, swooped down from up above and landed on the woman's hair.

“Sorceress Ulet?” I said, realizing who had snuck up on me.

“Hello,” She said with a small smile. “You have grown since last I saw you.”

I hate you, because you deserve to be hated. I remembered the contempt she had spoken to me with and the fury that had been in her eyes after she had brought me back to Zenithcidel. All I’ve seen is a silly little girl who deserves none of what she’s been given.

“You are surprised that I am here. Have no fear, I have not disobeyed The Mothers to come and bring you trouble.” She said.

Mother Azza feels the same. I thought, wondering how many sorceresses there were that hated me even though they had never met me.

Her familiar let out a quick sequence of chirps and whistles.

“Yes, Av, I know we aren’t supposed to be here,” Ulet said to the ruffled bird before she continued speaking to me. “When last we met, I was unkind to you. I have come to apologize before I make my leave of Zenithcidel. It has brought my mind no end of trouble and I want you to know I regret the way I treated you. Caught in my afterglow or not, I should have been better.”

The same way I could not imagine Mother Azza being kind, my memory of Ulet came into conflict with the woman sitting before me. She was pretty, and not in a general way. I thought she was pretty the way I thought Anna was pretty. The way my heart sped when my eyes wandered over the wire thin straps that hung the dress off her soft shoulders told me that much. She looked well rested and relaxed. None of her felt like the woman who had told me that if it was up to her, The Well would be taken from me and I would be dead.

Something she had said caught my attention.

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“Why are you not supposed to be here?” I asked her, my body still tense.

A little laugh escaped her. “I have been forbidden. From the day after I brought you and the mortals here, I have asked for permission to apologize to you. I was not willing to take no for an answer so I have spent the last several weeks trying to find a moment I could speak with you alone.”

“You came here despite being forbidden,” Why has her power not been sealed? Why does she still have skin? I thought to myself, angry that she had done what I had been punished for doing and seemed unconcerned with the repercussions. “Why?”

“I have told you this before. We are sorceresses, bending reality to our will is what we do. It is in our nature. Now, I must make my leave before I am caught.”

The sight of her had made the memories of that night behind the boarding house come spinning up from whatever dark corner of my mind I kept them in. Later that morning, I was supposed to attempt to help my mother heal Ms. Lao again. The two of us would give our life force to the sick woman to try and destroy the sickness that was slowly taking her own. When my mother had regrown my skin or when she had healed my broken hand, she had been doing the same exact thing.

I had been healed before, by someone I had foolishly thought I could trust. Regardless of his intentions, he had given a small portion of his soul to end my pain.

Ulet had walked to the edge of the roof next to me. Just before she stepped off, I grabbed her by the wrist and looked her in the eyes.

“The sorcerer, Eames. What happened to him?” I held my breath as I waited for her answer.

“Hmph,” She exhaled through her nose and her expression hardened. “Swear to me that you will not tell your mother that I was here and I will answer you.”

I nodded eagerly. “I swear.”

“I killed him. He is dead.” She said with no emotion in her voice.

“Oh.” I sighed. I knew I should hate him for what he had done to me, but he could not have been all bad, could he? The man had healed me. He may not have had the best intentions, but at least he hadn’t hated me. It felt strange feeling sadness for someone who had attack me and whose neck had been cut by my teeth.

“Do not be sad for him, Autumn Aubrey. Sorceresses are many things. We are fickle and cruel just as much as we are gracious and giving. Those like him, sorcerers, are monsters who can not control their dark and violent nature.” She said through her own sigh.

“All of them?” I let her wrist go. How could all of any kind of person be exactly the same? I had seen through the eyes of hundred of sorceresses and they were all different in their own way.

Ulet pointed down to the tents beyond the river. “Those refugees? Men, women, and children all left without a home because a single sorcerer could not control himself. I do not expect you to understand what being at war means, you are much to young, but all of those people lives were changed forever because the sorcerers of The Spire decided that they wanted control of a city that no longer exists,” She looked back down at me and there was fury in her eyes that made her look more like the woman she had been the night I had met her. “There may be some quiet souled sorcerer tucked away in a back corner of chaos, so it may not be all of them, but it is enough. Remember that should you ever cross paths with one again.”

The morning breeze blew her wispy hair up against Av and flat headed bird chirped and whistled once again.

“Autumn? It is time to begin.” My mother’s voice called out from the backdoor of the manor.

“Thank you, Av,” Ulet said to her familiar as she scratched its head affectionately. Without warning, she turned around and stepped backwards off of the roof of the manor. She did not fall down to the roses below. Instead, she hung in the air while she pressed her dress down against the whipping wind that held her aloft. “Goodbye, Autumn Aubrey. I hope you accept my apology.”

No matter how long I lived, I would never forget how she looked with the brightening sky hanging behind her.

Without another word, she descended slowly and met the ground like it had been the most natural thing she could have done. I watched her go. She ran all the way along the manor wall and turned the corner, disappearing from my sight. A moment later, I saw Av rise above the back wall by the beats of his wings.

In no time at all, I found myself outside the door of Ms. Lao’s room. Thoughts of Ulet floating in the air and power mad sorcerers had made my climb down seem much shorter than it actually was.

“Come in, my little Delpha. I have already begun.” My mother instructed.

I did as I was told and joined my mother at Ms. Lao’s bedside.

“Good morning, Autumn.” Ms. Lao gave me a tight lipped smile.

“Good morning.” I returned the greeting, trying to hide my reaction to the sight of her. She looked worse than she had the day before. Her eyes were dark. Her face looked sunken and thin.

“I understand your efforts yesterday were successful. Will you show me that what you have said previously is true? You spoke of being able to join your aura with mine, that seems like it would be helpful.” My mother said, taking up the roundabout way of speaking she apparently needed to use to talk to me.

I did as I was told, placing my hands on top of my mothers the way I had done the day before. Eames, the memory of him at least, still hung in the front of my mind. With the knowledge of his death and Ms. Lao’s pitiful state darkening my heart, it was even more difficult for me to focus the sliver of my aura within the void.

My aura met my mothers immense power and I nearly dropped to the floor.

“Steady, your eyes will adjust in a moment. It is good that you know the second sight I am showing you is the best way to see beneath the skin.” My mother said, her voice taking on a tone that made a cold spot appear in my stomach.

Ms. Lao lay on the bed with her eyes closed. Over the top of her, or maybe I was seeing inside of her, was a wash of different colors of light. A wash of reds and blues in all different shades intermingled and showed me what could only be her muscles and veins. Black spots were littered throughout her body. The worst was beneath her ribs, on what must be her lungs. They spread down over amorphous shapes that I did not have the knowledge to identify. The spots did not belong within her. They were wrong in the worst way and my skin crawled at the sight of them.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered to Ms. Lao, trying to keep myself from crying. I spoke to my mother without taking my eyes off of the sickness. “What is this? Why is it in her?”

My mother dropped the double speak and looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “The mortals call it cancer. I do not know why it has taken her so, but it has been a slow war between it and I. It is a ruiner. It never rests. Even now, the efforts I made yesterday have been undone overnight.”

Ms. Lao cleared her throat. “It is getting worse, isn’t it? You can no longer keep it at bay?”

“No,” My mother said with anger lining her beautiful face. “It is time to consider taking you to the luminar in Hymneth as we have discussed. This has advanced well beyond my abilities. Even with Autumn’s power included, there is nothing we can do but slow its growth.”

The reds and blues faded as my mother ended the second sight. Her iridescent aura faded and I let mine go with a sudden exhale. My legs began to shake again, but before I could fall my other brought me to her so I could regain my balance.

She kissed the top of my head. “I am sorry, daughter. I will have to discuss my process for healing with you another time. I did not anticipate it continuing to grow in strength as it has.”

“Don’t apologize to me,” I said, and reached my hand out and grabbed Ms. Lao’s hand. She looked confused at my touch, but she did not pull away. “You. . .”

Ms. Lao squeezed my hand and a sad smile spread across my face. “That’s enough, girl. I know what you are trying to say. Thank you.”

How could she walk around everyday carrying something that dark within her? The pain, the weight, I could not imagine what she must have felt like. Still, she had carried on in a place that she had not known to exist until a few months before.

“You still wish for Anna to accompany us? We will depart tomorrow morning so it is best to give her time to pack.” My mother asked.

Wait. . .what?

“Yes. I don’t think I could make it without her.” Ms. Lao answered.

“Where are you going?” I let go of the sick woman's hand.

“Down. We will travel to The Mother in Blue’s domain. There is a place there where all of Zenithcidel’s greatest healers gather. They will succeed where I have failed.”

“And Anna is going?” I asked. Nothing but selfish thoughts about my bed being empty when I went to sleep ran through my mind.

“I know you will miss her, my little Delpha, but her mother needs her.”

I bit my tongue to keep myself from asking the terrible question that nearly slipped out of my mouth.

Can I go with you?

I knew the answer, but the foolish part of me that was still a little girl desperately hoped that I was mistaken.

With the taste of blood filling my mouth, I held my tongue and accepted the fact that I would be by myself.

No Anna and no mother.

Alone.

That thought scared me more than I wished it would.