The laughter that bubbled out of my mother, after all of us realized what The Mother in Red’s heart had been, carried her all the way to the ornate table that she had somehow made appear in the garden alcove.

Idensyn Aubrey, the head of her house, did not sit at the opulent chair at the head of the table. She pulled it out and gave a dramatic gesture for Ms. Lao to take the seat.

“No, You sit. The apple is enough.” Ms. Lao said through a mouthful of golden caramel and crystallized sugar rubies.

“Mai, I insist. You were the victor.” My mother said, practically pulling the woman into the seat.

The rest of us followed suit. I sat next to Ms. Lao and Anna sat next to me on the left, with Arthur sitting opposite me and my mother sitting next to him on the right. With the wine red lights shining off the copperware and the aftermath of the wild emotions my mothers game had caused me to feel, I doubted I had a more beautiful memory than the one that was being made.

My mother pulled one of the numerous bottles of wine off the table and raised her hand above it. No iridescent light, no sign of her focusing her aura or focusing on the cork at all, it twisted out of the long necked bottle seemingly of its own accord. Pop

“Before dinner is served, I will take the opportunity to tell you all the story of The Red Mother and her lover, Morrow, properly. Morrow had big hands,” My mother said, holding her open hands against one another to impress upon us the size of the man's hands. “Calloused from years of knot tying and rowing across the Subseas, they were rough, but a testament to his capable strength.”

“Ahem,” Ms. Lao cleared her throat and held her empty glass towards my mother, interrupting her story and distracting her from the interruption in one fell swoop. “Idensyn. We love your stories, but it is late and I am hungry.”

My mother filled Ms. Lao’s glass, I still was not used to hearing her first name, and nodded. “I understand, you will all forgive me if I press too much, it really is a wonderful story.”

“I’ll forgive you if you tell me something.” Arthur said, his face set into a deadly serious pinch.

Anna and I looked at one another, smiles playing at the corners of our mouths in anticipation of hearing what had made the tall man look like someone had threatened his life.

“What would you like to know?” My mother asked before taking a sip of her wine.

Arthur stretched his long arms out and gestured to the garden. “How did you make the garden get bigger? I was out here almost all day and I didn’t see anything happen to it but when we were running around out there, it was like a maze.”

My mother laughed. “It was glamor, dear. An illusion. I am one of the most proficient sorceresses in all of Zenithcidel. If what I have heard about her time on the mortal plane is true, you know it as the same manner of working Autumn used to conceal her true appearance from all of you,” My mother sighed and smiled up at the werelights hanging above us. “It was a pleasure to use my power after so long.”

“Can you do magic that big?” Arthur turned his interrogation to me.

“I, uhm. . .”

“Autumn is still very young, her strength has yet to blossom the way mine has.” My mother answered for me.

“How old are you?” Arthur questioned me further.

“I will turn nineteen next year.” I answered, briefly thinking how different my birthday would be compared to my last.

“That’s not young! Unless years work differently here, we are almost the same age.” Arthur disagreed with my mother, turning back to her.

“The new year has already passed, you will turn nineteen this year,” My mother said to me and then continued speaking to Arthur. “Being young or old is relative, dear. Most Maiden’s do not begin their education properly until their second decade. Some wait as long as their third.”

“Ah,” Arthur exhaled with an air of great understanding. “That’s how you can be so much older than Ma and still be as pretty as you are.”

Ms. Lao clapped her hands together once, the sharp and sudden sound that broke through the garden alcove snapped her son’s attention to her. “Enough questions, Arthur. I am sorry, Idensyn. He has always been a very curious boy.”

“Oh Mai, I do not mind. I am sure you all have questions. This night was the first time any of you saw glamor on that scale.” My mother answered, remaining constantly pleasant with the mortals I had brought into her life.

Sometimes, usually over dinner, part of me thought she enjoyed them being with us more than I did.

“I think about the first time I saw you, the real you, all the time.” Arthur said to me. A hint of his smile cracked the serious pinch his face had been pressed into.

He had called me pretty.

Some kind of flesh puppet had ripped a hole through his stomach larger around than my thigh with a black nailed finger. Arthur had been dying and he had called me pretty. The lich’s creature had nearly killed him and if it had not been for the spirit that gave itself to heal Arthur, he would not be sitting across from me.

My mother did not know about the spirit, or the creatures, or that I had awakened my color and slain the lich’s horrid creations. She thought the strange state Arthur had been in when The Sorceress Ulet had moved us from the soon to be besieged boarding house was caused by The Sorcerer Eames. If she learned of when Arthur first saw me, the questions that followed would not build a path for me to ask my mother the most important question I would ever ask her in my entire life.

Arthur started to continue, but I cut him off.

Where am I, of?” I asked, interrupting Arthur.

“I am not sure I understand what you are asking,” My mother responded. “Arthur was speaking.”

I carried on.

“One of the memories today,” I felt everyone begin to pay much closer attention to what I was saying. I consciously chose to not talk about The Well if I could avoid it. Keeping them separate, the inside and my actual life outside of it, gave me some small semblance of control. “I was a little girl. Her mom left Zenithcidel and took her somewhere called The Everblossom so her name would be Blossom of Everblossom and not Blossom of Zenithcidel. What is my of?”

My mother took a long drink, her eyebrow raised in my direction. “This feels quite unusual for me to say, but I knew of Blossom of Everblossom. Let Arthur finish, I will answer your question when he is done.”

“You don’t know where you were born?” Arthur blurted, having been successfully distracted from the secrets he was about to spill.

In for a penny, I thought, repeating some saying I must have picked up in a memory. I had no way of knowing if I was using it in the right context, but it felt right.

“I don’t remember anything from before I stole The Well,” I dropped my eyes to the empty plate on the table before me and sighed. I had distracted Arthur, achieving the same with my mother would require more of me. “It becomes harder and harder to keep track of the more memories I live through.”

“Oh,” my mother sighed. “My little Delpha,” She reached over the table and patted my hand. “You are of Zenithcidel. Autumn Aubrey of Zenithcidel.”

Ms. Lao spoke, some of her old strength showing in her tired voice. “I am Mai Lao of Alabama?”

“What is Alabama?” I asked, getting drawn in by the conversation my own misdirection had created.

“Did you fall down a lot as a child?” Anna asked me.

“I don’t remember, remember?” I answered her.

“You lived with us for two months and you didn’t know what state you were in?” Arthur added.

“State?” Last I checked I had been solid for the entirety of my stay in the old boarding house.

My mother chimed in. “The mortals I’ve met within Zenithcidel refer to themselves as ‘of the Mortal Plane.’ Most sorceresses never bother to go there and more specific names like, Alabama,” she spoke the word carefully, emphasizing every letter. “offer nothing but confusion.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

A man entered the alcove from the garden path. Cleanly shaved and wearing nothing but a banded tunic that left his muscular arms and calves painted in the wine red glow from above, he held his hands behind his back and announced. “Lady Aubrey, honored members of her house, dinner is served.”

Four more men, wearing identical tunics as the first, streamed into the alcove carrying copper platters filled with steaming food at his words.

Sliced rounds of toasted bread with butter glistening atop them and mixed leafy greens drizzled with oil and berries and crumbles of cheese were placed around the center of the table in a circle. Atop a bed of roasted vegetables, purple, green, and yellow, a mound of blackened meat filled the circle and the air with its thick steam.

Only when my mouth began to water from the scent of it all and the men stood shoulder to shoulder at the mouth of the garden with every inch of themselves held rigid did I realize I knew them.

I had fought two of them the night before.

No armor or weapons in sight, I had not recognized the guards that had been charged with protecting the city of Erosette and its citizens from me and the havoc I could cause if I lost myself.

“On a few hours notice and with not nearly enough time to practice, I could not have asked for more! You may all go enjoy the rest of your evening. Thank you.” My Mother raised her glass to the newly converted butlers.

Springer, Woolie, Smit, a guard from the morning whose name I couldn’t remember, and Bool all palmed their fists in front of their chests and bowed at the waist before turning to leave.

The guard whose name I couldn’t remember spoke to Arthur. “Oi, Ugi, come see us when you are done here.”

“Do I have to wear a dress, like you?” Arthur said.

“You are gonna regret saying that.” The guard said before disappearing within the path.

“Ugi?” My mother asked Arthur.

“I don’t know. They won’t tell me what it means.” Arthur shrugged and reached for a white boned rib.

“Wait,” My mother held up a hand to Arthur and looked at the only guard that had not left the alcove. “Is there anything else, Bool?”

“You look very beautiful tonight, Lady Aubrey.” Bool said, bowing at the waist and then dashing back into the garden path without letting a moment pass.

“Now we may eat.” My mother signaled Arthur.

Eat we did.

It was not that long ago that most of my meals were whatever I could thieve from the kitchen of the boarding house. The memory of it was still fresh enough in my mind that I tended to push myself too far with dinner. None of us spoke, a sign of the quality of the food. After my one-sided interactions with them, I would not have guessed the guards were capable of cooking and serving a meal as delicious as what I devoured.

Tearing into my seventh or eighth rib, I wasn’t sure which and I could not afford to lose the time it would take me to count the cleaned bones piling on my plate, I brought my mind back to my all important question. Mother, this has been wonderful, may I please go down to the city I am forbidden to enter? Stupid. It sounded so stupid in my mind. You can come with me, I will conceal my face with glamor and no one will know. That didn’t sound right either. Maybe, if the wine she had drank and the food she had filled her belly with had put her in a good enough mood, I could lead the conversation down a pitiful path and she would offer what I wanted most without me asking for it. If I could get her talking about the story behind the werelight hunt again, I could. . .

My mother pushed herself back from the table with a contented sigh. While she refilled her glass, I watched her look at each of us.

Ms. Lao had finished eating first, mostly greens and a single bone lay on her plate next to The Red Mother’s heart. Anna had followed her mother, choosing to drink far more wine than she had eaten. I gave up at my mother’s sigh. Arthur did not. Perhaps it was my mother’s werelight hunt that had awakened the spirit within me, but I had been silently keeping track of who had eaten more and had pushed myself to out devour the tall man across from me.

He was at least twice my size and once I stopped and the weight of what I had consumed settled in my stomach, I thought it may have been a battle too large for me to win.

“A toast?” My mother offered, raising her glass.

All of us followed her lead. Arthur and I, the only two that were drinking spiced cider and not wine.

“To Samsara for slaying the beast that was the catalyst for this joyous night.”

“Samsara.” All of us said together.

It felt weird using his full name. He was Sam or cat, not Samsara.

“I have enjoyed this so much, if you all are willing,” My mother began. We should take a stroll down to Erosette and see the real thing. Yes, even you, my little Delpha. I thought. She continued. “We will observe every remaining night of Amoranora in this way and continue the festivities tomorrow.”

“Yes!” Arthur agreed before she ever finished what she was saying.

It was not what I had hoped she would say, but I agreed alongside Anna and Ms. Lao.

When the biggest smile I had ever seen spread across her face and her hands clasped over her heart, I knew my moment had arrived.

“I wonder,” I began.

Ms. Lao cut me off. “One of the men. The last one. He has taken a liking to you?”

Fuck.

My mother giggled. “He sent me flowers this very morning.”

“He’ll send you flowers too Ma,” Anna smirked, leaning back into her chair and wrapping her arm over the back of my own. She looked at my mother. “Tell her how to get him to do it.”

My mother blushed and covered her mouth. “You are devious, Anna Lao. I must keep an eye on you.”

“What is she saying? What did you do?” Ms. Lao asked with possibly the first genuine smile I had ever seen touch her face.

“I didn’t know what I was doing.” I warned, holding my hands up, participating until the right moment returned.

“Autumn didn’t know she was Autumn and she attacked the guards down by the bridge.” Arthur stated simply.

“The one who flirted with Idensyn, he got the worst of it.”

“Go on?” Ms. Lao said.

“I. . . “ I started, my face burning with embarrassment. I remembered doing what I had done to him, but it had that dream-like quality I had only experienced the handful of times I had lost myself.

“She hit him in the balls really hard.” Arthur said what I struggled to say as if he was commenting on the weather.

“Oh my.” Ms. Lao said slowly.

“I healed him and he has been smitten with me ever since.” My mother said, still covering her mouth.

Anna tapped her mother on her shoulder and mimicked the motion my mother had used to undo the damage I had done to Bool. “She healed him.”

“You?” Ms. Lao asked, mimicking her daughter’s mimicking.

Rolling bubbles of laughter came from behind my mother’s hand as she nodded. “The poor man, he couldn’t speak, he was in so much pain.”

Ms. Lao cackled.

Anna looked at me and then back at her mother, laughing to herself. “That really got you, huh?”

Every time Ms. Laos' laughter would begin to die down, she would repeat the gesture and begin again. Before I knew it, we had all been drawn in and were red in the face. Even though I had been the one to necessitate the healing in the first place, I found it so funny, how funny, my friend’s mother thought it was. The woman was stern and firm with an impressive consistency. Being in a fit the way she was, looked good on her. The light it brought to Anna and Arthur’s eyes looked good for them.

She stood, trying to catch her breath between laughs. “Oh, oh,” She wiped her eyes. “Oh . . .”

Ms. Lao’s eyes lost focus and she gripped the edge of the table until her knuckles went white.

“Ma?” Anna asked, the festive air in the alcove suddenly vanishing.

Ms. Lao fainted, falling straight back away from the table.

“Ma!” Arthur stood up fast enough that his chair went tipping behind him.

The chair hit the mossy ground with a dull thud.

Ms. Lao didn’t.

With her right hand cloaked in iridescent light, my mother held Ms. Lao off the ground with her power. “Arthur, help me take her inside. She has overspent herself this night.”

Arthur ran over and picked his mother up from where she was suspended.

“Put me down. I am fine.” Ms. Lao said weakly.

“Hush, Ma,” Anna said, standing up and following behind Arthur. “It’s time to go to bed.”

I watched them leave the garden, Ms. Lao looking so small in her son’s arms, and stayed seated. What could I do? It was best if I kept out of the way.

“Thank you for tonight, my little Delpha. I believe we all needed something like this.” My mother said to me and gave me a parting kiss on the top of my head.

I asked her a question, my question would have to wait. “Is she going to be okay?”

“She is dying, Autumn. I would try to heal her, but her stance has not changed since her arrival. She is unwilling to let me try and I will not overstep her boundaries, even if that means she continues to wither away.”

“Why?” I asked. When I had found out that Ms. Lao was sick, my first thought had been how the sorceresses within Zenithcidel could heal my friend’s mother.

“I do not know. I wish I did, for Anna and Arthur’s sake,” She shook her head. Then, she squeezed my shoulder “Go and sleep, it is late and we have another day of Amoranora drawing ever closer.

Mother? May I run down to the city real quick? I won’t steal anything or assault anyone, I promise. The ill formed question came to my lips just before my mother left the alcove, but I couldn’t make myself say it. I was worried about Ms. Lao, yes, but I was more worried about Anna and I didn’t want to go without her.

Tomorrow. I decided. I would ask my mother the following day. One more night of waiting wouldn’t kill me.

Unless, The Mother in Brown came for me.