Once again, Azza had left me with a lingering mark that I could not ignore.

It was not like the golden choker that was still locked around my neck. Nor did it feel like the scars on my arms and legs that had refused to yield to my mother’s healing.

Take her away from you. Azza’s words repeated in my mind for the thousandth time since The Mother in Brown had disappeared in her cloud of golden dust.

The Mother’s had allowed the Laos to be named as members of my mother’s house so they could use them against me.

Woolie had come out and brought us back across the bridge not a moment after Azza had left. With Anna holding my hand all the way, I could not focus on the stream of questions that flooded out of her.

Take her away from you.

I felt like I was burning alive from the inside, but there was nowhere to direct the heat. Azza was gone and I could not go after her. I did not care what Azza I had to deal with, Anna was not some privilege that could be stripped away from me if the Mother’s saw fit to do so. There was no hope for me to beat her with my power, but if I could be quick like Mother Gwyn had been, I could wrap my hands around her throat, she had healed them after all.

“Autumn?” Her voice broke through my wild thoughts and brought me back to where my feet were actually planted.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized, shaking my head and looking her in the eyes. It was difficult to dispel the visions of me successfully defeating Azza and rescuing Anna from the bottom of a treacherous pyramid, but I managed. “What did you say?”

“Embpyre. It’s some kind of celebration where you give up something. The guards said they were going to do it out front and we could join them if we wanted.” Anna said, closing one of the double doors at the front of the manor behind herself.

I looked down at the ashen robe Azza had been wearing. Had I been blinded by my anger to the extent that I had not realized we had walked all the way up the hill or was my exhaustion to blame?

“Or do you want to shower first? You look pretty damn dirty,” Anna continued without waiting for my answer. “No, wait! How long has it been since you’ve eaten? Do those bitch’s feed you when they take you?”

Between licking her thumb to wipe a spot of ash off my cheek and hurrying over to the kitchen, she was so caught with the desire to give me what I needed I did not think she even knew what she was doing. Despite my tiredness and the remnants of the burning anger, I could have stood there and watched her fuss over me until the end of time.

“Shit! Your hand!” Anna shouted suddenly and stepped back to where I stood.

“All better.” I said, offering it to her so she could inspect it.

“How! Did you learn how to heal yourself?” Anna asked, her delicate fingers turning my hand over and tracing the lines of the bones that stood against my pale skin.

“No,” I let out a frustrated sigh. I still could not say Azza’s name aloud. “The Mother in Brown healed it.”

Anna shook her head. “What the fuck? She already punished you. We have so much to talk about. Unless, you don’t feel like it. Say the word and I’ll shut my mouth until you’re ready.”

She was being so careful with me. Beneath her excitement and her concern, she was watching me for any sign of pain or weakness. I could not blame her considering the state I had been in the last time I had returned from a punishment.

“Shhh,” I pressed my finger to my lips and hushed her. “I’m going to tell you everything, but I need to know who else is here.”

“No one. Arthur and your mom are still in Hymneth.” Anna answered, raising one of her eyebrows in a questioning expression.

Do as you will. The thought that had been building in my mind took shape suddenly. It held no fear, no exhaustion, no anger. It was empty of anything but the truth it carried.

Should I do what I wanted or what I was supposed to do?

If I was a good little criminal, I would go upstairs, get clean, and go to bed. I would be thankful that The Mothers allowed Anna to be near me and do everything I could to return The Well to them as soon as I could. When the unseen noose around my neck was tightened again and my next punishment arrived, I would not pull against it. I would accept the pressure and weight that my actions had placed upon me and take what I was given, be it a tomb of sand or packs of wild beasts hunting me.

No part of me wanted that.

I wanted to go back down to the city with Anna wrapped around my arm. I wanted to weave our way through the crowd of hooded citizens and find our way to the heart of Erosette. We would be lost in the sea of ashen robed people and we could see for ourselves what Embpyre truly was. We would find something to eat from a place like where Arthur had taken me and we would walk the streets until we decided it was time to go back to the manor.

Don’t be stupid. Do you want them to take her away from you? I thought, every emotion my other thought lacked coming along with it.

During my punishment and the chaos that had followed the shift, I had met and spent time with different versions of Mother Azza and Gwyn. Each of them had felt so different from the other that I could hardly believe they were the same people.

As confusing as it was, I understood it. There were two of me in my mind, trying to decide which one would be listened to.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Anna asked, giving my hand a gentle squeeze.

I knew which of the two Autumns that I wanted her to see. Almost from the first time I had met her, when she had seen almost all of me, she had done nothing but try and take care of me. She deserved more from me than to spend her night listening to me talk until I fell asleep.

“Put this on.” I said, tossing the robe that Azza had been wearing at Anna.

“Are we going to go watch the guards?” She asked, sounding out the words like she had suddenly lost the ability to understand them.

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“No, just put it on or I’ll charm you and make you do it.” I threatened, letting a long moment pass before I winked at her.

She scrunched her nose and furrowed her brow, but a grin spread across her face. “I want to know about what happened. If I have to wake up and not have any damn idea where you’ve gone, you have to tell me about it when you get back.”

“I am going to, I promise.” I laughed, sticking my pinky out of the massive sleeve.

Anna narrowed her eyes and started pulling the robe on. “I’m gonna do it, but not because you told me to. I’m putting it on because I’m cold. That’s the only reason.”

Once her head was in the folds of the robe and she was blinded, I took several quick steps to the stairs and dashed up them as fast as I could.

“Hey! Where did you go?” I heard Anna call after me just as I reached my room.

I moved quickly despite my sore feet, trying to outrun the Autumn that was terrified with what I was about to do. I gathered up the mass of fabric from the floor and stepped into my cuffed boots just in time to see Anna standing in the doorway.

“Are we going somewhere?” She asked. The robe that had barely been long enough to cover Azza’s knees fit Anna perfectly. She had raised the hood over her dark hair and the tips of her fingers hung out of the sleeve just enough that I could see her nails.

“Yes.” I said, striding towards her as soon as my heels sunk to the bottom of my boots. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror atop the desk and skidded to a stop. My hair fell to just above my ears in loose waves and my jaw looked wider and firmer than it should have. I had forgotten the glamor Azza had painted my face with until I saw it with my own eyes.

“I’m. . .handsome.” I whispered. The longer I looked at myself, the more I could smell the warm spiced scent of The Mother in Brown and feel her power on my face like a coating of unseen dust.

“Yes, but I like it better when you are beautiful.” Anna said, appearing beside me in the mirror like some dark figure.

“When is that?” I asked, finding it difficult to look away from her in the mirror.

“Whenever I look at you or watch you,” She smiled and pointed at my reflection “Except for right now. I’m not a fan of this. Take it off.”

“I don’t know if I can, but even if I could, there is something satisfying about disobeying The Mothers while wearing their power as a disguise.” I said, taking her by the hand and leading her out of the room.

“Wait! You just got back. Is this really a good idea?” Anna asked, evidently understanding what manner of disobedience I meant to enact.

I did not wait. I led her down the stairs as I spoke. “It is the best idea. I have just returned from a punishment. They are not going to come for me again tonight.”

“But you’re exhausted. You need to rest!” She insisted as I pulled her out of the back door of the manor and made for the wall that bordered the path to the well house.

“I will. When we get back, I will sleep until Amoranora comes again,” I assured her. Dropping down to one knee, I took her by her ankle and brought her shoe up to my hands. “Un, deux, trois.”

I extended my arms and pushed her up with a small flash of pearl pink light. My will for us to go down to the city and experience Embpyre together was so strong that I had not realized my aura was so close to my surface. Anna landed on the top of the wall at her hips. Before she managed to pull herself the rest of the way up, I had jumped just like I did to get up to my perch atop the manor and used my aura to climb atop the wall.

Erosette was alight with orange light that flickered over the river at the edges of the city. Every street and every building was bathed in the glow. At its center, in the heart, the light burned so bright that I felt like I could almost feel its heat.

Erosette was on fire and we were going to run straight into it.

The rolling hills that surrounded the city were no longer blanketed by the near infinite amount of roses it had been the last time I had seen it. Their color had darkened and their petals had fallen, covering the hill that led down to the river in a shroud of death and rot.

I dropped down from the wall and landed softly atop the wilted flowers. Anna slid down and I caught her in my arms, spinning us around to prevent the force from driving us to the ground. Thorns crunched and broke under my boots as we went and Anna held a hand over her mouth to muffle her laughter.

When the flower dies, the thorns remain. The Autumn that had brought me out of the confines of the manor spoke again.It left me the strange thought just as quickly as it had come.

“Will you tell me what happened now?” Anna whispered as I led us towards the city at an angle.

I intertwined my fingers with hers and started from where our night together had ended. “I fell asleep, but when I woke up, you were gone.”

I told her about waking up in the forest with the green moon. I told her about the dogs and the green eyed beast. I told her about the briars, the tree, and how I had been terrified that she had been brought out there with me.

“Dummy,” She interrupted, playfully knocking her shoulder into mine. “If I was out there, everyone would have known it because I would have been screaming.”

“I do feel dumb about it now, I should have known it was The Mothers.” I whispered.

“Don’t feel dumb, they took you from your bed while you were asleep. I didn’t even know you were gone until I woke up and Samsara told me. Nobody would have been in their right mind.” Anna whispered back.

I did not feel that way, for fucks sake the moon had been green, but I trusted her enough to believe what she said.

Continuing from when the tree had rotted away under my feet and I had been thrown through the ground, I told her about the massive serpent and the smaller one that had coiled itself around me. From the tree sized branch to the green eyed snake, I told her everything that led to my back being pinned against a fallen tree with the horrid spider looming over me.

“A hand pushed out from within the spider's head,” I said, just as we reached the bridge that I had used the night I had met Arthur in the city. “It ripped it apart and I saw. . .”

“What did you see?” Anna demanded, her eyes wide within the ashen hood.

“Her name. I can’t say her name anymore.” I spat, balling my hands inside the billowing sleeves and squeezing them until my nails dug into my palms.

Azza. I realized. Whatever power she had used to keep me from speaking her name, she had used it again to bind my tongue from saying Gwyn.

“They keep me locked away in a fucking manor? I don’t go to school. I don’t talk to anyone but you and my mother. Who the fuck are they scared I’m going to talk to?” I shouted, my voice echoing off the buildings around us.

Fortunately, the streets were empty. Not even the refugees that lived in the patchwork mountain range of tents were around.

There was not another soul around except for the person that sprinted out of the alley next to us and collided with Anna and I.

All three of us fell.

I went first, Anna went on top of me, and the stranger went face first onto the stone street.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” The stranger cried in the panicked voice of a girl. She wore the same sort of ash colored robe that Anna and I were wearing. Her hood had come off her head from the impact and she pushed her short blond hair back with her hands as she looked at us. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that. She has to be close to ending it. Are you two late too?”

It did not mean much in a place filled with people that could change their appearance as easily as they could change their clothes, but she looked younger than me. Her amber eyes and the freckles across the bridge of her nose gave her a warm, dazed look that did not suit the panic in her voice.

“Yes, we are late.” I lied, knowing that I did not know the implications of what I was saying. Anna gave me a confused look as she helped me to my feet. I could almost hear her asking me what the fuck I was doing just by her expression.

The girl stood. Just beneath the gray robe, I could see a tiny sliver of red fabric around her neck. I had seen its kind before. It was the half cloak that the underwitchs from the school wore.

“Follow me, I know a shortcut,” She said over her shoulder, already moving again. “We have to get there before The Mother in Red does.”