I knew, if I chose my words carefully, that I had a valuable opportunity to learn things that I had been forbidden to know.

The Mother in Red is Vowkeeper. I repeated in my mind.

Silkshifter, Goldluster, Vowkeeper.

When Azza had appeared as Goldluster, she had been entirely different, transformed. She had said that I was encountering the best of her. When Mother Gwyn was Silkshifter, had that been the best of her? When she could use the green silk to take the shape of whatever she desired, was it the same as Azza? If there was some kind of consistency between the two Mothers transformation, what could Vowkeeper have been to leave a desert of her dust around the volcano?

Without being hasty, I let the silence between Mother Gwyn and I grow until the blackened limbs that she had added to the fire began to break away into coals.

She had wrapped her blue veined arms around her legs and brought her knees to her chest. With her long black hair covering her like a veil just as it had after Schwarz had died, she seemed to be closing herself off from everything around her.

“Mother Gwyn? Schwarz said he was a titan, what does that mean?” I asked, choosing to start there instead of directly asking about The Mother in Red.

Her voice filled with sadness instead of fear, she answered me without raising her head. “He was powerful, more than me or most of The Mothers. That’s why chaos split when he died, his life weighed too much for reality to bear.”

More powerful than most of The Mothers. . .

“Are there a lot of things like him?” I continued, desperately wanting to know more.

Mother Gwyn sniffled, and I realized she was crying. “There is no one like him, but there are-“

“Enough, Gwyn. Do not speak another word.” Azza spoke suddenly, interrupting the answer I had coaxed out of The Mother in Green.

Every part of me snapped to attention at the sound of her voice. The charm had worn off and The Mother in Brown had awoken.

From where she lay on her back, Azza rolled onto her hands and knees. She arched her back and raised her head to the night sky. She bent it upward into a bridge and used the momentum to roll onto her feet. In one graceful movement she straightened her legs and stood, lifting herself one section at a time like she was stacking stones.

Mother Gwyn watched her, slow tears rolling down her pale cheeks and her mouth closed.

“When we first came to the deepwood to find you and you had all eight of us lost in those cursed tunnels,” Azza glanced at me and stepped towards Mother Gwyn as she continued. “The Mother in White found the spider first.”

“I remember.” Mother Gwyn nodded and whipped her nose on the back of her hand.

I kept my eyes on Azza, waiting for her to leap over the small fire between us to try and kill me.

“She told me afterwards that the Schwarz spoke of you like she would her daughter. I never knew my parents and could never stand to be around the spider, but I know that you have lost, sister. My heart is with you.” Azza said softly, helping Mother Gwyn up to her feet. She wrapped her long body around the smaller woman and embarrassed her.

What the fuck. I thought, unable to look away from the intimate moment despite feeling like I was seeing something that should have been private.

Mother Gwyn rested her cheek against the front of Azza’s dusty robe and let herself be held.

“I had finally talked him into moving to Blackwood,” she sniffled and rubbed her face into the front of Azza’s dusty robe, drying the tears from her cheeks. “So I could be in Zenithcidel more. I was going to finish digging his nest out after I gave her my punishment.”

“The split brought him here with you?” Azza asked, rubbing Mother Gwyn’s back like my mother would mine if I was upset.

“No, he voidwalked with his webs and saved me after I saved her. It dropped us in the sky above the volcano. Why would it bring us here?”

Azza glanced at me again before answering her sister. “We will discuss this once we are within Zenithcidel once again.”

We will discuss this when we are not around a thieving little girl. I thought, knowing that I was the reason Azza would not let Mother Gwyn speak freely.

“Right,” Mother Gwyn sighed, looking up at the golden peaked volcano with sadness in her eyes. She wrapped her arms around Azza’s middle and squeezed. “I don’t think I can leave him.”

“You must,” Azza answered, separating from Mother Gwyn enough that she could brush the long black hair off her sister’s face. “I am not confident that my power will hold reality together for long. Every moment we delay our leaving, the danger grows.”

Azza knocked the dust off of Mother Gwyn’s black body suit and spoke to me. “Maiden Aubrey, you are able to walk?”

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“Yes, Mother.” I answered and stood. If she still intended to kill me, she was going a long way to settle me into a false sense of security. Despite my fear, The Mothers were the only way I could conceivably get back to the manor. I would ignore the confusing feelings I felt and try to avoid provoking either of them.

Azza’s brow furrowed. “Around your neck, is that?”

I knew what she was asking after immediately, she had been the one to put it on me after all.

“The necklace you placed on me during my punishment, Mother Azza. You said it would come off when I understood my place.” I answered, speaking honestly with no emotion in my voice.

Mother Gwyn wiped the tears from her face and looked at the choker.

“The way your punishment ended, I did not realize. You have been wearing that this whole time?” Azza asked

“Yes, Mother. I have been unable to take it off.” I answered, my hand finding its way to the sienna stone hanging from the choker without my intention.

Mother Gwyn ran her hands back over her hair and began to tie it back into the tight knot she had been wearing the first time I had seen her. “You put that on her?”

“Yes, I did. I will look at it.” Azza sighed, her posture and expression making it a question rather than her words.

I made no move and said no words to disagree. I kept my eyes on the flickering fire that was slowly running out of wood to burn and let her do as she wished. Standing so close that her scent filled my nose, I felt her long finger trace the shape of the choker all the way around my neck.

How does she do that? I wondered, not understanding how she still smelled of spices and sun warmed stone after everything that had happened.

Mother Gwyn, her hair tied up once again, approached and narrowed her eyes in my direction. “What is it for?”

She did not bring subtle scents like Azza had. She brought the appropriate smells of sweat, dust, soil, and smoke along with her. I more than likely smelled the same considering that I had been through all that she had. That meant that Azza’s spice and stone scent was some kind of small magic or charm.

It was one that I wanted to learn.

“Nothing, now. I hope it is not too tight.” Azza sighed, pushing her finger between the choker and my neck.

“If it is no longer (for) anything, will you remove it, Mother?” I asked, choosing my words as carefully as I could. It was easy for me to fall into long periods of forgetting I was wearing it, but the best way to make those long periods even longer was for it to be taken off of me.

“No,” Azza said flatly. “I cannot. Unfortunately for both of us, I am a master craftsman. It will be days before my power returns enough to break it. I will make arrangements once we return to Zenithcidel.”

I kept my face neutral and tried to hide the cold pit forming in my stomach. I would have to see Azza again. There would be another day where the scarred flesh on my arms and legs would writhe at the sight of her.

“Could you make me one? I think it’s pretty.” Mother Gwyn asked, taking the stone in her hand.

Azza took her by her wrist and pulled her away from me. “Do not be so thoughtless, sister. I am sure that Maiden Aubrey does not appreciate a reminder of her punishment being treated as a bauble to be admired.”

“Oh. Sorry, girl.” Mother Gwyn apologized, actually looking remorseful.

“Besides, when have you ever worn anything but dirt and those tight things you insist on traipsing around in?” Azza asked with a smirk.

I did not answer her.

I stared into Azza’s golden eyes and refused to look away.

I had spent many moments of my life thinking that I was someone else. When memories had fallen onto me and pulled me in and out of themselves by my touch alone, I had thought I was half a dozen souls at once. Never had I ever felt as confused as I did then.

The eyes I stared into were not those of the afterglow ravaged sorceress that would have killed me if she had the chance. Neither were they Goldlusters, who had saved my life and healed my broken hand.

I was looking at Azza, the same souls that hard buried me alive to punish me.

Why was she concerned with what I appreciated? I did not understand the inconsistency with which she treated me.

Her gaze did not falter. She held her golden eyes on mine until I could no longer stand it and I looked away.

“We must take our leave now. As weak as we are, it is unwise to remain so exposed.” Azza said, turning away from me and beginning to kick dust onto the dying fire.

Mother Gwyn’s face darkened. She looked up to the peak of Vowkeeper’s Anguish and wrapped her arms around herself.

Once the light of the fire had been buried and choked out by The Mother in Brown, she came and wrapped one of her long arms around her sister’s shoulders.

Again, I felt like I was witnessing something far too intimate, but I could not look away.

Nothing I had seen after the shift had been meant for my eyes. Schwarz, the volcano, all that I had learned of The Mothers, none of it. It was by chance alone that I was standing in the desert of red dust and ash, watching one Mother comfort another through her grief. When I did get home, there would be no end to what I had to tell Anna. She would be able to help me make sense of all the unexplainable madness I had witnessed, I could bet my life on that.

“When we recover, we will come back and I will raise a monument so all who pass through this place will know the name of Schwarz the titan.” Azza said softly.

“Swear?” Mother Gwyn whispered.

“On my name, I swear.” Azza answered with a gentle squeeze.

“Truth,” A sad smile touched Mother Gwyn’s face. “Where are we going?”

Azza led us away from where the fire had been, in the direction that were still marked with the swirls I had made in the dust.

“The shift brought Vowkeeper’s Anguish close to. . .” She paused, evidently choosing her words carefully. “The Ladies place.”

“So that is how you reached us in time.” Mother Gwyn said, taking up behind me as I followed Azza.

“Yes. The Mother in Blue will be waiting with a gate prepared.” Azza continued.

The Mother in Blue.

Nami.

Which Azza would I see when I thanked her sister for saving me from her?

Every step I took leaving a footprint of white ash in the red desert, I followed behind Azza intending to find out.