There was no need for me to go thieving in the wine cellar for my usual bribe for Anna.

I had been left alone in the garden alcove with nothing but the red werelights to keep me company, the last holdouts of a feast that had well and truly ended. I played the part of the pillager and walked through the unglamored garden to the back door of the manor with a bottle of wine in each hand.

The rest of the house could be heard as I climbed past the second story but again, I knew the best thing I could do was stay out of the way. My first attempt at helping someone who was in the process of dying had ended in failure and Ms. Lao did not like me, even when she hadn’t just fainted from laughing too hard.

Dirty and sore and tired, my belly full and without Anna to distract me, there was nothing left for me to do but to get clean. I pulled the blue dress over my head, threw it in the general direction of the closet, and left Sam snoring on the canopy.

The bathroom Anna and I shared on the third story of the manor stood between our rooms, but she spent much more time in it than I did. Spending most of my waking hours being salty and wet did not fill my heart with desires for a long warm bath.

I closed the door and turned the brass lock closed. Undressing the rest of the way, I took a breath and enjoyed the feeling of knowing that no one could come through the door. The peace I felt inside a room that I had shut myself in had not been something I knew I would miss when my time at the old boarding house had come to a dark and violent end.

The floor and the ceiling was made of the same stones and beams that made most of the manors material. A large mirror, taking up nearly half of the wall on the left side of the room, hung over a wide sink made of the same pink marble as the door to the well house and the statue in the garden. It was fortunate for my familiar that I no longer entered The Well in the bathroom because there were no lights over the mirror for him to perch atop. Set high on a perfectly cut slab, the bathtub and its pedestal shared the material of the sink.

I had never used it. If I could help it, I never would. Unless I was physically forced into a bath, crawling out of the one in the old boarding house moments after I had opened the channel in my right palm and driven off the lich would remain my last.

Anna had been through the same thing I had. She had gazed up at the lich, been beckoned by it, but she had no issue spending hours in the bath.

At the back of the room, like a hollowed out column of the pink marble, a circular shower with a glass door that opened and closed by sliding on on brass rails stood. Whoever had built the manor or lived in it before us had a particular sense of style that I did not particularly enjoy, but I did like the shower.

I stepped into it and pulled the glass door closed. Through several tired mistakes and cold water induced flailing, I had learned that the brass chain on the left was what made the water hot. Pulling it halfway down, the water poured over me and a moment later the rest of the bathroom was obscured from view by a wall of steam.

The memory of the evening started playing back in my mind. Presumably, old big hands Morrow had gathered up all of The Red Mothers lights and freed her from Othilie. I shuddered at the thought of my mothers shambling gait when she had been playing the demon. The more interesting question was how had she lost her lights in the first place? The real question was how she had seven lovers and who were all happy to share? In the memory, Nami had assaulted The Mother in Orange and The Mother in Purple when she had found them in bed together. What if they had just been sleeping, the way Anna and I did?

“They weren’t sleeping, Autumn.” I said to myself, opening an eye against the downstream of steaming water long enough to pull the chain the rest of the way down. The hot water felt too good on my tired body to get out yet. If Anna was asleep when I got out, I would have to wake her up and charm her before she could hit me. I didn’t know what I would say, but I needed to make sure she was okay.

Fuck. I needed to talk to Arthur as well. Not just because he had asked to speak with me, but because he had come perilously close to showing a thread that if pulled, would unravel much of the things that were my own. What would my mother say if she found out that I had broken the barriers within my mind and willfully hid that fact from The Mothers with the assistance of the thing at the bottom of The Well? How would I be punished if she discovered that I had been found by a dark entity and kept that secret from her?

Punishment. The Mother in Brown would be first and there was nothing I could do to ease my fear except to ignore it, but ignoring it did nothing but give the fear room to breed. It would multiply and build within me, bursting from me in a swarm the way it had when Arthur had scared me before the game.

“Time to get out, Autumn.” I said to myself. Sticking my head out from underneath the still hot water and turning to crack the glass door so some of the warm steam would fill the room, I opened my eyes and reached for the brass handle.

Someone was in the bathroom.

A dark figure stood on the other side of the steamed glass, an unmoving and blurred shadow.

My eyes closed reflexively against the water that ran from my hair over my face and I brought my hands up to wipe it away. “Anna?”

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No answer.

Blinking the remaining moisture from my vision, all I saw was white steam. No figure. No shape.

I reached back and pulled the brass chain past the end of its range and it snapped back up, the water pressure quickly slowing to a trickle before stopping completely. “Anna?”

No Answer.

I pulled the glass door and let a cloud of steam into the bathroom, finding it empty except for myself. A slow step out of the pink marble chamber and onto the stone floor, I could find no sign that anyone had been there. The door was still locked, there was no window for anyone to climb through, and there was no black mist swirling on the ceiling.

“Tired,” I muttered, pushing my fists against my eyes and then grabbing two red towels from under the sink. If my eyes were playing tricks on me, that was the only conclusion that made sense, then I needed to go to bed

No longer enjoying the “peace” I felt by being locked in the bathroom, I wrapped my hair into one towel and dried myself with the other as fast as I could rub the water off my skin before quickly stepping into the hallway and hurrying into my room. Anna’s door had been open but her lights had been off and the two pillaged bottles of wine sat untouched where I had left them on the desk. I sighed, getting dressed and pulling one of the clean white dresses from the closet and pulling it over the towel that was still wrapped around my head. “Still downstairs.”

Sam’s little snores sounded from the canopy and a yawn forced my tired body to stretch as tall and as wide as it was capable of. Knowing that sleep would take me if I went to the bed, I pulled the little leatherbound journal out from under Anna’s pillow and grabbed the bottles of wine before sitting down cross legged on the rose patterned rug with my back leaning against the footboard. I would be there waiting when she came back up, just like she would for me.

Something patted my cheek. I furrowed my brows and tried to turn away from it, I had been sleeping so deeply.

“Autumn.” I heard a voice, but something was still striking my cheek repeatedly.

“No.” I mumbled, bringing my hands up aimlessly to try and stop whatever malevolent force was disrupting my slumber from striking me again.

“You can go right back to sleep, but you’ve got to get in the bed first.” The voice said again, and I felt myself being dragged to my feet.

My eyes partially blind from the sleep I had not known I was getting, I saw Anna pulling me up. “Mom.”

She laughed. “No, not quite.”

I sat back on the bed, the red fabric of the canopy draping over my shoulders like a cloak, and rubbed my eyes to clear my vision. Through a yawn, I asked. “Your mom?”

Anna sighed. “She is fine, sleeping now I think.”

She had changed out of her gown and wore a loose long sleeve shirt and pants cut off above her knees. It was what she normally wore to bed. Her dark hair had been let down and looked just a little damp. “I waited up for you.”

“No, you fell asleep waiting up for me,” She corrected and unwound the towel that had dried to my hair. “It’s late, you should go back to sleep.”

“We have to train.” I said, standing up and stretching the sleep from my bones.

“I think you’ve done enough tonight already.” Anna said, taking her leather bound journal and the bottles of wine off the floor. She tossed the journal up by her pillow and set one bottle onto the desk before handing me the other.

“What do you mean?” I said, having to try several times to focus my aura enough to grip the cork and pull it out.

“You caught yourself and me with your aura in the garden earlier. You were barely able to lift an empty bottle a few weeks ago. Missing one night isn’t going to hurt. You’ve already gotten stronger,” She took the bottle back from me and drank. “You’re in no shape to train anyways, you would fall back asleep if I stopped talking right now.”

I started to disagree, but another yawn stopped my words short.

“I’m going to be drinking for a while and I don’t want to keep you up, but I’ll see you in the morning.” Anna said, turning away from me.

I caught her by her hand. “You can’t. I will not allow it.”

“Oh?” She questioned, a surprised look on her face.

I nodded, feigning a serious expression and taking on my mothers manner of speaking. “There has been a demon sighted in the garden this night. To ensure your safety, since you are so weak and helpless, I insist you stay in my quarters. No, I insist you stay at my side. Nothing short of that is protection enough.”

Anna smiled then, playing our little game despite what must be troubling her mind “Lady Aubrey, I couldn’t. You must sleep to keep your strength up.”

“Do not concern yourself with my strength, Lady Lao. My hands are the biggest and most calloused in this land. I fear no demon, even without enough sleep.”

We both laughed and she moved to crawl through the canopy on her side of the bed. I slid myself back and pulled the blankets over myself, relaxing into the mattress while Anna got settled.

At least I won the game I valued the most that night.

Anna sat with her back propped up against the headboard, the bottle of wine in her hands and the leather bound journal in her lap. Unable to keep my eyes open any longer in the shade of the canopy, I closed them and spoke. “Tomorrow, I am going to ask my mother to allow us to go into the city.”

“Do you really think she will say yes?” Anna asked in return.

“I don’t know,” I yawned again. “But I have to ask. It’s all I can think about.”

The sound of the wine sloshing in the bottle as Anna took another drink followed. Sam’s little snores sounded rhythmically from above and I felt myself beginning to fade back into sleep. Just before my awareness vanished, I felt Anna reach over and gently take my hand into hers.

“Thank you for waiting up for me.” I heard her say quietly.

“Thank you for mooning me.” I muttered with a smile.

Sleep took me.