“Slow down, I’m dizzy!”

Without the need to think, I looped my ribbons around my wrists and pulled Anna against me. I did as she asked, slowing us down with every turn. My hands were wrapped around her waist, resting gently in the small of her back like we had been made to fit one another.

We came to a stop and I rested my head on her hair while the room caught up to us.

She leaned back and hit her fist against my chest. “I’m so fucking proud of you. No stupid seal can hold you back!”

“I want to marry you,” I said seriously. “Romantically.”

Anna’s eyes went wide. “Whoa, slow down, I don’t think that means what you think it means.”

“Of course I do, my mother explained it the night of the tournament.”

“Autumn, that was two days ago.” She argued back.

It was playful, I had seen how her eyes had glinted when I said what I said, but there was a point to her disagreement even if I did not understand it.

“Irrelevant. I would have asked you long ago if I had possessed the words to form the question.” That was not dishonest. The time with which I had any doubts about the girl with the raven hair had long passed. In fact, she had become one of the few things in all my life that I was doubtless about.

“How about we start with a date? If I’m going to be your first time for everything, we should do it right.”

“Do you want to get under my dress? The way the boy the girls were talking about did for them? I have it on good authority that you would kill someone if they said that to me.” I said, smoothing the wrinkles out of my dress and batting my eyelids quickly.

“You are ridiculous,” Anna laughed. She looked down at my ribbons. I loosened them the second before she pulled against the binds, able to anticipate what she wanted by familiarity alone. “How are you doing all of this? Does it feel different than normal?”

“A bird does not understand how it flies. I am doing this because I will it to be so,” I began, the words coming out without thought. It was as if I had practiced everything I was saying day in and day out, until I could not get it wrong, and then forgotten that discipline. The memory was there, it had just needed to be brought to my surface. “It does not feel different. (I) feel different.”

“Say more.” She encouraged.

I let my ribbons fall away into so much dust that shimmered against the flowery rug and stepped back from her. I would say more, if only because she asked it off me.

“Walls. Everywhere in front of me are walls made of stone, power, and debt. No matter what I do, I cannot pass through them. A presence looms behind me, breathing cold down my neck and whispering reminders that it is coming for me. I want to run, to hide away, but how can I? The walls are in my way. I cannot flee and any hope of defending myself has been sealed away.”

All the light in the room dimmed as I spoke. Darkness grew around us and just before we were swallowed by it, I spoke again.

“Then, there is you.” I took her hands in my own and placed her palms upward. As if it was as natural as blinking, two small threads of aura coiled above our hands.

Pink light illuminated us in the dark room. A smile, pure and awed, spread across Anna’s face. My aura poured out of me without the need for effort or thought.

“Whenever I feel powerless, you make me feel powerful,” The threads above our hands grew longer as they spun. “Whenever I am stopped dead in my tracks, you make me move again,” They sped faster and faster, coiling into an ever turning sphere. “Whenever I feel something breathing down my neck, threatening to rip me from where I stand, I know that you will be there when I return.”

My working had grown so large and so fast, strands of our hair were lifted and blown out from the force.

“Can you feel it?” I asked, feeling like all that existed in reality was Anna and I.

“Yes.” She whispered.

“It is because of you. All of it.” I said and threw our hands upwards.

The threads unwound and ran across the ceiling in loops and bows. They ran blindly in symmetrical streaks before rejoining above the bed in a perpetual loop.

Anna seemed to glow as my will painted the room an inebriating shade of pink. Her black hair, still damp from her bath, shone with streaks of my color. So slight, I could have imagined it if I did not know her so well, her hand reached for me before she placed it back at her side.

I’m following your lead. Her words echoed in my mind. Whatever came next, I knew I wanted it. I had never wanted anything more, but how did I make the next thing happen?

Anna seemingly understood by looking at me alone.

She bit her lip and scrunched her nose.

Fuck. . . How could something that small draw me in the way it did. Just like when I had walked across the river, I knew I would do anything to make her make that expression over and over again.

Silently, she stepped away from me without dropping her gaze. One, two, three, the bones of her feet stood against her skin with every footfall and the slight muscle of her thigh flexed and released. Every movement, no matter how slight, seemed like the most significant sight my eyes had ever seen. Then, she was gone. Like when we had been in the bathroom and the steam and rendered her into nothing more than color and shape, all she became behind the red fabric of the canopy was silhouette.

There was a static in the air, an awareness that whatever happened next, I would never be the same. Some great change or understanding was steps away behind the veil and all I had to do was take it.

All of my life that I could remember was spent in a false unknown. The memories in The Well were not known to me, but they had already happened. There was a beginning and end. Taking the slow steps towards my side of the bed, the burning I felt for within me drawing me closer, I was scared.

I had been scared before.

The first time I had met Anna and she had seen me in all my glory, I was scared of her and the impression I had made on her. She could have told Ms. Lao that I had exposed myself to her and that I was not a nice young lady.

When my side of reality had first collided with hers and she had taken being compelled by a dark and terrifying entity on the chin, I had been scared of her. She could have outed me then and there.

The day that I had dropped my glamor and shown myself to her in the little third story bedroom, I had been scared of her. An uncountable amount of things could have hurt me in the moment.

She never told her mother.

She had turned and been concerned with me the moment after her mind stopped trying to break.

She had not hurt me, the real me, but had called me beautiful and looked at me with an appreciation that I had never felt.

Every time I had been vulnerable, she had treated me with care and tenderness that I did not deserve.

Under the light of my brilliant aura, I went to her.

When I slipped into the canopy and sat in front of her on my knees, there were no words. There was only us. Not Autumn Aubrey the Well thief. Not Anna Lao the mortal girl.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Only us, together.

I reached for her and though my hands were shaking, I had never been more certain about anything in all of my life.

My brilliant light above us began to dim as my mind focused on her and her alone. I leaned forward onto my hands and moved to kiss her.

Pop.

My light winked out and my aura faded, leaving us both in the dark.

“Autumn?” Anna whispered, her breath hot and sweet with wine.

So close, we were so close.

Pop. A sharp sound came from somewhere in the dark room.

“What the fuck is that?” I whispered, tension growing in my veins.

“It doesn’t matter,” She whispered. I felt her weight shift in the bed as she reached for me. “Kiss me, please.”

Pop. The sound came again. Something was above us.

“Sam.” I sat back on my calves and looked up, snapping the lights back on in the room.

Pop. Four little holes in the canopy were illuminated by the light. Sam’s shadow sagged the fabric next to them. Pop. A white claw created another puncture. The claw dragged back, tearing through the holes and cutting a gash through the fabric.

I looked at Anna. Despite whatever the fuck my familiar was deciding to do, her dark eyes were focused only on me.

“We can go to my room and lock him out,” She said, a pleading tone that made her words sound like a question.

I traced the curve of her lips with my eyes. Flashes of when the garden had been filled with werelights and when I had stood opposite her as my opponent on the stone platform ran through my mind. Holding her the night before, imagining what the mountain of bubbles had been covering in the bath. . .

I didn’t want to go to her room. I didn’t want to do anything but finish what had been so rudely fucking Interrupted.

Moving on instinct alone, I leaned closer to her and took her face in my hands gently.

Anna did the rest. She threw her arms around my neck and I felt her breath brush my face.

Sudden weight crashed down on us the very moment before our lips met.

“Begone, mortal. This is no place for you now.” Sam thundered, every blue hair on his body standing on end. His body bent and tensed, he held himself between Anna and I.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I shouted, balling my fists to keep from striking him.

“Preventing you from hurting yourself. Mortal, go.” Sam commanded.

“Autumn?” Anna asked, confusion evident on her face.

“Is that why you’ve been sleeping up there? We were. . .” I trailed off. I hadn’t even had enough time to feel what her lips felt like before he had fallen on top of us. Our moment, the most precious unknown I had ever encountered, had been ruined.

“How dare you.” I seethed, throwing my fist blindly in his general direction.

With one heavy paw, he swatted my hand down and dug his claws into my pale skin.

Before I knew what I was doing, I had thrown myself back off the bed, ripping the section of canopy down in my wake. Flailing against the fabric until I finally threw it down at my feet, a deep crimson glow shone through my dress.

“Slow down, everybody slow down. I don’t understand what is happening.” Anna said, standing on her side of the bed after pushing the canopy open.

“Pay me attention,” Sam growled at her without turning away from me. “Your lack of understanding is why you should leave.”

“Why?” Anna asked.

“My lady is not in control of herself. She knows not what she is doing. Her attraction to you, the passion she feels, it is not her own.”

“That’s not true.” I shouted.

“Even now, your passion is turning to rage. What would come to pass if I was not here? Where would your storm of anger focus,” Sam continued. Taking slow steps towards me. “I knew not why I have been compelled to slumber atop your bed, but now I understand. I am to be the lightning rod.”

“Anna,” I said, every part of my body held still as stone. “Fuck him. He is a cat. He doesn’t know what he is talking about.”

“Don’t I? When first you kissed the mortal, it was to charm her for your own gain. If not for the influence of your aura, what was soon to transpire would never have happened. You have been allowed to know so little, you are ignorant of the danger you lose to yourself and those around you.”

I snapped my right hand out to my side and brought it back up in a sudden swipe. A blade of dark crimson aura cut through the air and sped towards Sam.

Like he was pouncing on a bird, he sprung up and pressed my aura to the bed where it died in a drift of crimson dust.

How?

“Mortal, depart before you are injured. It will do her no favors if she harms you.” Sam commanded Anna again.

I gritted my teeth. Who the fuck was he to tell her anything?

“Stop talking to her.” I growled, throwing another blade at him.

Just like the first, it was broken into dust under the paws of my familiar.

“You serve me, you fucking cat.” I spat at him, and sent as many bursts of power at him as quickly as I could.

One by one they fell, a violent back and forth rhythm of throwing and tamping breaking out between Sam and I. As the last cut towards him, I brought back my ribbons.

Only moments before they had the color of pearls, a pink that was gentle and brought Anna and I together. Then, it was a violent red. Meant to bind and restrain, to lash and punish, I sent it towards my familiar to catch him in the air.

Somehow, jumping off of nothing, he danced around my snaking aura and landed back on the bed untouched.

The ribbon cracked at its tip and broke against the wall behind Anna. Bits of stone and dust rained to the floor.

I froze. I almost hit her. What if I had hit her. I could have killed her.

Anna turned and left the room.

I couldn’t so much as call her name.

The sound of the door clicking shut behind her broke me.

“I fucking hate you. I never wanted you. Why do you have to ruin everything.” I shouted, pulling my aura back and whipping it through the air.

Snap.

A tuft of shredded fabric exploded atop the bed where Sam had been.

My eyes found him further up the bed.

Snap.

My pillow jumped and landed in two pieces that were barely connected by twisted threads.

He reappeared where my first strike had landed.

“Cease this blind tantrum. You must calm yourself, my lady.” Sam said, his voice shaking the bed frame.

“Fuck you.” I rolled my wrist and sent my aura towards him again. At the last moment, I snapped my arm out to my side.

Snap.

My aim was true.

A violent red line traced from the base of Sam’s tale ran up his spine before snaking down his right shoulder.

Everything fell. Tears fell from my eyes. The aura in my hand that I had struck Sam with fell away to dust.

My legs gave out and I fell to my knees, gasping for air.

Sam shuddered and fell.

“I’m sorry. . . I didn’t mean-you were-Sam. . .” I tried to choke down the lump in my throat, but I couldn’t breathe.

“Sam?”

Silence.

“Sam.” I cried.

“It is fortunate that I am not bound to my flesh, my Lady.” My familiar answered me after a very long and painful moment.

Haunting yellow eye lights rose from where Sam had fallen. White bone popped and cracked as he stood and shook out of his ruined flesh. He bounded off the bed and landed in front of me.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” I muttered, letting my hair fall over my tear streaked face. “But you were being so mean.”

I hated how weak I sounded. How could I go from feeling like the strongest person in the world to a sniveling little girl in just a few minutes?

“What I did was necessary. I will not apologize. What state would you be in if I had not been here to draw you anger and the mortal was the one you struck?” Sam asked, thumping his honey paw against my knee.

“Ow, fuck! Why did you hit me?” I said.

“It will take me time to adjust to my new size. I was attempting to comfort you.” Sam stated simply.

I wiped my tears. “How did you even know any of this was going to happen?”

“I did not. I merely knew that you would have need of me soon in this room. Little of my existence do I have context or understanding for. I do not have the well of knowledge that-“

“That’s it!” I cut him off and pushed myself off the floor. As quick as I could, I threw the section of canopy I had torn down over the rail and laid down on the shredded bed.

“What is it?” My familiar questioned.

“I do not have a well of knowledge. I have The Well of knowledge, and I am going to make the thing that runs it give me some fucking answers.”

“There is something in The Well?” My familiar questioned.

I left him unanswered and closed my eyes. Forcing my mind to become still, I focused only on slipping into myself and learning what I desperately needed to know.

When I did, I would go to her and make all the wrong I had done right.