Through the round black room, I burst into The Well with violence in my movement.

Speaking quietly and respectfully to whatever the fuck lived in my mind had not gotten me very far so far, so I held no space for niceties.

“Wake up! I am here and I will speak with you!” I shouted, taking extra care to stomp my feet as loud as I could.

Silence came as my answer. It was no matter, I could get much louder.

“I lied! I do bite! If you do not come speak with me I will hunt you down and show you!” I yelled. What use was a near infinite collection of knowledge if there was no simple way to find anything?

Through the variegated bookshelves I went, keeping a watchful eye above me. The last thing I needed was to be thrown from memory to memory until my mind was mush again. Now that Sam had shed his skin. Now that I had shed his skin, his earlier concerns about being strong enough to bind me were probably long gone.

I could not afford to waste that much time.

How must Anna feel knowing that I had nearly ruined her face in a fit of rage. Beyond my ability to describe, she had been kind to me at every opportunity. We were something, something grand, and how had I repaid her for her devotion?

With blind violence.

I wanted to go to her, pull her in my arms, and beg for forgiveness. My want was irrelevant. Even I knew that would mean nothing unless I could be sure It would never happen again.

“Hey! Fucker! I know you can hear me!” I shouted, coming to one of the near infinite seating areas around one of three near infinite fireplaces.

Silence.

“I need to know why I get angry after I use my aura and unfortunately for you, you are the only one who will tell me,” I dropped down into one of the high backed chairs and crossed my legs. “I’m not leaving until you help me!”

Yet again, silence.

“I can wait as long as I need to!”

Unsurprisingly, silence.

“If you wished to remain unbothered, you never should have revealed yourself to me!”

This isn’t working. I thought, hoping that being inside my mind did not mean that the thing at the bottom of The Well could hear everything.

In the moments after my arrival, I learned that I was a liar. I could not, in fact, wait as long as I needed to. Shifting back and forth in the chair, lifting myself up to resettle, tapping my foot impatiently on the floor, the waiting got the better of me much too quickly.

All I could think about was Anna, alone in her room with the memory of my sudden violence fresh in her mind.

I could not leave her like that.

“Remember, we could have done this the easy way!” I called out as I stood.

What happened next was almost too easy and I found some strange pleasure in the movement.

I pushed the chair I had been sitting in over on its back and kicked one of the legs until it bent from its place. Then, with all the anger and fury I had been burning with earlier, I grabbed the leg between my hands and ripped it from the bottom of the chair.

Out of my hands and into the fire I sent it. The flames licked over the broken wood and caught, brightening the orange light and filling me with a strange sense of satisfaction.

“Oops! I hope that doesn’t happen again,” I called out, snapping another leg off and tossing it on top of what remained of the first. “It sure would be a shame if one of these books got burnt.”

Silence.

I left the light of the fire behind me and grabbed the first book that my hands could find.

Aipheria. The name appeared in my mind as soon as my fingers wrapped around the light blue spine. Even though I was nearly certain that nothing would come of it, there was no part of me that was actually going to throw the memory filled pages into the fire. The broken legs looked like they were burning, the fire seemed like it would scorch my flesh if I got too close, but it could not be real.

Still, I held Aipheria’s book close to the flames and raised my voice again.

“My fingers are starting to sweat! I do not think I can hold this much longer!” I shouted, hoping that I had done enough to gain a reaction from whatever entity lived in my mind.

Silence.

“Fuck,” I spat and began to beg. “Please help me? I’m just a girl. I will owe you?”

As it had been every other time, no answer came.

Silently, a spot of light formed on the floor in front of my feet. A warm shade of blue, it split and arced around me, forming a shape that I only recognized once it had been made whole.

“This is not what I had in mind!” I yelled as the door of light that had suddenly formed beneath me opened and I fell straight down into a memory.

The gap between the floor and the slowly descending wall of stone that would either crush me or prevent me from completing my trial continued to grow smaller.

I couldn’t make it. My first task as an underwitch and I was going to fail.

“Not today.” I shouted, bracing my left arm with my right and sending a wild pulse of my aura crackling out of my palm. I kicked myself into a slide down the incline I had been running down, my dress doing little to shield my legs from the dust and rough stone.

I would not fail. Exhausted or not, nothing would keep me from my victory.

The stone wall caught my pulse and pressed it into the floor. Small cracks formed in my power, but I closed my fist and took on the pressure. Feeling like my hand was being crushed, I gritted my teeth and flattened myself on my back, sliding through the gap the moment before I could no longer hold my working.

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With a grinding groan, the wall fell and my aura collapsed into blue dust that sparkled against the dark stone that I had swept clean as I passed.

Torchlight lit the chamber I had entered and I realized it was the very same one I had left.

“Underwitch Iper, how do you feel?” Precept Jett stepped to where I lay on the floor and asked me.

“Powerful.” I answered. Knowing it was true in intention if not accuracy.

“If you could do it again, what would you do differently?” The tall dark haired woman that had become my teacher after The Dyeing said.

I took a breath. “I lost a lot of time in the pendulum room. I would not have bothered with the sliding either. The next time, I will hold the wall all the way up and walk through without filling my panties with dirt and dust.”

“You speak with great will, such is the high that comes with your color,” Precept Jett knelt beside me and sighed. “But where there is a peak, there must be a valley.”

“What do you mean?” I asked her, not understanding why she sounded so glum.

“This is the purpose of today's trial. Not to see how you navigate a dark and treacherous space, but for you learn the cost and effect of your newfound awakening. Just as it is with my own, your will grows when you are working with your aura. When it is done,” She paused, and wiped a single tear from the corner of my eye. “Sorrow will enshroud you like a shadow of sadness.”

Her words were proven true by the sudden sob that shook my chest. I bit my bottom lip, desperate to not break down in front of my teacher.

“Let it out, dear. It is a burden that each of us must carry. Your sisters will all go through what you are now.” She reassured me.

Even if I had wanted to, I was powerless to stop the stream of tears that flooded out of my eyes.

“It becomes easier with time. You find things that help. Even The Mother in Blue is at the mercy of the high and afterglow.” Precept Jett continued, firmly holding my hand.

How it hurt to know that everytime I used my aura, I would be left a weeping mess. How was that fair? I was an underwitch and soon to be a sorceress. My lot was to stride forth into chaos and shape it into what I desired. Being brought low did not give me the feeling of strength and power I had been promised. It would be better if I quit. I would go back home, live with my mother and be a seamstress or something of the sort. Foolishness was all that had brought me to Zenithcidel in the first place.

“It should be beginning to fade if my measure of what you lost is accurate. How do you feel? Do you have any questions?” Precept Jett asked me.

“Why,” I cried. “I want to know why.” I answered her.

The torchlight faded and my teacher's face faded into darkness. For a moment, all I could feel was the punishing weight that pressed down onto my chest and the grit of dust between my thighs. Then, everything fell away and I felt myself fall.

“What is your name?” Sam’s deep voice rumbled in my ears

“Autumn Aubrey.” I muttered and sat up. Torn blankets and tufts of whatever made pillows soft lay all around me. My hand rested on something warm and wet. I jerked it away when I realized it had been laying on top of Sam’s cast off flesh. A heavy sigh racked my chest. The last thing I needed was any more unfairness to my life. I am finally shown a way to circumvent that which binded my power, and I would not be anything near in control of it.

“Who is Autumn Aubrey?” The no longer big blue cat perched atop the footboard, nothing but white bone and yellow eye lights.

“A maiden of Zenithcidel. Daughter of Idensyn Aubrey. Debtor to The Circle of the Nine Mothers. Thief and possessor of The Well.” I answered, trying desperately to resist the impulse to lay back down and cry myself to sleep.

“Who is Autumn Aubrey?” Sam repeated.

“What?” I had answered the question just the same as I always did. Why did he have to be so difficult all of the time?

Sam leapt off of the bed and vanished from my set.

“Sam?” I called after him and crawled down the bed to see where he had gone.

“Who is Autumn Aubrey?” He repeated. With one paw of bone, he swept through a line of pink dust that had once been a ribbon of my will and looked up at me.

“A maiden of Zenithcidel. Daughter of Idensyn Aubrey. Debtor to The Circle of the Ni-“

Sam let out a wicked yowl and drug his claws back through the dust. “Who is Autumn Aubrey?”

“What do you want?” I whined, feeling so heavy that I doubted my ability to continue to hold myself upright.

The dust. What did the dust have to do with anything? Anna had helped me find my color and then. . .

Understanding washed over me like cold water.

“An Underwitch of Zenithcidel. Daughter of Idensyn Aubrey. Debtor to The Circle of the Nine Mothers. Thief and possessor of The Well.” I said, the truth of it striking me all at once. I had technically found my color behind the boarding house, but Sam had never taken issue when I continued to call myself a maiden.

Sam purred. A welcome sound despite his lack of the flesh necessary to produce it.

“Who was Autumn Aubrey?” His final question came.

“Underwitch Iper. She was completing some kind of trial on the order of Precept Jett.” I answered simply. There was no need to explain further, I had learned what I needed to.

“What did you learn?” Sam asked me, the question born of interest instead of compulsion.

I crawled off the bed and made for my door. “Don’t you already know? You explained it when you chased Anna out of here.”

“Having awareness of something is not the same as understanding it, my lady.” Sam rumbled.

How would I apologize to her? What if she didn’t want to see me? It would hurt me terribly if that was the case, but I would respect her wishes.

A nervous fear crept up my spine as I opened the door.

Anna stood just outside my room.

“Finally! I don’t think I could’ve waited any longer,” She said, peeking over my shoulder and into the bedroom. “It looks like things got sorted out. . . Kind of.”

“I almost hurt you, why aren't you upset with me? I asked her.

Anna rolled her eyes. “One of these days, you're gonna get it through that pretty little head of yours that I’m on your team no matter what. I’m your coach, remember. I left because I thought it would be easier for you to handle whatever was happening without me there.”

“Oh.” I said.

“So, what did happen?” She asked me.

I did not answer her.

Without the influence of my aura, my lips uncharmed and my heart fluttering, I leaned forward and kissed her.

I felt her arms wrap over my shoulders as she kissed me back.

The Mothers themselves could not have pulled me away.

Her lips were soft and fit mine like they had been made for one another. The point and counterpoint of our moment was gentle and sweet. When the need for breath forced us to part, she kissed my cheek and I leaned my head down onto her shoulder.

The most wonderful weakness I had ever felt left me quiet for a moment, but Anna held me in her arms without complaint.

“Just so you know, if I wasn’t such a good person, we would have done that a long time ago.” She whispered, her face buried in my hair.

“A date,” I said, slowly bringing myself back up so I could look in her eyes. “I want to go on a date with you, romantically.”

Anna grinned. “When and where?”

“Can we do it here? Right now?” I asked, finding her lips nearly irresistible now that I knew their shape intimately.

“No,” She laughed. “It's already tomorrow and we have some messes to clean up.”

“Tonight. I’ll wear whatever you want me to.” I offered.

“It’s a date.” She agreed.

Framed by the light shining out of my room and into the dark hallway, I knew that through all of my memories and those that were not my own, nobody had ever been more eager for a day to pass.

I held my pinky out towards her. “Promise?”

Anna looked down at my hand and then back up at me before kissing me on the cheek for a second time. “Promise.”