With everyone looking at me, I found that what I wished for most in all of chaos was to suddenly gain the ability to disappear without a trace.

“What did you say?” I asked. Surely I had not heard her right.

“You cannot go. I must keep you safe. . .” My mother repeated.

She continued to speak, but I couldn’t hear her. Of course she had said no. There had never been a reality where she would have said yes, favor or not.

The dream of being allowed to go into the city, and it had never been anything more than a dream, had been that of a silly little girl.

A thieving, criminal, delusional little girl.

It is not your fault. The thought felt distant, echoing, like the remnants of a dream vanishing from my mind in the moments after I first woke.

Of course it was my fault. I had stolen The Well. I had ran away. I had been stupid enough to think that there was a possibility of my mother saying yes.

“Hey.” Anna said, giving me a small shake. Why was she looking at me like that? She had worn the same expression the night before when I had collapsed into her.

Arthur, Ms. Lao, My mother, all of them were looking at me that way. It was like I had suddenly slipped and fallen, too clumsy to keep my feet underneath me.

“Autumn. I am sorry, but you must understand why I cannot allow you, no matter how much it hurts me to tell you no.” My mother said, a trail of tears running down her right cheek and a steady stream of iridescent dust pouring from the roof of the cave onto her left shoulder.

“No, of course. I understand.” I said, not realizing that I was moving until I felt the dust under my feet as I walked backwards to the mouth of the cave.

“Autumn.” My mother said, her tone careful and apologetic.

I thought I was going to be sick. The way they were all looking at me, I couldn’t take it for another second. They weren’t just seeing me, they were seeing through me, seeing what I really was. . .

“I, uhm, I have somewhere to be.” I squeaked out before turning on my heels and running as fast as I could.

“Autumn!” My mother called after me, but I couldn’t stop.

Bursts of shimmering dust were thrown into the air every time my feet hit the ground. All around me, trails of my mother’s power rained down. I broke through the mouth of the cave, and into the garden. The Split, the snow, the towering walls that had turned the garden into elsewhere crumbled around me. Soft soil and the garden hedges around the garden revealed themselves as my mother’s glamor faded. None of it had been real. None of it had ever been real. It was all just food, just enough to keep me from starving.

I tripped and fell. Pain shot through my wrists when I caught myself on my hands. I glanced back. The Lao’s stood knee deep in mounds of dust that was the only trace of the cave that had been there moments before. I couldn’t see my mother.

The stew sat heavy in the bottom of my stomach, feeling sour and uncomfortable. I was nearly sick again, but I picked myself up and continued fleeing.

I needed somewhere to hide, somewhere I could not be seen.

Bool and Schmidt stood in my way just outside the mouth of the garden. Each of them were busy dusting the remnants of my mother’s power off of themselves, but I didn’t slow. I tried to slip through the middle of them. My right shoulder caught Schmidt’s hip.

“Hey, you little shit.” The man shouted.

The recoil of running into him bounced me into Bool. The older guard’s arm wrapping around my middle was all the kept me from falling to the stone path.

Like I weighed less than Sam, he lifted me up and sat me on my feet, his gloved hand holding my arm firmly to steady me. I locked eyes with him. His brows were dark and bushy. The color of his eyes were a darker green than mine or my mother’s. Even he, a man that had been forbidden to interact with me for fear of him growing fond of me, looked at me like I was a child that had fallen and skinned their knee.

“Let me go.” I growled, swatting at his hand.

Book glanced back at the garden. “Mothers forgive me,” He said under his breath. “What’s the matter? We can help you sort it out.”

I snapped my right arm towards him and drove my fist into his stomach.

He was a guard. He was wearing armor. My fingers crunched against the hard metal over Bool’s middle.

It couldn’t have hurt him, but he let me go regardless.

“Fuck,” I shouted, holding my throbbing hand and stepping away from the guards. “I’m sorry.”

If they said anything else, I didn’t hear it. I made for the back of the manor and had climbed onto the roof of the first floor in a matter of moments. Knees, elbows, toes, I scraped all of them against the rough stone of the walls as I climbed to the highest point of the manor. I rolled onto the roof above mine and Anna’s rooms and lay on my back, staring up at the night sky.

There were no clouds, but there never were. The air at night was warm, but it always was. The breeze was gentle, but it always was.

I was a prisoner.

I always was, even if I had forgotten it.

I was a criminal.

I always was, even if I had forgotten it.

It is not your fault. Came the distant thought again.

“Shut up.” I said to myself. Part of me wished that I would have been treated like a prisoner should be. If I had been kept under lock and key in a small dark room, nothing but three walls and iron bars to keep me company, I wouldn’t hurt the way I did.

The Mother’s had given me enough room to run that I had formed desires. I wanted to live with Anna, I wanted to experience chaos instead of just seeing it. I wanted to go to school and learn. I wanted to be fucking normal. . .

If I had never been given the opportunity to want, if all I knew was The Well and sleep, it would be so much easier.

Maybe that was the point. Maybe they wanted me to want, they wanted me to wish that I could be normal, they wanted me to suffer. If they let me have just enough freedom to imagine what my life could be like without my debt or the seal, it would hurt me all the more when they stole me away for my punishments.

I deserved it. I had brought it on myself. If I was not bad, there would have been no need for any of it. It was my fault.

A far off chorus of laughs and claps sounded quietly from the city below. I was hallway off the roof before I forced myself to lay back down. I couldn’t let myself look, no matter how bad I wanted to know what Dreamtongue’s night was truly like. I couldn’t let myself look because I didn’t think I would be able to stop myself from jumping the walls and running away.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

I closed my eyes and wiped the tears that had leaked out. I would stay on the roof until I was sure everyone had gone to sleep. Then, I would sneak into my room. There was no part of me that thought I could stand being seen again.

It is not your fault. The thought was quieter, weaker, than it had been before. It was almost as if the small piece of myself that wished to believe that had begun to doubt itself.

I laid unmoving on the roof with my eyes closed, feeling numb and empty. It could have been an hour just as easily as it could have been ten minutes, but after some time, I heard a voice.

“Just, no-hold-on-Arthur! Put your hands like,” I heard Anna say in a harsh, hushed, tone. “There. Now, when I step up, you push me. Got it?”

Silence

“But how am I going to get up there?” I heard Arthur ask.

“Your arms are longer than I am. Just reach up and pull yourself up.” Anna assured her little brother.

“I don’t know if I’m strong enough to do that.” Arthur said.

“Then just push me up and I’ll get her to come down.” Anna insisted.

“Don’t leave me down here, she’s my friend too.” Arthur whispered.

“One, two,” Anna counted off. “Three.”

Anna suddenly appeared, her arms and legs flailing, and crashed to the rooftop.

A furious scowl on her face, she picked herself up and glared back down from where she had appeared from.

“What the fuck was that?” She said, glaring down.

A set of fingers clutched the edge of the roof at her feet and a moment later, Arthur had pulled himself up and stood

“I guess I’m stronger than I thought I was.” The tall man beamed, striking a pose that flexed the muscles of his arms against the thin fabric of his sleeves.

Anna slapped him open handed on the stomach. “I can still kick your ass, be more careful next time.”

Arthur doubled over and wrapped his arms around his stomach, his face squeezed into a pained grimace. “Ufhh.”

Only for a moment, the memory of him being gored through his stomach and the life leaving his body while he was silhouetted by the light of his childhood home snapped into my mind.

Anna pulled her brother into her arms and was offering an endless stream of apologies.

Arthur struggled to stand, but when he reached his full height Anna and I noticed the same thing immediately.

“You are a bastard.” Anna spat.

“Got you,” Arthur laughed, throwing his head back in a wild laugh. “We’re both bastards. Ma and Dad never got married.”

Anna turned and walked towards me slowly, keeping her dark eyes on mine. “You’ve been spending too much time with Samsara.”

I didn’t get the chance to ask her what she meant.

Arthur leaned back from another fit of laughter, his arms wrapped around his middle.

There was no stone for his foot to land on.

“Hey!” I yelled, snapping off the ground and brushing past Anna just in time to see Arthur slam back first into the hard stone of the second story.

“Arthur!” Anna called down to him, standing beside me.

“Hold on,” Arthur grunted as he stood. He patted his hands over his body. “I'm good.”

Like he hadn’t just fallen off of a roof, the tall man jumped and pulled himself back up with little effort.

Arthur alive and not a broken mess, I sat back down where I had been before, desperately trying to ignore another echo of laughter from the city. “What are you doing up here?”

Anna lowered herself and sat opposite me. “You know why I’m up here. Look at me. Are you okay?”

I looked at her, hoping she had not begun to hate me. “I’m sorry I ruined everything. I’m happy about your mom.”

“Shut up, you didn’t ruin anything. Me too, I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you.”

“Bullshit,” I said, rolling my eyes. “How is my mother? Is she upset with me?”

Arthur laughed. “She’s not upset with anybody. She’s asleep. I had to carry her to her bed.”

She is asleep. I repeated in my head.

As if some wicked spirit had set itself to tempting me, more laughter echoed up from the city. I groaned, finding my longing for freedom beginning to grow again. It had been easy when I had been empty, but Anna’s presence alone had sparked me back to life.

“If she’s anything like you, she will probably be asleep for a week,” Anna said, standing up and walking behind me. “Let me take these out, it’s not good for your hair to stay braided for too long.”

“Ma thought you were running away.” Arthur said, walking to the far end of the roof and looking out over the city.

“I thought about it,” I said honestly. Enjoying the feeling of Anna unbraiding my hair. “I have a history of doing things like that.”

“Makes sense. I would do it if I were you.” Arthur agreed.

There was something comforting in that. “Really?”

“Shit yeah! I would have jumped these walls a long time ago. Especially if I had power like you do. I don’t know how you haven’t done it yet.” Arthur answered.

“Me too. I think any of us would,” Anna agreed, brushing my hair out with her fingers. She came back around and helped me onto my feet. “Why didn’t you?”

Applause, much louder than any of the laughs had been, sounded from the heart of Erosette.

“I couldn’t leave you,” I said, a terrible idea beginning to burn in my mind. I looked into Anna’s eyes and felt a wicked smile turn the corner of my mouth up. “But you’re here now.”

“Autumn. No, that’s a terrible idea.” Anna warned, apparently knowing what I was thinking just by the look on my face.

Arthur looked confused. “What’s a terrible idea?”

“I’m already a criminal. I’ve already done it once when I didn’t know who I was. It is the best idea,” I insisted, poking my bottom lip out.“Down and back, I just want to go see what it is like, please?”

Anna covered her face. “Don’t do that to me! That’s not fair. What about the guards? What if someone recognizes you?”

“The guards are all out front, even the captain.” Arthur offered.

“Shut up. That’s not very helpful.” Anna snapped at her brother.

“The guards are all out front,” I said like I had known that all along. “Even the captain! I’ll take us down right here over the wall. They will never see us.”

Anna and I were playing the same game we did almost every night we had lived in the manor. We both wanted the same thing, but she would make me convince her before she agreed. The prize was different, but the way it was played remained the same.

“Even if they do see us, they won’t recognize me.” The excitement I felt made what I did next take no effort at all. I focused my aura and became someone else.

Blonde hair, blue eyes, skin tanned by long days on a beach. “Hello, my name is millime, would you like to celebrate Dreamtongue’s night with me?”

Anna stood firm, arms crossed, but she wanted to break. I could see it in her eyes.

I covered my face with my hands and then pushed them back over my hair, letting my aura flow freely. Millime faded away just as my hair faded from blonde to gray. Hunching my back and placing my hand on my hip, I gave my voice a breathy quaver. “Ohhh. Young lady, can you help me get back down to the city? I seem to have gotten turned around.”

Anna rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t keep herself from smiling.

I had won.

Rising from my stoop, I returned myself from the old woman to Millime. I kissed Anna on her cheek and pulled her to where Arthur stood on the edge of the roof.

“We will go to the river and then we are coming back, got it? Anna commanded.

“Right, right. Of course. Just to the river.”

“I’m serious. I won’t sleep over if you don’t listen to me.” Anna reinforced her previous statement.

Arthur was looking at us with a strange expression on his face. “You guys are fucking weird.”

“I’ll show you something weird.” I said, wrapping my arms around Anna and throwing us both off the third story roof.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Anna yelled, nothing between us and the ground but empty air.

My aura rushed out of my palm like I was full of the glimmering power. Just before we hit the ground, I sent a steady stream straight down and slowed our descent just enough that we rolled onto the grass uninjured.

I answered Anna in a whisper when we rolled to a stop outside of the manor walls. “I’m doing what criminals do, breaking the rules.”