Getting back into the confines of the manor walls turned out to be much more difficult than escaping them had been.

Anna was not heavy, but I was tired and my feet hurt. After several attempts that were not nearly as quiet as they should have been, we slipped through the back door of the manor somehow undiscovered.

The dark clouds that had suddenly formed in the sky had grown darker as we returned and mercifully chose the exact moment we stepped inside to let loose the storm they had been threatening.

Saying it never rained in Erosette after only a little over two months of living there might have been presumptuous of me, I will admit it.

Lightning flashed and thunder cracked as the roaring downpour struck the stones of the manor. The guards and Arthur started flooding through the front doors in a burst of hurried shouts.

Anna sent me up the stairs with instructions to be quiet and to get clean before I could be seen.

I managed the first task. Making it to the bathroom without so much as hinting at a sound, I could not make myself undress. The thought of reaching to pull the chain or closing the bathroom door behind me seemed entirely impossible for some reason. I leaned back against the counter top and waited until Anna came up the stairs.

Not long after, she walked right by the bathroom door without noticing me, two green glass bottles of wine in tow. A moment passed. She took several long steps backwards and squared herself in the door frame.

“You look like you forgot why you came in here,” Anna said. “You’re dirty, remember?”

“I know. . . I just do not wish to be alone right now. I think?” I said.

She stepped into the bathroom. “Are you okay? Did something happen?”

A momentary memory of the last time I had showered came to the front of my mind. Just for a second, it had seemed like someone was in the bathroom with me. No one had been, but it had felt that way. Then, earlier that night, there had been whatever the fuck had happened with the staircase. The underwitchs had walked right by it despite the dread it had made me feel. Almost certainly, the edges of my mind were beginning to crack from the pressure of The Well and I was seeing things, but the feelings felt much too real.

“Nothing happened,” I said, unsure of if that was true or not. “Can you just stay in here while I shower?”

“Let me put these down. I’ll be right back.” Anna said and disappeared from the doorway.

At her assurance, whatever feeling had stopped me in my tracks washed away like the first streams of hot water that swirled down the drain when I pulled the shower chain. I cast my filthy dress onto the floor, undressed the rest of the way, and slipped into the shower before she returned.

That very afternoon she had helped me literally piece my mind back together. It made sense, the sense of safety I felt when she was near. Had it not been that way since she had made me trust that she was not a threat to me?

I dipped my head under the water and felt myself begin to relax as the heat and pressure washed over me.

Again, I felt the need to give her something. She needed to know how I felt, but that was a much harder message to deliver than it should have been. If I could not find the words to explain how I felt about her to myself, nothing I could say to her would be sufficient.

A gift it would be.

If I could find out what a cobbler was, I could get us both sandals, but that did not feel right. The things I felt about her were worth more than a pair of shoes.

“So, either Samsara is threatening me,” Anna called. I heard the door shut behind her and watched her steam obscured shape sit down on the edge of the raised platform that held up the bathtub. “Or he gave me a present.”

Damn cat. Stealing my idea.

“A gift?” I raised my voice and asked over the water.

“Look. It kind of feels like a threat.” She said, holding up a dark and blurry shape in her hands.

“I can’t really see it.” I said, unable to make out any details of what she was holding even after pushing the water off my face.

Anna leaned over the bathtub before standing and slipping her shoulders out of the seamless black suit she was wearing. Just like whatever Sam had given or possibly threatened her with, I could not see details.

All I could see was shape and color.

That alone was enough to make my heartbeat begin to speed in my chest.

“I’m gonna take a bath, okay? Saves time.” She asked. It was a futile question considering she had already taken her clothes off, but knowing her, she would have gotten dressed again if I had said no. It was my fear of inconveniencing her and that fear alone that made me tell her that I didn’t mind. It had nothing to do with the fact that I could not take my eyes off of the colored shape she made in the steamy glass.

After much too short of a time, she vanished into the bathtub and my view became much less interesting.

Something that one of the underwitchs had said when I was following them came back to my mind. It had been something about someone wanting to get under one of the girl’s dresses.

“Anna?” I said when my heart settled enough that I could be sure my voice wouldn’t shake.

“Autumn.” She answered.

“What is a date?” I asked sheepishly.

She laughed, sudden and loud.

“Why is that funny? I genuinely do not know.” I snapped, stomping my foot.

“Today is a date. I don’t know which, but it is one.” She giggled.

From her tone alone I knew she was teasing me.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” My cheeks began to burn with a heat that did not come from the water. I snatched the chain to stop the shower and stood there dripping. “I want to know.”

“Easy, easy. I’m going to tell you.” She said, her voice much easier to hear.

“Then why are you laughing at me?”

“Because it’s funny, dummy. We practically live together and you don’t know what a date is,” She answered. I heard her bath water slosh and shift as she moved. “A date is when two people go out and spend time together romantically.”

“Oh.” I said, the truth of it being much less complicated than I imagined. We did not go out very often, but I did spend more time with her than anyone. If my understanding of what romantic meant was accurate, it helped give shape to the indescribable feelings I held for her.

“Did somebody ask you out? It wouldn’t surprise me. Even with your glamor, you aren’t very good at hiding how pretty you are.”

Squeezing the bulk of the water out of my hair, I still did not understand fully. “What does that have to do with getting under someone’s dress?”

Her bath water sloshed again, much more quickly than before. “Did somebody say that to you? I’ll fucking kill them.”

I turned around and moved to open the shower door and hesitated. The small steps it would take for me to wrap myself in a towel seemed like a much greater distance when I knew Anna would be watching.

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“Nobody did. I overheard someone talking about it.” I answered her. One of the reasons that I had come to believe that locking a ten year old girl in a room was a terrible idea, no matter how heinous her crimes, was because I was constantly met with things I did not know. It would have been helpful to have some frame of reference to help me understand why hearing her be protective of me made my heart feel like it would burst from my chest.

“Promise?” She asked.

“I promise.” I answered.

I heard the water move as she relaxed back in the bath. “You can get out. I won’t look.”

If Anna Lao told me she wouldn’t look, that was a fact. There was no need for me to ask her to promise, but my bare skin was not what I was worried about.

She was in the bath.

My will was strong, but I did not know if I could keep myself from looking.

“You are worried about seeing me naked aren’t you?”

Can she read my mind?

“Yes.” I answered honestly, letting my head bump against the glass door.

“I can’t take you being this cute all the time. It’s gonna drive me to drinking,” Anna sighed. “You can’t see anything. Come on.”

Heart pounding, I slowly opened the door and stepped out in a whirl of steam. True to her word, Anna held her hands over her eyes. A mountain of bubbles so thick that I could not see the water they floated on, let alone any color or shape underneath the surface, covered her from chin to the tops of her feet.

The pink marble of the bath, the white of the bubbles, the light bronze of her skin, I could paint my room with those colors and still never grow tired of it.

“Okay,” I said once I was wrapped in one of the plush red towels. “How do you make it bubble up like that?”

“These little dips here. If you put your fingers in them while the water is running, it comes out in all sorts of ways.” She demonstrated, pressing her fingers into the small indentions that I had never noticed before.

“I see. Is that why you take so long? You are playing with the dips?” I asked, wrapping a second towel around my hair. If the night had not been as exhausting as it was I could have used my aura, but I was much too tired to try.

Anna ignored my question and sent a froth of bubbles onto the floor when she extended her arm. “Look at this. It was right in front of my door.”

I held out my hand and she dropped a bubble covered something into it. Small, white boned, with a short black beak that turned down at its end, the skull of a bird stared back up at me.

“It had to be Samsara right? Who else do we know with a history of slaughtering birds?” She asked, sitting up and crossing her arms.

“He has never given me a gift,” I muttered, surprised at my own displeasure. “It is probably a threat, a mark. He means to kill you. I’m sure of it.”

I turned and placed the skull on the marble countertop and made a mental note to demand my insulting familiar show me more respect upon our next meeting.

“I know you are joking, but that’s scary as shit. Hand me a towel?” Anna said, arm still outstretched.

I did as she asked, feeling a powerful force begin to draw me towards my bed.

“Are we going to sleep now?” I opened the bathroom door and watched the white steam creep into the cool air of the hallway.

A moment later, a towel wrapped Anna breezed past me and turned towards my room. “We can, but I still owe you something from the other night. It can wait, but I think now is a good time.”

“What do you owe me?” I followed after her quickly, not remembering what manner of debt she had accrued.

Sam slept atop the canopy, the fabric sagging in the middle from his weight. I would start locking my door before I left if I was allowed such luxuries.

Straight into the closet Anna went and straight out of it she came shortly after, wearing the cutoff pants and shirt she usually wore to bed. “Get dressed. We are starting later than I wanted to, but It’s probably already light outside.”

“What do you owe me?” I questioned, taking as little time as possible to become properly clothed. I had to know. It would be all I could think about until I did.

Anna stood in front of the spot on the bed she normally sat at when we were training. Her standing was not the only difference. The leather bound notebook was still in the well house and there was no bottle of wine in her hand. The skull that Sam had undoubtedly threatened Anna with sat on the made bed behind her.

“When I was being a bitch the other night, I told you I knew how to help you find your color.” She began.

“Fuck! You did! You have to tell me,” After everything that had happened since then, I had completely forgotten until that very moment. An excited stream of questions and demands spilled out from me. “How did you figure it out? Where did you learn it? If you don’t tell me, I think I’ll die.”

“I can’t tell you. I have to show you,” She said, pushing herself off the bed and stepping towards me. “If any of this makes you uncomfortable, we will stop. Okay?”

“Okay?” I answered her question with my own question. How could she show me how to find my color again if she did not have any aura herself?

She walked behind me and I felt the gentle touch of her delicate fingers against my scalp. “Do you remember what I asked you to remember from the night we had the feast? When you got ready in my-“

“I remember.” I cut her off.

She spoke to me like she had spoken to me then, and it had brought everything back immediately.

I had been angry. The firework that had rained werelights down like the drops of water that were steadily hammering against the roof had made me understand just how free I was. Anna had taken part in my anger, sharing what I felt and encouraging me to feel that way. More had come after, but the words to describe it would not appear to me.

“Good,” She whispered, brushing my still damp hair out with her fingers. “Every time your eyes have turned red, we have been close or you were angry.”

I could feel the warmth of her breath against my neck and my skin felt alive and sensitive. She turned me towards the desk and pulled open the mirror.

The eyes of my reflection glowing crimson greeted me.

Anna retook her position behind me and continued her work. “Unfortunately, I would do almost anything to keep you from getting angry. So, being close is our only option.”

“I like it when you say things like our.” I muttered looking away from myself. I saw her smile in the mirror. The air in my windowless room suddenly felt much thicker than it usually did. Slowly, I watched her arm wrap around my hip and she gently pulled me back until we were pressed against each other.

“I told you I could be anything you needed me to be. Do you remember?” She asked, her dark eyes staring at me in the reflection.

“I will never forget it.” I whispered.

Every part of my body teemed with my aura. I was not scared, but there was fear. I felt no anger, but there was tension. Another feeling that I had only experienced in memories that were not my own and the night I heard The Mother in Red singing atop her lion of fire.

Longing.

I knew at that moment that there was nothing I wanted more than for Anna to continue to embrace me.

If I had a wish, I would not waste it on removing the seal that kept my power locked away. I would not use it to lift the weight of The Mother’s punishments from my shoulders. I would leave The Well in my mind unbothered. If I had a wish, I would gladly use it to make sure that Anna and I could stay close until the end of time.

“I can do things for you that you don’t even know you need.” She whispered into my ear.

Slowly, Anna pressed her lips against the side of my neck.

The sensation forced me to hold my breath.

“Find it.” She commanded.

I did as I was told.

I closed my eyes and reached within myself. Gliding through the frenetic resonance of my aura, there was no resistance or impulse to turn away. Inward I plunged towards a spot of color that I had only harnessed once before. Everywhere I felt Anna pressing into me acted as a guide to what was mine. The color had always been mine, regardless of The Mothers. Damn The Mothers. I would bring forth my power and bear it in a display that would shame any that had come with Amoranora.

My legs shook.

Anna held me steady.

Red, red within my soul, I could almost reach it. . .

“Autumn,” Anna whispered. “Look.”

I did as I was told.

My eyes were their normal emerald green, but a crimson glow still remained in the mirror.

A circle, one of the nine that made The Mother’s seal, shone red through the white fabric of my dress.

Pain pinched behind my navel and nearly sent me to the floor.

Anna held me steady.

I pulled at the hem of my dress, drawing it up until the seal was in full sight.

Anna’s hand never left my hip.

Damn the seal. My color was mine.

My power was mine.

My soul. . .

Mine.

The red circle, the second from the outside, began to break and fall away into red dust.

I spun on my heels and grabbed Anna by the hands, spinning her around in a circle. My aura flowed out of my hand and my navel, pink like a pearl, and coiled over my arm to hers. Like living ribbons, I bound us together as we stared into each other's eyes.

“You did it, Autumn!” Anna cackled, pure joy scrunching her nose.

I smiled back at her. “Only because of you.”