The fireworks could be heard within the manor, tempting me to run back down to the city all the way up until I shut the door to my windowless room.

Springer and Woolie had marched Anna and I back to the house not a moment after The Mother in Red had disappeared into the city on the back of her rose-fire lion. What remained of dinner had been cold but that had not stopped me from throwing a loaf and a half of bread and however much meat I could stack on top of it onto a plate. When we climbed the stairs to where Anna and I’s rooms were, on the third floor of the manor, I shut the door behind us and placed my plate on the empty desk that sat in the big space.

“I have seen power like that,” I began, unable to hold my excitement within me any longer. “In memories, but, seeing it with my own eyes, feeling it, hearing it, It. . .”

I trailed off, unable to find words that could carry what I felt. I took up pacing, the pattern of roses and thorny vines on the soft rug that covered most of the brick floor seemed more fitting after what I had witnessed. Bringing every detail of what I had seen back to my mind in quick succession, I knew I would never forget it. I knew in my heart that I would never be as mighty as The Mothers. That was why they were The Mothers and I was a criminal but I couldn’t keep myself from imagining myself riding on the back of the lion, a city full of people jubilant at the sight of me.

“It was something.” Anna said with a shrug and walked to the left side of my bed.

“That wasn’t just something, that was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. How can you not be awestruck like I am?” I asked, my hands on the hips of my torn dress.

“She’s one of the ones you have to be punished by. Doesn’t it freak you out that she can do all of those things?” Anna asked, lowering herself to her hands and knees and crawling under my bed.

Fuck.

“Not until you said that,” I muttered. All the excitement, all the wonder I had felt from seeing The Mother in Red left my body in an instant. My weight doubled and I dropped to the ground, wrapping my arms around my knees. “Now I can’t stop thinking about it.”

There had been little spoken by anyone, including myself, about the nine punishments that had been hung around my neck like a chain in the two months since my sentence had been delivered. The chain The Mothers had chosen had given me too much room to run and it was all too easy to forget that at any moment they could come for me. If she could do the things I had witnessed on the bridge for nothing more than a parade, what awaited a girl who she had a reason to hate?

I would be roasted like the meat on the desk had been.

“I didn’t mean,” Thump, the sound came from under my bed. “Shit, hold on,” Anna shimmied herself backwards, the sound of glass clinking against glass following her along. She sat up and placed two bottles of wine in front of her and pressed her hand to the top of her head. “I think I’m bleeding.”

I crawled over and kneeled in front of her, running my fingers through her black hair so I could see her scalp. When I found nothing, I glared down at her. “Did you even hit your head?”

“No, but it got you out of whatever rabbit hole of torture that was in yours,” She looked up at me with a wink and tried to stand. “That’s why you’ve got to keep me around, I can read you like a book.”

I pushed her back down. “That is not very nice. I was worried about you.”

“Good. You should have been. That is a normal human reaction.” I almost pushed her down again, but chose peace instead and helped her to her feet. She had been right after all, I had been in the process of getting stuck in my mind.

Anna picked up her bottles and uncorked the one that was not entirely full. She shook it. “I drank more than I thought I did last night. Do you want to finish this one off?”

I refused, shaking my head. “I need to keep my mind, my own, if we are going to get any work done.”

That was all the more true after I had assaulted two guards and nearly attempted to assassinate The Mother in Red thinking I was someone else. Did the Mother know there was a sorceress named Suri that very much wanted her dead? I would tell her when she came for me, maybe it would keep her from melting all of the flesh off my bones.

I took the full bottle from her and pinched the short amount of cork that stuck out from the dark green glass with the thumb and forefinger of my right hand. She turned the open bottle up and drained it before sitting it on the desk next to my cold dinner. With little to no effort at all, I brought my aura to my fingers and pulled the air tight cork out. Pop.

Anna took it from me. “What if your mom comes up here when she gets back? She said she was going to talk to you. Our little experiments aren’t going to go over well with her if she catches us.”

She had a point, but I knew what I wanted. “It has been weeks since we moved and she has never come up here.”

“Months,” Anna corrected me. She took her bottle and slipped through the crimson canopy that hung over my bed. “We’ve been here for two months yesterday.”

It was all too easy for me to lose my sense of time considering I spent most of my waking hours buried in the past.

“That proves my point further. We have done this every night for two months and she has never caught us.” I said, turning away from Anna as she drew the canopy up and tied it, her open bottle pressed between her legs. “Here, this will make you feel better.”

“Do you really want to risk getting into more trouble?”

I didn’t answer, focusing my aura and turning my attention to my door.

My door was unique, being the only one in the manor house that could not lock. No deadbolt for me to turn or clasp for me to fasten, I found the need to improvise.

Half on the door and half on the stone wall, I placed my hand over the small gap and pressed my aura through my palm. Iridescent power swelled from my skin and I traced the outline of the door with my colorless light. I released with an exhale and my power glimmered as it hardened into the shape I had drawn.

It wasn’t a lock, exactly, but it would hopefully keep anyone from barging in. Would it? I had never done it before, but the logic of my working made sense. There was no way to know for sure until someone tried.

“Autumn.” Anna said, having settled into her usual post on the edge of my bed. The leatherbound journal that held the findings of our previous experiments opened beside her. “Do you really think that would stop your mom if she wanted to get in here?”

By sitting at her post, she had agreed to work. I answered honestly, no need to continue to convince her. “No. Where are we starting?”

“Glamor.” Anna sighed, shaking her head.

I snatched a hunk of bread and meat off the plate on my desk and threw it into my mouth. Taking up my own post, standing in the middle of the room facing Anna, I swallowed and nodded to her that I was ready.

“Me.” She said, telling me who I needed to make myself look like.

“That’s too easy, give me something harder.” I complained.

“Do it or I’m going to sleep.” She threatened. Her threat was not empty, she had left me standing there more than once.

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My aura came easy and the glamor came easier than that. It was hardly a challenge when you knew the person's face down to every last intimate detail. I stared back at her, a perfect mirror of her own face. It was not new to us. The first week we had started doing our late night work, I had glamored myself into her exclusively. Learning that the small scar on her eyelid had come from a young Arthur throwing rocks at her while she had been reading and that she was embarrassed that one of her ears were bigger than the other had only made me like her more.

“Fail.” She said simply, marking in the notebook.

“How?” I snapped, the glamor vanishing from my face in an instant.

“I keep telling you that you make me too pretty,” She sighed. Something was bothering her, I could feel it. We had stayed awake into the small hours of the morning more times than I could remember and even then, when neither of us could keep both our eyes open, she hadn’t seemed as disinterested. “Manipulation next. The bottle.”

I didn’t question her. She meant for me to move the empty bottle from the desk and back down again, but I needed to get her attention. Bringing my aura to my palm, I set my eyes on the green glass between her legs and closed my hand as if I was grabbing it. Glimmering light enveloped the neck of the bottle and I raised my arm.

“Hey, wait. I meant the other one, dummy,” Anna sputtered, reaching for the bottle that I held above her head. As long as I maintained the belief that I was holding it, I could do whatever my heart desired with it. If that belief wavered, it would drop to the stone floor and shatter. “Give it back," She demanded, rising to her knees and snatching it from the air. She cradled it to her chest like it was her baby. “Why did you do that?”

The loss hit me with a momentary wave of dizziness. The heaviest thing I had ever managed to lift was an empty bottle just like the one that sat on my desk. I hadn’t considered what the added weight of the wine would cost me. Another hunk of cold bread and meat replenished me. When I was certain I would not faint, I asked. “Did I pass?”

“Only because you’ve never done that before. If you would have dropped this,” She took another drink. “I would have beaten your ass.”

“Is that so,” I questioned, still feeling some unspoken resistance from her. “Charm?”

“Make me sleepy.” She sighed, her face beginning to redden from the alcohol.

I couldn’t ignore it any longer. I had to take a direct approach. “Is there something on your mind? Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” She shook her head, drank, then shrugged. “Yes, but it's not a big deal,” She tried to change the subject. “Make me feel like I need to sneeze.”

I stared at her, silently refusing to let it go until she continued.

“Fine,” She sighed. “Why did you go to The Well? You knew Samsara was not here. You promised your mom you wouldn’t. You didn’t tell me you were going. Couldn’t you have waited?”

“I could have.” I agreed. It was true after all. Waiting for my blue familiar to return from his murder quest would not have killed me.

“If I hadn't seen you jump the wall, who knows what would have happened.”

“Nothing good.” I agreed, the burn of embarrassment in my cheeks making me wish I hadn’t asked her. I cast my eyes down from her and started tracing one of the vines on the rug with my toe.

She snapped her fingers at me to get my attention. “Stop it, I’m not mad at you, I just want to know why. I’m your partner, right? I help you train every night until you drop. I keep secrets from your mother for you, and she’s probably one of the only reasons my family is alive. It just doesn’t feel good when you suddenly start leaving me out of the loop. ”

There had been a time where lying to Anna had been necessary. I hadn’t enjoyed it, but it had been what I thought was right. That time had passed and I had learned that no matter how badly I didn’t want to, telling her what I truly felt was usually the best option. “Every day that goes by without me chipping away at The Well is another day that I am not free. It's a reminder that my life is not my own. I thought I would slip in, do something small just to make myself feel better. I didn’t know I would come out of it thinking I was someone else. That only happened with Willa and I had been in The Well for days.”

“That's it, that makes sense,” Anna nodded. “I’d do the same thing if I were you.”

“Really?” I asked, reaching for the wine and taking a drink to wash down the lump in my throat.

“Probably not, but I get why you do it. You aren’t really known for following the rules you know?”

The resistance I had felt from her had dissipated, but it had left me feeling low and I wanted nothing more than to crawl within the canopy of my big bed and go to sleep.

Anna had other plans. She took another long swig and wiped her mouth. “As long as you promise that the next time you go to The Well when Samsara isn’t here, you come get me, I won’t hold this over your head. I brought you back tonight, I can do it again,” She offered me her hand. “Deal?”

A smile spread across my face and we shook on it. “Deal.”

“Alright, you’re warmed up enough and I’m starting to feel too good to give a shit about this. Are you going to try?” She asked me, standing up at the foot of the bed.

One more hunk of bread and meat down my throat, I nodded to tell her I was beginning.

This is what the training was for.

I closed my eyes and reached within myself. My mind brushed against the fluttering resonance of my aura. If my desire was to cast a charm or paint my face with a glamor, all that was left for me to do was focus my will but I was in search of something that I had only ever done once before. Something that was much deeper. Deeper I went, plunging my mind through the surface of my aura and pushing further into my soul. Every instant was a desperate fight against the impulse to turn my mind away and open my eyes. Further. A spot of color within myself came to my mind. My knees buckled, Anna caught me and held me upright.

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

“Hey.” I heard Anna’s voice.

Something patted against my cheek.

“Autumn.” I heard her say my name. I liked when she said it. It sounded. . . right.

I didn’t like being repetitively slapped on my cheek.

My eyes opened and I clutched her hand with my own. “Stop that.”

I laid on my back, the roses and thorns of the rug standing out against the white of my dress.

Anna held my head in her lap and made no move to push me off her lap despite my return to consciousness. “That was a bad one, you nearly bounced your head off the floor.”

“I almost had it. I’ve never gotten that close before.” I sighed, the remnants of the fluttering feeling fading from my body.

“Its fucking scary. If something happens and you get hurt, I’m leaving you on the ground. You won’t catch me being the one to tell your mother that you’ve been lying to her since you came back.”

I could not fault her for that. She was my mother and I didn’t want to be the one who told her. I hadn’t meant for there to be secrets and lies between us, but Sam had decided it was necessary during the three days I had been with The Mothers. She knew nothing of the channel on my palm, the lich, or that I had found the color of my soul.

Other than Anna, only Sam knew about the nightly sessions and that was because he had been the one to suggest them.

“I’m feeling better now,” I said sitting up. The first night in the manor house that I had tried to harness my color, I had fainted and fell straight back onto the hard stone of the floor. “Thank you for catching me.”

Anna stood and yawned, the exhalation bringing her all the way up to the tips of her toes. “I’ve got to go to sleep.”

The training had not been the only nightly ritual Anna and I had taken up in our new home.

“You can’t leave yet, I wish to try again. I know I can do it.” I said, jumping up and blocking the door behind me with my arms wide.

Anna laughed and raised an eyebrow. “If you want to have a sleepover, Autumn, you’re gonna have to come right out and ask me. You know my rules.”

“That is not what I meant.” I snapped, crossing my arms and looking away from her, lying.

“Right,” She dragged the word out as she sat her second empty bottle on the desk next to the first and my mostly eaten plate of food. She moved towards the door I had foolishly left unguarded. “I’m going to bed then, I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Of course,” I stepped back between her and the door. “If you wanted to sleep in here, it would be very rude of me to turn you away. The window in your room has no curtain and the sun rises very early here in Erosette.”

“Oh so that’s why you want me to stay. You are worried the sun will rise too early?” Anna said, a hint of a smirk touching the corner of her lips.

“Naturally,” I insisted, taking up the proper and proud posture my mother carried herself with constantly. I could have asked her. I had done it before. I even knew that she would agree, but there was much more fun to be had if I didn’t. “The Mothers know how much we all need our beauty sleep.”

“You might,” She said, turning away from me and walking towards the bed. “I still think you are scared of sleeping alone in this big old room.”

I had won, she had given up with much less of a struggle than usual but I couldn’t blame her, much had happened that night.

She snapped the lights out before I crawled into my side of the bed and could her breaths deepen into the rhythm of sleep a few minutes later.

The nights when I could feel her weight beside me as I drifted off and I knew that she would be there when I woke, I slept soundly because The Well would not take me in her presence. The nights she didn’t sleep in my bed, I left her side made up.

Sleep took me before I could decide what that meant.