All was quiet in the clearing that surrounded Anna and I’s little shack.

  Without the sharp pattering sound of the snow falling from the dim grey sky above to join what blanketed the ground, the morning would have been perfectly silent.

  There was no wind howling through the branches of the evergreens. No phantom bears had come through and ruined the forest beyond the edge of the clearing. Not even a single bird perched or chirped to tempt my blue furred familiar, wherever he was, into murder.

  Truly, in none of the many escapes I had mounted before, there had never been more perfect circumstances.

  After a long day spent showing Anna my newfound power, I had spent a short night doing my best impression of a dress up doll. She had bundled me up in a motley mix of the new clothes she had bought for me and what had once been The Lady in Purple's. No thin white dresses in sight, I was warm as could be with my woolen dress, gloves, scarf, and hat. Once I had added Ire’s dark black hair and muted features, we had crept out of our place to set out for Hymneth.

  I did not know if I was forbidden from going, but Anna had told me something that both of us knew she probably shouldn’t have.

  It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. She had said.

  Devious, wicked, cunning, it had been the most useful phrase I had ever heard and I felt like I had been waiting for my whole life to hear it.

  We had spent the rest of the morning tiptoeing around our room as we had gotten ready and eaten breakfast. With the door locked behind us, all that was left to do was sneak down the snowy stairs and make it out of the clearing without waking or alerting Alexei.

  Everything was perfect until I stepped off the stairs and sank into the deep snow beneath it.

  My back foot slipped from the sudden change in height and the sound of my fall broke the serene quiet of the morning. It was not the impact that was noisy, the white powder beneath me dampened that well enough. It was the involuntary scream that I had been powerless to keep inside that did it.

  I rolled myself onto my back, holding my breath in a desperate attempt to undo the damage I had caused the silence.

  Anna stood over the snow cleared streak my cuffed boot had left on the bottom stair. She covered her mouth with her hands, but the light in her eyes was enough to see that she was holding back a laugh.

  Frozen in the wake of the sudden sound, we stared at each other silently for a very long moment.

  Alexei never appeared. There was no sign of his white hair or single eye.

  I had not gotten us caught.

  We moved quickly after Anna helped me up. She led me into the forest, holding back her laughter all the way. We pushed through the wintery trees and headed away from the direction that Lun stood in. I followed in her footsteps as she used the painted blue marks on the trunks of the trees to navigate us onto the road that led to Hymneth.

  It was then and only then, when the little wooden shack lay far out of sight behind us, that Anna let her pressure built laughter burst out of her mouth.

  “I’ve got to start carrying around a mirror,” She laughed. “You should see how dumb you look when something like that happens to you.”

  I let her laugh. After what I had said to her the day before, arguing that I had not looked dumb would only succeed at proving her point. It was no wonder why she had not accepted my offer to hunt down the lich, snow was enough to knock me off my feet.

  “Yes, I am clumsy.” I shrugged and agreed as I pulled my hat back down over my ears.

  We had not been followed. The hair on the back of my neck was not standing on end. Seemingly free from prying eyes, I dusted the snow off the front of my woolen jacket and looped my arm in Anna’s.

  The road to Hymneth was well kept. The cleared road sloped down towards the little winter town as the mountains climbed above us. Evergreens bordered each side until the frozen rock lifted them high above our heads. A snowflake drifted down past my face and fell to the square stones that paved our way. The moment it touched it, it melted away like all of its uncountable counterparts had done before it. Like the glamor that concealed Lun, I knew that the power must have come from somewhere or someone, but I couldn’t begin to understand where or who that would be.

  My understanding wasn’t necessary for me to appreciate how much easier it was to walk without knee deep snow fighting against every step we took. Wearing proper clothes and setting off for a day with Anna instead of a day spent in The River Eae left me feeling light on my feet. So light, that by the time Anna stopped laughing and mimicking the face I had made when I fell, Hymneth had come into my sight.

  Standing on the bridge that crossed over a frozen river bed, I took the time to take in the town that I had not been able to before.

  It was not nearly as large as Erosette and the townsfolk dressed much more warmly, but a lively song filled the air just as it had in The Mother in Red’s city.

  A shapeless chorus of talking, shouting, and all manner of speech echoed off the wooden buildings and ran through the streets. The heavy crunching sounds of two burly men pulling a log filled joined the echoing well before it came into my sight. Just on the other side of the bridge, a group of children ran in a chaotic mess of laughs and yells. The sharp pattering of the falling snow underpinned it all, blanketing the town in a wintery rhythm.

  A sole building rose high above the tree tops in the distance. Made in the same greyscale stone and arched windows as Lun was, my eyes were drawn to it and my mind quickly followed.

  “Maybe she just retired,” I said of Katarina, picking the conversation of the missing Mother back up from where Anna and I had left it the night before. “She got tired of doing whatever it is that Mothers do and holed herself up in that tower.”

  "I don't buy that for a second. Think about Rhi-shit-The Mother in Red retiring, not doing her celebrations and all that. It doesn't make sense. Plus, from what you said The Mother in Brown said, she wouldn't miss her so much if she could take a stroll and go see her. Something happened to her." Anna said, trying her best to keep my second promise to Rhiannon.

  The desire to know what had happened to The Mother in Blue had taken Anna just as it had taken me when I had told her about the painting and what I had heard from my place within the walls.

  "I know, I just wish the answer was that simple." I sighed, my thoughts returning to the terrifying idea of something happening to a Mother. The Mothers were the forces that happened to things. The seal on my navel and right palm were evidence enough for that.

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  Anna squeezed my arm with her own. "It will be. You'll keep searching The Well and I'll see what I kind find in the library here. There has to be something about it with how important The Mothers are to these places. I'm going to research the twinsoul stuff too. I don't know how I managed to get wrapped up with a sorceress in the first place, but now I found out she's some kind of rare one? I've got to know about all of this silly shit. And when I want to know something. . .?"

  She trailed off for me to finish her sentence.

  "You get drunk and talk to yourself while you try to figure it out?" I asked, feigning innocence.

  She opened her mouth to respond, but the sound of someone shouting at us silenced her.

  "Oi, you two!" A heavily armored man rasped as he approached the bridge. Shining silver gauntlets and grieves, a fierce looking hammer with a blue stone on its pommel, and a white surcoat with a hollow blue circle over his chest were all draped under his long blue cloak. Between his long dark hair and his thick bristly beard, I could not make out much of his face, but the tone of his voice was enough to snap me still.

  He stopped at the edge of the bridge and waved us towards him. "Mind yourselves. After what happened not three days ago, it is not wise to linger around the fringes of town."

  "You could have said that without scaring us!" Anna shouted back at him, her brows furrowed in an expression that gave the man's hammer true competition in the realm of fierceness.

  "Oh, my apologies. I could have spoken more softly. Forgive me," The man muttered as we reached him, real remorse on his bushy face. "Keep safe, girls. If you see anything strange or out of the ordinary, report it to the nearest guard you can spot."

  Anna kept her eyes hard, but I gave him a small smile and answered him as we passed. "We will."

  I couldn't explain why, it might have been because he reminded me of Woolie, but I felt like he had shouted with the best of intentions.

  If I followed his warning completely, I would have to turn around and report to him about himself. When we had arrived in the frozen place within the mountains, I had seen no sign of Hymneth having armored guards. It had been a short stay before we were taken to the shack, but I did not think I had merely not noticed them. Nami had said something to Cherith on the morning of the priming that came back to me with the guards warning.

  "The priming was three days ago, right?" I asked Anna as we walked further into town.

  "Mmhmm, and when I was here the day you left for the trial, the bridge on the south side of the medery was crawling with guards dressed just like that one." She answered, still holding my arm.

  It was not nearly as cold as it had been every other time I had been outside, both because of the lack of wind and my warm clothes, but I hoped she would stay close to me for the rest of the day.

  "What do you think happened?" I said after we wove our way around the children I had seen before. They had stopped running and were arguing intensely about who was it.

  "I'm not sure, I asked the librarian but he didn't know either. We'll see if my mom knows anything, do you remember the list?" She said, stopping and unlooping her arm from mine.

  I let out a disappointed sigh before I answered her. "You do realize that asking me to remember a list is not the best idea?"

  "That's why I did it," She tapped her forehead with her finger. "We've got to keep you sharp. So, what are we doing first?"

  "We are going to see Ms. Lao." I said, knowing that she already knew the answer.

  "See, sharp." She said with a smile as she took my arm again and pulled me into motion.

  I had never really thought about where Ms. Lao had gone when my mothers attempts at healing her had failed. Anna had been to see her, but I had been so caught up with being stolen out of my bed and not knowing who I was that I had never pressed her for details.

  In truth, besides its size, it looked just like every other building around it. It was built of wood and warm light colored its windows in an inviting orange. Snow lined the tops of its slanted roofs and the whole of it looked like it took up a quarter of the little town. Sorceresses, wearing the same cascading robes that Precept Cherith had been, were spread throughout long lines that extended back from the open doors.

  "Do all of these people need healing?" I asked as Anna led me to a different set of doors on the right side of the building.

  She nodded as she opened the door for me. "Mmhmm. One of the orderlies that works on my mom's floor said that this is where everyone in Zenithcidel comes if they have anything worse than a scrap or a bruise. This is the visitor's entrance."

  Two more armored guards, wearing the same surcoats as the first had, stopped us as soon as the door closed behind us. Staircases led up and down on both sides of us and we had come inside just in time for me to see someone I recognized.

  "Name?" One of the guards grunted.

  I did not know which one, because my eyes were following the gradient blue hair of Nami as she took the stairs on my left.

  "Lady Anna! You have returned!" Someone called from behind the guards and the armored men turned around just as a smile spread across Anna's face.

  My curiosity took me and I was halfway down the stairs before I realized I had moved.

  Precept Cherith had met her at the bottom, looking just as serene as calm as she had the first time I had met her. Nami was still wearing the thin dress she had been the night before and had her arms wrapped around herself. Down a long hall that was thankfully empty, they walked as they began to talk.

  Padding my steps like Mother Gwyn had taught me, I followed them and tried to listen to what they were saying.

  "I'm sorry, Nami. Everything is prepared, we just don't have the power necessary to do something like this." Precept Cherith said, her cascading robes flowing around her as she spoke in her alluring voice.

  "Don't apologize, this is part of my duties. Besides, the negotiations are not going my way, I could use something good to bring them." Nami said, reaching up and rubbing Cherith's back.

  The two of them turned from the hall and passed through the pure white curtain that served as its door. As quietly as my excitement would allow, I reached the curtain and pulled it open just wide enough that I could see inside.

  A pile of tattered black fabric lay in the far corner of the room, looking out of place in what otherwise was a spotlessly clean room. Obscured by the circle of white robed women standing around the raised table he lay on, a man was trying to speak. All that came from him was shapeless sounds and gurgles as Cherith took the empty place above his head and Nami stood behind her.

  I had seen the tattered fabric before and knew it to be a cloak.

  Nami placed her hands on Precept Cherith's shoulders and the women around her formed a circle with their hands before they laid them on the man's bare chest.

  He flinched and the metallic sound of clinking chains met my ears.

  Gatekeeper. I said to myself, knowing it to be true.

  Through the arms of the circle of women, I saw the source of the shifting metal. From the gatekeeper's sharp nails to just below the crook of his arm, some strange restraint lay over around him in a series of cuffs and chains. Though the rest of him was sickly pale, the flesh held within the metal was as black as night.

  The sight of it made my own skin crawl and I had to force myself to not look away.

  Nami's ocean blue aura flowed over Precept Cherith and joined with the teal light that she held in her hands. Red, grey, brown, and several shades of blue ran through the circle of hands and pooled together with Cherith's.

  "Open. This will be over in just a moment." The calm faced woman said.

  The gatekeeper, eyes wide and face flushed, nodded once before he opened his mouth.

  A sick feeling rose up in my throat as my stomach twisted into a nauseous knot.

  His tongue had been torn off, cut, something, I didn't know.

  Precept Cherith brought the wash of colors to his mouth and took the sides of his face in her hands.

  "Now, Nami." She whispered with closed eyes.

  The ocean blue aura streaming from The Mother in Blue quickly turned into a flood as it rushed over the other colors and swallowed them whole. The torrent of her power covered the gatekeeper's face and the bloody stump where his tongue should have been began to grow.

  I was too weak, I let the curtain fall back in place and turned on my heels to go find Anna. If I had stayed, I would have lost the breakfast I had eaten not very long before.

  Before I reached the stairs, a great cough echoed down the hall and the gatekeeper began to shout.

  "The Walking Storm, The Blue Death, I saw him with my own eyes," He shrieked in high pitched panic. "He did this to me, Azeralphane!"