Anna shoved Alexei square in his chest with both hands.

  Well, she threw both of her hands into his chest and tried to shove him, but the white haired man did not so much as blink.

  Anna shook her hands out before holding them to her chest. “Are you made of stone or something? That hurt.”

  “Your glamor.” Alexei said simply, ignoring Anna and seemingly unbothered by her sudden violence.

  “I was going to before you just appeared. How do you do that?” I asked him, bringing Maiden Ire back to my mind.

  I am Ire Ap Viven. My Mother is dead. I have never known my father. I have come from Don Viven to study under The Mother in Blue. There has never been a more unremarkable maiden. I could forget what I looked like if I was standing in front of a mirror.

  The cold power of my azure aura came to me easily and the mask of Ire followed quickly in its wake. Black hair, dull eyes, and muted features ruined the reflection of Anna and I's perfect moment alongside my guard's wolfish looks.

  I hated to see it end, but it had been enough to dispel the cold sickness that had taken root within me.

  Anna squared her feet and tried to shove my guard again. “What are you even doing here? Do you enjoy creeping up on women or something?”

  “Where she goes. I follow. Cope.” Alexei stated without expression.

  “Mmhmm, sure. You’re just mad because we left without you noticing.” Anna said. She gave up on her assault and crossed her arms. Either she had forgotten just who Alexei truly was or she knew full well who she was yelling at and did not care.

  “I notice the change in the air when your breaths rise from the depths of sleep, Lady Anna. There is nothing that the two of you do that I do not notice.” Alexei continued.

  His voice was not the same monotone droll that The Mother in Grey’s was. Hers sounded like she had never felt anything at all and that the simple act of speaking was exhausting. Alexei spoke from a place of restraint. I could tell that there was feeling within him, he was just ringing it out of his words before they left his lips.

  “Completely normal thing for someone to say to two women they barely know. I miss the guards in Erosette." Anna carried on, looking like she might try to hit him again.

  My true self hidden once again, I returned to what I had asked him. “How do you do that?”

  “What do you mean?” He asked, the focus of his single white eye making me turn my own to the ground. He was intimidating from a distance. Standing that close to him? I felt like a fox that had wandered into a dragon’s den.

  “Appear? Disappear? You did it at the trial and you just did it again. I would have known if you were following us around and watching us.” I said.

  The amount of times that the hair on the nape of my neck had stood on end or that sudden exposed feeling that came with being watched had struck me was not small. Considering the short amount of my life that I could remember, I doubted there was another soul in chaos that had been watched as much as I had.

  “It is not for you to understand. What you will understand is that you will inform me if you plan to leave your quarters and on the times that you do, the rules of Lun apply to you here. You will return to your rooms before nightfall or I will return you. Understood?” Alexei asked, the force of his voice telling me that it was not a question in truth.

  Anna took me by my hand and pulled me to her side. “You are her guard, you can’t tell her what to do.”

  A small smile, so small that it could have been a trick of the light, turned up the corner of Alexei’s mouth. “I understand that your impression of what a guard should be has been sullied by those you had in Erosette. You will find no such weakness in me.”

  Anna turned around and tried to pull me along after her. “Come on, Autumn. We have things to do.”

  I kept my boots on the snowy stones of the street. “I understand. Thank you.”

  "What?" Anna shouted.

  Alexei gave me a small, silent, nod and I hoped he appreciated my agreeableness.

  He was the son of The Mother in Blue. Whatever had happened to her, wherever she had gone, dead or alive, he would know. If Lun Arcanicil was truly Katarina's place and Nami was only serving in her stead, her son would have no small amount of knowledge about it. I did not know what he had been before I had become his charge, but it was obvious that he was some sort of warrior. Surely he had heard something about the attack on the gatekeeper. The white haired man was the best way for me to find answers to all the questions that would not leave my mind.

  Despite my desire to act just as Anna was, I knew that defiance was the way to get what I wanted from him.

  It had taken awhile, but one by one, I had broken the guards in Erosette. Smiles, jokes, unintentional displays of vulnerability, they had all fallen victim to the charms that I was told I had.

  To know you is to love you, my little Delpha. My mother had said this to me once. For my curiosity's sake, I hoped she was right.

  “We need to find somewhere to purchase a lock, can you show us the way?” I asked him. For good measure, I tightened my coat around myself and faked a shiver, trying to look as helpless as I could in the snowy streets.

  “You actually want him to come?” Anna asked, looking as if I had just said the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard.

  “Do you know where we can buy a lock?” I asked her back.

  She deflated. “No.”

  “Then we could use Master Alexei’s help. I’m sure he knows his way around town.” I said sternly.

  I would tell her my plan when we had a moment alone. She had a short temper when it came to how people treated me, but I had never seen her be quite so volatile. Especially considering that all he had done was scare us. That was relatively mild compared to most things that had happened to me.

  Alexei stared down at me for an intense moment before he nodded. “Follow me.”

  I took Anna’s arm in mine and we walked a small distance behind the white haired man as he led us back by the medery and towards the center of Hymneth.

  A short while later, we came to a large open square that was hidden amongst the snowy buildings. The only tree I had seen in the mountains that was not an evergreen stood tall in its middle. Sprawling branches fanned out from its twisted trunk, barren and coated in white frost. Thin black ribbons hung throughout its frozen limbs in a loosely woven web of dark arcs and the sight of it alone was enough to make me uneasy. From its low hanging bends to the thin spires that jutted from its branches, the decorated tree looked wrong in the cozy little town. Like stepping into the square had led us into a different place entirely. All the corners and sharp edges of Hymneth were rounded and softened by the white snow that blanketed it. The tree was sharp, angular, and entirely wrong when compared to what surrounded it.

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  Two guards, wearing the same white surcoats and armor that the rest I had seen were, met Alexei as we walked towards the tree and he stopped to speak with them.

  “What is that?” Anna asked aloud.

  I took my guard's momentary distraction for what it was and pulled Anna past him.

  “Be nicer,” I whispered. “He knows things.”

  She narrowed her eyes and dug her elbow into my ribs before whispering back. “I know, dummy. If I annoy the piss out of him, it'll make him like you in comparison.”

  My jaw dropped.

  I had to bite my tongue to keep myself from laughing and attracting the attention of my guard. She hadn't been in a bad mood, she had been acting just like I had. Anna Lao was quite possibly the most devious soul in all of chaos.

  “How did you know?” I asked, trying to keep my voice down.

  “You aren’t the only one with powers,” She winked. “He is pretty scary though."

  "It's like looking at a wolf." I whispered back, unable to keep the anxious grin off my face. I had never seen an actual wolf, but I had seen a familiar that with the exception of having four eyes, appeared to be one.

  "A pretty wolf," Anna laughed. " Look at him, he's better looking than I am."

  Alexei was attractive in a dangerous sort of way, there was no denying that, but he could not begin to compare to the raven haired girl beside me. "If you say something like that again, I will charm your voice away. No one is better looking than you."

  "Wrong. There is one person who makes me look down right bad in comparison." Anna said, shaking her head as we reached the base of the blackened tree.

  "Who?" I asked, searching my memory for an answer and finding nothing. Rhiannon was indescribably beautiful, as were all of the other Mothers in their own unique ways, but it was not the same kind of beauty. They were like M.D.G's paintings, whoever they were. I could observe them for hours and appreciate all the things that drew me to them, but it ended at the observation.

  They were like the pink marble statue that stood at the back of the manor garden in Erosette if it had been made animate. I knew they were just sorceresses, but they felt so unlike any other person I knew that they did not feel real. They were forces, unchanging as the wind or the snow.

  Anna was alive.

  She grew, learned, changed.

  I had seen her crying at what would have been her brother's death if Opa had not intervened. More nights than I could remember, I had woken to find her in the terrifying grip of a nightmare. There were very few memories I had of her being truly angry, but I did have them. Her nose scrunched when something made her feel too much. When she was reaching the end of her nightly wine, her skin would take on a red glow. Not long after we had met, when it had been her mind that was dangerously close to breaking, I had charmed her with a kiss and left my power glimmering on her lips.

  In all of those memories and the near infinite number of others like them, not once had she been anything less than perfect.

  The thoughts of her brought heat to my face by the time she answered my question.

  "You, dummy," She said with a wicked smile and pointed at the strange tree before I had a chance to pounce on her. "Something is in there."

  I followed her finger and peaked through the black ribbons and tangled branches.

  A statue stood in the middle of the tree, like it had sprouted from the ground and the wood that embraced it had followed its growth. Distinctly feminine, the grey stone held the shape of a tall and thin woman with a heavy hood and cloak concealing her face. Three sets of hands hung out the folds of stone, held in a manner that formed the sharp lines of a box. The lower set made the bottom, the middle set shaped the walls, and the top set closed off the top.

  Like the tree that surrounded it, it felt wrong to look at. There were too many hands. The details were so life-like that it would not have surprised me if it raised her head to look at me.

  I would have been scared out of my mind, but not surprised.

  "Do you know what this is?" I asked over my shoulder. With all the books Anna had read and notes she had taken, it wouldn't have been unusual if she had been able to answer my question in a well worded explanation.

  "Not even a little," She said as she leaned into my back and propped herself up on the branches. "Kind of creepy though."

  “That is the corner keeper, and it is not an it, but a she." Alexei said suddenly from behind us, sending me into a panicked shout and Anna into another bout of unsuccessful shoves.

  The two guards that had stopped him were marching back down the way they had come and the white haired man had once again appeared out of thin air.

  "Why is it here, Master Alexei?" I asked as I dragged Anna away from him and kept her from continuing to push him. Knowing that she was acting, that none of her rage was real, it was very difficult for me to keep a straight face. I could have imagined it, but I thought I saw my guard's eye twitch in frustration.

  Straightening the front of his robes as he watched me with his single white eye, he spoke calmly despite Anna's attack. "Most that live here pray to her and give her offerings. Let us continue. What need do you have for another lock?"

  "To keep you from barging into our room." Anna snapped as we started back up again.

  If he was capable of noticing changes in our breathing, then there was no doubt he had heard her sleep walking the morning before. If what he said was true, there was nothing we had said to one another that he did not know. He knew that we knew who his Mother was and that we had spent a long while talking about where she could have gone.

  We would have to be much more careful when we returned home.

  From the statue of the corner keeper, whoever she may have been, we stopped at the library Anna had found while I had been drowning in The River Eae. I did not get the chance to go inside and compare it to the one in my mind, because the librarian turned us away at the door. It was closed for acquisitions, which sounded like much too interesting a thing for a library to be doing.

  Alexei led us from the library to the edge of town, with Anna taking every opportunity to annoy him along the way. We came to a bridge that looked just like the one we had crossed on Lun's side of town and found a small army occupying it. A dozen of the white coated guards, each looking more surly than the last stood amongst the snowy trees and at either end of the bridge.

  Anna had said that the place the gatekeeper was attacked had been crawling with guards, the bridge fit that description perfectly.

  Even with my proper clothes, I was growing colder. My stomach was beginning to ache with emptiness and Alexei's placid face had been set into sharp clench by Anna's antics. I had been waiting all day for that particular moment without realizing I had been waiting at all.

  "Master Alexei," I asked, taking the opportunity for what it was. "Someone in the medery said it was Azeralphane that attacked someone. The Walking Storm, The-"

  "Impossible." Alexei cut me off. His entire body grew deadly still and he glared down at me with his one white eye.

  He had answered a little too quickly and with a little too much emotion in his voice.

  "Why is that impossible?" I asked in obvious confusion.

  “I was warned about your curiosity,” Alexei said, his voice returning to its measured and even tone. Still, he answered with more words than I had ever heard him say at once. "The underwitches at Lun speak about him as if he will come and steal them out of their beds. If you heard his name in the medery, then stories will be told about him in every tavern for the next year. People love a demon, something they can place all their fears and angers on, but he's no different than a dragon or the corner keeper.

  Anna snorted. "That sounds pretty dumb."

  "I don't understand." I said, leaning into innocence opposite Anna's acted annoyingness.

  "Dragons aren't real. Azeralphane is not real. He is made up, a story that people are all too eager to believe," Alexei answered and took a slow breath that returned him to his usual state. "There is little light left in the day, if you wish to complete your list, we must move quickly."

  I did not press him. The moment he turned away, I pulled Anna along with me as we followed him past the guards. I had not learned anything further about The Blue Death or why someone would attack a gatekeeper in the first place, but I had learned something. What I had learned would prove to be much more valuable than anything else I had wanted to know.

  Alexei had lied to me.

  Truth. The Autumn I liked agreed, and I knew from experience that I could trust her.

  All I needed to know was why.