If I could have brought my power to bear and somehow held the spinning circle together, I would have.

  Not forever, there were things beyond it that I would have sorely missed, but I had not wished for it to end.

  The musicians had continued to increase the speed with which they pyed, and the circled had followed the frantic rhythm. Underwitches had begun to fall away from the circle, the gaps they left threatening to colpse the shape. Hands would meet in the absence and the circle had become smaller and ever faster.

  Reese had lost her bance before I did. Unable to take Lady O's hand in my own, I had fallen out of the circle and onto the floor beside her. We had slid back and leaned against one of the beams that held the balcony aloft to catch our breath without taking our eyes off the shrinking circle. Another underwitch had fallen. Then, another and another. The song had reached a pace that could not be sustained. Where it had once been slow and plodding, it had become a jumbled mess of drum beats and desperate chords that echoed in the room like a heart set to burst from its beating.

  The circle had tightened, like water circling a drain, and a new circle had formed on the edges of the dance floor. All of the underwitches had stayed on the floor like Reese and I, and all of them watched as the dance came down to two souls.

  Nami and Lady O had joined both their hands and were turning so quickly that I had thought both of them would take a painful fall at any moment.

  I had still been smiling. My discomfort had still been forgotten. I had known that as soon as I could, I would go into The Well and search it for any of the souls in the ballroom. All I had wanted in that moment was to continue to be in it, and I was in possession of the thing that would allow that to happen.

  Just when It seemed like The Blue Mother and The Lady in Orange would spin off the floor and take flight, the wild song had come to a shuddering stop.

  The two women had released each other in perfect time with the final beat of the drum.

  Lady O had gone tumbling back and nded in the waiting arms of the underwitches across from me.

  Nami had needed no such help.

  A momentary fsh of ocean blue light had washed down her legs and she had spun on her feet atop it, barely moving from the center of the room. When she had made her st turn and came to a full stop, the ball room had erupted into thunderous appuse and I had sat in awe of The Mother in Blue.

  I knew I would never be like her, but that did not mean I could not wish to be.

  If it meant becoming half as graceful, as beautiful, and as powerful as she, I would wear the silken dress no matter how much I despised it.

  Reese had stood as the ball returned to its unfocused, festive state and we returned to the shadows under the balcony for a drink. When we had caught our breath, she had begun to tell me about all the sorceresses she had met with to be their apprentice. None of them had fit her, but when Nami introduced her to Lady O, she had found her teacher. I told her that I would not tell her goodbye if she came with me after the ball because there was someone I needed her to meet.

  As we talked and drank, the new moon ball carried on, but a new sound underpinned the joyful noise of the ballroom. There was a tapping sound, like water dripping from a faucet into a sink, and once I heard it, I struggled to forget it was there.

  "She has these wires that come out of her fingers. I didn’t even know that someone’s channels could be on their fingers, but I've never seen anyone that can do the things she can do." Reese said, ignorant of my distracted mind.

  I turned my eyes down to Sam. The big blue cat's ears twitched every time the tapping sound could be heard under the festive din. He could hear it too and seemed to be having just as much trouble ignoring it as I was.

  "She's taking me to where she is from first. She wants to see how much potential I have, whatever that means, but I have a feeling I'll be back. Her and Mother Nami seem like they are really good friends." She continued.

  It was not coming from the band above, and as I listened, I heard it grow harder and harder until it spread into the sound of rain.

  At its arrival, the music from above died away and the sounds of the ball soon followed. The tapping sound rose in its absence and all that was left in the ballroom was the sound of Reese’s voice.

  "Maybe too good a friends, I saw her coming out of Mother Nami's quarters very early this mor. . ." She trailed off once she realized that she was the only person still speaking.

  All of the underwitches had gone still. The dancing that had filled the open space out from under the balcony had halted and all of them had turned to the great window at the back of the room.

  The snow that hung in the outside frames of the paneled window was washed away by the rain that pattered against the gss. As if it had been waiting for all of our attention, a crack of violent thunder broke through the room and sent several shrill shrieks through the silent room.

  The dark sky and the snowy mountains beyond disappeared behind the sudden downpour that followed.

  “It’s just rain,” Reese called out, looking around in confusion at the stunned crowd. She turned back to me. "You have seen rain before, right? I'm not the only one?”

  “I don’t know.” I answered, just as confused as she was.

  Precept Jesna and Alexei strode through the crowd and took the small step onto the raised ptform before the window. She looked chillingly beautiful in her split back cloak and iridescent dress. Her downy bck hair and feathers streamed back from her face as she moved with a seemingly weightless grace. My guard looked as he always did with his white hair, bck eye patch, and both his swords. Presumably for the ball, he had traded his usual robe for one that was white and patterned with complicated shapes in the same icy blue as Jesna's cloak.

  All of the Precepts on the balcony had come to their feet and Nami stood in their middle by the upper doors.

  Thunder boomed again and shook the massive window.

  More screams followed and a chill blew through the room.

  Lady O gave Nami a hand up as she stepped onto the railing of the balcony. Bancing on her bare feet, her ocean blue aura spun to life in front of her middle.

  Without hesitation, she stepped off the railing and into open air. Her aura swirled down her legs and formed under her feet. She walked down on the white tipped wave of her water as it crested and rolled underneath her, reaching the dance floor in a matter of moments.

  Her working washed out across the floor like the storm that had formed outside had found its way inside. It dampened the shoes of all the underwitches around me before reaching my own and turning to deep blue dust as it reached the walls. When it reached him, Sam kicked off the tops of my boots and wove his way nimbly through the crowd without letting his paws ever touch the wet floor.

  “Hey!” I called and followed him through the tear of startled underwitches that he was carving through the crowd.

  My dress slid against my skin as I moved and forced a sudden shudder through my body. My cloak caught on something behind me as I chased after him and nearly ripped my head from my neck.

  Crooked lightning fshed outside the window with blinding brightness and violent thunder shook the floor underneath my feet.

  My heart pounded in my chest, but I did not understand why. Reese was right, it was only a storm.

  Another fsh of blue light and shake of thunder sent a splintering set of cracks spreading out from the center of the window. From paneled pane to paneled pane, the cracks jumped through the frames and crawled to the edges of the gss.

  Sam bounded from the floor and nded on the raised ptform.

  The gss shattered inward as lightning blinded me blue once again. I threw my arms up to shield my face, but nothing ever struck me, not even a single drop of rain.

  Through my arms, the light of Nami's aura shone from her navel and washed the room with its color. I uncovered my face and watched her rise from the floor on two rippling torrents of water. Wrapping around her legs like the white crested wave had been during her descent from the balcony, she spread her arms out wide and caught the shattering gss.

  Like someone had brought The River Eae into the ball room, the sound of her roaring water joined with the pounding rain as she fit the gss back in its panes.

  Droplets of her water sprayed across my face and the taste of salt filled my mouth.

  Every shard and sliver of the broken gss fit back together. Nami's power lined the jagged cracks that had splintered through it and it became a window once again.

  Through it all, the strangest thing in front of me was my familiar. Sam stood on the ptform directly next to Alexei and showed no signs of the hatred he had shown for my guard every time they had been close before.

  The chandeliers that hung from the high ceilings snapped to life and cast out all of the iridescent light and moody shadows that had filled the room. Precept Seram cpped her hands from the center of the balcony and spoke in a raised but polite tone. “Everyone, please return to your rooms. The new moon ball has come to a close. If we all move in a calm and orderly fashion, this can be done spotlessly.”

  I did not know if the underwitches listened to Precept Seram’s commands because I was moving in the opposite direction she had told them to.

  “Sam? Are you well?" I asked my familiar as I stepped onto the ptform beside him.

  Nami's feet returned to the floor before he could answer me.

  “Alexei," She said, power evident in her ocean eyes. She looked from my guard to me and then back again. "Alexei!"

  “Apologies, Headmistress,” The white haired guard said as he hardened his gaze and turned away from the restored window. “I will search the grounds, I must be certain."

  I remembered Reese’s question and repeated it to my guard and Mother Nami. “Am I the only one that has seen rain before? What is the matter?"

  "It does not rain here." Alexei growled, feelings slipping through his usual calm.

  "It cannot rain here." Nami added.

  Alexei scowled down at me before turning to Precept Jesna. "Return her to her quarters, they are in the same hall as my own."

  Nami and my guard left the ptform and ran through a small door on the right side of the room.

  "Come along Underwitch Ire." Precept Jesna said. She led me off the ptform and towards the crowded mass of underwitches that were leaving the ballroom in disorderly fashion.

  All of the questions and confusion that I had left my mind when I saw Reese disappear through the big wooden doors at the back of the hall.

  She was leaving the next day and I did not have the faintest idea when I would see her again.

  I had to tell her goodbye.

  “Reese!” I called out to her as I began to weave my way through the crowd.

  Precept Jesna pced her hand on my shoulder and turned me to my left. “No, we are going this way. It is much faster.”

  “I just have to tell my friend goodbye. She is leaving tomorrow.” I pleaded, looking down at Sam for help he could not provide.

  “Alexei said that I am to take you to your quarters, not to let you socialize. That can be done nicely or-“ She started to say.

  The sound of fabric tearing cut her off and both of us looked back at my familiar.

  Sam sat calmly on the floor with his paw on the long hem of Jesna’s iridescent dress. A single white cw pinned it to the ground and a long split ran from it to just below the feather haired sorceress’s backside.

  He stared at me with his deep blue eyes. It may have been because he was my familiar or it may have been because of how desperate I was to catch up to my friend, but I understood that he was providing me with the help he could.

  “I knew I didn’t like you. Get off.” Precept Jesna growled down at the big blue cat as she took her dress in her hands.

  Without a word, I ducked into the crowd and slipped in the small spaces between the underwitches as quickly as I could.

  I understood that it was a terrible idea as I was doing it, but I let Ire drop from my face and hair as I passed through the open doors. Brushing the remnants of her off of me as I stood back up, I bit my tongue to resist turning around.

  Jesna would be looking for Ire, not Autumn, and I could not take it if I missed Reese.

  I spotted her descending the singing stairs, but I dared not to call out to her.

  Some small part of me knew that I would be in terrible trouble if Jesna found me. A smaller part of me knew that I would be in even more trouble if Alexei caught me without my gmor. Despite that knowledge, I followed her down the stairs to the bell tone song of the crystalline steps and only remembered to bring Ire back to my face the moment before I caught her.

  “Hey,” I said, shifting in my jacket and dress to try and find something resembling comfort. “You’re leaving tomorrow.”

  Reese shook her head and held me at arms length. “Don’t do it. I’ll never speak to you again.”

  “But I want to so bad! Good-“ I tried to say, ignoring her threat.

  “Luck,” Reese said and gave me a little push. “Good luck with your csses and dealing with Tana. I’ll see you soon.”

  I smiled and hugged her. “Goodbye with Lady O. I will see you soon.”