“You may attempt again whenever you are ready, Underwitch Ire.” Precept Seram spoke to me through her little bubble.

  After she had finished telling me the rules and apologizing for Tana’s eavesdropping, we had returned to my first assignment.

  All I had to do was push the square weight across the wooden table until it met the blue line.

  It was simple, something so small that it should have required little to no thought, and I could not do it.

  I had been bending branch and holding my power for what felt like hours. I had done everything short of picking the thing up and throwing it.

  The stupid square weight would not cross the stupid wooden table and meet the stupid blue line no matter what I did.

  I had forgotten how many times I had tried, but I tried again at my teacher's words. I held out my hand and imagined the metal square sliding smoothly to the line and filled myself with my power. The azure light in my eyes shimmered off the reflective surface and cold needled against both of The Mother's seals.

  Just like before, nothing.

  It moved so little that for a brief moment, I was convinced that I had become petrified and that nothing would ever move again. The weight and line would stand in opens defiance of my will until I eventually starved to death.

  “You may attempt again whenever you are ready, Underwitch Ire.” Precept Seram repeated.

  “I just did,” I snapped, my frustration making me forget who I was talking to. “You know, it’s kind of strange talking to a bubble.”

  “Take heart in knowing that nearly every one of my students has said much the same thing. Perhaps you should take a small break and try to remember your lessons from your primary school.” Precept Seram said through her bubble, her voice just as light and bright as the suspended sphere it came from.

  “I never went.” I admitted through a sigh.

  I had not been to a primary school, but I had been maidens who had. Most of the memories I had viewed before the walls in The Well had come down were of maidens performing small tasks and learning little lessons.

  Beyond that, I had another advantage that none of the other underwitches in my css had, not even Tana.

  None of them had been trained by Anna Lao. She was not a teacher, but a coach, and anything I had learned to do consistently had been because of her.

  Ask questions. I thought.

  What would Anna say to me to get me to do it? I asked myself instead of Precept Seram.

  I couldn’t kiss myself. Even if I could, I didn’t have those feelings for me or Underwitch Ire. I couldn’t promise to make myself something to eat or to brush my hair out when I was done.

  Those were Anna things. Any time I had ever done anything of note with my aura had been out of desperation or in the pursuit of Anna things, and she wasn’t there.

  There was nothing in the surprisingly comfortable cssroom that made me feel even slightly desperate.

  The blue silk dress of my uniform still hung on one of the silver hooks where it could not harm me. Having my own pce to fail without the eyes of my fellow underwitches to watch made keeping one of my agreements and staying calm much easier.

  “Why the curtains? It isn’t exactly what I imagined.” I asked the bubble, needing something to distract me from my frustrations.

  Precept Seram’s bubbly ughed came in answer. “I do not have enough fingers to count how many underwitches that would have been wonderful students if not for their nerves. I believe it is best to give each of you privacy until you deepen your understanding of your capabilities.”

  “That is wise.” Sam said simply from where he stood guard just inside the white curtain.

  “Thank you, Samsara,” Precept Seram said, pride obvious in her voice. Everything she said came with a proper tone and rhythm, like she had practiced what she was saying in front of a mirror until there was no room for error. “Why you are performing a specific working is often far more important than how. There is an underwitch of the half moon rank that could do nothing unless she tied the act to a reward. Once she began bribing herself with hard candies, there were no assignments I could give her that she could not master in an afternoon.”

  “Really?” I asked aloud, finding it hard to believe that anyone other than me had issues with what seemed to be such a simple task.

  “Yes. Each of us are different, Underwitch Ire. We all must find what is effective for ourselves. Underwitch Tana’s mother, Sorceress True Tana, who was my implementation teacher when I was a new moon, can only perform a working if she absolutely understands why she is doing it.”

  I thought about having Seram’s bubbles again and how easy it would be to have Anna praise me after I did anything. If I couldn’t have her attached to my hip during all of my waking hours, nothing would be more effective than that. It would be no candy, but the sweetness of it would have done the same for me as it had for the sorceress that Seram spoke of.

  “I do not understand your failure.” Sam rumbled without turning to look at me.

  “It is only a failure if she refuses to try again.” Precept Seram corrected my rude familiar.

  Still refusing to look at me, the big blue cat’s deep voice only added to my frustration. “You have done much greater things than this with ease under the direction of the mortal. The bubble sorceress is much more powerful than her and you have regressed. I do not understand.”

  “Perhaps you should take a walk. There is much within Lun’s walls that could inspire you. The assignment will be here when you return.” Precept Seram suggested.

  “I will not be.” Sam said simply.

  I didn’t understand. “I can just leave?”

  “Of course. Whatever will help you progress, you are entitled to do. The tapestries on the fourth floor always bring me peace when I walk among them. But please, redress in your uniform before you go. Roam the halls and ponder why you wish to move the weight.” Seram answered as her bubble floated out of my pce.

  I peeked my head through the white curtains and watched it rejoin with the rger one that the pink haired precept still floated inside of.

  Sam did not wait for me to complete the agonizing process of putting my uniform back on. By the time I left the cssroom, there wasn’t a single of his blue hairs in sight.

  Alexei waited for me in the hall, looking as if he had not moved since st I saw him.

  “To your quarters?” He asked simply.

  “No. I want to see the serpent.” I told him.

  His silence was enough for me to know that I needed to say more.

  “The big serpent skeleton that you can see from the courtyard? I want to go there, to the snake room.” I said, holding my hands out wide to emphasis the length.

  “The hall of conquest.” He said as he started down the hall.

  From Precept Seram’s pastel blue door, the white haired man led me to the singing stairs and all the way down to their base. The css room was on a much higher floor than I had ever been before and there were far more notes to the song as a result. Like crystal bells, the spiral steps chimed a calm and clear melody that washed the frustration from my body as I listened.

  Why did I want to move the weight?

  Beyond the fact that I had been asked to do it, I could not think of a reason. If Precept Seram had told me to do anything else, I would want to do that instead. There was nothing special about the assignment I had been given.

  Turning right from the base of the stairs, Alexei stopped in front of two great wooden doors, each pted with the same iron moons as the entrance to Lun.

  “Can I trust that you will not run off or do I need to follow you inside?” He asked me, his hands resting zily atop his swords.

  “You are not coming inside?” I asked in return and tried to make it sound like I truly wished for him to do so.

  “In a moment.” He answered simply.

  “I won’t run off. I promise.” I said and held my pinky out to him.

  After a long moment of silent consideration, he opened the door for me without taking what I had offered.

  Too much too soon. Stay calm. I reminded myself.

  I could not allow myself to be so hasty. It had taken me months with the manor guards, and I understood that Alexei would not be as giving as they had been.

  I stepped into the snake room and felt a cold spike of fear streak through me.

  From the vaulted ceilings, all the way down to the mirrored floor, uncountable ribs of white bone hung from nearly invisible wires and coiled around the inside of the hall. Sharp and curved, their number gave the walls a dizzying effect that I was powerless to look away from until they drew my eyes to their terrible end.

  Deep hollows where slit eyes had once been and jaws wide enough for me to stand in with my arms raised, the skull of the serpent y at the back of the hall with its terrifying maw held open.

  A figure stood in the middle of the space, pced as if it were the only thing keeping the serpent from coming to life and wreaking havoc through the halls.

  I went to the figure, ignoring the fact that I could see up my own dress because of the mirrored floor.

  It was a suit of armor of pure silver, just as polished and reflective as the floor underneath my boots. The top of the helm came just to the top of my nose and all of it was adorned with deep blue stones and complicated lines.

  A long and thin sword was held in the hands of the engraved gauntlets. Its tip was buried into the base the armor stood atop, completing a pose that affirmed my thoughts about its defense of Lun.

  Even from the little I knew of her, the graceful lines of the metal and the little details that brought winter to my mind told me whose armor it was.

  Katarina.

  I heard Alexei approaching from behind me, which I knew was only because he wanted me to hear it.

  “There used to be far more to look at in here, but space had to be made since the st time he moved.” The white haired man said with a pointed nod once he reached me.

  “Is that why it’s called the hall of conquest? Because she conquested the serpent?” I asked him honestly, my eyes still focused on the armor.

  “No. It was named by a very angry little boy because he took offense to her sying it.” Alexei said, a pale ghost of what sounded like humor appearing in his voice.

  “She was so small.” I said in barely more than a whisper. Knowing that the armor would not fit over my shoulders if I tried to put it on.

  “And mighty. There is no one else alive who could have sin Zizicoltain. It ruled these mountains for a thousand years before she put an end to it.” My guard added.

  The pcid and expressionless mask he usually wore had slipped. In the reflection of the silver armor, I saw pride in his eyes and a small smile appear on his lips.

  There was sadness there too. I recognized it immediately because I had felt the same sorrow many times before.

  Alexei missed his mother.

  It took every part of me to not ask him where she was.

  I bit my tongue until it bled and repeated Anna and I’s third agreement until the pain passed.

  He had just said more words to me than I had ever heard him say before. If I could just stay calm and take my time, I would learn what I wanted to know.

  “Why would someone take offense to it being killed?” I asked, looking back at the skull that sent a shiver through my spine.

  “Ignorance,” Alexei said simply, all of the small emotions that had been on his face dead and gone. “She only did it because it was necessary.”

  Understanding shook my body like the freezing waters of The River Eae.

  I did not have to move the weight for the sake of moving the weight, I had to move it because it was necessary.

  “I would like to go back now.” I said, spinning on my heels and not waiting for him to lead me out.

  Fast enough that Alexei had to run to catch up with me, I tore back up the singing stairs and sent their song into a frantic pace.

  An excited smile had stretched across my face by the time I stormed back into Precept Seram’s cssroom. Still floating within her bubble, she sent her smaller one back into my pce before I could finish undressing again.

  Just as he had said, Sam was no longer there. It was only Seram’s bubble, me, and the weight.

  “By the haste with which you returned, I am safe in assuming that your walk went well?” Precept Seram asked once I settled in front of the table.

  “Yes.” I said through my smile.

  I could not care less if the metal weight ever moved again. It could sit at the edge of the table until the wood underneath it rotted and the walls around it crumbled.

  I did care about keeping my pce at Lun Arcanicil. No part of me wanted to be taken by Azza or have my spot taken by some other underwitch.

  I did care about having a room like Katarina’s hall of conquest. I wanted to be mighty like she was and have a big room full of things to mark the long and exciting life I had lived.

  I did care about learning how to use my power, being better, getting stronger.

  I did not want to be weak and ignorant like I had been for all of the part of my life that I could remember. There was a longing in my heart that I had held for a long time.

  To do as my mother did and be able to shape the garden behind the manor to my will, to stand barefoot in a roaring pyre and not so much as sweat like Rhiannon, to drown a new born sun and bring a woman back from the verge of death in the same moment, I wanted to be able to do it all.

  More than being able to do the things they could do, I wanted to be the way they were.

  The obvious power that was in Rhiannon’s body, the way Glim seemed like she could float off the ground at any moment, the slender grace that Azza moved with, I wanted to be like them all.

  Even more than my desires to be less like me and more like them, I could not let Anna down.

  She believed in me so much, that she left her life after only knowing me for a month. From the little room my mother and I shared, to her room in the manor, to my room in the manor, to our little wooden shack, and finally into our quarters that were hidden behind the singing stairs, she had come with me without question.

  If pushing the metal weight across the table with my power meant becoming something more and doing right by Anna, then so be it.

  I would do it because it was necessary.

  “You do not have to try again so soon, Underwitch Ire. The others have all already gone to the covery.” Precept said, but her voice did not call down from the bubble.

  I turned around and saw her standing just inside the clean white curtain, no bubble in sight.

  “Yes I do, and I don’t even know what that is.” I insisted as I brought my power to life within me.

  I focused on the weight and the blue line shining on the other end of the table.

  I thought of myself in a room full of all manner of desirable things. Precious stones, fried potatoes, shoes, dresses, and whatever else I wanted would be there.

  A vision of the version of myself that I desperately wanted to be came to life in my mind. My hair flowing in the wind and shining so brightly in the sun that it looked like it was on fire. I wore a white robe like Rhiannon did. No, it was a wrap like my mother wore.

  That wasn’t it either.

  I wore a suit of armor like Katarina’s. There was no silk in sight, I had no scars or seals on my skin, and I was beautiful by my own definitions. Whatever I wanted, I willed it so, and there was no one in all of chaos that could tell me no.

  That wonderful thought gave way to Anna. We were by the river in Erosette, on the back balcony of Rhiannon’s mansion, in any of the beautiful pces that I had seen in memories. We were side by side and I had made her proud. She was safe because of me and the things I could do. She knew of my might and had helped me achieve it.

  All of those things would be mine if I could move the weight. I wanted to push it to the blue line because it was the first step to having everything I wanted.

  I brought my focus to the metal and pushed my palm forward like I held it in my hand, all of my desires pced in the center of the small square.

  It shook once, twice, three times, and shattered in a fsh of bright blue light.

  Against the stone walls, off the wooden table, onto the front of my tights, tiny bits and pieces went flying around my pce.

  When they settled, and all that was left of the weight was the marks it had left in the table, Precept Seram spoke.

  “Well done, Underwitch Ire! That is common with Sorceresses that possess such remarkable potential. All you must do now is learn to control it.” She said and gave me a gentle pat on the back with her white gloved hand.

  I took a breath, thinking about what she had said.

  I have potential?

  Truth.