The last day of my first week in Precept Cherith's Restoration class was bad, no matter how hard it tried to be good.

In the last room of the left of the little hall that held the painting of the medery in Hymneth, Anna and I were alone with the black box that I had been given responsibility over.

"Im not scared of you, you cannot hurt me, and I have to take care of you." I repeated to myself for what felt like the hundredth time.

Anna cleared her throat and leaned her back against the door. "Uhm, is that helping? I mean, you look cute and all standing like that, but we've been in here for-"

"You do it then! You put your hand into the darkness and try to figure it out!" I snapped as I made myself leave Katarina's first step.

My nervousness was so great that I had not realized that I had slipped into the stance of swept legs and pointed toes. I had to stop viewing those memories so often or I would wake up one day and be unable to move any other way.

Anna laughed and shook her head in denial. "Not a chance. I would rather go a year without a single drop of wine."

"But you have to! I don't know how to take care of anything, that's what you do!." I cried out as I leaned against the tall table with my hands. A lock of Ire's black hair spilled down from the top of my head and nearly dipped below the perfect black that concealed the contents of the black box.

Anna pushed herself off the door and let the momentum carry her towards me. "Didn't you already do this yesterday? Why are you so scared?"

"I didn't do anything yesterday but stare at it." I answered as I found myself staring into the darkness yet again.

She continued to try and cast my fear away. "But you already touched it? It didn't hurt you or anything."

"I don't even know what it is!" I yelled, knowing that my anger at other things that had happened were coming out at her as soon as I heard my voice echo sharply off the walls of the small room.

Anna took my hand from the table and turned me towards her. "What if we make a deal?"

The tone of her voice and the look in her dark eyes was enough for me to know what kind of deal she was suggesting.

"I agree." I said as I leaned in to kiss her.

Our lips did not meet.

"You aren't very good at this. What if I ask for something you can't afford to give?" Her voice was bright, quiet, and light, which made it nearly impossible for me to resist her.

We were in a room that almost no one could open except for me, we were mostly alone, and the air was just cold enough for me to wish for warmth.

She could have literally asked me for anything and I would have given it to her.

I did almost every morning as well, but that one had been different. Her nightmares had come earlier and been far worse than normal, so we had spent almost all night in each other's arms.

"What do you want?" I said through a frustrated sigh as I gave serious thought towards charming her.

She lifted my arm like she meant to wrap it over her shoulder. "If you do what you are supposed to do in here. . ."

Her voice trailed off and I was left in agonizing anticipation, my eyes closed and my breath held in wait for her to tell me what I had to do.

Then, suddenly, she forced my left arm down and my hand plunged into the darkness of the box.

Fear shot through me like the shock from cold water and I tried to rip my hand back out of the black.

"Stop it!" I yelled, but she had taken me off guard.

She was laughing, she had thrown my hand into a box with what might as well have been a monster, and she was laughing.

"Calm down, you will scare it." She said, holding my arm as tightly as she could to keep me from slipping away.

I felt the thing swim around my hand and brush past my knuckles.

"Anna, stop! I don't know what to do! I'm gonna ruin it, let me go!" I cried, too panicked to do anything but tell the truth.

She let go off my arm enough that she could embrace me from behind but not enough for me to pull my hand free.

"Hey, easy. No you're not. Take a breath." She said softly into my ear.

I shook my head from side to side. "I ruin everything. How will this be any different?"

Nami had sworn to me that I could not make the thing in the black box suffer the same fate that the seed or my startling sprout had, but that didn't mean anything.

It might not explode or suddenly grow and die, but I could still hurt it.

I could give it too little of my aura and it could starve.

In the ocean of not knowing that I was drowning in, I could think of nothing that proved those things wrong.

"Hush. You've been Samsara's master for a long time and he is still alive." She tried, her attempts to calm me beginning to work.

My worry would not be defeated so easily. I muttered my way through my words as I settled back into her embrace. "Not because of me. I tried to throw him onto a roof and dropped him on his head. He's probably only alive because I don't bother him anymore."

"What is it doing? What do you feel?" She said as she ignored my muttering.

"Wet, cool, angry. I don't know, it brushed up against my hand but I can't feel it anymore," I pouted. "Why could I have just not exploded the seed? Then I wouldn't have to be here."

I felt Anna sigh against my back.

"This is why we should go be princesses. Precept Zetta would have just told me what I needed to do." I pouted even harder as I let Anna hold more of my weight.

She said nothing long enough that I began to wonder why she had fallen silent, but before I could ask her a knock sounded on the other side of the door.

"Underwitch Ire?"Precept Cherith asked as she stepped into the room.

She met my eyes and then looked at Anna before turning away.

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"Oh, hello, I did not realize that you were not alone. My apologies, if I interrupted-"

Anna let me go and waved her hands. "No, no, no, it wasn't like that. She is just nervous to do whatever it is she is supposed to do in here and I was trying to comfort her."

What wasn't like what? I asked silently, not understanding why the both of them were blushing.

"Then that means you are her Keeper. Anna, yes?" Precept Cherith asked, still looking like she had not decided if she was going to stay or go.

"I am, and you are Precept Cherith." Anna said with a smile that could make a whole bundle of starlings bloom to their natural limits.

Precept Cherith smiled back, and between the two of them, I felt like the sun had found some way to sneak its warmth all the way into the little room.

"It is exciting to have a Mezzanine here, your people do not normally leave the Illumia Coast. If I am ever able to find a moment to myself, I would love to share my dinner table with you both." My teacher said as she stepped through the door that only she, myself, and one other could open.

Anna looked up at the ceiling as if she was about to sneeze and then nodded. "No, I'm right. I have no clue what you're talking about."

"You are not. . . Oh my, I thought that since you had been named her Keeper that-Please forgive me, I have been so rude." Precept Cherith apologized as she turned around to leave once again.

Anna reached her hand out. "Wait. If you tell her what to do, I will forgive you and we can still have dinner."

My teacher's look of obvious shame turned up into an expression of relief. "Yes, well, wherever you are from, you are exceedingly kind."

She pulled her sleeve up like she had the day before yesterday and joined her hand with mine inside the black box.

"It is no surprise that you are nervous, Underwitch Ire. There was barely enough time for you to get your fingers wet when the two of you were first introduced," Cherith said, her thin fingers bumping into mine as she reached further into the box. "What have you been able to do so far?"

"Not cry." I answered honestly, I had felt like it several times that day already, but no tears had fallen yet.

"You have not held it? Let me help you." She hooked one of her fingers with mine and brought it to one of the box's corners.

I felt the slick feeling of whatever was beneath the darkness touch my palm. It wriggled against my skin, but did not swim away.

My teacher intertwined her fingers with my own and formed a cradle underneath the thing.

"See, that's not so bad, is it?" Anna asked when I could not Lee myself from smiling any longer.

It was slimy, and smaller than I had imagined it would be, but it had not tried to eat my hand yet so I was inclined to agree with her.

"Have you brought your aura to your channel? Can you feel what it needs?" Precept Cherith asked.

"No." I said just a little bit too quickly and realized that I was not being very nice to my teacher.

I focused my aura and tried to do as she asked. "I'm sorry, my feet hurt. I am not trying to be mean."

It had been weeks since I had worn my black laced boots and stockings. The half a day that had passed since I put them on had been enough for me to decide that I would never wear them again.

"There, I can feel your power now. Close your eyes and focus only on what is in your hand." Precept Cherith said through a smile.

I did as I was told.

The thing was not moving much, and if it was trying to tell me something, it was not in any way that I could understand.

"I don't-" I growled in frustration and tried to pull my hand away.

My teacher held it in place. "It will come to you when it is supposed to Underwitch Ire, but for now, let my experience help you. Give it some of yourself, the smallest amount that you can give, maybe then I will be able to understand what is evading you."

"What if I hurt it?" I whispered, my frustration turning to fear all too quickly.

"You will not. I am here." Precept Cherith said as she squeezed my hand beneath the water gently.

I took a deep breath as Anna placed her hand on my back.

I felt something when my aura slipped through my channel. Dust, the cool of my blue, explosions, I was used to it all.

What I was not used to was feeling my power be taken by something else.

The feeling brought the memory of when Underwitch Yume had swallowed my firework with her sleeve on my dueling day.

"Very well done." Precept Cherith said as she let the thing swim out of our hands and brought them back up from the bottom of the box.

I let out the short breath I had taken. "Wait. That's it?"

"For today, yes. That is it." Precept Cherith said.

"But I barely did anything." I said, still not understanding.

Precept Cherith dried her hand with her aura and did the same for me. "But you still did something, and that is better than nothing. If I am not mistaken, Underwitch Mallory was looking for you just before I left the classroom."

As if she had been waiting for someone to say her name, Mallory appeared in the doorway of the little room not a second later.

"What is this place? What is that? Why are you here?" She asked in quick succession, her vibrant blue eyes darting around the room like she was trying to track a fly.

Just two days before, Tana had ruined the plan I had worked so hard to create. Alexei said it would not have mattered if she hadn't, but I had not been able to let go of my anger over it.

My day had been good, better than most actually because Anna had come up to Cherith's hall with me after lunch, but that one sore spot in my mind could not be ignored.

In my anger, I had made a new plan that not even Tana could ruin.

"What did you want me for?" Mallory asked as she crept towards the black box.

"Shhhh. Everyone cough." I shushed her and demanded.

Anna quirked up an eyebrow. "Is this for what I think it is for?"

I nodded in agreement.

She rolled her eyes and sighed, but she was the first one to do as I asked. Mallory shrugged, joined in with her, and the stared at Precept Cherith until my teacher did the same.

Under the cover of that noise, I whispered to Anna and Mallory what I needed them to do.

"That's devious," Anna whispered back once their coughing had tapered off. "Can she do it?

"Can I do what?" Mallory asked as she leaned over and kissed Anna on the cheek.

It was strange watching the disguise I was forced to wear everyday kissing my beloved, but strange was the only place I had left to go if escaping Alexei was going to be possible.

Precept Cherith left first. Ire and Anna followed not very long after.

When I left the small hall with the snowy painting behind them, my one eyed guard had already taken up beside the false Ire.

He walked beside the only Ire in the hall while I, the only Mallory that could be seen, carried in towards the new moon's quarters.

Down the singing stairs we went, and when the three of them reached the landing on the second floor, Anna collapsed at Alexei's feet.

"Go, Ire! Run!" She shouted as she grabbed at my guard's legs and the false Ire broke into a dead sprint down the stairs.

It's working! He's falling for it! I cheered in my mind as he escaped Anna's grasp and disappeared from my sight.

I could not celebrate yet because there was still more for me to do.

Practically throwing myself off the landing, I ran past Precept Seram's hall and made for my hiding spot as quickly as my heavy boots would allow.

One, two, three glances behind me told me all the same thing.

Alexei was not there.

I had almost won.

Feeling like an unseen demon would snatch me up by my collar at any moment, I slid into the new moon's quarters with victory in my heart.

And then, I ran face first into something hard and was knocked backwards into the stony floor.

The warden was in Lun Arcanicil.

Except for the shirt that covered his chest and middle, he looked exactly like he did in the memories of him I had that hurt to think about.

"Oh, sorry about that dear, let's get you on your feet," The bearded man said. He did just that, picking me up by my arms and standing me back up like I weighed nothing at all. "Come on, Puddles, you know how your mother gets when she is kept waiting."

I stepped to the side to let him pass and watched as Tana came skipping after him.

"I can't find my necklace, do you think she will give me another one?" She asked, looking as happy as I had ever seen her.

And just like that, without even knowing that it was me, Tana made my good day bad once again.

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