The dining hall of Lun Arcanicil was something that I could not have imagined if my life depended on it.

  It was not the room itself, with its high ceiling and six firepces that were each rge enough for someone to y down within. The long tables that stretched from the entrance to the back wall were draped with ornate tablecloths in patterns of icy blue and cold white. Ptes, pitchers, forks, spoons, knives, and every other piece of metal atop the table was untarnished and perfectly polished to a pristine gleam.

  Nor was it the uncountable underwitches that filled the hall with the shapeless sounds of separate conversations. Almost none of them wore their uniform like I was. There was a group of them that sat around one of the firepces in a talkative circle that wore only the blue silk dress I hated so much.

  No cloaks, no stockings, no shoes, just their thigh length dresses and the grey stone underneath them.

  One underwitch passed by me with her arms full of some reddish fruit. It was not the yellow half moon on her cloak or the bck cloth that was tied over her eyes like a blind that caught my eyes. Watching her walk effortlessly through the other underwitches without being able to see was what drew my eyes to her.

  There was another underwitch that sat at the head of the table at the far reaches of the room. I could not be sure because I was too embarrassed to look again, but I was almost certain that she wore nothing underneath her oversized cloak.

  I had spent most of my visits to the dining hall in quiet observation of my fellow moons, but they were not beyond what my mind could create if it was given enough time.

  The sheer amount of food that was spread out along the back wall was a small wonder unto itself. There was bread in every shade of brown. Woven baskets of fruits I recognized and even more that I didn’t brought vibrant colors to the table. Small barrels of different drinks and pitchers of milk that were cold no matter what time of day I came to eat stood in the middle of it all. The milk was a constant temptation to drink until my belly was full and find somewhere hidden to take a nap.

  Even the presence of that temptation and the freedom to do so was not the most remarkable aspect of the hall.

  I could have envisioned it all if there had been a need to.

  What y beyond the limits of my imagination was the impossible speed of the kitchen.

  I made my way to the back of the hall, trying to ignore the sight of Tana, Plia, and one of the other new moons that I had not been introduced to yet. It annoyed me far more than it should that Tana did not scare Plia the way I had, but I resisted the urge to try and sit with them. The underwitch with the blue stoned neckce had made it fairly obvious that she did not like me.

  She did not truly know me, but none of them did, not even Precept Seram.

  I liked to think that Autumn Aubrey was more likable than Underwitch Ire because she actually existed, but I would never be able to know. I had to be Ire, even if that came with being disliked for being motherless and terrifying at least one of my cssmates.

  The far right corner of the dining hall opened up into a small space that held the room’s true wonder. I took one of the small pieces of paper off the open counter and wrote what I wanted to eat onto it like I had learned to do after far too long spent watching others do the same a few days before.

  A man stood behind the counter top that cut the rest of the room off. He wore a faded blue jacket that was thin and bore six silver buttons across its front. His eyes were squinted and tired looking, like the light of the hall was too bright or he had not had enough sleep.

  Anna looked that way sometimes after we had stayed up too te or she had drank too much.

  “You’re a new moon right? You know the rule?”

  “If I don’t finish what I ask for, I can’t ask for anything for a week.” I answered him as I passed him my paper. He had told me the rule himself only a handful of days prior, but based on the rough shape he seemed to be in, I doubted he would remember if he had told me that same day.

  He pushed his messy hair back from his face and read my request aloud. “Fried potatoes? Again? That’s all you’ve eaten for a week. You underwitches can do all sorts of impossible things, but not a one of you knows what a banced meal looks like.”

  He disappeared from the countertop and returned not a moment ter with a small silver pte full of what I had asked for.

  That was what was unimaginable.

  I had never successfully cooked a single thing in my life, but I did not need experience to know that making food took time.

  “Do you really like them that much?” He asked as he handed me my seemingly instantaneous meal.

  They were golden brown, still steaming, and smelled of salted butter. They were the wrong shape and were not as good as the ones from seven columns in Erosette, but it was very difficult for fried potatoes to be bad.

  Over the st several days, I had watched Underwitches ask for everything from a pte of leafy greens and grilled meat to an entire frosted cake. They had all received what they requested and it had taken no more time than my own request had.

  It was magic, real magic like what was in one of my mother’s stories.

  “If they were all I had eaten for a thousand years, I would gdly eat them for a thousand more,” I answered the man with a pleasant smile. “Thank you. How do you make them so fast?”

  “Try to eat something different next time,” The man said through a sigh and waved me away. “Go find someone else to talk to, I won’t let a line form up.”

  I turned away disappointed. I had asked him the same question three days in a row and received much the same response.

  To know you is to love you, my little Delpha. My mother’s voice echoed in my mind.

  That might have been true, but no one loved Ire and no one could get to know me as long as I had to pretend to be her.

  I ate my food as I walked back to the entrance, but I did not particurly enjoy it.

  The man behind the counter had no interest in talking to me. I could not go sit with the other new moons without getting bullied by one and scaring another. Not even Sam wanted to spend time with me.

  I had seen no sign of him since he had run off after telling me about his creation.

  For several hours after, I had been worried that there was an identical big blue cat running around Lun under the name Othersam. I was still concerned with the possibility, but it felt much more likely that his way of telling me and silent exit afterward had given me the wrong impression.

  It would have been nice to be able to ask him.

  He probably knew I wanted to and that was precisely the reason that he was hiding from me.

  Leaving my empty pte on the end of one of the long tables like I had seen everyone else do, I left the dining hall feeling completely and utterly alone.

  I would climb back up the singing stairs and make my way back to my pce in Precept Seram’s css room. She would pce her watchful bubble above my head and I would begin my new assignment.

  Alone.

  Being able to see and speak with me through a bubble hardly counted as company. Even if she was standing behind me like she had been on my first day, she was there for Underwitch Ire.

  Everything my bubbly teacher had taught me had been intended for Ire, not Autumn.

  When I had mastered moving her little metal weight from left to right across the table, it had been Ire that was praised. When I returned to the cssroom and moved the weight from right to left, she would be praised for my success once again.

  There was only one person in all of Lun Arcanicil that truly knew me and no matter how badly I wanted to go and find her, I knew I couldn’t. What had everything we had been through been for if I did not do what I had come to The Mother in Blue’s school to do?

  I knew Anna would be happy to see me, the real me, but I did not need to bother her. Ms. Lao had been right about her needing to find something for herself. She had not been sleeping well and she already spent so much time looking after me that it would be nothing but selfish to interrupt whatever she was doing because I was feeling lonely.

  Alexei waited for me in the hall as he always did. He wore his long white hair down, a deep blue robe over his bck under yer, and both his swords on his hip. The moment I stepped through the doorway of the dining hall, he opened his one white eye and pushed himself off the section of wall he had been leaning on.

  Ask questions. The memory of one of Anna and I’s agreements echoed in my mind.

  As bad as I was feeling, I did not stop to think how the question that had come to my mind would affect my pn to slowly but surely trick my guard into caring about me beyond the bounds of his duties.

  I just asked.

  “Do you know my name?” I said, standing in front of him with only a step between us.

  “Underwitch Ire.” He said simply.

  I balled my fists even while knowing that I had no reason to be angry at him. “No, my real name.”

  “I do. But this is neither the time or the pce to say it.” He answered, evidently unbothered by my visible frustration.

  “So you know what I’ve done? You understand why I have to have a fake name and wear a gmor? You understand the terrible thing I did and you still agree to guard me?” I let out in a harsh whisper.

  Alexei turned in the direction of the singing stairs and motioned for me to follow. “If you wish to continue speaking of this, it will not be done where we can be so easily overheard."

  His white eye gnced past me. I followed his gaze and saw Tana staring at us from where she sat with the other new moons.

  The singing stairs were mostly empty as we climbed them. Unlike most of the times I had ascended or descended them, the lulby that rang in my mind with every step up the crystalline stairs did not bring me peace. The ghostly glow of pale blues, purples, and whites that shone from them did nothing to calm my lonely anger.

  It took me several moments to push away the more ridiculous questions that were begging to be asked.

  Don't ask him about Katarina. Don't ask him about his power. You don't need to know if he is married to Precept Jasna. I thought to myself as I waited for him to speak. When we reached the floor that Precept Seram's cssroom was on and he had still not said a word, I grew tired of waiting.

  "If you know who I really am, then why don't you hate me like The Mothers do? Why haven't you asked me about it? You aren't curious how a ten year old little girl stole-"

  Alexei interrupted me in a sudden whisper, his eyes looking all around us as he spoke. "I know who you really are just as you know who I really am."

  I backed away from him until the wall of the hall pressed against me. There was no anger in his eye, no clenched teeth or balled first either, but his singur focus was so intense that I found myself holding my breath.

  "I am curious, yes, but I have not asked you any of the things that I wish to. You and Lady Anna are beyond curious about me and my mother, but you have not asked any of that things that I hear you both speaking of. Why is that?" He said, so much weight behind his whisper that it felt like a demand.

  There was something about the way he was standing that caught my attention and I could not answer him in time.

  After checking that no one else had joined us in the hall, Alexei continued in his hushed tone. "Because it is irrelevant. I have come back here to protect and prevent you from exposing yourself. You have come here to learn. Is that sufficient?"

  His left foot was closer to me than his right, and though his fingers were not pointed towards me, his left hand was resting on the end of his white sword. From his posture alone, I was reminded of something that I loved and had not done since arriving to Lun Arcanicil.

  I miss Arthur. I admitted to myself as I brought my right hand forward and pced the tips of my pointed fingers in the center of my guard's forehead.

  As unbothered as ever, Alexei spoke. "What are you doing?"

  For the first time on that lonely day, I smiled without having to tell myself to do it first.

  "Three points, Autumn," I said quietly, thinking of all the nights Arthur and I had spent pying the stupid little game. "First kill, Autumn. Reset."

  Alexei took my hand and gently pushed it back towards me. "I did not know that you knew how to py points. It will be better for us both if you refrain from using your name aloud, understand?"

  "Do you know how to py?" I asked him back as he turned to finish walking me back to css.

  "Yes." He said simply.

  I had agreed with Anna that I would ask questions, and I had come too far to be halted by nervousness. So, I took a breath and swallowed my hesitation.

  "Do you think we could py sometime?" I asked him.

  My guard opened the door to the cssroom and motioned for me to step inside as he answered.

  "No."

  It was all I could do to not stamp my feet and demand that he py with me, but I held my tongue and accepted his rejection as calmly as I could.

  “Do you always let him go wherever he pleases?” Alexei asked as he looked past me once again.

  I turned to see what he had meant.

  Past Tana, Plia, and the other underwitch I did not know, I saw the big blue shape of my familiar turning down a hall on the other side of the singing stairs.

  “Hey!” I shouted as I took off down the hall towards him.

  Sam’s head snapped back and he scowled at me with his deep blue eyes before breaking away from me in a dead sprint.

  “Come here you stupid cat!”