It was not long after I had broken the first weight that I decided I did not like having potential.

  After the fifth weight that Precept Seram had pced on my table went the way of the first four, I realized that potential was a nice word that meant I had done nothing yet.

  Truly, if it had not come from my perfectly proper precept, I would have thought it to be an underhanded insult.

  “Let this be the st for now. For practical applications, there is a point where further attempts may only develop a negative habit. Unlearning something is often harder than the initial learning." Precept Seram said as she returned to my pce within the white curtain.

  She stepped past where I leaned against the wall next to my hung cloak and pced an identical square weight atop the table.

  “It is often best, when faced with a problem that seems to be beyond your current abilities, to take some time away and let your mind process what you have learned.” She continued.

  “How would you do it?” I asked weakly with my vial neckce held tightly in my right hand. The afterglows from any of my previous attempts had not been terrible, a tear here or a sniffle there, but the losses had grown rger and rger.

  Like I had been running uphill through deep snow, I was out of breath and my bck tights were damp with sweat. My left arm, shoulder, and back burned from my efforts. On my st attempt, I had needed to hold my unsealed hand aloft with my right to keep it from falling limply to my side.

  “I am unsure as to how that will help you. These assignments are for you to discover what works for you.” Precept Seram answered, continuing to be nothing but patient and kind.

  I gave her an honest answer through my bored breaths. “That is how I’ve learned to do anything, watching others first and then trying it myself.”

  She probably imagined little Maiden Ire sitting and watching her mother perform a working before running off and trying it for herself, but it was not a lie.

  “I see. Well, There is not a single way,” Precept Seram answered as she squared her shoulders with the table and removed the white glove of her right hand finger by finger. She held her bare hand up towards the weight and continued. “If I am correct, you are focusing your will into the center of the weight, yes?”

  Her question brought nervousness in my tired body. I had agreed with Anna that I would ask questions. Over the course of my first day, I had become comfortable with asking Precept Seram what I needed to know, but there was new fear in having to answer her.

  If I told her the truth, and she told me that what I had been doing was wrong, then she would know just how little I knew.

  She would think me a fool.

  If I was locked in a windowless room and only allowed to see the sun if I could describe the perfect example of what a sorceress looked like, I would have described her.

  Watching her as a little bubble that was no bigger than the perfectly polished nail of her thumb formed over her palm, I understood that she was fwless.

  Not a single of her pale pink hairs were out of pce. Her white robes and dress were pure and clean. Everything from her icy blue cloak to the ces of her small bck boots were perfectly in line and her expression remained pleasant as she performed her working.

  It was not just The Mothers that I wanted to be like. I wanted to be like Seram too, as she was then and as she was in the faint memory of her memory that had come to me the first time I had met her eyes on the priming.

  “Underwitch Ire? You are focusing on the center, correct?” She asked again and I realized that I had not answered her.

  “Uhm, I don’t know,” I admitted, keeping my eyes on her little bubble. “I really wasn’t thinking of it in parts.”

  Precept Seram csped her hands together and nodded. “I understand! That is why the weights have broken.”

  “That’s dumb isn’t it?” I muttered, casting my eyes down to the ground.

  She shook her head. “Not at all. The opposite in fact. When we reach more complex assignments, that manner of thinking is necessary and most underwitches struggle to achieve it.”

  “I don’t understand. Is it a good thing that I can break them?” I asked as I met her pastel blue eyes.

  “Spotless,” She smiled and nodded in agreement. “In this case, I believe your ck of formal education has allowed you to achieve things that are far beyond your age.”

  “Oh.” I sighed, her words and my feelings having trouble mixing together.

  “You will understand soon enough, but for now, your focus must be smaller.” She said as her little bubble moved in a straight line towards the weight.

  “Now, what is your assignment?” She asked aloud.

  “To push the weight to the line at the back of the table?” I answered.

  “Spotless! But, do not phrase it as a question. You knew the answer and it was correct. Be confident, Underwitch Ire,” Seram said as her bubble stopped a finger’s width from the weight. “The goal is to push the weight to the line I have made on the table. Not thinking of it as a whole, which part of it should we focus on?”

  “The one that faces us?” I said, knowing that it would be impossible to reach the line if the weight were pushed from any other side.

  “Spotless. And, remember, confidence.” Precept Seram agreed and reminded me.

  Her bubble touched the ft surface of the squared metal and did not pop like a normal bubble would.

  “Once we understand where our will should be applied, the question becomes how much of it is necessary to achieve our desired outcome. So, how much of my aura should it take for me to move a five pound weight?” Precept Seram asked.

  “I don’t know.” I answered honestly.

  She ughed a bubbly ugh. “I would not expect you to know because no one does. Aura is not quantifiable, no matter how hard the dust collectors from the loreiums try to make it so. It will take much more from you to complete your assignment than it will from me, but there are sorceresses that could do much greater things than I and lose much less than I will from this. The power of any of our souls cannot be measured in inches or pounds, we cannot write out an accurate expnation the way an engineer could draw the schematics of a building before constructing it. If we cannot put a value or a measurement to our power, how do we know how much to use?”

  “We don’t. It can’t be done.” I said, giving my best attempt at the confidence she had requested from me.

  “Spotless,” She said with a pleased nod. “If we use too much, we risk damaging the thing we are trying to affect. If we use too little, nothing will happen and the loss will be taken for nothing. The answer,” Her little bubble pressed against the weight and bent out of its round shape, but still it did not pop. As it fttened, its color began to deepen, and where it had been transparent before, it grew into the pastel blue of Seram’s eyes. “Is to start small.”

  The bubble grew and pressed back off the weight until it reformed into its original shape. Still blue and still whole despite the sharp edges that pressed against it, it reached the size of the metal square and began to gain ground.

  “And only use the smallest amount possible to achieve the desired result.” Seram said as her working took effect.

  Slowly and smoothly, her bubble pushed the weight across the table until its back edge came even with the glowing line behind it.

  Once the goal had been met, her bubble did not pop or burst into pastel blue dust, it shrank. Receding down to the size it had been when it had taken shape from her palm, it dissipated into a tiny trail of dust that was the same color as the line.

  When it was done and all that was left of her power was a small mound, she spoke. “To answer your question, that is how I would do it.”

  I cpped for her despite my exhausted body and the weariness that had settled over me.

  Having a teacher that did not have magical bindings that prevented them from actually teaching me was something that I truly enjoyed. Through all of her expnation, I had felt that there was nowhere else she would have rather been and nothing else she would have rather been doing. She had been happy to show me and I had understood it all.

  “Thank you, Underwitch Ire, it is unnecessary, but thank you. Shall we call it a day? It is well past dinner and you are overdue for rest.” Precept Seram said as she slipped her white glove back into her hand and parted the curtains of my pce.

  I disagreed a little too quickly as I took the weight in my hand and pced it back in its starting pce. “No. I want to try again.”

  “If you insist. Then I will take you to the covery, understood?” Seram said sternly.

  “Understood.” I agreed as I stood before the table.

  She gave her usual response before growing quiet. “Spotless.”

  To the best of my abilities, I had kept Anna and I’s third agreement. I had not stamped my feet or ran away from the cssroom crying. I had been a good girl and avoided any violent spikes of emotion.

  I had kept our second agreement as well. I had kept it so well, that I was surprised Precept Seram had not become annoyed with my questions.

  For most of my first day, I had not known how to keep the first.

  I had continued to throw myself into the frigid waters of The River Eae during the trial. Long past when I thought I would suffer a freezing death or drown in the bitter deeps, I had continued. There were many nights at the manor in Erosette that I had lost so many games of points, that any sane person would have given up and never pyed again. When I had been all alone in my little room at the boarding house, when the only thing I had that resembled a friend was Sam, I had tried to remove the barriers in my mind until they had fallen.

  Throwing myself blindly against whatever was in front of me was what I did.

  I had to try again, there was no other way for me to keep that agreement.

  I did not know much about who Autumn Aubrey was, but I did know that.

  Raising my left hand and only managing to keep it up by holding it with my right, I brought my mind back to the weight.

  Thinking of Seram’s little bubble, I practiced bending branch and felt the chill of my bright blue aura building beneath my palm.

  I focused only on the ft surface that faced me and imagined it slowly sliding across the table like it had before.

  The tiny little firework that sprung from my hand and smacked against the weight had not been my intention.

  My shoulders slumped and I sagged against the wall on my left, unable to hold my weight any longer.

  The firework bounced to the floor in an arc before bursting in a small pop of azure light that echoed off the walls around me.

  “Well done, Underwitch Ire. You have gone well past your limits today. Come with me.” Precept Seram asked as she helped me back into the wretched silk of my dress. My blue cloak settled over my shoulders and my arm held over my teachers, she led me from her terraced css room and snapped the lights off behind us.

  Alexei waited in the hall in the same pce he had been when I had gone on my walk earlier that morning.

  The afterglow from my pitiful working and the sight of him washed together into a teary weight that sent me into a heavy sob.

  I missed my own mother and she was just a bck gate away. I had seen her just a few days before, but I still wished she was there to hug me and kiss the top of my head.

  No matter how restrained or pcid my guard wished to appear, I had seen the same sadness in his eyes.

  Katarina was gone and her son was stuck following me around to guard me from myself.

  How much must he hate me that he had to spend his time keeping me from exposing myself instead of looking for his mother?

  Unless, he couldn’t look for her because she was gone somewhere that she could not be found.

  If she was truly dead, how much pain was the white haired guard carrying around? Maybe that was the reason for his restraint. If he allowed his emotions to be felt and seen, it would show that his heart was a sad and broken thing.

  Precept Seram opened a door on the right side of the hall and snapped the lights on. “This is the covery, while you are in my phase, this is where you will go to recover from your afterglows and losses. As it is in my cssroom, your pce is the first on the left.”

  Wiping the tears from my eyes and inhaling deeply through my runny nose, I took in the blue room.

  It was a round room, with only a small amount of the stones that shaped it visible. Rugs, bnkets, curtains, and pillows all covered every surface of the room in every shade of blue. The light was low and cool, the color of new dawn coming through the icy window of Anna and I’s little wooden shack.

  “Oh.” I sighed as the calm of the room settled over me.

  Seram led me to the first of the six blue curtained spaces. “From Precept Shanti’s notes, I have made sure there is sweet red wine and a hairbrush for you. Whatever else you may need, you are welcome to bring here. It will be safe.”

  I brought my hand up to my vial neckce and held it like it was all that would keep me together.

  “Do you not have a pce?” I asked through my sniffles.

  “No, Underwitch Ire. When you have been a sorceress as long as I have and done as much as I, the threshold for an after glow and a loss are much more difficult to cross.”

  That pulled my attention out of the sorrow that had consumed me. If there was a way to use my power without falling into tears or tantrums, I needed to know what it was. “How?”

  “Time and experience mostly. If you had gone to primary school, they would have taught you how to pool your aura. With enough time, you can surpass your limits and effectively raise your threshold.” She answered, still willing to answer my questions despite my tears.

  “Pool?” I sniffled and moved to wipe my nose on the edge of my cloak.

  “Use this instead,” Precept Seram said as she gently stopped my hand and handed me a clean white square of cloth from somewhere in the folds of her dress. “Pooling is building your aura within yourself like you are going to manifest it and shape it into a working, but not channeling it.”

  I dried my eyes and wiped my nose with the cloth, beginning to feel like myself again. “Oh, thats bending branch!”

  Precept Seram gave me a curious look. “Where did you ever hear it called that?”

  I did not have to lie. I could tell her the truth. “My mother taught me when I was younger.”

  “Curious,” Seram nodded to herself as she walked back to the door of the covery. “I do not make a habit of giving assignments outside of my cssroom, but I do have one for you. While you are resting this evening, take note of your surroundings. A mp, a book, a pillow or whatever else it may be. Think of how you would move it if the need arose. A night spent thinking of those things will bring you success come tomorrow.”

  She closed the door to the blue room behind us and told Alexei and I goodbye.

  My afterglow was gone, but the sadness for my white haired guard remained and I could not look at him without tears brimming in my eyes.

  All the way from Precept Seram’s hall to the door of Anna and I’s quarters, I kept my eyes off him and focused on the things we passed.

  Paintings, doors, the mounds of snow outside the windows we passed, I thought of all the ways they could be moved and how I could do it.

  The what and the how came easily, it was the why that I struggled with. I could conceivably tilt a painting crooked or open a door, but there was no reason for me to.

  By the time Alexei brought me to the door of my quarters, the efforts of my first day threatened to bring me to the floor.

  I went inside and found Anna sitting by the firepce. Three bottles of wine sat next to her and a wall of books and papers surrounded her.

  “There you are! I was wondering if you got into trouble or something.” She beamed up at me, her eyes half lidded from the te hour and her drinking.

  For the first time since I left Precept Seram’s css room, I did not have to think of why what I was looking at needed to be moved.

  If Anna had not made me make my agreements with her, I would have never survived my first day.

  “It went well then?” She asked me from within her barricade of books.

  “Terrible. I couldn’t even complete my first assignment. I was so pitiful, my teacher had to spend hours with me alone before I could even understand what I was trying to do.” I answered honestly.

  Unlike the weight, Anna was much too far away from me and I wanted her to be closer.

  I could not simply drag her to me. There was too high of a chance that she wound up on the floor. It would also make a mess of her books and I would never want to inconvenience her in that way. All the reading and note taking she did was for me. It deserved my utmost respect.

  “You don’t seem nearly as mad or sad as you would be if that were true. You’re trying to trick me aren’t you? You did great, didn't you?” She asked as she stood, her brows knitting together in obvious suspicion.

  “No,” I shook my head and smiled. “I am telling the truth.”

  She crossed her arms. “Then why are you looking at me like that?”

  I had begun bending branch the moment my eyes had found her. As soon as she stepped out of her books, I brought my desire, my power, and my will to bear and hoped that I used just enough to bring her into my arms.