I had gone back to my starting point at the top of the stairs so many times that it had been hours since I had lost count.

Merick had become a memory, but three more of The Mother in Gray's guards had appeared as I had made it deeper into the place behind the massive metal door.

Each of them, Slayt, Garon, and Tira had all been subject to the same stopping and starting that I was. Gray would appear from somewhere unseen and tell them if they were too late, too early, walking too fast or slow, looking in the right direction or any number of other things they were doing wrong.

It felt like a game, but the only one who knew the rules was Gray.

And I was the player that she would not look in the eyes.

I had come to expect that from her, but after becoming bored with making the same walk over and over again, it had started annoying me in the absence of having anything else to do.

It was likely because she was not there for me to find out, but I had begun to think that I would have rather been under the weight of Azza's golden eyed stare.

After listening to Gray explain to Tera that she would not have seen me when she did because she had a habit of looking over her shoulder after turning corners, I made the ever lengthening walk back to my starting point to try again.

The first step of the staircase that I started at the top of had seen the bottom of my sandal so many times, that I was surprised I had not left a track in the marble.

As soon as I stepped down, the ticking of my fifty four minutes began again, but I had heard it so much that I barely even noticed it.

It was an odd feeling, longing for the days when I understood what was happening during my punishment.

Azza hated me. She had wanted me to understand the weight of The Well, she had buried me alive to prove that point.

It had been very effective.

Gwyn had been angry that I had run away, so she had given me a much more real reason to run by sending her beasts after me.

That was easy to understand.

Rhiannon loved me. I had not believed it at first, but she spent three days trying to show me that.

And after three days, I had learned that lesson well.

Ali had beat me up.

There was no lesson.

I had done something wrong and she had punished me for it.

Simple.

With Gray however, I could not begin to understand why she was having me repeat the beginning of her unknowable game over and over again.

And what was the worst thing about it, was that I did not even know how she felt about it.

Being Alexei's ward should have taught me far more about how to read someone's face that was concealed beneath a mask of stone, but even if it had, there would have been no chance for me to try and understand her.

Regardless of my frustration, I carried on down the stairs. Then just like I had done all morning, I went through the entryway and made it through the door at the back of the hall before Merick could come out and catch me.

I turned left because the one time that I had gone right, Slayte had met me with her spear pointed at my throat before I could turn the corner.

Down another hall, through another door, into an open room with high ceilings, down another hall again, and past where I knew Garon would appear if I waited around long enough, I came to the place that Gray had last stopped me.

There were long halls on either side of me whose black marble would have made them seem dark if not for the countless flickering candles that hung down from the ceiling on silver rails.

Other than that, there was no Tira, no Gray, and a single door in front of me.

I took it, and stopped on the other side after it was closed.

That was how it had gone so far.

Every time I made it somewhere new, I would be stopped and made to go back to the start.

Every time but that one.

All that remained from what I had been through before was the constant ticking from somewhere further in. There were no more halls, no more candles or doors, only the marble floor I stood on and a wall that was right in front of my face.

Had I reached the innermost chamber? There was no where left for me to go but back, so it seemed like I had.

I turned around to leave, but there was not enough room. My bare shoulder dragged against the wall painlessly.

I had run into enough things to know that it should have hurt at least a little.

"Thanks, Sam." I said under my breath as I stretched my arm out and watched my hand disappear beneath what I then knew to be a glamor.

If it had not been for my big blue cat's desire to show me the things he had seen, then I would have never known what running into that kind of glamor felt like.

I stepped through it full then, but there was no floor to meet my feet on the other side.

I cried out as I fell, but the way down was not long.

My hands and knees banged against the cold metal of a lift.

I curled my legs against my chest and held my breath in anticipation of being dropped straight down like I had been the night before.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

I wasn't.

The lift slowly began to move forward in the dimly lit place I had literally fallen into and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

Darkness below, darkness above, and even more on all sides of me, I was carried away from the halls and doors that I had grown so tired of seeing.

"Is this supposed to happen?" I called out to Gray, but the only answer I received was the echo of my own voice.

I swallowed and tried again. "Mother Gray?"

"I can't do this! Whatever it is! This is proof!" I yelled for the third time and finally accepted that she was not going to say anything back.

Just as my breath began to quicken and I could feel my heart thumping along to the sound of the ticking that clicked loudly against my ears, the lift stopped.

There was something at the end of it, a door, with an icy blue stone set into the center of it.

Unlike the one that I had seen on my way to The Mother in Gray's domain, its edges were sharp and the facets within it were all straight lines and angles.

Whatever was on the other side of it had to be better than sitting atop a lift in almost total darkness, so I stood and went through it.

There was a floor that time.

I did not fall.

Grey stone walls, window frames of paneled glass that were made to look like they were packed with snow, a chill in the air that I knew all too well, I felt like I had stepped through a black gate and found myself back inside Lun.

There was a high backed chair next to an unlit fireplace. A painting hung above it and I knew two of the three men that filled it.

Alexei stood on the right, both of his eyes shining with the shade of his bright blue.

Radomir was in the middle, but he was not crying like he had been when he was a little boy.

I did not know the third personally, but I knew who he was.

Jaka, looking like a flawless reflection of his mother, stared out with one eye closed. His hair was longer than either of his brothers. It fell down his bare chest like a long white curtain and framed the angry expression on his delicate face perfectly.

"Come forward, Underwitch Autumn." I heard The Mother in Gray say through an opening on the far side of the little room.

I shook myself free of Jaka's gaze and followed her voice out of the room.

Without a moment passing, I learned where the clicking had been coming from.

The entire ceiling of the large round room I stepped into was one massive clock. It had a silver face and its long black hand ticked away above my head as I went to where Gray stood.

"I am grateful for your patience, Underwitch Autumn," She began, her eyes looking down at the marble floor beneath our feet. "All that is left is a single question. Why have you come here?"

I spoke slowly as I tried to understand why she had asked me that. "Because you told me to?"

"Yes, but imagine if I had not. Is there anything you saw along your way that would have drawn you forward?" She asked in the hurried way she had been speaking all morning.

"No. I would never come here unless there was something I really wanted, and I am almost certain that Anna is still neck deep in books." I answered honestly.

Light glinted in Gray's silver eyes. "Perhaps thinking of it the way that I have described is where the flaw lives. Perhaps you are not trying to reach this chamber as I have asked. Perhaps you were truly just wandering. I will return you to your starting place and I would like you to show me what you would do if that were true."

Silently, both black hands of the silver clock that hung above us began to turn backwards as The Mother's aura came to light in her hands.

I threw myself to the floor and sat down cross legged. "Can we take a break? If I have to walk through another hall I think I'm going to be sick, and why won't you look at me? It makes me nervous."

She had surprised me so many times already by answering the questions that I had asked her. I should not have been so taken aback when she let out a long breath and turned her haunting silver eyes to me.

As soon as they met mine, she changed.

"Forgive me for permitting myself to indulge in that act of selfishness. I will admit that I feared what I would feel if I looked at you." She sighed as she sat down opposite of me.

It was not her words that were different, it was how they sounded.

"But in truth, I am relieved. It is quite difficult to avoid someone's eyes for so long." She laughed a deep sounding laugh that was quiet but full in her chest.

I tried not to let my worry show on my face, but it was hard for me to not think that I had said something I shouldn't have.

Still, I had to know.

"Why were you?" I asked after a long moment spent trying to find the words.

"Have you ever failed at something, Underwitch Ire? Has there ever been something that you wished to do with every part of yourself, but that wishing was not enough?" She asked as she reached up and unbound her hair.

What had once been long silver locks came tumbling down and ended halfway down her neck. She tucked it behind her ears before taking a breath and waiting for me to answer.

I had wanted to win every duel, game of points, and competition my mother had put us through during Amoranora, but I did not think that things like that were what she was asking after.

Two things came to mind, but they were tangled together like the knots of my soul.

The fawn, panicked and bleeding inside the blanket that Precept Jasna carried it in gave way to my least favorite memory of Arthur.

"Yes." I admitted.

"Will you tell me about it? It will remain here, I assure you. You are not speaking to The Mother in Gray. I am listening just as myself." She asked and offered, looking me in my eyes the whole time.

There were three voices I heard in my mind that each told me to feel something different.

Sam wanted me to fall silent.

Anna wanted me to speak carefully.

I wanted to tell her the truth.

My familiar got what he wanted first because it took me far too long to find the will to speak.

"My friend got hurt, badly," I began, trying my best to listen to Anna. "And I was the only one there that could have helped."

It had been dark and cold. I was covered in dirt and dead leaves. Arthur was dying and there was nothing I could do. Anna needed me to help her brother and there was nothing I could do.

I remember how it had felt when I realized I was useless.

"I couldn't, and he almost died." I said as I shook myself out of the memory.

He would have if it had not been for Opa.

"I am sorry to hear that," Gray said as she took my hands in hers. Just like I had been when she had touched me before, it surprised me how rough they were. "Feeling powerless is awful no matter how it happens. I know that better than most."

I did not pull away from her grasp.

She looked at me again and smiled. "You truly have no memory of this place?"

I shook my head from side to side. "No."

"Then let me introduce you to it properly. This is the place where my greatest failure occurred. Everything I thought myself to be, everything that I thought I was capable of, was destroyed in this room." She said, giving another deep laugh despite how sad her silver eyes had become.

I whispered without meaning to. "What happened?"

"I was given something to protect, and I did not," She said with a sad smile. "I was certain that bringing you here would bring some memory back, but once again, I was wrong."

I did not understand, but she was kind enough to not make me ask.

Still holding my hands, The Mother in Gray told me the truth.

"This is where The Well was kept, Autumn Aubrey, and I was its keeper."

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