All of the maidens that remained in the courtyard could not keep their eyes off of Nami.

  Those that waited in front of me found every reason they could to turn around and steal a glance at The Mother in Blue. Brushing off their boots, pretending to look through the windows, searching the sky, nothing was beyond them. The ones who had already received their small white parcels did not have to disguise their staring nearly as much. Maiden Reese and Maiden Tana were among them.

  They all stood and stared until Precept Mon Zetta came striding towards them with her only arm pointed towards the entrance.

  "I didn't realize you all loved the cold so much. If you are so keen on standing around in it, maybe you all should sleep out here as well." She shouted as she herded the terrified looking maidens towards the school.

  "Do they all know who you are?" I asked Nami as I watched them take their first steps through the towering doors of Lun Arcanicil.

  "I imagine that they think they do, but it's best if I don't introduce myself until after the trial." Nami said, rubbing her palms together. She breathed into them several times, evidently trying to warm her hands.

  I pulled Precept Seram's gloves off my own finger by finger the same way she had and offered them to Nami. "Here."

  "You would give me your gloves?" She asked, her thin, seafoam colored, eyebrows raising in what looked like surprise.

  "My hands are warm, see? I don't need them any more." I said and pressed the back of my hand on her freezing skin.

  It was the least I could do for her after what she had done for me.

  Nami smiled and nodded as she took the fur lined gloves from me, but her ocean eyes did not share in her graciousness. There was conflict within them, some disagreement in her mind that was all too easy for me to see.

  We stepped under the cover of an intricate overhang that hung above the entrance and out of the trampled snow as the last of the maidens hurried inside. Two great doors of iron and dark wood stood open just enough for them to slip through. Just as the front gates had been, a circle of moons adorned their front in shaped metal bars.

  A woman with a serene face stood behind a wide wooden table piled high with white parcels.

  A pure blue band held her long blonde hair back from her face. She wore robes that were the soft white shade of bedsheets in a dimly lit room. They washed down her in a cascade of layers, like she had added another underneath until she had found the right size. A hollow circle, the same blue as her hairband, stood on the front of her outermost layer. An icy blue scarf wrapped once around her neck before the remainder hung down to her waist.

  "She is a precept? That is what that blue means, right?" I whispered to Nami as we waited to be acknowledged.

  "Yes. She teaches Restoration." Nami answered.

  "What is that?" I asked quietly, small embarrassment bringing the wrong kind of heat to my face.

  The conflict remained in Nami's eyes as she looked down at me. "Healing. She governs both the medery here and in Hymneth."

  "Ah," I nodded and thought of Precept Seram. "I understand. And Implementation?"

  Nami shook her head in dismay. "You have been allowed to know so little. Implementation is the study of using your aura practically. Fixing bridges, undamming rivers, things of that nature."

  I nodded again. "And Precept Mon Zetta?"

  "Something that I hope you never need to learn." Nami sighed.

  I had not realized we had reached the table until the precept behind it spoke.

  "Mother. It is wonderful that you have blessed us with your presence this morning. The skies are calm, the maiden's eyes are bright, there was nothing to complain about before you arrived and now there is even less." She said as she bowed with her hands held behind her back.

  There was a softness in her voice, an easy flow to her words that made me want to sit down at her feet and listen to whatever came from her mouth next.

  "Precept Cherith. Far too many parcels remain. You have failed in bringing more maidens to these hallowed halls." Nami replied, her tone becoming serious and disapproving.

  The kind faced sorceress held her bow and kept her eyes turned to the table beneath her. "My apologies, Mother. Please forgive my failure. All I do is out of the desire to please you. I will collect my belongings and be gone before midday."

  "As you should. Anything else would be an embarrassment to us both." Nami agreed.

  There were so many dark and terrible places I would have rather been than where I was. What was happening in front of me should have been done in private. I did not know her from any other sorceress, but my heart ached for the soft spoken woman. I knew better than most what it felt like to be on the receiving end of a Mother's ire.

  Precept Cherith raised her head just enough to look up at Nami and a small droplet of water sprung from the folds of her robes. It splattered against The Mother in Blue's brow and both of them broke into sudden laughter

  "You know I hate it when you do that." Nami said through her laugh and wiped the wetness from her face.

  "Then do not be so easy to do it to. The only one who can protect you is you," Precept Cherith stepped out from behind the table and parcels. She went to Nami and the two of them shared a long embrace. "When will you learn to wear proper clothes? You are as cold as a corpse."

  "There are not enough clothes in all of chaos. Why anyone would build a school here instead of somewhere warm, I will never understand." Nami said with a shiver.

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  They separated and Precept Cherith turned to me. "There is only one name left on my list and I believe that name to be yours, Maiden Ire."

  "Yes." I said and met her eyes.

  Worry ruined her serene expression. It softened her eyes and brought a small frown to her lips. "Oh, you are in pain. What is it that ails you?"

  "Has something happened to you?" Nami asked

  There was pain in the foot that I had thrown into whatever hard thing had been hidden under the snow, but how had she known?

  "No. I'm just cold." I lied and tucked my hands beneath my arms once again to bring truth to my words.

  "Let's get you back then. Only the parcel. No room or bunk is necessary, she will not be staying with the rest of the maidens." Nami said.

  "Why? No," Precept Cherith stopped speaking and waved her hands in front of herself. "Forget I asked, I have too much to be concerned about already. I do not want to know."

  "It has nothing to do with what happened this morning. You have my word." Nami argued back.

  "No. Stop it. Knowing things is too much trouble. Do you know that, Maiden Ire? For instance," Cherith said as she began to sort through the small white parcels. "I know that as powerful as she is and for all the good she does, The Mother in Blue is still absolutely terrified of-"

  "Nothing. I am terrified of nothing." Nami snapped as she snatched the parcel from Cherith's hands and passed it to me.

  Cherith let out a clear, rolling, laugh. "It makes me so happy that I can still do that to you."

  The sound of footsteps in the snow came from behind us and I turned to see Underwitch Maletta and her counterpart passing by. The tension from before returned in an instant and the entrance of Lun Arcanicil grew much colder as they passed.

  I shuddered, but it was not from the wind or cold. Neither was it from the uncomfortable silence that hung between Nami and Underwitch Maletta.

  For the third time that early morning, the hair on the nape of my neck stood on end.

  I was being watched.

  I looked to the gates, the remains of the serpent, and the empty courtyard, but found nothing.

  A strange scent found its way to my frozen nose. Spices, sand, sun warmed stone, the familiar smells filled my nose and drew my sight to one of the then empty tents. Its blue fabric had been parted and nothing but darkness lay within it. In that too perfect dark, two golden eyes opened and I knew without question who had been watching me all morning.

  She was tall, thin, elegant and folded out of the dark with such slow grace that it looked unnatural. Her feet were bare and the thin snow underneath them melted with every step she took. She wore the same gold patterned black robe that she had every time I had seen her. Her umber skin, the tapered angle of her short black hair, her sharp jaw, all of her stood in stark contrast with the wintery surroundings.

  Azza.

  "Does she do that often? Turn around and stare away from those she is speaking with?" I heard Cherith say.

  "This day will not allow me to enjoy it. I will find you later, Cheri," I heard Nami sigh as she stepped in front of me. She whispered to me as she passed. "Do not speak. I do not know why she is here. I will end this quickly."

  I would do as I was told.

  "I hope to see you soon, Maiden Ire. As my student of course. Not as a patient. I hope to never see you as a patient." Precept Cherith said from behind me, but I did not answer her. I had been frozen once again, locked to where I stood by the memory of a pressure and weight that I was powerless to resist.

  The Mother in Blue met The Mother in Brown halfway.

  "Why are you here, sister?" Nami asked, her tone much less friendly than her words.

  "She looks much too happy. I do not understand this," Azza said with one long finger pointing at me. She looked past her sister and spoke to me directly. "Are you merely enjoying the experience of this miserable place or do you not yet know?"

  Nami did not speak or meet her eyes. She looked down at the ground and made no attempt to end the conservation.

  Azza's jaw clenched and the bones in her hands stood against her tanned skin. "You go as far as to threaten to duel me over this and yet you do not tell her of the futility? All of you question my treatment of the girl, but you let her live in ignorance?"

  "If you had not threatened to duel-" Nami started.

  "Not here. This is not for her to know." Azza snapped.

  Bravery or stupidity, it was hard to know the difference, compelled me to speak.

  "Am I allowed to know what I don't know?" I cleared my throat and asked, my hand idly scratching against my thigh.

  "I will do something for you that my sisters will not. I will tell you the truth," The Mother in Brown said as she brushed past Nami and came to where I stood. "The trial you will undertake tomorrow? It is impossible for you to overcome. This is The Mother in Blue's school. You have the wrong sort of soul. When the trial ends and you have not completed it, you will be brought to my domain to bring an end to this madness."

  The little warmth that I held within me in a place the cold could not reach, the place with all my good memories, hopes, and dreams, froze over.

  "You had no right to come here. Wait for me in my quarters." Nami commanded Azza as she wrapped her arm over my shoulders and pulled me into movement. I hardly knew that Nami was leading me away from the courtyard until we crossed through the front gates and began moving along the outside of the walls.

  "This is your school. Can't you just let me in?" I asked, clinging to the last dying embers of hope within me.

  "If it were that simple, I would," Nami yelled. She leaned her back against the wall for half a moment before throwing herself away from it and shouting. "Zozo's black beads, that's cold!"

  She wrapped her arms around herself once again and closed her eyes. "She shouldn't-I-when-I did not tell you because it was irrelevant. I did not tell you about the ridiculous conditions that allowed you to be here because I was going to cheat. You should at least be allowed to learn. With her here, I do not think I can."

  I gripped the small white parcel so tightly in my hands that it split at its seams.

  I had been sent to Lun Arcancil with no purpose other than to fail.

  "What should I do?" I muttered, knowing that she would not be able to tell me or that telling me would cause her pain, but I could not accept what Azza had told me.

  Nami pushed her hair back from her face with her hands. "A moment. I must think."

  The man that had been following me when I had fallen earlier stepped out from behind an evergreen.

  His hair was as white as the snow that surrounded us and pulled tight behind his head. His left eye was covered by a black patch that let the ends of a wicked scar peak out at the top and bottom of it. Two swords hung off his left hip. Both were long and thin. One sheathed in white and the other in black, his hands lazily rested atop their ends. The eye that was not cut and covered was pure white and intently focused on The Mother in Blue.

  "Headmistress." He said simply.

  "Alexei," Nami grunted, her voice annoyed. "She is done here for the day."

  She pushed her gradient hair back with her hands and then snapped still. A smile appeared on her face and she pawed madly at her hair like something was crawling through it.

  "Your hair. That is it. Think about your hair and what you had to do to prepare for this morning," Nami laughed as she grabbed me by my shoulders. "She will never see it coming. Go home, get some rest, and think about your hair. All is not lost."

  Without another word, she turned on her sandals and disappeared back through the open gates.

  I followed Alexei through the snowy evergreens and did as I was told, hoping that her words were true.