I kept walking with Ferrin for far too long before I stopped and questioned what I was doing.

"Wait. Why am I skipping class with you? And why do you keep telling people that I beat Maletta? You were there, you saw-I mean, you know what happened." I said, my words getting caught in my mouth awkwardly when it came to the subject of her sight.

I wasn't that innocent, I had skipped class before. Granted, it had been when my familiar had come and led me through hidden halls and tunnels, but that still counted.

She looked towards me and shrugged. "Maybe because I am bored. Maybe I like to cause trouble. Maybe I took one look at you and decided that I did not like you. Maybe I do like you. Maybe, I am like you. Maybe I really don't like Maletta. Who knows?"

I felt like pulling my arm away from her and leaving, but I could not bring myself to do it.

"Not the answers you were looking for?" Ferrin asked aloud, her head tilted up to the arched ceilings.

Already having more questions that I truly believed would ever be answered in my life, I sighed in annoyance. "No. And, you know. You are the one that would know why you came to get me, just you."

Ferrin laughed and no part of me felt like joining her.

"Fair," She said before ignoring every word I had just spoken. "Don't you have a familiar?"

"Yes?" I scowled and agreed, confused as to why that mattered.

"Do you know where it is?" She asked.

"No?" I muttered, still confused.

"I do." She said, looking towards me.

From behind me, Sam's thunderous attempt at sounding like a normal cat sounded. "MEOW."

I flinched away, only realizing what had made the sound after it had nearly scared me out of my sandals.

The big blue cat pushed himself between Ferrin and I's legs before turning back and sitting down directly in front of us. "MEOW?"

"What's he saying? Can you understand him?" Ferrin asked as she knelt down and reached her hand out to a place that Sam wasn't.

Despite her hand not coming anywhere close to him, Sam raised his massive paw up to strike her.

I lowered myself at her side and caught him just before he could hurt her. "I can, when he is not pretending that he can't speak. What is it, Sam? And you can't hurt her, I forbid it."

It was not an actual command. There was no power behind it, but I hope he understood that was because I was a kind and gentle master.

"It can talk?" Ferrin asked, an open mouthed smile brightening her face as she reached out for Sam again.

Sam cut his deep blue eyes at her and dug his claws into my wrist.

I winced. "Unfortunately. What do you want, Sam?"

"MEOW." He growled in obvious anger.

"If that's how you want it to be," I sighed and brought my power to my lips. "I command you to-"

"MEO-So be it. One day you will learn the strength of secrecy." Sam said, giving up on his act as he snatched his paw out of my hand.

Ferrin reached out for a third time and successfully found my big blue cat of a familiar. She scratched the place between his ears, seeming to be completely unaware of the danger she was in. "Listen to that. You could command armies with that voice."

Sam, showing his fangs and already turning his head to tear into her flesh, stopped. "Yes. I could."

"Powerful too. Much stronger than any other familiar I have met. Hell, you feel stronger than most sorceresses in this place." Ferrin continued, the danger she was unaware of disappearing quickly.

Sam closed his mouth and let his fur relax back down from where it had risen up. "I agree."

"And smart. I do not blame you for being wary of me. Only a fool trusts a stranger." Ferrin said as she stood back up and brought me with her.

Sam stared up at me. "Are you a fool, My Lady?"

"No. Because we are not strangers, and she does not trust me yet." Ferrin answered for me.

Sam shifted his gaze to the blind underwitch. "And you hope to gain her trust?"

Ferrin shrugged. "That is up to her, I just believe that we have certain things in common."

My familiar stood and gave his head a shake. "Your time would be much better spent with this one instead of the arrogant child or the cowardly glutton."

"You like her?" I asked, confused.

The sight of Sam being so friendly towards anyone was enough to make my head ache. He wasn't even being friendly, really. There was just a lack of contempt in his eyes that I was not used to.

"No. There is nothing from you that she desires. That is a rare enough occurrence in your life that it makes me distrust her less." He answered as he turned away.

"By how surprised you look, I will take that as a compliment of the highest order." Ferrin laughed as she took my arm again.

How do you know! You can't see! I yelled in my mind.

"Now, come. I have something to show you."Sam commanded as he made his way towards the singing stairs.

I could tell it was a command because he did not so much as glance at me to see if I would follow.

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Anna was right, I should remind my contemptuous familiar from time to time about who served who.

"Where?" I have other things to do." I called after him.

I had not given the thing in the black box upstairs any of myself yet, Alexei was still missing, and I had been kidnapped by someone who apparently had no reason to take me away from my fried potatoes.

Sam's tail swished behind him as he made an almost laughing sound. "Do you mean your punishment for being beyond the menial tasks they have set for you or the child's game you play with your ghost?"

"How can I be beyond what Precept Cherith has asked me to do if I can't even sprout a seed?" I asked in anger, apparently far more aware that we were not alone than he was.

Sam stopped walking but did not turn around. "You should not be made to make yourself smaller. Your Precept's should have the foresight to give you a greater challenge."

"But what if I want to do it? What if this isn't a good time?" I asked, hoping he would hear the edge in my voice.

I knew that there were other things he had found that I needed to see beyond the way out and Katarina's study, but crawling through a painting and sneaking through the inner halls with Ferrin Faux by my side felt like it defeated the purpose of doing that in the first place.

"Forgive me, My Lady. I was not aware that you were intent on becoming The Lady in Blue. If that is what you desire, by all means, do as they ask." He growled, a mocking tone in his voice as he stepped onto the first crystalline step of the singing stairs.

I held my tongue and glanced at the second crescent beside me, unable to say anything that I desperately wanted to yell back at Sam.

"Don't mind me. This is far more entertaining than what I thought we were going to be doing." Ferrin said, her face turned towards the great doors of Lun's front entrance.

Sam climbed up another step. "Not all of my discoveries require stealth. You must see this while your memory is still sharp. Your superior may come. It is likely that she has already been where I must take you."

More than anything that he had said, that hurt my feelings. He had heard the edge in my voice, had understood my hesitations without me needing to say them, and still found a reason to be mean to me.

I had never really done all that much for him, but I had asked far less of him than I could have.

My time would have been much better spent with Taloo, Amabura, Benny, Bruce, Durath, Deebee, or any of the other familiars on Silkcradle than the contemptuous cat that had been bound to me.

Whether he could help it or not, I didn't know, but not following him would have likely caused more trouble than it would have saved.

Up the singing stairs, past Precept Cherith's floor, and all the way to where the crystalline steps ended, Ferrin and I followed Sam arm in arm. Everyone we passed either greeted her, stared at me, tried to pet Sam, or did some combination of the three. When the final note of Caerulus's lullaby faded from my mind, and I was certain that we were alone, I found the will to speak.

"What did you think we would be doing? What is watching me argue with a cat more entertaining than?" I asked Ferrin, having become almost certain that she did not actually need my help to walk.

She shrugged. "It's a waste of time that they make us wait until Underwing to become mentors. Maletta has already started pretending to be little Tana's mother. It is only fair that I get to break the rules too."

"You could get in trouble for this?" I looked back over my shoulder, suddenly nervous that we would be discovered.

Ferrin laughed. "No. I cannot get in trouble. The changes you have made to your uniform made me think that you knew that you can't either."

That was a strange thought.

Both that I could not get in trouble and that she could tell what I was wearing.

I could not hold my tongue anymore.

I had to know.

"You, uhm- How can you-If you are-Please forgive me-How do you know the things you know? You are blind." I stammered, unable to find the words I desperately wanted to say until it was too late to change them.

I had made a mistake.

I should have kept my mouth shut.

Sam saved me.

"Here. Go inside." He commanded me for the second time that day.

Ferrin reached over and touched the door that we had stopped in front of. "Ohhh. So that's where we are."

She opened it for me and waved her hand for me to cross through it.

"How do I know what I know? I wish I knew," She laughed as I did what she had gestured for me to do. "I have found many ways to know things. Not being able to see made that necessary. But it's nothing you couldn't learn if you spent more time with me."

Relieved that I had somehow avoided insulting her, I opened my mouth to ask another question but nothing came out.

The temperature in the room dropped as soon as I crossed the threshold.

I exhaled sharply and sent a plume of cold breath through my lips.

It was not a large room, smaller than Anna and I's quarters, and almost completely empty.

Three rows of long stone benches lined both sides, only leaving a narrow path for me to walk towards the source of the sudden cold.

At first, I thought I was looking at a statue. The figure of a man was sitting atop a small chair, his eyes closed and his chin resting in his palms. Then, I was struck by its details. The wild curls of its hair, the black smear of ink on the bottom side of its left hand, the ornate grey robes that looked like they would billow in the wind if they were any, and the hint of an amused smile that played at the corner of its lips, it was all too much.

The closer I grew to it, the colder I became, and just when I touched its hand with my own, I realized that it was not made of stone, it had been carved from ice.

But no, that wasn't right either.

It was not made of ice, it was covered in it.

It was not a thing, someone had not formed it with their hands, it was a person.

Sam appeared at my side and brought my eyes down to a small stone that sat between the man's frozen feet.

"At last, peace for you, Ranus." I read aloud.

It was not just a person, it was someone I recognized both by his looks and his name.

How had I not noticed when I first laid eyes on it?

The second statue in Katarina's study, between the one that favored Alexei and the one that Azza had not known the name of, had been made in the likeness of the man I stood before.

"Master Sam bringing you-" Ferrin began as she came to my side.

Sam interrupted her. "Samasara."

"My apologies, Master Samsara. You bringing her here makes me think that both of you have an interest in The Mothers," Ferrin said, correcting herself and taking my arm again as a shiver ran through her. "Forget it. What you find will be no comfort to you, trust me."

"At last, peace for you, Ranus." I repeated, the weight of standing in front of a frozen corpse chilling me to my bones.

Someone cleared their throat from behind us and scared me so badly that I nearly jumped out of my sandals.

I turned around to see an unfortunately familiar face standing in the doorway.

Mid length white hair that tumbled down in loose curls, what looked to be a gracefully lean frame, a nose and jaw that I knew all too well, Radomir the librarian stepped into the room.

"Have you heard of him?" He asked in an articulate and soft spoken voice.

Seeing him in proper lighting left no doubt in my mind.

He was the son of The Mother in Blue.

Alexei was his brother.

The resemblance was undeniable.

"Wait," He said when his dark blue eyes met mine and narrowed. "I have seen you before."

Ferrin cleared her throat and waved at him. "Rado, hey, it's me."

Radomir's shoulders slumped as he let out a weary sigh. "Of course it is. It is always you, Underwitch Faux, but Father receives very few visitors these days. I should not complain."

Father?

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