The Near Infinite Names of Autumn Aubrey (Psychological Fantasy Progression)

It did not take the hairs on the nape of my neck standing on end to know that I was being watched.

Who I was being watched by was no great mystery either.

Auden slept in the same place atop the vines that he had the day before, and not once in either of my Restoration classes had I seen the silver of his eyes.

Despite all the time my own familiar had spent watching me soak within bath water and The Well both, the thought of Sam coming to class just to fall asked felt like an impossible dream.

It was not the four eyed wolf's so called master either.

Tana stood at the tall table closest to her familiar. She wore nothing but her blue uniform dress and a matching bow that she had used to tie up her honey colored hair with. Two cloth sacks hung on either side of her, their bunched fabric tacked to each corner by small shimmers of Precept Cherith's aura.

If I was not seeing how she was with Ire's own eyes, I would have never believed a demon of her kind could look so peaceful.

The absolute focus on what she was doing almost made me sick to my stomach. It reminded me of when Anna was deep into her books. It reminded me of it far too much for me to not want to punish the honey haired underwitch for daring to be in the same place in my mind as my beloved.

But, though I wanted to, I restrained myself. I left the sack of seeds she had not yet sprouted unexploded and allowed the silver chain of her blue stoned necklace to remain the only thing wrapped around her neck because she was not the one watching me.

All of Plia's fears over eating had been washed away by our new teacher's comforting voice the day before. We could leave whenever we wished, and there was fresh bread and cheese in the covery if the dining hall was too far of a walk.

The little underwitch had appreciated that so much, that she was doing something I never thought I would see her do.

She was not eating.

She was feeding something.

Among the massive waxy leaves and within a cluster of pinkish white flowers that draped down from their stems like blushing gowns, a tightly woven basket hung from the wall.

Plia stood before it and was letting small droplets of her pallid blue aura fall into all of the countless mouths that had opened up to her.

They were no bigger than my thumb, and their green outsides hid the fleshy pink of their insides. Long black spines lined the edges of their lips and I could not help but think they looked like teeth.

I didn't like looking at them, but I had only ever seen Plia look that happy when she was sitting down to eat an impossibly large amount of food.

Vanda stood next to her, pointing at one of the plant mouths as it closed and faded to the color of Plia's aura.

With both of their backs turned to me, and Precept Cherith nowhere to be seen, that only left one soul in the restoration room that could have been watching me.

Of all the times I had felt that exposed feeling, I had never felt quite as good about it. I was glad I was being watched because I needed to talk to the one that was watching me.

I looked away from the pile of soft green buds on my own tall table and found Mallory creeping up behind me.

"Why are you standing like that?" She whispered as her vibrant blue eyes darted around the room.

I was not sure what assignment she had been given, but coming up behind me like Sam would an unsuspecting bird seemed to be more important than whatever it had been.

"Standing like what?" I whispered back.

She straightened her back, raised her chin, and swept one of her legs out in front of herself. "Like this."

I recognized the posture immediately, and realized that I had been standing in Katarina's first step without even knowing it.

"I always stand like this." I gave a lame excuse as I stepped out of the stance and shrugged my shoulders.

Only being willing to force my familiar to attend to me once a night did not leave me much time for memories. So, when I did slip into The Well, I tried my best to stay as long as I could. After my dueling day and Zetta's offer, I had gone back to that icy cathedral more times than I could count. I did not know if Katarina had trained with Caerulus for so long that her book was filled with memories of it or if I had just been lucky with the pages. Either way, it seemed like there were other ways I could lose myself by being someone else than I had first thought.

"If you knew how much time I spent looking at your body, you wouldn't try to lie to me about it," Mallory said as she left and returned to the first step dramatically. "Are you learning how to dance? And if so, will you practice with me? Look at how we are built, we look like we are made for each other."

I had become so used to Mallory's flirting that it did not leave me speechless any longer, but not so used to it that I could keep myself from blushing.

"You're so easy," She laughed as she walked over to me and threw her arm over my shoulders. "What does our distractingly attractive teacher have you doing?"

"You think she's attractive?" I asked, my voice so quiet that I could barely hear it.

Mallory rolled her eyes. "You don't?"

"I-no-she-I don't know! She's our teacher." I whispered harshly as I looked around to see if anyone else had heard the wild thing that Mallory had said.

"And? Precept Zetta and Precept Seram are too. So are you, Plia, Vanda, Tana and every other sorceress I have ever met. It's exhausting really." Mallory continued just a little bit louder than I was comfortable with.

"You think about everyone that way?" I demanded nearly silently.

Mallory nodded and held up a finger. "Yes, at first, but I usually get over it after a while. Precept Cherith is different though. She wears all those white robes under her cloak so it's hard to see, but watch her when she walks, it's-"

"What happens when I walk?" Precept Cherith asked as she stepped into my peripheral and walked to the other side of the tall table.

At that very moment, if I could have burst into a shower of azure dust like one of my fireworks, I would have.

For a moment, I thought Mallory did.

When I snuck a glance over at her, she was nowhere to be seen.

"By the color of your cheeks and how quickly your sister just ran away, I will assume that neither of you wanted me to hear what you were saying." My new teacher sighed as she picked up one of the soft buds I was supposed to be unfurling.

I had not been given another seed after the third one that I had tried to sprout blew apart and struck Vanda's ear.

"I didn't," I shook my head. "She," I turned around and pointed at all the places Mallory wasn't. "You-" I covered my face with my hands. "I'm sorry."

Precept Cherith reached over and placed her hand on my shoulder. "Calm, Underwitch Ire. She has been my student before. I am well aware of her promiscuous nature. I agreed to have dinner with her last semester and did not realize until dessert that she thought we were on a date. What she said to you was polite by her standards."

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I did as she said and calmed down.

I did not know if she charmed me into it or if it was just the sound of her voice that did it, but all the burning embarrassment that filled my face drained away with her touch.

"Now that I am here, let us see what we can do for you. Well up your aura if you will." She kept her hand on me, but I did not mind. In truth, I think I would have minded if she took it away.

I focused my aura and let it build behind my sealed and unsealed channels.

She took my left hand and laid it over her own before taking one of the buds off of the table and placing it gently in the center of my palm. "As I hope Vanda explained to you this morning, practicing on these starling buds should bring less risk of someone losing an eye or an ear."

Stinging embarrassment tried to swell back up in my cheeks, but the flow of my new teacher's words washed it away like a river would fallen leaves atop its current.

"Mmm," She hummed and closed her eyes. "It is as I thought. Your aura."

Her hand was so soft that it almost made me not care that I knew what was happening.

"Are you looking at my soul?" I asked, small fear for what she would think of she saw my twisted knots of perfect red and azure fighting against the overwhelming calm of her presence.

The corner of her lips turned up into a small smile. "I am unsure if that is possible for someone to do, Underwitch Ire. All I am doing is feeling what you are holding within yourself."

Mallory had been right.

Precept Cherith was different.

I had been around her only a handful of times, but I wanted nothing more than to crawl into her arms and let her rock me to sleep.

It was not that I felt like she was trying to comfort me.

She was comfort.

Merely having her hold my hand and talk to me brought the same feelings to me that Anna playing with my hair or my mother tucking me in would.

"What did you think about it?" I asked, resisting the urge to reach my arms out to her like a sleepy child would their mother.

Precept Cherith opened one of her aura filled eyes and smiled fully. "Give the bud what it needs and then we will speak."

I gave a small nod and looked down at the yet to be grown flower.

My assignment had been to help them bloom, but in none of its tight white folds could I find any hint as to what it needed.

It was a plant, how could it tell me anything?

Still being kept ignorant by the silent flower, I did as I was told, and tried to let the smallest amount of my azure leak through my channel.

My power disappeared into the flower and I learned why they were called startling buds.

The outer layer of its folded petals unfurled like I had meant for them to, and every other crease followed shortly after.

"I did-" I started to say when the flower took shape fully, but my words left me when it did not stop.

The shape it had taken almost looked like a bird in flight and as its petals darkened to my azure from their natural white, the bird grew bigger.

I tried to snatch my hand out from underneath, but Precept Cherith held me in place.

From the size of one of my rose painted nails, to a flower, to covering my hand, to spilling out onto the table, to spilling off the table, to concealing my teacher behind its petals, the starling bud grew and grew and grew until I feared that it would consume us all.

And then, after just enough time for me to take a handful of panicked breaths, it died.

It did not go easy.

A wave of browning wilt washed out from its center like the ripple a thrown stone would make when it broke through the surface of a still pond. From its middle, all the way to the thin ends of it that looked so much like feathers, it fell away and was no more.

I could not find my words for a long moment.

Tana was looking at me.

So was Vanda and Plia.

Precept Cherith squeezed my hand and brought my attention back to her. "What are your thoughts, Underwitch Ire?"

"I see why it is called startling," I said through a sigh and watched as my breath blew some of the crumbled flower off of the table. "That scared me."

"Oh, dear, no," Precept Cherith laughed as she covered her mouth with her free hand. Starling, like the birds. That is very funny."

I looked up at her and swallowed. "They don't all do that then?"

"No, not usually. Not unless they are filled with more aura than they can accept." She answered as she swept the table top clean with one of her billowing sleeves.

"I did that? I'm the reason it died?" I asked, beginning to feel like I would cry.

Precept Cherith waved for Vanda to come to us as she nodded. "Yes, but you are also the reason that it became bigger than it ever could have hoped to be without you."

Vanda patted me on the back in greeting before turning to my teacher.

"Our conversations last night have been proven true. It is as I thought," Precept Cherith said with a smile. She did not make me ask what she thought a second time. "Allow me to explain, Underwitch Ire. Our aura is inside each of us-"

She paused and flattened her robe against her front as the glow of her power came to light where her navel must have been.

"-To bring it out of ourselves, it must pass through our channels-"

Her aura streamed up to one of the wilt cover buds on the table top. It unfurled, but did not change its color or suddenly expand.

"-Vanda will explain to you why your starling changed the way it did, but I have seen this before. The exploding seed and accelerated growth of the bud remind me very much of an underwitch I used to know."

I looked to Vanda and then back to my teacher. "Is that bad?"

Precept Cherith put her hand on my shoulder again. "Not in the slightest. Most sorceresses would give anything to be compared to her. What it does mean is that you will have to work very hard to be a competent healer."

"Why?" I asked, genuinely confused.

Vanda looked for approval from her master before she answered my question. "Precept Cherith explained it to me last night. When I channel my aura, it is like pouring a glass of water through an open doorway."

I thought about that, and found nothing useful in my thinking.

"It splashes right through because the doorway is so much bigger than the water,"Vanda continued after Cherith gave her an encouraging nod. "Precept Cherith said for sorceresses like you-"

My new teacher corrected the former moon. "I believe I said the sorceress like her."

"Yes, my apologies. For you and the sorceress like you, it's not a glass of water and an open doorway, it is. . ." Vanda trailed off as her brows furrowed and she looked to the flower covery ceiling above us.

Precept Cherith sighed. "This is why I told you to stop after your second glass of wine, my apprentice. Your memory must remain sharp at all times."

"I drank no more than you." Vanda said defensively.

Though she was being told she did something wrong, I did not think I had ever seen her look quite as lively as she was then.

If I accepted her offer, what would being Precept Zetta's apprentice bring out of me?

"But I remember what I said, and you do not. Let us not waste any more of Underwitch Ire's time. For you, Ire, it is not water through a doorway-" Precept Cherith started.

Vanda clapped her hands and interrupted her master. "I remember! It is not water through a door way-"

"I understand what it isn't!" I snapped and interrupted Vanda.

"It is like trying to pour an ocean through a key hole." Precept Cherith said and finally said the thing that I needed to hear.

I thought about that, and was surprised to find that I understood what she meant.

"Because I have so much?" I asked.

Precept Cherith nodded in approval. "Precisely. But, I know just what to do for that. Vanda, explain to her what happened with the starling, and I must go make arrangements."

"Yes, Precept Cherith." Vanda agreed.

The very moment that our teacher turned and walked away from us, Mallory suddenly reappeared.

"Look, Ire. Watch her hips." She said as she pointed from behind me.

Vanda smacked her hand away. "Stop that. It is so rude."

"How is it fair that you get to live with her now, and I get in trouble for looking?" Mallory demanded, her hands held up in front of her like someone had threatened her with a blade.

Plia took up the place that Cherith had been standing in not very long before, but only her head and neck could be seen above the table. "Can we go eat now?"

Vanda gave Mallory a frustrated frown. "I suppose. Tana, are you coming?"

"No." The honey haired underwitch answered without turning away from her seeds and sprouts.

"Are you sure?" Vanda asked again.

"Yes." Tana answered with heat in her voice.

The former moon shrugged and we all started moving to leave the classroom.

"Plia said that there was something you wanted to speak to me about?" Vanda asked as we crossed into the tunnel of giant leaves that led to the door.

There was, I had asked the little underwitch to mention it that morning.

"Not here, in the dining hall," I said, my voice hushed and my eyes on the open door. "I need to know how good you all are with glamor."