On the ninth evening, the lessons suddenly shifted. As Katharina entered the room, she found the Madam not sitting behind her desk as usual, but instead, two chairs had been brought to the center of the room.

  Standing behind one of them was Madam R?fna, anticipating Katharina's arrival; now it really did look like she was going to be interrogated, after a week of slowly convincing herself that the Madam was none the wiser.

  The tug pulled her toward the chair opposite Madam R?fna, and as Katharina sat, so did she. This whole thing seemed oddly ritualistic, and it made the air feel heavy in the room. And for a while, they just sat there staring at each other, Katharina in confusion, and R?fna wearing a somber expression.

  Finally, she broke the silence.

  "I ナ??χ?∞'? help but notice that now you have ??????? hiding when you ψ??ナ??ナ? aura." R?fna raised an eyebrow at Katharina, judgment and faint amusement mingling in her eyes.

  "That is a good ?∞??????∞, but it won't be ?∞??Ω?." She pursed her lips slightly before continuing.

  "If you want ?? ???????, you must hide your aura. ?? ???? ????∞?, I can feel it seeping off you from here." Her gaze panned down to Katharina’s stomach, right to the core of where the little springs had originated, then back to her eyes. "Sit still."

  R?fna lifted her hand between them. It was slender, steady, the nails pared square. And it just hovered there a few centimeters from Katharina.

  "Do you feel it?"

  Katharina didn't feel anything; it was just a hand. One that had struck her many times, but at this moment, she thankfully didn't feel it.

  "How about now?"

  Suddenly, she tightened her jaw. And waves formed in the air, like those above the asphalt on a hot summer day. An instant later, a wall of heat struck Katharina full in the face. Sending her backward in her seat, only held in place by the chair she sat on.

  This was aura, no doubt about it, and it was so heavy and concentrated that only the spear had been stronger than this.

  How was she able to turn it up like that? And more importantly, how had Katharina not felt this heat from her before? For what Katharina had experienced until now, the boy in dance, the girl with the spear, and even herself after she had learned to focus on the little springs, they all seemed to be hot from their aura all the time.

  But not Madam R?fna, most of the time nothing was coming from her; it was only when she healed them, or spoke in the voice that her aura abilities showed themselves.

  The Madam lowered her hand, and the heat disappeared completely again.

  "How... do you?" Katharina stuttered in utter amazement. But why was this not something they were taught in their regular lessons?

  Katharina held up her own hand, and looking down at her palm, she visualized the little spring in her stomach moving up through her arm and into her hand, but there was no particular change.

  Madam R?fna's large, cold hand gently grabbed her wrist, and with the other, she closed Katharina's fist into a ball.

  "You must hide it, a good servant does not ?木木?? their aura to anyone but their Master."

  Then, from the pit of Katharina's stomach, a pull started. But this was not an internal pull like that of the brand; this came from outside. Little golden lights were forming on the fabric of her bodice, streaming toward Madam R?fna, who was pulling them in, letting them land on her skin and be absorbed.

  With every shimmer that left Katharina, she grew colder.

  "Stop me, girl." Madam R?fna tilted her head back slightly, looking down at Katharina. "If you can."

  Katharina had no idea what to do; she felt like her very life was leaving her body, trickling out so easily at the Madam's command. But then she remembered how Madam R?fna had looked down at her core, and commented that she could feel the aura seeping off of her.

  How did she know that was where Katharina felt her little spring?

  She closed her eyes and focused in. There it was, her little puddle that usually trickled with warmth; it was in an uproar, sloshing about in a wild storm.

  In her mind, Katharina imagined pressing down a lid on the spring, keeping the aura from spilling out and flying away.

  Her eyes sprang up; she no longer felt the cold growing. Looking down at herself, the golden particles had dwindled; only a few drops would leave her now and then.

  "Good, you are doing well, girl." Madam R?fna, who still held Katharina's fist in her hand, now tightened her grip, and her face strained, making her eyes nothing but little slits.

  Inside Katharina, she felt her imaginary lid fly off with orbital speed, and out welled a beam of light thicker and brighter than before.

  The spring had turned into a geyser, which was being sucked into a vortex leading directly to Madam R?fna. She would be sucked dry in minutes if this were not stopped, and depleting once mana meant passing out, as she had learned firsthand in Furrow-brows' lesson.

  She tried putting a new lid on, but it got blown off immediately. She encased the geyser in a metal dome, which held for a bit before being blasted through. It was a hopeless endeavor.

  On the outside, Katharina could feel her body doing weird contractions. She tried to look up at the Madam, but nausea blurred her vision as she stared helplessly at the thick stream of light flowing out from her.

  "S-st-stop..."

  Light flowed from her lips as she begged, and warm tears streamed down her icy cheeks.

  "No, you stop me, girl." There was no mercy to be found at the other end of the light flow.

  In a last-ditch effort, Katharina shut her eyes; somehow, she had to close this gaping wound created within her.

  She imagined herself hugging the point where her aura originated, closing every exit point with her very being.

  She felt herself curl up, her arms wrapped around, pressing against her shoulder blades, her body slowly cramping down into a fetal position.

  She had it contained, but the pressure was building.

  It rumbled.

  Fought against her.

  Then Burst out.

  And with it, a thigh-thick jet of what had once been that evening’s mush shot out of Katharina and landed with a splattering smack in Madam R?fna’s lap.

  Katharina was completely drained, and with no control left, she toppled over, following the trajectory of the puke and landing squarely in the puddle herself.

  A disappointed flick of the tongue came from above, and the Madam stood up swiftly, leaving Katharina and her dinner to fall to the floor.

  Madam R?fna walked to the door, and right before leaving, she gave the last command of the day.

  "Tomorrow evening, same time. I hope you do better."

  Then the door slammed shut behind her.

  For a while, Katharina just lay in her own humiliation, the brand slowly growing angry with the need to go back to her room.

  Finally, she pulled herself together, managing to get into a sitting position, but the world was spinning around her. She had the feeling that if she stood, she would throw up again.

  Crawling to the door and making her way through the long hallways, slowly managing to half stand, leaning against the wall, felt like the longest journey. Scaling the stairs to reach the upper floor was exhausting, and her head kept spinning with dizziness; her body was so confused she almost felt drunk.

  The corridor ahead was pitch black. She had never been back after the lights were put out, but this was a day for many firsts.

  Slowly, a figure peeled from the shadows. Taller, sharper, her steps deliberate.

  “You have something of mine.”

  The girl's voice was calm, but the words pinned Katharina harder than the brand ever could. She squinted in an attempt to recognize the girl through the fog of her mind. It was Spear Girl, or what was it Lian had called her? She giggled at her own haziness, then shivered as another wave of cold came over her.

  "Heart Taker.. I no have something." Katharina was certain she had never taken anything from this girl, ever since arriving in this world, the only thing that had happened was things being taken from her.

  The girl just scoffed, then she reached up and tugged a pin free from one of her buns. Dark hair spilled down in a curtain. Katharina blinked at her, stupid and swaying, only slowly piecing together that she did, in fact, have something of hers. On their little table, the twin of the hairpin still lay, making Katharina have nightmares of the consequences of her aura voice.

  “I-uh-I not know... it yours.” The words slurred; it was hard enough to talk regularly, but with her mind and body heavy like this, it was as hard as when she attempted to convince her mom she wasn't drunk after sneaking out as a teenager - impossible.

  The girl sighed and placed a hand on Katharina’s arm. A swirling warmth seeped in. It pushed back the cold and the tired, and Katharina felt herself returning. The dizziness ebbed, and the fog of her mind lifted. And slowly the weight of the situation sat in.

  This young girl, before her, could summon spears of pure aura one after the other without breaking a sweat; no doubt, she could overpower Katharina with ease. But somehow, the knowledge that she was the one who could tell on Katharina at any moment was more frightening.

  "So, can I have it back?"

  This exchange seemed far too mundane. Did she really just want her hairpin back? And why did she wait for Katharina, instead of just knocking and asking Lian to give it back?

  Katharina nodded and led the girl to their room, where she quickly went in and fetched the little pin.

  She fumbled for a moment before pressing the lost pin into the girl’s palm.

  There was no ‘thank you.’ She simply turned to walk away, hair loose around her shoulders.

  "For the record, Heart Reaper is just a ???χ?; my name is Deliah." She took a step, about to fade back into the shadows, before turning her head one last time. "And don't worry, I won't tell."

  Katharina stared after her, the questions building up. But the promise that she 'wouldn't tell' seemed to be a new alliance was forming.

  Back in the room, Lian looked up. "What was that?"

  Katharina just shrugged. "I not know... Her name is Deliah."

  For a moment, the two of them stared at each other in silence, then Lian's nostrils curled in disgust. "You smell bad... Very bad."

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  Katharina reached up to her mush-soaked hair.

  She scrubbed herself clean as best she could with the far end of her sheet, tucking the corner in to hide the stain, but the stench clung to her. Even when she finally lay down, exhaustion pressing her into the mattress, her skin still crawled with it. She buried her nose in the blanket, wishing she could vanish inside.

  But the brand had no interest in her wishes.

  By the next evening, it tugged her steps once more toward Madam R?fna’s chamber. The chairs waited in the center as if nothing had happened, the floor scrubbed spotless, not a stain left to prove her shame. R?fna herself stood tall, impassive, as though the night before had been nothing but a rehearsal.

  “Sit,” came the command.

  And so Katharina sat.

  The Madam took her seat as well, and just like yesterday, they sat there for a while sizing their opponent. Katharina felt at an unfair disadvantage. Then the pull began; it was slow and gentle at first. Katharina could easily block it with a lid.

  Then it strengthened, the metal dome had to be deployed.

  But still the pull grew, headed for a similar result as yesterday. The helplessness of her situation was pissing her off. Having to sleep in the smell of her own vomit was not something she wanted to do every night until the master arrived and sent her off to wherever this 'bad bad master' was.

  The dome was starting to buckle. This wasn't going to cut it. What was Madam R?fna doing to her?

  She closed her eyes and let her focus shift from the dome, which would be useless in a moment anyway, to the pull R?fna had created. She was stealing Katharina's aura like someone sucking in air, vacuuming, or maybe even a vortex absorbing anything that came too close. Anything tangible that was.

  The trickle in her body coming from the little spring, why was that the metaphor she had chosen for this feeling? She had always thought of the brand as fire or biting, and that was surely also a type of aura... Even if she wasn't the one in control of it.

  And if R?fna was a woman from whatever time this was, maybe there were limitations to what she could imagine.

  She dug through ideas in her mind; a flame could be put out by a strong wind, any machine metaphor she could think of could be sucked away if the metal dome yesterday wasn't good enough.

  Katharina knew she would have to go into abstract concepts soon if she was going to have a defence before Madam R?fna cracked up the power. What about electricity, like her aura could be an electrical current running through her veins?

  Katharina thought, her jaw tight. She imagined wires beneath her skin, humming with charge. For a moment, the pull slowed. Their eyes met as Madam R?fna clearly noticed the difference in Katharina's aura.

  But her narrow lips just tightened, then the pull returned. Katharina flinched. It was as if R?fna’s grasp had found the wires themselves, pulling them out with the current still inside, ripping them one by one from her. Even this image could be stolen.

  The wires ripping out, even if just in her imagination, was awfully painful, and something had to be done quickly. What else did she know? What came after electricity? She found herself thinking back to a boring physics lecture, something about how running current creates a magnetic field.

  Another wire ripped, and soon nothing would be left.

  In her mind, Katharina thought back to countless diagrams of fields, where they were illustrated as lines or planes that flowed in arcs around a magnetic point. Even back to drawings of Earth's magnetic field.

  Envisioning oneself as a magnet seemed ridiculous at first, but she let the negative voice inside her sink to the bottom and focused instead on turning her aura from little glowing particles into invisible lines and layers that flowed around her.

  No longer was her aura physical power; it was a protective field shielding her from the dangers of the cosmos, and most importantly, it was intangible.

  As she slowly turned every last drop of aura left in her into this field, she felt R?fna's pull start to grab at the air around her, like a wind passing undisturbed through the field, unaware of the potential.

  She had done it.

  Katharina looked up as she felt the last bit of her aura transform itself, and knew that Madam R?fna could no longer drain her. But the face she was met with was not that of dry, begrudging approval that usually sat on Madam R?fna's face when pupils did as they were asked; instead, it was the look of appal that came before punishment.

  Reflexively, the large hand flew up, ready to strike down this blatant insubordination. But no hit came, the hand was stuck there, in midair, as Madam R?fna's wild and furious eyes flickered across Katharina, trying to pin down the origin of her sudden ability.

  "Stop! What have you done?"

  Their eyes met, and just then, the Madam remembered her position. The brand erupted in a violent rage, disrupting any field Katharina might have thought she could manifest, taking complete control of her body, and sending her into a submissive kneel on both knees.

  Katharina's eyes were firmly fixed on the floorboards before her, completely unable even to twitch a muscle. The hem of a black dress entered her view as Madam R?fna loomed over her.

  "What did you ???Ω?∞?, girl?"

  Understanding what was being said was even harder when she couldn't glean any clues from the face of the person speaking the words. And she had no choice but to ask.

  "???Ω?∞??"

  A large icy hand reached down and grabbed Katharina by the jaw, tilting her head back, and with the other hand, R?fna pressed her index and middle fingers firmly into the scarred wrinkle between Katharina's eyebrows.

  "What- is- in- your- head?"

  For a moment, Katharina was stunned, at a loss for words. But the burning up and down her spine demanded an answer.

  "I not say..."

  "You not say, or you not say?"

  There was no correct answer to the question, but one option was clearly worse than the other.

  "I-e can

  It was true that Katharina could not say what she had envisioned in the language of this world. But the underlying lie was punished by the omniscience of the brand, and she had to muster all her willpower to hide it.

  "If you ever do that again, I will ψ????∞?χχ° sell you to the most 木?? and 木?χ??° master I can find." R?fna's eyes were cold. "Do you understand, girl?"

  "Yes, Madam R?fna." Katharina was pleading for her life; pleasing the fuming Madam was the only way out.

  The hand that clenched around her jaw tossed her head backward, making Katharina falter, realising she had been released from the brand's grip as well.

  "Again."

  Madam R?fna had returned to her chair. She sat there with closed eyes, and soon the trickle of light leaving Katharina drifting to settle on R?fna had resumed.

  Katharina didn't return to her chair. She wanted to run over and slap the Madam right back, let her know exactly how unfair this whole thing was. She had done exactly what she was asked, and what had she gotten? A firm scolding.

  There was no winning, so why even try?

  She just sat there in defiance, letting Madam R?fna drain her from one side, while the brand burned her from the other for not continuing the lesson. Then, suddenly, a firm voice sounded above her,

  "You have to think of closing yourself."

  "???Ω?∞? making yourself small."

  "Making yourself not seen."

  Was this supposed to be advice? Katharina was sceptical, but as she already felt the nausea creeping in on her, she might as well give it a try.

  She wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but thinking back on all the events that had played out over the last few weeks, she realised gaining aura had certainly made her 'seen'. If she could just return to the time before the spear, she would return to a time where she felt hopeless, small, and invisible.

  She felt like she would be betraying all the effort she had made if she were to return to the way she had been before learning of aura.

  Then she would just be right back in that forest screaming, as the brand made her turn left lap after lap. But maybe that was what Madam R?fna wanted, a girl who was so easy to control that no one even had to look at her for her to obey.

  Maybe that was what the Masters wanted. And R?fna was teaching her the recipe to appear perfect.

  Slowly, she got up and wobbled back to her chair. As she sat back down again, she let her thoughts leave behind the abstract realms of electromagnetic fields and power in different forms, and instead tried to remember.

  Katharina thought back to the day at the pump where she couldn't get the water to flow; she had felt a disappointing nothing that day. But at that point, she had already been aware that some power unknown to her was bending the rules.

  She thought further back, back to the day she had been helpless against the brand, turning left over and over again in the forest. She had been weak and caught up in taking every next little step, with nothing left to consider what tomorrow might bring. The brand had commanded her entire world back then.

  But the brand, too, was aura from what she could tell.

  Finally, her thoughts returned to the very first night she had been in this world, before she knew anything of the magic that seemed to permeate everything.

  She had been confused, alone, powerless. She had come into this world stumbling, at the mercy of her surroundings, and reality had hit her like a sledgehammer meeting concrete, shattering her completely.

  The little spring at her core caught her attention; it hadn't been there back then. It was the embodiment of her aura, and it had to go. In her mind, she reversed its flow until only a puddle remained. She erased the puddle. Leaving herself void and empty on the inside, naked and exposed to reality on the outside. Just like how she had been.

  No longer could she feel the pull of Madam R?fna; no longer could she feel any aura in the air. The only thing left was the burning in her shoulder; she realized how much pain she had been in. Was this really how she had lived that first month in this world? It had to have been, or maybe the brand was angrier now that she had become cocky and defiant.

  "Good."

  The single word of approval broke the silence, and Katharina saw that Madam R?fna's eyes were now resting on her, not a single glowing drop flowing between them. The Madam rose and, with a satisfied nod, she strode over to the door.

  "Tomorrow, at the same time, we shall do this again."

  She sent Katharina off with an odd sense of accomplishment, having achieved the ability to mimic utter powerlessness.

  From that evening on, the countdown for the master's arrival neared zero. Madam R?fna demanded that Katharina deliver her scripted lines while suppressing any hint of aura. Remembering the phrases perfectly while holding the mental image of powerlessness was impossible initially. Any slip-up was either met with the draining sensation of Madam R?fna stealing her aura or the cold slap of the correcting hand that wouldn't allow a single mispronounced syllable.

  "Again," Madam R?fna's advice had diminished to single-word sentences, "focus, girl."

  Over the course of the next few evenings, the phrases became easier to rattle off without much thought, and the amount of mental capacity Katharina could divert to keep her inner spring in check slowly grew, easing the burden.

  The script also became more well-defined; she would pretend to bow to the master and welcome him, then answer any number of questions R?fna thought might be asked.

  Then the last evening came, the chairs were gone, back in their corners. The Madam had returned to her desk, scribbling away.

  "Tomorrow, Master Ravnsund will be here, and you will have to be a good servant." The countdown had reached zero, and there was an ominous undertone in Madam R?fna's words.

  "I have only one last thing to teach you."

  She looked up from her stack of documents that had thickened over the last two weeks.

  "I have taught you to speak."

  "I have taught you to hide your aura."

  She slowly rose, resting her hands on the desk, until she was at eye level with Katharin, which was much lower than her usual towering height. But it made the importance of whatever was to come abundantly clear.

  "Now I shall teach you how to use your aura."

  The room suddenly felt cold, unusually so, like all had been sucked away. But Katharina wasn't freezing, at least not in the traditional sense; this was the feeling of the room being depleted of any aura remnants that may have seeped from the people coming and going.

  With a burst, it was filled. A powerful allure originated from Madam R?fna, finding its way into every crevice and nook of the room.

  It was overwhelming and intriguing all at once, but Katharina didn't really see the point in filling a space with aura. Sure, there was the alluring part that surely could command the people around you, but the amount of aura on display far outmatched her own; even the brand paled in comparison.

  Madam R?fna now spoke, aure filling her words, rendering any language barrier inconsequential.

  "This here is natural aura. But if one applies oneself, they will be able to mold their aura to their desire, and far more importantly, to their master's desires."

  She now stood at her full height. While slowly reaching a hand across the desk toward Katharina, she spoke with heavy seriousness.

  "Observe as I mold my aura to please any master. All one has to do is imagine it."

  There was a shift in the air; it was as though the very fabric of the space they were in was changing. From R?fna flowed a sweet, infatuating charm. Even standing with her usual intimidating posture, she suddenly seemed harmless.

  Katharina was taken aback at the emotions R?fna was able to evoke in her simply by surrounding her with this sensation.

  "Do you feel how you are drawn to me, girl?"

  "Yes, Madam." She didn't even realise she was answering before the words rang in the room; she was entranced.

  Then, without warning, the aura was gone, turned off. It was like witnessing the color shift of a chameleon; Madam R?fna was back to her regular cold self, but compared to a moment ago, it was as though she blended right into the furniture.

  "Your turn, girl." R?fna was back to speaking normally, but the command was clear as day.

  Katharina swallowed.

  After a week of hiding herself away, it felt freeing to let the power flow. But power was not what was demanded of her.

  Having practiced mental imagery of wires and electromagnetic fields, this task seemed so simple. She let her aura be a perfume, a scent that told a tale of obedience, a willingness to bow to any demand. Now the only thing missing was reach. Perfume was subtle, living only in her personal space, but with any movement, small wafts would flow across the table. An intrigued rise of Madam R?fna's chin let her know she was on the right path.

  Without hesitation, the Madam walked to stand in front of Katharina, and she bowed down to take in Katharina's attempt using her aura.

  "Good."

  "You must use this in front of the Master," Madam R?fna explained, "but only in front of the Master. Never let anyone else experience your allure without his presence."

  A perfect, satisfied smile emerged on her lips, and she placed her hands on Katharina's shoulders.

  For a brief moment, an instant, Madam R?fna let her aura exude pride.

  It felt like knowing Katharina would please the Master.

  "Tomorrow you will be a good servant."