Ruby woke with tears in her eyes, as she had all these days. She remembered the dream in its entirety, and the one before that. She did not remember Fenetre, but she knew she should.

Her hand found Bozo, sat at her side, as faithful a sentinel as a guardian lion, and scritched his ear.

It took her a moment to realize where she was. In a bed, covered in soft cushions and silken sheets. Overhead was a canopy made up of many sheets of fabric, all red, that draped down around her in a circle. She supposed they could be drawn like curtains, but at the moment they were draped such that none overlapped, giving her a good view of the room. It was in the center of an oval shaped chamber carved from white material that she figured was bone, with no walls on one side, just big arches curtained with more silk. The wind was blowing, and she could see the sea out there, and greatswans drifting in the surf.

Opposite the view was a silk hanging that partially concealed an opening. No doors here, just curtains. She tried to sit up, but she was too weak. She sighed. Always too weak.

The curtain pushed aside, and she screamed. A giant insect was walking into the room. It was bipedal, some nine feet tall and very broad. It had massive, two-clawed feet, splayed to support its great weight, that felt more avian than anything. Its carapace was all dull grey and matte white, and its eyes were all black except for pale blue irises. The plates on the back of its head and on its back ran together into a shield-like protrusion that went all the way past its tail. It was wearing a silk wrap around its waist, and it screamed back at her. Ruby screamed again. Bozo started howling.

“I’m sorry!” said the creature, its voice raspy and high-pitched. “I didn’t mean to startle you, it’s only, I brought you lunch.”

Only then did Ruby realize it was holding a covered tray.

“Oh!” Ruby screamed, then she cleared her throat. “Oh. Sorry. I just. You are not, umm, usual.” Ruby winced. “Am I a prisoner?”

“Oh Leviathan, no!” said the creature. Ruby felt like it might be a woman, from its voice, though it was hard to say. She approached Ruby’s bed and set down the tray beside her. “I found you in the tunnels of the foremost brain, so I was given the responsibility of caring for you. Your friend is here as well, also resting. He was injured.”

“Oh no,” Ruby muttered, looking down at her hands. Was this her fault too?

“Your friend is fine,” the creature assured her. “Just resting.”

“Oh.” Ruby waited a moment, then said, “Sorry, I’m Ruby. Reveur.”

“I’m—” the creature made a series of clicks in the back of her throat— “But my human name is Ma’alia.”

“Enchanted to meet you,” Ruby replied.

Just then, the curtain shifted aside again. “Eric!” Ruby shouted, and tried, and failed, to get up once again.

“Relax,” he said, waving his hand. He was injured, like the creature said, with bandages around his right arm and his cheek. He approached the other side of the bed and sat down, patting Bozo’s head. “I had intended to come in a little sooner, to let you know that our hosts are bathyvir ,” he said. “Kind folk, who live off the bone islands of Undaina. They mine homes into the bone, eat the flesh of the great beasts.”

“We cultivate the algae that keeps the islands afloat as well,” said Ma’alia, helpfully.

“Fascinating,” said Eric.

“Scavengers have no interest in fighting,” Ruby muttered, embarrassment coloring her cheeks.

If Ma’alia heard, she did not show it. Instead she lifted the cover off the dish, and said, “you must be hungry.” A plume of steam rose up toward the ceiling. It was a roast of some kind, with the skin attached. The skin itself was blue and stripey, but the meat was a creamy pale grey that made Ruby think of whitefish, though this meat was shot through with veins of aqua-colored light. It was a bone-in roast, though it had been carved into thick slices, and served on a bed of some kind of seaweed. Unusual as it looked, it smelled very nice, even accounting for her distaste for fish…if it was fish.

“Your familiar tore the leg off a much larger sharkhound,” said Eric, sounding proud. “I had them feed him the foot, and the parts he’d chewed through.”

“Guh,” Ruby looked at the roast again. It suddenly looked less appetizing.

“Sharkhound meat is very nutritious and full of magic as well. It will make you strong.” Said Eric.

“So you’ve said,” said Ruby. There was no cutlery, so she just picked up one of the rounds between her fingers, holding it limply like a sock.

It really did smell good.

She brought it to her face and bit down. Oh. It was delicious. She tore through it in a few bites, and surprised herself by even eating the bone. Well, it was just cartilage. It was probably very tough when raw, to hold the weight of that beast, but in this state it was just pleasantly crunchy. She reached for the next one.

As she ate, Eric and Ma’alia explained what had happened while she slept. Ma’alia and a small party of explorers were surveying the brain to see how much of it was still edible when they came upon Eric. “I was attacked by a Kanaloan, but I struck him down,” said Eric.

“What about Bob?” asked Ruby.

“I’m afraid I lost him,” said Eric, gravely.

Ruby checked on the connection between herself and the kratt. It was still partly intact. It seemed to still exist somewhere on this plane.

“We treated Eric’s wounds,” said Ma’alia. “Then went looking for you. Much as he insisted on taking the lead, it was actually me that found you first.” She sounded proud.

“Your enemies were in no state to fight,” said Eric. “The sharkhound was subdued, and its master unconscious. So we took them prisoner and got you out of the cave without issue, and fled the island on the back of a greatswan.”

“The island you went to is just one of many,” said Ma’alia, “it’s a whole chain of islands made up of the floating heads of—” she made a series of clicks.

Eric translated. “A hydra, of truly massive size. All the skulls are still linked by their necks, and by the kelp forests tangling them together below the water. The island we thought housed the Red Anemone is just the one that’s usually in the lead, largely ignored by the bathyvir due to its distance from the center, and its large sharkhound population.”

“We should go out there more often though,” said Ma’alia. “We found lots of good brain, good marrow.”

Ruby sucked the marrow out of a big chunk of bone. “So, we have to keep searching for the Anemone?” She bit through the bone.

“No,” said Eric. “The Red Anemone is here, on this island.” He smiled slightly. “It’s not just the bathyvir here. They live in peace with a clan of merfolk who live below, and with maridi, who go between. And all three are ruled by a queen, the Keeper of the Red Anemone, a symbol of their god. Her name is Sarasvati, a powerful marid, born of Leviathan.” He looked Ruby in the eye. “And apparently, you have done her a favor.”

“Wha—?” Ruby remembered then, the greatswans that Callisto had tried to rob. Their passengers had been merfolk and maridi, and the women all wore red head coverings. And their leader, the woman with the headdress shaped like the moon…

“Oh.”

“When you feel well enough, get ready,” said Eric.

Ruby felt ready now, despite assurances that there was no hurry. Ma’alia had brought her a change of clothes as well, a beautiful black and red sari, embroidered with flowers. It was so pretty that Ruby didn’t feel like turning it down. She changed behind a screen while Ma’alia showed her how to put it on. She could hear Eric humming by the door. Ruby changed her dress into a matching shawl for the cold.

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The three of them stepped out together, letting Ma’alia lead the way. Beyond the door was a gallery whose lacy arches looked out on a view of the island’s brain. It had been heavily mined down and carved into structures of some esoteric nature. The blue-tinged daylight shone down on it through a hole where the crown of the skull had by and large been cut away.

Eric put his hand on Ruby’s shoulder and they slowed down, falling a bit behind Ma’alia. He stepped in front of Ruby, walking backward without issue. “When you see Sarasvati,” he began, “ask to see the Anemone, won’t you?”

Ruby nodded. “I was going to ask to be healed, if that’s okay.”

“It doesn’t matter, as long as you’re brought into its presence,” he replied. “Then, I can steal it.”

“Oh, um…” Ruby bit her lip. “Is that, really, okay?”

“Ruby, you came here to steal this thing too, didn’t you?”

“I came here to get better,” she replied, so quietly it was almost inaudible.

“And you will,” he hissed, “as long as you do what I say.”

Could the man that saved her back on the foremost island really be so heartless as to steal these peoples’ sacred artifact? She supposed stealing was less bad than letting someone die. Or did he have more compassion for her because she was human? She didn’t know him that well. He was a romantic and a chevalier, but none of those were indications of goodness. And he had been so kind, so polite.

But politeness was not incompatible with evil.

“What will Gwendolyn think?” asked Ruby.

“Gwendolyn won’t care,” said Eric. “Here’s another life lesson. Adults are only out for themselves.”

“I see,” said Ruby. And she did.

The gallery spiraled down the inside of the skull and let out at the base, where a path had been carved smooth toward the brain structures. It looked like a mixture of a hedge garden and a henge. While the bone had all been carved in a way that retained an organic figure, the brain was carved with straight lines and sharp angles. It looked nothing like a brain now, especially since most of the flesh had been cleaned off, leaving behind only the glowing blue substance that was neither ice nor crystal. Ruby saw moving images in its glassy surface, memories of the great hydra, and of the people who had lived alongside its corpse.

Ma’alia led them through the henge. It was a labyrinth, in the classical sense; a spiral leading inward. As the spiral tightened, Ruby took out her canteen and took a deep, deep pull. She knew she’d need it for what was coming. And in the center was a sort of gazebo that to her looked like a shrine.

Above, the moon had eclipsed the Earth in the sky, lending the quality of light a reddish tinge. But below, it seemed like the moon was present in the body of a woman; the woman Ruby had seen astride the black swan, seated in a throne carved from the hydra’s brain. Her headdress had changed; the black lacquer substance had almost filled the moon disc, matching the moon in the sky. This close, Ruby could see the woman was much taller than any human, and that she had four arms. She was dressed in an elaborate sari embroidered with the phases of the moon, which blended seamlessly into her skin. Ruby remembered her raiment and skin being palest blue-green, but in the light of the eclipse, she looked red all over. A slight smile bowed the woman’s ocean blue lips. “Welcome to my domain,” she said. Her voice was cool and gentle, and she had a sort of lilting accent. “I am Keeper Sarasvati.”

Ruby did her best to curtsy. “I’m Ruby. Enchanted to meet you.”

Eric bowed his head. “And I’m Eric, her guardian.”

Sarasvati acknowledged them each with a nod. “I’ve been waiting for you, Ruby. When I saw you that day, I knew you would come here.”

“Many seek the Red Anemone,” said Eric.

“But few are privileged to see it,” Sarasvati chided. “It has been under my protection since it bloomed from the blood of the Leviathan. I alone know its power, and how to use it.”

Ruby held herself to stop from shaking. “May I see it?”

Sarasvati nodded, and cupped her hands. A red glow emanated from them, which grew into a crimson bloom. There it was, a Red Anemone with thorns. Its petals and leaves moved independently of each other, less like a plant and more like an animal.

Eric squeezed Ruby’s shoulder, and she took a step toward the Sarasvati and the flower.

Then she spun on her heel and jabbed her rod into Eric's side.

Ma'alia screamed. Eric howled in pain as she channeled energy through the weapon. A ball of black fluid the size of a watermelon formed under Eric's skin and burst apart, shredding his disguise. Dusk fell writhing to the floor. He shielded his face with his arm. "How?!"

"Her name is Guinevere," said Ruby, and she shot him in the head.

It took some time for Sarasvati to calm Ma’alia down. Someone was called to collect the body. Ruby sat kneeling on the floor, staring at the smear of electric blue blood, wondering. There was an attempt by a guard to pick her up by the arm, But Sarasvati dismissed them with a wave. Eventually, they were alone, except for Bozo. “Tell me your tale,” said Sarasvati.

And Ruby did, sitting on the floor, hanging onto Bozo for support. She told everything, including her dreams. She said it all with a flat affect, as if it were a story that had happened to someone else, and a boring one at that.

Until she got to the tunnels and the encounter with Dusk. Here she stopped and held back tears, until she could say, “right after he left me, he must have gone and killed Eric.”

“Perhaps,” said Sarasvati, crossing her lower set of arms. “Do you know for sure?”

“How could I?” Ruby asked. But she shook her head. “No, no, he must be…”

“You don’t know for sure,” said Sarasvati. “Why not check?”

Ruby opened her mouth to ask how, when she realized. Instead she cupped her hands, and expanded her senses, touching Bob. She closed her eyes and whispered, “Sorry Bob.”

She tugged on the string, pulling magic out of Bob, and for a few moments, she looked through its eyes. She turned its head this way and that, but she didn’t need to. His demonic senses let her perceive all around her in a sphere, and she saw Eric, slumped against the wall, breathing hard, clutching a wound in his side.

Ruby leapt to her feet just as Bob unraveled. “He’s alive! I have to go save him—”

“Calm down,” said Sarasvati, raising one hand. “I will send a rescue party myself. Sit yourself down. Let’s keep talking.” She tilted her head back. “It will distract you from your anxiety.”

Ruby put a hand on her chest, felt her heart pounding out of control. “Oh, right.” She sat herself down and tried to be still as she finished her story.

“So you had no desire for the Red Anemone itself?” asked Sarasvati, surprise plain in her voice.

Ruby shrugged. “I’d never even heard of it before coming here, I just wanted to get better,” she said. “I don’t want to lay down and die, but I didn’t want to get involved in this big treasure hunt, with pirates and everything.”

Sarasvati gave her a knowing smile. “Ironically, I believe you are uniquely attuned to the flower. May I see your rod?”

Ruby looked down at it, still in her hand, still stained with dusk’s blood. It had changed once more, with a nautilus shell forming on its pommel. A number of braided tentacles curled down its length like veins. Ruby handed it over, pommel first.

Sarasvati held it carefully, tracing the whorls and patterns with a finger. “Creating and controlling water, eroding magic, destroying matter, these are all properties of the ocean, powers wielded by an ocean spirit. Like the great Hydra, like Leviathan, and like the Red Anemone.”

“Does that mean I don’t need it?” Ruby asked, perking up.

Sarasvati shook her head. “There is a terrible curse upon you, one that I cannot lift. The portion of your soul that wanders in dreams has been eaten by a monster, and it is suffering.”

“How can you…tell?”

“I see parts of you that you don’t even understand exist,” said Sarasvati. “But to the point; your mother’s assessment was correct. You need to form a pact with a creature far greater than yourself, which matches your affinity. The Red Anemone can do it.”

Ruby bit her lip. “Can I…have it?” She winced at herself for her impudence.

“I cannot give it lightly. But I will give you a chance to win it,” said Sarasvati. "If you would take it."

"I would," said Ruby. "When?"

"Now, if you are willing."

Ruby thought about it, and nodded.

Sarasvati stood from her throne and gestured. Water from the fountain flowed up into her palm. She swirled it around in her hand, then drew a circle in the air, leaving a trail of water. When it was complete, a shimmering gateway stood there, and on the other side, a field of red anemones. "Find the true Red Anemone," she said, "and it is yours."

Ruby stepped up to the portal, touching it with her fingertip. It felt like water. She pushed harder, and felt air on the other side. She pushed her face against the portal and peered into the field. All the anemones had thorns. She tried counting the number of petals on one, but realized she didn’t know how many the real one had. She squinted to see if any of them were glowing. Were they crawling, or just blowing in the breeze?

She stepped back through the portal and took a long hard look at Sarasvati, then back through the portal, then back at her. “It’s not in there,” she said.

“Oh?”

“The Red Anemone is you,” said Ruby.

Sarasvati opened her arms. The portal collapsed. With a blissful smile, she said, “you are correct.”

“I can’t take you away from here,” said Ruby.

“No,” said Sarasvati. “But I can give you a piece of myself. Just enough for you to handle.” She offered her hand. The eclipse overhead was ending, the red light slowly turning blue once again, but the redness seemed to pool in her hand. Water dripped from her palm, and Ruby couldn’t tell if it was really red, or just a trick of the light.

“What will it cost?” asked Ruby.

“You’ve earned this,” said Sarasvati.

Ruby stepped close and cupped her hands underneath the marid’s. Sarasvati spilled the liquid light into Ruby’s hands, where it darkened to black. She brought it to her lips and drank.

She did not feel a sudden rush of power. It felt more like something blooming in her chest, something growing inside her, filling a space that had been empty for so long. It spread from her core to her veins, into her hands and feet, then to her head. She felt warm all through her body. She felt, at last, whole.