“I just don’t see the pattern,” I said, folding my arms. Duran had pushed himself out of the bog again, sputtering. After we’d discovered that some of the lilypads could support weight, he’d volunteered himself as a test subject.

I certainly wasn’t going to object. I’d had enough swimming for a lifetime.

“I simply don’t see why we need to get over to the other side,” said Apis. “We’re going in, yes? Why would we go the wrong direction?”

He had a point. I watched as Duran swam to another lilypad, standing up triumphantly and then jumping up and down. He slipped sideways, but recovered and saluted me. I looked back down at the Abyssal sword and added more oil to the rag. We needed to spend some time fixing our supplies, whatever the plan was.

“I hate to say it,” I said, “But Vita might actually be helpful. I don’t know how this temple works, and…”

“Yes,” said Apis. He leaned back and stared at Duran for a moment. He gestured for him to come back in. “Well, I think we should look at the interior first. Get a lay of the land.”

I finished oiling the blade as Duran splashed back. He pushed his hair out of his face, grinning. “It’s so cool, isn’t it?”

Apis stood up. “Let’s go for a walk.”

My socks were still wet, but I didn’t really want to wait the amount of time needed for them to dry out. I stood up, water squishing out, and nodded.

We began circling the temple in a counter-clockwise direction, decided by a coin-flip. It quickly became clear that they’d designed most of the temple in such a repetitive way that even after walking for ages, it was nearly impossible to tell how far you’d gone.

“At least this one’s different.”

We stared up. And up. I had thought the previous statues of Teuthida were large. I didn’t make it to the knees (or… half-tentacles?) of this one. She still had the same half-bored look on this one.

“Wow,” said Duran. “Ten hands! Think of everything she could do!”

“Stop climbing the statue, that’s sacriligeous,” I said, but there wasn’t any heart in it. I leaned back as he slid back down the tentacle. Apparently they oiled them up.

The giant hands were at least a tree’s height above ground, all outstretched and in wait for an offering. Teuthida herself was brushing the curve of the arch, tentacles going out in all directions. They were splayed out wide enough you could walk under her and touch the wall, if you so desired.

I declined to do so, at this time. It looked like someone had camped there recently; I saw what looked like the remnants of a fire. If Duran climbing the statue was sacriligeous, I wondered how bad smoking out the underside of a goddess was. Probably bad enough that you should dedicate yourself to someone else for the eternal fields.

Apis had ducked under a thick tentacle and was staring at the wall beyond. “It looks plain to me,” he said, sounding disappointed. “I thought this one might have… a door, or something.”

“You can’t trust doors in this temple.” I sighed. I would have to go under, after all. “Half of the doors we’ve seen here were hidden.”

Yet when I got underneath, I still saw nothing. I frowned, putting my hand in against the wall. Nothing. Not even a change in the bricks. Not a single carved squid!

I squinted into the shadows, hoping for the ghost to come back. Even he had abandoned me. I thumped my head against the wall. “It’s a failure,” I called out.

When I emerged, Apis had opened the top of a jar of fish and was handing one out, cold, to Duran. Duran seemed to be nursing a bruise on his knee. Had he tried climbing again?

“It just looks like there’s a way to climb up to the hands,” he said, stubborn. “If I could only jump from tentacle to tentacle…”

“Eat your fish,” said Apis. “The oil is good for healing.”

I took a fish without comment and stared out at the water. “Well,” I said. “Might as well finish the circuit.

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I had been counting columns, with all of them being extremely similar- the only differences being the plants grown in the planter boxes on the walls between. After losing count, I’d eventually given up and started carving in numbers.

As we started walking again, I ran my finger over the tip of my self-defense knife. It was starting to dull. That was what I got, for using it on stone.

When we finally made it around the inner circle of the water, the sky was starting to go pink with the sunset.

“So,” I said, “That’s nineteen.”

Nineteen columns. Twenty sections. I folded my arms. That was a pretty good distance, given how much space was in between each column.

“Some of them have vegetables, and some only have flowers,” offered Duran. “And some only have poison, which you got really mad about.”

“Thank you, Duran.”

“I saved some, just in case,” he continued. He held out a handful of flowers. Nightshade.

I closed my eyes. “…Thank you, Duran.”

“Only five of the sections had a carved squid,” offered Apis. “And there was the extra large column, with the Teuthida statue. Surely that’s important.”

I rubbed at my face. Seasonal flowers. Why had they bothered planting seasonal flowers, in a temple? Why had the squid images only been above the flowers? Teuthida was taking Andrena’s categories again. You need to yell at her in the spirit world. She’s infringing on you.

I sat up, then sighed. We’d stopped next to one of the flower bays. Dark pansies were interspersed with the last of golden narsturium, interlaced with beds of oleander and nightshade.

It was pretty, yes. Someone had maintained it well, although it had clearly been let go in the last month or so- I saw more dead flowers than living on the narsturium and oleander, as the season ended.

But why had they planted poison in a temple?

I stared up at the squid. It was larger than most, each of the tentacles taking up a separate brick and pointing to an individual garden bed. The head popped out, little squiddy eyes seeming to judge me.

Apis leaned over the garden bed, running a hand through the flowers. “What if this is a test?”

“What?”

“What if she’s testing people on what she would prefer?”

I stared up at the squid. He was right. It made sense. Especially since all of the squid we’d seen so far indicated a test or a choice of some kind. I reached up, hesitant, and pressed on the tentacle slightly. The stone ground in, then pressed back out to its former position when I didn’t fully commit.

“But what’s the right choice,” I said. “Poison, or peace?”

Ten tentacles. Ten choices. I swallowed. Teuthida seemed like the type to want a morally gray choice- to choose poison. But I was a cook. I couldn’t go around just choosing poison.

I reached up and began to press in the first tentacle, the one that ended by pointing to a bed of narsturium and pansies. I felt it begin to click- and Duran launched up to pull my hand down.

I ducked. Nothing happened.

“What are you doing?”

“Madam Elysia,” he said. “Teuthida is the goddess of illusion! A flower looks pretty, but it might kill you if it’s poison. Doesn’t that sound like her?”

I bit at my lip, then glanced over to Apis. “Well? What do you think?”

He shrugged. “Andrena would want you to choose the edible flowers.”

That decided it. I reached up and pushed in the first poison tentacle. It clicked in with a decisive sound.

I waited for a long, agonizing moment. Nothing happened. I swallowed, then tried to pull it back out again. It wouldn’t come back. “I guess we’re decided, then.”

I already regretted my choice, but the rest of the tentacles were easy to select. Perhaps not everyone knew which flowers were edible, but I’d seen a few fancy dinners in my time. You served the wrong flower, and everyone noticed. Especially when it was actively poisonous.

I still hesitated over the last tentacle.

“It’s definitely nightshade, Madam Elysia,” Duran offered.

“I know, I just…” I didn’t like selecting poison. I didn’t like this entire temple! I was convinced I’d push in the stone and another dart would come out to kill me. After a moment of hesitation, I ducked down, then reached up with the sword to push in the last one.

There was the scraping of stone. Silence.

I stared at the ground. “Well,” I said, “There’s always tomorrow. If a bunch of pilgrims can manage it, I’m sure we can-”

There was another grinding. I looked up. The head of the squid had rotated. Behind it was a little cubby, small gears supporting it. The inside of the squid had been hollowed out and lined in what looked like velvet (very dark, well dyed. I could hear the money adding up in my head). On a small cushion, gleaming…

“Is that a diamond!”

“It’s got to be glass,” I said, standing up. I still held back, holding the sword up. “They wouldn’t spend that much money on pilgrims. Would they?”

It was carved into the shape of a teardrop. I stepped forward, squinting. It was large enough to fill the palm of my hand. I stared at it for a moment, hesitant to touch it. What if I wasn’t meant to touch it?

With a grinding sound, the squid head began to rotate closed again. Impulse took over. I reached forward and snatched the teardrop gem off of the cushion. When the squid head snapped closed, I was left with it in my hand.

I glanced over each shoulder, but no one had come out with a crossbow or a dart. There was only me, shining gem in hand. I looked down at it. It was smooth, with only one side rounded. The other side was perfectly flat, the edges sharp enough to feel like they might cut my hand.

It was also perfectly clear, save for a few reflective shining spots in the center. “It’s not a diamond,” I said, but I was losing confidence. “What kind of overconfident fool would give diamonds to a bunch of pilgrims? Don’t they know the world is full of thieves?”

Apis leaned forward and peered at it. “Oh,” he said. “That’s where all the budget money’s been going.”