I never thought that sharks would be the type of creature to care so much about words.

"Morty," Bru giggled, two of her strange little white and gray legs on the ground I sat on, and the others still in the water with her switching tail. "You said that I couldn't harm anyone unless you gave me permission. You didn't say anything about eating things."

My legs pulled to my chest and my head hung between my knees, I was grateful for the water running down my face because it was the only way I was able to hide the tears.

I knew it was silly, but Anna rarely asked me for anything. The one time she actually had, and I was going to come back empty-handed.

Mostly empty-handed anyways

Fetti-Gami's scraps of paper were still tucked safely away in the bag that I had foolishly left laying on my bedroll.

Unless Tana has decided that because it is there, she has every right to open it. If she has found the paper and Anna's note, she's probably claimed them as her own. I thought quietly, unconcerned with the warden's attempts to convince Bru to vomit up my gifts.

A violet splash brought my eyes up to them, and I saw Bru dip down back under the water before resurfacing well out of reach of the warden.

"I followed the rules," The shark giggled with all of her terrifying teeth on full display and an empty looking smile. "You can't use that right now, it's cheating. My little morsel will get over it, but if she can't, I'll be happy to make a trade."

The warden rubbed his eyes with his hands, one of his palms lined with the white silk of his tether. "That's what this is about isn't it? You're going to try to convince her to swap her things for a bite of her aren't you, you black eyed beast?"

"If you figured it out already, it must be a perfectly natural thing to happen," Bru purred as she swam straight towards me and crawled out of the pool with unsettling speed. "What do you say? I'll take a hand, you pick which. You've already got two. Why be so greedy?"

Even in the memories from The Well, I've never spent much time around little girls. After the time I had spent with Bru, I didn't think I would ever be able to be near one again.

With every word that the ravenous shark spoke she crept closer and closer to me.

I kept my head down and waited until I thought she was too far from the waters edge to turn and slip back into it.

"Give me back my gifts!" I shouted I threw myself forward and locked my arms around her middle like the warden had done when he had picked her up.

Bru was either much stronger or I was much weaker than I thought.

It was probably both.

She wretched her body against my grip. Her rough skin scraped against every part of me that the thin green dress did not cover. My skin was soaked with the mist from all the waterfalls and her scrapes cut through it like wet paper.

It hurt.

It hurt far more than I had been prepared to deal with.

She slipped from my hold as I leaned back with a pained yelp and looked down to see my arms painted with thinned red blood.

"What's gotten into you today?" The warden shouted as he rushed over to where my attack had failed and stood between Bru and I.

The demon snapped her jaws and visibly shook with excitement. "There is something about her, Morty, it just makes me so hungry."

"Then go and find something to eat that you are supposed to eat. High tide is coming, we have to keep moving," The warden sighed in frustration. With his silken tether in hand, he took hard steps towards her and herded her back into the water. "Go, go, go. I don't wanna see you again while she is here."

Bru gave a sad sound as she slinked back into the pool and with a pointed swish of her tail, she was gone.

The warden came to me then, kneeling at my side and wiping my bleeding arms clean with the edge of his scarred hand. Once he pushed most of the water away, he brought his tether to my scraped skin and brushed over it gently.

I let him care for me like I would have Anna or my mother. I did not trust him quite as deeply as I did them, but that felt like it was only because of how briefly I had known the man.

"I'm sorry about her. She's usually much easier to deal with. I told you that you make the familiar act more like themselves, maybe that isn't always a good thing." He said with a little laugh, but I could hear the sadness in his voice.

I didn't like that one bit. So, I gave him a smile that was not that hard to bring out of myself. "It will be easier the next time I come here I'll know what to expect and maybe she'll get bored of how I smell."

"You really still want to come back, after all that?" He asked.

"It's gonna be very hard for me to be the next warden if I don't, right?" I asked in return.

He snorted and stood. "I knew I was right about you. And damn, do I love it when I'm right. Let's get going. We've got a little time left."

I took his hand and let him help me stand. The pain in my arms was already gone no matter how many times I ran my fingertips over my skin and searched for some mark from Bru's hide, I never found one.

Getting plucked from my life by Hexis and being taken to her nowhere place did not sound so bad if it came with something like the warden's tether.

"We won't have time to do it today, but if you can write down what the black eyed demon took from you, I'll go around and find things like it so I can send them to you when I can." He said as we walked underneath one of the smaller waterfalls towards a cave wall that was littered with all manner of holes.

In truth, I didn't want him to find replacements. Even if he could take a feather from Bruce and a quill for Benny, they would not be the same. Everything I had collected for Anna came with a story, and I knew that the closing of Bru's jaws had taken something very special from me.

"Thank you, but there is no need. It wouldn't be the same." I admitted to him, unable to keep tears from welling in my eyes once again.

The bearded man nodded. "I understand. If you ever change your mind, all you'll have to do is say the word."

I knew he meant what he said without a doubt.

By the time we stopped in front of a separate cave mouth that looked just big enough for him to squeeze into if he bent his knees, no part of me was dry, and I had begun to shiver from cold wetness.

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"Alright, alright, alright. Bru said that we came after is inside one of Rat's tunnels. Fortunately for us both, instead of the half a hundred other ones that bird has drilled into my island, this is the one our invisible friend is in." The warden explained as he pressed the water out of his beard like I would my hair before I knew how to do it with my aura.

"What are we going to do? I don't have any sweets on me." I said.

One of the warden's bushy eyebrows quirked up as he spoke. "What you're gonna do is go inside and try to make friends. What I'm gonna do is stay out here and block the exit."

"You want me to go in there, alone," I repeated, as I peered into the dark tunnel. "While you stay out here?"

"That's right." The warden nodded.

"If you want Alexei to kill you, you should've just asked instead of going to all this trouble. I'm sure he would do it." I said, only halfway joking.

"You'll be safer in there than you are out here because in there doesn't have a Bru that wants to take a bite out of you. The familiar we're after is harmless, I've tried to get it to hurt me half a dozen times. It's a fleer, not a fighter." The warden encouraged me.

I had come so far, met so many souls,and lost so much, who would I have been if I refused?

A coward. I said to myself.

Truth. The Autumn I liked, the other Autumn in my mind, agreed.

Focusing my power, I let Anna and the dream of my eternal light fill my mind. I raised my palm and cast a werelight for the third time that day.

Washed I'm my azure glow and glimmering with uncountable droplets of water, the warden clapped his hands. "I'll take that as a yes. All you need to tell it is that it's welcome here, it doesn't need to steal, and that we would like to know its name. I think it's much too big to be anywhere but at the very back near Rat's nest. If anything goes wrong, call out and I'll be there before you know it."

I held my pinky out to him and he took it.

Without another word, I left him standing at the mouth of the smaller cave and went looking after something I had never seen before.

Whatever kind of bird that Rat proved to be, he had to be big. Bigger than Bruce at least, because while it had looked too small for the warden, I fit comfortably inside the tunnel. My werelight was a great help and I did not need to remember to make it move with me like I had before. In truth, while I would've normally found being in a dark tunnel by myself terrifying, what the warden had said had been right.

Without the unsettling presence of Bru, I finally found that I could take a deep breath and calm down.

Radomir's pass had been much prettier than the tunnel proved to be, but they were far less crystals for me to run my shoulders and sides into. There were no turns to take or any conceivable way I could get lost. I walked for a long while, occasionally glancing at my light and smiling as the water dripped off me and left a trail of perfect footprints in my wake.

Somewhere deep in the tunnel, a long while after I had left the warden the stony ground beneath my feet began to change. At first, it was just a few pieces of dirt. Then, dried flower petals began to appear. The petals gave away to stems and full bulbs and before I knew it, I was walking atop soft, leafy vines.

The tunnel widened on either side of me and the top of it went from being a tiptoe from the top of my head to towering above me like the high ceilings inside Lun.

If I had not known how I had gotten there, I would've thought I had stumbled into someone's overgrown garden.

The space was as big as Precept Seram's classroom, and absolutely brimming with more greenery, fruits, flowers, and vegetables than I knew how to name. Tinted azure from my werelight, the garden cave smelled as good as any scent that had ever found its way up my nose.

From end to end, front to back, dark dots were spread across the ceiling in some kind of unknowable pattern.

There was a tree, a full grown tree, that had long yellow looking fruits cascading down it in the center of the space and before my curiosity could move me towards it I saw one of the fruits leave its mates behind and float over to what looked like a bed made of trampled leaves.

The familiar. I thought to myself, the floating fruit reminding me far too much of Plia's sweet and the cake to be a coincidence.

Whatever the unseen creature proved to be, it tore open the yellow fruit in threes before dropping the peel and eating what it had revealed.

Evidently still hungry, it took another fruit, and then another, as I tried to collect myself.

Quiet, soft, friendly. All I need to say to it is that it's welcome here, it doesn't need to steal, and that we would like to know its name. I reminded myself as I took a slow step forward.

"Hello," I called out softly, trying to mimic the tone of voice that Anna used when she needed to comfort me. "We've met before, sort of. I'm Underwitch Ire."

The most recent fruit that the creature had taken from the tree dropped to the ground, and I watched the leafy bed jostle underneath it and evident fright.

Whatever effect it was that the warden thought I had on familiars, I hoped he was right.

"You are welcome here. You don't need to hide or steal. I told you my name, can you tell me yours?" I asked, the knowledge that every familiar had come to Silkcradle because they had lost who they were bonded to very present in my mind.

It was difficult knowing where to look, but I kept myself in front of the entrance like the warden was doing somewhere far behind me just in case it made a run for it.

The leaves moved once again, and the fallen fruit floated back up into the air, like it had been taken by Taloo.

Still in my soft voice, I tried to just talk to it. "What is that? I've never seen anything like it before. Do you like it?"

A long moment of silence passed.

Then, a very sad sounding voice answered me.

"Sweet. Soft. Trade for the light you carry?" The unseen familiar spoke.

I had to bite my tongue to keep from screaming out in triumph.

"Yes, we can trade. I haven't eaten anything all day. I'm very hungry." I answered honestly.

A strange sucking sound followed my words and without anywhere better to focus my eyes, I watched the yellow fruit come closer and closer.

I could feel the presence of the familiar even though I could not see it, and just before the fruit was within my reach, I slowly extended my palm out in front of me.

"Wait," I said, and the fruit stopped. "If we are going to trade, it should be done on equal terms. You know my name but I don't know yours. That's not exactly fair."

Another long moment of silence followed, but I was content to sit in it forever. I was doing what the warden had asked me to, I was succeeding, and if I had not needed to be quiet, I would have filled the garden cave with as many of my fireworks as I possibly could have.

"You are Underwitch Ire," The invisible familiar said. "I am Deebee. Now we trade."

"Now we trade, Deebee." I agreed, unable to keep a smile from spreading across my face.

Before I could take the fruit, and before Deebee could take my werelight, a small sound began to hum inside the garden cave.

"You?" Deebee's sad voice sighed as I saw his massive shadow move along the wall at the back of the space.

I shook my head in his direction. "No."

From one of the dots that patterned the top of the cave, dirt began to rain down onto the yellow fruit tree. Sunlight began to leak out of it and I realized that it was not a dot.

It was a hole, and something was coming through it.

Deebee's shadow danced back along the wall as the yellow fruit retreated from me.

"Wait, no, we can still trade. Everything is okay." I pleaded as I stepped deeper into the cave.

The small sound grew larger and the sunlight grew brighter until the dot burst in a storm of dirt and a bird that was no larger than my hand darted through the hole.

Too fast for me to see unless it was flying in one place, the sunlight that had leaked through the hole did not come from above, it came from it.

From right in front of me to all of the different plants, it flew around in a shining blur before it set itself towards the yellow fruit that Deebee still held.

"That does not belong to you!" The bird shouted, its humming voice sounding like a tiny little trumpet.

I ran over to it. "Rat. You're Rat right? You have to be Rat. This is all an unfortunate misunderstanding."

"You should not know my name if we have never met, and we have never met. Begone, witch! Begone thief! You should have remained in the putrid hell that you slithered out of." Rat trumpeted.

Then, the battle that I had been trying desperately to avoid, began.

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