"I don't know," Cassandra said. "But—you're really not hungry now? Not at all?"

I shook my head. "I feel completely fine." And what do you mean you don't know? I wanted to ask. Instead, I reiterated my previous question. "So where are we?"

"On the other side of a breach." Cassandra started walking again and gestured for me to hurry up and follow, as if she hadn't just dropped a massive and entirely unexpected bombshell.

"I'm sorry, we're on the other side of what?" I was clutching my extra dress clothes so hard now that I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up tearing holes in them. "A breach? You took me to the other side of a breach? You can do that?"

"The answer to that depends on what you mean specifically," Cassandra replied. "If you mean me, then no, not ordinarily. That's not a part of my abilities. But if someone else can get me on the other side, then sure, I can potentially get others across like I just did. So if you meant the general 'you,' then yes, it's possible. Access to that technology was the true driving factor behind our decision to partner with your fellow intelligent Anathema."

Holy shit. Okay, so—yeah, this is big. I began drawing inferences and committing information to memory at the same time that I worked on formulating additional questions. Like—is that the real goal the cultists have with artificially creating incursions?

What I actually asked Cassandra was a bit different, though. "So—we're in another world, then? Reality? This is where we Anathema come from?"

Cassandra hesitated. "I don't know. I'm really not the best person to ask these things. I was only included in this for my specific powers."

That was disappointing to hear—but I guess it makes sense. Cassandra was absolutely cracked when it came to Guardian logistics and communication, but she wasn't exactly an engineer or scientist. I happened to know that she majored in business—something which I still wasn't sure whether I should hold against her.

"...That being said," Cassandra continued after a moment, "Yes, we are in another world, or at least, we aren't on Earth as you know it anymore. I really don't know much more than that, though. But I'm sure you'll get some better answers. Miss Violet must have called you here for a reason."

Miss Violet? That was the third of the top bosses of the organization and the only one I had yet to meet. Since the group was called the Violet Bouquet, there had to be a direct relation. But if that were the case, why was she one of three leaders and not the leader?

That was something I still hadn't been able to figure out.

It took less than a minute to arrive at a grand hall where multiple other people had already gathered. I recognized many of them—Richard Song, one of the other two bosses, was there, as well as the Tier 6 Guardian known as Mr. Bones. Along with Cassandra, he was one of the two members I reported to directly.

The assemblage hardly stopped there, though, and there were plenty of others I recognized. There were even other intelligent Anathema present among the crowd—I was able to pick out several of Mook's bodies as well as a few unfamiliar flavors which I nonetheless knew instinctively to be others like us.

There were also at least a dozen ordinary guardians and about half as many regular humans present. I only recognized a couple of those, and not by name. I'd just seen them before.

Straightaway, Cassandra let me past the bulk of the group and introduced me to the woman who could only possibly be the one and only Violet. Being slim, with sharp, pale features and long dark hair, she looked a lot like Katherine—only if Katherine was taller, older, more alluring, more confident, and just generally looked both better and more villainous.

Geez, Kat, you're really going to need to up your game. Although—knowing Katherine's sexuality and particular, questionable tastes—I wouldn't be surprised if she would throw her lot in with us the moment Violet pressured her. Definitely something to keep in mind.

"Valkyrie," she said, taking hold of my claws and trapping them with her own long, gentle fingers. She tilted her head curiously. "You're so much shorter than I expected. And cute, too," she purred. Her voice was the deep, roughed velvet of a jungle cat.

It was too much, and I 'lost' composure, 'failing' to hide an absurd snicker. God, Katherine really would melt. Honestly, I couldn't tell whether this bitch was trying to assert dominance over me or seduce me. Maybe both.

Violet's eyes narrowed and her lips pursed. "Is there something you find amusing?"

"Yes," I admitted, "sorry, it's not really anything to do with you. I mean it is, but it's more about a friend of mine. She's a hom—I mean, she's gay, and I'm pretty sure you're her exact type. Which is kind of a weird thing to tell someone when you first meet them, now that I think about it. Sorry."

Yeah, not sorry. You scheming bitch. I had her figured out from that moment. She was like me. It was no surprise, then, that the one boss not currently present—Hans—was so quickly able to see through me and rile me up during a previous meeting. To him, I was just the shitty, inexperienced knockoff version of his own colleague—or rival. I really wasn't sure which.

"Nekomata," she said with a false tone of realization—only confirming what I now knew. "And no offense taken. It was my understanding that the two of you were already in some kind of relationship…?"

Ha, nice try. So that was why her initial demeanor made me feel so strongly that Katherine would instantly start crushing—because that was the point. I was starting to regret not playing into it. Actually—I could still push the advantage here.

I decided to act embarrassed, turning a bit red faced and hastily denying it in a way that I hoped made me sound like a closeted lesbian trying to not sound homophobic. Wheels within wheels, eh?

It took all of five minutes for me to end up trailing Violet around with all the spine of a piece of wet lettuce. The whole thing was just a repeat of the ruse I'd played with Katherine, only this time, the dynamics had been flipped.

There was also an additional layer of irony where Violet wasn't even having sexuality manipulated against her—she was just doing the same thing that I'd done to Katherine, the difference being that I was both aware of and encouraging it for my own ulterior ends.

People talked about manipulation a lot, but less often talked about the power that came from manipulating manipulators into believing they had successfully manipulated you. If anything, it tended to be both easier and more effective.

Let her think I'm a submissive, needy little thing hiding under a hard exterior. Let her think I'll end up becoming hopelessly attached to and dependent on her. The surer she was in her footing, the greater would be her ultimate fall.

As I followed her around, claws weak in her own domineering grip, listening in to every little exchange, taking note of everyone who was present—I found myself settling on a new goal. Not just a goal, but an ambition.

I wasn't just going to use the Bouquet for my temporary benefit—I was going to be the one to eventually control it.

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My patience had been wearing thin by the time I finally got a proper explanation of what was going on, both in terms of the immediate present and in terms of crossing a breach.

"Obviously, there had to be something on the other side of the breaches," Violet lectured me within a sumptuous private chamber. "But for us, it's not so simple as crossing over in the other direction. The connection seemed to only ever go one way."

Yes, yes, get to the point already. But I didn't say that. I stayed silently enraptured.

"Fortunately, we now know why. We've learned many things over the past few weeks, including why you Anathema are always so violently hungry."

That certainly would have gotten my attention if she didn't already have it. But I already suspected as much ever since realizing that my hunger had vanished. It was still gone at this point with no signs of coming back.

"Your… friend, Nekomata—I've never met her, but they tell me she describes her power as a kind of—third eye? Spiritual sight and even communication?"

I mentally rolled my eyes at the way she emphasized 'friend.' I also kind of wondered who 'they' was—but I just nodded meekly. "Yeah. She says she can hear and talk to spirits. That's the word she uses for it, too."

Violet nodded. "I see. I have a theory about how her power really functions, then—but that's something for later. The reality is that all Guardian abilities are based on the same kind of—there was a word one of the engineers used for it, I recall—ah yes, projections. The theory is that every Guardian has the exact same ability."

Despite how much I was paying attention by this point, I was admittedly finding myself rather lost. Projections? Every ability being the same? I hoped she was going to lead into something a bit more concrete.

What she did was to turn off all the lights except a single lamp, casting two cones of light against the nearest wall.

"Are you familiar with the allegory of the cave?"

The allegory of the—oh. I nodded. "I think so. Plato, right? Something about people being chained in a cave and watching shadow puppets?" I remembered the general idea, but not what it was supposed to say about life or society or whatever dumb philosophical shit. IThe most memorable part was the idea of some people chained in a cave for their entire life.

Violet looked pleased, though. "Exactly. But while Plato argued that the shadows were the things that everyday people witnessed, what we've learned here is the opposite." Holding her hand above the lamp, she let her fingers cast spooky, elongated shadows against the wall.

"The spiritual 'world,' if that's what you want to call it, does exist—but it's not some higher form of pure—I don't know, truth? Reality? No. The objects we find in the normal, material world are the truth. The thing itself is wholly in the material, and it's the spiritual which is a projection."

She then added her other hand to the display of shadows. "But what if you have a shadow with no source?" Producing a marker from her pocket, she scribbled on the wall. Seeing her mark up the wall of a place like this kind of pissed me off, instinctively, but I didn't say anything.

She ended up drawing a simple rectangle and lazily shading it in. "So we have this shadow object that isn't paired with anything in the real world. It's just there. This is one of those parts where the metaphor breaks down a bit, because random shadows don't just appear, but—you get the idea."

Miming grabbing something, she made it look like the shadow hand was grasping at the rectangle she scribbled. "Now this wouldn't normally have any effect back in the real world. The shadow is a projection, remember, and doesn't reach back out to affect the things casting it. But what does happen is that these pure shadow objects can manipulate or be manipulated by the other shadows. We simply wouldn't ever notice…"

"...Unless—what if we could find a way to translate what happens to the shadows back into reality? What if I try to grab this pure shadow with my own shadow hand…" She mimed grabbing again. "...And suddenly, I'm grabbing something with my real hand?"

Somewhat awkwardly, she tossed her cell phone from one hand into the other, matching it against the scribbled rectangle. "That is the real magic, if you will, and seems to be the way in which every single Guardian ability works. It's about taking what we do in the so-called spirit world and manifesting it directly back in our own, physical reality. The difference comes from doing different things to the shadows, but true power remains the same."

Right—but what does this have to do with breaches? I decided to ask as much, and also pointed out some specific contradictions. "Doesn't that directly contradict the idea of another world on the other side of a breach, though? Unless you're telling me you've also figured out a way to manifest a whole dream realm…"

Violet laughed. "No. No, we can't do something like that. Certainly not yet, at least. To answer your question, though, there's one more factor to address. You probably know it as anima."

Oh, right. That stuff. "The thing that Guardians cultivate to fuel their powers? I think it might also be what we—I mean Anathema—actually eat." That was just a theory, but it was one that made sense to me. I recalled how Chloe's life-draining power tended to fill the air with a delicious scent like blood in the water.

"And you'd be half correct," Violet confirmed. "Anima is necessary for the whole process, but our own reality is quite anima-poor. That's not to say there's none—it's in everything, to some degree—but there are many other realities where the whole world is densely saturated in it. We're in one of those now."

"Which is why I'm not hungry," I said. "There's so much of it that I'm just passively absorbing it? And I'm absorbing so much that my hunger can't even keep up? Wait—wouldn't that mean I would keep tiering up by just sitting here?"

But Violet shook her head. "No. I said you were half correct. The other half is that anima isn't what makes you stronger. It just keeps you alive."

I tried to speak up, but she held up a hand. "Let me continue. You also need to understand where you, and any other Anathema really, fit into this. I said that Guardian powers are based on making changes in the spirit world and then manifesting them back into our true, physical reality."

"Anathema like yourself are the complete opposite. What you are is, in fact, a pure spirit. You're supposed to be one of those sourceless shadows—you don't have a physical home, because the spirit world is your natural environment. But then—what happens if you do manifest on the other side, in true, physical reality?"

Once again, I tried to speak but she cut me off. "What happens is that you take physical form in the way that best approximates your deeper, purely spiritual nature—but in almost every case, that's not sustainable. Because you were never 'meant' to be physical at all, the form you end up taking is generally still something that shouldn't be able to exist. So from the moment you manifest physically, reality itself tries to tear you apart. You're in a perpetual state of dying on an ontological level, and you go crazy trying to keep your existence from completely falling apart. How? By consuming whatever anima you can find, at all cost, just to maintain your own failing form."

Well, shit. That was—honeslty, I found it mostly just depressing. Finally, Violet had stopped talking, allowing me to collect my thoughts. After a moment, I had a few things I absolutely needed to ask.

"Alright, so we somehow end up shoved into the physical world—I assume that's related to breaches—and that's like, super bad for us. Why can't we just go back? This whole thing implies that we get stuck like this, but that doesn't really make sense."

Violet nodded. "That's exactly the case. You end up trapped. How? Well remember, there are two ways you manifest. You can come directly through a breach, or you can infect people. I have to be honest—we don't understand the second one, or at least I don't."

"What I do know," she continued, "is how you end up coming through breaches. Breaches are one way by nature, because what they are is a crack in the barrier between our own reality and one with a far higher level of ambient anima. When a breach forms, it ends up sucking along anything connected too directly with the anima, and then it's almost impossible to force your way back through. That's the same reason it takes anima—and a massive amount of it—to seal up even a low tier breach. You have to temporarily fight off that pressure with your own anima for long enough that it seals back up."

There were, of course, a million more questions—not all of it added up, and it wasn't hard to come up with some extra inconsistencies.

Unfortunately, I got the sense that this was the extent of the explanation I was going to get at the moment. Violet was a crime boss, not a genius mad scientist. Everything she'd said carried the tone of someone regurgitating back the watered down, high level analogy they'd been given by the real experts.

Also, I didn't think she'd mobilized everyone and called a few dozen different people across a breach just to give me a private exposition dump. I was here for something else, and I still hadn't found out what.

So in the end, I really only had one thing to say to all of that.

"Damn."

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