She turned, searching for a familiar purple cap. “Where’s Ardent?” she asked.

“I haven’t seen him since we got here.” He scratched his head. “Unless he was the one wearing the basilizard mask earlier?”

Marrill shrugged. “Maybe?”

Fin strolled along next to her, shuffling his feet against the ceiling and causing phosphorescent bits of silt to drift down around them. “Any luck finding the bolt of dream ribbon?”

She shook her head, feeling defeated. “I haven’t even found the Shell Weavers.”

Fin stopped. “But I thought…” He looked down at the field of fans covering the seafloor below. “Isn’t that what those are?”

Marrill blinked. “Wait,” she said. “The anemones are the Shell Weavers? I thought the Shell Weavers were people!”

“I guess not,” Fin offered.

She tilted her head. “How did you figure it out?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. He frowned. “Dream logic? You know how sometimes there are things in your dreams that you just know even if you can’t explain?”

“Kinda like how we figured out that cow was evil earlier.” She frowned. “Though maybe that was obvious because of the knife.”

Fin stared at her skeptically. “Um, okay. Sure. Probably.”

“It made sense at the time.” She waved a hand at the sea fans. “So all we have to do is explain the situation to the Shell Weavers and ask them to help.” She bent her knees, getting ready to push off the ceiling so she could get closer to the creatures.

Fin grabbed her wrist, holding her in place. “Except they won’t understand you. I tried earlier, and it seems like they only speak in dreams.”

Marrill closed her eyes and took a deep breath of water. So she couldn’t explain their predicament to the Shell Weavers, couldn’t ask them for help. How, then, could she convince them to give her the ribbon?

She thought and thought. Throughout her life, Marrill had always had a special place in her heart for animals. She knew them, and liked them, better than most people. You just had to understand their language, that was all. You just had to come to them on their own terms.

She tried to remember everything she knew about this place, listing it in her head. The Library of Dreams. Collected from all across the Stream. People came here, like Ardent, to make a deposit.… She let out a deep sigh, swirling barely visible plankton in front of her eyes.

That was when it came to her. Deposit. She’d thought about it like dropping something off at the bank or returning a book to the library. But deposit had another meaning, too. It could mean layers of accumulation, like sediment dropped out of water—or calcium laid down by coral. And wasn’t this whole place a coral reef?

“How did I miss that?” she muttered out loud.

“Miss what?” Fin asked, confused.

“These aren’t anemones,” she explained. “They’re coral polyps. They build their reef out of deposits made from dreams.” She laughed, still struck at how obvious it was. “Yurl even explained it to us, right from the beginning!”

Fin still frowned. “Uh, sure. How about I just take your word on that?”

She nodded. “And if we want to make a deposit, the Shell Weavers will come collect it. All we have to do is dream our own dreams.” She paused, tapping her finger against her chin as she thought it through.

“But it has to be something the Shell Weavers will respond to. Something to make the poor agitated creatures feel safe, despite all the nightmares flooding the world.”

Fin gulped. “Nightmares?”

“Because of the void,” Marrill explained. “It’s getting super close, and Ardent said that’s causing them.”

Fin looked around. “Are we safe here?”

Marrill shrugged. “Ardent’s supposed to be distracting the nightmares. He should let us know if things start getting too dangerous.”

“But—”

Marrill grabbed his hand, squeezing. “Don’t worry. Just dream of something happy and safe.” She closed her eyes, already knowing exactly what she planned to dream about.

Drowsiness settled around her. “I’m going to see my mom again.”