Graph not consistently layering

I have the order in layer for the gray box at -1 on a sprite renderer. The VFX graph is at layer order 0. It draws properly in scene view, but not game view. My canvas is set to camera space and the camera is serialized, not overlay. There is only 1 type of shader that the graph accepts "Visual Effect Graph" rather than an "Unlit Sprite Graph". I've tinkered with this so much and can't get it consistently displaying between the 2 modes.

I need to be able to draw my VFX between 2 sprites, those diamonds at the top of the left image, above the diamond, under the icon/text. I managed to use a canvas to force the TMP to draw above the VFX, but using a canvas doesn't force the diamond below the vfx, regardless of order in layer. Ideally, I'd prefer to use the "Image" component over the "Sprite Renderer" component, but the Image component doesn't have order in layer, it inherits it from the parent canvas, but again, changing the canvas order, isn't correcting it.

Using Unity 2020.3.25f1 LTS, URP & VFX Graph & Shader Graph 10.7.0, the newest available in this Unity version.

 

I'm still having this issue if anyone has a solution.