“Bee with secrets,” she whispered. “I can smell them from here.”

Flora moved away but a jet from her alarm gland escaped her, and the spider laughed. “We will have some entertainment today, I think. First, watch the fools.”

The flies taunted the green flowers, zooming close so that the petals gaped red, then screeching past without touching them. But the largest of the strange blooms had not forgotten Flora, and forced its fragrance up to her where she hovered.

“They always want you!” a bluebottle screamed at Flora as he tore past in the air, demented by the flowers’ smell. “But we are as good! Our very name tells you our skill: fly! We are lords of the air! Watch me!” His body was a metallic turquoise and he scrawled lines of obscene poetry in the air behind him. Flora felt dizzy watching him, and his smell made her sick, but his companions roared their approval.

The young fly tore through the air between Flora and the lusting green flower. He kicked along its white fringe with a filth-encrusted foot, and to Flora it looked as if the petal moved to touch him.

“You must beg me!” he called to the flower as he spun loops in the air.

“Oh, oh, sit with me and tell me your tales! Come here!” Excited by the bluebottle’s ravings, the Minerva clutched convulsively at the edge of her web.

“We are as good as you!” he cried again, racing around Flora and chasing his own slipstream. “Though you despise us and call us Myriad—yet here we are, feeding at the same flowers!”

“Bee, honeybee,” the Minerva called to Flora, “drive the little shit-feeder up to me. He can tell his tales here.”

“Nectar!” screamed the bluebottle. “Only nectar now!”

He landed on a dull fat leaf near the green flowers. With his feces-encrusted feet and the remnants of some gory meal dried to his face, he looked pitiful and poor beside it. Beneath his clutching feet, the plant began to tighten in its own skin, filling and pumping its sap higher. The musk became dizzying and Flora settled on a ledge.

“You make honey so you think you’re better,” the fly said to Flora, climbing higher toward the green-and-red flower, which slowly turned its petals to meet him. “But flowers love us too, and I have sucked so well from one that I learned its true name, Euphorbia. Do you believe me? It is true, no matter what you think.”

The fly’s craving for respect made Flora angry. She understood why the Sage despised her own kin—because the flora were ashamed of themselves.

“Stop cringing,” she said. “If you are a fly, you are a fly! Some of my people love spurge too—and I am the lowest of my kind. I clean waste—”

“Ha!” called the spider. “What do you expect, with your filthy foreign blood?”

Flora fired her war gland at the spider. “I am Queenborn and hive hatched!”

“Fool, I meant your father. One of those fierce black wanderers from the far south.” The spider opened her mouth and picked at her fangs. “I’ll warrant no one steals their honey!” Her little eyes grew soft. “Your blood will be perfectly spiced . . .”

“Ignore her.” The fly waved to distract Flora. “She can only get you if you let her.” He looked admiringly at Flora. “Do your people really drink spurge, like ours?”

“I know one.” Flora could not help smiling. “But my hive frowns on it.” She felt the intent gaze of the spider raking her wings, but she focused on the fly.

“Thank you.” He bowed to her. Under their crust of filth, his legs were slim and well-turned and his thorax was iridescent blue-black and beautiful. “You are the first of your kind ever to speak to me.” He turned and walked up the stem to the green bloom.

“Wait—” Flora cried out. “That plant—I do not know its name—”

“Nor do I, but I am thirsty, and it wants me.”

“Wait, boy!” A huge male bluebottle missing his wings ran along the window ledge. “I’ve told you—”

“And every time, I live to drink again.” The young fly stepped onto the red inner skin of the flower and stood between the long white filaments. “Stop worrying—I dance between them, I tickle them—look! They love it!”

He tapped one of the white strands, then his shiny back reflected red as he ran to drink the nectar at the petals’ join. He buzzed in pleasure at the taste, and stood up, his face sticky and wet.

“Delicious. No danger, so long as you don’t touch two.”

“Danger behind you!” the spider screeched. “Quickly!”

The young bluebottle jumped back in alarm, knocking against another long white sword. The second touch triggered the trap. Flora just glimpsed his shocked face as the white-fringed petals bit together. He screamed and buzzed frantically, his hands clawing wildly through the gaps as the sound of fluid rose up inside the bloated bud.

“Fooled him!” The spider shook with laughter, as the fly’s screams turned to gurgles, then silence. “Serves that greedy flower right too. It was really after you, but I will take that prize.” The spider held out her claws, checking their edges.

Flora clung to the wall and forced herself to look away. The smell of the fly’s liquefying body seeped from the green flower’s swollen lips and filled the air. Unable to locate the open window by scent, Flora searched the great plane of shining glass for a visual clue. All she could see was the conservatory reflected back at her. High on the wall above, something black moved.

Flora sprang from the wall into the air, buzzing and whirring her wings in panic. The spider crawled from her web and hung upside down from its thick elastic.

“Treacherous little egg layer—challenging the Queen, if you please! But I suppose it must be time. . . . How old is she now? Three winters, four? I forget. But the fuss to change her—dear me!”

“Holy Mother is immortal—no one changes her.” Flora’s voice was strained, and the spider tutted.

“Calm, my dear—terror ruins the taste. I only mean to help, by saving you from more blood on your hands.” Very slowly, the spider began creeping down the wall, closer to Flora. “If you go home you will cause madness . . . and turn sister against sister . . .” Her voice crawled low and insidious. “You will bring disaster to your hive . . . with unimaginable horrors.”

“You lie!” Before she knew it Flora was whirling in the narrow space of the conservatory, churning the terrible smell of the green flowers into the air. Unable to see or think, she crashed into the bright glass again and again. As she reeled dizzily in the air, the spider dropped heavily to the floor and ran about beneath her, waiting for her to fall.

Flora caught hold of a nail sticking out of the wall and clung there.

“Good!” the spider called. “Wait there! I come to take you to a cradle of silk.”

“Shut up, you ugly sodden bag. You have no silk.” The huge wingless fly crawled along the window ledge and called across to Flora. “Bee! You spoke fairly to one of mine. Come to me now and I will show you the way out.”

“How dare you? She is mine!” The huge spider ran about on the tiles in rage. Flora stared down, paralyzed.

“Trust me,” the old bluebottle shouted at her, “if you would save yourself!”

Flora tore her eyes away from the monster, then whirred her wings. Still stunned from all the collisions, she struggled to land on the windowsill near the fly. On the ground below, the spider searched for a place to start climbing toward them.

“Here, you must go past me.” The fly steadied Flora and pushed her forward to a thin vertical strut of metal running up the glass. “Lick your feet before you climb,” he said, “or you will fall—”

Flora could smell the cold air coming from a gap in the glass above, and the oily stench of the spider rising from below. Then two huge hairy black legs crept up over the white windowsill and clutched for a hold—then two more. The spider reared up behind them, hissing in excitement.