Flora lashed her tongue across her dirty feet and scrambled up the slippery metal until she could claw herself onto the flat base of the tiny open window. The cold, free air stirred her wings and she looked down to thank the fly.

Buzzing defiance, he stood his ground before the great black spider that towered above him.

“Go!” he yelled.

FLORA TUMBLED IN THE FREEZING COLD until her engine roared to life. The sky was almost dark as she hurled herself back across the gardens, searching for any familiar scent. She flew by instinct and the few remaining landmarks she could detect—the diesel trail of the road, the bitter tang of warehouse drains—and then to her joy and relief, she smelled the thin bright marker beacons. She hurled herself toward them, through the black tracery of the orchard branches, down to the dark, solid hive and the scents of her forager sisters.

Flora touched down on the landing board and ran into her beloved home with her quarter crop of nectar, and her life, and her burden of secrets.

Thirty-Two

THE HIVE WAS UNNERVINGLY QUIET, AS IF FLORA WERE the last bee alive. The pain of her freezing flight home bit into her body. Her wings throbbed as they thawed and her brittle shell burned as it began to soften. Flora’s gasp of pain echoed in the silent corridor. She could hear no other foragers, nor any motion through the hive. What if the spider’s words were true, and her very presence brought disaster to her home? The silence pressed against her brain.

Then she felt it—the faintest vibration of wings, coming from the top story. The Cluster lived. And there—as Flora ran up the eerily still comb—there was a sweet filament of honey scent, carried on the warmth of her sisters’ bodies. They were all still alive! Desperate to press herself back into the embrace of her family, Flora burst into the Treasury.

The sanitation workers had hardly moved. Intending to go straight to the Queen with her nectar, Flora climbed onto their trembling backs and found them all awake, and breathing in the scent of honey from the top.

“It moves so slowly,” whispered Sir Linden from the darkness nearby. His smell was entwined with that of the workers, and he supported one on each side. “It will be days before we eat—if we can last.”

Too cold to speak, Flora immediately gave the nearest worker a drop of the orange blossom nectar. Despite her ravenous hunger, the little bee took the smallest sip before passing the larger portion into her neighbor’s mouth. She too drank most modestly, then passed it on. To Flora’s surprise, Sir Linden did not lunge for the greatest share, nor even ask for any.

Remembering the drones’ incapacity for the smallest acts of survival, Flora fed him a tiny shot as if he were a newly emerged sister in Arrivals. His antennae shuddered in relief. Then he pressed his body close against hers and whirred his wings to warm her. The little worker on Flora’s other side did the same, and then many others. She felt her body thaw and breathed the comforting scent of her own kin, mingled with the scent of Sir Linden.

“The Queen,” Flora whispered, when she could speak. “I must find her.”

THE CLUSTER WAS DENSE and slow to traverse. Bees yelped if Flora stepped on their sleeping antennae, some woke at the smell of the nectar she carried, and from the depths irritable foragers called out to know its provenance, for many others had also ventured out, but few returned, and those had found nothing. Without comb to efficiently transmit choreography, Flora tried to pass on the location of the cage of glass, but she dreaded their fate if they found it.

Even in the Cluster the Sage priestesses were alert to all that went on. They sent an escort of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting to safeguard Flora’s progress with her precious nectar. She smelled the honey on their mouths and it reminded her of her days in the Nursery, when she was left the dregs and crumbs. Now that she bore nectar in time of hardship, all these beautiful, well-fed sisters from Fragaria, Broom, Foxglove spoke softly and prettily to her and made way to let her through to the warm, sweet enclosure of silken wings protecting Her Majesty.

The Cluster closed around them and Flora felt the Queen’s body against hers. The divine fragrance was fainter in the cold, or because the Queen was half asleep. Flora triggered her crop so that the tiny, precious quantity of orange blossom nectar rose up in her mouth, and at that sweet, bright scent, the Queen stirred. Her fragrance pulsed stronger, warming and restoring Flora’s cold, exhausted body. Her Majesty dipped her long proboscis and drank deeply. Almost immediately Flora felt the energy surge glow from the Queen’s body, and then pulse out in a bright wave of the divine fragrance. It rippled through the Cluster and eight thousand dreaming bees murmured in relief.

The Queen touched Flora’s antennae with her own.

“Our child is cold. Our child suffers . . . we feel it.”

A surge of anguish rose in Flora’s body at the memory of the spider’s words.

“Hush . . .” The Queen held her. “Mother is here. Do you sicken?”

Before Flora could answer, one of the police pushed into the winged enclosure.

“Who sickens? I will take her—”

“Holy Mother—” Flora dropped to her knees before the Queen, daring the officer to stop her. “You sent a message for me before but I did not receive it. But I am here now and I will do whatever you ask.”

“Oh . . .” The Queen’s voice trembled. “We wished to recall a story . . . from our Library. The fifth one . . .”

A Sage priestess pushed her way in.

“No, Majesty, please!” She prostrated her antennae to the Queen. “Holy Mother, we must not speak of such things in the Cluster. If Your Majesty grew distressed in any way, your children would feel it—”

“Our own child advises us?” The Queen turned her gaze on the priestess. “Our own daughter sends police, to regulate our conduct?” As the Queen’s scent began to change, the whole Cluster pulsed in stress. The priestess waved the officer away and bowed low, her antennae trembling.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty. The Sage have only the common good in mind and will sometimes err for caution. But if Holy Mother grows excited she will tire, and the Cluster will suffer.”

The Queen nodded. “Truly.” She folded her long shining antennae down her back and began to sink into a deep trance.

The priestess signaled and the enclosure of shining wings parted to escort Flora out. Then the wings closed again to guard the Queen and keep her warm.

“Take this to your kin and bid them be patient.” The priestess gave Flora a large drop of honey. “Next time you bring nectar for Her Majesty, we will deliver it. Nothing must disturb Holy Mother, even though she ask it.” The priestess scanned her. “You are distressed, yet you have just breathed the Queen’s Love.”

“Fearful things on my forage. If I could dance them I would release them.”

“And spread nightmare to every sister. You must bear your burden alone.”

“Yes, Sister.” Flora returned to her own kind.

THE NEXT DAY a thick coat of snow muffled the hive. The Cluster had moved across the Treasury ceiling and wall, leaving great patches of empty honey cells behind, and now at last it was the turn of the sanitation workers to feed. The Sage uncapped a different kind of honey for them, thinner and coarser. Ravenous, the floras did not complain. Masked with their scent, Sir Linden stayed hidden deep in their midst, and Flora shared her ration with him as they moved along the wall and back down toward their allotted level.

Freezing winds tugged the hive so hard the bees feared it would tumble, and outside in the orchard, branches cracked and fell. The sky howled and there was no more foraging. Flora joined the small first-aid corps of bees who checked the Cluster for those whose hooks were slipping and helped secure them. The strong encouraged the weak and helped them, but as the daily casualties mounted, the Sage made the decision to break open emergency rations for those in dire need, then use vital energy to summon the Holy Chord and take the Hive Mind itself into trance.