“Our hive is freed from sickness. And as the Queen’s body failed, the holy power of fertility passed to the Melissae, her priestesses. All assembled hear now in public that we exercise our Divine Right to raise a princess from pure Sage stock—for we are the kin of queens. In three days’ time, a new Queen shall rise and usher in a new golden age of summer and of plenty.”

The comb began to tremble and the Hive Mind spoke.

BY TRADITION, BY KIN, BY DIVINE RIGHT,

ONLY THE SAGE MAY RULE!

Faces shining, open wings radiant with light, the Sage priestesses looked out over the crowd. The Hive Mind repeated the words so that no bee held any other thought.

BY DIVINE RIGHT, ONLY THE SAGE MAY RULE!

“Merciful sisters!” The Thistle executioner’s loud cry broke the spell. The bees turned to see her on her knees in the Queen’s blood. “Kill me,” she begged. “I cannot live with my sin—I must die!” She held up her blood-wet hands.

“Behold,” called out Sister Sage. “Behold the suffering of our noble sister Thistle. Blessed be the sister who takes away our sin.” She signaled, and Sister Inspector stepped up behind the Thistle, then twisted her head round so that the crack echoed in the air of the Dance Hall.

“And so are we absolved.” Sister Sage raised her wings, and six Sage priestesses walked forward with the pollen-coated leaf and laid it down beside the dead Queen.

“A Queen cannot rise in three days!” cried out another voice. “How long have you planned this?” It was a Teasel, standing in the center of a group of her kin.

Every priestess turned her antennae on the group—but the Teasel kept theirs high in defiance. A bright channel of air crackled between them.

“Our sisters Teasel, of the Nursery.” Sister Sage nodded slowly. “It is right and proper you should ask, for matters of hive health and security have ever been our kin’s gravest concern. Long have we dreaded this dark day.” She raised her wings higher and addressed the farthest reaches of the Dance Hall. “The Teasel say we have prepared, and they are right. A queenless hive is a prize for the Myriad, and to raise a princess is the state secret and holy burden we have borne in silence, until now.” Sister Sage raised her wings proudly.

“Know you, all sisters gathered here, that we the Melissae, keepers of the Holy Law, protect you with our foresight, for to save our hive from queenless peril, we have made ready a princess for this moment.” Then the priestess bowed low to the group of Teasels. “We thank our sisters Teasel for acknowledging our great and sacred responsibility. We ask no more of them.”

Then the comb trembled and the Hive Mind spoke again.

In three days’ time a new Queen will rise.

ACCEPT, OBEY, AND SERVE.

With great ceremony, the six priestesses lifted the Queen’s head, then her body, onto the leaf bier. The Holy Chord rose from the wax comb up into the bees’ bodies, and the sisters wept again as the pallbearers carried their royal burden through. Some sisters rushed behind them out of the Dance Hall, while others staggered, and yet more stood paralyzed with the horror, their eyes fixed where the Queen had fallen. All the Thistle remained, beating their antennae on the comb in shame. The Teasel watched it all, then left together.

Flora stood gasping for breath, antennae pulsing from the horror she had witnessed and the Minerva spider’s words echoing in her mind.

Unimaginable horrors . . .

If she had died in the cage of glass, she would not have traced the sickness to the Queen, who would still be alive. But then—the sickness would have spread to every sister. The pain in Flora’s belly twisted harder, but even as she sank to her knees and wept, a part of her mind took her back to the Queen’s Library, where there was still one more panel to be told.

Thirty-Six

BY THE NEXT MORNING MANY BEES HAD NOT THE heart to rise from their berths, while others had lost their minds and ran in circles buzzing and babbling or beating their antennae against the comb until they broke. The fertility police took all of them away. The rest, almost eight thousand motherless daughters, wandered desolately through the hive, unable to settle to anything, for without the Queen’s Love no task had meaning.

Pollen dough dried on patisserie tables, chalices of nectar stood unfanned. Sisters in the Chapel of Wax could not pray, and in the Nursery the nannies could not comfort those ceaselessly crying infants who had survived the purge of foulbrood.

Most frightening of all was the plight of the foragers. Again and again they went to the landing board, but despite the good weather not one could start her engine, for that required joy and courage.

“Tomorrow,” they said to each other. “Tomorrow, in good heart,” for to fly in sadness was to make mistakes and die—and the hive could bear no more losses.

At midday the canteens were closed, and at each a Sage priestess stood with a police guard.

“Two days of fasting,” the holy sisters told the bees, “in purification before our princess comes.” And then they smiled and let their Sage kin-scent rise strong. “Accept, Obey, and Serve.”

“Accept, Obey, and Serve,” responded the bees, breathing in the scent’s new opiate element. The smell of the Sage was calming and dulled their fear, and as they walked away from the canteens, they told each other a fast was good and would cleanse them. It also weakened them, so to conserve their energy for flight, most foragers sought solace in sleep.

Flora was lying in her berth at the back of the sanitation workers’ section, when she heard a dim murmur of voices and smelled the kin of Teasel. A group of them had gathered, concealed behind the strong scent of the sanitation workers. Flora lay back again. She did not care what they were doing there, nor had she the slightest intention of reporting them to Sister Sage, as she had once promised to do should she see them in conclave. All she could think about was the Queen’s Library, and what came next after The Golden Leaf.

There was a sixth story. She had walked right up to it, and then . . . But the more Flora concentrated the more tired she felt, until all she could hear were the murmurs of the Teasel, whispering like wind in the trees.

Morning brought sharp cold air and a rime of frost on the landing board. The hungry house bees hurried into the lobbies to start fanning their wings for warmth, but their strength was low from fasting and the temperature did not change. Foragers ran to the landing board and shivered as they looked out at a thick white sky. Yesterday it had been warm and blue, and they had wasted it.

“But we have Clustered!” someone cried. “Winter is over!”

“Tell the sky,” said another. “Tell the new buds, who surely die.”

Flora looked out. Winter comes twice. Her hands went to her belly, and in immediate answer, the pulse of life beat hard against them. She gasped in joy. One. More. Egg.

“Excuse me, Sister.” A Daisy forager unlatched her wings and stepped out around Flora and onto the board. “Enough talk of death!” She forced a smile. “Tomorrow comes the new Queen—so today I will fetch nectar to welcome her.”

“And I,” many foragers shouted. They set their engines high and took off over the apple trees, but within a few seconds the cold seized their engines and they lost altitude. On the landing board the bees watched their little dark shapes whirl helplessly in the freezing wind. Flecks of snow blew into the hive, and the Thistle guards closed the landing board.

Energized by joy and fear, Flora ran back inside. Her grief and apathy had gone and she needed to move her body. If it was not possible to fly, then she would work with her kin-sisters, sheltered by their warmth and kindness—and their very strong scent.