Starvation. Someone had said the word in the canteen, and the long-repressed fear burst in the air above all the bees. Before they knew it, every sister was asking about food or speculating on its lack or demanding to know from the foragers when the weather would lift and they could start working again, for the fasting had sharpened their appetite for Devotion—but the Queen did not come! She did not come, and they had been promised!

Their voices became a din, with some sisters shouting for silence, others for answers, and arguments broke out over a crust of pollen bread. Flora’s brain jammed with her panic for her child, and she felt a scream building in her own chest.

“Sisters! Hear yourselves!” It was the booming voice of a Thistle guard. She stood up and banged her own plate down amid the squabbling bees. “Take mine! Would you be like the wasps?” Every other Thistle in the room put her own plate down for others, and the noble gesture silenced the bees.

“We will wait,” said the first Thistle. “The Queen will come.”

“The Queen will come,” repeated the bees. The words gave them strength. “The Queen will come!”

THE NEXT MORNING, there was again no sign of the Sage, but the skies had cleared and the air was warm once more. Bees gathered to applaud and shout Queenspeed to the foragers as they ran for the board, for the sisters longed for order and security. If they could not have it in the form of Devotion to and from a new Queen, then the next best thing was to refill the Treasury, and make the canteen tables groan with food.

The drones had no such patience. The new Queen was late, the weather was still cold and damp, and they did not care if the sisters ate little—they still wanted more. Working themselves up to a high hormonal display of temper and resentment, they joined together and marched up to the Treasury to protest to the Sage priestesses gathered there. Frightened and fascinated, sisters rushed after them to witness it.

When the Sage priestesses simply listened, the drones grew angrier.

“You hear our complaints, and do nothing?”

Sister Sage inclined her head politely.

“We have more pressing matters.”

The drones looked at each other in astonishment.

“Than our comfort?”

“Brothers, if they think so little of us—”

“We shall find a better home!”

With that, and despite the wailing protests of the sisters, the drones stormed down to the landing board in a rage and took to the air.

Returning with a scant crop of viburnum nectar, Flora passed them in the air and felt their turbulence. Sisters wept on the landing board, crying for the males to come back, but Flora pushed past them to give her load to a waiting receiver. All she wanted to do was quickly pass on the directions in the Dance Hall, then find a way to get to her egg without being seen.

She ran into the atrium and stopped. Foragers stood waiting, but there was no atmosphere of joy or anticipation, and though many dutifully followed her steps, she knew it was without enthusiasm. Flora wanted to rouse them—but all her energy was focused on going to her child, and she left with a guilty heart.

Outside in the lobby she paused. Since she had danced it had become crowded with many sisters, but instead of passing through on their business, they stood talking in little clusters of kin groups. Most numerous were the Teasel. Some stood together, but others moved around the gathered sisters, murmuring earnestly.

No bees stood near the entrance to the prohibited corridor, for the propolis disinfectant smell was overpowering, but as the lobby kept filling up, more and more sisters gathered near it. Every defensive urge sparked within Flora—she wanted to run down the corridor and protect her vulnerable egg—but to go now was to invite discovery. She forced herself to remain where she was. The tiny second heartbeat within her own had grown stronger.

Flora’s cheeks prickled, then a faint sweetness filled her mouth. She swallowed quickly, her heart thudding. Flow. It could only be the sign that her egg was hatching—at any moment her baby would emerge, and cry for food.

She looked around in desperation. The only way she could reach her baby was to ask the noble kins of Violet and Speedwell to move aside—a breach of hive etiquette guaranteed to focus attention on her. If she could only see her own kin-sisters there, she could join them—but mindful of the general distaste for their presence, all the sanitation workers had withdrawn.

Flora swallowed down a mouthful of Flow. If she saw anyone going down toward her egg, she knew she would run and fight to protect it—but until then, the best thing she could do was pass unnoticed, and move when the crowd dispersed.

“The Queen will come,” intoned a Thistle from the center of a somber-faced group of her own kin. “The Queen will come,” her sisters repeated, but their tone lacked conviction.

“But not from the Sage!” A young Teasel shouted from the center of her own group. All the bees in the lobby turned to stare at this reckless sister with the brindled fur. “Because they are sick,” she continued, her eyes wild. “Why else have they not produced their princess?” She looked around the lobby. “If even Holy Mother could sicken, then why not her priestesses?”

Before she could say another word a group of police burst the gathered Teasels apart and dragged her out. One of them cuffed her hard against the side of her head, another kicked her legs out from under her.

“Blasphemy!” said one of the officers.

“The Kindness is too good—” said another, raising her hooked gauntlet.

The brindled Teasel tried to claw her way up through their bodies. “Sisters!” she screamed as the blows rained down. “This is what happens when you speak the truth—”

The police closed in on her and the bees heard her shell cracking.

“Stop at once!” The group of Thistle guards rushed to pull off the fertility police. “What is the meaning of this outrage, Officer?” The most senior Thistle guard used her claw to hold Sister Inspector between her head and her thorax. “This lobby is a place of gathering and talk—what laws do you enforce here?” She released Sister Inspector, who stared at her with hate.

“The Law of Treason!” She spat the word at the Thistle, and her officers held their claws ready, pointed at the group of Teasel. The young Teasel on the ground stood up, and all the bees could see she was wounded, but she turned to face her attackers again.

“Without our Queen,” she said loudly, “how can there be treason?”

The truth of this silenced every bee. Then Sister Inspector hissed in rage. “Treason against the Sage!”

“The Sage are a kin like any other,” cried the young Teasel, her hand to her wounded thorax. “But they think they are all queens—”

The bees gasped to hear this and Sister Inspector raised her claw. Before she could strike the Teasel again, the large Thistle guard stepped between them. “What dark days are these?”

“Indeed, when the kin of Thistle seeks to advance itself!” Sister Inspector’s voice was harsh and ugly. “But all the hive knows who killed the Queen.”

The Thistle guard bowed her head.

“To our eternal sorrow.” Then she looked at Sister Inspector and raised her own antennae thick and strong. “All sisters may gather here and speak freely. Remove yourselves.”

Remove yourselves. The thrilling words rippled through the bees like the Hive Mind, but the comb had not spoken—only one brave Thistle guard. The sisters gathered behind her, a silent show of strength.

Sister Inspector looked murderous—then gathered her officers and left. The bees began to applaud, but the Thistle guard who had spoken so bravely rounded on all of them. She pointed to the group of Teasel.

“The Queen will come! And until then, do not provoke the police.”