“No, Sister. Thank you.” Many Teasel bowed to the Thistle, but she was not looking anymore. Her antennae were turned to the corridor to the landing board. Flora smelled it at the same time.

A wasp approached.

Every bee in the lobby flexed her dagger and ran toward the landing board, the Thistle at the vanguard. Flora and other foragers squeezed themselves to the front and joined the line of Thistle guards scanning the orchard.

There, at the perimeter of the hive scent markers, one lone wasp cruised. She was long and gleaming, and her legs were bright yellow. At the sight of the bees on the board she came closer, and they saw the two white dots painted above each eye. She hovered above the hive—then with a flash of her stripes she was gone.

Sisters cheered, and congratulated each other in high tense voices. Their show of strength had driven her off; how dare a wasp come prowling in the orchard? They had shown her; look, even the Teasels from the Nursery came to fight!

The foragers did not join in, nor the Thistle, still scanning the air. The wasp was of a kind none had seen before, and they did not like it.

More sisters came pouring down to the Dance Hall lobby, for news of the standoff between the Thistle and the police had spread through the hive, and they wanted to talk about the mad and reckless Teasel, and the way everyone had driven off the wasp. And in the mass of gossip and grooming and anxious talk, Flora slipped away.

Thirty-Eight

THE TOMB OF THE MOUSE LOOMED OVER FLORA, REMINDING her how far she was from the sanctity of the Category One Nursery—but never in her life had she seen a more beautiful baby. He had hatched perfectly—a whole day sooner than she had expected, but he was a pure pearl color, big and firm and glowing with a soft light. Even through the smell of the propolis, the sweetness of his breath made Flora catch hers.

She settled herself to feed her child in her arms. As he nestled against her and opened his little mouth, her cheeks tingled as the Flow rose from its secret source and soothed her like Devotion. The child ate until he was sated, then curled in his mother’s arms and slept, his particular fragrance rising from his little body. A missing worker was only ever presumed dead, never sought out, so Flora made herself comfortable and gave herself the luxury of falling asleep holding her child.

By morning he had grown to fill her arms and was hungry again. The sounds in the Dance Hall lobby beyond told Flora the hive was long awake, and she felt her own body light with hunger. Until she ate, there was no more Flow to feed him. Flora settled her baby as well as she could, soothing him with soft, loving words and a covering of her own scent. He closed his eyes, and she gazed down at him, her heart bursting with love. Then she slipped out of the corridor and went in search of food.

With her first few steps on the lobby comb, she knew something was wrong. The tiled floor-codes, normally so fluent and reassuring in their familiar messages, stuttered and jerked underfoot so that every bee walking them winced at the gibberish going into their brains. Flora hurried across to the big central mosaic where many foragers were gathered and—unusual for their kind—talking most animatedly.

The problem came from the Dance Hall itself, they told each other. The comb interrupted all their steps, throwing the phrases back in jumbled order so no one could dance and pass on knowledge. How could they forage effectively if they could not communicate? Every forager stopped talking as a group of Sage priestesses emerged from within the Dance Hall and walked toward them.

Flora clenched her antennae shut, a split second too late. One of the priestesses looked at her.

“We are glad that some sisters at least are happy. Can you share the source?”

Flora pushed her kin-scent out of her spiracles as strongly as she could, praying she did not smell of Flow.

“I humbly beg I might lead a cleaning party.” She made her tongue thick and ungainly in her mouth. “Were we to clean the floor again—”

“Yes.” Another priestess spoke. “That must be the cause—there must still be traces. Purge the hall again.”

Flora bobbed her head like the humblest sanitation worker, and the priestesses swept away. The foragers watched them go, then turned back to the Dance Hall. The doors stood wide open, but it was completely empty. In the center, a dark patch still showed on the old wax floor.

“She is right.” An Ivy forager spoke. “Always I smell the bl—”

“Do not!” Another forager, Madam Coltsfoot, turned away. “I wish only to forget.” She looked at Flora. “So you willingly choose to be a house bee again?”

Her words stung, but Flora kept her eyes on the corridor to her child. She nodded. Madam Coltsfoot shook her head in disbelief. “Then let me tell you this: I will never dance in there again, unless it is clean.”

“I will do my best.” Flora watched them go down the corridor to the landing board. At the sound of their engines rising up into the sky, she felt a huge pull in her own body, and her wings longed to spread above the currents. But even as she felt it, that faint pulse within her own thrummed harder, and she knew her child hungered.

She ran to the nearest canteen—and found it crowded with arguing sisters, for the malfunctioning floor-codes had told several different shifts to arrive together. The food was scanty pollen bread of poor quality, but Flora fell upon it and it was gone in seconds. She heard someone talking to her and turned to see an old sister from Teasel clinging to a table, food in her fur and antennae disordered.

“Manners are wasted on your kin.” The old Teasel shook her head. “You were the one in the Nursery, weren’t you? Still alive . . .” She pushed her plate of crusts at Flora. “Greedy thing, take mine. I know I die today.”

“Thank you.” Flora ate them, too hungry for pride. She felt her raging body calm, and knew her Flow would come again. “Thank you, Sister.”

The old Teasel looked around. “Category One is ruined now.” She plucked at the table. “Look at this crib, the wax is filthy! We can’t expect Her Majesty to lay in this, can we?” She waved an arm at the bees around them. “And all these foreigners, how am I supposed to train them?”

“Sister, this is the canteen, and they all are from our own hive—”

“Foreigners!” shouted the Teasel, her breath starting to rattle in her thorax. “Go away! Where are my lovely nurses?”

Flora settled the old sister’s disordered antennae and leaned close.

“Right here, Sister,” she said. “But I have forgotten where to take the babies for Holy Time.”

The old Teasel gripped her arm. “It must be clean.”

“Yes, Sister, but where?”

“Listen to me. You can—” The Teasel bent her head close, and stopped. Flora waited for her to continue, but the old sister did not move again. Flora finished every morsel of food on both their plates, then lifted the Teasel into her mouth, and took her down to the morgue. Then she went to the Dance Hall to start cleaning up the Queen’s blood. To her surprise, she found her kin-sisters scrubbing at the last of it, without any supervising sister. Flora looked around.

“Who told you to come? The comb?”

The sanitation workers looked around, as if to make sure no one could hear.

“You did,” said one of them. “Did you not mean it? We heard you tell the priestesses you would clean the floor.”

“But how— I did not see you.”

“Madam—you signaled. We read your wishes in scent.”

Only now did Flora notice how minutely their antennae quivered. Just like the Sage, they preferred chemicals to words. As they smiled at her, a great commotion in the lobby took all their attention.