High above the orchard, another wasp watched with interest.

Thirty-Nine

THE MOUSE’S EMBALMED BODY ALMOST BLOCKED THE space, but there was a gap between its jagged propolis tomb and the wooden wall of the hive. As Flora squeezed through, her baby squealed in excitement at her smell and wriggled toward her. He had grown since she left him, his distinctive scent had developed, and he was ravenous again. Flora lifted him into her arms and he opened his mouth. Her cheeks pulsed in relief as the shining Flow poured out.

Her baby drank and drank, until his whole body glowed. She kissed him and cleaned his face, then held him up to the propolis wall of his crib, so that the ancient tree sap glowed amber and bronze with his light.

“One would almost say you loved the maggot.” Sister Sage crouched on top of the sarcophagus.

Flora clutched her baby to her and raised a claw.

“Extraordinary that you should still be able to make Flow.” Sister Sage climbed down the side of the mouse’s tomb, the better to watch. “Bold and resourceful beyond our wildest imaginings, Flora 717.” The priestess raised her antennae and pulsed her kin-scent. “Tell me, how many times have you laid?”

Flora’s heart slammed in her body and her sting slid ready for use, but her child nestled against her and she spoke calmly for his sake. “This is the third,” she answered. “It came upon my body without my will.”

“You know there is no mercy for you.” Sister Sage smiled. “But one must admire your brazen spirit—to stand there in the lobby, reeking of Flow, while a Teasel was torn apart for the same crime? Strong nerves, 717. The only reason I let you go was to find your foul issue myself. One of the Thistle guards had reported the smell of freshly worked propolis near the board, and I did wonder why—but I must say I did not expect to find a crib! That is indeed a marvel—and the police are on their way to admire it, as we speak.”

Flora looked toward the mouse hole.

“Flee if you wish,” said Sister Sage. “Death is certain either way.”

“I will not.” Flora held her baby close one last time. “But I beg you, Sister, now the males have deserted us, let him go to the Nursery. I will recant before the whole hive, you may tear me wing from limb, devise any death—but let him live.”

“Him?” Sister Sage walked down to the comb floor. “Do you try to fool a priestess? Your evil spawn is female.”

“Female?” Flora looked into her child’s little face. Only now did the chemical mosaic reveal its truth to her. “A daughter?”

“A monster.” Sister Sage raised her antennae. “And your crime, the death sentence for every one of your kin. In any case your time is near, 717, if you cannot smell the sex of your own child. Bring the foul thing into the passageway—it is impossible to signal through its stench.” She flicked her antennae again and again. “A wasp or ant has more honor than you—after your first crime, why did you not offer yourself for death?”

“When I was with Holy Mother in her chamber, she gave me her Love. And then when I laid—I felt it for my own eggs. And I changed.”

“Changed, 717? From an ugly, monstrous deviant that should have been killed on emergence? What, pray, do you think you changed into?”

“A loving mother.”

Sister Sage burst out laughing.

“Love? Love is something only the Queen can feel for a child.”

“No, Sister, I promise you—it is the most wonderful thing, and stronger even than Devotion!”

“Can that really be true?” Sister Sage studied Flora. “It is the highest sacrament, more precious than any wealth we can make—yet you claim to feel it?”

Flora held her child close, and nodded.

“When you look at your—child—can you feel it now?”

Flora gazed down into her baby girl’s face, and the air shimmered with her joy. Too late she realized what was happening. Her antennae were wide open and in an instant Sister Sage had driven her own force deep into Flora’s mind.

“You thought yourself Queen,” she hissed. “The spiders warned you—oh yes, I know all about that. Did you think they would keep your secret? How many lives did it cost me to find that out, but I did—”

Flora tried to move, but the priestess drove her own will deeper, paralyzing her. Flora’s baby began to wail, and she felt her being pulled from her helpless arms.

“Love?” Sister Sage had the little girl in her claws, and held her up in front of her mother’s face. “That is what the flowers are for—foragers may lust to their heart and body’s content for them—but the sacrament of birth is beyond you!” Flora’s baby screamed and writhed in the priestess’s grip, and the Sage struck her across the face.

No lock or bonds could hold back Flora’s rage. She tore her child from the priestess’s grasp, and before Sister Sage could utter another word, with a mighty blow Flora knocked her off her feet. The priestess twisted her long abdomen up in all directions, stabbing at Flora so that the air filled with a cloud of venom—but Flora had fought a wasp. She tore off the priestess’s pounding antennae, then she slid her dagger between the glossy bands, waiting until she felt the pulse of Sister Sage’s beating heart. Only then did she pump her venom, strong and steady, until the priestess lay still.

Flora’s baby lay crying against her crib, trying to find a way to escape the terrifying odors. Flora lifted her daughter off the venom-slicked floor and held her, wrapping her in her kin-scent. Flora rocked her until she stopped her sobs, then placed her back in her crib. She listened for the pounding feet of the police, her antennae in agony from the priestess’s lock.

The air was thick with the Sage’s blood, strong enough to permeate the smell of propolis and give them away. Flora had to get rid of the body—but it was already stiff and swollen from the poison of her sting, too big to drag down the narrow space to the mouse hole.

She seized the head of the priestess in her own great jaws and, with a swift flicking motion, broke it from her thorax. The little girl watched her mother’s work in silence.

Revolted by what she had to do and glad of her thick powerful tongue, Flora bit down on the joined thorax and abdomen of Sister Sage and dragged it through its own spilled venom, so that it soaked into the fur. Then she pulled it out of the mouse hole and tossed it into the long grass.

Getting rid of the head was harder. Though the antennae were gone, the dead lenses of Sister Sage’s eyes were still potent with data, and Flora could feel it streaming into her tongue as she carried it out toward the mouse hole. As she shifted the shell of the head for better purchase, the wet, heavy brain dislodged and dropped into Flora’s mouth. Spasms of prayer code and images of violence pulsed in her mind at the contact, and she hurled the head as far as she could. She spat out the remains of the brain, then stared in horror. Sister Sage’s head had caught on a spike of grass.

She flew down and tried to pull it free but every movement released more of the scent of Sage blood. Any forager would raise the alarm, any wasp would know the hive was stricken—Flora felt someone watching her and looked around in terror.

“Our priestess appears unwell.”

Sir Linden sat shivering on the hive roof, no longer dapper and groomed, but disheveled and travel-soiled. Thoracic engine sputtering, he flew down beside her.

The sight of him flooded Flora with relief—and every nerve in her body streaked with pain. She could not speak, only point down at the grass.

“Sister prefers the discretion of the dock leaves?”

Flora managed to nod. Sir Linden clasped Sister Sage’s head from above as if he were mounting it. His engine sputtered dangerously as he struggled—and then he pulled the head from the stalk and dropped it down into the leaves.