Then she sealed her.

Forty-One

THE RETURN OF THE DRONES LIFTED THE HIVE’S SPIRITS for one day, but the underlying tension between the Sage and the Teasel could not be repressed any longer. The colony became polarized, with both Sage and Teasel demanding that every kin group choose its loyalty. A priestess had gone missing—but so, shouted the Teasel loudly, had several of their senior sisters—and the lobbies filled with argument. Only the sanitation workers were ignored, for neither the Teasel nor the Sage cared about them except to make sure they cleaned properly. Flora remained with her kin-sisters despite the good foraging weather, for not only did she have a reason to visit the morgue, but she was extremely tired. For the first time in her life, she felt no desire to fly. It saddened her to see the scuffles between kin, and the deterioration of the hive’s condition. The beautiful central mosaics in the lobbies no longer glowed and pulsed with energy, and without the resonant frequency of the Hive Mind, the comb lost its beauty. The waiting made the bees both angry and despairing, for they had been intimidated into supporting one side or the other—but each one longed for Devotion, and heard her own mind whisper fearfully:

I will worship any Queen.

BY NIGHTFALL, the bees were frantic. The dormitories were full of arguing, many bees complaining they could not—or did not want to—sleep in proximity to sisters loyal to Teasel, or loyal to Sage, and the air was rancid with discord. Some lay in their berths wailing for Devotion, while others berated them for reminding them of the precious thing they tried to forget.

“We must be patient!” someone shouted near Flora.

“We are damned,” spat someone else. “This hive is plagued—”

Uproar broke out and both the Thistle guards and the fertility police stormed in, each demanding to know who had started it. The bees cowered in silence. The guards and the police gestured to each other with extravagant and dangerous courtesy, to allow the other to be the first to leave. The Thistle allowed themselves to be the first to go, and as the police followed, they looked back into the dark dormitory and sent a blast of their frightening scent across the bees loyal to Teasel.

No one dared speak. Gradually, the dormitory fell silent, except for those berths where some sister could not stop crying.

In the morning, many refused to rise.

“Without a Queen,” said one, turning her face to the wall, “I have no will.”

“No children born,” said another. “No life to work for.”

Flora shook a sister. “But we have each other—”

“We did.” A Rosebay forager rocked herself. “Until we maddened with fighting. To see such bitterness between us—I will die of heartbreak before a new Queen comes.”

Flora held her.

“Please, Sister, do not. If the house bees see the foragers stop flying—”

The Rosebay pushed her off.

“You have given up! You were one of our best—but now you cling in fear to your dustpan, too scared to fly. Your heart is broken too.”

“It is not!” Flora stood up. “It is full of love, I swear it.”

“Then forage!” cried a Cornflower, her wings disheveled and dry.

“If my sisters ask me.” Flora unlatched her wings. “If they will fly beside me.”

The Rosebay forager sat up. She got to her feet. “I care for my sisters. Not for politics.”

The Cornflower stood too. “And I for flowers. And our hive.”

“Our hive.” All over the dormitory, wing-latches clicked open as other foragers rose from their berths.

ON THE LANDING BOARD the sun shone hot and hard, and waves of sweetness poured through the air. The foragers looked at each other in amazement. In their despairing queenless state, they had almost missed the start of the spring honeyflow. Now that they stood on the warming wooden ledge of the landing board, they felt the life-force pull the green blades up through the soft earth and swell the buds on the branches. Corms burst below the soil and high above it eddies of golden pollen carried on the wind.

The foragers laughed as they woke from their sorrow. The world was come to life again, and at the glorious sound of their engines starting, more sisters came running out onto the landing board. At first they too were dazed, for the grim power struggle within the hive had sapped them all of strength—but at the sight of their brave forager sisters rising up once more into a blazing blue sky, they began to cheer.

The tiredness in Flora’s body was a benediction of her skill, for even as she felt her joints stiffen and her engine straining, she used all her knowledge and experience to effortlessly guide her through the currents and track the finest scents. She delighted when she discovered the first narcissus in bloom, the flower every bee longed to find for its exquisite fragrance—the somewhat bland pollen being an afterthought. Its scent filled Flora’s soul with such flower joy so that she no longer felt any pain or weakness in her body—and then she foraged with all her skill and power. She found crocus and daffodil and then pale green hebe flowers, their startling pink pollen grains plump and moist like tiny berries. She filled her panniers, she filled her crop, and a thousand fluorescent petals and patterns returned to her mind. She was deep in the apple blossom with the Holy Chord all around her when she felt a jolt in her body.

That slow, steady frequency, hidden in her own pulse so long she had ceased to notice it, abruptly stopped. She whirled around as if the hive had called her.

Her daughter had woken.

Forty-Two

THERE WERE NO THISTLE ON THE LANDING BOARD NOR bees in the lobby, but the smell of alarm came thick from the top of the staircases. Wings unlatched, not caring who saw her, Flora ran straight into the morgue.

She could smell her daughter’s strong scent, even as her brain registered that it had changed. Big, jagged shards of wax littered the floor but there was no blood, or smell of either the fertility police or the Thistle guards. A surge of raised voices came through the comb from above, and with it the vibration of thousands of sisters’ feet, running across the midlevel lobby. Then came a savage, sharp piping sound, traveling through the comb as if carried on the Hive Mind. A few seconds later, an answering burst of piping fired its own frequency through the comb. The two sound waves clashing in dissonance made bees all over the hive cry out in fear.

So frightened for her child she could barely breathe, Flora ran up the main staircase. The scent of battle grew thicker the higher she went, blocking out every scent but that of the Teasel war gland, against Sage.

Terrified sisters clung to each other in the corridors to the midlevel lobby and the scent of venom filled the air. Flora pushed her way through their shuddering bodies toward the dense wall of bees surrounding the central space. She pressed forward in the hot choking air, squeezing her way through the wings and bodies, the only thought in her mind to stand by her daughter’s side to the death—

Thistle guards grabbed her to stop her going farther.

In front of her in the center of the lobby, two huge princesses crouched opposite each other. Each was twice the size of every other sister, and behind them stood a dense wall of their own kin: the Sage, and the Teasel. Every bee in the chamber was silent—except for the low hissing of the Teasel princess.

She was yellow-furred, her face flat and brindled, and her bands bright brown. Flora could see the shining wet tip of her dagger as she slowly moved her abdomen from side to side and sank down lower, gathering her power. A snarl built in her throat, a low echo coming from the throats of her supporters.