The Hive Queen

by Tui T. Sutherland

  “She has,” Cricket said sadly. “I’m sorry, Katydid. I tried to be so careful. But she was inside the Librarian — did you know that? She’s ALWAYS inside the Librarian. As soon as a dragon becomes the Librarian and joins the Temple of Clearsight, Queen Wasp takes over and never lets her control her own body ever again. Can you imagine how horrible that would be?”

  “But everyone wants to be the Librarian,” Katydid pointed out. “It’s such an important position.”

  “Only because everyone doesn’t know about this!” Cricket cried. “If they knew it meant giving up your free will forever, would anyone sign up for that?”

  “I think you’re exaggerating a little,” Katydid said. She started gathering all the drawings. “Let’s talk about this somewhere safer.”

  Why isn’t she listening to me? Cricket watched her sister for a moment, puzzled. These were huge, world-shifting facts. The truth about the Book, about Queen Wasp and the Librarian … why didn’t Katydid want to know more? How could she brush that information aside so easily? If someone told Cricket she’d been lied to her whole life, she’d want to grab the truth and rub it into her eyeballs.

  “I can’t go with you, Katydid.” Cricket took one of her sister’s talons in hers. “It’s too dangerous. You could be taken over by Wasp at any moment.”

  A fierce struggle crossed Katydid’s face. “That’s true … but maybe we should go to her and confess. I was wrong to help you hide it all these years. Perhaps she can do something to fix you and make you like the rest of us.”

  “No!” Cricket said. “I don’t want that! I would never want that!”

  “So what are you going to do?” Katydid said, exasperated. “Hide in a water tower forever?”

  “I have friends,” Cricket said. “We’re looking for answers. I’m going to finally find out the truth about everything.”

  Katydid let out a short bark of a laugh. “That really is what you want, isn’t it? The truth about everything — even if it makes your life a million times harder.”

  “Katydid, why are you really here?” Cricket asked. “I mean, in Jewel Hive. You didn’t come all this way for a few drawings, did you? Why aren’t you home with Father? If you’re so sure the queen is right about everything, why haven’t you told her about me yourself?”

  Her sister stepped over to the balcony and peered out through the slats in the door. “Because I’d be in trouble, too,” she said. “And Lady Scarab wouldn’t let me.”

  “Lady Scarab!” Cricket clambered over the sleep pallets again and peeked out the window next to the balcony. She could see the dragon waiting by the corner, twitching her wings and tail impatiently. Holy mother of trees. That was Lady Scarab.

  Cricket had met the grouchy, majestic old dragon a few times in her life, and it had always been very mysterious and alarming. The other dragonets at school whispered all sorts of rumors about her. They swore she was older than the Hives, maybe as old as the Book (which couldn’t possibly be true, but it sounded dramatic). They said she had once been so powerful she could knock over a tree by breathing on it. They said she boiled SilkWings in their cocoons and ate them.

  None of that was true, but Lady Scarab never bothered correcting the stories. She didn’t seem to care what anyone thought of her, not even when two of Cricket’s schoolmates saw her in the hall and screamed and flew out the nearest windows.

  What was true was that she was Lady Jewel’s mother and Queen Wasp’s aunt. She lived all alone in a giant mansion in Cicada Hive, with no servants or anyone else. No one knew why she didn’t live in the same Hive as her daughter, although she also owned a mansion in Jewel Hive, which she visited from time to time.

  One day soon after Cricket’s mother left, Lady Scarab had appeared suddenly on their doorstep. Their father, bowing and confused, let her in and tried to offer her tea in the parlor, but Lady Scarab had announced that she wished to see Katydid and Cricket. So they lined up for her inspection, and she studied them through her spectacles.

  “You look healthy,” she’d said to Cricket.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Cricket had answered, thinking, Why are you here? Aren’t you the dragon with the telescope? How old are you really? Do you ever eat little HiveWings? IS THAT WHY YOU’RE PLEASED THAT I LOOK HEALTHY?

  “Terrarium Academy?” Lady Scarab demanded. “Really?”

  “Um,” Cricket said nervously. “My school? I didn’t choose it.”

  “I did,” their father interjected. “It’s very practical. A down-to-earth place.”

  “No pun intended,” Lady Scarab said with a wintry smile, but Father just blinked in confusion. “Fine, but don’t let them grow moss on your brain, dragonet.”

  “I — I won’t,” Cricket stammered, although she had no idea how to stop her teachers if they decided to do that, and could they really do that? Had anyone done that before? What did they do, put moss seeds in students’ ears? Did it really work without any light in there? She’d only gotten rid of the ensuing nightmares later by doing a lot of research and figuring out that Lady Scarab must have been joking, because growing moss on a dragon’s brain was quite scientifically impossible.

  “I understand Cadelle has left the family,” Lady Scarab went on, turning to Katydid. “Are you managing without her?”

  “Yes, your ladyship,” Katydid said. “Thank you for asking.”

  “Well, let me know if you need anything,” the old HiveWing had said in a ferocious you’d-BETTER-tell-me-if-anything’s-wrong! sort of way. “I’m not far and I’m not dead yet. Don’t be a proud hungry fool. And that dragonet needs new glasses.” She’d flicked a claw at Cricket, and the unsettling thing was, she’d been right. Cricket had needed stronger glasses, but she was still amazed that Lady Scarab had figured that out just by looking at her.

  “Yes, your ladyship,” Katydid said, bowing.

  And then Lady Scarab had swept back out of their lives.

  But here she was, standing guard while Katydid stole from her mother’s house.

  “Wait, why?” Cricket asked. “What does Lady Scarab care? Did you say she won’t let you turn me in?”

  “She came bursting into the house the day the Wanted posters went up,” Katydid said. “She made me pack a bag and told Father not to tell Queen Wasp anything — about you, or me, or her taking me away. And then she brought me here, over the web bridges. I think she figures Lady Jewel can protect us from the queen, if necessary, but I’m afraid she’s wrong about that.”

  She’s definitely wrong. No one can protect anyone, as long as Queen Wasp can take over Lady Jewel or Scarab herself at any moment.

  “I don’t understand,” Cricket said, trying to follow the threads. “Why would Lady Scarab have anything to do with us? We’re just a pair of random HiveWings to her. Aren’t we?” Katydid started rubbing her face with a miserable expression. “Katydid, what? What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Cricket, why do you always have to know everything?” Katydid cried. “Your life would be so much easier if you didn’t. Wondering about SilkWings, asking impertinent questions about the queen’s powers … and then stealing the Book of Clearsight! I was afraid you’d get in trouble one day, but I didn’t think it would be this bad.”

  “But wouldn’t you rather know the truth than live in a cloud of lies?” Cricket asked, confused. “I mean — wouldn’t everyone?”

  “No!” Katydid crushed the drawings between her claws. “Everything was fine! You were safe! No one ever needed to know about you, especially you.”

  Cricket felt her wings trembling, the way they sometimes did when she was close to an answer she’d been looking for.

  “Katydid —”

  “Cadelle is not your mother,” Katydid blurted. “And Father is not your father, either.”

  Cricket stared at her. That … was not what she’d expected to hear. Although it explained a lot about the way they acted around her.

  “But — then who —” she started.

  A loud pounding
came from the door downstairs, making them both jump. They peeked out the window and saw Lady Scarab thwacking it impatiently with her tail.

  “She told me to be quick,” Katydid said. “Cricket, come with us. I’ll tell you everything, if I have to.”

  By the Hives, those were words Cricket lived for. Everything! Mysteries explained, puzzles solved! The whole truth, finally revealed to her!

  But her friends were waiting in the water tower. They didn’t know how to get to the library for the midnight meeting with the Chrysalis. They wouldn’t understand if she left with Katydid. And it really wasn’t safe — Queen Wasp could look out of her sister’s eyes at any moment. Cricket had already stayed too long.

  “I can’t go with you,” she said. “Can’t you tell me everything now? Like, really quickly?”

  Katydid hugged her fiercely. “It’s not that easy. I just want you to be safe.”

  “I can only be safe if I know the truth,” Cricket said, pulling back. “Just like our tribe will only be safe if they stop believing Wasp’s lies.”

  Her sister sighed. “I don’t see why. They’re perfectly safe now, whatever you think she’s lying to them about. Oh, Cricket, I have to go, but I’m afraid I’ll never see you again.”

  “Can I find you?” Cricket asked. “Tomorrow. Around dawn?”

  “I’ll be hiding at Lady Scarab’s house,” Katydid said, pressing Cricket’s front talons between hers. “Please be careful.”

  “You too.” Cricket hugged her again and let go.

  Katydid hurried out of the room with the drawings and Cricket heard her claws on the stairs. A few moments later, she came out the front door and locked it behind her, and then the two HiveWings flew away, with Lady Scarab scolding Katydid in a furious undertone.

  Cricket stood in the barren room, looking at the empty walls and toyless shelves. She had cried herself to sleep in this room, wondering why Cadelle had taken Katydid to dinner and left her behind. She had cried in other rooms like this, wondering what was wrong with her, that her own mother didn’t care about her. She had stared across the breakfast table at her blank-faced father, who never asked questions about school or her life unless she got in trouble — and then it was usually something like, “You still here? How long until you graduate? Quit bothering your teachers and stay out of my way.”

  A part of her had always thought everything would make sense once she knew why she was different — once she had the whole truth in her talons.

  But this wasn’t a truth she could get her talons around.

  They weren’t her parents. They never wanted her in the first place.

  Someone gave me to them against their will.

  So now the question was … who? And why?

  Midnight. Library. 5.

  Cricket tried all day to focus on what that “5” meant, but she couldn’t keep her buzzing mind away from the mystery of her parents. She leaned over the ledge and trailed her claws through the cold, dark water. Beside her, Blue shivered as though he felt the chill traveling through her bones into his.

  Cadelle is not your mother. Father is not your father.

  Dragonfly Square was busy in the early evening as everyone bustled home from work to change into their nighttime glamour before going out again. Swordtail, watching through the spyhole, reported that Cadelle had sailed off with a very orange male dragon, but Cricket couldn’t bring herself to watch.

  Her whole life she’d been waiting for her mother to care about her. She didn’t know how to dig up those seeds and replant them. She’d wanted something true she could put in front of her parents so she could say, “Look, here’s why I’m different. Look, I found all the answers. Look, here’s why you should love me anyway.”

  But they would never care. She wasn’t theirs.

  So whose was she? Where were her real parents?

  It was also unsettling, as she thought over their conversation, to realize that nothing she’d said had made any difference to Katydid (who is not actually my sister, Cricket thought before her brain shied away from thinking about that). Cricket rubbed her forehead and tried to pull her scarves closer, but they didn’t make her any warmer. She’d tried to tell Katydid about Wasp’s lies, and Katydid had acted like the truth was just another story, another version of the world, instead of the only real version.

  Wouldn’t you rather know the truth?

  No.

  I think you’re exaggerating.

  I’m sure she had her reasons.

  How could Katydid say that? Queen Wasp lied so that the HiveWings could take over Pantala, and she nearly wiped out the LeafWings to do it. She made them all think they were following Clearsight’s plan. She convinced everyone she had the right to rule over the SilkWings — that the HiveWings were the strongest tribe, that they deserved everything they wanted. She turned her own dragons into murderers and monsters.

  Maybe that’s what Katydid didn’t want to see.

  Maybe I just need to try again. If I show her the Book … if she meets Blue and Sundew and takes a moment to understand them … if I tell her everything and try harder, she’ll have to see. She’ll have to hear me.

  “Are you all right?” Blue whispered, taking one of her talons in his.

  “Oh — sort of. Not really,” she whispered back. “Cold. Also my whole life was a lie. But mostly cold.” She nudged her glasses up and tried to smile at him.

  “I can maybe help with that,” he said. A softly glowing thread of flamesilk unfolded from his wrist, snaking out toward her scales. She started to pull away, but he held on to her gently. “Wait,” he said. “I’ve been experimenting. This kind shouldn’t burn you.”

  Cricket went still, realizing again how much she trusted him. The gold thread reached for her like a vine growing too fast; it wound around her claws and his and spiraled up toward her shoulder. Everywhere the flamesilk touched her scales, warmth sank in, quietly spreading into her bones.

  “Oh, wow,” she said softly. “It’s like magic, Blue.”

  “Right?” he said. “I thought it would be much scarier. But I kind of love my flamesilk … is that weird?”

  She shook her head. “I love it, too.” She glanced over to the other side of the ledge, where Swordtail had accidentally fallen asleep on Sundew’s cape. The LeafWing sat pinned beside his snoring head, glowering and tapping one of her pouches with an ominous look in her eyes.

  “I miss my moms,” Blue said softly.

  “Oh,” Cricket said. “I’m so sorry, Blue.”

  “As I was coming out of the cocoon,” he said, “for a moment I forgot everything that had happened. I thought I would open my eyes and Mother and Silverspot would be there, waiting for me and smiling and ready to hug me and take me flying. I’ve been trying not to think about them too much … but, just for a moment, that felt so real. I hope they’re all right. They must be worried about me and Luna, especially with all those posters up.”

  Cricket leaned into him. “Queen Wasp won’t hurt them,” she said. “It wouldn’t accomplish anything, and she’s very efficient. Maybe there’s a way to get a message to them? Let’s think. If we could find a SilkWing going to Cicada Hive …” She tried to think of SilkWings who traveled between the Hives — traders? Messengers?

  “You’ve been really quiet all day,” Blue said.

  She sighed. “I know. It’s … my sister told me that my parents aren’t my parents.”

  In the glow from the flamesilk, she saw his eyes widen. “Wow.” He thought about that for a moment. “So who are your real parents?”

  “I don’t know.” And how was Lady Scarab connected? She couldn’t be Lady Scarab’s daughter, could she? But then why wouldn’t Scarab have kept her? That was too weird to even brush with her wings. Scarab had had one daughter, Lady Jewel, ages and ages ago. Cricket couldn’t fit into her brain the possibility that Scarab had had another egg, decades later, with some mystery dragon and then given it away to Cadelle.

  “Katydid didn’t tell you anyt
hing else?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “She really didn’t want to. Blue, this has to be connected to why I’m different from the other HiveWings, doesn’t it? Maybe one of my real parents is resistant to the mind control, too. Maybe Queen Wasp found out, and that’s why they had to hide me with another family.”

  He was silent, and she tipped her snout toward him. “Blue?”

  “I just can’t imagine leaving my dragonet with someone else,” he said. “That must have been so hard. There must have been a really big reason they couldn’t keep you.” His eyes met hers again and then dropped away quickly. “Like … if they weren’t supposed to be together at all.”

  She gasped and covered her snout with her talons. Across the water tower, Sundew twisted to look at them.

  It would never have entered her head before she met Blue. She wouldn’t have been able to imagine it, until it changed her own life.

  “You think one of my parents was a SilkWing?” she whispered.

  “Do you?” he whispered back.

  It’s not possible. Is it?

  Am I a hybrid?

  Would hybrids be immune to the mind control? SilkWings are. Is that why I am?

  It seems like such an obvious possible answer … why didn’t I ever think of it before?

  Because I thought I knew my parents.

  Is that the answer?

  But if that’s the answer … how do we save the other HiveWings? We can’t exactly turn them all into hybrids.

  “I don’t know.” She tried to think of all the SilkWings she’d ever met. Had any of them acted strange, like maybe they were secretly her mother or father? Not that she could remember. There was no science on potential SilkWing-HiveWing hybrids. They were so forbidden it wasn’t even conceivable to study the idea. Wouldn’t there be something more … more SilkWing about her, if she were a hybrid?

  Blue’s antennae twitched. “It’s almost midnight,” he said.