He scrambled out of his nest before he was fully awake, stumbling over his claws as he hurried to her cocoon. It was still there, still safe, still warm. The silk walls seemed thinner than before, so he thought he could see the shadow of Luna on the other side. He leaned against it again and whispered, “Luna. I miss you.”
The silk moved against his scales, a slight push and give, as though the dragon inside was rolling over or nudging him back.
“She’s coming out tonight,” Blue said, grinning, when Admiral came over to check on him. Even in this peculiar place, he couldn’t help feeling excited for Luna. She’d finally have wings, like she always wanted.
But would she ever get to really use them? His smile dimmed as the cocoon rocked again. Even though this was the last place he wanted to be, he was glad he’d be here for Luna when she came out. He was glad he’d be the one to explain everything, instead of a bunch of squabbling strangers.
“Dad,” Blue said, “what do you think will happen to me if I end up not being a flamesilk?”
“You’ll get one of the regular SilkWing jobs down here,” his father said breezily. “Moving cauldrons or chopping food or cleaning, that sort of thing.”
“But what if I want to go home?” Blue asked, wishing he could stop his voice from trembling. “Would I really have to stay here?”
Admiral drummed his claws on the rocks below him. “Well,” he said, “the queen doesn’t exactly like to have SilkWings wandering around who know where this cavern is.” Blue’s shoulders slumped, and Admiral hurried on quickly. “But tell you what, I’ll write her a letter! Or lots of letters! If you’re not a flamesilk, I’ll think of some very good reasons why you should get to go home. I’ll convince her. Don’t worry. It might take a while. But then, maybe you’ll decide you want to stay? It’s quite nice here. And this is where I am,” he finished with a wistful note in his voice.
“I know,” Blue said. “I’ll think about it,” he added, to make his dad feel better.
That day passed much like the one before. Blue prowled all the corners again, looking for loose stones or a breath of air from outside. He tried to avoid getting dragged into the fights between the flamesilks, but it was almost impossible. Every time he walked across the cave, someone would call him over, and then someone else would start shouting about how he shouldn’t associate with worm-eating lowlifes like that, and soon they’d all be arguing over an offensive remark one of them had made ten years ago, and finally Admiral would have to come hustle Blue away to safety.
But he did find a spot — just one — that gave him a spark of hope. It was in the wall under the ledge where the HiveWings guarded the staircase. Here the rock slanted back a ways into a craggy corner, and when Blue ran his talons over the stone, he found a hole.
It wasn’t a very big hole. It was just large enough for him to fit one of his arms through it, but when he did, he felt open space on the other side. Open space and a touch of chilliness, as though there was another big cave back there, or maybe even a passage. The rocks he could feel on the back of the wall seemed damp. He tried peering through, but he couldn’t see anything but darkness.
He returned to his nest, trying to think like Cricket. How would she get through the wall, if she were stuck in here?
It was early evening when Luna’s cocoon started squirming. He crouched beside it, touching the silk gently with his talons whenever it seemed as if it might rock too far away. Their father was there, too, watching with shining eyes.
A crack appeared at one end of the golden cocoon. Blue held his breath as it widened, slicing off the tip. Claws appeared in the gap, pushing away the top of the cocoon, and then he could see Luna’s head shoving her way out as well.
“Luna,” he called. “I’m here. You’re doing great. You’re almost done!”
She couldn’t answer yet, but he saw her antennae unfurl and wave at him. Luna wriggled and heaved and slowly dragged her whole body out, until finally she left the empty husk of the cocoon behind her.
“Whoosh,” she said, collapsing on her stomach on the warm rocks. Her wings unfolded gracefully from her back and spread out to dry, like cascading petals of green sunlight. They were beautiful.
“You did it!” Blue cheered. He lay down beside her and nudged her snout with his. “Your wings are amazing! So amazing, Luna!” His throat closed over everything else he wanted to say.
She smiled sleepily at him. “Then why are you crying, little brother?” she asked. “Overwhelmed by my gloriousness?”
“Pretty much,” he said with a sniffly laugh. “I missed you so much.”
“Awww,” she said, covering one of his talons with hers. “It was only five days, silly.”
“Yeah, but … they were really stressful days,” he said.
She blinked at him for a long moment, and then her gaze slowly shifted to the cave walls behind him, and the glow of the light from all the flamesilk cauldrons, and the stranger watching them eagerly from extremely close by.
She rolled her wrists in and stared at them, then sat up abruptly.
“Hi!” said Admiral. “Oh wow! I can’t believe this is happening! I’m so happy to meet you!”
Luna stared at him, then at Blue with an “explain this” face.
“This is Admiral,” Blue said. “Our dad.” He felt a twinge of pain in his own wrists and glanced down. Uh-oh. Were those pinpricks of gold lava under his scales?
“This is the greatest day of my life!” Admiral declared with the most enormous grin on his face.
“Enough smiling. Time to spin,” Sandfly said, stomping up and poking him in the shoulder.
“I give them three days until they figure out that you’re the most annoying dragon in here!” Fritillary shouted from across the cavern.
Luna glanced around frantically, her wings fluttering. She leaned forward and seized Blue’s talons between hers.
“Blue,” she said. “Where are we?”
“So Swordtail … ”
“Might be nearby,” Blue said. “Or might have been captured.”
“This is somehow too much information and absolutely not enough information at the same time,” Luna said, rubbing her forehead.
“Tangerine?” Admiral offered.
“Thanks,” she said, taking it and peeling it quickly. She’d been eating nonstop while Blue told her the whole story. Admiral, it turned out, had a stash of food tucked away in his nest, and he was surprisingly adept at tossing fruit while spinning flamesilk at the same time.
“But the queen hasn’t come down to yell at you or anything?” Luna asked.
“No,” Blue said. “I really thought she would. Or that I’d get dragged into her throne room and punished. But this seems to be it. She just … had me thrown in here.”
“Like a lost thing that she found and put back in its place,” Luna said grumpily. “I mean, I’m glad you weren’t punished, Blue. But the queen uses punishment mostly to send a message to the rest of her subjects. So I’m guessing she didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that she has flamesilks — or that a little wingless SilkWing was able to hide from her for so long.”
“That was only because I met Cricket,” Blue said. “She’s the one who figured out how to hide me.”
Luna rolled her eyes at him affectionately. “Trust you to find the one good HiveWing in the entire tribe. Now I’ll never be able to convince you that they’re all evil.”
“Because they’re not!” he protested. “There must be others as nice as Cricket. Maybe not as smart or pretty or funny or kind. But probably a few that are nice.”
Luna shook her head. “I doubt it — but even if they are, they never get a chance to be, because of the queen’s brainwashing.” She shuddered from antennae to tail. “That mind-control thing sounds so creepy.”
“It is,” Blue said.
“I hope Io’s all right.”
“Me too. I hope she found the Chrysalis. Luna, did you know about the Chrysalis?”
“A little bit.” Luna stood up, shaking out her wings and testing different positions she could hold them in. “I knew Swordtail and Io had just met them. I was hoping to join once I had my wings. I didn’t quite figure on waking up in here.”
Blue winced and she gave him a sharp look. “Is your silk coming in? Does it feel hot?” She took his talons and turned them over to study his wrists. It was hard to see if they were glowing, with all the light from the other flamesilk in the cave.
“I’m supposed to spin my cocoon tomorrow night,” Blue said. “I wish I didn’t have to do it in here.” He’d been nervous enough about his Metamorphosis when he knew it would happen in the tranquil, peaceful safety of the Cocoon. But it was much more unnerving to imagine spinning his silk here, in this too-bright place with its shouting dragons and stomping guards all staring at him.
“There must be a way out,” Luna said. She looked up at the guards by the stairwell. “How many guards do you think there are?”
“Luna,” Blue said, “there’s no way we can fight them. Just you and me? That’s crazy.”
“But now I can do this!” she said. She held out one arm and a flaming silk thread burst from her wrist. It hit one of Admiral’s piles of letters and instantly set it ablaze.
“Ack!” Admiral cried. He leaped over and knocked the burning pile away from the others, then stamped it out with his talons. When it was a pile of ashes on the rocks, he picked up the fiery strand of silk and brandished it at Luna. “This is not a toy! Look what you did! Now how will I remember what I’ve already written? The queen doesn’t like repetition! This is terrible. You need to learn to be careful with your flamesilk, young lady.”
“Sorry,” Luna said innocently.
Blue blinked at Admiral. “Dad, you’re — you’re holding the flamesilk! In your talons! Why isn’t it burning you?”
Admiral climbed back into his nest and dropped Luna’s flamesilk into his own cauldron. It glowed a much brighter orange gold than what was already in there. “Flamesilk dragons can’t be burned by flamesilk,” he said. “That would be absurd.”
“Wow,” Blue said. “Wait, so if some already burned me … ?”
“No, it will still burn you until you’ve gone through Metamorphosis, whether you’re going to be a flamesilk or not,” Admiral said. “Luna, come here and let me show you the different kinds you can make. Flamesilk is a big responsibility.”
Luna rolled her eyes at Blue, but she went over to their father and gave him her full attention.
Blue sighed, rubbing his wrists. His wingbuds were tingling, too, in a way that was both exciting and uncomfortable. He wished he could go run through the savanna, under the stars, just breathing air that wasn’t thick and hot and overly stuffed with oranges.
He scrambled down to the central floor of the cavern and made his way to the spot under the staircase ledge, where he’d found the hole earlier that day. He guessed it was close to the middle of the night. Only two guards were on the stairs and the regular SilkWing workers were gone, to a cramped apartment home in one of the warehouses, according to Admiral. Most of the flamesilks were asleep. Danaid, Admiral, and Fritillary were the only ones awake, pouring silk into their cauldrons.
Blue could feel Danaid’s eyes on him as he poked through the rocks. He was out of sight of the staircase guards here, but the ones up above the glass could still see him. He glanced up to confirm this, and the glow of at least six pairs of eyes stared back.
So even if he could chisel through the wall, he’d never get a chance to. There was no way to do anything surreptitious in here.
He found the hole again and slipped his claws through, reaching for that feeling of freedom. The dark open space on the other side that might lead anywhere … to the outside world … to the sky and all its stars …
On the other side of the wall, unseen, something slipped gently between his claws and squeezed.
Blue came this close to screaming his head off. But at the same moment, he heard someone whisper, “Shhhhhhh.” He bit down hard on his tongue and froze.
“Blue,” the voice whispered.
He tilted his head closer to the wall. “Cricket?”
“Shhh. Yes. It’s me.”
“And me!” someone else whispered fiercely.
“Is Luna all right?” whispered a third voice — Swordtail.
“She’s amazing,” Blue said softly. “I can’t believe you’re all —”
“Blue, don’t talk,” Cricket interrupted. “They’re watching you very closely. It’s suspicious enough that you’re over here with your arm in a hole; if you keep talking to the wall, someone’s going to investigate.” She squeezed his claws again and let go.
Reluctantly he pulled his talon back, although it felt emptier than ever now, as though it had found its missing half and now it had to be alone again. He wanted to reach for her once more, to be sure she was real and really there and really alive. But he could see how that might look a bit strange. Danaid was pretending to look at her wrists, but she was leaning so far toward him that she was in danger of toppling out of her nest. The eyes up above stared and stared. He wasn’t sure they ever blinked. Was that a HiveWing power some guards had? No need for eyelids?
He sat down and started building a small pyramid of pebbles, trying to look harmless. That was something he was usually pretty good at.
“The LeafWings were trying to build a tunnel,” Cricket said softly. “To get into the Hive from below. That’s how they found this place, by accident, as they were digging underneath. Did you find your father? Sorry, I know you can’t answer. But Luna came out of her cocoon? Are there a lot of flamesilks down here? Oh, you can’t answer that either. I can’t believe how big this cave is.”
Not big enough, if you’re trapped in it for your entire life, Blue thought. He thought he should be more horrified by the idea of LeafWings tunneling into the Hives. Six days ago, the image of LeafWings suddenly bursting out of the ground inside his city would have been the most terrifying thing he could possibly imagine.
But he’d met a few other more terrifying things since then.
“Listen,” Sundew hissed. “Cricket wants to get you out of there.”
“I do, too!” Swordtail chimed in.
“Right, but I don’t care what he thinks,” Sundew clarified. “Cricket nearly died with me, though, so I kind of feel like I owe you guys one. My parents have more important things to do … but I might be able to come up with a plan. Can you be ready tomorrow night?”
Blue’s heart sank. He shook his head and shifted himself around the rock pyramid, pretending to reach for another stone, but really angling so whoever was peering through the hole could see his wingbuds.
He heard Cricket let out a soft gasp. “He’s about to go into Metamorphosis,” she whispered to Sundew. “We have to get him out now. Tonight.”
“Oh, rotten bark beetles,” Sundew grumbled. “Fine. I’ll do it the messy way. Blue, can you see a crack in the wall, near the bottom, that arches around in a half circle?”
Blue glanced casually at the wall. He spotted what she meant immediately — it looked like a sun setting.
“Can you and Luna fit through there, if I can knock out the chunk of rock underneath the crack?”
He thought so, although he hadn’t spent enough time with Luna’s wings yet to be sure how big they were. He was a little more worried about how to fit Admiral through, but his father was quite skinny. He’d just have to squish.
Blue gave a very slight nod, scattering his pebbles as though he’d gotten frustrated with his construction.
“Great. Go get her, and everyone be ready to run.”
“Good luck, Blue,” Cricket whispered.
“Tell Luna I’m here!” Swordtail interjected. “Very heroically!”
“You sat around in a greenhouse and then followed me into a tunnel,” Sundew observed. “I’m not sure you qualify for a statue in your honor just yet.”
“Shhh.” Cricket scolded both o
f them.
Blue picked up a pebble and pretended to peer at it closely, then set it down and headed back over to Luna.
“Everything all right?” Danaid asked as he went by. She leaned her elbows on the edge of her nest, watching him with wide-eyed interest.
“Oh, yes,” Blue said. “Just some pretty rocks I think my sister would like.”
“You will introduce her to me, won’t you?” Danaid said, and her voice was an odd mixture of pushy and wistful. “No matter what your dad says?”
“Of course,” Blue said, feeling guilty. He couldn’t stay here just to keep these lonely flamesilks company, but he was sorry that escaping with Luna meant abandoning them to their endless quarrels.
Is there any way to bring them along? Could they come with us?
He didn’t know how to alert the other flamesilks without attracting the attention of the guards. And given what he knew about them so far, he was afraid even the idea of an escape plan would somehow trigger a screaming match that would give everything away.
He hurried back to Luna, worrying over the problem in his head. Rescuing her was everything; it was the whole reason he’d broken so many rules and gotten in so much trouble. It was the most important thing, getting her out of here.
But he wished there was a way to rescue all of them.
Luna sat up as he approached, and her eyes gleamed when she saw the expression on his face. She’d always been able to read him, ever since they first hatched.
“You’ve found a way out,” she whispered excitedly.
“Our friends are here,” he whispered back.
“Then let’s go!” She jumped to her feet and looked up at Admiral.
“Hmm?” he said, blinking down at them. “I was just composing another letter in my head. To thank the queen for bringing you here, of course. My letters can’t all be complaints, you know! Ho, no, that wouldn’t do. I must also show my gratitude when she is so generous with us. My thank-you letter in regards to the tangerines was a work of art.” He shot a regretful look at the pile of ashes, as though wondering how many more masterpieces had been lost to Luna’s flamesilk.