Swordtail had promised Blue that he wouldn’t remember a thing about the trance time. But Blue found that almost scarier: the idea that he’d be unconscious to the world for that long, and then he’d come out looking totally different. (“Not totally different,” Swordtail insisted. “I still look like me, don’t I?” Which he sort of did, except that the wings made him look quite a bit bigger and more dramatic.)
The third dragonet was eyeing Luna’s wrists with concern and taking small, sidling steps away from her. Whispers were gusting through the watching SilkWings, like the sweeping winds that shook their webs before the storms of the rainy season. There were even more guards now — at least seven of them, most standing unsettlingly close to Luna and pretending not to watch her, while their eyes darted constantly from her to the balcony to the pool to the others and back to her.
Luna held out her front talons, and the whole world seemed to hold its breath for a moment.
Then suddenly she let out a sharp cry and silk began to spiral out of her wrists.
But it wasn’t normal gray silk. Luna’s silk flared like threads of lava erupting from under her scales. It hissed as it hit the air, lighting up the room with sudden bright-star brilliance. It was like the fire of the sun twisted into filaments that snaked back to clutch at Luna’s talons, her legs, her whole body.
“Oh no,” Io whispered. She looked at Swordtail, whose face was transfixed with horror.
“Flamesilk,” he breathed.
“What’s flamesilk?” Blue asked frantically as the guards advanced toward his sister. He shook Swordtail with trembling talons. “What’s happening? What’s wrong with Luna?”
The third dragonet down below bolted for the far side of the dome and tried to scramble up one of the side walls, away from the guards and the burning light. Luna shrieked with fear and leaped away from the fiery silk spilling out of her, but there was nowhere to go. It clung to her like a real cocoon would, winding around her talons and legs even as she tried to claw it away.
“Is it burning her?” Blue cried. He turned to Io, his voice high and desperate. “Io, is she all right? What is flamesilk?”
“It won’t hurt her,” his mother said, but her voice was as sad and soft as the splash of a silk-wrapped corpse slipping into the bay.
“Did you know?” Io asked Burnet fiercely over Blue’s head.
“Silverspot and I suspected,” Burnet answered. “Their father didn’t say anything, and you couldn’t tell by looking at him … but he was watched so carefully and taken away so quickly, we knew there had to be something.”
“You could have warned us,” Io hissed. “We could have hidden her!”
Burnet shook her head.
Luna let out another, fainter cry, collapsing forward with her eyes closed. The flamesilk spun on and on, and everywhere it touched her she went still, as though it was tranquilizing her.
“Everybody, please remain calm,” one of the HiveWings said smoothly, spreading his wings to address the horrified audience of SilkWings. “We are well prepared for SilkWing diseases like this. Everything is under control.”
“Diseases?” Blue echoed in a choked whisper. Io scowled.
His sister wouldn’t be left to transform quietly on the floor of the Cocoon, like the other two small silken bundles beside her. Already she was surrounded by all the guards, spears lifted, swords and claws and tail spikes all pointed at her as though her flamesilk cocoon might sprout fiery wings and try to escape.
And a dark metal cart was rattling through the door, yawning mouth ready to swallow her up.
“Luna!” Swordtail shouted, shaken out of his horror by the sight of the cart. He vaulted over the balcony railing and plummeted to the floor below, with barely enough time to spread his wings to break his fall. His legs were already moving as he landed, galloping across the floor toward the guards.
“What do we do?” Blue asked Io and Burnet. Should they all jump down and try to save Luna? But there were so many guards — and maybe they were trying to help her. They did say they were prepared, so they’d seen this before — maybe they could take her somewhere to cure her? Maybe they could fix her silk and make it normal …
“You run,” Io said. She dragged Blue away from the railing and shoved him at the stairs.
“Me?” Blue said, astonished.
“He can’t escape,” Burnet argued tiredly, following Io. “There’s nowhere he can go. It would be safer for him to turn himself in.”
“No way!” Io cried. “We can’t just let them take him!”
“Why would they take me?” Blue yelped in alarm. His talons scrabbled on the stone floor as Io pushed him forward again. “I didn’t do anything! I’m not sick!”
“Neither is Luna,” Io pointed out. She herded him along in front of her, talking fast as they stumbled down the steps. “Flamesilk is something you hatch with. She must have inherited it from your father, which means you have it, too. Which means they’ll come for you next.”
“But why?” he said. One of his claws snagged painfully on the carpet. He paused to unhook it, looked back up the stairs, and saw his mother watching him go with a bleak expression. Watching, but not following. She’d already given up. “What are they going to do with Luna?”
“We don’t know,” Io said. “We’ve never been able to find out. Flamesilks are very rare, and the HiveWings make them vanish immediately.”
“Vanish?” Blue echoed. “Like … forever?” His insides felt as if they’d all leaped off the top of the Hive and were currently plummeting toward the distant ground.
“Do you see why you have to run?” Io pushed open the door at the bottom of the stairs and looked out. “All clear. Quick, while they’re busy with Luna and Swordtail.”
Blue dug in his claws as she tried to throw him out the door. “Wait, wait! Run where?” he pleaded.
“Anywhere!” she said. “Run, hide, and don’t let them find you!”
“But I’ll get in trouble!” he said. “I can’t hide from the HiveWings! Mother’s right; if they want me, I should turn myself in. They won’t hurt me.” His voice wavered, thinking of flamesilks vanishing forever, disappeared so thoroughly that he’d never even heard of them. “M-Maybe they can fix me so I w-won’t have flamesilk.”
Io groaned softly. “Why did it have to be you?” she said. “The one SilkWing who thinks HiveWings have any good in them? Listen, Blue. Stop trusting them right now. They’ve let you go about your ordinary life so far, but now you look dangerous to them, and they’re not going to let you have that life back. It’s gone.”
“But it doesn’t have to be,” Blue protested. “If I’m good, if I do what I’m told — I mean, I’m not dangerous. I could never be dangerous.”
“I know,” Io said, rubbing the spot on her forehead between her horns. “Unfortunately, I think that’s true.” She took his shoulders and shook him. “But they don’t care. Please promise me you’ll hide from them, Blue. Don’t let them catch you.”
“For how long?” Blue said. “Where can I go? What about my Metamorphosis? It’s really soon and then I’ll have to come back here.”
Io sighed. “Let’s hide you first and then figure that out,” she said. She shoved open the door, flung him outside, and bolted after him. Blue found himself running even though his brain was shouting at him to go back, to ask the guards for help, to make sure Luna was all right.
Was she still terrified? Or had the silk entranced her, taking her into peaceful darkness even as chaos swarmed outside her cocoon? What had the guards done to Swordtail? He could never fight so many; a SilkWing didn’t stand a chance against even one HiveWing. Was he lying beside Luna on the sand now, bleeding and swollen with venom?
Blue shuddered, his claws wobbling underneath him.
They had just reached the edge of the outer courtyard when he heard shouts behind them. “Stop! You there! SilkWings! Stop at once!”
His feet obeyed instinctively. Guards were talking to him; guards were to b
e listened to. You never argued with HiveWing guards, or else you’d get sprayed or stabbed with something; everyone knew that.
But Io didn’t stop. Io threw her talons around his chest and hurled up into the air, her spectacular wings pumping desperately.
“Io!” Blue yelped with fear as his claws left the ground. Suddenly they were flying along the narrow streets, flashes of startled faces peering out of windows at them. The indigo whirl of Io’s wings beat around Blue’s head and he covered his eyes.
“Stop! Queen Wasp orders you to stop at once!”
Where did Io think they were going? There was nowhere in the Hives where Queen Wasp wouldn’t find them. Nobody ran from the queen’s guards. And she would surely kill them both for disobeying her orders.
Io let out a small roar of frustration, and Blue peeked through his claws. They were nearly at the exit that led to the tunnels spiraling up — but guards were closing rank in front of it, spears crossed, teeth gleaming.
That’s the only exit, Blue thought frantically. There weren’t even any windows or ledges to the open sky on this level of the Hive.
Oh, he realized with a fresh burst of terror. That’s probably intentional.
So there’s no way for a flamesilk to escape.
Io whirled in the air and shot down one of the avenues toward the training center. Which, frankly, seemed like a poorly thought-out plan: Blue could see a small army of eager-looking HiveWing trainees swarming out of the front gate. Yellow-striped wings flicked and buzzed; sharp white teeth snapped at the air as the dragons spread out to search the streets. For us. They’re searching for us.
But then Io banked suddenly left and up — up through the open courtyard toward the higher Hive levels. Blue yelped again as the ground dropped even farther away, and then really wished he hadn’t even thought the word dropped.
Shouts of fury rose from below, followed by the sound of buzzing, beating wings as all the guards and soldiers took to the air.
We’re going to die, Blue thought. There’s so many of them, and they have — wait — why aren’t they shooting at us?
He knew some of the HiveWings behind them had dart weapons and spears. So why hadn’t they thrown them?
Dragons on the surrounding levels rushed to the edge of the ledges to watch the chase. Blue had never had this many eyes on him before. What do they see? What do they think? Does anyone want to help? Or are they all hoping we’ll be caught and it’ll be exciting to watch?
Suddenly, Io was jerked backward and Blue felt himself slip through her talons for just a moment, until she dug her claws in (ouch!) and gave a mighty heave of her wings, kicking backward at the HiveWing who’d grabbed her tail.
They struggled in the air, Blue dangling between them, and then Io swept her wings in a huge arc and threw Blue up toward the highest open level.
“YAAAAAAAAAAH!” Blue screamed. He flung out his claws and felt them catch in the rough treestuff walls. His body slammed into the side with a bone-jarring thump and he dug in his back talons desperately.
“Up!” Io shouted to him as she swung her attacker like a club, smashing other HiveWings away. “Climb, Blue! Go!”
He tried to imagine he was out on the webs, having a perfectly normal climb with lots and lots and lots of secure webs below to catch him. He pushed himself up, and up again, and in a moment he felt the ledge above. He clutched at it, his wingbuds churning as though they could help.
Two faces peered down at him — SilkWings, ones he didn’t know. But he could guess what they were thinking: Should we help this wingless dragonet? Will the HiveWings punish us if we do? What has he done to make the guards chase him? He must be a very bad dragon to be running from the guards … but if we let him fall, he’ll die …
Talons reached down and circled his wrists; strong arms pulled him up to safety. He sprawled on the treestuff, gasping more from fear than exhaustion. This was a residential level, full of HiveWing homes a bit smaller than the one where Silverspot worked, and he’d landed in their school’s practice vegetable garden. All around him were garden boxes full of dirt and little tendrils of maybe-one-day-I’ll-be-a-plant, labeled with optimistic scrawls on flat wooden sticks.
The two SilkWings, watching him with confusion, were the only dragons nearby, but he could see HiveWings running toward him along the streets and others spreading their wings on the far side of the city.
“Io,” he panted, scrambling up. “Is she —”
“Are you all right?” asked the gray-blue SilkWing with speckles of yellow across her scales.
“What’s —” began the other, but he broke off as Io landed on the ledge behind Blue.
“The seeds will grow again,” Io said to them. She shoved Blue forward without waiting for a response, but he saw a look of recognition cross their faces.
“What?” he said to her as they plunged down the nearest empty street. He glanced back and saw the SilkWings casually blocking the road behind them, their wings spread wide as they started arguing about something.
“There are SilkWings who will help you,” Io said rapidly, “if you can find them. A group called the Chrysalis.”
The houses they ran past were narrow but elegant, made of treestuff that flowed straight into the street below and into the roof above them, as though they had grown with the Hive. Most of them had intricate patterns of seashells or glass tiles embedded in their outer walls, spirals of pearl-pink-coral or zigzagging diamonds of aquamarine. Streetlamps that hung from the ceiling above cast a warm glow over everything, deceptively calm and cozy, like a shroud of silk around a wasp nest.
“The Chrysalis — what — why don’t I know about them?” Blue asked, breathing hard. He’d never run this much for this long in his life. His sides ached and his talons hurt and his eyes were blurry and his heart felt like a beehive about to explode.
Io snorted. “Because every time someone says to you, ‘Hey, wasn’t that mean what that HiveWing did?’ you say, ‘Oh, maybe she’s tired or frustrated with work or just lost something important or is having a fight with her sister,’ and then it’s kind of hard to follow up with ‘Well, so, care to join a movement to take her down?’”
“A movement?” Blue sputtered. “To take who down?”
The street abruptly ended, spilling them out into a HiveWing park — or at least, it looked a bit like a park, but without any grass or flowers. Instead the vast circle was full of playground structures carved from real wood, dark and smooth, like the abandoned bones of ancient trees. Many of them arched all the way to the roof, which was probably a lot of fun if you were a dragonet with wings and a chance of surviving a fall from that height. A HiveWing school, shinier and much bigger than Silkworm Hall, loomed along one side of the park, and in the center of the circle was a pool of water lined with silver-bright mirror tiles.
On the far side of the park, Blue caught a glimpse of slanting sunset light through one of the openings where dragons could fly in and out of the Hive. Out that window were the savanna and the open sky.
But how could they get there? The park was full of HiveWings: dragonets playing, parents gathering water from the pool, guards and families and teachers who’d finished school for the day, all strolling the paths, filling the space between here and escape.
He’d wondered why the houses they ran past seemed to be empty. Apparently this park was the place where the entire neighborhood gathered at the end of the day.
“Duck your head,” Io said. “Pretend to be a servant. Walk quickly but not too fast.” She folded her wings in close and darted out onto one of the more crowded pathways, weaving between dragons. With her head bowed submissively, she blended in with the other SilkWing servants Blue could see here and there, many of them carrying heavy water jugs or keeping an eye on young dragonets while HiveWing parents chatted with each other.
This is never going to work, Blue thought as he ducked his head and followed her.
And yet, for a moment, it seemed as if it might. The HiveWi
ngs barely glanced at two more lowly SilkWings. They were so busy with one another, it was as though the SilkWings didn’t exist. Many of them were watching a group of young dragonets leap from a climbing structure, their tiny wings pumping to help them drift down. One little black-and-orange dragonet crashed into Blue as she ran across to her friends, but she just yelped, “Oops! Sorry!” and kept going.
It looked like a nice place to live — perhaps not as huge and impressive as the higher level where Silverspot’s mistress had her mansion, but a place where families were friends with one another. These dragons made one another laugh, worked hard, cared about their dragonets. They were happy to be safe. They weren’t so different from Blue and his family.
Surely they wouldn’t let him be dragged away by guards to … whatever happened to flamesilks. Did they even know about flamesilks?
Behind him he heard clanking and running talonsteps. He tried to duck his head even farther, following Io around a tall, fortlike playhouse where three HiveWing dragonets passed pretend honey tea out the windows.
The open air wasn’t too far away now. In a moment Io could swoop him off into the grassland. HiveWings didn’t like going out too far into the savanna, so they should be able to find somewhere to hide out there. And then Io could explain everything to him and they could figure out a safe way to make this right.
They were passing behind a cluster of tiny dragonets in a sandbox when the silence fell.
It fell so suddenly, like a wall of nothingness, that Blue found himself pausing to touch his ears in bewilderment.
Why did everyone stop … talking …
He glanced around uneasily. They hadn’t just stopped talking; every HiveWing in sight was frozen, right in the middle of whatever they’d been doing. The dragonet halfway up the climbing structure had one claw raised; the twins in the sandbox were scowling at each other, mouths open, but no sound coming out.
Io slowed to a stop in front of him, spreading her wings slightly to keep him back. Her gaze nervously darted around at the silent dragons. Blue realized that the other SilkWings in the park were looking around, too, many of them just as bewildered.