“I don’t know,” he said. It was splendid having her wings over him, like being hugged by the sun, although actually it would probably be terrible to be hugged by the sun; this was much cooler. What was he talking about? Oh, right: the worst day ever. “One moment it was a normal Metamorphosis Day, and then suddenly Luna was on fire and Swordtail was attacking guards and Io was carrying me and I don’t even — I mean, I would never disobey a HiveWing — it all just happened so fast and I was so scared.” Were the books blurrier from this angle? Or were his eyes losing focus?
“It’s your Metamorphosis Day?” Cricket said. She tipped her head at his wingbuds but politely didn’t touch them. (A polite HiveWing? How did she get so weird and perfect?) “Are you sure? They don’t look ready yet.” She picked up one of his talons and examined his wrist scales.
“No, no,” Blue said. “It’s Luna’s Metamorphosis Day. My sister.”
“The one on fire,” Cricket said. “Is she all right? Why was she on fire? Lightning? I think I’d have noticed lightning striking the Hive today. How would fire even get into —” She stopped suddenly, staring at him with her mouth open.
“Did you get frozen?” he said in a panic. “Are you being mind-controlled right now?”
“Your sister’s a flamesilk?” she whispered in her own voice. “A real one? That’s amazing!”
“It is? You — you know about those?” He tried to get to his feet, discovered that his knees had chosen an entirely different life goal, staggered a little sideways, and fell into her.
“Uh-oh,” Cricket said, wrapping her wings around him. “Let me see your wristband.”
He could barely move his arm over to where she could catch it. She tugged on his wristband, trying to slide a claw underneath it, but it was heavy and snug.
“Why is my —” he tried to say, but apparently words were too hard. Really it was just unreasonable to expect entire word sentence groups arranged in order.
“Shhh,” she said, helping him lie down on his back. “Don’t be scared, but there might be a toxin in your wristband. I read a study about the idea once, but I didn’t think they’d implemented it yet. Did you feel anything? Like a needle poking you, kind of? I bet they rigged it to inject you if they ever couldn’t find you.”
“Whyyyy,” he mumbled. He wanted to ask if it was going to kill him; he thought he should probably be worried if he was about to die. But it would be much easier to close his eyes, wouldn’t it? And stop thinking about it? It would be much easier to think about how sparkly Cricket’s glasses were. And how they made her face all interesting, as though there were lots of unexpected angles and layers to it, like a prism. Prism. Words were funny.
“They’re hoping you’ll flop over somewhere and be easy to catch,” she said, wiggling a folded piece of paper between his wristband and his scales. “Joke’s on them, though, because you’ve got me to hide you.” The paper caught on something hidden, tearing a little gash in his skin, and he yelped with startled pain.
“I’m sorry.” Cricket cupped his face in her talons and caught his eyes with hers, like her gaze was amber and he was safe inside of it. “Don’t conk out. We might have to go back into the tunnels if they start searching the school.”
“Can’t … move … ” he slurred.
“I’m going to take off your wrist cuff,” she said. “Is that all right? Blue, can you hear me? Blink if that’s all right with you.”
“No way,” he managed around his numb tongue. “I’ll be in … so much trouble.”
“Oh, beautiful dragon,” she said sympathetically. “Don’t you know how much trouble you’re already in?”
He closed his eyes. Something wet was leaking out of them. Apparently the toxin had affected his tear ducts, too.
Cricket scrambled up and disappeared from his side. He opened his eyes again, afraid that she’d be gone completely, but she was only across the library, carefully unscrewing one of the lamps from the wall, with a dust rag wrapped around her claws to protect them from the heat. Soon she had uncovered a small, glowing glass ball from inside the globe of the lamp. It shone bright enough to make Blue’s eyes hurt. She folded the cloth over the ball and carried it to the librarian’s desk, where she cleared away the books and papers, then set down a metal plate from a side drawer.
“Whrm?” Blue mumbled.
“Don’t worry, I’ve done this before,” she said. “I mean … never anywhere quite so … flammable. But I’m sure it’ll be fine.” She dug through the rest of the drawers until she found something that looked like a long, thin pair of tweezers. Blue had seen tools like that before; he’d even used them a few times, to untangle particularly messy snarls of silk.
Cricket took a deep breath, unwrapped the ball, and caught it between the tweezers, setting it down on the metal plate. She threw the rag into a far corner, still holding the ball steady, and then picked up a marble paperweight shaped like a coiled python.
She moved so confidently and efficiently that it didn’t occur to Blue to be afraid — until the last moment, when she looked up at the ceiling and whispered, “Please help me not set the library on fire, Clearsight.” He couldn’t have stopped her anyway, as she brought the pale gray snake smashing down on the light ball.
Glass splintered across the desk and a powerful burnt-metal smell filled the air, but Cricket pounced forward with the tweezers and lifted something up.
It looked like a filament of silk, as long as one of Blue’s claws, but alight with fire from end to end.
That was the source of light in all the lamps in the Hive. Flamesilk.
How had he never known that before? He’d never even wondered how the lamps worked. He’d assumed it was a HiveWing skill. If he’d had to guess, he would have imagined that perhaps some of them could create fire, like the dragons from the old stories who’d once lived across the sea.
Scarcely breathing, Cricket eased across the room toward him, holding the flamesilk thread in the tweezers.
Could she really set the whole library on fire with that little thing? he wondered. If so … she’s taking a big risk for me.
She crouched beside him and lifted his left arm gently in her free claws.
“Don’t move,” she said. “I mean, I know you can’t, but really don’t.” With infinite caution, she traced the flamesilk across his wrist cuff. It seared a smoking black line in the bronze, right across the w in Silkworm Hall.
Hawker is going to kill me, Blue thought deliriously. When I get to the checkpoint, he’s going to make that very stern frowny face and tut-tut and check his list and grumble about paperwork and then stab me with his spear thingy.
Cricket traced the line again and then again with the flamesilk thread, burning it a little deeper each time. The smell of blacksmiths and melting chains filled the room, swamping the scent of old paper.
And then, a few careful passes later, the metal gave way and fell off his wrist, brushing against his scales and leaving a small scorch mark that hurt like a viper bite. Blue bit back a whimper.
“Oh, shoot,” Cricket said. She jumped up and ran back to the librarian’s desk, grabbed a small watering can, and poured water from it over his burn. Then she dropped the flamesilk thread into the water that was left in the can. A sizzling, hissing sound and a cloud of steam billowed out of the top of it.
Blue’s arm felt as though it was floating … like maybe it would drift right up to the roof and bump around between the books on the top shelves. He felt untethered from the earth, a feeling that was tangled up with how close he was to Cricket and how she maybe had superpowers or at least the absolute very best brain in the world.
Cricket laughed. “I don’t know about that,” she said, and he realized that he must have said something out loud. “My teachers seem to think my brain is terribly annoying.”
“I like it,” Blue said. Everything still felt blurry, but his mouth was working a little better, or at least, words were coming out of it in order, even though those words didn
’t seem to be waiting for approval from the rest of him. He managed to sit up and smile at her. “It’s my new favorite brain.”
And then the world kind of tipped sideways and went dark, and Blue slipped quietly into the nothing.
Blue had the impression that he should wake up. That it might be a good idea. That the reason it was a good idea might have something to do with how wherever he was sleeping wasn’t swaying in the breeze, the way it was supposed to. This web hammock he’d fallen asleep in was weirdly still and hard underneath him.
And there was someone shaking his shoulder. Someone whose wings brushed his face sometimes. Mother? Mother never smelled like books and apples, the way this dragon did.
“Are you awake?” the dragon whispered. “Blue? If you’re not, could you be? Please? Now-ish?”
“Yrmrft,” Blue said, which was odd, because he’d been trying to say “You bet,” but apparently “yrmrft” was good enough for the dragon with all the questions, because she started trying to nudge him up to his feet.
Oh, questions — it’s Cricket.
“What are you smiling about?” she said curiously. “I hope that’s a good sign. Do you think you could smile and stand up at the same time? I would love to let you sleep more, but I think we really need to move.” She froze for a moment, with him leaning heavily against her shoulder.
Now the library was coming into focus around him. The glow of the lamps, the rows and rows of books, the sound of tramping talons from the hallway outside.
Um. The what?
He pointed at the door in alarm and she nodded. “That’s why I woke you,” she whispered. “Quick, into the tunnels.” She bundled him under the table and through the trapdoor. His arms felt all wobbly and his tail seemed to be entirely in the way, but he somehow managed to crawl into the dark space beyond. He dragged himself forward so Cricket could scrunch in behind him.
The glow from the library lamps vanished as Cricket pulled the trapdoor shut. Blue started to retreat farther into the shadows, but she caught his nearest talon and put one claw to her mouth in warning.
Blue froze, and in that instant he heard the library door slam open. Three sets of talons thundered in, shaking the room so that a couple of books toppled off tall shelves and a small cloud of book dust wafted through the cracks in the trapdoor. He twisted his neck to peek over Cricket’s shoulder. In the glimpses he could see as they moved around, the HiveWings’ eyes were blank white pearls.
So the queen was still mind-controlling them. He wondered how long he’d been unconscious. He wondered how long she could keep it up. He wondered if she planned to keep them all as her zombies until she found him, no matter how long that took.
And then his heart stopped in his chest as he remembered the wrist cuff Cricket had burned off him. He couldn’t see it from his angle, but wasn’t it still lying out there on the floor? Wouldn’t they see it and know immediately that he’d been here?
But several agonizing moments passed and the searching dragons didn’t cry out or roar for backup or hiss in triumph. They moved mechanically, soundlessly, through the room, checking every obvious hiding spot. One crouched down to look under the table, and Blue closed his eyes in fright, not daring to breathe. But the trapdoor must have looked like part of the wall, because the HiveWing — jet-black with flecks of red along his ears, wings, and claws — only grunted and moved on.
Cricket twitched suddenly, as if startled, and Blue realized he was leaning against her side, their tails entangled, their talons touching. He had been too terrified to notice, and he was afraid that pulling away would make a noise the searchers might hear. He checked her face, or what little of it he could see in the tiny bars of light. She had her gaze fixed on one of the HiveWings, a yellow-orange dragon freckled all over with black spots, but he couldn’t quite interpret her expression. Dismay? Regret? Anger?
What is she feeling? he wondered. Hiding from her own tribe, in the dark with a stranger, risking her queen’s wrath to help a SilkWing.
He wondered about the HiveWings out there, too. Their sweet family evening of slides and seesaws and zebra meat snacks had abruptly turned into a dragon hunt. Everything they’d been planning to do tonight had been ripped out from under them. They didn’t even know where their own dragonets were because, right now, finding Blue was all they cared about. The giggling little dragonets had gone from playing tag to prowling the shadows of the Hive with snarling teeth, every scale ready to attack.
How could they all go back home after this, back to family dinners and wing aerodynamics homework, knowing that someone could take over their minds and change their whole lives at any moment?
The three HiveWings touched their foreheads with one talon, all at the same time with exact mirrored movements. “Nothing in the library,” they said in unison. A ripple of fury crossed each of their faces simultaneously. “He must be here somewhere. Keep looking.”
They marched out the door, but Blue could hear their talonsteps in the corridor for a long time after they were out of sight. Cricket opened her mouth to say something, and this time he was the one to shush her. His antennae unfurled softly, feeling the vibrations in the air. Now that he was calmer and more awake, he could sense at least twenty other dragons searching the school.
He could also feel Cricket’s heart beating, very close to his and almost as fast.
Don’t be scared, he tried to think to her. There was no reason not to be; if they were caught, he was sure she’d be in awful trouble. But he’d do everything he could to keep her out of it. He’d let them catch him first.
He reached out carefully through the dark and took one of her talons, pressing it to his own heart.
I’m so glad you’re here with me.
She looked up at him, small cracks of light dappling her face in gold and shadow, and he felt her pulse jump to match his.
Oh, this is the thing that’s forbidden, Blue realized. This feeling. Looking at a HiveWing like this. Her looking back.
If they could be in more trouble than they already were, this was how.
But maybe that wasn’t what she was feeling. Maybe he was still woozy from the toxin and confused by his life being upended. Maybe he was just imagining the flutter in their twining heartbeats.
His antennae twitched quietly, following the vibrations of dragons moving away from this section of the school.
“I think they’ve all gone upstairs,” he whispered. “Is there an upstairs?”
“Yes. How can you tell where they are?” she whispered back. “Your antennae?”
He nodded.
“I found some old biology books that said HiveWings used to have antennae, too,” she said softly. “But when I asked my science teacher about it, he said not to be impertinent, and then the books disappeared from the library.” She sighed. “Everything interesting is off-limits. Why can’t we study our own evolution? Don’t you want to know what the tribes were like two thousand years ago, when Clearsight arrived?”
“I never thought about it,” he admitted. But she was right — if HiveWings were all descendants of Clearsight, what had they been like before she came to Pantala?
They stayed there, quietly, in the dark, with their talons and tails entwined, for a long time as the sounds of the search tramped above them, around them, in and out and along the halls and every room of the enormous school. Blue felt the jarring thumps of tables being overturned, the rattling clatter of closets being emptied, all their contents clawed out and thrown on the floor. He felt tremendously sorry for whoever had to clean up all this tomorrow. He guessed Queen Wasp wouldn’t helpfully brainwash them into doing that.
At last all the vibrations faded, and Blue tested the air until he was sure the school was empty again.
“They’re all gone,” he whispered.
“That’s a pretty cool superpower,” she said, smiling at his antennae as they curled back in.
“Not quite as cool as knowing everything about everything,” he said.
&
nbsp; She blinked. “Are you talking about me? I hardly know anything! There’s so MUCH I don’t know! I mean, yet. One day I will, I hope. I’m working on it.” She wrinkled her snout as though the existence of unanswered questions was one of the greatest trials of her life. “Like how Queen Wasp’s mind control works. I really want to know that.”
“Do you wish —” He hesitated, then plunged into his question. “Do you wish you were like the other HiveWings? If you could make yourself, um, mind-controllable, would you?”
“No!” she said, her wings brushing his sides as they flared out and hit the walls of the tunnel. “Would you? Who would? No, I’d fix it so it didn’t work on anyone, if I could. That’s what you would do, too, isn’t it? At the very least I’d fix Katydid.”
“Oh,” he said. “Was that your sister? The yellow one with the black spots you were watching?”
She exhaled. “Yes. She’s my sister and my best friend. She normally looks much … kinder … than that.”
“It must be awful,” Blue said, studying her face. “Seeing someone you love transformed. Like her brain and soul were stolen. She looks like her, but she’s not, and you don’t know what she might do or how she might treat you, but you know you can’t reach her.”
Cricket tilted her head at him. “That’s right,” she said. “That’s exactly what it’s like. Katydid says it’s fine and she doesn’t mind, since it happens so rarely … but she can’t see herself all creepy-eyed. She doesn’t know what it feels like for me to have to hide from her.” She shivered slightly and Blue realized he was still holding her talon. He let go of it reluctantly.
“I hope you do find a way to save her,” he said. “And all of them.”
“I know the grunting one who checked under the table, too,” Cricket said quickly, as though she was trying to change the subject so she wouldn’t cry. “His name’s Bombardier. But he’s awful, so there’s not much difference between regular him and brain-dead him. He thinks I’m in love with him, if you’ve ever wondered what the most enormous arrogance looks like. I guess I’d still save him, but maybe, like, last.”