“Is it now?” Cricket asked. “Is it happening? Is that a sign? What does that mean?”

“If you don’t turn off your beehive brain, I’m going to stick a sleepflower up your snout,” Sundew said crossly. “Nothing is happening! It’s looked exactly like that all day!” She scowled down at the pouch she’d been trying to mend with a strand of Swordtail’s silk.

“No, it hasn’t!” Cricket protested, circling Blue’s cocoon. “Look, this end is kind of bulging and crinkling. Like it’s about to split open! Right, Swordtail? Don’t you think so?”

“Sure,” he said sleepily, without lifting his head or opening his eyes. She knew he’d spent the last four days flying and searching and scouring every island in Dragonfly Bay, snatching sleep only in brief moments back in the cave. And she knew that not finding Luna was a huge disappointment and they should be very worried and making grave faces and muttering ominously.

But seriously! Blue was about to come out of his cocoon! This was an extremely momentous occasion, mostly because she’d get to see his wonderful face again, but also a little bit because she’d finally get to leave this cave!

“Hey, Blue,” she said to the shimmering blue-purple shape beneath the silk. “Can you hear me? We’re here. We can’t wait to see your wings! I have so many questions. What is it like in there? Do you remember any of it? Is it like a really long sleep? How do your wings feel?”

“FOR THE LOVE OF TREES,” Sundew growled. “All right. I was afraid to share this, because I know you’re going to freak out, but if you promise to be quiet until Blue comes out, I’ll tell you about how I saw one of your reading monkeys this morning.”

“WHAT?” Cricket nearly flew through the ceiling. “You did? Sundew! Really truly? And you’re just telling me this now?!” She’d been so quiet and careful every time she crept around the caves, hoping to run into one of the tiny creatures. She couldn’t believe it was Sundew who’d seen one instead!

“Yes, because of that,” Sundew said, pointing at her. “That face you’re making, as if I found a staircase to the moons instead of just another weird animal. Calm down, or I won’t tell it.”

“I’m calm!” Cricket said. She realized she was bouncing on her front talons and forced herself to sit on her tail and stay still. “SO TOTALLY CALM.”

“I already regret this,” Sundew said. “All right. But NO QUESTIONS.”

Cricket clamped her talons over her snout and nodded. Sundew threw the torn leaf pouch across the cave and picked up a bundle of berries, which she started sorting as she talked.

“This morning I went down to the cavern where my parents and I first started digging to Wasp Hive,” Sundew started. “I’ve been checking it regularly to make sure the HiveWings didn’t follow our tunnel from the flamesilk cavern. I figured I’d blocked it up pretty well, but safer to be sure.”

“How did you bl — oops, sorry,” Cricket corrected herself quickly at Sundew’s glare.

“Our hole was still completely filled in, but as I scouted the perimeter of the cave, I found another, much smaller hole in the wall. I decided to spy on it for a while in case anything edible came out.”

Cricket wasn’t sure why she had been surprised to discover that LeafWings were carnivores. It fit with the bloodthirsty, violent picture of them that Queen Wasp had painted over the last half century. And yet, in her own heart of hearts, and maybe because of the beautiful drawings of them in the oldest books, she’d somehow imagined a tranquil green tribe sharing sweet potatoes and cranberries across the treetops. So the first time Sundew brought back a pair of headless pigeons and devoured hers in two bites, Cricket had been rather startled. (And vegetarian Swordtail had been openly horrified.)

“Finally,” Sundew went on, “I heard a tip-tap-patter kind of noise. I squinted at the hole and saw a little head poke out. It was just like the one you described from under the savanna — fluffy black fur on its head, scraps of silver silk and gray fur on its body, hairless long brown paws.”

“Perfect for holding books,” Cricket breathed.

“This one didn’t have a book,” Sundew pointed out. “It had a stick with a bit of fire on the end of it.”

“Where did — I mean — um, I wish I knew where that came from!” Cricket said quickly. The one she’d seen had had a fire, too. Did the reading monkeys have access to flamesilk somehow?

“Anyway, it saw me, shrieked like a snake-bit panther, and ran away before I could eat it,” Sundew said grumpily.

“But you wouldn’t have!” Cricket said. “Right? You wouldn’t eat something that can read, right, Sundew?”

“I’m going to need a little more proof they can do that before I start giving up on prey,” Sundew said. “But really I wouldn’t eat something you’re so completely obsessed with because I know I’d never hear the end of it from you.”

“Well, if I have to annoy you into protecting cool new species, then that’s what I have to do,” Cricket said nobly. “It’s so unfair you saw one instead of me! You’re so lucky.”

Sundew rolled her eyes. “That’s me, the luckiest dragon.”

A tearing sound came from the cocoon. Swordtail leaped to his feet and joined Cricket, crouching by the end with the rip in it.

“I was right!” she whispered to him. “I knew it was about to happen! It’s happening! Do you remember your Metamorphosis? Is there anything we should do when he comes out?”

“Just give him some space,” Swordtail said, his wings twitching and his eyes fixed on the shape of claws poking through the silk. “He’ll want to breathe for a moment and then eat something.” He swept the pile of fruit they’d gathered closer with his tail.

Cricket wished she had her notebook. She’d never seen a Metamorphosis before, and the books were always frustratingly vague about SilkWing details. If she could take notes, maybe one day she could write a paper about what it looked like and how it worked and every step of the process …

No. I’ll never get to do that. I’m not going to be a published scientist. There’s no normal HiveWing life ahead for me.

Unless … what if we defeat Queen Wasp? Then what happens?

Could the HiveWings and LeafWings and SilkWings all start living in harmony? Sharing the Hives, planting food, publishing books, going to school together?

Cricket glanced over at Sundew and felt like the weight of one of the moons was settling on her wings.

The LeafWings aren’t going to forgive us. How can we ever move on — as though we didn’t try to wipe out the LeafWings or dominate the SilkWings?

How can they ever trust us, or want to live alongside us again, after what we’ve done?

She couldn’t imagine a path from Sundew’s anger, or her plan to wipe out the HiveWings, to a world in which the three tribes lived in peace. She’d been trying for days, but her thoughts kept circling back to the mind control. As far as she could see, her only hope for avoiding a war was to convince Sundew that HiveWings with free will would be on the LeafWings’ side.

Which, if she was honest with herself, she wasn’t at all sure of.

A familiar purple snout burst through the silk, shaking filaments off his horns. Cricket held her breath as Blue wriggled and shoved and slid out onto the stone floor, kicking his shredded cocoon away from him. He struggled free and finally stood for a moment with his head bowed, taking deep breaths. And then he looked up, met Cricket’s eyes, smiled, and spread his wings.

Cricket wondered if her smile could lift her through the ceiling. Blue’s wings were glorious — shimmering purple and blue like sapphires and violets tumbled together. He was glorious. She knew she loved more than his beautiful scales and his lovely face — she loved his kindness, and his sweetness, and his sense of humor, and the way he thought about other dragons so deeply, and the fact that he seemed to have no idea at all how handsome he was. But oh my goodness, she also really loved his lovely face.

“Cricket,” he said in a hoarse voice. “You stayed.”

“Of course I did,” she said.

“Thank you,” he said, and her heart felt as if it might burst. “I bet that was …” He paused and thought for a moment. “Hmm. Boring?”

She laughed. “Just a little.”

Can he see how much I adore him? Am I too obvious? I wish I knew what he feels.

Swordtail stepped forward and offered a leaf cup full of water. Blue took it gratefully and drank the whole thing.

“Nice wings,” Swordtail observed. “Not as handsome as mine, of course, but pretty cool. See, I told you Metamorphosis wasn’t that bad.”

Blue flicked his friend’s tail with his own. “I can’t believe it’s over,” he said. “After all those years of worrying about it!” He stretched his wings as wide as they would go and wrinkled his snout as though he was trying to stop smiling. “Remember how Luna and I were waiting for you when you came out?”

“With a giant box of honey drops and Luna’s weird banana mash cake,” Swordtail said, grinning.

“You did a really good job of pretending to like it,” Blue said. He studied his wings, which looked shiny and damp in a brand-new kind of way. “I guess the one upside of being fugitives is she can’t make one of those for me.” His eyes searched the cave. “Hey, Sundew.”

“Hey yourself, SilkWing,” Sundew said gruffly. “You sure took your time growing those flappers.” Cricket wondered whether Blue could tell that the LeafWing was actually happy to see him, or whether it was only Cricket who was getting used to the mostly hidden expressions under Sundew’s scowls. “So are you actually a flamesilk? Can you make fire?”

“I feel like I can.” Blue held out his talons and glowing flame spiraled from each wrist into smoking curls of light on the floor. Sundew inspected them, nodded approvingly, and scooped them into a small stone jar from one of her pouches.

While she did that, Blue took a short, shuddering breath and looked at Swordtail, and by the expression on his face, Cricket could tell that he’d already guessed the worst. “Luna,” he said anxiously.

“I’m sorry, Blue,” Swordtail said, his wings drooping. “I can’t find her. I’ve looked and looked.”

Blue was quiet for a long moment. Cricket took a step closer to those iridescent wings and gently twined her tail around his. He seemed so much bigger, suddenly.

“If you haven’t found her,” Blue said, “then she must still be alive. We’d feel it if she wasn’t, don’t you think? Maybe she’s hiding somewhere and hasn’t made it back yet. She’ll find us again. I’m sure she will, Swordtail. She’s probably out there worrying about us twice as much as we’re worrying about her.”

“Well, she’s not finding us here,” Sundew said, standing up. She dropped her sorted berries into sections of a leaf bag and put it on, then started assembling all her other pouches around her in some careful order Cricket hadn’t mapped out yet. “We’ve already stayed way too long. It’s a miracle the HiveWings searching the coast haven’t found us yet.”

“It’s not a miracle,” Swordtail said. “It’s you. You hid the entrance to this tunnel really well. I’ve seen HiveWing guards walk right past it as they hunt through the cave. I’ve gotten lost like eight times coming back from the bay, because it’s so hard to spot.” He handed Blue a talonful of kumquats and sliced yams. “I don’t know how she did it. Wait until you see what she did with the vines and the moss … it’s kind of amazing.”

Sundew made the face she always made when Cricket or Swordtail said something nice about her, as though her expressions had no practice reacting to compliments, so they just threw out a few spasms and then went back to scowling. “Well, it won’t last forever,” she said. “Let’s get to a Hive and find the Chrysalis.”

“The Chrysalis?” Blue echoed between bites, looking at Swordtail.

“We’ll explain on the way,” Cricket offered.

“So, what — back to Wasp Hive?” Sundew asked.

Blue shuddered. “Um … is that our only option?”

“It’s not the best place to find the Chrysalis,” Swordtail said. “I mean, it’s the most dangerous Hive. Swarming with soldiers. I’m not even sure they have any members there.”

Sundew gave him a hard look. “I thought you said they were in all the Hives.”

“I think they are,” he said. “But let’s try another one, just to be safe, is my suggestion.”

“Where are we, exactly?” Cricket said. She took Sundew’s discarded leaf pouch, flattened out one side of it, and sliced a rough map of Pantala into the thick pale green surface with her claws. “We came from Wasp Hive, up here.” She stabbed a little hole in the spot where Wasp Hive would be on the map.

“Kind of here,” Swordtail said, pointing to a spot on the coast of Dragonfly Bay, a ways south of Wasp Hive.

“So let’s think. The next closest Hives are these three.” Cricket poked three holes in the map. “Yellowjacket Hive, Bloodworm Hive … or Jewel Hive.” She hesitated, feeling an old familiar twist like thorns around her heart.

“What is it?” Blue asked, touching her shoulder. “Why does Jewel Hive make you sad?”

“It’s — nothing really,” she said. “Just, that’s where my mother moved, when she left us.”

Cricket could remember that day really clearly. She’d been three years old; Katydid had been twelve, but still living at home and without a partner, chosen or assigned.

It had felt completely out of the blue to her, like a Hive suddenly collapsing for no reason. Mother had been standing with all her belongings at the door when they returned from school, her books being loaded into baskets by a pair of sturdy SilkWings. She’d looked faintly annoyed that they’d returned before she could disappear. Katydid had cried, but Cricket couldn’t — it was all too confusing. She didn’t understand why they couldn’t continue as they always did, with her mother ignoring them all. Why did she have to go to a whole other Hive to do that?

“I didn’t know your mother left,” Blue said sympathetically.

“That’s not an option for SilkWings,” Swordtail pointed out. “At least, not by choice. Nobody gets to leave the partner they’re paired with, unless Queen Wasp tells them to.”

“HiveWings have to get her approval first,” Cricket said. “I guess Mother really wanted to get away from us if she was willing to go through the whole separation request process. When she left, she said, ‘Across the continent still isn’t far enough from you horrible grubs, but it’ll have to do.’”

“Whoa.” Sundew hissed through her teeth. “She sounds charming.”

“Oh, Cricket,” Blue said. “How could anyone say that to her own dragonets?”

“She’d been trying to leave for a while, it turns out,” Cricket said, fiddling with the edge of the leaf. “But I mean, it doesn’t matter. It’s not like we’ll run into her — it’s a big Hive, super busy. I kind of know my way around from the two times we visited her, so maybe that’ll be helpful.”

Blue rested one of his wings alongside hers, like a warm azure wave of comfort if she wanted it. She liked that he didn’t push her to talk about it more.

“What’s the plan?” she asked Sundew. “How do we get into the Hive if everyone’s looking for us?”

“With punching and biting?” Swordtail suggested hopefully. “And maybe some venomous caterpillars?”

“I like the way you think,” Sundew said. “But they’re centipedes, dingbat.”

“Or,” Blue interjected, “is there a way to sneak in where nobody gets hurt?”

“And nobody gets caught by HiveWing guards,” Cricket agreed. She looked down at her map again. “Jewel Hive. Hmmm.”

“What what what?” Sundew demanded.

“Lady Jewel is a little different from the other Hive rulers,” Cricket explained. “Do you guys know anything about her? She’s Wasp’s cousin, not her sister, for one thing. And she’s famous for her … I guess ‘love of art’ is the best way to describe it?”

“Oh, right!” Swordtail said, lighting up. “Luna was always talking about how she wanted to move to Jewel Hive if we could! She kept going on about the art scene and the Glitterbazaar.” The light went out of his eyes and he looked down at his claws. “She would love to see the Glitterbazaar.”

“Maybe the Chrysalis will know something,” Blue said to him. “Maybe she found her way to them, or maybe they’d know if she’s back in the flamesilk cavern.”

Swordtail looked hopeful for the first time in days. “That’s true! If she ended up in a Hive, that’s who she’d look for!” He flicked his tail back and forth. “We should go ask them! Let’s do that! Let’s go now!”

“Hang on, what in Pantala is a Glitterbazaar?” Sundew asked. “If it involves sparkles, the answer is no. I do not do sparkles.” Which was funny, Cricket thought, coming from a dragon with gold flecks all across her green scales.

“Only a few sparkles,” Cricket said, “and I think it might be our way in …”