Cricket’s mother, Cadelle, lived about eight levels above the Glitterbazaar, in a neighborhood of little residential squares and parks that was respectable but not the wealthiest part of the Hive. It looked fancy enough to Cricket, but she’d heard her mother complain for hours about the classless neighbors, the long climb to her job at the university, and the shabby condition of the streets.

And one thing Cadelle hated in particular was the water tower that stood in the center of the square, directly across from her house. It was ghastly, it was covered in rust, there was nothing more hideous in the world, why couldn’t she have been given a house on the sky-view side instead, why did she have to look at it every day, was this her punishment for the two little monsters she’d loosed on the world, couldn’t the Hive do something to make it more attractive, why didn’t anyone else care, if she’d been designing the Hive she’d have put all the water tanks under the street or at least on a level where no one important had to look at them.

But on their first visit to Jewel Hive, Katydid and Cricket had decided that it would make a perfect hiding spot.

“Maybe not perfect,” Katydid had conceded, testing the rickety, rusty iron legs that held it up. “You’ll probably get wet. Not sure how you’ll explain that.”

“I’ll think of something, if I need to,” Cricket said. She’d flown up to the top of the tower to make sure she could open the hatch by herself. She was four then, but she’d figured out the complicated latch after studying it for a moment. This was where SilkWing workers would climb in and out to clean the tank, and where they’d pour in the new water, gathered from sinkholes under the savanna or transported by air from Lake Scorpion.

This was the first thing they did wherever they went, Cricket and Katydid. Cricket was already used to doing it on her own, too. In every new place, she looked for somewhere to hide. She needed somewhere she could get to quickly and quietly, in case Queen Wasp suddenly brainwashed everyone with her orders (or as Katydid called them, “whole-Hive commands”). She needed to be ready to vanish at any moment.

She’d never had to use the water tower, though. Their two visits had been short, and there hadn’t been any all-Hive mind-control moments while they were in Jewel Hive.

So she just had to hope that it was as good a hiding place as they’d thought it would be.

The streets around her mother’s house were mostly deserted; it was still fairly early in the morning, so most dragons had either gone to work already, or, more likely, were still asleep after desperately trying to outlast everyone else at the parties and salons the night before. But the posters of Queen Wasp’s face seemed to loom larger than ever, her eyes glaring down at them around every turn.

Worse yet, new posters had sprung up on several of the walls throughout the Hive:

And underneath all that, drawings of Blue, Swordtail, and Cricket.

But not Sundew, Cricket noticed. Queen Wasp doesn’t want to admit that a LeafWing got all the way inside her own Hive. Even though hundreds of dragons must have seen her as we escaped with the Book. But if the queen says it didn’t happen, that’s the new truth. Is there anyone who would dare to disagree with her?

Her heart seized and jumped every time they passed another dragon near one of the posters, every time a HiveWing glanced at them, every time she caught a glimpse of her own face on a wall behind someone’s wings.

What will happen to us if we get caught? What does Queen Wasp do with traitors? I’ve never heard of one in my lifetime — is that because there haven’t been any, or because she made them disappear?

I wonder what happened to that dragon who tried to fight back against the mind control.

The only thing I know for sure: if we get caught, I’ll never see Blue again. He’ll be thrown back in the flamesilk cavern.

And the rest of us? Will we be executed publicly? Or vanish without a trace?

She’d always lived with a quiet fear at the back of her mind that one day she’d be found out and the queen would be furious. But this new fear was like termites in her skull, much more constant and present and squirming through all of her thoughts.

When they reached the square her mother lived on, they had to wait out of sight, around a corner, until a pair of SilkWings finished polishing the art around the water tower. Dragonfly Square was named for a hero of the Tree Wars (as were many spots all around the Hives), and it was decorated with sculptures of dragonflies in her honor. They ranged from tiny mobiles, each dragonfly as long as one of Cricket’s talons, to one the size of a dragon, perched on the side of the water tank. Their shiny metallic blues and greens gave the square the strange vibe of an electrocuted garden.

Sundew peered around the square as the two cleaners packed up their things and set off down a side street. “What’s the plan here?” she hissed. “We’re hiding in one of the houses?”

“No.” Cricket pointed at the tower. “In there. There’s a hatch at the very top, near the ceiling.”

Swordtail wrinkled his snout. “Um, isn’t that … full of water?”

“Not all the way,” Cricket said. “There’s a ledge and room to breathe at the top.”

He still looked skeptical, but Sundew was already striding toward the tallest house. Staying in its shadow, she spread her wings, tossing back the cape, and soared up the wall. She was in the open for two heartbeats, hopping from the roof to the top of the tower, and then she was hidden by the curve of the tank.

Cricket followed her along the same path, with Blue and Swordtail behind her. They all landed as quietly as they could on the top of the tank, but the thunk of their talons on the metal still echoed enough to make Cricket wince.

There was the hatch, and as before, she was able to get it open quickly. She slipped inside first, reaching down with her tail to see how much space there was between the roof and the water level.

It was higher than last time, just covering the ledge that ran around the inside at the top. Cricket dropped onto the flat, latticed surface with a small splash and edged around to the other side, where she and Katydid had stabbed one of three peepholes. Through the hole in the metal, she could see straight down to her mother’s house.

Is she still in there, or did she leave for work already?

Has she seen my face on the posters? Did she tell the queen I’m her daughter?

Is she disappointed in me? Or did this just prove everything she thought about me all along?

Cricket sighed. It was dark in the tank, and a little eerie with the vast expanse of water silent below them. But she could feel the brush of Blue’s wings as he came and settled next to her, comforting her without saying a word.

Mother might be disappointed. But being different from the other HiveWings … I think that makes me lucky.

Sundew closed the hatch behind her and for a very long time, the four of them sat quietly, each thinking their own thoughts.

Sundew is dreaming of vengeance; Swordtail is worrying about Luna. Blue is imagining being them, or me, or any of the dragons who live in this Hive. I wonder if he would understand my mother. If he met her, could he explain her to me?

Cricket could just picture her mother’s face if she ever brought Blue home for dinner.

She tried to focus on the mind control. Would the Chrysalis know anything she didn’t? If they combined their research, would it reveal something new? Was it possible they were working on a way to free the HiveWings?

Or at least Katydid, she thought. If I could free Katydid, I could stop worrying so much.

“We’re stuck in here until midnight?” Swordtail whispered.

“Yes,” Cricket whispered back, clearing the fog from her glasses with one of the silk scarves around her neck.

“Whew.” She felt the ledge vibrate as he shook his head. “It’s going to be a long day.”

Sometime later, Cricket discovered she had nodded off when Blue nudged her awake. She was disoriented by the darkness, so it took her a moment to access her natural sense of time. Almost midday. Her talons and tail were entwined with Blue’s, and she pulled them back and adjusted her glasses, glad he couldn’t see her expression.

“Cricket,” he said softly. “Is that your mother?”

She leaned up to the hole where he was peering out. Sure enough, down below a dragon was coming out of her mother’s house. A dragon the color of tangerines, with black patterns zigzagging along her spine and out to the edges of her wings.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s Cadelle.” She hadn’t seen her since the last rainy season. Katydid kept sending messages asking to visit and Cadelle always said no. Sometimes she said no in strongly worded letters about how annoying and useless they were.

Why do I still want her to love me? Cricket wondered.

“Want me to drop a mango on her?” Sundew offered.

“You have a MANGO?” Swordtail asked indignantly.

“No, you acorn. It’s a metaphorical mango.”

“I don’t see how metaphorical mangoes are going to do us any good,” Swordtail muttered.

Cadelle hurried off toward the ramps that led to the upper levels. She taught history at Jewel Hive University, which Cricket had heard her describe as “a job where I teach my replacements, because what else are they going to do with this information.”

She moved as purposefully and quickly as she always did. She didn’t slow down or glance sideways as she passed the Wanted posters of Cricket and her friends.

Has she even noticed it’s me?

Maybe she doesn’t care.

Cadelle strode out of sight down one of the avenues and Cricket sighed. Her mother was a question that seemed as though it would never have an answer.

She was about to lie down again when she spotted a flicker of movement from behind one of the other houses.

Cricket paused, squinting toward it. Was it a trick of the light? Or was that shadow bigger than it should be?

Something moved again, and this time she was sure it was a dragon’s head peeking out, glancing furtively around, and then withdrawing, like a snail testing the open air with its antennae.

Another few long moments passed, and then two dragons carefully slipped out of the shadows. They both wore half capes with hoods, of pale silver embroidered with emerald threads, and they kept their heads down as they crossed the square toward Cadelle’s house.

One turned to check up and down the streets as the other crouched and pulled Cadelle’s spare key out from behind the loose tile where she kept it.

Cricket gasped.

It wasn’t just that the silver-caped dragon knew where the key was. It was the way she moved, the flick of her tail as she walked, the tilt of her head as she unlocked the door.

The dragon sneaking into her mother’s house right now was Cricket’s sister, Katydid.