“Sundew!” Blue cried.

Cricket felt as though the floor was turning to glue, trapping her claws in place. Sundew couldn’t give up so quickly. There had to be something, some answer they just hadn’t found yet. Some way to save my tribe — to save all our tribes — from a new war.

“YES,” Morpho shouted, elbowing Cinnabar out of the way. He took Sundew’s talon between his and pumped it up and down. “We’re in!”

“You don’t speak for the whole Chrysalis,” Tau said to him. Cricket realized there were tears in her eyes as she stepped toward Sundew. “You’re alive,” she whispered. “I thought you were all dead. I thought we’d lost your whole tribe forever.”

Sundew looked taken aback. “We had no idea any of you cowards cared,” she said, a little awkwardly. “And no, we’re not all dead.”

I cared, Cricket thought. I was so thrilled to find real actual alive LeafWings hiding in Queen Wasp’s greenhouse. Didn’t she see that I cared?

“Sundew, what about freeing the HiveWings?” she said. “We wanted to give them a chance to make the right choice, remember? We agreed that breaking the mind control would help everyone.”

Sundew shrugged, cascades of reflected gold glittering along her wings. “Like I suspected all along, it can’t be done. The only option is to crush the HiveWings completely.”

“YES,” Morpho shouted again.

“Fine by me,” said Swordtail. “I’m with Sundew.”

Blue took a step closer to Cricket so he could brush her wings with his. “This isn’t right,” he said. “There are good HiveWings, I’m sure of it. I don’t think we can solve a tragedy of the past by just repeating it in reverse.”

“Well, I don’t think we can solve a current tragedy by sitting around trying to understand the bad guys,” Sundew snapped. “I don’t want to hug a bunch of HiveWings and listen to their problems! I want them all punished!”

Cricket buried her face in her talons. I would feel the same way in her place, wouldn’t I? But these were still her dragons. She couldn’t give up on her entire tribe — on Katydid and Lady Scarab and the Librarian and the little dragonets on her street and her father (even if he wasn’t her real father) and the students who’d shared books and seeds with her at school. She had to believe they were better than what Queen Wasp had turned them into, and that they could still be saved.

“Where do we start?” Morpho asked. “What do we have to do?”

Cinnabar glanced at Tau. “Wait. Not all of us want to kill all the HiveWings,” she said.

“Or any HiveWings,” Blue interjected.

“How many SilkWings are in the Chrysalis?” Sundew asked, ignoring them. “Tell me there are more than three of you.”

“Oh, yes,” said Morpho. “In this Hive there are seven of us.”

Sundew did not look impressed. “Seven.”

“Yes,” he said. “Well. Maybe six.”

“If you scared Argus away forever,” Cinnabar added.

“Why aren’t the others here?” Sundew flicked her gaze over the three of them and frowned slightly.

“They couldn’t make it tonight,” Tau said. “One had to make costumes for her dragonet’s school play. Another has an early morning meeting. And what did Temora say?” she asked Cinnabar.

“That she was too tired,” Morpho answered disapprovingly.

“Really,” Sundew said. “Very dedicated to this rebellion, are they?”

“To be fair,” Cinnabar said, “we haven’t exactly done much at the last few meetings. Or ever. Actually ever. I mean, how can seven dragons change anything? We know there are more SilkWings in other Hives who want to fight back, too. But it’s just … everyone’s busy with their lives and no one knows what to do and, I don’t know, it’s over-whelming.”

“But now that you’re here,” Morpho said to Sundew, “it’s very clear, right? Bring in your army, violence everywhere, SilkWings help you, things get better.”

“How?” Sundew asked. “How, exactly, do the SilkWings help us?”

Morpho shifted his wings with a confused expression. “By … doing whatever you want us to do? Maybe pointing to the worst HiveWings? Cheering when you kill them?”

Sundew sighed and rubbed her forehead.

There was another flash outside the window. Again, Cricket only saw it out of the corner of her eye, and when she turned, nothing was there. Maybe it was distant lightning. She pulled her scarves closer and stepped up to the dark glass.

For a moment, all she saw was her reflection and the reflections of the dragons behind her. For a moment, she was inside a glass box with strangers, the piece that didn’t fit.

And then her eyes adjusted, just in time to see a pair of dragons swoop by right below the level of the window.

A pair of HiveWings, wearing armor and carrying weapons. And heading around the curve of the Hive, toward the back door of the library.

She whirled around. “I think we’ve been seen.”

“Unlikely. No one pays attention to the library,” Morpho argued.

“Shhhh,” Sundew commanded, raising one claw.

They all fell silent.

A soft rattling sound came from the front door of the library … as though someone was trying a series of keys in the lock.

Cinnabar and Tau exchanged wide-eyed looks.

“They’re at the back, too,” Cricket whispered.

“Do we fight our way out?” Swordtail asked Sundew.

“We don’t know how many there are,” Cinnabar said. “And if any of them have Queen Wasp in them, she can summon a whole lot more in a heartbeat.”

“Can you do that?” Morpho asked Sundew. “Summon a whole bunch of ferocious LeafWings?”

“Not with my mind,” she said crossly. “Is there any other way out of the library?”

Tau shook her head. “Maybe if a couple of us attack them, the others can escape,” she suggested.

“I don’t want to leave anyone in the claws of the HiveWings,” Blue said quietly.

Sundew whirled toward Cricket. “Your hiding place. You must have one nearby. Show us where you’d go if Wasp Hive-minded everyone while you’re in here.”

Cricket hesitated. She didn’t know if all seven of them would fit. She also felt like there should be some conversation about betrayal and broken promises here, but there wasn’t exactly time.

“This way.” She hurried through the aisles with all of them rustling behind her. At the edge of the balcony, she vaulted over without stopping and sailed down to the first floor.

When she looked back, she saw Cinnabar throw Tau’s weak pair of wings over one of her shoulders so she could support the yellow dragon down to the next level. As soon as they landed, Tau’s wings folded back in and she was running again.

On either side of the front doors and on either side of the back doors stood a tall column, built into the wall and stretching from floor to ceiling. This was the book drop, with slots on the outer walls where dragons could slide in their returned books.

On the inner walls, each column had a door half as tall as a dragon, which the librarians could open to pull out the returned books. Cricket tugged one open and pointed inside.

“Got it,” Cinnabar whispered. “Come on, Tau.” The two of them ran off toward the back doors, to hide in one of the columns there.

“I’m going with the LeafWing,” Morpho declared. He ducked in through the door Cricket was holding open, scrunching himself around the pile of books inside, and held out one talon toward Sundew.

“I can see how I deserve that,” Sundew said, “but no, you get Swordtail.” She bundled Swordtail into the cramped space with Morpho and closed the door on their protesting faces.

“Don’t you want to be with your new Chrysalis friends?” Cricket couldn’t help asking.

Sundew hurried across to the other column just as they all heard a click from the front door. Cricket’s heart tried to hurl itself out of her chest. She scrambled inside the book drop, burrowing through and up the pile of teetering library books inside. A moment later, Blue squeezed in beside her, and then the space went dark as Sundew leaped inside and shut the door behind her.

Cricket braced herself against the walls and edged upward a little, but her wings were tangled with Blue’s and their scales were pressed so close together that she could feel his heart beating all the way through her own chest. He rested one talon on the wall behind her, his cape drifting around them like extra silken wings. She tucked her head under his chin, breathing in the scent of old books and Blue, who smelled a bit like fried bananas.

Below them, she could sense the poised, still form of Sundew, still half-buried in books. The slide for the books from the upper slot ended near Cricket’s head, and the edge dug into her neck, but she didn’t dare try to move away from it.

I hope everyone else can be quiet, she thought anxiously. If the soldiers found dragons in one book drop, they’d check the rest and find all of them. This wasn’t the smartest hiding place. We should have spread out more.

“Finally,” said a voice outside the book drop. Blue tensed, sending little shivers through Cricket’s scales. “Sorry that took so long. Lady Jewel has a lot of keys.”

“And I suppose half of them are entirely decorative,” sneered another voice — unfamiliar but also unmistakably in the thrall of Queen Wasp. Cricket had heard that sinister cadence so many times in situations just like this, hiding in the dark while the queen used her subjects as puppets.

Not just like this. She felt Blue’s shoulder, cool and smooth against her neck. This time I’m not alone.

“Open the back doors for the others and then search every corner,” the queen ordered through the HiveWing’s mouth. Cricket heard two sets of talons walking away. She wondered why the queen wasn’t inside them, too, or if she was now. She might have needed one of them inside his own brain to get the library doors open, she guessed. The HiveWing would supposedly have a better idea of which key would work than the queen would.

It still took a while, though, she thought gratefully. Was that on purpose? Did that HiveWing help us by taking longer than he needed to?

Perhaps that was wishful thinking.

He didn’t know who was in here, if anyone … maybe he just wanted to annoy the queen.

Whatever his reasons, or even if he’d done it by accident, she was thankful.

A long time seemed to pass. They heard talonsteps and thumps, as though boxes were being overturned somewhere.

“No sign of anyone, Your Majesty,” a voice reported after a long while.

“I know I saw dragons in here,” the HiveWing with the queen inside hissed. “Find them, or you will die.”

Blue flinched, and Cricket tensed for a moment, wondering if she’d accidentally scratched him.

But then she realized, Oh, he’s worried about the HiveWings out there, and what Queen Wasp will do to them if they don’t find us.

She didn’t dare risk whispering, but she wished she could tell him that she’d never seen the queen force a dragon to hurt himself while she was controlling him. As they’d seen in the Temple of Clearsight, Wasp felt the same pain as the dragons she was controlling, and she would jump out of their minds if the pain was too much.

But she could still force a dragon to hurt someone else. There was nothing they could do, though, except turn themselves in, and Cricket wasn’t going to let Blue do that. She was pretty sure Sundew wouldn’t let him, either.

“Come out, you sniveling cowards!” Wasp’s voice roared suddenly. “I know there are dragons hiding in this library! Show yourselves, or I will burn all the books until you die choking on the smoke.”

Burn the books! She can’t — she wouldn’t. Jewel wouldn’t let her. Could she stop the queen, though? Wouldn’t burning the books put the rest of the Hive in danger, too? Maybe Wasp doesn’t care about that. Maybe she’d burn down the whole Hive to smoke us out.

Cricket heard a soft hiss from Sundew below her.

Sundew couldn’t give herself up — she was the one holding the Book of Clearsight, and they needed that to prove Queen Wasp was lying. She wouldn’t let Blue go, either, as long as his flamesilk was part of the LeafWing plan.

But Cricket — she wasn’t any use to the LeafWings, really. What would happen to her if she turned herself in to the queen?

Would she kill me?

Her wings were trembling and she couldn’t make them stop.

I’m not brave. I’m not a warrior. I don’t want to put myself in Queen Wasp’s talons, not even to save all the books.

But if I don’t, what happens to Blue and Sundew?

As if he could hear her thoughts, Blue curled himself closer to her and held her tightly, absorbing her trembling in his own wings.

“Very well,” said the queen’s voice. “Build me a bonfire of books right here,” she ordered. “We’ll use flamesilk from the lanterns.”

“But — Your Majesty — what if the fire spreads?” asked one of the HiveWings.

“Then we’ll have to throw you into it to slow the flames,” the queen snarled. “You are a tedious talon-wringer. I’ll do it myself.”

Cricket heard the dragons snap suddenly to attention and run off toward the stacks without any further argument. She guessed that Queen Wasp had taken them over as well.

“Wait!”

Below her, Cricket heard a book slide down the pile; Sundew caught it deftly before it could thunk against the side. They all held their breaths, frozen in place, caught by the sound of Cinnabar’s voice in the library.

“We’re sorry. We’re sorry, my queen.”

“Very sorry.” That was Tau.

What are they doing?

“We were hiding from Lady Jewel,” Cinnabar said breathlessly. “She said we were spending too much time reading and not enough time on our work for her.”

“So we’ve been sneaking out at night to read here,” Tau said. “We didn’t mean to anger you. Please don’t tell Lady Jewel; she’ll punish us terribly.”

“As she should,” the queen’s voice snapped. “I told her this library would be trouble. I don’t stand for disobedient SilkWings in my Hive. Who else is with you?”

Cricket squeezed her eyes shut, as though the darkness around her could get any darker.

“No one, Your Majesty,” said Tau.

“My cousin Morpho came to scold us earlier,” Cinnabar offered. “But he left a little while ago.”

“Blue wings,” said the queen suspiciously. “I thought I saw blue wings.”

“That would be Morpho,” Cinnabar said. “Or the blankets we sometimes use up there — do you want me to show those to you?”

“No.” The shell of the dragon that held the queen hissed. “This is a waste of time. You, take these two back to Lady Jewel and tell her I said to punish them severely.”

“Sorry again, Your Majesty,” Tau said. Cricket tried to figure out how many talonsteps were leaving the library.

How many were left? Was the queen still inside all of them? Would anyone lock the door again? Would the queen leave guards on the library? How long did they have to wait before it was safe to come out?

The tramping of most of the feet faded away, but she could still hear claws scraping across the floor. Someone was still out there.

It felt as though a long time passed, but Sundew didn’t open the door of the book drop, and Cricket figured she would know when it was safe to do that. She had just shifted to lean against Blue’s shoulder when she heard running steps outside.

“Your Majesty, are you still there?” said a voice.

“Yes,” Wasp answered coldly, sounding as if she was standing directly on the other side of the wall from Cricket. “What is it?”

“We’ve had a tip that Lady Scarab is here in Jewel Hive — and she may be hiding another dragon in her mansion.”

“Lady Scarab,” the queen’s voice hissed. “She would. Let’s go pay Lady Scarab a visit.”

Their talonsteps crashed out of the library, and Cricket looked up so quickly her snout knocked into Blue’s chin.

“They’re talking about Katydid,” she whispered. “They’re going to arrest my sister!”