It felt like the entire world flipped over. It felt like someone picked up the Hive, turned it over, and shook it really hard until all the pieces fell out. Except one, and that one was the heart of everything.

“Katydid,” she said softly. “My mother. Katydid is my mother. Katydid.”

“I gather this is going to go on for a while,” Scarab muttered, producing a new easel from behind the pillow. On this one, a horde of shiny green beetles was dragging a dying wasp into a dark hole where little eyes and teeth glinted from the shadows.

“I wish she had told me. Why didn’t she tell me? She knew I could keep a secret.” Cricket flicked her tail back and forth. “She just lied to me. Was she planning to hide the truth from me my whole life?”

“Would it have made any difference, knowing the truth?” Scarab asked sharply.

“Yes!” Cricket said. “It would have made everything make more sense. Well … all right, I would have had a few questions.”

“Really. You.” Lady Scarab raised her eyebrows.

“But at least it would have explained a whole lot of things. Oh. Oh. That’s why Mom — not-Mom — Cadelle hates me,” Cricket said. There were answers to all her unanswerable questions: the way her parents fought, why they barely looked at her, the reason Katydid always looked sad. “That’s why Katydid always took care of me. Oh my goodness, that’s what Cadelle meant whenever she said, ‘You’re no daughter of mine.’ It was true.”

“Lucky for you,” Scarab snorted. “That one has a personality like sandpaper.”

Cricket thought this was rather funny coming from Lady Scarab, but she didn’t point that out.

“How did they keep it a secret?” she wondered. She tried to puzzle through what they would have had to do. It was possible no one had noticed that Katydid was with egg; many dragons grew plumper in the rainy months when there was more food and less opportunity for outdoor flying. And Katydid was good at keeping secrets — obviously.

But what did she do once she had the egg? All HiveWing eggs in each Hive were kept in a central nest until they hatched. Maybe Cadelle simply had to present herself at the nest with Katydid’s egg, claiming it was hers. It would be marked as hers, protected as the dragonet inside grew, and then returned to Cadelle a day before it was due to hatch.

“It’s so hard to imagine Cadelle agreeing to a lie like that,” Cricket said aloud.

“She didn’t want to,” said Lady Scarab. “There was an enormous fight when she found out Katydid was hiding your egg. If it was up to your delightful grandmother, they would have taken it out to the ocean and dropped you on a rock somewhere.”

This Cricket could imagine, very easily. Although it was so strange to hear Cadelle referred to as her grandmother. I was still her family, even if I wasn’t her daughter. But my existence was against the rules. I represented Katydid lying to her and Queen Wasp being furious if she found out. Having me around put Cadelle at risk … she must have seen danger and crime and disorder and lies that could ruin her every time she looked at me.

“In the end, Katydid agreed to sneak the egg into the Cicada Hive Nest, so it could come back official and approved instead of you being a secret forever. And Cadelle agreed to pretend it was hers.” Lady Scarab grinned with all of her teeth. “I might have helped with that little compromise.”

Cricket wondered whether Lady Scarab’s “help” came in the form of threats or offers to help Cadelle social climb. “Weren’t there official records, though?” she asked.

“I helped with those, too.” Lady Scarab looked extremely pleased with herself. “A little bribery, a little distraction, a forged document, and then you were Cadelle’s and everything was in order.”

“But why would you help my sis — I mean, Katydid — at all?” Cricket asked, guessing part of the answer already. “Did you … did you know my dad?”

Lady Scarab’s grin disappeared like waves pulling back off the beach before a tsunami. She stared down at her painting for a long moment, then set down the paintbrush and heaved herself upright with a growl.

Cricket moved out of the way as the old dragon stomped over to the bookshelf. Lady Scarab pulled out an old, dark green book and flipped it open. Inside, the pages had been carved away to leave a hollow for a small painting.

The dragon in the portrait had kind eyes; that was the first thing Cricket noticed. He wore glasses, just like her. His scales were a warm orange color, except for his wings, which were dark red, with spots of black scales here and there. Some of them even looked like ink blots, like hers did. He was holding a book, which made Cricket want to cry.

“Who is he?” she whispered, touching the painting lightly with one claw. Definitely a HiveWing. So I’m really not a hybrid.

“Malachite,” said Lady Scarab. “My secretary, back when I was still allegedly the minister of education. Brilliant, talented, made excellent coffee, full of exciting ideas. The first dragon in years who gave me hope for the future of our tribe.” She sighed. “It was my fault, really. Queen Wasp has always hated me. I should have known better than to let her see there was a dragon I cared about. To spite me, she forbade his marriage to the dragon he fell in love with.”

“Katydid,” Cricket said.

“Yes. And then she took him away from me, before he even knew you existed. He works for her now.”

“He’s really still alive?” Cricket whispered, looking up at her.

“In a sense,” Scarab said bitterly. “She parades him past me whenever she can, always with those hateful white eyes. I don’t know if he ever gets to be himself. I haven’t seen him with his own eyes since the day she took him over and summoned him to Wasp Hive.” She hissed. “I have to pretend like I don’t care. If she doesn’t get a reaction from me, maybe one day she’ll lose interest and let him go.”

That’s why Lady Scarab has no servants, Cricket realized. That’s why she’s always alone — so there’s no one Wasp can hurt to get to her.

“Is that what’s going to happen to Katydid?” she asked.

“I hope not,” said Scarab. “Queen Wasp usually gets bored rather quickly. If Katydid can’t lead her to you, she won’t have much use for her.”

“I wish I could rescue them,” Cricket said, twisting her talons together.

“Well, you can’t,” Lady Scarab pointed out. “Because Wasp can control them anytime she wants, and she’ll just march them right back to prison.”

A wave of anger rushed through Cricket, strong and sudden. “There has to be a way to stop her.”

Scarab snapped the cover closed over the portrait of Malachite. “I was hoping you’d found one in the Book. But if there are no more predictions, then it’s all chaos.” She waved her talons in the air. “Anything could happen! She doesn’t have secret knowledge of the future after all.” Scarab chuckled. “No wonder she wants you dead.”

Cricket ran her claws along the bookshelf, thinking. She still didn’t have an answer to the mind-control question. She didn’t know if the HiveWings could be saved from it. But she did have one thing: the truth about the Book.

Katydid should have trusted me with the truth about her and Malachite.

My tribe deserves the truth, too. They need to know that Queen Wasp has been lying to them.

Cricket looked around the room. If this was her last day in the Hives, she had to use it well. She couldn’t just look for answers anymore; she had to make sure other dragons also knew them.

“Lady Scarab,” she said. “Can I borrow a paintbrush?”