"Yes," she answers, looking reluctantly away from the mysterious scene in the flowers and up at the man who'd spoken. "Just awfully confused--have you ever heard of bees building hives in a flower field before?" With her free hand, she beckons the man over. "It's easier to show you than to explain, I think."

Perhaps it was just something Darrow's bees did; the city was odd enough already, having pulled Rosie and so many others away from their ordinary lives. Why should its insects behave any less oddly? As if in answer, a bee zipped past, a blur of topaz and onyx, and into the gap between the stems.