The Buttonwing Beetle Who Forgot He Was Fancy

The Bloom That Got Robbed Before Breakfast

Buttonwing woke up on the east-facing petal of a blushing tulip with his cheek pressed into a bead of dew and absolutely no memory of how he had gotten there.

This was not unusual.

Buttonwing had a talent for waking in places he had not intentionally gone. He had once opened his eyes inside a foxglove bell while three moths performed a funeral dirge around him because they thought he had died glamorously. Another time, he woke balanced on the rim of a birdbath, surrounded by sparrows who had mistaken him for a decorative pastry. He had also, on one infamous spring morning, emerged from beneath a rose leaf wearing a cobweb sash, two pollen clumps on his head, and a beetle-sized paper crown that read Her Moist Radiance.

He still did not know what that had been about.

This morning, however, felt different.

For one thing, the garden was too quiet.

Usually, Sugarwild Garden at dawn was all racket and perfume. Bees shouted work orders at one another like union foremen with wings. Ladybugs complained about aphid shortages. Blossoms yawned open with the smug theatrical sighs of creatures who knew they were beautiful and wanted everyone to suffer through the announcement. Somewhere, a cricket would always be tuning something he had no intention of playing well.

But today, there was a hush.

A tight, ugly hush.

The kind of hush that meant someone had either died, lied, stolen something shiny, or announced a poetry reading.

Buttonwing lifted his head.

His enormous glossy eyes reflected the soft pink morning, the curls of lavender mist, the round pearls of dew trembling on the tulip beneath him. His body glittered turquoise and teal beneath a wild arrangement of little buttons, beads, gold-thread lines, and jewel-colored bumps he had always assumed were perfectly ordinary beetle things.

He did not consider himself fancy.

This was important.

Buttonwing believed he was a practical insect. A modest insect. A beetle of the people. Yes, his shell shimmered like a cursed treasure chest left out in a rainbow. Yes, his wings were translucent and veined like stained glass windows made for a chapel that worshipped dessert. Yes, he had antennae tipped with tiny sparkling knobs, which several rude gnats had once described as “party sticks.”

But Buttonwing had never asked for any of that.

He considered glamour to be a surface inconvenience.

“Morning,” he muttered to the tulip.

The tulip did not answer.

This was also unusual. Tulips were terrible at silence. They were the sort of flowers that could make an argument out of sunlight angle.

Buttonwing crawled higher up the bud and peered over the edge.

Below him, clustered around the base of the flower, stood half the garden.

Bees. Beetles. Moths. Snails. Three nervous pill bugs. A damselfly wearing a mourning veil despite nobody being dead yet. Several ants carrying tiny clipboards. Two caterpillars who had clearly only come because drama had a smell and they were hungry.

At the center of the crowd stood Mistress Larkspur Primm, Chairpetal of the Bloombud Council, a tall violet bloom with a posture so rigid she looked like she had been watered with judgment. Beside her hovered Constable Thistlewick, a green lacewing with silver spectacles and the expression of someone who had once smiled by accident and regretted it ever since.

On a small pedestal of polished bark between them sat an empty velvet cushion.

Buttonwing blinked.

Empty cushions were rarely good news.

They were like tiny stages where trouble had recently performed.

“There he is!” shrieked someone from the crowd.

Every face turned upward.

Buttonwing froze on the tulip.

“Oh, bother,” he said. “Is this about the mushroom tart?”

A horrified murmur rippled through the gathering.

Constable Thistlewick narrowed his eyes. “What mushroom tart?”

“The one from last night,” Buttonwing said. “Although in my defense, it had no name card, and if food is left unattended after moonrise, it becomes morally ambiguous.”

“This is not about pastry theft,” said Mistress Larkspur Primm, each word clipped so sharply it could have trimmed a hedge. “Though do not think we are ignoring that confession.”

Buttonwing sighed. “Of course not. That would be too easy.”

He began climbing down the tulip, moving with great care because his claws were slick with dew and his body had the aerodynamic elegance of a jeweled dumpling. His button-like ornaments clicked softly against the petals. His wings trembled open for balance, catching the dawn light in pink and gold flashes.

The crowd gasped.

Buttonwing looked behind himself, assuming something spectacular was happening.

Nothing was.

Just him.

That happened a lot too.

He arrived at the bottom of the tulip and waddled toward the pedestal. The crowd parted quickly, partly out of respect, partly because he had once sneezed pollen into a beetle duke’s wine and nobody had fully recovered from the conversation that followed.

“All right,” Buttonwing said. “Who lost what?”

Mistress Larkspur’s petals stiffened. “The Heartdrop of Morning.”

This time, Buttonwing understood the gasp.

Even he knew about the Heartdrop.

Everyone did.

The Heartdrop of Morning was Sugarwild Garden’s most treasured relic: a dew jewel formed once every hundred years on the first tulip to bloom beneath a pink dawn. It was said to hold the memory of every sunrise the garden had ever seen. It glowed faintly from within, shifting between rose, amber, and blue depending on the mood of the weather. The Council displayed it only during the Bloomturn Festival, where it sat on a velvet cushion while everyone pretended not to want to lick it.

Buttonwing had seen it only once.

It had been beautiful.

Annoyingly beautiful.

The sort of beautiful that made other shiny things feel underdressed.

He looked at the empty cushion.

“Well,” he said. “That’s unfortunate.”

“Unfortunate?” Mistress Larkspur repeated. “The Heartdrop has been stolen.”

“That is generally what empty important cushions imply, yes.”

Constable Thistlewick stepped forward. “And you were found sleeping above the display tulip less than a wingbeat from the crime scene.”

“I was not found. I woke up. There’s a difference.”

“You had motive.”

Buttonwing stared at him. “Motive? For stealing a sacred dew bauble?”

“It is not a bauble,” snapped Mistress Larkspur.

“Fine. Sacred wet marble.”

Several bees buzzed in scandalized delight.

Constable Thistlewick unfurled a little scroll. “Witnesses report that you were seen last night near the tulip terrace after curfew.”

“Lots of people were near the tulip terrace after curfew.”

“You were seen glittering suspiciously.”

Buttonwing looked down at himself. “I always glitter suspiciously. It’s a medical condition.”

“You were also overheard saying, and I quote, ‘I could use something pretty enough to shut everyone up.’”

Buttonwing’s mouth opened.

Then closed.

Then opened again, with less confidence.

“That was about a hat,” he said.

“A hat?”

“Yes. I was considering acquiring one.”

“From where?”

“A sleeping poppy.”

Mistress Larkspur’s expression tightened into a look that said she had always expected him to bring shame upon invertebrate society, but she had hoped he might at least do it in better lighting.

“And where is this hat now?” asked Constable Thistlewick.

Buttonwing hesitated.

“I lost it.”

“Convenient.”

“It was made of pollen fluff. It had the structural integrity of a drunk cloud.”

The caterpillars in the back snickered.

Mistress Larkspur raised one leaf, and the crowd fell quiet.

“Buttonwing,” she said, “you must understand how this appears.”

“Badly?”

“Catastrophically.”

“That feels dramatic.”

“You are an insect covered in gemstones—”

“They’re not gemstones.”

“—buttons, pearls, gilded ridges, ornamental wing lace, and what appears to be at least six decorative shell stones of unknown origin.”

Buttonwing frowned and glanced at the pink and orange baubles embedded across his sides. “These came standard.”

“Nothing about you came standard,” said a dragonfly from the crowd.

Buttonwing turned. “Who said that?”

A sleek blue dragonfly floated above a fern frond, her wings blurring like glass knives. She wore a loop of silver grass around her neck and had the sharp, bored beauty of someone who considered kindness an optional garnish.

Buttonwing recognized her immediately.

Vesper Glint.

Professional gossip. Amateur menace. Full-time pain in the thorax.

“Vesper,” he said. “How lovely. I was just thinking this day needed a worse smell.”

Vesper smiled. “Still charming as mildew, I see.”

“Still built like a needle with opinions, I see.”

A few ants coughed into their clipboards.

Constable Thistlewick snapped his wings. “Enough.”

Vesper drifted closer, her jeweled eyes fixed on Buttonwing’s shell. “I only mean it is hard to ignore the obvious. If one were stealing the Heartdrop, one would need somewhere to hide it. Somewhere decorative. Somewhere already crowded with shiny little nonsense.”

Buttonwing stared at her.

Then at himself.

“Are you suggesting I swallowed it?”

“No,” said Vesper sweetly. “I’m suggesting no one would notice if you wore it.”

The crowd murmured again.

Buttonwing’s wings flared. “I am not wearing stolen holy dew.”

“Then you won’t mind being searched,” said Constable Thistlewick.

Buttonwing stiffened.

“Absolutely not.”

“A refusal will not help your case.”

“Neither will letting a lacewing rummage through my personal sparkle clusters in public.”

“Personal sparkle clusters?” asked one of the pill bugs.

“I panicked,” Buttonwing snapped.

Mistress Larkspur sighed. “No one is accusing you without cause.”

“Really? Because it feels like everyone woke up, saw an empty cushion, and said, ‘Fetch the shiny bastard.’”

The bees murmured approval at that. Bees appreciated plain speech, especially when it came with profanity before breakfast.

Constable Thistlewick adjusted his spectacles. “You are the only creature found at the scene.”

“Because I was asleep.”

“Exactly.”

“That is not the brilliant trap you think it is.”

“You have no alibi.”

“I was unconscious.”

“That is also not an alibi.”

“It is for most naps.”

Vesper clicked her tongue. “Poor Buttonwing. Always misunderstood. Always near the stolen objects. Always glittering like a guilty chandelier.”

Buttonwing rounded on her. “I have never stolen anything important.”

“Define important.”

“Not now.”

“There was the thimble cup from the Marigold Tea.”

“Borrowed.”

“The beetle duke’s ceremonial crumb fork.”

“It was ridiculous and deserved freedom.”

“The moth choir’s moon-pearl baton.”

“That was self-defense.”

The crowd’s murmuring deepened into the kind of noise that builds around a scandal just before someone begins exaggerating it into family history.

Buttonwing felt his stomach sink.

He had been accused of things before. Petty things. Funny things. Things involving unattended jam, inappropriate flower sleeping, and one unfortunate incident with a snail wedding veil. But this was different. The Heartdrop wasn’t just a shiny object. It was the garden’s pride. Its memory. Its big sacred bauble of sentimental nonsense.

And everyone was looking at him like he had plucked it up, stuffed it into his shell, and gone for a victory nap.

Which, frankly, hurt.

He had standards.

Low ones, but still.

“I didn’t take it,” he said.

His voice came out quieter than he intended.

For a moment, the garden seemed to hear him.

Really hear him.

Then Vesper sighed.

“Of course you didn’t.”

The way she said it was worse than an accusation. It was pity wearing perfume.

Buttonwing’s claws dug into the damp earth.

“Listen,” he said, lifting his chin. “I may be many things. Damp. Confused. Occasionally under-supervised. Once banned from the lily buffet for what I maintain was an architectural misunderstanding. But I am not a thief.”

“Then prove it,” said Constable Thistlewick.

Buttonwing looked at him.

“What?”

“The Bloombud Council will convene at sunset. If the Heartdrop is not recovered by then, formal charges will be placed before the garden.”

“Formal charges?”

“Relic theft. Festival sabotage. Sacred display tampering.”

“Sacred display tampering sounds made up.”

“It is a very old law.”

“Most stupid things are.”

Mistress Larkspur leaned forward. “Buttonwing, you have until sunset. Find the Heartdrop, or prepare to answer before the full Council.”

Buttonwing’s eyes widened. “You’re giving me one day to solve a theft I didn’t commit?”

“Technically,” said Constable Thistlewick, “we are giving you one day before we punish you for it.”

“That is a horrifying distinction.”

“A legal one.”

Buttonwing looked from the constable to the empty cushion, then to Mistress Larkspur, then to Vesper, who smiled like a blade dipped in honey.

And suddenly, beneath the humiliation and fear and ridiculousness of it all, something hot sparked in his little jeweled chest.

Indignation.

Not elegant indignation.

Not noble indignation.

The messy kind. The kind that shows up with bedhead and a grudge.

“Fine,” Buttonwing said.

The crowd quieted.

He spread his delicate button-veined wings. Dew flashed along their edges. His turquoise shell glittered in the dawn until even the snails had to squint.

“I’ll find your precious Heartdrop.”

“Good,” said Mistress Larkspur.

“And when I do,” Buttonwing continued, “I expect apologies.”

Constable Thistlewick frowned. “That may be negotiated.”

“No. Full apologies. Public. With eye contact. And possibly snacks.”

One bee raised a leg. “What kind of snacks?”

“We’ll form a committee later.”

Vesper laughed softly. “How heroic.”

Buttonwing turned to her. “And you.”

“Me?”

“When I prove I didn’t steal it, you’re going to explain why you were so quick to point your little dagger face in my direction.”

Vesper’s smile did not move, but something behind her eyes tightened.

It was tiny.

Almost nothing.

But Buttonwing saw it.

And for the first time that morning, he felt less like prey.

“Good luck,” Vesper said. “Try not to trip over your own accessories.”

“Try not to impale yourself on your personality.”

The ants gasped.

The caterpillars applauded with their front nubs.

Mistress Larkspur looked like she needed to sit down, but as a plant, she was already doing the best she could.

Buttonwing turned away from the crowd and crawled toward the empty pedestal. If he was going to solve this miserable little glitter crime, he needed to inspect the scene before the Council, the constable, and half the garden stomped all over it with their official incompetence.

The cushion was soft red velvet, darkened in one spot where the Heartdrop had rested. Around it, tiny dew pearls clung to the bark pedestal. There were scratches on the left side, shallow but deliberate. A faint smear of gold dust marked the edge of the platform.

Buttonwing leaned closer.

Gold dust.

Not pollen.

Not nectar powder.

Gold dust.

He glanced down at himself.

His body had gold lines and beaded ridges, yes, but they were sealed into his shell. He did not shed dust like some cheap festival ornament.

He lowered his head and sniffed.

The smear smelled faintly bitter.

Metallic.

And beneath it, something else.

Something sharp and green.

Fern sap.

Buttonwing looked toward the fern bank at the north edge of the tulip terrace.

Vesper had been standing there.

But so had several others.

He scanned the crowd. A pair of grasshoppers. A snail with a shell full of morning moss. A beetle couple pretending not to stare. A moth with powdered wings. Three bees still whispering about snack committees.

Then he noticed something odd.

On the far side of the gathering, half-hidden beneath a curled rose leaf, sat a small gray weevil with a dented acorn cap pulled low over one eye.

Grubbin Snatch.

Buttonwing knew Grubbin in the way one knows raccoons, storms, and relatives who borrow money: never willingly, but always eventually.

Grubbin was a finder of things, loser of morals, and occasional seller of items that had not technically been offered for sale by their owners. If something went missing in Sugarwild Garden, Grubbin usually knew where it was, who took it, or what price it would fetch behind the mushroom rings.

Grubbin caught Buttonwing staring and immediately began backing away.

Subtle as a fart in church.

Buttonwing stepped down from the pedestal.

“Constable,” he said loudly.

Thistlewick perked. “Yes?”

“I’ll begin my investigation at once.”

“You are not an investigator.”

“Apparently I am now, since your entire case is ‘shiny bug near cushion.’”

“That is an oversimplification.”

“It’s a damn pamphlet.”

Buttonwing moved toward the crowd, then suddenly darted left under a cluster of violet leaves.

Grubbin bolted.

“Aha!” Buttonwing shouted, mostly because he had always wanted to shout that during a chase.

The garden erupted.

Bees scattered. Ants dropped their clipboards. A snail tried to turn quickly and achieved nothing. Vesper rose above the chaos with an expression of fascinated contempt, like she was watching theater performed by vegetables.

Grubbin scuttled beneath a row of mushrooms, his acorn cap bouncing wildly.

Buttonwing pursued, which sounded more impressive than it looked. He was fast in short bursts, but his body was round, ornate, and extremely committed to catching on everything. A dangling bead on his side snagged a grass blade. His left wing clipped a mushroom stem. He ricocheted off a pebble, cursed with feeling, and kept going.

“Stop!” he shouted.

“No!” Grubbin yelled back.

“That was a lawful command!”

“From who?”

“From me!”

“You’re not law!”

“I’m law-adjacent!”

“You’re sparkly and panicked!”

Buttonwing could not argue with that, so he increased speed instead.

They tore through a patch of clover, startling two ladybugs engaged in what appeared to be either a romantic breakfast or a tiny property dispute. Grubbin ducked under a fallen twig. Buttonwing tried to follow and got briefly wedged.

“Shit,” he muttered.

He sucked in his legs, popped free, and tumbled forward into a puddle of dew.

Grubbin glanced back, saw Buttonwing struggling upright with half a clover petal stuck to his face, and made the mistake of laughing.

Buttonwing launched himself.

His wings opened, caught the morning air, and carried him in a short, glittering, completely uncontrolled arc over the moss.

He collided with Grubbin in a burst of droplets and profanity.

The two insects rolled beneath a bluebell, knocking loose a shower of dew that fell around them like applause from a very damp audience.

Buttonwing ended up on top, breathing hard, one jeweled foot planted on Grubbin’s acorn cap.

“Right,” he wheezed. “Caught you.”

Grubbin squirmed. “You caught my hat.”

Buttonwing looked down.

Grubbin was two inches to the left.

“Fine,” Buttonwing said, moving his foot. “Emotionally caught you.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“It is now. Don’t test me. I’m having a very bad morning.”

Grubbin sat up and adjusted his cap. He was small, gray, and twitchy, with clever black eyes and the general air of someone who had once sold a beetle his own reflection.

“I didn’t do it,” Grubbin said immediately.

“I didn’t ask yet.”

“You had the look.”

“What look?”

“The ‘tell me what you stole before I make this socially awkward’ look.”

Buttonwing leaned closer. “What do you know about the Heartdrop?”

Grubbin’s antennae twitched.

“Nothing.”

“That was terrible.”

“What?”

“Your lie. It had no body. No commitment. I’ve heard better lies from aphids caught in someone’s salad.”

Grubbin glanced around. The bluebell shadows hid them from most of the crowd, though distant voices still crackled through the tulip terrace.

“Keep your voice down,” Grubbin hissed.

“Why?”

“Because if they hear me talking to you, they’ll think I’m involved.”

“You probably are involved.”

“That’s not the point.”

Buttonwing folded his legs beneath him. “Grubbin. I have until sunset before the Council decides I stole the garden’s favorite wet marble. I found gold dust and fern sap at the pedestal. Vesper Glint is acting like she came preloaded with accusations. And you tried to sneak away the moment I looked at you. So start explaining, or I will sit on you.”

Grubbin looked him up and down.

“You wouldn’t.”

Buttonwing lowered his round, jeweled body by half an inch.

Grubbin squeaked. “All right! All right, buggering blossoms, give a fellow some dignity.”

“You can rent dignity later. Talk.”

Grubbin rubbed his snout. “I heard something last night.”

“Where?”

“Near the fern bank.”

Buttonwing’s pulse quickened.

“What did you hear?”

“Voices.”

“Helpful. Shall I alert the historians?”

“Two voices,” Grubbin snapped. “One of them was Vesper.”

Buttonwing went still.

“You’re sure?”

“I know that voice. Everyone knows that voice. It sounds like a compliment learning to stab.”

“And the other?”

Grubbin hesitated.

“Couldn’t see. Couldn’t place it. Low voice. Scratchy. Not from the Council, I don’t think.”

“What were they saying?”

“I only caught pieces. Something about the Heartdrop being ‘wasted on flowers.’ Something about a buyer.”

Buttonwing’s stomach sank again, deeper this time.

“A buyer?”

Grubbin nodded. “And then Vesper said your name.”

“My name?”

“Clear as rain. She said, ‘No one will question it once they see him near the tulip.’”

Buttonwing stared.

The morning sounds faded. The bees, the flowers, the distant shouts—all of it blurred behind the pounding inside his head.

“She framed me,” he said.

“Looks that way.”

“That needle-faced swamp blessing framed me.”

“Colorful, but yes.”

Buttonwing rose slowly. His wings trembled, not from fear now, but fury.

He had been embarrassed before. Frequently. Almost professionally. But this was different. This was being used. This was someone looking at him—at his bright shell, his strange wings, his ridiculous buttons and beads—and deciding he was convenient. Deciding everyone would believe the shiny thing stole the shinier thing.

Because of course they would.

Why question a story that looked decorative enough to be true?

Grubbin watched him carefully. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Buttonwing turned.

“I rarely plan to.”

“That’s what worries me.”

“Where would someone sell the Heartdrop?”

Grubbin’s mouth pinched.

“No.”

“No?”

“I’m not getting dragged into this.”

Buttonwing took one step closer.

Grubbin held up both tiny hands. “Sit-threats won’t work twice.”

“Then I’ll tell the Council you were seen fleeing the crime scene.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I’m desperate and decorative. Try me.”

Grubbin groaned. “Fine. If someone wanted to move a relic that rare, they wouldn’t sell it in Sugarwild. Too many eyes. Too much gossip. They’d take it to the underside market.”

Buttonwing frowned. “The what?”

“The underside market.”

“That sounds unsanitary.”

“It’s beneath the old mushroom bridge, past the root tunnel. Things get traded there. Things with questions attached.”

“Stolen things.”

“Misplaced things with ambitious futures.”

“Grubbin.”

“Yes, stolen things.”

Buttonwing glanced back toward the tulip terrace. Vesper was still there, hovering near Mistress Larkspur, all elegance and sharp wings and smug innocence. Constable Thistlewick had begun questioning witnesses with the investigative urgency of a creature organizing spoons.

If Buttonwing went back now and accused Vesper without proof, she would laugh him into the dirt.

If he did nothing, the Council would pin the theft on him before sunset.

If he went to the underside market, he might find the Heartdrop, the buyer, or at least someone shady enough to point him toward both.

Which meant, unfortunately, he needed help.

Even more unfortunately, the nearest available help was Grubbin.

“You’re coming with me,” Buttonwing said.

Grubbin choked. “Like hell I am.”

“You know the market.”

“That is precisely why I don’t go there before lunch.”

“You’re coming.”

“No.”

“I’ll tell the Council about your mushroom ring dealings.”

“Rumors.”

“The borrowed spoon racket.”

“Misunderstood commerce.”

“The counterfeit ladybug spots.”

Grubbin’s eyes narrowed. “You said you wouldn’t bring that up.”

“I’m having a character arc. It’s making me awful.”

Grubbin threw his little hands into the air. “Fine! I’ll take you to the market. But if anyone asks, I was kidnapped.”

“By me?”

“It’s plausible. You look expensive and unstable.”

Buttonwing considered arguing, then decided the day had already taken too much from him.

“Move.”

Grubbin retrieved his acorn cap and led the way beneath the bluebell shadows, through a narrow crease between moss and root. Buttonwing followed, his jewel-bright body squeezing awkwardly into the dimmer, damper undergrowth.

Behind them, Sugarwild Garden gleamed in the morning light, sweet and pastel and full of creatures pretending they weren’t enjoying the scandal.

Ahead, the root tunnel waited.

Dark. Twisting. Sour with mushroom breath and secrets.

Buttonwing paused at its entrance.

He had never gone beneath the garden before. Not really. He had stumbled into burrows, napped in leaf hollows, and once accidentally attended a worm birthday, but this was different. The underside was where polite creatures did not go unless they had lost something, stolen something, or married poorly.

Grubbin glanced back. “Scared?”

Buttonwing lifted his chin, dew still clinging to his shell like tiny diamonds.

“No.”

“That was almost as bad as my lie.”

“Fine. Yes. A little.”

“Good. Fear keeps your legs attached.”

“Comforting.”

They entered the tunnel.

The light narrowed behind them. Roots curled overhead like old knuckles. Fungus glowed faintly along the walls in green and lavender patches. Somewhere deeper in the dark, water dripped with the slow patience of something counting down.

Buttonwing’s shell cast little colored glimmers along the dirt walls as he walked, turning the tunnel briefly beautiful despite its best efforts.

Grubbin noticed.

“You really don’t know, do you?” he said.

“Know what?”

“Why everyone stares.”

Buttonwing frowned. “Because they’re nosy.”

“Well, yes. But not just that.”

“Because my wings are oddly proportioned?”

“No.”

“Because I once got stuck in a snapdragon and screamed at a butterfly?”

“That didn’t help.”

“Then what?”

Grubbin slowed, looking at him with something almost like pity, though less fragrant than Vesper’s version.

“Buttonwing,” he said, “you look like a royal heirloom someone taught to swear.”

Buttonwing stopped.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s accurate.”

“I’m normal.”

“You have decorative antenna tips.”

“Lots of beetles have antennae.”

“Not with little sunrise beads on them.”

“They’re practical.”

“For what? Signaling dessert carts?”

Buttonwing looked down at his legs, at the pink and gold bands around them, the beadwork he had never questioned, the tiny shell stones that caught even the tunnel’s weak light.

“I didn’t choose it,” he said.

Grubbin’s expression softened for half a second before he ruined it by snorting. “No one said you did, fancy-ass.”

Buttonwing bristled. “Do not call me that.”

“What, fancy-ass?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. Shimmer-butt.”

“Worse.”

“Jewel dumpling.”

“Absolutely not.”

“We’ll workshop it.”

Buttonwing marched past him. “We will not.”

But as the tunnel deepened and the glow of Sugarwild faded behind them, Grubbin’s words clung to him in a way he did not like.

A royal heirloom someone taught to swear.

He had always thought the garden’s staring was mockery. Or curiosity. Or some irritating mixture of both. He had never wondered if they saw something he didn’t.

Something he had been ignoring because noticing it might mean accepting that he was not simply a regular beetle with inconvenient shine.

But now was not the time for self-discovery.

Self-discovery could go sit on a mushroom and wait its turn.

At the far end of the tunnel, voices rose—low, rough, and busy. Lantern fungus flickered. The smell of damp bark, fermented berry, and questionable business rolled toward them.

Grubbin stopped beside a curtain of hanging roots.

“Underside market,” he whispered. “Rules are simple. Don’t stare too long. Don’t ask where anything came from. Don’t touch anything glowing unless you want a rash. And for the love of rot, don’t act fancy.”

Buttonwing looked at himself.

Then at Grubbin.

Grubbin sighed. “We are doomed.”

Buttonwing squared his shoulders.

“Good. Then they’ll underestimate us.”

“No, they’ll rob us.”

Buttonwing pushed through the root curtain.

The underside market opened before him in a cavern beneath the garden, strung with fungus lanterns and spider-silk awnings. Beetles, slugs, moths, earwigs, and creatures Buttonwing could not comfortably identify crowded around stalls made of bark, bone, seed husks, and old human trash polished into treasure. Thimble cups. Cracked marbles. Stolen flower crowns. Bottled moonlight. A suspicious number of spoons.

And everywhere, eyes turned toward him.

Not just curious.

Hungry.

Buttonwing swallowed.

At the center of the market, beneath a canopy of black mushroom caps, stood a tall mantis wearing a collar of dried rose thorns. Her forelegs were folded with terrifying elegance. Beside her, on a slab of polished root, lay a velvet pouch darkened by dew.

Buttonwing’s heart kicked.

The pouch shimmered faintly from within.

Rose.

Amber.

Blue.

Grubbin whispered, “Oh, damn.”

The mantis lifted her head.

Her gaze found Buttonwing across the market.

And then she smiled.

“Well,” she purred, loud enough for every shady creature beneath the garden to hear. “If it isn’t the thief himself.”

The entire market went silent.

Buttonwing stared at the glowing pouch.

Then at the mantis.

Then, with all the dignity he could gather while looking like a gemstone had grown legs and poor judgment, he said, “This day can kiss my entire jeweled ass.”

The Market Beneath the Petals

The thing about being accused of theft in a criminal marketplace is that everyone assumes you are either dangerous, wealthy, competent, or all three.

Buttonwing was none of those.

He was damp, framed, and currently wondering whether a mantis in a thorn collar could bite his head off before he finished delivering a properly cutting remark.

The underside market remained silent around him, which was impressive because it was full of creatures who looked physically allergic to minding their own business. A slug at a bottle-lantern stall stopped polishing a stolen marble. Two earwigs froze mid-bargain over a cracked beetle brooch. A moth with one wing dyed purple slowly lowered a cup of fermented berry wine, clearly delighted to have stumbled into breakfast theater.

Grubbin, who had been standing beside Buttonwing moments ago, was now somehow three inches behind him.

“Coward,” Buttonwing whispered.

“Strategist,” Grubbin whispered back.

The mantis beneath the black mushroom canopy unfolded one long, serrated foreleg and tapped the glowing pouch beside her.

Rose.

Amber.

Blue.

The Heartdrop’s colors pulsed through the dark velvet like a tiny sunrise trapped in a criminal’s purse.

Buttonwing felt his throat tighten.

There it was.

The sacred relic. The precious memory of the garden. The bauble everyone thought he had stolen because apparently looking like a walking jewelry accident made one an obvious felon.

“You heard her,” muttered an old stag beetle from a nearby stall. “That’s him.”

“The thief?” asked a pillbug wearing a beetle shell helmet two sizes too large.

“The fancy one.”

“He does look thefty.”

Buttonwing turned. “Thefty is not a word.”

“It is down here,” said the pillbug.

“Down here, somebody tried to sell me a wishbone that was clearly a chicken rib.”

“Rare chicken rib.”

“There is no such thing as—”

Grubbin tugged Buttonwing’s wing. “Maybe don’t critique the market while we’re inside the market.”

“I’m under stress.”

“That is when you do most of your worst talking.”

The mantis smiled wider. Her name, if Buttonwing remembered correctly from several warnings and one badly whispered mushroom tavern song, was Madame Sicklethorn. She ran the underside market with the polished menace of a creature who never raised her voice because she had discovered removing body parts was louder.

She was tall and leaf-green with joints like carved emerald twigs. Her eyes were pale gold. Around her neck rested the collar of dried rose thorns, each point tipped in something dark and shiny. Her stall was not really a stall at all but a throne arrangement made of polished root, dead petals, and other people’s bad decisions.

“Come closer, little jewel,” she said.

Buttonwing did not move.

“I’d rather not. Your whole area has a very strong ‘last known location’ feeling.”

A few creatures snorted.

Madame Sicklethorn’s smile did not falter. That was worse.

“You have a clever mouth.”

“It’s mostly defensive.”

“And yet not defensive enough.”

Grubbin leaned toward him. “That means shut up.”

“I know what it means.”

“Then explore silence as a hobby.”

Buttonwing lifted his chin and forced himself forward. He could feel the eyes of the market crawling over his shell, counting every jewel-like button, every glimmering ridge, every foolish decorative bit that had apparently turned him into a walking invitation for suspicion.

The path to Madame Sicklethorn’s canopy felt much longer than it was. His claws clicked on damp bark. His wings stayed tucked tight. He tried to look stern and investigative, but suspected he mostly looked like a terrified ornament trying not to jingle.

He stopped before the mantis.

The glowing pouch sat within arm’s reach.

Madame Sicklethorn rested one blade-leg lightly over it.

“You’ve caused a stir,” she said.

“I’m beginning to notice that happens when criminals shout my name in crowded spaces.”

“Careful.”

“No, thank you. I tried that. It was dull.”

Her head tilted. “Do you know what this market does to thieves?”

“Judging from the smell, marinates them?”

Grubbin made a tiny sound of despair.

Madame Sicklethorn laughed.

That was also worse.

“We respect thieves,” she said. “A good thief is an artist. A careful thief is a professional. A thief who steals from the Bloombud Council during festival week and gets away clean? That is someone worth knowing.”

Buttonwing stared at her.

“Oh. Well. I’m flattered and deeply offended.”

“But a thief who steals something hot, lets a pretty dragonfly arrange the sale, then walks into my market wearing enough sparkle to blind a mole?” Madame Sicklethorn’s eyes narrowed. “That thief is an idiot.”

Buttonwing’s heart gave a small, furious leap.

“Vesper arranged the sale?”

The market rustled.

Madame Sicklethorn watched him closely.

Too closely.

Buttonwing realized his mistake half a second after making it.

If he were the thief, he would already know that.

Grubbin muttered, “Smooth as gravel.”

Madame Sicklethorn drew her blade-leg back from the pouch, but only slightly.

“Interesting,” she said. “You truly don’t know.”

“I know plenty.”

“Name three things.”

Buttonwing opened his mouth.

Closed it.

“Not under pressure.”

The moth with purple dye laughed into her berry wine.

Buttonwing turned toward the crowd. “This is not audience participation.”

Madame Sicklethorn lifted the pouch with the very tip of her blade. The glow shifted through the velvet again, and the market’s hunger sharpened.

“This was brought to me before dawn,” she said. “Wrapped. Hidden. Promised as payment for a private debt.”

“By Vesper?”

“By a messenger.”

“What messenger?”

“A masked cricket.”

Buttonwing blinked. “Masked?”

“With a poppy-petal hood.”

Grubbin sucked in air through his teeth. “That’s dramatic.”

“And stupid,” Buttonwing said. “Crickets are already suspicious. Masking one feels redundant.”

“The messenger claimed the Heartdrop belonged to you,” said Madame Sicklethorn.

Buttonwing recoiled. “What?”

“He said you stole it from the tulip terrace and wished to sell it quickly before the Council searched your body.”

The market murmured again.

Buttonwing felt heat crawl under his shell.

Not embarrassment this time.

Rage.

Proper rage.

The kind that made his ridiculous little decorative antenna beads tremble.

“I did not steal it,” he said.

“So you say.”

“Vesper framed me.”

“So you also say.”

“Grubbin heard her last night.”

Grubbin immediately looked betrayed. “Excuse me, why is my name in your mouth?”

“Because your body is unfortunately present.”

“I told you that in confidence.”

“You told me under threat of being sat upon.”

“That is a sacred legal category down here.”

Madame Sicklethorn’s gaze slid to Grubbin. “Is this true?”

Grubbin adjusted his acorn cap. “Depends who’s asking.”

“I am.”

“Then yes, with deep enthusiasm.”

Buttonwing glared at him. “Coward.”

“Survivor.”

Madame Sicklethorn lowered the pouch again, placing it on the root slab between them. “Suppose I believe you.”

“That would be refreshing.”

“Suppose the dragonfly used your name to move a stolen relic.”

“She did.”

“Suppose I return the Heartdrop.”

Buttonwing leaned forward.

“Yes?”

Madame Sicklethorn smiled. “What do I get?”

There it was.

The underside market had rules, and apparently the first rule was that morality cost extra.

Buttonwing looked at the glowing pouch, then at the mantis. “You get the satisfaction of doing the right thing.”

The entire market burst into laughter.

Not polite laughter.

Not brief laughter.

Full-bodied, ugly, echoing laughter that rolled through the cavern and bounced off the roots until Buttonwing felt like he was standing inside a throat.

Madame Sicklethorn wiped delicately beneath one golden eye. “Oh, little jewel. That was adorable.”

“I hated it too,” said Grubbin.

Buttonwing tried again. “The Heartdrop belongs to the garden.”

“So does everything, until someone carries it somewhere else.”

“That is theft.”

“That is transportation with ambition.”

“You sound like Grubbin.”

“Thank you,” said Grubbin.

“Not a compliment.”

Madame Sicklethorn tapped the pouch. “The relic has value. Enormous value. Not only to the Council. To collectors. To witches. To rain-priests. To sentimental fools with deep pockets and poor impulse control.”

“You can’t sell it.”

“I can sell almost anything.”

“Not if it exposes Vesper.”

“Why would I care about exposing her?”

Buttonwing paused.

That was the problem, wasn’t it?

Madame Sicklethorn did not care who had framed him. The market did not care that the Council would punish the wrong beetle. The market cared about leverage, payment, advantage.

Buttonwing had walked into a place where truth was less useful than trade.

And he had nothing to trade.

Except himself.

Not literally, he hoped. The underside market probably had paperwork for that, and he was not emotionally ready.

He looked down at his shell. At the jeweled buttons, the gold curves, the shell stones and sparkling ridges that had made him a convenient suspect. The things everyone assumed meant wealth, status, importance.

The things he had never chosen.

Then he looked at Madame Sicklethorn.

“You said a good thief is an artist,” Buttonwing said.

“I did.”

“And a careful thief is a professional.”

“Also true.”

“What’s a framed thief?”

Her head tilted.

Buttonwing stepped closer, heart hammering, mouth operating far ahead of his survival instincts as usual.

“Because that’s what I am. I didn’t steal the Heartdrop. Someone wanted everyone to think I did. Which means the real thief is still out there, and they are using your market as their drainpipe.”

Madame Sicklethorn’s expression cooled.

Good.

Buttonwing had found the nerve.

All crime bosses had one. You only had to poke where the arrogance lived.

“Vesper didn’t just frame me,” Buttonwing continued. “She made you look useful.”

A hush swept the market again.

Grubbin whispered, “Oh, that was either brilliant or fatal.”

“Usually both,” Buttonwing whispered back.

Madame Sicklethorn lowered her face until she and Buttonwing were eye to eye. Her breath smelled faintly of mint, metal, and past regrets.

“Explain,” she said softly.

Buttonwing tried very hard not to tremble.

He mostly failed, but in a sparkly way.

“If the Council traces the relic here, you become part of a festival relic theft. The Bloombud Council may be pompous and leaf-bound, but they can make trouble. They’ll send bees. Lots of bees. Angry bees with forms.”

Several shady creatures shuddered. No one liked bees with forms.

“And if the relic vanishes beyond Sugarwild,” Buttonwing continued, “every creature in the garden will whisper that Sicklethorn’s market took the Heartdrop and couldn’t keep quiet about it. Your place becomes too visible. Too hot. Too risky. Vesper gets the money, I get blamed, and you get a market full of attention you did not ask for.”

Madame Sicklethorn said nothing.

Buttonwing pressed on.

“She didn’t hire you. She used you. She threw the Heartdrop into your hands like a lit coal and assumed you’d be too greedy to notice the burn.”

The mantis’s blade-legs flexed.

Ah, thought Buttonwing.

There it is.

Madame Sicklethorn did not care about justice.

But she cared very much about being made to look like a fool.

“Careful,” she said again, but this time the warning was thinner.

“No,” Buttonwing said. “I’ve been careful all morning, and it’s been useless. So here’s the deal. Give me the Heartdrop, and I expose Vesper. Publicly. Loudly. With humiliating details if I can find them.”

“And why would that benefit me?”

“Because if she framed me, she lied to you. If she lied to you, everyone here needs to know what happens to creatures who treat Madame Sicklethorn like a disposal hole with legs.”

The market murmured in appreciation.

Grubbin stared at Buttonwing like he had discovered a new species of bad idea and respected it professionally.

Madame Sicklethorn’s smile returned, but it was different now.

Less amused.

More interested.

“You are not as stupid as you look,” she said.

“That is the nicest awful thing anyone has said to me today.”

“Do not get sentimental.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

She lifted the velvet pouch.

Buttonwing’s breath caught.

For a wild second, he thought she might hand it over. That he had done it. That his mouth, against all odds and several historic patterns, had saved him.

Instead, Madame Sicklethorn held the pouch higher.

“A bargain,” she said.

Buttonwing swallowed. “What kind?”

“I give you the Heartdrop only after you bring me proof of Vesper’s betrayal.”

“That defeats the point. I need the Heartdrop to prove I didn’t steal it.”

“You need proof. The relic is not the only kind.”

“It’s a very helpful kind.”

“And too valuable to hand to a beetle whose main strategy appears to be reckless mouth noises.”

“They’re structured mouth noises.”

“Bring me proof,” she said, “and I will give you the relic before sunset.”

Buttonwing glanced at the pouch. “How do I know you won’t sell it while I’m gone?”

Madame Sicklethorn looked insulted. “Because I said I would not.”

“You are literally running a black-market mushroom cave.”

“With standards.”

“Dark standards.”

“Still standards.”

Grubbin nudged him. “She does keep bargains.”

Buttonwing eyed him. “You’re vouching for her?”

“I’m saying if she planned to lie, you’d already be dead, robbed, or labeled soup.”

“That is not comforting.”

“It wasn’t meant to be. It’s context.”

Madame Sicklethorn drew a thin strand of spider silk from beneath the root slab and tied it around the pouch. Then she pressed the knot with the tip of one blade-leg. The silk darkened, sealing itself with a faint green spark.

“There,” she said. “Bound until sunset. It cannot be opened, sold, or moved beyond this market without breaking my mark.”

Buttonwing leaned closer despite himself. “That’s impressive.”

“Flattery is accepted, though not discounted.”

“Noted.”

“Now,” said Sicklethorn, “as for proof.”

She reached beneath the root slab and withdrew something small, red, and crumpled.

A poppy petal.

No.

A piece of a poppy-petal hood.

Its edge was torn, and near the tear clung a single strand of blue dragonfly wing-fiber, thin as moonlight and sharp with shimmer.

Buttonwing stared.

“From the messenger?”

“He snagged himself on the thorn gate leaving the market.”

“And you kept it?”

“I keep many things.”

“Creepy.”

“Useful.”

“Also creepy.”

She placed the petal scrap in front of him.

Buttonwing picked it up carefully between two claw tips.

The blue fiber glinted.

Vesper.

Or someone close to her.

“This helps,” he said.

“It begins,” Madame Sicklethorn corrected. “If you want the Council to believe you, you need more than a torn petal and your offended sparkle.”

“My offended sparkle has range.”

“Find the messenger. Find who paid him. Find why Vesper wanted the Heartdrop moved.”

Buttonwing frowned. “Why would she?”

“That,” said the mantis, “is the question that keeps your head attached.”

Grubbin raised a hand. “Does mine stay attached by association?”

Madame Sicklethorn looked at him. “For now.”

“Generous.”

Buttonwing tucked the poppy scrap beneath one shell ridge. “Where do we find a masked cricket?”

Grubbin groaned. “Oh no.”

“What?”

“I know that groan,” said Buttonwing. “That groan has directions in it.”

Grubbin scratched behind one antenna. “There’s a place near the old birdcage.”

“Old birdcage?”

“North wall. Rusted. Half buried in ivy. Performers gather there. Crickets, moths, poets, dramatic fleas.”

“Dramatic fleas?”

“Tiny bodies. Big emotions.”

“And masked crickets?”

“Sometimes.”

Madame Sicklethorn’s eyes narrowed. “The Cage Choir.”

Grubbin nodded grimly.

Buttonwing looked between them. “Why do you both sound like someone just said ‘tax audit’?”

“Because the Cage Choir does not answer questions,” said Sicklethorn. “They perform around them.”

Buttonwing blinked. “I hate that already.”

“They trade in songs, secrets, and staged tragedies,” Grubbin said. “If your cricket messenger came from anywhere, it’s there.”

“Fine. We go to the birdcage.”

Grubbin pointed at himself. “We?”

“Still yes.”

“I miss when I was only mildly involved.”

“You’ll adjust.”

Madame Sicklethorn leaned back beneath her mushroom canopy. “One more thing, little jewel.”

Buttonwing paused. “What?”

“When Vesper realizes you found the market, she will move against you.”

“Let her.”

“Bravery and stupidity often share a hat.”

“Mine blew away.”

“Then borrow caution.”

Buttonwing glanced at the sealed pouch, glowing faintly on the root slab.

“I’ll be back before sunset.”

“For your sake,” said Sicklethorn, “be back with something better than attitude.”

“No promises about the attitude.”

He turned and walked away, Grubbin hurrying after him.

The market watched them go. Some with curiosity. Some with amusement. Some with the look of creatures calculating whether Buttonwing’s shell decorations could be removed and sold individually.

Buttonwing walked faster.

At the root curtain, Grubbin caught his arm.

“You do understand what just happened, yes?”

“I negotiated.”

“You mouthed off to Madame Sicklethorn, accused Vesper Glint of manipulating the black market, agreed to expose a conspiracy, and now we have to interrogate theatrical crickets before sunset.”

“So yes. Negotiated.”

Grubbin stared at him. “You are a disaster in decorative casing.”

“And yet you’re still here.”

“Under protest.”

“Your protest is noted and ignored.”

They pushed through the roots and back into the tunnel. The underside market faded behind them, replaced by the dim glow of fungus and the wet smell of earth. Buttonwing’s mind raced faster than his legs could carry him.

Vesper had arranged the sale.

A masked cricket had delivered the Heartdrop.

Madame Sicklethorn had the relic but would not release it without proof.

And the Council’s sunset deadline still hung over him like a spider with punctuality issues.

By the time they emerged from the root tunnel into a patch of low fern shade, morning had brightened into full day. Sunlight sifted through the leaves, gilding every dew bead, every petal edge, every harmless beautiful thing that suddenly seemed capable of betrayal.

Buttonwing paused, letting the light strike his shell.

For once, he noticed the way it scattered.

Tiny shards of color danced across the fern stems. Pink. Blue. Gold. Green. Little pieces of sunrise cast from his own body.

He frowned.

“Stop doing that,” he muttered to himself.

“Doing what?” asked Grubbin.

“Sparkling meaningfully.”

“Can you stop?”

“Apparently not.”

Grubbin shrugged. “Then use it.”

Buttonwing looked at him. “Use it?”

“Everyone stares at you anyway. Make them stare where you want.”

Buttonwing opened his mouth, ready to dismiss the idea, but the words caught.

Everyone did stare.

Always had.

He had spent years resenting it, ducking beneath leaves, insisting he was normal, pretending his shine was just an inconvenient accident. But if every eye in the garden followed him, perhaps that was not only a curse.

Perhaps it was a tool.

A ridiculous, glittery, deeply annoying tool.

“That may be the first useful thing you’ve said,” Buttonwing said.

“I say useful things constantly.”

“Name three.”

Grubbin opened his mouth.

Closed it.

“Not under pressure.”

Buttonwing smiled despite himself.

They started north.

The route to the old birdcage took them through parts of Sugarwild Garden Buttonwing rarely visited: past the cracked marble basin where moss grew in velvet mats, through a forest of lavender stems humming with sleepy bees, beneath a fallen rose trellis twisted into green arches. Everywhere they went, creatures stared.

Not always suspiciously.

But enough.

A pair of ladybugs whispered.

A snail pulled his head halfway into his shell.

A cluster of bees paused mid-flight and watched Buttonwing pass like he was a parade float on trial.

By noon, the scandal had spread.

Of course it had.

Gardens were gossip machines with petals. Give a bloom half a rumor and a shaft of sunlight, and by lunch it would have grown side plots.

“I heard he swallowed the Heartdrop,” whispered a daisy as they passed.

“I heard he polished it first,” said another.

“I heard he seduced a moth guard.”

Buttonwing stopped. “I did what?”

Grubbin dragged him onward. “Do not engage the daisies.”

“They’re slandering me.”

“They slander weather.”

“I have never seduced a moth guard.”

“Not the point.”

“I barely know any moth guards.”

“Buttonwing.”

“One moth choir assistant complimented my wing veins once, and I panicked and knocked over a pudding. That is not seduction.”

“It might be for moths.”

Buttonwing considered this and became quiet for several steps.

At last, the old birdcage appeared.

It leaned against the north garden wall, half swallowed by ivy and shadow. Rusted bars arched upward like the ribs of a dead golden beast. Vines threaded through the metal. Tiny lanterns made from hollow seed pods hung from the bars, unlit in daylight. A cracked porcelain dish sat at the base, filled not with birdseed but with beads, paper scraps, thistle fluff, and what looked suspiciously like tiny love letters.

The place hummed with performance.

Not music exactly.

More like ego warming up.

Crickets lounged along the bars with polished hind legs and dramatic scarves. Moths practiced slow tragic turns on ivy leaves. A flea in a red cape rehearsed fainting into a bottle cap. Three gnats recited something in unison that sounded like poetry if poetry had lost a fight with soup.

Grubbin stopped beside a mossy stone.

“Cage Choir,” he said. “Do not insult them.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

“You never plan to.”

“Fair.”

Buttonwing stepped forward.

Instantly, the performers noticed him.

Every cricket leg paused. Every moth head turned. The flea missed his fainting mark and fell into the bottle cap too early.

A tall black cricket with a silver-thread sash descended from the cage bars, landing lightly on a curl of ivy. He had a narrow face, elegant antennae, and the smug posture of someone who had never once apologized for blocking a path.

“Well,” said the cricket, his voice smooth and resonant. “The accused jewel arrives.”

Buttonwing sighed. “Does everyone have a dramatic greeting prepared?”

“Some of us are professionals.”

“Were you wearing a poppy-petal hood before dawn?”

Grubbin slapped a hand over his face.

The cricket’s smile thinned. “Direct. Vulgar. Inelegant.”

“Efficient,” said Buttonwing.

“Not here.”

“I’m in a hurry.”

“All urgent creatures are. It rarely makes them interesting.”

Buttonwing lowered his voice. “Listen, you theatrical ankle hinge, I have until sunset before the Council pins a sacred relic theft on me. I am looking for a masked cricket who delivered the Heartdrop to Madame Sicklethorn this morning. I have a torn poppy hood and blue dragonfly wing-fiber. You can either help me, or I can start improvising.”

The cricket stared.

The Cage Choir gasped.

Grubbin whispered, “Not the improvising threat.”

Buttonwing had no idea why that mattered, but the performers recoiled as though he had drawn a weapon.

The black cricket’s voice dropped. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me.”

“Improvisation is outlawed in respectable performance circles.”

“Then answer quickly.”

A moth near the upper bars whispered, “He’s barbaric.”

“Thank you,” Buttonwing said. “I’m underdeveloped but motivated.”

The black cricket studied him for a long moment. Then he turned. “Maestro Brindle.”

A smaller brown cricket emerged from behind a hanging ivy leaf.

Buttonwing knew before anyone spoke.

The brown cricket moved with a slight limp. His left hind leg had a scratch near the joint. A faint red stain marked one shoulder where a poppy petal might have rubbed. And though he wore no hood now, one blue filament clung to the edge of his scarf.

Grubbin sucked in a breath. “That’s him.”

Maestro Brindle looked ready to run.

Buttonwing stepped sideways, letting sunlight strike his wings.

His body caught fire with color.

Not real fire, thankfully.

He had enough problems.

The jewel-bright flash scattered across the old birdcage bars, throwing pink and turquoise sparks over every performer’s face. The whole Cage Choir stared, dazzled despite themselves.

Buttonwing realized what Grubbin had meant.

Make them stare where you want.

So he lifted one wing higher and angled it toward Brindle.

The blue filament on Brindle’s scarf gleamed like a confession.

“There,” Buttonwing said.

The black cricket looked.

So did the moths.

So did the fleas, gnats, and one extremely emotional silverfish hiding beneath a leaf.

Maestro Brindle backed away.

“I don’t know what you think you see.”

“I see a cricket with poppy stains and dragonfly fiber,” Buttonwing said. “I see someone who went to the underside market before dawn. I see a messenger who used my name to sell stolen property.”

Brindle’s antennae shook. “I didn’t steal anything.”

“That makes two of us. Refreshing little club, isn’t it?”

The black cricket turned on Brindle. “Maestro?”

Brindle swallowed.

Buttonwing stepped closer. “Who hired you?”

“No one.”

Buttonwing flared both wings.

Light burst across the cage.

“Lie prettier,” he said.

The performers murmured approval at that. Even the black cricket seemed grudgingly impressed.

Brindle’s composure cracked. “I only delivered it.”

“For Vesper.”

“I never saw her face.”

“Blue wing-fiber says otherwise.”

“She wore a veil.”

“Dragonflies have distinctive wings, genius. They’re basically stained glass gossip.”

Brindle flinched.

Buttonwing pressed. “Why frame me?”

Brindle looked toward the garden wall.

For one moment, pure fear passed over his face.

Not fear of Buttonwing.

Not fear of the Choir.

Fear of someone else.

“She said no one would care,” he whispered.

Buttonwing went very still.

“What?”

“She said everyone already thought you were ridiculous. That they’d believe it. That you were always taking things and making scenes, and no one would look past you once the shine caught their eyes.”

The words struck harder than Buttonwing expected.

He knew Vesper was cruel. He knew she was sharp. But there was something intimate about hearing exactly how useful his own reputation had become to someone who wished him harm.

Always taking things.

Always making scenes.

Ridiculous.

Shiny enough to distract from the truth.

He felt Grubbin shift beside him, uncharacteristically quiet.

Buttonwing forced his voice steady. “Why did she steal it?”

Brindle shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Wrong answer.”

“I don’t! She only paid me to deliver the pouch and say it came from you. That’s all.”

“Paid you with what?”

Brindle hesitated.

The black cricket’s eyes narrowed. “Maestro.”

Slowly, Brindle reached beneath his scarf and withdrew a small bead of clear hardened sap. Suspended inside it was a curl of blue light.

Grubbin inhaled sharply. “Skyglass.”

Buttonwing looked at him. “What’s Skyglass?”

“Dragonfly winglight preserved in sap. Rare. Valuable. Personal.”

Buttonwing leaned close to the bead.

Inside, the blue glow twisted like a living thread.

“Personal enough to prove it came from Vesper?”

Grubbin nodded. “If she gave it willingly. Dragonflies don’t shed winglight casually. It’s like leaving a signed confession, if the confession were vain and expensive.”

Buttonwing looked at Brindle. “I need that.”

Brindle clutched it. “No.”

“You helped frame me.”

“I was paid for a delivery.”

“You knew it was dirty.”

“Everything is dirty before dawn.”

“Give me the bead.”

Brindle backed away. “I can’t. She’ll ruin me.”

Buttonwing laughed once, sharp and humorless.

“She already used you.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Oh, I understand being used today. I’m getting quite an education.”

Brindle looked away.

Buttonwing softened, just a little, though it irritated him.

“Listen. If I don’t prove this before sunset, the Council charges me. Vesper gets away. Madame Sicklethorn keeps the Heartdrop. Sugarwild loses its relic. And you get to keep your little blue bead until Vesper decides loose ends clash with her cheekbones.”

Brindle’s face tightened.

“You think she would?”

Grubbin snorted. “She absolutely would.”

Buttonwing nodded. “With style. Possibly a flourish.”

The black cricket folded his arms. “Maestro Brindle, the Cage Choir does not shield cowards who endanger the stage.”

“This isn’t about the stage,” Brindle snapped.

“Everything is about the stage.”

Buttonwing pointed at him. “Not helpful, but weirdly on brand.”

Brindle stared at the bead in his hand.

Then, with visible pain, he held it out.

Buttonwing took it carefully.

The Skyglass was warm.

“Thank you,” he said.

Brindle swallowed. “She mentioned one more thing.”

Buttonwing looked up. “What?”

“A meeting. Before sunset. At the Mirrorleaf Pool.”

Grubbin stiffened. “Mirrorleaf?”

“Why does every location today sound like it has a curse and a dress code?” Buttonwing asked.

Brindle continued, “She said once the Council condemned you, the Heartdrop would be impossible to trace. Then she’d meet someone at the pool for the final exchange.”

“Someone?”

“A buyer. I don’t know who.”

Buttonwing tucked the Skyglass bead beside the torn petal scrap beneath his shell ridge.

Proof.

Not enough, perhaps, but proof.

The first real weight against Vesper’s lie.

“Mirrorleaf Pool,” he said.

Grubbin grimaced. “That’s near the Council glade.”

“Convenient.”

“Dangerous.”

“Also convenient.”

The black cricket stepped aside. “Go quickly, accused jewel.”

Buttonwing paused. “My name is Buttonwing.”

The cricket bowed slightly. “Then go quickly, Buttonwing.”

That should not have mattered.

It did.

Buttonwing gave one stiff nod and turned away.

As he and Grubbin left the old birdcage, the performers began whispering behind them. This time the whispers sounded different. Less amused. Less hungry.

Maybe not belief.

Not yet.

But doubt.

Doubt was something.

Doubt was a crack in the polished shell of a lie.

And Buttonwing, as everyone kept reminding him, was very good at catching light.

The sun had begun its slow lean toward afternoon by the time they reached the fern path leading to Mirrorleaf Pool. The air had grown warmer, thick with nectar and rumor. Somewhere in the distance, festival bells chimed from bluebell throats, bright and cheerful and completely inconsiderate of Buttonwing’s legal crisis.

Grubbin kept pace beside him, nervous eyes darting.

“We should go to the constable,” he said.

“With a torn petal and a glowing bead?”

“It’s evidence.”

“It’s evidence if someone already believes me. If they don’t, it’s pocket clutter.”

“Pocket clutter that implicates Vesper.”

“Not enough. She’ll say Brindle stole it, or I planted it, or dragonflies drop expensive personal winglight all the time when they’re emotionally exfoliating.”

Grubbin frowned. “Do they?”

“No idea. She could sell it.”

They passed beneath a low arch of fern fronds. Ahead, sunlight flashed on still water.

Mirrorleaf Pool lay in a hollow surrounded by glossy green leaves broad enough to hold reflections. The water itself was dark, clear, and unnervingly still. It reflected the sky, the blossoms, the overhanging stems—and, according to garden whispers, whatever truth a creature was trying hardest not to see.

Buttonwing hated it immediately.

Anything that reflected truth was probably smug.

They crouched behind a cluster of moss and waited.

For several minutes, nothing happened.

A water strider skimmed across the pool.

A breeze stirred the leaves.

Buttonwing’s own reflection shimmered back at him from between two fern stems.

He tried not to look.

Failed.

There he was.

Round, turquoise, gold-trimmed, bright-eyed, absurd. His wings folded along his back like stained-glass secrets. His shell ornaments glinted softly, less like armor than decoration. Less like decoration than declaration.

He looked nothing like the practical beetle he had always imagined himself to be.

He looked strange.

Beautiful, maybe.

Ridiculous, definitely.

A royal heirloom someone taught to swear.

“Damn it,” he whispered.

Grubbin glanced over. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re looking at yourself weird.”

“I’m allowed. I recently learned I’m apparently fancy.”

“Recently?”

“Don’t start.”

Grubbin leaned back against the moss. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think fancy is your problem.”

Buttonwing snorted. “No?”

“No. Your problem is you think being fancy means you can’t also be scrappy, rude, broke, confused, and occasionally useful.”

Buttonwing looked at him.

Grubbin shrugged. “Creatures can be more than one inconvenient thing.”

For a moment, Buttonwing had no clever reply.

Then a voice drifted over the pool.

“You’re late.”

Buttonwing and Grubbin ducked lower.

Vesper Glint descended from above the fern line, her blue body flashing in the afternoon light. Her wings were perfect, clear and sharp, except for one tiny nick near the lower edge.

Buttonwing’s grip tightened around the moss.

She landed on a mirrorleaf at the pool’s edge and looked at her reflection with open approval.

“I dislike waiting,” she said.

From the shadows beneath a fallen iris stem emerged another figure.

Not a cricket.

Not a mantis.

Not anyone Buttonwing expected.

Constable Thistlewick stepped into the light.

Grubbin’s mouth fell open.

Buttonwing felt the entire world tilt sideways.

The lacewing constable adjusted his silver spectacles.

“Then perhaps,” he said to Vesper, “you should have chosen a less noticeable scapegoat.”

Buttonwing’s blood went cold.

Vesper’s smile sharpened. “Oh, please. Noticeable was the point.”

Thistlewick clicked his tongue. “The market has been disturbed. Sicklethorn knows too much.”

“Because your little officers failed to hold him.”

“He fled before questioning concluded.”

“He is a beetle shaped like a bauble. How hard could it have been?”

Buttonwing’s jaw clenched.

Grubbin whispered, “Do not leap.”

Buttonwing whispered back, “I am thinking about it recreationally.”

Thistlewick stepped closer to Vesper. “The Council convenes at sunset. Once Buttonwing is charged, attention turns away from the relic.”

“And Sicklethorn?”

“Will be handled.”

Vesper arched one elegant brow. “Bold.”

“Necessary.”

“And the Heartdrop?”

Thistlewick’s wings flicked. “After condemnation, I will retrieve it under authority of evidence collection. It will disappear from the record before moonrise.”

Vesper laughed softly. “You always did make corruption sound like paperwork.”

“And you always did mistake cruelty for wit.”

“Careful, Constable. I chose you because you were useful, not charming.”

Thistlewick’s expression hardened. “You chose me because I know the Council’s vault routes. You needed access.”

“And you needed debt relief.”

Buttonwing glanced at Grubbin.

Grubbin’s eyes were huge.

Debt.

Of course.

Thistlewick was involved. The constable himself had helped frame him.

No wonder the investigation had been so thin. No wonder the accusation had formed around Buttonwing before anyone had bothered to search properly.

The law had not failed.

The law had been rented.

Vesper moved closer to the pool, gazing down at her reflection. “By tomorrow, the Heartdrop will be gone, Sicklethorn will be blamed for fencing it, and Buttonwing will be remembered as a glittering little cautionary tale.”

Buttonwing’s chest tightened.

Glittering little cautionary tale.

That was all she thought he was.

A joke with enough shine to distract from a crime.

Thistlewick frowned. “Do not underestimate him.”

Vesper turned. “Buttonwing?”

“He found the market.”

“Because Grubbin led him there.”

Grubbin silently pointed at himself, deeply offended at being accurately accused.

“He also found Brindle,” Thistlewick said.

Vesper’s wings twitched.

There it was again.

The crack.

“Then we adjust,” she said.

“How?”

Vesper’s gaze drifted across the fern line.

For one terrible second, Buttonwing thought she saw him.

But her eyes passed over the moss and settled on the path beyond.

“We make sure he does not reach the Council.”

Thistlewick hesitated. “That was not part of the arrangement.”

“Neither was his competence.”

“Harming him would draw attention.”

“I did not say harm.”

Vesper smiled.

Buttonwing hated that smile more than anything he had seen all day, including the underside market’s suspicious spoons.

“Humiliate him,” she said. “Publicly. Completely. Make him panic. Make him loud. Make him ridiculous. By sunset, no one will listen to a word he says.”

Thistlewick adjusted his spectacles. “And if he has evidence?”

“Then we make the evidence look stolen too.”

Buttonwing touched the shell ridge where the Skyglass bead and poppy scrap were hidden.

Grubbin leaned close. “We need to go. Now.”

Buttonwing did not move.

He was looking at Mirrorleaf Pool.

At Vesper.

At Thistlewick.

At their reflections.

The pool showed them clearly, but beneath their mirrored forms, something else shimmered—thin strands of light, like ghostly echoes of what they had said. The leaves around the pool trembled, catching sound and image together.

Truth a creature was trying hardest not to see.

Buttonwing’s eyes widened.

Mirrorleaf Pool did not just reflect faces.

It held moments.

Maybe only briefly.

Maybe only if the truth was ugly enough to leave a stain.

But as Vesper and Thistlewick spoke, their reflections pulsed with faint blue-gold ripples.

Proof.

Real proof.

If he could bring the Council here, or bring the reflection to them somehow—

A twig snapped beneath Grubbin’s foot.

Vesper’s head whipped around.

Silence.

Buttonwing and Grubbin froze.

Thistlewick narrowed his eyes. “Who’s there?”

Grubbin whispered, “Run?”

Buttonwing whispered, “Run.”

They bolted.

Behind them, Vesper shouted, “There!”

Thistlewick’s wings buzzed sharply.

Buttonwing shot through the fern path, Grubbin scrambling ahead with a speed born of cowardice and talent. Leaves whipped against Buttonwing’s shell. His ornaments snagged on stems. His wings burst open once, twice, catching bits of air and panic.

“Stop them!” Thistlewick called.

A pair of ants on patrol turned at the sound.

Buttonwing veered left.

Grubbin veered right.

They collided with each other, swore in two-part harmony, and tumbled beneath a hydrangea.

“This way!” Grubbin gasped.

“You said that last time and we ended up in a crime cave!”

“It was relevant!”

They darted under the hydrangea canopy as Vesper swept overhead, wings slicing the air.

“Buttonwing!” she called sweetly. “You’re only making this worse.”

Buttonwing shouted back, “That is my process!”

A lacewing shadow flashed across the ground.

Thistlewick was faster than he looked.

Grubbin ducked into a narrow crack between two stones. Buttonwing tried to follow and immediately wedged halfway through.

“Not again,” he hissed.

“Suck in your sparkle!” Grubbin barked from the other side.

“That is not anatomically specific!”

Buttonwing twisted. One shell bead scraped stone. A gold ridge caught. Behind him, Vesper landed lightly on a nearby leaf.

“Oh dear,” she said. “Stuck?”

Buttonwing froze.

Her face appeared above him, elegant and amused.

“How painfully on brand.”

“Say on brand again,” Buttonwing grunted, “and I’ll vomit on your reflection.”

She laughed. “You really don’t understand what you are, do you?”

Buttonwing shoved forward. The stone held him tight.

Vesper leaned closer. “All that shine, and no idea how to use it. No dignity. No grace. Just a gaudy little accident everyone tolerates because you’re amusing.”

Buttonwing stopped struggling.

The words hit the old bruises. The familiar ones. The ones beneath all the sass and noise.

Gaudy little accident.

Behind the stone, Grubbin whispered fiercely, “Buttonwing.”

Vesper smiled. “You should have stayed asleep on the tulip.”

Something inside Buttonwing settled.

Not broke.

Settled.

Like a bead clicking into place.

He looked up at her.

“You’re right,” he said.

Vesper blinked.

“I don’t understand what I am.”

Buttonwing drew a breath.

Then he flared his wings as wide as the stone crack allowed.

Sunlight struck them.

Hard.

The flash exploded outward in a burst of turquoise, rose, gold, and white so bright Vesper shrieked and recoiled. The light ricocheted off the nearby stones, bounced through dew drops beneath the hydrangea, and turned the whole shadowed space into a kaleidoscope of violent sparkle.

Grubbin yelped. “My crimes! I can see all my crimes!”

Buttonwing twisted with everything he had.

The shell bead snapped free of the stone.

He popped through the crack like a cork from a furious bottle, slamming into Grubbin and sending them both rolling down a slope of moss.

They landed in a heap beside a clump of clover.

Buttonwing sprang up, panting.

Behind them, Vesper cursed with surprising creativity.

Grubbin stared at Buttonwing. “You weaponized fancy.”

Buttonwing looked back toward the hydrangea, where colored light still trembled through the dew.

“Apparently.”

“How does it feel?”

Buttonwing’s wings shook.

He was terrified.

Still accused.

Still hunted.

Still running out of time.

But beneath all that, something else had begun to glow.

Not the shell.

Him.

“Annoyingly useful,” he said.

Grubbin grinned. “Good. Be annoyed later. We need the Council.”

“No,” Buttonwing said.

“No?”

He turned toward the path leading back to Mirrorleaf Pool.

“We need the whole garden.”

Grubbin stared. “That sounds worse.”

“It is.”

“Naturally.”

Buttonwing touched the hidden evidence beneath his shell, then looked toward the distant bluebell bells where festival crowds would soon gather before sunset.

Vesper wanted him humiliated publicly.

Fine.

She wanted loud?

Good.

She wanted ridiculous?

Excellent.

Buttonwing had spent his entire life trying not to be a spectacle.

Maybe that had been the mistake.

He opened his stained-glass wings and let them catch the sun.

“Let’s give them a show.”

The Spectacle That Bit Back

By the time Buttonwing and Grubbin reached the festival meadow, the entire garden had gathered beneath the late-afternoon glow like nothing terrible was happening.

Which was exactly how gardens preferred their scandals.

Dress them in petals. Serve nectar. Ring some bluebells. Pretend the rot isn’t under the table chewing politely on the legs.

The Bloomturn Festival spread across Sugarwild in ridiculous abundance. Garland vines looped from tulip to rose, from rose to foxglove, from foxglove to a suspiciously tipsy sunflower who kept swaying into the bunting and claiming it was “the breeze’s fault.” Dew cups glittered on leaf trays. Bees carried thimble-sized pitchers of honeywater. Moths had dusted their wings with moon-powder despite sunset being at least an hour away, because moths had never met an occasion they couldn’t overdress for and then act wounded about.

At the center of the meadow stood the Council dais: a flat mushroom cap polished until it shone like old ivory, ringed with petals and flanked by two bluebell towers. Mistress Larkspur Primm stood atop it, stiff and regal and looking as though someone had told her joy was expected and she was filing an objection.

Beside her stood Constable Thistlewick.

Buttonwing felt his whole body tighten at the sight of him.

The lacewing looked calm. Clean. Official. His silver spectacles caught the sun. His wings folded neatly behind him. Nothing about him suggested he had been plotting at Mirrorleaf Pool less than an hour earlier to ruin an innocent beetle, steal a sacred relic, and probably use paperwork as a murder weapon.

That bothered Buttonwing more than Vesper’s obvious cruelty.

Vesper was sharp and shiny and mean. You saw the blade coming, even if it smiled.

Thistlewick was worse.

He looked like order.

He looked like the kind of creature everyone trusted because he knew where forms were kept.

And that was how he had nearly gotten away with it.

Grubbin crouched beside Buttonwing beneath a cluster of marigold leaves at the meadow’s edge.

“We could still leave,” Grubbin whispered.

Buttonwing stared at the dais. “No.”

“I don’t mean forever. Just until all consequences die of old age.”

“No.”

“I have several burrows. Some are dry. One only smells like old turnip on damp days.”

Buttonwing looked at him.

Grubbin sighed. “Fine. Spectacle.”

“Spectacle,” Buttonwing confirmed.

His plan, if it deserved that generous little hat, had three parts.

First, get the entire garden looking at him.

This would not be difficult. Buttonwing had been causing involuntary staring since birth.

Second, expose the evidence: the torn poppy hood, the blue dragonfly wing-fiber, and the Skyglass bead Brindle had surrendered.

This would be difficult, because Vesper was a practiced liar, Thistlewick was the constable, and Buttonwing’s public reputation sat somewhere between “decorative nuisance” and “possible pudding criminal.”

Third, use Mirrorleaf Pool.

This was the part where the plan stopped being a plan and became what Grubbin called “a theatrical suicide sneeze.”

Mirrorleaf Pool held moments. Maybe. Probably. Buttonwing had seen the reflections pulse with Vesper and Thistlewick’s words. He did not know how to make the pool reveal them again. He did not know whether it could be moved, summoned, or persuaded. He did not know whether the whole thing would work or whether he would simply march in front of everyone, accuse a Council officer, sparkle aggressively, and get arrested so hard future beetles would feel it.

But he had one advantage.

The garden expected him to be ridiculous.

So he would be.

On purpose.

There was power, he had decided, in giving people exactly what they expected and then making them choke on it.

A bluebell rang.

The meadow fell into murmuring silence.

Mistress Larkspur lifted one violet leaf.

“Creatures of Sugarwild Garden,” she announced, “we gather at the closing hour of this grievous day under circumstances most unfortunate.”

“Understatement,” Grubbin muttered.

“The Heartdrop of Morning remains missing,” Larkspur continued. “The Bloombud Council has reviewed the known facts, collected witness accounts, and consulted with Constable Thistlewick regarding the primary suspect.”

Buttonwing’s claws dug into the soil.

Primary suspect.

Not victim. Not witness. Not framed beetle with a very difficult morning and a growing appreciation for crimes against corrupt officials.

Primary suspect.

Thistlewick stepped forward.

“The evidence,” he said, voice smooth and dry, “points to Buttonwing Beetle.”

A wave of whispers moved through the meadow.

Buttonwing looked across the crowd and saw the story already sitting in their eyes.

There he was.

Shiny bug. Odd bug. Loud bug. Trouble bug.

Maybe he did it.

Maybe of course he did it.

Maybe the story had always been waiting for the right stolen object.

Thistlewick unfurled a scroll. “He was found at the scene. He possessed no alibi. He has a history of unauthorized borrowing, disruptive behavior, and inappropriate proximity to ceremonial objects.”

Buttonwing whispered, “Inappropriate proximity is not a crime.”

Grubbin whispered back, “It is if the object has a lawyer.”

Thistlewick continued, “When questioned, he fled.”

“After you accused me with a cushion and vibes,” Buttonwing hissed.

“And,” Thistlewick said, “we have reason to believe he attempted to move the Heartdrop through the underside market.”

The meadow erupted.

Gasps. Buzzes. Fluttering. One snail declared, “I knew it,” despite being historically wrong about nearly everything.

Mistress Larkspur raised both leaves until quiet returned.

“Buttonwing Beetle,” she called, “step forward.”

Grubbin looked at him. “Last chance to choose turnip burrow.”

Buttonwing inhaled.

His shell felt too bright. His wings felt too delicate. His little ridiculous buttons and beads felt suddenly heavy, like every assumption the garden had ever made about him had crawled onto his back for a better view.

Then he remembered Vesper above the stone crack.

Gaudy little accident.

He remembered Thistlewick at Mirrorleaf Pool.

Once Buttonwing is charged, attention turns away from the relic.

He remembered Grubbin’s unexpected wisdom.

Creatures can be more than one inconvenient thing.

Fine.

He could be shiny and angry.

Frightened and brave.

Ridiculous and right.

Buttonwing stepped out from beneath the marigold leaves.

The reaction was immediate.

Heads turned. Wings paused. Petals leaned in. Bees hovered midair with the intense focus of creatures who lived for workplace drama and honey.

Buttonwing walked toward the dais.

He did not tuck his wings tight this time.

He opened them slightly.

Just enough for the lowering sun to catch along their translucent veins.

Color spilled behind him.

Turquoise. Gold. Rose. Violet.

Every step scattered little jeweled reflections across the grass, the leaves, the bell towers, the faces of the watching crowd.

The whispers changed.

Not quieter.

Different.

Less like suspicion.

More like awe trying not to admit it had been invited.

Buttonwing climbed onto the lower edge of the mushroom dais, which took longer than he would have preferred and involved one undignified leg scrabble near the end. He chose not to acknowledge it.

“Buttonwing Beetle,” said Mistress Larkspur, “you stand before the Bloombud Council accused of relic theft, festival sabotage, and sacred display tampering.”

“Still sounds made up,” Buttonwing said.

Several bees snickered.

Larkspur’s petals tightened. “This is a formal proceeding.”

“Then formally, it still sounds made up.”

Thistlewick stepped forward. “Do you deny the charges?”

Buttonwing turned to him.

“I deny them so hard they should need a splint.”

“And yet you fled questioning.”

“Because your questioning was less an investigation and more a decorative shove toward a verdict.”

A murmur rippled through the meadow.

Thistlewick’s eyes narrowed. “Careful.”

Buttonwing smiled without warmth. “I borrowed that advice earlier. Didn’t fit.”

Mistress Larkspur leaned forward. “Buttonwing. This is your opportunity to speak in your defense. I suggest you use it wisely.”

He looked out over the crowd.

So many faces.

Some doubtful. Some eager. Some cruel. Some afraid to be wrong.

And near the back, hovering just above a spray of lavender, Vesper Glint watched him with a smile sharp enough to trim thorns.

There you are, Buttonwing thought.

Good.

“I did not steal the Heartdrop,” he said loudly.

The meadow murmured.

“I did wake up near the tulip terrace. I did say some unfortunate things about hats. I did eat a mushroom tart that may or may not have belonged to the Council, though I would argue again that unattended food after moonrise enters a public custody situation.”

Mistress Larkspur closed her eyes briefly.

“But I did not steal the Heartdrop,” Buttonwing continued. “I was framed.”

The word moved through the garden like a dropped stone through water.

Framed.

Vesper’s smile did not change.

Thistlewick’s did.

Just a flicker.

Buttonwing saw it.

“By whom?” Mistress Larkspur asked.

Buttonwing lifted one claw and pointed across the meadow.

Every head turned.

Vesper Glint hovered perfectly still.

“By Vesper,” Buttonwing said. “With help from Constable Thistlewick.”

The meadow exploded.

Not with murmurs this time.

With outrage.

Laughter. Gasps. Angry buzzing. Petal-flutters. A moth fainted, then peeked to see if anyone was watching, then fainted harder.

Thistlewick snapped his wings open. “That is an outrageous accusation.”

“Yes,” Buttonwing said. “I saved it for the crowd.”

“You will withdraw it immediately.”

“No.”

“You have no authority to accuse an officer of the Council.”

“I also had no authority to investigate, but your work was embarrassing and someone had to bring pants to the parade.”

A bee shouted, “He’s got a point!”

Another bee shouted, “About the pants?”

“Metaphorically!”

“Still!”

Mistress Larkspur struck the dais with a stiff leaf. “Silence!”

The garden settled, though reluctantly.

Larkspur’s gaze moved from Buttonwing to Thistlewick, then toward Vesper. “You will present evidence.”

Thistlewick gave a tight nod. “Yes. Let him present his fantasies.”

Buttonwing reached beneath the ridge of his shell and withdrew the torn poppy-petal scrap.

It was small. Red. Crumpled. The blue dragonfly fiber clung to it, fine as a whisper.

“This was torn from the hood worn by the messenger who delivered the Heartdrop to the underside market before dawn,” he said. “The messenger was a cricket named Brindle from the Cage Choir.”

A stir moved through the performers gathered near the old cage path.

The black cricket with the silver sash stood there, solemn and elegant, with Brindle beside him looking like guilt had given him digestive trouble.

Buttonwing pointed. “Ask him.”

Every eye shifted.

Brindle swallowed hard.

The black cricket nudged him with one sharp leg.

“I delivered the pouch,” Brindle said, voice trembling. “To Madame Sicklethorn. I was paid to say it came from Buttonwing.”

The meadow erupted again.

Vesper’s wings flicked once.

Thistlewick snapped, “A criminal messenger’s word is hardly reliable.”

“Agreed,” Buttonwing said. “Which is why I brought more pocket clutter.”

He withdrew the Skyglass bead.

The clear sap glowed with Vesper’s blue winglight, bright and unmistakable in the sunset.

A collective gasp rolled across the meadow.

Dragonflies in particular went rigid.

Vesper’s face hardened.

Buttonwing lifted the bead high. “Payment. Given to Brindle. Rare. Personal. Very expensive, according to my associate, who is morally questionable but annoyingly informed.”

Grubbin, half-hidden below the dais, gave a little bow. “That’s me.”

Buttonwing continued, “And the winglight matches Vesper.”

Vesper laughed.

It was perfect laughter.

Light, musical, dismissive.

Buttonwing hated that he admired the technique.

“My dear Buttonwing,” she said, floating forward through the air, “that bead was stolen from me last week.”

The crowd turned again.

Buttonwing’s stomach dipped, but he kept his face steady.

Of course.

She had planned an answer.

“Was it?” he asked.

“Yes. I was too embarrassed to report it. Skyglass is personal, as you said. I had hoped to recover it quietly.”

Thistlewick nodded. “A convenient explanation for your possession of stolen property, Buttonwing.”

Buttonwing looked at him. “You rehearsed that together, didn’t you?”

“Enough,” Thistlewick said. “You have presented stolen trinkets, the word of a paid messenger, and insults.”

“Don’t undersell the insults.”

“You are unraveling in public.”

Vesper drifted nearer, her voice softening into syrup. “Poor thing. He’s frightened. He was always dramatic, but this…”

Buttonwing saw heads nod.

Not many.

But enough.

Vesper was doing exactly what she said she would do.

Make him panic.

Make him loud.

Make him ridiculous.

Then no one would listen.

Buttonwing’s claws tightened around the Skyglass bead.

For one breath, the old instinct rose in him: snap back, swear louder, fling every sharp word he had and hope one stuck.

But he had not come here only to be angry.

He had come to be seen.

Properly.

And if he was going to be a spectacle, he would be one with timing.

“You’re right,” Buttonwing said.

Vesper blinked.

Thistlewick frowned.

The garden quieted.

“I am frightened,” Buttonwing said. “I have been frightened all day. I woke up accused of stealing something sacred. I was mocked, chased, threatened, and very nearly called soup.”

Grubbin nodded gravely. “It was implied.”

“And yes,” Buttonwing continued, “I am dramatic. I say things I shouldn’t. I have borrowed items that were not fully done being owned. I once bit a daisy for describing my walk as ‘jaunty.’”

A daisy in the crowd whispered, “That was me.”

“You deserved it,” Buttonwing said without looking.

The crowd chuckled.

He let it.

Then he opened his wings wider.

The sunset caught them.

The meadow filled with color.

Not a flash this time.

A glow.

Soft, broad, impossible to ignore.

Buttonwing stood at the center of it, every jeweled ridge and button-bright ornament lit like a tiny stained-glass cathedral with an attitude problem.

“I have spent my life pretending I am not what everyone sees,” he said. “Pretending I am plain because being noticed felt like being judged before I opened my mouth. And then today, someone used that. Someone looked at me and decided my shine would make me easy to blame. That if the story was pretty enough, no one would ask whether it was true.”

The meadow had gone very still.

Even Mistress Larkspur seemed caught.

Buttonwing turned slowly toward Vesper.

“But you made one mistake.”

Her expression cooled.

“Only one?” she said.

“You thought being ridiculous meant being powerless.”

Grubbin whispered from below, “That was good.”

Buttonwing whispered back, “I know.”

Then, louder: “Bring the Mirrorleaf.”

A confused murmur passed through the crowd.

Mistress Larkspur frowned. “The what?”

At the edge of the meadow, three snails began slowly hauling a shallow leaf-basin forward.

Grubbin had fetched them while Buttonwing spoke. That was part of the plan too, though Buttonwing had not been entirely sure the snails would arrive before winter.

The basin was made from a broad mirrorleaf, curled at the edges and filled with water from Mirrorleaf Pool. Its surface shimmered dark and glassy.

The snails dragged it with grave importance, because snails given responsibility become unbearable almost instantly.

Thistlewick’s wings twitched.

Vesper’s eyes narrowed.

There.

Fear.

Small, but real.

“Mirrorleaf water holds truth,” Buttonwing said. “Not forever. Not always kindly. But it remembers what creatures try hardest to hide.”

“Superstition,” Thistlewick snapped.

“Then you won’t mind standing beside it.”

“This is absurd.”

“That’s my specialty.”

The snails reached the base of the dais and stopped, exhausted and smug.

Grubbin climbed up beside the basin and dipped the torn poppy petal into the water.

Nothing happened.

The crowd leaned forward.

Still nothing.

Buttonwing’s heart sank.

No.

No, no, no.

Vesper laughed softly.

“Oh, Buttonwing.”

Thistlewick folded his wings again. “Enough of this spectacle.”

Buttonwing stared into the dark water.

Why wasn’t it working?

At Mirrorleaf Pool, the reflections had pulsed while Vesper and Thistlewick spoke. The truth had stained the surface with their words, their shapes, their betrayal.

But this was only water carried away.

Maybe the memory had faded.

Maybe it needed the place.

Maybe he had dragged the whole garden to the edge of belief and then tripped over his own damn finale.

The whispers began again.

Vesper drifted closer, her voice sweet enough to rot teeth.

“You tried so hard.”

Buttonwing looked up at her.

She hovered over the mirrorleaf basin, her blue wings casting faint glimmers across the water.

And then he saw it.

Her reflection.

Perfect. Clear. Sharp.

But empty.

Not pulsing.

Not stained.

Because she was not admitting anything now.

The water reflected hidden truth when truth pressed against the surface.

It needed the lie to touch it.

Buttonwing’s mind snapped into focus.

“You’re right,” he said again.

Vesper paused. “I usually am.”

“I tried hard. But I don’t understand creatures like you.”

“No. You don’t.”

“I don’t understand why you needed the Heartdrop. I don’t understand why you needed Thistlewick. I don’t understand why you hated me enough to frame me.”

Her eyes flashed. “Hated you?”

There it was.

Pressure.

Buttonwing stepped closer to the basin. “Yes. Hated me. Because I’m ridiculous. Because I sparkle wrong. Because everyone stares at me even when I don’t ask them to. Because I walk into rooms and accidentally become the center of them while you spend all day sharpening yourself into something impressive.”

Vesper’s smile vanished.

“Careful, little beetle.”

Buttonwing lowered his voice, but made sure every creature could hear.

“You didn’t frame me because I was convenient. Not only. You framed me because you couldn’t stand that I was more memorable by accident than you were on purpose.”

The meadow inhaled.

Vesper descended until she hovered inches above him.

“You gaudy little fool,” she hissed.

The water trembled.

Buttonwing did not look down.

Not yet.

“There she is,” he said.

Vesper’s voice sharpened. “You think your little speech makes you special? You think those gawking idiots love you? They laugh at you. They point. They whisper. You are not admired, Buttonwing. You are tolerated because you are amusing.”

The mirrorleaf basin rippled.

Blue light sparked under the surface.

Grubbin’s eyes widened.

Buttonwing kept his gaze locked on Vesper.

“And the Heartdrop?” he asked.

“Wasted,” she snapped. “Wasted on flowers who lock beauty away and bow to it once a year like frightened little gardeners. I was going to sell it to someone who understood value.”

The water pulsed brighter.

Across its surface, a reflection formed—not of the present, but of Mirrorleaf Pool earlier that afternoon.

Vesper’s mirrored figure shimmered there, speaking beside Constable Thistlewick.

Once the Council condemned him, the Heartdrop would be impossible to trace.

The crowd gasped.

Thistlewick lunged toward the basin.

Grubbin hurled himself onto the constable’s leg with the desperate courage of someone too terrified to calculate odds.

“Nope!” Grubbin shouted. “Not today, paperwork bastard!”

Thistlewick stumbled.

The water flashed again.

His reflection appeared beside Vesper’s.

After condemnation, I will retrieve it under authority of evidence collection. It will disappear from the record before moonrise.

The meadow erupted.

This time, not in gossip.

In fury.

Bees rose as one dark-gold cloud, buzzing with righteous administrative violence. The ants formed ranks without anyone asking, which was both impressive and deeply unsettling. Moths shrieked. Flowers gasped. The sunflower accidentally fainted into the bunting and blamed the breeze again.

Mistress Larkspur turned slowly toward Thistlewick.

Her voice was ice.

“Constable.”

Thistlewick shook Grubbin off and backed away. “This is trickery.”

Buttonwing pointed at the basin. “That is literally your face confessing.”

“Reflections can be manipulated.”

Vesper shot upward. “This is beneath me.”

“Finally,” Buttonwing snapped, “a direction you’re familiar with.”

Vesper darted toward the lavender bank.

Buttonwing flared his wings.

Sunset struck him full.

The light burst across the meadow in a brilliant fan, catching every dew bead, every glassy petal, every polished bee wing, every silver thread and mirrorleaf surface. Color exploded outward—not blinding this time, but directing.

A net of reflected light boxed Vesper in midair.

She swerved left.

Bees blocked her.

She dove right.

A dragonfly delegation rose, faces hard with the particular fury of elegant creatures embarrassed by one of their own.

Thistlewick tried to run.

The ants had him surrounded before he took five steps.

He looked down at them. “You cannot detain a Council officer.”

An ant captain adjusted her tiny clipboard. “We can if the bees sign off.”

A bee landed beside her. “Signed, buzzed, and emotionally notarized.”

Grubbin staggered upright, wiping dirt from his acorn cap. “I helped.”

“You bit his ankle,” Buttonwing said.

“Heroically.”

“Technically, yes.”

Mistress Larkspur stood very still atop the dais, watching as Vesper was escorted down by two stern dragonflies and Thistlewick was boxed in by ants with the terrifying calm of creatures who truly understood logistics.

For once, the Chairpetal seemed at a loss.

Buttonwing climbed down from the dais and approached her.

The whole garden watched.

He suddenly felt very tired.

The kind of tired that lives under your shell and mutters about naps.

“The Heartdrop is safe,” he said. “Madame Sicklethorn has it sealed in the underside market. She agreed to return it once I proved Vesper betrayed her.”

Mistress Larkspur’s petals flickered. “Madame Sicklethorn is involved?”

“Less involved than expected. More morally flexible than ideal.”

“We will recover it at once.”

“Politely,” Buttonwing said.

Larkspur stared at him.

“Politely?”

“She likes bargains. And not being insulted by flowers who need favors.”

“We do not bargain with criminals.”

Buttonwing glanced at Thistlewick being guarded by ants. “Apparently you employed one.”

That landed.

Hard.

Larkspur’s face changed—not dramatically, but enough.

The rigidity cracked.

Just a little.

“You are correct,” she said quietly.

The meadow hushed.

Mistress Larkspur turned to the crowd.

Then, to Buttonwing’s immense discomfort, she bowed.

Not deeply.

She was still Larkspur.

But enough that every creature saw it.

“Buttonwing Beetle,” she said, “the Bloombud Council owes you an apology.”

Buttonwing blinked.

He had imagined this moment several times during the day.

In most versions, he had been much smoother. Taller, somehow. Possibly wearing a hat that did not disintegrate. He had pictured himself delivering a perfect line that would echo through garden history and make future beetles nod solemnly over tea.

Instead, what came out was, “With snacks?”

The bees cheered.

Mistress Larkspur closed her eyes in defeat. “Yes. With snacks.”

“Public eye contact?”

“Do not push it.”

“Reasonable.”

Grubbin climbed onto a low mushroom. “I also accept snacks.”

“You are not being apologized to,” Larkspur said.

“I was ankle-adjacent to justice.”

Buttonwing looked at him. “He did help.”

Larkspur sighed the sigh of someone watching procedure die in a flowerbed. “Fine. The weevil may also have snacks.”

Grubbin pressed a hand to his chest. “History will remember this.”

“History will be edited,” Larkspur said.

The crowd laughed.

For the first time all day, it did not feel like they were laughing at Buttonwing.

It felt like they were laughing with him.

The difference was small.

It was also enormous.

By moonrise, the Heartdrop of Morning had been returned.

The recovery itself was less dramatic than the scandal, which disappointed several moths and one caterpillar who had brought popcorn pollen. Mistress Larkspur, Buttonwing, Grubbin, and a delegation of bees went to the underside market under truce. Madame Sicklethorn returned the sealed pouch after receiving three things: public acknowledgment that Vesper had attempted to use her market as a scapegoat, a written promise that the Council would stop pretending the underside did not exist unless it needed someone to blame, and one tray of festival berry cakes.

The berry cakes were, Buttonwing suspected, the real win.

When the pouch was opened atop the Council dais, the Heartdrop glowed brighter than anyone remembered.

Rose.

Amber.

Blue.

It sat on its velvet cushion like a tiny sunrise that had survived being dragged through everyone’s worst habits.

The garden applauded.

Bees buzzed in harmony. Moths wept tastefully. The snails claimed their transport role had been central to the operation and immediately formed a committee about it.

Vesper and Thistlewick were taken away—not to some dungeon, because Sugarwild Garden did not have dungeons, only very stern compost-adjacent holding roots. Vesper went with her chin high, insisting the garden had no vision. Thistlewick went silent, which was probably the closest he had ever come to honesty.

Brindle publicly confessed his part and was sentenced by the Cage Choir to three months of understudy roles, which he appeared to consider worse than exile.

Grubbin received two berry cakes, one honey crumb, and a written warning from the ants regarding counterfeit ladybug spots.

“Worth it,” he said through a mouthful of cake.

Later, when the festival resumed and the meadow softened under lantern glow, Buttonwing found himself alone near the tulip terrace where the day had begun.

The same tulip stood above him, its petals now silvered by moonlight.

The velvet cushion had been replaced. The Heartdrop rested safely again beneath guard, though this time the guards included bees, ants, and one elderly snail who had insisted his glare was “devastating at close range.”

Buttonwing sat on a low leaf and looked at his reflection in a bead of dew.

He still looked absurd.

Round turquoise body. Glossy eyes. Gold ridges. Tiny shell gems. Stained-glass wings. Decorative antenna tips that, if he was being honest, did serve no practical purpose whatsoever.

He sighed.

“Fancy-ass,” Grubbin said from behind him.

Buttonwing did not turn. “I told you not to call me that.”

Grubbin climbed onto the leaf beside him. “Fine. Heroic fancy-ass.”

“Worse, somehow.”

“Accurate, though.”

Buttonwing watched the dew bead tremble. “Do you think they’ll stop staring?”

Grubbin snorted. “No.”

Buttonwing groaned.

“But maybe they’ll stare better,” Grubbin said.

Buttonwing looked at him.

Grubbin shrugged. “Less like you’re a weird object. More like you’re a weird person.”

“That is almost touching.”

“Don’t spread it around.”

Buttonwing smiled faintly.

Across the meadow, the festival bells chimed. Laughter rose under the flowers. The Heartdrop shone from its cushion. Sugarwild Garden glittered all around him, ridiculous and flawed and beautiful in the way living things are when they stop pretending they are tidy.

Mistress Larkspur approached with a leaf tray.

On it sat three berry cakes, two honey crumbs, and a tiny folded napkin.

“As promised,” she said.

Buttonwing eyed the tray. “Apology snacks?”

“Apology snacks.”

“And the apology?”

Larkspur’s petals tightened, but she met his eyes.

“I am sorry,” she said. “We saw what was convenient instead of what was true.”

Buttonwing had another joke ready.

Several, actually.

Something about cushions. Something about sacred display tampering. Something extremely rude about Council eyesight.

But the apology was real.

Awkward.

Stiff.

Probably rehearsed.

Still real.

So Buttonwing nodded.

“Thank you.”

Larkspur set the tray down. “The Council would also like to offer you a ceremonial role at next year’s Bloomturn Festival.”

Buttonwing narrowed his eyes. “What kind of role?”

“Guardian of the Heartdrop procession.”

“Absolutely not.”

“It is an honor.”

“It is a liability with ribbons.”

Grubbin reached for a berry cake. “I’ll do it.”

“You will not,” Larkspur and Buttonwing said together.

Grubbin withdrew his hand slowly, then took the cake anyway when neither of them looked.

Larkspur sighed. “At least consider it.”

Buttonwing looked across the meadow at the glowing Heartdrop. At the guards. At the flowers and insects and gossiping creatures who had nearly condemned him, then believed him, then cheered him, all in the span of one exhausting day.

“Maybe,” he said.

Larkspur seemed surprised. “Maybe?”

“Maybe. But only if I get a hat.”

“A ceremonial hat can be arranged.”

“Not pollen fluff.”

“Not pollen fluff.”

“And Grubbin gets no authority.”

“Agreed.”

Grubbin, mouth full, said, “Rude.”

Larkspur departed, leaving the snacks behind.

Buttonwing took one berry cake and sat beneath the moonlit tulip, chewing slowly.

He did not feel normal.

Maybe he never had.

Maybe normal had only been a hiding place he kept trying to squeeze into, like that stone crack, while the world kept catching on all his inconvenient edges.

He was fancy.

Fine.

He was also scrappy, damp, mouthy, frightened, occasionally heroic, and still unclear on whether mushroom tarts after moonrise belonged to anyone in a meaningful legal sense.

He could be all of it.

One inconvenient thing did not cancel another.

Above him, his wings caught the moonlight and scattered it into soft fragments across the tulip petals.

This time, Buttonwing did not tuck them away.

He let them shine.

Not because the garden was watching.

Not because Vesper had been wrong.

Not because the Council had apologized, though the snacks helped.

But because the shine was his.

Chosen or not, understood or not, ridiculous or not.

His.

Grubbin leaned beside him, licking berry filling from his claws. “So. What now?”

Buttonwing looked toward the festival, where music had started again and the Heartdrop glowed safely beneath its guards.

He smiled.

“Now,” he said, “we find out who stole my hat.”

Grubbin froze.

Buttonwing turned slowly.

“You know something.”

“I know many things.”

“Grubbin.”

The weevil slid backward off the leaf. “Before you get upset, remember that the hat had the structural integrity of a drunk cloud.”

Buttonwing rose.

His wings opened.

Moonlight flashed.

Grubbin bolted.

Buttonwing launched after him, shouting something profoundly unsuitable for the ceremonial atmosphere, and the garden burst into laughter around them.

This time, he did not mind.

Some stories make you smaller.

Some stories make you shine.

And some stories, if the garden is lucky, end with a jeweled beetle chasing a morally compromised weevil through festival lanterns over a stolen hat made of pollen fluff.

Which, frankly, was exactly the kind of sacred display Sugarwild deserved.

 

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The Buttonwing Beetle Who Forgot He Was Fancy brings this jeweled little garden menace to life in a tale of stolen relics, public scandal, suspicious sparkle, and one beetle finally realizing his shine is not the problem—it is the weapon. The original artwork’s jewel-toned details, stained-glass wings, and candy-bright fantasy garden charm are available as a framed print, canvas print, acrylic print, and tapestry for anyone whose walls could use a little more attitude in decorative casing. For smaller treasures and giftable chaos, Buttonwing also appears as a puzzle, greeting card, and tote bag, perfect for carrying your own questionable evidence, apology snacks, or stolen pollen-fluff hats.