The Pollen-Slapped Peepdrake Who Asked One Question Too Many

The Question Everyone Refused to Answer

There were three things Pibbit the Peepdrake had never successfully managed in his short, damp, and unusually eventful life.

The first was flying in a straight line.

The second was recognizing when a conversation had ended.

The third was leaving a perfectly suspicious silence alone.

That morning, deep inside the dew-bright gardens of Blushroot Hollow, all three shortcomings were preparing to collaborate.

Pibbit clung upside down beneath a broad moonpetal, blinking through the magnifying beads of dew gathered along its rim. His little turquoise belly glistened in the rosy dawn. Coral stripes curled around his sides like ribbons painted by someone with a trembling hand. Two tiny wings fluttered behind him with tremendous enthusiasm and almost no practical effect.

Below, a procession of flowers was closing itself for the day.

This was unusual.

The sun had barely risen. Bees were already warming their wings. The nectar counters should have been opening. Petals should have unfurled beneath the light with all the shameless confidence of creatures who had spent the night manufacturing perfume.

Instead, the foxgloves had pulled their bells tightly shut.

The whisperlilies were pretending to be asleep.

Three rosebuds had turned their faces toward a wall.

Even the elderly snapdragon beside the path had tucked in its tongue.

Pibbit narrowed his enormous mismatched eyes.

"What's everyone hiding?" he asked.

No one answered.

His claws released the moonpetal. He dropped six inches, attempted to fly the remaining two, and landed face-first in a cushion of moss.

"I asked," he said into the ground, "what everyone is hiding."

The flowers remained perfectly still.

Pibbit lifted his head. A curl of moss hung from one horn.

"Because this is suspicious."

Nothing.

"Very suspicious."

A nearby butterblush tightened its petals.

Pibbit pointed at it. "That. You just did a guilty movement."

"I did no such thing," said the butterblush.

Pibbit froze.

The butterblush froze harder.

"Aha."

"That was wind."

"Wind doesn't speak in a nasal little voice."

"This wind does."

"Then I have several questions for the wind."

The butterblush shuddered. "Of course you do."

Pibbit climbed onto a smooth pebble and puffed out his chest. The effect would have been commanding if he had not still been wearing the moss curl like a hat.

"Why is everyone closing early?"

"Seasonal fatigue."

"Why did the roses turn toward the wall?"

"Wall appreciation."

"Why are the whisperlilies pretending to sleep?"

"They are sleeping."

"One of them is watching me."

"She sleeps with one eye open."

"Flowers don't have eyes."

"Then you cannot prove she is watching you."

Pibbit's brow wrinkled so deeply that his horns nearly leaned together.

"Is this about what happened behind the compost arch last night?"

Every blossom in the hollow snapped shut at once.

The sound rolled through the garden like a hundred tiny doors being slammed by guilty landlords.

Pibbit slowly grinned.

"Oh," he whispered. "It absolutely is."

He scrambled off the pebble and trotted down the path, examining every flower he passed. Petals trembled before he reached them. Stems bent away. A pair of daisies uprooted themselves and attempted to shuffle behind a decorative gourd.

"What happened behind the compost arch?" Pibbit called.

"Nothing," replied several voices at once.

"Who was there?"

"No one."

"Then why is everyone acting like someone was there doing something?"

"Go lick a mushroom," muttered the snapdragon.

"Which mushroom?"

"Any mushroom."

"Why?"

"Because it might make you quiet."

"What kind makes you quiet?"

"The dangerous kind."

"Where does that grow?"

The snapdragon buried its face in its leaves.

Pibbit continued toward the center of the hollow, where the oldest and grandest blossoms grew around a marble birdbath cracked cleanly down the middle. At their center stood Madame Rosethorn, a magnificent crimson bloom whose velvet petals had won the Golden Stamen at the Grand Blooming Ceremony seven years in succession.

Madame Rosethorn possessed the sort of beauty that made smaller flowers straighten their stems when she passed. She also possessed thorns long enough to make disagreement medically complicated.

She was conferring with two orchids when Pibbit arrived.

All three stopped speaking.

"Good morning," Pibbit said.

"No," said Madame Rosethorn.

"No, it isn't a good morning?"

"No, you may not ask."

"Ask what?"

"Whatever has made your eyes do that."

Pibbit's left eye widened while his right narrowed. "Do what?"

"Exactly that."

"I can stop."

He could not stop.

Madame Rosethorn leaned toward him, filling the air with a rich, intoxicating fragrance. "Run along, little Peepdrake."

"Did you hear something behind the compost arch last night?"

"No."

"Did you see something?"

"No."

"Did you do something?"

One orchid gasped.

The other orchid whispered, "He really does not feel danger like the rest of us."

Pibbit shuffled closer. "Was it noisy?"

Madame Rosethorn's outer petals twitched.

"Was it sticky?"

Several nearby buds covered themselves with their leaves.

"Did it involve the irrigation hose?"

A geranium fainted into the birdbath.

Madame Rosethorn's stem bent until her bloom hovered directly above Pibbit.

"You," she said, "have asked one question too many."

Pibbit looked up into the layered crimson folds.

"Which one?"

The slap came from inside the flower.

Madame Rosethorn opened with explosive force, releasing a dense golden cloud directly into Pibbit's face. Pollen struck his snout, flooded his nostrils, packed itself beneath his eyelids, and coated his tongue before he could retract it.

He staggered backward with both claws raised.

"Mmf!"

Another pulse of pollen hit him.

His wings buzzed in alarm, lifting his rear end while his front claws remained planted. He flipped head over heels, bounced off the rim of the birdbath, and landed inside a lavender blossom with only his legs visible.

The garden went silent.

A single golden puff rose from the lavender.

Then came a sneeze so violent that three snails withdrew into their shells and a bee changed direction in midair.

Pibbit shot out of the blossom, flew backward across the path, and struck a peony squarely in the face.

"Ow," said the peony.

"Sorry," Pibbit wheezed.

Little bug-eyed bastard.

Pibbit stopped rubbing his nose.

He looked at the peony.

"What did you call me?"

"I said nothing."

I said it silently, where impolite things belong.

Pibbit's mouth fell open.

"You did it again."

"Did what?"

"You called me a bastard without moving your petals."

The peony stiffened.

Oh, pollen.

Pibbit slowly turned toward Madame Rosethorn.

The old rose had gone pale beneath her crimson coloring.

That dose should have stunned him.

Pibbit's eyes widened.

Madame Rosethorn's petals drew inward.

It should not have opened him.

"Opened me to what?" Pibbit asked.

Every flower surrounding the birdbath recoiled.

At first, the thoughts arrived one at a time.

Can he hear us?

Impossible.

Do not think about the compost arch.

Now I am thinking about the compost arch.

Stop thinking about the compost arch.

It was a very sturdy arch before last night.

Then dozens of voices rushed into Pibbit's skull.

The snapdragon cheats at rootball.

The violets dye their petals.

I saw the tulip twins sharing a bumblebee.

Madame Rosethorn has aphids.

They are not aphids. They are decorative attendants.

The sunfern has been telling everyone she is perennial.

I am perennial in spirit.

Pibbit clutched both sides of his head.

"Everyone shut up!"

"No one is speaking," said Madame Rosethorn.

We must contain this.

Pibbit stared at her.

Behind the rose, the two orchids exchanged a meaningful glance.

He heard her.

I know he heard her.

Do you think he heard about Bristlewing?

Do not think his name.

"Who is Bristlewing?" Pibbit asked.

The orchids screamed.

One folded itself completely closed. The other flung a spray of nectar in Pibbit's direction and fled by dragging its pot across the stones.

Madame Rosethorn snapped, "Seize him."

Four thornvines erupted from the soil.

Pibbit squeaked and leapt sideways as the first lashed around the pebble where he had been standing. A second swept beneath his feet. His tiny wings beat furiously, carrying him upward in a spinning corkscrew that was technically flight only because he did not touch the ground.

He ricocheted from the birdbath, kicked off the snapdragon's forehead, and plunged through a curtain of hanging wisteria.

Behind him, Madame Rosethorn's voice rang across the hollow.

"Do not let him leave the central garden!"

Flowers opened along the path ahead.

Not welcomingly.

Pibbit ducked beneath a swinging sunflower, vaulted a row of marigolds, and squeezed between two stones barely wider than his pollen-coated skull. Roots tore from the soil behind him. Vines twisted over the path. Petals spat nectar like sticky arrows.

A glob struck one wing.

Pibbit spun sideways and crashed through a patch of clover.

There he is!

Block the east path!

Someone wake the dahlias!

Not me. The dahlias are horrible before noon.

Pibbit scrambled to his feet and ran.

The thoughts grew louder as he passed each flower, a storm of commands, complaints, secrets, appetites, grudges, fantasies, and deeply personal opinions about the preferred thickness of visiting bumblebees.

He tried covering his ears.

This did nothing because the voices were already inside.

"I don't want to know that!" he cried as he sprinted past a breathless pair of honeysuckles.

Then stop listening! one of them thought.

"I don't know how!"

That sounds like a you problem.

Pibbit burst through a hedge and skidded into the Old Pollination Square.

He had expected safety.

Instead, he found the morning nectar market in full bloom.

Hundreds of blossoms crowded the square. Bees moved between stalls carrying pollen baskets. Moths haggled over moon-syrup. Beetles polished dewberries beside heaps of fragrant spice. Every stem, vine, bud, and flowering shrub possessed a private voice.

And every private voice flooded into Pibbit's head at once.

That bee shorted me two grains.

I hope the lilies do not notice the diluted nectar.

He said my petals looked thick. Did he mean lush or fat?

If that smug orchid wins another ribbon, I will salt her roots myself.

The bluebell owes me a moth.

I should never have trusted a pansy with bookkeeping.

Was that Peepdrake just chased through the hedge?

That is the pollen-slapped one.

Why is he glowing?

Pibbit looked down.

Golden pollen shimmered across his body, gathering more brightly around his nostrils and horns.

The market fell quiet as flowers noticed him.

Their thoughts did not.

Madame Rosethorn wants him contained.

Contained how?

Probably in the permanent sense.

Do not get involved.

He is rather cute when terrified.

His left eye is going the wrong way.

His left eye always goes the wrong way.

Pibbit backed toward the fountain.

"I can hear all of you," he said.

Several blossoms gasped aloud.

"Every single thing."

The square erupted.

Flowers shouted over one another while their thoughts shouted beneath the shouting. Stems tangled as customers fled. Vendors slammed petals over jars, ledgers, and suspiciously labeled bundles. Two lilies accused each other of thinking something neither would repeat. A carnation slapped a chrysanthemum for privately admiring her pollinator.

Pibbit climbed onto the fountain's edge.

"Please stop thinking!"

"That is not how thinking works!" cried a daffodil.

"Then think quietly!"

"That is exactly how thinking works!"

A thornvine tore through the hedge behind him.

Madame Rosethorn entered the square with a dozen furious blossoms at her back.

The market went still.

"Pibbit," she said with terrifying sweetness. "Come down from there."

Before he repeats anything.

Pibbit looked from her to the hundreds of flowers filling the square.

A sensible creature would have surrendered.

A clever creature would have bargained.

A creature with even a bruised instinct for self-preservation would have kept its mouth shut.

Pibbit was none of those creatures.

He pointed across the crowd at a trembling rosebud.

"She knows what happened behind the compost arch."

The rosebud shrieked.

Madame Rosethorn lunged.

Pibbit jumped into the fountain.

The cracked basin gave way beneath him.

Water, coins, moss, and one extremely startled frog exploded across the square as Pibbit vanished through the broken bottom and dropped into the darkness below.

He landed with a wet smack inside an old drainage tunnel.

Above him, roots twisted through the shattered opening.

"Find him!" Madame Rosethorn roared.

Pibbit stumbled upright and hurried into the tunnel, guided only by the golden glow clinging to his skin.

He had made it perhaps twenty steps when another thought whispered through the darkness.

It was not frantic like the voices above.

It was low, amused, and very close.

So the little gossip finally fell into my burrow.

Pibbit stopped.

Two enormous green eyes opened ahead of him.

I was wondering when they would try to bury you.

The Burrow Beneath the Gossip

Pibbit stood absolutely still.

The two green eyes ahead of him blinked, one after the other.

You smell like a rose sneezed into a thunderstorm.

"That was not entirely voluntary," Pibbit whispered.

Very little involving Madame Rosethorn is.

The creature crawled into Pibbit's golden glow.

It was a mole.

Or at least, it had probably begun as one.

She was nearly four times Pibbit's size, with black velvet fur, broad digging claws, and a necklace made from bottle caps, beetle shells, and one silver teaspoon. A scar crossed her blunt pink nose. Small mushrooms sprouted from a satchel strapped across her back.

"You're thinking at me," Pibbit said.

"You're listening without permission," the mole replied.

"I don't know how to stop."

"Then you've finally acquired a problem more irritating than your personality."

Roots scraped through the broken fountain behind him.

Madame Rosethorn's voice echoed into the tunnel.

"Pibbit, darling, there is nowhere beneath this garden we cannot reach."

Except the old worm channels.

Pibbit looked at the mole.

She sighed.

"That," she said, "was private."

"Do the old worm channels lead out?"

"Possibly."

"Can you take me?"

"Possibly."

"Will you?"

"Almost certainly not."

A thorn punched through the ceiling and wrapped around Pibbit's ankle.

He squealed as it yanked him backward.

The mole swung one enormous claw. The thorn snapped, spraying sap across the wall.

"Run," she said.

"Is that a yes?"

"It is the shortest answer available."

She turned and charged into the darkness.

Pibbit followed.

Behind them, roots tore open the drainage tunnel. Flowers could not walk particularly well aboveground, but beneath it they possessed an astonishing number of limbs.

The mole veered through a crack so narrow that Pibbit had to fold both wings against his back. He squeezed after her while thorn tips scratched the stone behind his tail.

They emerged inside a twisting channel lined with pale roots and blue luminous fungus.

"Who are you?" Pibbit asked.

"Mara Mudsnout."

"Do you live down here?"

"No. I commute from the moon."

Pibbit looked up at the low ceiling.

"Is there a tunnel to the moon?"

Mara stopped so abruptly that he ran into her backside.

She turned.

"You really are like this naturally."

"Like what?"

"Never mind. We do not have enough night."

The tunnel divided into six passages.

Mara sniffed each opening, chose the smallest, then shoved aside a curtain of moss. Beyond it lay a burrow crowded with shelves, maps, jars of preserved roots, bundles of dried herbs, and enough stolen garden ornaments to populate a very small lawn.

A wooden sign over the entrance read:

MUDSNOUT'S DISCREET EXCAVATIONS
SECRETS BURIED, TUNNELS DUG, QUESTIONS DISCOURAGED

Pibbit pointed at the final line.

"Why are questions discouraged?"

Mara pushed him inside.

"Because of creatures like you."

She pulled a stone lever. A slab dropped over the entrance just as pursuing thorns slithered into the passage.

The roots scraped against the other side.

Mara opened a jar and smeared its foul gray contents around the edges of the slab.

The roots recoiled.

"What is that?" Pibbit asked.

"Fermented slug sweat."

"Why do you have fermented slug sweat?"

"For moments when something more unpleasant than fermented slug sweat arrives."

Pibbit sneezed.

A golden cloud burst from his nose and settled over a row of teacups.

Every root in the walls began whispering.

He is in the mole's chamber.

Tell Rosethorn.

I am telling Rosethorn.

Do not tell Rosethorn I told you to tell Rosethorn.

Pibbit covered his ears.

"They know where we are."

"Roots gossip faster than flowers," Mara said. "They simply have less interesting accents."

She crossed to a cluttered table and began sorting through bottles.

"How long since the pollen hit you?"

"I don't know."

"How many sneezes?"

"Seven. Maybe eight. One of them happened while I was underwater, so I'm not sure it counts."

"All sneezes count."

"Even wet ones?"

"Especially wet ones."

Mara selected a dark bottle and poured three drops onto Pibbit's tongue.

His entire face puckered.

"That tastes like a beetle died in a boot."

"Two beetles."

"Will it stop the thoughts?"

"No."

"Then why did you give it to me?"

"I wanted to see whether you would drink something merely because a stranger held it near your mouth."

Pibbit stared at her.

Mara nodded thoughtfully. "You would."

Something struck the stone door.

Dust drifted from the ceiling.

"Rosethorn will breach this chamber soon," Mara said. "If she does, she will pack your nose with hushmoss and plant you beneath a birdbath until the pollen wears off."

"How long will that take?"

"Three days."

"That doesn't sound fatal."

"The hushmoss feeds through the nostrils."

Pibbit touched his snout. "That sounds fatal-adjacent."

"It is also unnecessary."

Mara unrolled a map of the garden across the table. Beneath familiar paths and flower beds, inked tunnels spread like veins. Several converged beneath the compost arch.

"What happened there?" Pibbit asked.

"Last night?"

"Yes."

"Exactly what everyone thinks happened."

Pibbit waited.

Mara waited longer.

"I can hear your thoughts," he reminded her.

"Then listen."

He squinted at her.

There was nothing.

No hidden insult. No buried answer. Not even a passing opinion about fermented slug sweat.

"You're not thinking."

"Moles learn to empty the mind when roots begin carrying messages. It is useful when one's profession involves secrets."

"Can you teach me?"

"Not before the door breaks."

"Can you tell me what happened?"

"Yes."

"Will you?"

"No."

"Why?"

Mara placed one claw on the map.

"Because you do not need my version. You have a market full of witnesses above you, and every one of them is incapable of hiding anything from you."

The stone door cracked.

A thorn tip emerged through the center.

Mara rolled up the map.

"We are leaving."

She kicked aside a rug, revealing a vertical shaft.

"Where does that go?" Pibbit asked.

"Up."

"Up where?"

"Somewhere Rosethorn will be deeply unhappy to find you."

"The compost arch?"

"No."

"Her private flower bed?"

"Better."

The door split down the middle.

Mara shoved Pibbit into the shaft.

"Climb."

They scrambled upward as roots flooded the burrow below. Pibbit hooked his claws into the earthen wall, wings buzzing whenever his feet slipped. Mara climbed beneath him, occasionally helping with a firm shove that introduced his face to several roots.

They reached a wooden hatch.

Mara pushed it open.

Pibbit emerged beneath a table draped in white silk.

Music played nearby.

A crowd murmured beyond the cloth.

The scent of nectar, perfume, and self-importance filled the air.

"Where are we?" he whispered.

Mara peered through a gap.

"The Annual Petal Society Luncheon."

Pibbit lifted the cloth.

Hundreds of distinguished blossoms filled the Grand Conservatory. Roses occupied the central tables. Orchids lounged beneath misting fans. Tulips drank from crystal dew cups while bees in tiny formal jackets carried trays of nectar.

At the front of the room stood a podium wrapped in ivy.

Behind it, a gold-painted sign announced:

MORAL PURITY IN MODERN POLLINATION

Pibbit turned to Mara.

"Why would Rosethorn be unhappy to find me here?"

Mara pointed toward the stage.

A portrait of Madame Rosethorn hung above the podium.

Beneath it were the words:

KEYNOTE SPEAKER AND SEVEN-TIME RECIPIENT OF THE VIRTUOUS BLOOM MEDAL

Pibbit's grin returned.

"Oh."

"Do not enjoy this too much," Mara warned.

"I'm not."

"Your horns are vibrating."

"They do that when I'm afraid."

"You are lying."

"They also do it when I'm lying."

The conservatory doors burst open.

Madame Rosethorn entered with her petal posse.

Her crimson bloom was disheveled. Sap streaked one thorn. A coin from the collapsed fountain remained lodged between two petals.

The distinguished flowers stared.

Rosethorn instantly composed herself.

"Good morning," she announced. "A minor maintenance issue has arisen beneath the eastern fountain."

The Peepdrake must be here.

Pibbit flinched as her thought sliced through the others.

The flowers around her began thinking at once.

Why is she covered in fountain moss?

Is that frog spit?

I heard she attacked a child.

Peepdrakes are not children. They are airborne inconveniences.

Her left outer petal is sagging.

Seven Virtuous Bloom Medals and she cannot hire a proper groomer.

Pibbit pressed his claws against his skull.

Mara pulled him back beneath the table.

"Choose one voice," she whispered.

"There are hundreds."

"Choose one."

"How?"

"Think of a thread in a tangled root ball. Follow only that thread."

Pibbit closed his eyes.

The thoughts churned around him.

He searched for Madame Rosethorn's voice.

Check beneath the serving tables.

Seal the exits.

If he says Bristlewing's name, destroy the luncheon records.

Pibbit opened his eyes.

"Who is Bristlewing?"

Mara's face remained carefully blank.

"You know," he said.

"I know many creatures."

"Was Bristlewing behind the compost arch?"

"Keep your voice down."

"Did Rosethorn meet him there?"

Mara gripped his snout shut just as two thorned stems swept beneath the neighboring table.

Pibbit's eyes bulged.

The stems moved closer.

A waiter approached carrying a tray of nectar glasses.

Mara reached up, tapped the underside, and sent the tray crashing into the lap of a white camellia.

The camellia screamed.

Every flower turned.

Mara dragged Pibbit from beneath the table and shoved him behind a curtain.

They hurried along the wall while Rosethorn's posse converged on the commotion.

"There is an old service exit behind the stage," Mara said. "Once we reach it, we take the west tunnel beyond the garden."

"But I still don't know what happened."

"You are being hunted by an armed rose."

"I can be hunted and curious at the same time."

"That sentence may be carved on your grave."

They reached the stage curtain.

A pair of lilies stood between them and the service exit.

Mara scanned the room.

"We need a diversion."

Pibbit listened.

The nearest lily smiled serenely while thinking about the tulip seated beside her.

That ribbon is hiding a fungal lesion the size of a ladybug.

Pibbit stepped from behind the curtain.

"She knows about your fungal lesion."

The tulip dropped her dew glass.

"My what?"

"Nothing!" cried the lily.

"You compared it to a ladybug."

The tulip slapped the lily with one broad leaf.

The lily toppled into an orchid, who spilled nectar on a marigold, who accused the orchid of doing it deliberately because of an argument concerning a moth three summers earlier.

Within seconds, the entire table was fighting.

Mara stared at Pibbit.

"That was efficient."

"Thank you."

"It was not praise."

They slipped behind the stage.

The service door was bound shut with fresh thornvines.

"She sealed it," Mara said.

Pibbit heard a thought from the other side of the curtain.

He is behind the stage.

Madame Rosethorn appeared at the curtain's edge.

"There you are."

Mara raised her claws.

Rosethorn's posse surrounded them.

"Step away from the Peepdrake," Rosethorn ordered.

"He fell into my tunnels," Mara said. "That makes him a client."

"He cannot afford your services."

"I am considering charitable work."

"You hate charity."

"I hate you more."

The luncheon guests began gathering below the stage.

Madame Rosethorn noticed them watching and softened her voice.

"Pibbit is unwell. A regrettable pollen exposure has caused confusion, paranoia, and uncontrolled fabrication."

If he speaks, sting him.

The orchids beside her extended their hidden stingers.

Pibbit pointed. "They're going to sting me if I speak."

The orchids quickly hid the stingers.

"You see?" Rosethorn told the audience. "Delusions."

At least he has not mentioned the arch.

"She doesn't want me to mention the compost arch."

A murmur rolled through the conservatory.

Madame Rosethorn's petals tightened.

"Pibbit."

"Or Bristlewing."

The room gasped.

A blue rose fainted.

Someone dropped a tray.

Three bees flew directly into a window.

Rosethorn lunged.

Mara intercepted her. Thorns scraped across digging claws while the two crashed into the podium. The ivy-wrapped stand toppled into the Virtuous Bloom portrait.

Pibbit leapt aside.

An orchid's stinger struck the floor beside his foot.

He flapped upward, collided with the gold sign, and swung from the word PURITY as blossoms shouted below.

"What happened behind the compost arch?" someone demanded.

"Who is Bristlewing?" cried another.

"Why did the blue rose faint?"

"She always faints when there is useful information!"

The thoughts became deafening.

Rosethorn was seen leaving the western hedge after midnight.

Bristlewing arrived carrying two jars of fermented nectar.

I heard someone shout, "Mind the thorns."

The irrigation hose was running until dawn.

The compost arch collapsed at exactly three seventeen.

There were wing marks in the mud.

Very large wing marks.

And hoofprints.

Pibbit lost his grip and dropped onto the podium.

"There were hoofprints?" he shouted.

The room fell silent.

Madame Rosethorn stopped fighting Mara.

Every petal turned toward a magnificent golden lily seated at the head table.

The lily's stem stiffened.

No one was supposed to notice the hoofprints.

Pibbit pointed at her.

"She knows about the hoofprints."

"I most certainly do not," said the lily.

Rosethorn promised the mud would be replaced before sunrise.

"Rosethorn promised to replace the mud."

The conservatory erupted.

"Liar!" Madame Rosethorn shrieked.

"I am repeating what she thinks!"

"He is inventing it!" the golden lily cried.

The little monster cannot possibly know about the saddle.

Pibbit blinked.

"What saddle?"

The golden lily uprooted herself and fled.

Half the luncheon chased after her.

The other half remained to demand explanations from Rosethorn.

Mara seized Pibbit and pulled him through the torn service door while petals, accusations, and luncheon rolls filled the air.

They plunged into a narrow corridor and burst through an exterior gate.

Behind the conservatory stood a stable shaded by enormous ferns.

"The west tunnel is beneath the manure cart," Mara said.

"But the saddle-"

"Forget the saddle."

"How can I forget a secret saddle?"

"By valuing your continued existence."

A low buzzing rolled over the garden.

Every bee in the stable stopped moving.

Mara looked toward the sky.

A vast winged silhouette swept across the glass roof of the conservatory.

Flowers screamed inside.

The creature descended beyond the compost wall with a thunderous beat of wings. Dust and loose petals spiraled into the air.

A head rose above the hedge.

Bristlewing was an enormous stag beetle, armored in iridescent black and emerald, with antlers wide enough to carry a clothesline. A torn velvet saddle hung crookedly across his back. Pink rose petals clung to one horn. The broken remains of the compost arch dangled from the other.

He swayed unsteadily.

"Rosie!" he bellowed. "You left your medal in my saddlebag!"

The garden became quiet enough to hear pollen settle.

Madame Rosethorn stepped from the ruined conservatory.

Her Virtuous Bloom Medal was indeed missing.

Bristlewing rummaged inside the saddlebag.

A length of irrigation hose fell out.

Then two empty nectar jars.

Then a golden lily petal.

Then a small velvet riding crop.

Pibbit's jaw dropped.

"There were three of them."

Mara covered her face with both claws.

Rosethorn looked at Pibbit.

Pibbit looked at Rosethorn.

Bristlewing finally found the medal and raised it triumphantly.

"There it is! Still attached to the little lace garter!"

Madame Rosethorn made a sound no rose had made since the invention of pruning shears.

She turned toward the petal posse.

"Seize everyone."

The flowers hesitated.

"Everyone?" asked an orchid.

"Everyone who heard that."

The orchid surveyed the luncheon guests, the stable workers, the bees, Mara, Pibbit, and the crowd gathering along every garden path.

"That may be the entire hollow."

"Then seize the entire hollow!"

Thornvines exploded from the soil.

Mara overturned the manure cart.

A dark opening appeared beneath it.

"Tunnel," she told Pibbit. "Now."

He stared at the furious flowers closing around Bristlewing.

The stag beetle looked down at the riding crop.

"Was this supposed to be secret?"

"Very," Pibbit said.

"Ah."

Bristlewing lowered his antlers and charged.

Flowers scattered as he plowed through the petal posse. Thornvines snapped beneath his armored feet. Pibbit grabbed Mara's satchel as the mole leapt into the tunnel, and both vanished underground an instant before Rosethorn's thorns closed over the entrance.

They slid down a steep chute and landed in a chamber filled with old bones, cracked pots, and abandoned garden tools.

Above them, the battle shook soil from the ceiling.

Pibbit lay on his back, laughing.

Mara stood over him.

"You exposed half the garden's most influential flowers in under ten minutes."

"Three of them were behind the arch."

"Yes."

"With a saddle."

"Yes."

"And a riding crop."

"We all saw it."

"Do you think-"

"No."

"But I haven't asked yet."

"The answer remains no."

A distant roar echoed through the tunnels.

Then came Madame Rosethorn's amplified voice, carried through every root in the garden.

"Pibbit the Peepdrake has spread malicious lies, attacked the Petal Society, destroyed the Grand Conservatory, corrupted Bristlewing, and stolen the Virtuous Bloom Medal."

Pibbit sat up.

"I did not steal it."

"That is the detail troubling you?" Mara asked.

Rosethorn continued.

"By order of the Council of Stamens, no root, flower, fungus, insect, bird, beast, or garden ornament shall shelter him. A reward of five hundred nectar pearls is offered for his immediate capture."

All around the chamber, tiny roots awakened.

Their thoughts traveled outward.

Five hundred pearls.

That is enough to irrigate the west beds for a year.

Where is he?

Find the Peepdrake.

Find the mole.

Search beneath the garden.

Pibbit's laughter faded.

Mara listened to the soil.

"Rosethorn is not trying to hide the scandal anymore," she said.

"What is she doing?"

"Giving the garden a larger one."

"Me?"

"You."

A line of golden pollen brightened along Pibbit's horns.

The whispering roots grew louder.

But beneath the hunt, he heard something else.

A frightened thought repeated from flower to flower.

He can hear everything.

Everything.

What if he tells them about me?

What if he tells them about us?

Stop him before he speaks.

Pibbit looked toward the tunnel ahead.

It led directly beneath the sleeping quarters, private gardens, nectar houses, and moonlit gathering places of Blushroot Hollow.

Thousands of hidden thoughts shimmered above him.

Mara saw his expression.

"Do not."

"I haven't done anything."

"Your horns are vibrating again."

Pibbit rose to his feet.

"If the whole garden is hunting me because they're afraid I'll repeat their secrets…"

"Yes?"

"…maybe I should find out which secrets frighten them most."

Mara stared at him for a long moment.

Then she removed the silver teaspoon from her necklace and handed it to him.

"What is this for?"

"Digging yourself out of the grave you are determined to enter."

The Secrets Beneath Blushroot Hollow

The silver teaspoon was not designed for tunneling.

It bent on the third scoop.

Pibbit held it up accusingly.

"Your shovel is defective."

"It is a teaspoon," Mara said.

"Then why did you give it to me for digging?"

"I gave it to you as a metaphor."

"The handle has folded in half."

"So has the metaphor."

Above them, roots carried Madame Rosethorn's proclamation into every corner of Blushroot Hollow.

Five hundred nectar pearls.

Find the Peepdrake.

Search the western tunnels.

Check the mole runs.

Five hundred pearls.

The thoughts spread far beyond the flowers. Beetles abandoned their breakfast. Bees turned in midair. Two garden statues began quietly reconsidering how motionless they truly needed to remain.

Mara moved through the bone chamber, pressing one broad ear against the walls.

"The upper passages are already closing," she said. "Rosethorn has the roots sealing every exit between here and the outer hedge."

"What about the west tunnel?"

"Compromised."

"The old worm channels?"

"Compromised."

"The tunnel to the moon?"

Mara looked at him.

"Still fictional."

"That sounds like exactly what someone hiding a moon tunnel would say."

A shower of soil spilled from the ceiling.

Something scraped inside the passage behind them.

Mara extinguished a cluster of glowing mushrooms with one sweep of her paw. Darkness swallowed the chamber.

Pibbit's pollen-coated horns continued shining.

"You are ruining the darkness," she whispered.

"I don't know how to turn myself off."

"I have suspected that since we met."

The scraping drew closer.

A snout emerged through the tunnel entrance.

Then whiskers.

Then an entire rat wearing a cabbage leaf as a hood.

He sniffed the air and stared at Pibbit.

"Five hundred pearls," he said.

Three more rats crowded behind him.

"Four ways," said one.

"Five," corrected another. "The mole counts."

"I am not part of the reward," Mara said.

"You are harboring him."

"That makes me an accessory, not merchandise."

The first rat drew a sharpened seed husk from his belt.

"Hand him over."

Pibbit listened.

Grab the glowing one first.

Mudsnout's left claw is stronger.

Do not mention that I already owe Rosethorn six hundred pearls.

I hope no one smells the cheese in my hood.

Pibbit pointed at the leader.

"He owes Rosethorn more than the reward, and he has cheese in his hood."

The other rats turned.

"You said the debt was settled," one snapped.

"It is settled."

It is absolutely not settled.

"It is absolutely not settled," Pibbit said.

The second rat seized the cabbage hood.

A wedge of stolen moon-cheddar fell onto the ground.

The rats gasped.

"That came from our emergency wheel!"

"We had an emergency!" the leader cried.

"You were hungry!"

"Hunger is an emergency with a stomach!"

The rats fell upon one another.

Mara shoved Pibbit into the next passage while accusations, seed husks, and pieces of cheese flew behind them.

"You destabilize communities with remarkable efficiency," she said.

"I only repeated what they were thinking."

"Yes. That is generally where civilization keeps its explosives."

They hurried deeper beneath the hollow.

The tunnel narrowed, then descended through layers of damp soil packed with broken pottery and ancient roots. The voices above softened with distance, but they never disappeared. Secrets seeped through the earth like groundwater.

Pibbit heard a violet wishing she had married a fern.

He heard a sunflower admitting that she followed the moon when no one was watching.

He heard a pair of begonias privately agreeing that Madame Rosethorn's Virtuous Bloom Medal had always looked cheap.

Then a much stronger thought struck him.

He must not reach the Root Archive.

Pibbit stopped.

Mara continued three steps before noticing.

"What did you hear?"

"The Root Archive."

Mara's expression changed.

It was small, but Pibbit noticed.

"What is it?"

"Nothing useful."

"Rosethorn thinks I must not reach it."

"Then for once, the armed rose and I agree."

"Why?"

"Because the archive is where the oldest roots preserve what they have witnessed."

Pibbit's horns began vibrating.

"How much have they witnessed?"

"Everything planted above them."

"Everything?"

"Do not make me regret that word."

"Would it know about the compost arch?"

"Everyone knows about the compost arch now."

"Would it know why Rosethorn controls the Council of Stamens?"

Mara went silent.

"Would it know why you hate her?" he asked.

The mole resumed walking.

"We are taking the south passage."

"The archive is the other way, isn't it?"

"We are taking the south passage."

Pibbit listened to the roots around her.

Mara emptied her mind again.

But the tunnel itself remembered her footsteps.

Old root fibers murmured beneath the soil.

Mudsnout came this way before.

She carried papers.

Rosethorn followed.

There was shouting.

There was fire.

The archive door was sealed.

Pibbit turned toward a cracked side passage.

"It's through there."

Mara grabbed his tail.

"No."

"You brought papers out of it."

Her grip tightened.

"Stop listening."

"You said you couldn't teach me how."

"I am prepared to demonstrate with a rock."

The roots shuddered.

A thought louder than the others surged through the ground.

He has found the lower junction.

Madame Rosethorn knew where they were.

Thorns pierced the tunnel walls behind them.

Mara released Pibbit and swore.

"Archive," she said.

"I thought we weren't going there."

"We are no longer choosing between wise and foolish. We are choosing between foolish and impaled."

"I choose foolish."

"You chose that long before today."

They plunged into the cracked passage.

The earth sloped sharply beneath their feet. Mara dug her claws into the walls, but Pibbit slid between them, struck her satchel, and sent both of them tumbling down the tunnel in a knot of wings, fur, bottle caps, and profanity.

They crashed against a circular stone door buried beneath a curtain of white roots.

Carved into its center was an enormous closed eye.

Below it were the words:

WHAT THE ROOTS WITNESS, THE GARDEN MUST REMEMBER

Pibbit brushed soil from his face.

"How do we open it?"

"We do not."

A thorn burst from the tunnel behind them.

It wrapped around Mara's ankle.

She slashed it apart.

"Quickly," Pibbit said.

"Thank you. I had planned to make tea."

Mara removed a bottle cap from her necklace and pressed it into a shallow notch beneath the carved eye.

Nothing happened.

"That was your key?"

"Part of it."

She removed the silver teaspoon from Pibbit's claws, straightened the bent handle against the door, and inserted it into a second notch.

"You gave me the other part of the key?"

"I gave you something I knew Rosethorn would not search for because she considers cutlery beneath her."

"But I bent it."

"Yes. Your relationship with useful objects is punishingly brief."

The teaspoon turned.

The stone eye opened.

A pulse of cool air washed over them as the door rolled aside.

Mara shoved Pibbit through and followed. She pulled the spoon free an instant before thorns struck the door.

Stone sealed behind them.

The Root Archive awakened.

Thousands of pale fibers glowed across a cavern vast enough to hold the entire Old Pollination Square. Roots descended from the ceiling in luminous curtains. Others twisted into shelves, alcoves, and vast knotted columns. Dewdrops clung to their tips, and inside each drop flickered a fragment of memory.

Pibbit approached the nearest one.

Within it, a young daisy secretly replaced her missing petal with a strip of white onion skin.

Another showed a beetle burying counterfeit nectar pearls beneath a rhubarb patch.

A third contained Madame Rosethorn rehearsing an acceptance speech before learning whether she had won.

"They remember everything," Pibbit whispered.

"Roots do not forget," Mara said. "They merely wait for someone foolish enough to ask."

Thoughts stirred throughout the cavern.

They were older than ordinary voices. Slower. Deeper. Layered over seasons.

The listener has returned.

Not the mole.

The winged one.

The opened one.

Pibbit stepped backward.

"They know me."

"They know what the pollen made you."

"What did it make me?"

Mara looked toward the glowing columns.

"A Listener."

"I already listened before."

"You interrogated. There is a difference."

The roots curled toward him.

"Madame Rosethorn knew this could happen," Pibbit said.

"Yes."

"Why would she use the pollen on me?"

"Because the dose was intended to stun you. She panicked."

"That happens around me."

"I have noticed."

Pibbit followed a particularly thick root toward the center of the chamber. Golden light pulsed inside it, answering the pollen coating his skin.

When he touched it, the cavern vanished.

He stood inside a memory.

Blushroot Hollow was younger. The marble birdbath had not yet cracked, the conservatory was only half built, and Madame Rosethorn's petals were smaller and far less magnificent.

She stood beside a young Mara beneath the compost arch.

Between them lay a ledger bound in leaf leather.

"The Council is diverting water from the lower beds," memory-Mara said. "They are starving the wildflowers to feed the exhibition gardens."

Rosethorn glanced toward the path.

"If this ledger becomes public, the Council will collapse."

"That is the point."

"The hollow needs order."

"The hollow needs water."

Rosethorn placed one thorn over the ledger.

"Give it to me. I can correct the problem quietly."

"You can bury it quietly."

"Do not confuse discretion with dishonesty."

"Do not perfume dishonesty and expect me to call it discretion."

The memory shattered.

Pibbit found himself lying on the archive floor.

Mara pulled him upright.

"I told you not to touch anything."

"No, you didn't."

"I intended to."

"You found proof that the Council stole water."

"Years ago."

"Rosethorn took it."

"Yes."

"Did she fix the problem?"

"She replaced the Council, restored enough water to quiet the lower beds, and kept the ledger."

"Why?"

"Because secrets are more useful than justice when one intends to remain powerful."

The roots began whispering again.

She kept more than one ledger.

She collected every weakness.

Every debt.

Every private bargain.

Every midnight visitor.

Golden trails illuminated through the cavern, leading toward a black knot of roots at its center.

Pibbit approached.

Mara blocked him.

"That is Rosethorn's private graft."

"What is inside?"

"Everything she has fed into the archive and prevented the garden from hearing."

"Can I hear it?"

"You can hear all of it."

"Then why are we standing here?"

"Because hearing every secret is not the same as understanding which truths belong to you."

Pibbit frowned.

"They're already in my head."

"That does not make them yours to use."

Something struck the stone door.

The entire cavern trembled.

Rosethorn's roots had reached the archive.

Mara faced Pibbit.

"Listen carefully. If you open that graft, the memories will enter every connected root in Blushroot Hollow."

"Everyone will know everything?"

"Not everything. Only what Rosethorn buried here."

"That sounds helpful."

"It contains proof of corruption, extortion, stolen water, fixed competitions, and enough private behavior to make the compost arch look like a children's picnic."

Pibbit stared at the black roots.

"How much private behavior?"

"Your horns are vibrating."

"They do that when I'm weighing moral consequences."

"No, they do not."

The stone door cracked.

Thorn tips pushed through.

Madame Rosethorn's voice entered the chamber.

"Step away from the graft."

The stone split apart.

Rosethorn emerged through a storm of dust, accompanied by orchids, thornvines, two Council lilies, and the snapdragon from the market.

A riding crop was still tangled around one of her lower thorns.

Pibbit pointed at it.

"You missed a piece."

Rosethorn tore the crop free and flung it aside.

"This is no longer amusing."

"It remains a little amusing," Mara said.

The thornvines spread across the archive floor.

Rosethorn's petals were scratched and disordered, but her voice remained composed.

"Pibbit, you have been poisoned. The pollen is forcing other creatures' thoughts into your mind. You cannot distinguish memory from imagination."

Keep him away from the graft.

"You're still thinking too loudly," Pibbit said.

"You have frightened the entire hollow."

"You offered a reward for stuffing moss up my nose."

"For your protection."

And mine.

"Mostly yours."

The Council lilies shifted uncomfortably.

Rosethorn glanced at them.

If necessary, blame the lilies.

Pibbit looked at the Council members.

"She plans to blame you."

"He lies," Rosethorn said.

They are replaceable.

"She also thinks you're replaceable."

Both lilies stepped away from her.

"Enough!"

Rosethorn's vines lashed forward.

Mara struck one aside, but three more wrapped around her arms and waist. The orchids surrounded her with their stingers raised.

Pibbit scrambled onto the black root knot.

"Do not touch it," Rosethorn warned.

"What are you hiding?"

"The private failings of creatures who trusted me."

"You used those failings to control them."

"I used them to preserve stability."

"Is that what you call blackmail?"

"Blackmail is such an ugly word."

"What word do you use?"

Rosethorn hesitated.

"Cultivation."

Even the snapdragon winced.

Mara struggled against the vines.

"Pibbit, the graft."

Rosethorn tightened the thorns around her.

"Touch it and every secret inside will spill through the garden."

"Including yours?" Pibbit asked.

"Especially everyone else's."

The answer struck harder than any thorn.

Pibbit looked into the golden memories pulsing beneath the black bark.

He heard frightened voices inside.

A tulip concealing an illness because she feared losing her place in the exhibition beds.

A marigold who stole water for her seedlings during the drought.

A lily who had lied about her ancestry to enter the Petal Society.

A rosebud who loved a moth and knew the garden would ridicule her.

Alongside them were heavier truths: rigged awards, diverted irrigation, falsified ledgers, poisoned soil, threats, bribes, and Rosethorn's careful hand behind them all.

To release the graft would expose the guilty.

It would also strip the innocent bare.

Pibbit removed his claws from the root.

Madame Rosethorn smiled.

"At last," she said, "one sensible decision."

"I'm not opening it."

Mara stopped struggling.

Rosethorn's smile widened.

"Good."

"I'm opening you."

The smile disappeared.

"What?"

Pibbit leapt from the graft and landed directly on Madame Rosethorn's bloom.

She screamed as he plunged both pollen-coated claws between her outer petals.

Golden dust erupted through the flower.

Rosethorn thrashed, flinging orchids and vines across the cavern. Pibbit clung to her stem while she slammed him against a root column.

"Get off me!"

"You started this!"

"I slapped you once!"

"You slapped me internally!"

A sneeze built inside Pibbit's pollen-packed nose.

Rosethorn sensed it.

"Do not you dare."

Pibbit sneezed directly into her center.

The blast opened every layer of her bloom.

Golden pollen raced through her stem, down her thorns, and into the roots beneath her.

The archive flashed crimson.

Madame Rosethorn's thoughts thundered through the entire cavern.

Get him off me!

Seal the archive!

Destroy the irrigation ledgers!

Burn the Council records!

Tell the lower beds the drought was natural!

Hide the medal!

Someone remove the riding crop!

The roots seized every thought.

They carried them upward.

Across Blushroot Hollow, every flower heard Madame Rosethorn at once.

Her voice burst from the roses in the conservatory.

It traveled through the market vines.

It whispered from the hedges, the sleeping quarters, the irrigation beds, and the broken compost arch.

The awards were easy to fix.

The orchids would vote for anyone if misted twice a day.

The western beds never needed to know where their water went.

The blue rose will faint through anything.

Bristlewing looked magnificent in that saddle.

Pibbit released her and dropped to the floor.

The archive became silent.

Madame Rosethorn stared at the roots.

Her own private voice echoed back from thousands of glowing fibers.

Bristlewing looked magnificent in that saddle.

Rosethorn slowly turned toward Pibbit.

"You pollen-smeared little catastrophe."

"That was one thought," Pibbit said. "Not the whole graft."

Above them, Blushroot Hollow erupted.

The roar traveled through the soil.

Flowers shouted. Roots argued. Irrigation gates slammed open. The western beds demanded their water. The Council lilies began blaming one another before anyone had formally accused them.

Rosethorn's posse hesitated.

The snapdragon lowered his vines.

One orchid retracted her stinger.

The other looked at Rosethorn.

She said we were irreplaceable.

"She did not mean it," Pibbit told her.

"I gathered that," the orchid said.

Mara tore free of the loosened vines.

Rosethorn backed toward the broken door.

"You have destroyed the hollow's confidence in its leaders."

"You did that," Mara replied. "He merely improved the acoustics."

The two Council lilies uprooted themselves and fled into the passage.

The snapdragon followed.

Rosethorn looked around for her remaining supporters.

There were none.

Even her thornvines had begun quietly withdrawing into the soil.

"Cowards," she hissed.

I will prune every one of them.

A root repeated her thought aloud.

I will prune every one of them.

The fleeing flowers moved faster.

Madame Rosethorn folded her petals tightly around herself.

"Stop repeating me."

Stop repeating me.

"I command you to stop."

I command you to stop.

"I despise this archive."

I despise this archive.

Pibbit grinned.

Rosethorn pointed one shaking thorn at him.

"This is your fault."

"Which part?"

"All of it."

"The stolen water?"

"No."

"The fixed medals?"

"No."

"The beetle saddle?"

"Especially not the beetle saddle."

"Then which part?"

Madame Rosethorn opened her mouth.

She closed it again.

For the first time in anyone's memory, she could not find an answer she was willing to give.

She turned and marched from the Root Archive.

The roots whispered after her.

Bristlewing looked magnificent in that saddle.

Her scream shook dirt from the ceiling.

Pibbit watched her disappear.

"Do you think she'll be angry for long?"

"Roses preserve grudges better than petals," Mara said.

"Is that long?"

"You should avoid flower beds for the rest of your natural life."

The golden light around Pibbit began to fade.

He looked down as pollen flaked from his claws.

The voices receded.

Thoughts that had filled his skull became murmurs, then whispers, then distant impressions too faint to understand.

"It's wearing off," he said.

Mara nodded.

"The pollen is leaving your blood."

"Will I still be a Listener?"

"Not like this."

"Good."

He paused.

"Mostly good."

The archive roots curled around him.

One final thought entered his mind.

A creature does not need magic to hear what others reveal.

Most secrets escape through frightened pauses, hurried denials, and answers no one was asked to give.

Pibbit tilted his head.

"That sounds useful."

"It sounds dangerous in your possession," Mara said.

They climbed from the archive through the broken doorway.

By the time they reached the surface, afternoon sunlight stretched across a garden transformed by scandal.

The Council of Stamens had dissolved during an argument over who possessed the authority to dissolve it.

The western beds had seized the irrigation controls.

The Petal Society had stripped Madame Rosethorn of all seven Virtuous Bloom Medals, then discovered that five had been awarded during years when no other contestant had been notified.

The blue rose was still unconscious, although witnesses reported seeing her open one eye whenever the gossip became especially good.

Bristlewing stood beside the ruined conservatory, surrounded by admirers inspecting his velvet saddle.

"Pibbit!" the stag beetle called.

Every flower in the square turned.

Pibbit froze.

No one attacked him.

A small wildflower stepped from the crowd.

"Is it true Rosethorn diverted our water?"

"Yes."

Another asked, "Did she fix the Golden Stamen awards?"

"Yes."

A tulip raised one leaf.

"Can you still hear thoughts?"

Pibbit listened.

There was only the ordinary rustle of petals.

"No."

The garden exhaled as one.

Then a honeysuckle shouted, "Thank pollen."

A carnation began crying.

Two orchids embraced.

Someone released a cage of emergency moths.

Pibbit frowned.

"Were all of you worried?"

"No," said the entire square.

Pibbit looked at Mara.

She shrugged.

"You no longer require magic for that one."

Madame Rosethorn appeared at the conservatory entrance.

Her medals were gone. Her petals drooped. A handwritten sign hung from her stem:

SUSPENDED PENDING ROOT REVIEW

Pibbit approached cautiously.

"Are you going to slap me again?"

"Not today."

"Tomorrow?"

"Possibly."

"With pollen?"

"I have burned my pollen reserves."

"Why?"

Rosethorn's thorns quivered.

"Because no flower in this hollow will ever again risk opening your mind."

"What happened to your medals?"

"You know what happened."

"Where is the riding crop?"

"Pibbit."

"Was Bristlewing comfortable?"

"Pibbit."

"Who wore the garter?"

Every nearby flower leaned closer.

Madame Rosethorn inhaled slowly.

Her outer petals twitched.

"Run along, little Peepdrake."

Pibbit considered asking one more question.

Mara seized him by the tail and dragged him away.

"That," she said, "is how survival works."

"I was leaving."

"You were vibrating."

They crossed Old Pollination Square as vendors rebuilt their stalls. Several blossoms thanked Pibbit. Others hid behind their leaves. One peony handed him a pastry and requested, with unnecessary urgency, that he never stand near her again.

At the fountain, workers had placed boards over the hole leading into Mara's tunnels.

Pibbit sat on the cracked rim.

"What happens now?"

"The Council reforms. The lower beds receive their water. Rosethorn pretends retirement was her idea."

"And the archive?"

"It remains sealed."

"What about all the other secrets?"

"They remain where they belong until they become someone else's business."

Pibbit kicked his feet against the stone.

"How do I know when they're someone else's business?"

"You ask whether revealing them prevents harm or merely satisfies your appetite."

"What if it does both?"

Mara sighed.

"Then try not to enjoy yourself visibly."

A shadow passed over them.

Bristlewing landed beside the fountain with a heavy thud.

The velvet saddle had been straightened. Fresh silver buckles gleamed along its sides.

"Little fellow," he said, "I hear you enjoy questions."

"Very much."

"Would you like a ride?"

Mara stepped between them.

"No."

"I was asking him."

"I was answering for the continued structural integrity of the garden."

Pibbit was already climbing into the saddle.

"What does this strap do?"

Bristlewing looked back.

"Not sure."

"What about this buckle?"

"Never touched it."

"Why is there a second seat?"

Several flowers dropped what they were carrying.

Mara covered Pibbit's mouth.

"Fly," she told Bristlewing.

The stag beetle spread his enormous wings.

"Where to?"

Mara climbed reluctantly into the saddle behind Pibbit.

"Somewhere without flowers."

Bristlewing launched.

Wind swept through the square as his wings carried them above Blushroot Hollow. Below, the conservatory glittered with broken glass. The compost arch lay in pieces beside the western hedge. Flowers crowded the paths, arguing over water rights, emergency elections, and whether the Virtuous Bloom Medal should be replaced by something less easily attached to intimate clothing.

Pibbit watched the garden shrink beneath them.

Without the pollen, its thoughts were silent.

For several peaceful seconds, he heard nothing but wind.

Then Mara tapped his shoulder.

"Do not ask about the second seat."

"I wasn't going to."

"Your horns are vibrating."

"That could mean anything."

Bristlewing banked toward the outer fields.

A small object slipped from his saddlebag and landed in Pibbit's lap.

It was Madame Rosethorn's lace garter.

Pibbit held it up.

Mara closed her eyes.

Bristlewing looked back.

"I wondered where that went."

Pibbit opened his mouth.

Every surviving instinct in his tiny body begged him to remain silent.

He lasted almost four seconds.

"Why does it have the golden lily's name stitched inside?"

Bristlewing flew directly into a tree.