They were in a little courtyard on an alien world, surrounded by a crumbling stone wall. Overhead, three suns, each touching the edge of the next like beads on a string, descended slowly through a violet sky. In the center of the yard was a squat stone hut that protected an ancient stone well.

In that well there was a flower, a huge white-and-purple thing, which would—Alice had been told—soon produce a crop of fruit. Geryon had instructed her in no uncertain terms to wait until the flower opened and then bring those fruits back to him. He had somehow not mentioned that an army of angry insects were intent on getting it for themselves.

The first of the enemy came over the wall: stick-thin legs hauling a bloated yellow-and-black body across the jagged rock. It looked like a wasp, with a segmented torso, gossamer-thin wings, and six legs, but as big as a good-sized dog. Its compound eyes, glittering like mirrors, were the size of Alice’s clenched fist. A stinger like a butcher knife jutted from its hindquarters, and wide jaws held two pairs of long fangs.

The creatures were, she and Isaac had discovered, smarter than they looked.

Alice grabbed the Swarm thread and started calling swarmers into existence. As each one—an apple-sized ball of black fur with beady eyes and a long, sharp beak—dropped from nothingness to perch on her hand with a quirk, she tossed it up to the top of the wall. The swarmers scrabbled for purchase when they landed, hopping agilely from rock to rock, manning the ramparts of the fortress like a defending army.

The wasps could fly, but not higher than the level of Alice’s head, so they needed to climb to get over the wall. That gave the swarmers a chance to attack, beaks slashing at the eyes and legs of the wasp-things. The first enemy to gain the top of the wall lost its grip and fell back under the blows of several swarmers, and the second had one eye punctured with a gush of black ichor. Alice stood in the courtyard below, the commanding general directing her forces.

The wasps were nothing if not single-minded. They ignored the swarmers, pushing the little creatures aside. One wasp, trailing a broken leg, lurched over the wall and flopped into the air like someone falling into a pool, the noise from its wings rising to a fast drone. It came at Alice, fangs bared, drifting through the air with the stately grace of a blimp.

Alice left the swarmers to fend for themselves and grabbed her club. It was a piece of wood about the length of a baseball bat, spreading to a wide paddle at the end. A flyswatter, Alice thought, for very large flies.