How long? How long has Jacynde been there? How did she get here from Phosyne’s care? She should have been safe. Shouldn’t be—skewered—

But how didn’t Voyne notice this, when the False Lady taunted her? She never got close enough, she tells herself. The buzzing was already in the air. Wasn’t it?

Would she even know if the monster had bridled her again, compelled her to kill?

Yes, she tells herself, but for all her bucking anger, she can’t be sure.

It doesn’t matter, she tells herself instead. What matters is that she needs her blade. What matters is that when she tries to reach for it, her arm refuses to obey.

She can only look.

“Free me,” Voyne whispers.

“You are free,” Phosyne says.

But Voyne isn’t. Something has changed in the time between Phosyne letting her drink in the cistern and now. Something changed when the False Lady left Voyne kneeling. Voyne isn’t free at all; she cannot act without somebody to act for, and she hates herself for it.

“Please, Phosyne,” she begs.

Phosyne flinches. She has, at least, that much shame. “Take up your sword, Ser Voyne.”

And like a hound let off a lead, Voyne lunges.

She tears into the comb with her hands. The wax is warm, molten between her fingers, but there is so much of it, and the honey that bursts forth from each ruptured cell makes her clumsy. The bees have no such problem; they rise in a dark swarm, their buzzing growing cacophonous. And then the first sting pierces her flesh. The second. The third. She tries to close her hands around the hilt and heave, but she can’t grip it. It slides away every time. Pierces deeper into the body below them both.

The pain is growing. She shuts her eyes, shoves her face down between her arms, and tries to retreat, but she can’t, because Phosyne’s order is too thick in her veins. She hears herself pleading. Crying.

In her panic, she fears Phosyne will leave her like this. Will watch her be stung to death, subsumed into the hive that is forming too rapidly to be natural. That Voyne was wrong, that this is Phosyne, in truth, and always has been, merely waiting for the moment when all the rest of the world cracked away and left her unstoppable.

“No more!” Phosyne cries. “Ser Voyne, retreat!”

And, at last, Ser Voyne does.

She falls back, chest heaving, eyes rolling in her skull. She can barely see, but her face is the least-stung of her. Her hands are beginning to swell. Her scalp is a searing cap of pain. She shakes her head, forcing herself to focus.