Buzzford knelt in the mud outside the cedar cabin at the edge of Frog Hollow and counted dead larvae into a tin cup. Six. All of them shriveled grey, all of them fed the last of the weak jelly from the swamp hives. A blackwater queen needed royal jelly thick enough to coat a spoon and dark enough to stain it. Buzzford had none. Without a queen, the swarm they had spent two years courting would answer to some other beekeeper, or to no one, and the hollow would keep chewing them up like it chewed up everyone who came here without a hive of their own. The cabin door opened behind them. Nessa Mudwren came down the porch steps in her brown vest and heavy boots, arms crossed against the cold. She looked at the tin cup and did not say she was sorry. That was one thing Buzzford liked about her. "The swamp hives are finished," Buzzford said. "The jelly's watered out. I need the black comb from the drowned oak, and I can't get to it without crossing the fen." Nessa's mouth tightened. The fen belonged to the grey fox with the golden eyes, and everyone in the hollow knew what the fox took as toll. They went together at dusk. Buzzford carried a smoker and a clay jar. Nessa carried a short knife and a strip of dried liver as tribute. The fox met them at the third stand of reeds, sleek and unhurried, its yellow eyes lit like coins. Nessa laid the liver on a flat stone and stepped back. The fox ate, watched Buzzford a long moment, then turned and walked into the reeds along a path Buzzford had not seen. They followed. At the drowned oak, black comb hung from a split in the trunk, heavy and dripping. Buzzford climbed, smoked the guard bees quiet, and cut loose a slab the size of both hands pressed together. Jelly welled up dark as tar. The clay jar filled to the neck. Back at the cabin, Buzzford set the jar on the table and pressed a fingertip to the surface. The jelly clung, black, thick enough to pull a thread. Nessa watched from the doorway. "You have your queen-food," she said. "Now you need a larva worth spending it on." Buzzford nodded. Only one hive in Frog Hollow carried eggs young enough and strong enough to take the change, and that hive was not theirs. It belonged to the woman who had driven Buzzford out of the hollow three winters ago, and she would not sell.

The jar of black jelly sat on the table all night. In the morning Buzzford wrapped it in cloth and walked to the low cabin at the edge of the reed flats. Myrtle Bogwater kept bees no one else would touch, and she owed no loyalty to the woman who ran Buzzford out of the hollow. Buzzford knocked. Myrtle opened the door with a paring knife in one hand and a half-peeled turnip in the other. She looked at the wrapped jar, then at Buzzford's face, and stepped aside. Buzzford set the jar on her table and said what they wanted. A larva, three days old, from the rival hive across the boggy meadow. Myrtle laughed, short and dry. She said the rival kept two dogs and a boy who slept by the smokehouse. She said anyone caught at those frames would leave with a broken arm at best. Then she wiped her knife on her apron and told Buzzford to sit. She had a way in, she said, but it would cost the jar. Buzzford's stomach dropped. Without the jelly there was no queen. But without the larva the jelly was only tar. They agreed. Myrtle led them out at midday, when the rival worked her far frames. Nessa Mudwren came too, silent, one hand on her knife. They crossed the meadow low. At the edge of the rival's yard, Myrtle pointed to a tall grey bird standing in the shallows behind the hives. The slate heron. Myrtle had been feeding it minnows for a year. She clapped once, sharp. The heron burst up, wings wide, and dropped into the yard between the hives and the smokehouse. The dogs tore after it, barking. The boy ran after the dogs. Myrtle nodded. Buzzford went in low along the fence, lifted the lid off the third hive, and cut a wedge of comb with three pale larvae curled in the wax. They were back in the reeds before the heron lifted clear of the yard. At Myrtle's table Buzzford laid the wedge beside the jar. Myrtle picked the smallest larva out with a splinter and dropped it into the black jelly. It sank, then floated, small and white against the dark. Myrtle took the jar and set it on her own shelf. "Payment," she said. Buzzford opened their mouth and closed it. The larva was theirs, but the food that would raise it into a queen now sat behind Myrtle's door, and Myrtle had already turned back to her turnip. Nessa touched Buzzford's elbow. They walked out with the larva wrapped in wax cloth and nothing else.

Buzzford walked away from Myrtle's cabin with the larva wrapped in wax cloth against their chest. Nessa kept close, one hand near her knife. They had gone a hundred paces through the reeds when Nessa stopped and pointed. Across the flat, smoke rose from the rival's yard. Not cook smoke. Signal smoke, thick and black. The rival had found the cut frame. Nessa said the rival would send the boy along the meadow track first. That track ran straight to Myrtle's door and then on to Buzzford's hives. They could not cross it. They could not stay in the reeds either. Dogs would work the edges by dusk. Buzzford thought of the fen. The long water crossing lay to the west, past a stand of alder they had already used once. The grey fox with the golden eyes held that road, and the tribute of dried liver was spent. Buzzford still had a strip of salt pork in their coat and a copper button Nessa had cut from a dead man's shirt last winter. It would have to be enough. They moved west, low through the sedge. Halfway to the alders a painted turtle slid off a log into the black water ahead of them. Nessa froze. Buzzford saw why. Beyond the turtle, at the foot of a leaning cedar, the grey fox sat waiting. Its yellow eyes tracked them without blinking. It had known they were coming before they did. Buzzford knelt in the mud and laid the salt pork on a flat stone. They set the copper button on top. "Passage," they said. "One crossing. No hunt behind us." The fox stepped forward, took the pork in its teeth, and nosed the button into the moss. Then it turned and walked into the reeds toward the smoke. A moment later, a dog began barking far behind them, then another, pulling east, away from the meadow track. They crossed the shallow water at the alders and came out on the far bank as the light went orange. Buzzford's hives stood a short walk ahead, humming weakly in the dusk. Buzzford unwrapped the wax cloth on a stump. The larva was still pale, still curled, still alive. Nessa let out a breath. Then she said what Buzzford already knew. The larva would starve by morning without proper feed. Ordinary jelly would not raise a queen from black comb stock. They had bought their skins and lost the road to Myrtle in the same hour. Buzzford wrapped the larva again and set it in a warm clay pot near the smoker. They sat on the step of the cedar cabin and watched the last light leave the fen. The rival was hunting the wrong ground now. That much was won. But the jar sat on Myrtle's shelf, and the larva in the pot had until sunrise.