The Dragon's Heart Is a Beehive

How it begins

Nadia Cole followed the missing bees to a man lying facedown in her lavender. At first she thought he had been stung. Then she saw the smoke rising gently from his coat.

'Please don't move,' she said.

'I wasn't planning to.'

A bee crawled from his collar, lifted into the air and returned to the exact place above his heart. More followed. They did not appear angry. Nadia knew angry bees. These looked busy.

She crouched beside him. 'Are you carrying a hive?'

'Not by choice.'

His name was Emil Voss. He told her this with his cheek against the earth, which made formal introductions difficult. When she helped him sit, his shadow stayed lying down. It had wings.

Nadia had kept bees for seventeen years. She had lost hives to weather, mites, pesticide drift and the spectacularly unhelpful advice of people who had watched one documentary. She had not previously lost them to a dragon's chest.

'How long?' she asked.

'Three days.'

'Why didn't you come sooner?'

'You keep a sign saying visitors should ask before entering the apiary.'

'You could have knocked.'

'I was afraid you would tell them to leave.'

Nadia looked at the bees gathering beneath his collar. The air smelled of lavender and warm wax. Whatever space they had found inside him was large enough to be useful and strange enough to make them feel safe. That did not mean it was good for either of them.

She offered him a stool outside the workshop. He sat carefully, holding his chest as if it contained an animal he did not want to wake.

'I won't force a swarm out,' she said. 'But I need to understand why they moved in.'

Emil closed his eyes. Somewhere beneath his ribs, the bees changed their note.

'I think,' he said, 'they heard something empty.'