Amby gasped, holding onto the back of the couch for dear life with two hands and onto my arm with two others.
"What is this?!"
The walls around us were shaking. I jumped off my seat on the couch, lifting Amby with me, and fluttered my wings in reflex, about to start flying if the floor crumbled underneath me—but it held. Instead, various knick-knacks began falling off the shelves and tables in the room: decorative figurines, well-wishes on wax tablets, Amby's cup of unfinished tea…
The entire hive was feeling it. The thoughts and shouts full of shock and alarm reverberated over it, blasting me with a brief migraine. Trying to catch a single thought in this was a complicated task, but I tried.
There were more bees than on any battlefield, and they were more frantic than on any battlefield, but I had to locate the key people, establish the line of orders, calm—
