Inside the Entrance Hall

Verne’s robes trailed behind him like stormcloud silk.

What does stormcloud silk look like, you might ask?

Well, it looks like stormclouds.

Duh.

That felt fairly obvious.

The spellbees encircled him in a shield formation, batting away sparks and hostile bees as he charged through the doorway with Marra close behind.

Inside, the spire was in pure chaos.

The entrance hall was lined with shattered glass, broken shelves, and overturned brass instruments still ticking faintly with trapped magic. Candles burned sideways. A staircase spiraled upward along the walls, but great chunks of it had been blown to smithereens. Green light pulsed from above in waves, each one carrying that same deep, aching queen-buzz through the stone. The air was thick with wax dust and drifting pollen.

One of Verne’s glove hands snatched a book out of the air. He glanced at the title:

Practical Apiomancy and Resonant Crown Theory, Volume II.

He tucked it into his robe.

Research.

Up ahead, from one of the side rooms, came a horrible CRUNCH.

Then a wet SPLOOCH.

Then silence.

Out of the room lumbered a wax golem roughly the size of a man, made of melted beeswax, broken hive frames, candle stubs, and bits of scroll parchment stuck into its body. Several angry spellbees glowed inside it like trapped organs. Its face was little more than an impression, and yet it still somehow looked upset.

It dragged one heavy leg behind it and lifted a warped arm toward them, blocking the way ahead.

Marra planted herself beside Verne and raised her knife.

“Well? I do not think my knife is really going to help here.”

The spellbees around Verne tightened formation while his hat tilted forward.

The golem roared and launched three bees from its chest like arrows.

Verne drew himself up to his full, highly curated apparent height.

Before he could do anything, Marra slashed the shots out of the air.

“Well, they are not useless,” she said. “But you need to do something about the golem.”

Verne did the least responsible thing he could think of.

He opened his spellbook to a random page.

It contained a sketch of a bee with a mustache so carefully groomed it could only be described as distinguished.

“Perfect,” he whispered.

“I hope it is,” Marra said, clearly having heard him.

Verne thrust out both floating glove hands and cried:

“VARNIBUS SPLEEN! HOLLORUM WAXIVATE! BEE-THRONE CALAMBAZZLE!”

For one far-too-long second, nothing happened.

Then everything happened.

A ring of green light flowed from the band of his hat, through his body, and down onto the floor. It darted across the stone, ignoring every crack and break in its path. The spellbees flared bright gold at the sight of it.

The green ring rose beneath the wax golem and wrapped around it completely.

Its parchment-stuffed head tilted.

A deep hum filled the room.

Immediately, the magic began affecting the inanimate objects inside its body. Candle stubs, broken frames, scroll pieces, and scraps of shelf-wood all melted into the wax as though it had become hot as lava. Before long, only the four remaining spellbees were left visible inside.

They began to glow green.

Then they lost their shape entirely and became pure light.

That light rose up toward the golem’s head, settled there, and dimmed.

What remained was a pure wax golem that was now painfully, majestically self-aware.

It straightened.

The wax of its face shifted into a tragic expression.

In a low, mournful voice, it said:

“…I am assembled.”

They both stared.

Marra stared because she had absolutely not expected that to happen.

Verne stared because he had completely expected that to happen and was, in fact, staring for entirely different reasons.

Reasons which, while currently difficult to articulate, were nonetheless real.

The golem looked down at its own hands.

“I was candle. I was hive. I was shelf refuse.”

Then it turned its waxen face toward them.

“Now I am burdened with being.”

Marra slowly lowered her knife and quietly kicked the split bees behind her so the wax golem would not notice them.

“Verne.”

“I know,” Verne whispered back. “This is incredible.”

The golem pressed one hand to its chest.

“Why was I made?”

High above, the queen’s buzz pulsed through the spire again, stronger this time.

The golem twitched.

Then it twitched a lot more than that.

It recoiled and clutched at its head.

“I hear her sorrow,” it said. “She calls. She burns. She binds. She is not queen by nature. She is queen by wound.”

Marra winced.

Then she stepped in front of Verne.

“Can you get us to her?”

The golem turned toward the sign for the HIVE WORKROOM. Green light flickered somewhere above.

“There is a chamber below the observatory,” it said. “The wizard fed wild aether comb into the crown array. The queen nested in resonance. Now hive and artifact sing through one another. If the song finishes, all bees in Tallbarrow will join the spire.”

Verne looked displeased.

“Can you say that again, but dumber, so Marra can understand?”

Marra turned to him at once.

“The wizard used weird magic bee material in a machine with the crown, and the queen got stuck in it. Now the queen and the spire are magically connected and sort of powering each other. So if no one stops it, the queen’s call will spread to every bee in Tallbarrow, and all of them will fly here and become part of the spire.”

The golem slowly nodded in approval.

Verne turned back to it.

“Thank you for explaining that for us and for dumbing it down for Marra’s sake.”

He placed a glove hand over his chest and regarded the golem with grave respect.

“A being such as you,” he said, “deserves a name of depth, dignity, and arcane importance.”

The golem leaned in.

Marra mostly ignored him, though not quite enough to hide that she was still curious what the thing would be named.

The spire groaned around them.

Verne pointed dramatically.

“Your name is Morrowax.”

The golem went still.

Then, with quiet wonder:

“Morrowax.”

It glowed faintly green at the sound.

“Yes,” Verne said. “A name befitting a tragic wax-born sentinel.”

Morrowax bowed its head.

“I will carry it with honor.”

A loud crack rang through the hall.

Wax dripped from the ceiling.

Somewhere above them, Alder Voss shouted something that sounded a lot like:

“THAT SOUNDED STRUCTURAL!”

Of course this was happening now.

Marra pointed up the half-destroyed spiral staircase, which was still flashing green.

“Beautiful name. Move.”

Verne and Morrowax followed her.

Verne did so a little begrudgingly.