“It was the children’s father, since you’re sending condolences,” Solon said.

“All witches are orphans,” Esme said to Claire. Eureka wondered if it was possible that the witch was being kind. She turned to Eureka. “Did you enjoy the Glimmering?”

“Do not lie,” the old witch snorted. “We have underwater eyes. We saw everything you saw.” She looked at Ander. “And did not see.”

“What did she say?” Solon pointed at the old witch. He spun toward Ander and let out a noise somewhere between guffaw and cough. “Exactly what didn’t you see?”

“I—I don’t know,” Ander stammered. “We need to talk.”

“You do not belong,” the old witch said. “Get it? You’re nothing!”

The middle witch said something behind her hand to the old witch. They looked at Eureka and laughed.

“You know what my reflection means,” Eureka said to Esme.

The witch smiled and tilted her head, considering her reply as she looked at the twins, at Ander. “Some truths are best kept secret from loved ones.”

Then Esme shrugged and laughed, and Solon laughed and lit another cigarette, and Eureka saw everything clearly and completely: no one had any idea what was going on. If there was a system or a meaning to the magic around them, no one knew what it was. Eureka would have to take matters into her own hands.

A shadow shifted in the back of the cave and Eureka heard a sniff. Cat poked her head out from behind the tapestry separating the guest room. Eureka knew they were still in a fight, that things between them would never be the same, but her body moved to be with Cat before her mind could stop her.

“What are they doing here?” Cat asked.

The witches flicked their tongues and turned to Solon. “We did not receive our payment yesterday,” Esme said. “We require triple wings today.”

“Triple wings.” Solon laughed. “It can’t be done. The bugs have bugged out.”

“What did you say?” Esme’s forked tongue hissed. Her bees paused in their busy circles to tremble in the air.

“I was raided yesterday,” Solon said. “I lost nearly everything. The butterfly room, the hatchery—gone.” He pulled a small velvet pouch from his robe pocket. “I can offer you this. Two grams of orchid petals in your favorite color.”

“This trifle does not aid us in our mission,” the middle witch said.

The old witch glared at Solon through a monocle, her amber eye huge and distorted behind the glass. “We cannot go home without more wings!”

Esme raised her hand to quiet the others. “We will take the robot.”

Solon let out a sudden laugh that became a ragged smoker’s cough. “Ovid is not collateral.”

“Everything iscollateral,” the old witch said. “Innocence, afterlives, even nightmares.”

“Tell it to the judge.” Cat had slipped away from Eureka to stand in front of Esme. “ ’Cause the robot stays with us.”

The girl-witch raised an eyebrow. She seemed to be preparing to do something terrifying. But Eureka had driven Cat to karate lessons. She’d watched Cat’s fists make both of mean Carrie Marchaux’s eyes black. She recognized Cat’s expression when she was about to whale on someone.

Cat’s left leg snapped up. Her bare foot connected with the witch’s jaw. Esme’s neck twisted to the side and four shiny white teeth shot from her mouth. They clattered across the floor like loose mosaic tiles. The blood that dribbled from the witch’s lips matched her amethyst gown. She wiped the corner of her mouth.

“That was for the Poet,” Cat said.

Esme smiled a wicked, toothless smile. She flicked her forked tongue, and every bee in the cave swarmed around her head. She flicked her tongue again. The bees dispersed, flowing as a team over the cave floor, retrieving each of her teeth. She threw her head back and opened her mouth wide. The bees entered her mouth and placed the teeth back in the blood-wet grooves in her gums. She turned to her companions and giggled.

“If the girl gets this incensed over a silly boy, imagine when she finds out that her whole family”—Esme turned to Cat, spitting purple blood as she hissed the words—“is rotting on the putrid New Shores of Arkansas.”

Cat tackled Esme. Bees stung her arms and face, but she didn’t seem to notice. She had the witch in a choke hold, until Esme snapped her neck free. Cat tore at the gossipwitch’s hair as bees crawled up her hands, her fingers trolling the back of Esme’s head. Then she paused as disgust filled her face. “What the—”

“Control your impudent friend, Eureka!” Esme shouted, and struggled to untangle herself from Cat. “Or you will all regret it.”

Cat thrust the witch’s head down toward her chest.

Where the back of Esme’s skull should have been was an amethyst-colored void, at the center of which a single monarch butterfly flew furiously in place.

This explained the gossipwitches’ endless appetite for winged creatures. This was how they flew.

Cat plucked the butterfly from the void in Esme’s head. Its wings beat just once more between her fingers; then the insect curled up and died.

Esme roared and flung Cat off her. The other gossipwitches gaped in horror at the back of her empty head. They touched the backs of their own heads, checking to make sure everything was still intact.

Bees flocked to Esme’s fist, coating it like a glove. She towered over Cat, grabbed the back of her head, and punched the base of Cat’s skull with her bee-bound fist.