He showed her the art and sculpture on display, but Amber couldn't forget the way those aliens had looked at her. She was shaken and couldn't calm down. Every glimpse of the three strangers among the crowd brought a fresh wave of unease.

Eventually, Actian, minus his guests, found them. He was carrying sweet, nectary champagne and an extra glass for Atropos, who took it gratefully.

"I'm glad you decided to debut your gift as I suggested," Actian said. "The others are already clamoring for one of their own. Although I didn't expect you to dance with it."

He chuckled, amused, but Atropos only smiled at Amber.

"It seemed appropriate," he said. "She is an excellent dancer."

"You are a mystery, brother," Actian said, shaking his head. "Regardless, the flight and my new allies are intrigued. No thanks to you. I thought you would take Vespula's spikey little head off."

"I apologize if I insulted them," Atropos said. "I was . . . too possessive."

Actian laughed.

"It's nothing to apologize for," he said. "I wanted you to intimidate them. The Hymenoptera are not a species you want thinking that you're easy prey. They are . . . rather more indiscriminate about where they lay their eggs than we are."

"So I've heard," Atropos said uneasily.

Amber wanted to say something. She wished desperately that she was brave enough to shout at him.

You want to give humans to that? she thought. Knowing what it will do to them! Even if you think we're just animals, that is too cruel!

But she was too afraid. She stayed silent, feeling guilty and cowardly but unable to make herself speak up. Actian and Atropos chatted idly, ignoring her.

"Have the last of the host humans been gathered?" Actian asked.

"Last night," Atropos reported, looking at Amber apologetically. "Everything is prepared for the Gifting ceremony tomorrow."

"Good, I've arranged everything for the festival as well," Actian replied. "Everything should be on schedule. Once the hosts are safely implanted, the auction will begin. With those alliances secured and their currency at our disposal, we will be able to begin harvesting the human population to bring back with us. Where do you recommend beginning?"

"The largest continent has the highest density of population," Atropos said calmly, as though he were not talking about mass kidnapping and slavery. "If the priority is speed, that would be the wisest choice."

"I thought we might take a number from all the major population centers," Actian replied. "So that we have a wide variety of morphs to begin breeding from. We're also more likely to get a wider sampling of high-quality specimens, which we will need for trading and maintaining alliances. I have a feeling Captain Ixian is going to go through them quickly."

Amber felt like she might be sick. She stumbled away from Actian and Atropos, not wanting to hear any more of their conversation. Atropos saw her go but kept his attention on his brother, trusting her not to wander off.

More or less alone for the first time that evening, Amber looked around at the party, hoping for a distraction from the thought of Atropos helping his brother enslave her species.

All the attendants of the party were quite brightly colored, more so even than those she'd seen at the market today. She'd thought this was because they were all dressed up for the party, but she was beginning to realize that wasn't true. It seemed like only the most colorful morphs had been invited. Birdwings and swallowtails and monarchs. Were these the Lepidopterix aristocracy?

But no, she realized, she was wrong. She'd just glimpsed a flash of brown between all the dramatic colors. There was at least one dull-colored pair of wings here. She moved closer, trying to get a better look, and spotted another.

There were several small brown and white morphs moving around the edges of the room, carrying drink trays and refreshing the buffet. The other guests ignored them entirely. They moved so quickly and quietly that Amber hadn't even noticed them before. Amber, curious, approached one that was refilling champagne glasses on a table near the edge of the room.

"Excuse me," Amber said, touching her shoulder.

"How can I help you?" the moth said at once before turning to look at Amber, at which point she jumped in surprise. "Oh, the human!"

"Sorry," Amber said quickly. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"It's fine!" the moth said quickly. "I just didn't know you could speak."

"You're speaking English," Amber said with a frown. "That's literally my language."

"Well, yes, but—" The moth looked flustered, then shook it off. "Can I help you?"

"I was just wondering why you and all the other brown Lepidopterix are serving drinks and stuff. Why weren't any of you invited as guests?"

"Oh, we were!" the moth said quickly, smiling. "In exchange for working, we get to be here! There's no way someone my color would be able to get into a party like this otherwise, so it's really exciting to even get to see it."

"But don't you want to be part of the party?" Amber asked. "Dance and everything?"

"And who would dance with me?" the moth said with a laugh. "Some other brown boy? We'd look ridiculous flapping around up there. No, it's much nicer to just watch."

* * *

Amber didn't have a chance to ask more before a flash of red caught her attention.

Colony Zoa, Immortal of the Hexacorallia, the rock creature, was nearby, presumably watching the brown Lepidopterix as she was, though it had no eyes she could identify. She gathered herself to leave at once, uneasy, but paused as she saw it reaching for one of the brown moths with a spindly red leg. It caught the server by the wing, almost making him spill the drinks he was carrying.

"Yes, how can I help you, sir?" the server said at once, assuming it had been getting his attention. But the Immortal didn't let go of the servant's wing and said nothing. Instead, it reached out with a second arm, then a third, to tug at the delicate membrane curiously.

"Please let go," the Lepidopterix said, looking pale.

Instead, the Immortal tore a hole in his wing with a tiny claw. The moth shouted in pain and began struggling to get away.

"Stop! Stop! That hurts!" he shouted, trying and failing to pull his wings away from the alien as it calmly ripped another hole. Instead, it unfolded a dozen more arms and began ripping the helpless moth's wings apart with nauseating speed.

The server was not being quiet. He was screaming in what sounded like unimaginable pain, crying and howling as he tried to escape the creature mutilating him. The party had come to a dead stop, the guests staring in frozen horror but doing nothing.

Amber didn't hesitate long enough to wonder why they weren't trying to help. She flung herself across the room, terror screaming in her blood but her fear for the server greater. She threw herself between the Immortal and the moth, beating at its spindly limbs, which snapped like dry twigs, leaking white fluid as they scattered.

It tottered backward immediately, and the moth sank to the floor sobbing behind Amber, his wings a trembling lacework of holes.

Amber, shaking with fear, stood between him and the Immortal. She felt that fear grow as the Immortal unfolded new, sturdier arms with dangerously sharp-looking hooked ends. She held her ground, eyes wide, as it moved toward her.

A second later, with an angry buzz of wings, Atropos was between her and it, hiding her completely behind his wings. The Immortal backed up, withdrawing its arms immediately. Actian was there a moment later, murmuring to the Immortal urgently. He looked up at Atropos and Amber for only a moment, his gaze full of fiery intensity for a moment before he looked away.

"You," he snapped briefly at one of the other servants. "Get that one to the infirmary."

The moth Amber had been talking to and one other rushed to the injured server's side and hurried away while Actian continued negotiating in a rapid, hushed voice with the Immortal.

Atropos took Amber by the arm and hurried her away as well, looking back over his shoulder as they went.

"How awful," one of the guests murmured to a companion as they passed.

"At least it picked one of those dull servants," the other replied in a murmur. "I mean, it's not like those wings could get much uglier . . ."

Amber felt sick and hung on to Atropos's arm as they pushed through the crowd.

"What's going on?" Amber asked, worried.

"You attacked a volatile foreign dignitary," Atropos replied with surprising calmness as they headed for the dark and deserted end of the balcony near the back wall.

"It was mutilating that man!"

"I know," Atropos said and stopped to look her in the eye. "And I am very proud of you. You were braver than anyone else in that room."

Amber stared at him, stunned by the unexpected praise. He leaned in to press a kiss to her forehead.

"But if we stay here, the Immortal will be doing the same to you before the night is out." He summoned a door in the wall, and an elevator beyond, urging her in. "Actian is buying us time, and hopefully, the Immortal will calm down and forget."

He joined her in the elevator, which began carrying them back toward his room.

"I'm surprised Actian didn't feed me to it himself," Amber said a touch bitterly, though she was still too stunned and afraid to muster real indignation.

"He does not want you dead any more than I do," Atropos said, a comforting arm around her. "He has been doing his best all night to protect you."

"Why?" Amber asked. "He doesn't care about any human! He wants to sell us to things like that!"

"Because you're important to me," Atropos said as though it were obvious. "He is my brother. He knows how much it would hurt me to lose you."

The frank admission of her importance to him caught Amber a bit off guard, and she looked away, flustered, as the elevator door opened and they stepped back into the balcony apartment.

"Please do not mistake my brother's politics for an indicator of cruelty," Atropos continued. "He is a good person, brave and loyal. Generous, kind—"

"To the people he thinks are people, that is," Amber interrupted, at a mutter first, then louder as her fear slowly became outrage. "But I'm not a person to him. He acts like humans are objects, livestock. But we're not, Atropos. We're people, just like you. And I think he knows that. I think you all do. There's no way you could have spent all this time in contract with us, watching our movies, copying our fashion, and still think we're dumb animals. You're just lying to yourselves because . . . because you like feeling superior to someone, maybe. Or because you don't want to stop using us and it makes you feel guilty to admit that we're just the same as you!"

"Amber," Atropos said kindly, and she knew he was about to make some terrible excuse that would make her want to never look at him again.

"Do you think I'm a person?" she interrupted bluntly. When he looked away evasively, she repeated it louder. "Do you think I'm a person, Atropos?"

He stared at her, his dark eyes wide at the confrontation, but his wings hung low behind him.

"Yes," he finally said. "Yes, of course."

"Just as much a person as you or your brother or any other Lepidopterix?" Amber continued.

"Yes," Atropos said, giving in.

"Knowing that," Amber went on, "knowing every human is just as much a person as you, how can you let this happen? How can you help your brother kidnap thousands of us and give us away to those monsters? What that thing, the Immortal, did to that moth, he's going to do to God knows how many humans! Those wasps are going to eat us from the inside out! And you're going to help it happen!"

Atropos looked faintly sick. He looked away from her, his wings shifting and rustling against his back.

"Atropos, look at me," Amber said more gently, reaching for his hand. He obeyed, eyes glittering with unease. "Would you let that happen to me?"

"Never," he said, so quietly and with such passion that Amber felt a sudden thrill run through her.

"Then we have to stop this." She squeezed his hand tighter, looking into his eyes with determination. You have to help me send all those people home before they're implanted."

Atropos looked at her for a long moment, and she knew he was considering the consequences, for him personally and for his species. Then he bowed his head.

"I will," he said. "For you."

She barely realized she was kissing him until she'd already done it. His lips were soft, the texture slightly strange, like fabric with a raised grain, but not unpleasant. He kissed her back at once, pulling her up into his arms and lifting her off her feet.

His mouth was warm and demanding, leaving her wondering how long he'd wanted to do this. She had wanted this desperately when she'd thought he was just a normal man working in a flower shop. She'd been less sure about it after, but this felt right. He felt right, solid and sure as he pressed her against him.