Gullshower and Sap raced up the stairs that waited through the open door with shouts of “Me first!” and “Honey!” Still sniffling, Freckle got to her feet and entered just ahead of Lifeblood as Uncle Dalice ushered her up the steps.


    When she reached the top, she stepped onto an old stage where old stars on the floor sat beneath newer paint that listed identities of shame: the corrupt, the unlovable, the nobody, the forgettable, the useless, the traitor, the bore, the weak, and the outcast. Already, Gullshower was scrunching across the floor and Sap was climbing onto a human-sized vat in the far corner.


    Uncle Dalice left her eyeing the corrupt star as he stood himself on the useless one and took a fox pelt from beneath his jacket. He set his over-sized sunglasses on his face and stroked the soft-looking fur.


    “Sap, don’t eat that! Who knows where it’s been?” Lifeblood hurried toward the vat.


    “But it’s honey!”


    “You, your illusion reality games, and your sweets!”


    Freckle watched Lifeblood fill up a vial with honey and encourage Sap to test what was in it, and she wondered if they would have been any more open to rebuilding her native religion over infiltrating its rival than everyone’s grudge-holding Uncle Dalice.


    She stepped toward them.


    “What is in the honey? I don’t see where else they’d keep the passes but in the vat, and I’d like to know what else is in there before I search for one.”


    Lifeblood blinked. “Feathers. Maybe some mold. Sap, don’t eat it!”


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    Gullshower stretched thin on the vat. “Don’t do it! Regardless of what else is in there, you get covered in honey, and you get covered in feathers and wasps too! You shouldn’t be putting up with this.”


    “You’re in pest control. Can’t you deal with the wasps?”


    Gullshower grinned. “Oh, I can. Expect the New Learning to take it out on you after you choke! The wood here’s flammable. We can smoke the wasps out.”


    “Smokey honey. Hmm….” Sap licked his finger. “I don’t taste anything off. I’m telling all the fairies this is in here!”


    Freckle reached for the top of the vat. “I’m okay with feathers. I knew this was a humiliation ritual when I signed up.”


    As she hauled herself onto the lip, she smelled mold. Wrinkling her nose, she looked around for where the smell was coming from.


    Nearby were some old curtains separating the stage from whichever wooden walls framed the maze on the other side. Black, and she doubted black was the gala’s original color.


    Instead of on her shorts, she traced her map inside the metal honey vat. Piece, piece, piece, piece, piece, hazard, hazard. The thick honey she dove into made a clear trap when combined with the wasps, but how many matches could be won without sacrifice?


    She felt the bottom for the baked clay tablets that would grant her passage into the three full Trials to join the New Learning, and she checked with her thumb that all three breakable sections remained: Struggle. Group. Wealth.


    When she surfaced, corpse-cold hands lifted her out. Warm hands joined Uncle Dalice’s.


    She wiped honey from her eyes and spotted Gullshower inspecting the curtains’ slimy bottoms. “We got it. It’s time to move.”


    “Move?” Gullshower asked. “You stay put. If everyone’s so worried about being caught, we’re cleaning up first, and then we’re dealing with the wasps. You can move when we’re gone. I can’t believe you let yourself agree to go through all this.”


    He had expressed concern, hadn’t he? Of putting her through this. If it were up to him, would he have agreed? Or would he have been truer and taken the route of rebuilding her father’s worship base first?


    She smiled. “Later, you should teach me what you’ve learned from exterminating pests.”