Five.

Bev hadn't showed up yet when the bee lady arrived at her house. Abigail didn't mind, because it was a nice day—the usual spring drizzle had let up—and Sugar had been keeping her company while Abigail sat in Bev's garden and enjoyed the rare sun.

The bee lady—Melissa Oswald, granddaughter of Hugh Oswald, rusticated practitioner—drove a mud-splattered car obviously chosen more for its reliability than its style, and Sugar ducked into the bushes when it pulled into Bev's driveway.

Melissa was short and thick, with short hair bleached and dyed a variety of fading colors, wearing tight jeans and a low-cut black shirt. She got out of her car and frowned at where Sugar had disappeared. "You know foxes can have worms and other parasites, right?" she said. "And some of them can be passed on to humans."

"They're pretty clean animals," Abigail said. "And I wash my hands after petting them." If she thought they might have parasites, she'd never have allowed them in the apartment where Paul might catch it.

"Still," Melissa said. She walked over to where Abigail was sitting on the ground and studied her. "You're not a river."

"Nah," Abigail said. "I'm Peter's cousin, Abigail Kamara."

"Bev said you're curious about all sorts of things, and that you were helping her with Brent and Nicky," Melissa said.

"Sometimes," Abigail said. "Bev's not here yet, and Maksim isn't either." Bev was supposed to introduce them, and help guide the conversation to the questions Abigail wanted to ask.

"Bev called me a couple of minutes ago, said she was running late," Melissa said. "And that you'd be here, and you'd probably have questions for me. About me." She sat down cross-legged beside Abigail on the grass and leaned back on her hands.

"I'd offer you something to drink," Abigail said, "but I don't have a key, and Maksim's not here." Though really, as much time as she was spending here these days, she ought to have one. Between Bev's school and her river patrols and the other stuff she had to do as a river goddess, her schedule was pretty erratic. Maksim was usually around, but even he disappeared sometimes.

"It's fine," Melissa said. "How's Peter?"

Abigail shrugged. "Same as always, except now he's buckling down to study for his detective exam, so he's even more boring than usual."

Melissa laughed. "Tell him hello for me, when you see him."

"I will."

Melissa lay back on the grass and closed her eyes, breathing deeply.

Abigail studied her. Bev had invited her here to meet Melissa because Melissa was special. Something to do with bees, though neither Bev nor Peter had been very clear on what exactly that meant. Abigail closed her eyes, breathed slowly and evenly, and waited to see what she felt.

It took a few seconds to notice. It was quiet, and subtle, but there was a drone like the sound of a busy motorway in the distance, low and constant, but with a subtle ebb and flow that felt organic. It wasn't quite like the way the rivers felt, and it wasn't anything like when Peter or Nightingale were casting a spell.

"What brings you to London?" Abigail asked. "Bev didn't say."

Melissa shrugged. "Just for a visit. Bev's a friend, and it's nice to be around someone who's a little like me. We're going out to a pub later, meet up with some others."

"Like you," Abigail said slowly. "So, are you a genius loci for bees?" Abigail asked.

Melissa snorted. "No. But I'm not exactly normal, am I?"

"What are you, then?" Abigail asked.

"Hell if I know," Melissa said. "I'm myself. That's enough."

"Yeah," Abigail said.

"But it is nice to have friends who understand what that's like. There are plenty of odd people in the countryside … but very few of them are odd in the way that I am."

"Not many who have magic, you mean," Abigail said. "Or are magic, or do magic."

"I thought it was all stories my granddad told, when I was your age," Melissa said. "When I was visiting him, I'd lie awake in my room and listen to the bees hum outside my window, and wish I were magic. It would be an adventure, I thought, and it would give me a reason for why I didn't have an easy time making friends. Then I realized I was magic, at least a little bit, and it wasn't romantic and it didn't lead me to any grand adventures or anything. It was just one more thing making me different to all my classmates."

"Why didn't you come to London, then?" Abigail asked. "You can find anything in London."

"Still have to know what you're looking for, don't you?" Melissa said. "It's not like my sort of people put adverts in the phone book, and it's not like my granddad would've known where to look. Also, as a general rule, I tend to prefer places where the bees are happy and thriving, so it's not like I was going to move here or spend enough time to find them on my own. I grew up in Birmingham, and that was too big for me. London would be worse. So now Bev and I trade visits."

Abigail couldn't imagine not wanting to live in London, but she supposed that if everybody lived here, there wouldn't be anyone to grow their food, and also, things in London would be even more crowded than they were.

Bev walked up out of the river, waterproof bag over her shoulder with all her school things. She sometimes commuted to Queen Mary University that way, depending on how much she had to carry with her, because it could be quicker depending on traffic and also it allowed her to combine her commute with a quick patrol. (She always complained that it would be much easier if she could swim down Regent's Canal to the Thames, but apparently Mrs. Canal would consider it trespassing and there would be trouble.)

"Sorry, had to deal with some knobs throwing garbage in Mum's river in Putney," she said, stripping off the oversized swim cap that covered her dreads as water streamed off her. "Let me just get changed."

"No hurry," Melissa said. "It's a beautiful evening, and you have a lovely garden."

Bev said thanks, and went inside.

There was, Abigail noticed, a bee sitting on Melissa's nose.

"So, if you're not the Spirit of the Bees," Abigail said, "how do you commune with them?"

"I just do," Melissa said. "I trust them, and they trust me, and we work together to see that the hives are safe and have everything they need to thrive. And the honeybees give me honey in return."

There had to be more to it than that, because the bee on her nose was a London bee, and how would it know Melissa to trust her? Could it feel her, in some way?

"Bees are smarter than you think, but they don't care about a lot of things humans care about, and the reverse is also true," Melissa said.

The same could definitely be said for foxes, which made Abigail wonder if the bees Melissa worked with were as different from other bees as the talking foxes were from regular foxes. "What do they care about?"

"The hive," Melissa said. "A single bee on its own is dead. No future. No place to live, no way to store what it collects, no way of creating the next generation. It's only when they come together and form a hive, and each bee plays its part, that there's any meaning to life."

"So, are you here in London trying to find a hive to be part of?" Abigail asked, trying to find the common thread of Melissa's conversation.

Melissa laughed. "I'm not a bee, I'm a human," she said.

"A community then," Abigail said. "Bees aren't the only creatures that do better in groups." Foxes could live alone, but talking foxes rarely chose to; the same was true of humans and all the others she'd met in the demi-monde.

"Yes," Melissa said. "Even here, nobody's exactly like me, but at least they know what it's like to be different in this way. And besides, I doubt any two humans in the world are exactly alike. People aren't like bees, that way."