all might belong somewhere else. Some of them have moved since the first time Zachary saw this statue.
Zachary places a single bee on each of the woman’s open palms and leaves her alone to think whatever thoughts statues think when they are alone underground and covered with bees.
He chooses a new-to-him hall, pausing at a contraption that looks like a large old-fashioned gumball machine filled with metallic orbs of various shades. Zachary turns the ornate handle and the machine dispenses a copper sphere. It is heavier than it looks and once Zachary figures out how to open it he finds a tiny scroll tucked inside that unfurls like ticker tape with a surprisingly long tale written upon it about lost loves and castles and crossed destinies.
Zachary tucks the empty copper ball and the now tangled story in his bag and continues along the hall until he reaches a large staircase that leads down to an expansive space. A massive ballroom, utterly empty. Zachary tries to imagine how many people it would take to fill it with dancers and revelry. It is taller than the Heart, its soaring ceilings disappearing into shadows that could be mistaken for night sky. Fireplaces line the walls, one of them lit and the rest of the light comes from lanterns hanging from chains strung along the walls. He wonders if Rhyme lights them in case someone passes through the room, or in case someone wants to dance, or if they light themselves, in giddy flaming anticipation.
As he walks across the ballroom, Zachary feels more acutely that he has missed something. He has arrived too late, the party is over. If he had opened that painted door so long ago would he already have been too late then? Probably.
There is a door on the far wall, past the fireplaces and beyond a stretch of dark open archways. Zachary opens the door and finds someone else in the midst of the post-party emptiness.
Mirabel is curled up amongst racks filled with bottles, up in a window-like nook on a wall with no window in a wine cellar with more than enough wine for all the parties that are not occurring in the ballroom. She wears a long-sleeved black dress that could probably be described as slinky if it wasn’t so voluminous. It obscures her legs and the stacks of wine below her and part of the floor. She has a glass of sparkling wine in one hand and her nose is buried in a book and as Zachary gets closer he can read the cover: A Wrinkle in Time.
“I was annoyed about not remembering the tesseract technicalities,” Mirabel says without looking up or clarifying any specifics regarding space or time. “You may be interested in knowing that the damage due to an electrical fire in the basement of a private club in Manhattan was extensive but controlled and did not spread to neighboring buildings. They might not even have to tear it down.”
She rests her book on a nearby wine bottle, open to keep her page marked, and looks down at him.
“The building was, reportedly, unoccupied at the time,” she continues. “I’d like to know where Allegra is before I take you back up, if that’s all right with you.”
Zachary thinks it likely doesn’t matter whether or not it is all right with him, and again finds himself in no great hurry to return to the surface.
“Who’s the Queen of the Bees?” he asks.
Mirabel looks at him quizzically enough for him to be certain that she didn’t write the note, but then she shrugs her shoulders and points behind him.
Zachary turns. There are long wooden tables with benches tucked amongst the racks of wine, and other window-like nooks in the stone walls, the largest of which holds the massive painting that Mirabel is pointing at.
It is a portrait of a woman in a low-cut, wine-red gown holding a pomegranate in one hand and a sword in the other. The background is a textured darkness with the light coming from the figure herself. It reminds Zachary of a Rembrandt painting, the way she glows within the shadows. The woman’s face is entirely obscured by a swarm of bees. A few of the bees have wandered downward to investigate the pomegranate.
“Who is she?” Zachary asks.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Mirabel says. “It has rather heavy Persephone overtones.”
“Queen of the Underworld,” Zachary says, staring at the painting, trying to figure out how to give it keys and