The Honeys

Mars Matthias, a gender-fluid teenager from a wealthy New York family, is awakened one night by their twin sister Caroline, who has returned unexpectedly from the Aspen Conservancy Summer Academy, an elite summer camp. Sobbing and smelling of decay, Caroline strikes Mars with an iron sundial, crushing their left hand and slashing their ear with a beekeeper's hive tool. Mars recognizes a terrifying lucidity in Caroline's eyes. The two crash through the upstairs banister and family chandelier; Caroline lands first and dies from the impact. Doctors discover a brain tumor that officially explains her behavior. Mars's parents, led by their mother Heather, a New York senator, conceal the attack from authorities and stage an elaborate funeral. Three girls from Caroline's all-girls camp cabin arrive at the service: Bria, Sierra, and Mimi, members of an exclusive clique called "the Honeys." Mars watches Bria place golden bee earrings on Caroline's body and then sees real bees crawl from Caroline's ear back into her head.

Cabin H, the Honeys' residence at Aspen, has housed an elite sisterhood for decades, its members tending the camp's apiary and wielding quiet social power. Mars has always envied their beauty and closeness, feelings entangled with their own gender identity and the way puberty widened the gap between Mars and girls. Years earlier, Mars was forced to leave Aspen after boys tied them to a scoreboard and set it on fire during a gendered competition. Mars took the blame and left, while Caroline stayed and became a Honey. Over the following year, Caroline grew increasingly fearful, then returned to Aspen for one final summer from which she came home only to attack Mars and die. Convinced something sinister happened at camp, Mars manipulates their parents into allowing a return.

At Aspen, Mars is housed in Bear Hut in Hunter Village, the boys' side of camp, and paired with Wyatt, co-director Wendy's nephew, as a chaperone. Mars hides Caroline's hive tool and broken Mayfair calculator in their belongings. A boy named Callum from Eagle House, Bear Hut's rival cabin, harasses Mars about their gender; Mars defeats Callum in a fencing tournament, deepening his hostility. During an unauthorized nighttime game of Manhunt, Callum attacks Mars in the woods. Shadowy figures, girls whose faces vibrate beyond perception, intervene and bloody Callum. The Honeys then perform a "purge," a process that erases or alters memories: Everyone believes Callum simply fell, but Mars retains fragments and suspects the Honeys can manipulate perception.

Mars develops a crush on Wyatt as they bond during ecology lessons. Mars kayaks alone to Cabin H, where Sierra sneaks them inside, paints Mars's nails with Caroline's signature blue polish, and hints there is more to the Honeys than Mars understands. During a three-day backpacking trip, Mars and Wyatt bond over shared grief when Wyatt reveals he lost a younger brother to cancer. After punching Callum, Mars discovers their crushed left hand has completely healed, attributing the regeneration to the honey's supernatural properties.

During a secret nocturnal hazing ritual, the boys abandon Mars in the woods, and someone plays looped audio of Caroline's voice from a hidden speaker. Mars throws the hive tool at a fleeing figure and draws blood. After Wendy dismisses the complaint, Mars leverages the camp's legal liability to demand enrollment in Apiculture, Aspen's beekeeping track, which brings them into daily contact with the Honeys. Mars learns beekeeping from Mimi and is gradually embraced into the Honeys' circle.

Mars plays a mysterious tile-and-light game with Bria that induces a trance state called "the lace," a dimension of interconnected consciousness. Through the lace, Bria probes Mars's mind; Mars pushes back and senses that Sierra is dead. The Honeys perform another purge, erasing the memory. When Mars later asks about Sierra, no one at Aspen remembers she exists, though Mars finds a photo proving Sierra was real. Mars spends weeks in contentment with the Honeys, sharing stories about Caroline. At the July Jubilee talent show, Mars experiences an involuntary vision of Brayden, a camp counselor, exploiting a fellow staff member. The vision cascades into recovered memories of Sierra's death, the tile game, and the purge. Mars realizes the Honeys have been systematically erasing their suspicions all summer.

Mars breaks into the Eco-Lab, Aspen's science facility, to research missing persons near the camp and finds a pattern of annual disappearances. When Brayden vanishes, Mars and Wyatt follow the Honeys through the wetlands to an abandoned hotel containing a massive underground beehive. Within the comb, they discover Brayden, still alive but dissolving into honey. Mars is then captured and brought to a ceremonial feast where the Honeys consume crimson honeycomb made from Brayden's remains. Bria explains that the sisterhood produces "umbral honey" by purifying the flesh of predators, granting full access to the lace. Mars is fed the honey and experiences visions of the Honeys' generational history and their code of targeting only those who have harmed innocents.

Mars breaks free and flees but is tackled by Wyatt, who seems to have escaped independently. They hide in a barn, share vulnerable confessions, and kiss. Mars then discovers a wound on Wyatt's shoulder matching the hive tool thrown during the hazing, revealing Wyatt planted the speaker with Caroline's voice. Wyatt is fully possessed by a hostile splinter swarm of bees and tries to drown Mars. The Honeys arrive and extract the swarm. Bria performs a ritual whistle that forces the extracted bees to circle Mimi, exposing her as the one who weaponized Wyatt, killed Sierra, and undermined Caroline's role as queen. The Honeys summon the full swarm, which incinerates Mimi. Bria warns Mars to run: The hive wants Mars as its next queen, and the same role destroyed Caroline.

Mars escapes and calls their parents, but when they arrive, Mars discovers Caroline's mummified body in the car trunk. Mars's father chloroforms them. Mars awakens encased in honeycomb in an abandoned church, surrounded by a veiled congregation of Conservancy adults, a secret multigenerational organization that exploits the Honeys for wealth. Heather, Mars's mother, leads the ceremony, revealed as a senior Conservancy figure who engineered Caroline's ascension as queen and Mars's return to Aspen, now forcing Mars's own queening. At sunrise, Caroline's body erupts with golden light and merges into Mars. Within the lace, Mars encounters Caroline, who explains she attacked Mars to injure them badly enough to disqualify them as the next queen. Caroline urges Mars to use the power rather than be consumed by it.

Mars awakens transformed, able to perceive minds, control swarms, and see the lace's threads. Heather presents Mars with an oversized ceremonial hive tool sharpened to a blade and commands them to kill Bria to complete the ascension. Mars instead hurls the blade into Wendy's shoulder and confronts their parents. When Mars's father grabs their throat, Mars summons the swarm. Mars and the Honeys march out as the church burns behind them. Detectives later inform Mars that their parents died in a house fire. Mars remains at Aspen and lives at Cabin H, enjoying the sisterhood they always craved. Wyatt, who remembers everything, confronts Mars with the repaired Mayfair calculator. Mars offers to erase his traumatic memories but chooses not to. In the novel's final moments, Mars dives beneath the lake to escape the hive's constant hum, wondering where the hive ends and where Mars begins, uncertain whether the happiness they feel is truly their own.